Art, obsession, and identity
In the Edo period of Japan, samurai often took an oath of loyalty to their nobleman, which included avenging his master’s death. As the story goes, nobleman Asano Naganori had 47 samurai sworn to him, so when he was forced to commit seppuku (to take his own life) in 1701 following a dispute with another nobleman named Kira Yoshinaka, the samurai’s oath was activated.
The samurai felt the seppuku was unjustified, but they waited two whole years, giving Yoshinaka a false sense of security, before enacting their revenge. Then, one night, the 47 ronin (a term for samurai who lack a master) snuck into Yoshinaka’s home, confronted him, and offered him a chance to commit seppuku. When he didn’t, they removed his head and placed it in front of their master’s tomb. They later surrendered to the authorities, however, and were sentenced to commit seppuku themselves.
Genghis Khan was looking to establish trading relations along the Silk Road with the Khwarazmian Empire, and sent a trade caravan of 500 men to its city of Otra. But its governor, Inalchuq—uncle of the Khwarazmian Shah—was suspicious and with the Shah’s permission executed the Mongols. When Khan found out, he gave them another chance and sent three ambassadors to meet with the Shah and explain his trade intent and demand that Inalchuq be punished.
This is one unsaintly saint. Olga's husband, Igor I, Prince of Kyiv, was murdered by a group living in Kyiv known as the Drevlyans, because they didn’t want to pay him what they thought was an excessive tribute. Olga and Igor's son was still an infant, so she became the land’s ruler, and the Drevlyans soon sent ambassadors to negotiate a marriage between her and their choice for king. When they arrived, it's said she had a moat dug and buried them alive.
As the Drevlyans recognized her power, they asked for mercy and offered goods in exchange. Olga then requested three sparrows and pigeons from each household in the city. Sounds harmless, right? Well, she had all the birds fitted with pieces of sulfur in small pieces of cloth, then released them back into the city and set it ablaze.
Desperate for revenge, Jeanne gathered a small force and took down the pro-French forces of Brittany in the name of her husband. Then she sold all their land, bought three warships, and took to the seas as a kind of pirate searching the English Channel for French ships owned by King Phillip. She would kill nearly the whole crew but left a few alive to alert the king of what she’d done. Her ships became known as "The Black Fleet" and herself "The Lioness of Brittany."
Though Mons had reportedly came into the court by way of Peter’s longtime mistress Anna Mons, Peter was still jealous. It’s said that he then presented his wife with her lover's head, and even kept it on their nightstand as a reminder.
The ransom arrived, Caesar was set free, and the first thing he did was raise a small naval force in Miletus to find the pirates. They were exactly where he’d left them, clearly not believing his threat. Caesar captured them, took back the ransom, and turned them over to the governor Marcus Junius. But when Junius was indecisive about punishment, Caesar finished his revenge by taking the pirates out of prison and crucifying them.
Her wish was granted, and after some training, Oktyabrskaya and her tank, which she had nicknamed “Fighting Girlfriend,” were headed to war. In her first battle, in October of 1943, Oktyabrskaya's tank was reportedly the first to breach enemy lines. She wrote to her sister after, “I’ve had my baptism by fire.” She died in battle in January 1944, though she went out with a bang.
After collecting the treasure and changing his name, Picaud either killed or had Chaubart assassinated. Then he found Solari and poisoned him to death. But he saved the worst for Loupian, who married his former fiancée. He tricked Loupian’s daughter into marrying a criminal, then had the criminal arrested, leading to her death from nervous breakdown. Then he burned down Loupian's restaurant, leaving him in poverty, and got Loupian’s son arrested for stealing gold. Finally, he stabbed Loupian to death himself.
He began restoring his identity, sharing his story, and reclaiming his fortune from his uncle in court. Though he died before he was able to regain control of the family wealth, he had successfully dragged his uncle’s reputation in the public sphere so that for the rest of Richard's life he was known as a schemer.
