4

The Storming Of The Bastille Was Instigated By The Marquis De Sade

The storming of the Bastille was so important that it has its own national holiday in France and, even more impressively, an Idris Elba movie. It was the day Parisians stormed the Bastille -- notorious as a prison for political dissidents and freethinkers -- to rise against the oppressive French nobility.

Jean-Pierre Houel It was when they finally grabbed the aristocrats and said, "Let them eat merde."

The Bastille was a hotbed of political oppression all right, it's just that by the time it fell in 1789, the whole "oppressive" wing had been out of commission for years. In fact, at the time of the storming, it had only seven prisoners in its sprawling complex. And it's not that these seven were cream-of-the-crop dissidents worthy of a superprison to quarantine their ideas: There were four counterfeiters and two men found guilty of the crime of being insane, and the final prisoner was just a sexual deviant -- albeit the king of sexual deviants -- the Marquis de Sade. Modern audiences may know him for literally putting the "S" in "BDSM."

H. Biberstein He put a lot of things inside other things.

3

The Arab Spring Wasn't A Fight For Democracy

In 2011, citizens across the Middle East rose up to overthrow their oppressive regimes. It was like Les Miserables -- only thankfully with less Russell Crowe hollering -- as the people took to the streets to fight for democracy. Tragically though, all but one of the original Arab Spring nations have devolved into the same despotism and chaos that preceded it.

Tony Hisgett/Wiki Commons This article is brought to you by the Tunisian National Tourism Bureau.

2

The French Resistance Wasn't Nearly As Large As You Assume

Throughout World War II, France boldly stood in the face of oppression. In her darkest hour, the citizens of France held true to their principles and together undermined draconian Nazi rule from within.

National Archives "I'm just saying, maybe after we take this photo, talk to him about changing that haircut and mustache combo."

But despite what Charles de Gaulle would have you believe, the French Resistance didn't actually do all that much resisting. In fact, some put the number of active French resistors as low as 2 percent of the population; passive resistors around 8 percent, and something like 90 percent relatively ambivalent to the whole Nazi thing. This would have beggared our belief ... if we'd heard it before Trump won the presidency.

Meanwhile, in occupied Poland, the Polish Home Army was thought to have about 400,000 recruits -- a number the French Resistance didn't reach until after D-Day -- which made it the largest underground organization in Nazi-occupied Europe. Up to 43 percent of all the reports received by the British secret services from continental Europe in 1939-1945 came from Polish sources.

Juliusz Bogdan Deczkowski What, you thought Hitler invaded Poland, and that was the end of that story?

1

The Women's Suffrage Movement Wasn't Peaceful

The British women's suffrage movement was best summed up by the 1964 documentary Mary Poppins: Bored housewives dressed in quaint Edwardian frocks picketing in front of Parliament for the right to blah blah blah whatever. Quick, look at the dancing penguin!

But women didn't win the right to vote with just polite rhetoric and cartoon waterfowl. In fact, many within the movement were downright militant and engaged in active acts of terrorism: smashing windows, arson, detonating pipe bombs, sabotaging communication lines, and plotting the kidnapping of members of Parliament, to name a few. In 1912 Dublin, four suffragettes tried to burn down the Theater Royal during a performance in which British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith was in attendance. The prime minister also just barely dodged a hatchet thrown at him by a suffragette earlier that same day.

Bain News Service He was too terrified to make a "throw like a girl" joke.

By the end of 1912, nearly 250 people associated with suffragette terrorism were imprisoned. One suffragette wrote:

"Perhaps the Government will realize now that we mean to fight to the bitter end ... If men use explosives and bombs for their own purpose they call it war, and the throwing of a bomb that destroys other people is then described as a glorious and heroic deed. Why should a woman not make use of the same weapons as men. It is not only war we have declared. We are fighting for a revolution."

via Wiki Commons "The revolution will not be televised ... because it hasn't been invented yet, but still ..."

We're not saying the right to vote was only secured through violence, just that there was a not-insignificant part of the suffrage movement that loudly proclaimed: "Give us the right to vote ... or we will absolutely burn this shit to the ground." And if you don't think that's very ladylike, just step right up and say so. We hope you're good at dodging hatchets.

Steven Assarian is a librarian; he writes stuff here. You can listen to Vincent Pall's damn music here. And while you're at it, buy one of his damn T-shirts here.

Think Nana and Pop-Pop's loving 60-year monogamous relationship is quaint and old-fashioned? First off, sorry for that disturbing image, but we've got some news for you: the monogamous sexual relationship is actually brand new relative to how long humans have been around. Secondly, it's about to get worse from here: monkey sex.

On this month's live podcast, Jack O'Brien and the Cracked staff welcome Dr. Christopher Ryan, podcaster and author of "Sex at Dawn," onto the show for a lively Valentine's Day discussion about love, sex, why our genitals are where they are, and why we're more like chimps and bonobos than you think.

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