Turning to Plan B, they instead targeted German prisoners of war held by the United States. They infiltrated the bakeries that supplied the prison camps, and using locally obtained arsenic they poisoned 3,000 loaves of bread at a bakery in Nuremberg, which sickened more than 2,000 German prisoners of war at Langwasser internment camp. However, no known deaths can be attributed to the group.
The Nakam, or “Revenge” in Hebrew, was a group of about 50 Holocaust survivors who, in 1945, sought to kill Germans and Nazis in revenge for the murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust, following the idea of “a nation for a nation.” Their Plan A attempt by leader Abba Kovner (pictured) was to poison the water supply of Nuremberg, Weimar, Hamburg, Frankfurt, and Munich, but he was caught and had to toss the poison.
In a hilarious bid of revenge, hundreds of trolls signed Ralsky's address up for huge amounts of physical junk mail—it’s said he received hundreds of pounds of junk mail each day—on numerous sites across the web. Ralsky threatened to sue anyone involved, but before he could act on it he was booked for a separate stock scheme and eventually received a 51-month prison sentence.
In 2003, the internet had rocketed and so had spam email, a controversy of which Michigan entrepreneur Alan Ralsky was at the center. Known as the “spam king,” Ralsky sent millions of bulk emails for a variety of businesses and earned a lavish lifestyle from it, but when an article pointed out his enormous home, some early internet trolls managed to find the spam king's physical address.
Carroll recorded a series of songs called the ‘United Breaks Guitars’ trilogy, which went viral on YouTube. Within four days of the first video’s launch, United’s stock reportedly dropped in value by 10% of its market cap, costing them US$180 million—when they could have just paid for the repairs!
Sources: (Britannica) (HowStuffWorks) (History Answers) (Grunge) (Ancient Origins) (History Collection)
Canadian folk-pop group Sons of Maxwell had a rocky start to their tour of Nebraska in 2008 when they saw United Airlines baggage handlers tossing their instruments into the plane, and upon arrival found that Dave Carroll’s $3,500 Taylor guitar was broken. When nine months of customer service ended in Carroll’s claim being denied to cover the US$1,200 it would take to fix the guitar, he decided to put it in song.
Jeanne de Clisson's husband, Olivier, devoted years to defending his land of Brittany against the English, but was still beheaded by King Phillip VI of France when the royal suspected him of defecting to the English side. Olivier's head was reportedly displayed on a pole outside the castle of Bouffay, which was more than enough to spark a vengeful fire in Jeanne.
James Annesley was born to a wealthy, noble family in Ireland in the early 18th century, but his uncle Richard was determined to inherit James’ wealth. Richard got rid of even his own brother, James’ father Arthur, with poison, historians suspect. Then he had James, then 12, kidnapped and taken to America, where he was held as an indentured servant for 12 years. At 25, he finally worked off his servitude and found his way back to London.
Pierre Picaud was a 19th-century shoemaker in Nîmes, France, who in 1807 was living well and set to marry a wealthy woman. But three “friends” of his—Chaubart, Solari, and Loupian—accused him of spying for England, and Picaud was sent to prison for the next seven years. There, he befriended an Italian priest who, upon his death, bequeathed a hidden fortune to Picaud. When the French imperial government fell in 1814, Picaud was released, and spent the next 10 years plotting his revenge. If this sounds like Alexandre Dumas's novel, that's no coincidence.
Prasutagus, king of the Iceni under Roman suzerainty, died in 60 CE and left his wealth between his two daughters and emperor Nero in an attempt to keep his family cared for after he was gone. But the Romans denied his wishes and annexed all of his kingdom. His wife, queen and trained warrior Boudica, protested and was said to have been beaten and her daughters abused.
On November 28, 1724, Peter the Great reportedly ordered the public beheading of Willem Mons in Saint Petersburg, just eight days after his arrest. Though Mons was charged with embezzlement and breach of trust, the word on the street was that Mons was having an affair with Peter's wife, Catherine, to whom he was private secretary.
In the 14th century, Peter (Pedro) I of Portugal was married to Constanza Manuel of Castile at just 16 years old in a political move arranged by his father, King Alfonso XI, but he fell in love with her cousin Inês de Castro. Their love affair went public after Constanza died and Peter started a family with Inês. But his father still disapproved and had her murdered and buried while Peter was on a hunting trip.
Peter tried to declare war against his father but was defeated. However, two years later his father died and he ascended the throne. One of the first things he did was order the public execution of Inês’ killers by ripping their hearts out. He then revealed he’d married Inês and demanded she be recognized as Queen of Portugal. Legend has it that her body was exhumed, the corpse was dressed and crowned, and the king made the courtiers kiss her dead hand.
The Shah unwisely shaved the beards of two of the ambassadors and beheaded the third, sending the beards and head back to Khan. His response? He conquered the city of Otra, executed Inalchuq by reportedly pouring molten silver into his eyes and ears, then wiped the entire Khwarazmian empire off the map. It’s rumored Khan even had a river diverted around the Shah’s birthplace to make it uninhabitable.
Seeking revenge, Boudica led an uprising of rebels against the empire, laying waste to the Roman cities of Camulodunum, Londinium, and Verulamium, and massacring an estimated 70,000 Romans.
Mariya Oktyabrskaya was a firm communist, so when her husband was killed in a German attack in Kyiv, she was filled with hatred. She sold their house and all their belongings and bought a T-34 tank. But instead of just donating it to the Red Army, Oktyabrskaya is said to have personally written to Joseph Stalin asking for permission to be the one to drive it.
In 75 BCE, a 25-year-old Julius Caesar was reportedly captured by Cilician pirates in the Aegean Sea, who held the young nobleman captive for a ransom of 20 talents. Caesar laughed and told them to raise the amount, which they did, to 50 talents. For 38 days, he reportedly made himself at home among the pirates and treated them like his subordinates, reading them poems and playing their games, all while warning them he would have them crucified once free.
Not even nearly done, Olga reportedly sent word back that she needed better suitors, but when the Drevlyans sent more men, she locked them in a bathhouse and set fire to it. She then went to visit the Drevlyans personally, and they held a great feast in her honor, and then once they were drunk her men slaughtered them all.
The history of revenge essentially goes back as far as humans have existed. There's something biological about the desire to exact vengeance on others who have wronged us, and it indeed triggers a release of satisfying hormones—though in the long term it might bring less pleasant consequences.
Revenge is even in our social contract, as we seek to serve justice to those who have wronged and been wronged, though it almost always feels more potent in our personal relationships. Hence when revenge is enacted, it often has a little personal flair that could perhaps tell you a bit about that person’s inner workings. And when it comes to some people, those inner workings are beyond devious.
Click through to see some of the greatest and most terrible ways revenge has played out in the past.
The history of revenge essentially goes back as far as humans have existed. There's something biological about the desire to exact vengeance on others who have wronged us, and it indeed triggers a release of satisfying hormones—though in the long term it might bring less pleasant consequences.
Revenge is even in our social contract, as we seek to serve justice to those who have wronged and been wronged, though it almost always feels more potent in our personal relationships. Hence when revenge is enacted, it often has a little personal flair that could perhaps tell you a bit about that person’s inner workings. And when it comes to some people, those inner workings are beyond devious.
Click through to see some of the greatest and most terrible ways revenge has played out in the past.
The most brutal acts of revenge in history
From the resourceful to the artistic
LIFESTYLE Vengeance
The history of revenge essentially goes back as far as humans have existed. There's something biological about the desire to exact vengeance on others who have wronged us, and it indeed triggers a release of satisfying hormones—though in the long term it might bring less pleasant consequences.
Revenge is even in our social contract, as we seek to serve justice to those who have wronged and been wronged, though it almost always feels more potent in our personal relationships. Hence when revenge is enacted, it often has a little personal flair that could perhaps tell you a bit about that person’s inner workings. And when it comes to some people, those inner workings are beyond devious.
Click through to see some of the greatest and most terrible ways revenge has played out in the past.