“He came dancing across the water with his galleons and guns, Looking for the new world in that palace in the sun”- from Cortez the Killer by Neil Young Hernán (Hernando) Cortés was a glory-seeking, ruthless murderer capable of barbaric cruelty, who … Continue reading
On 26th June 1541, Francisco Pizarro – Spanish conquistador and murderous subjugator of the Inca Empire – got his just desserts when he was assassinated by his own people. The old ruffian, near 70, was seated at dinner with several close … Continue reading
Today we celebrate with arms outstretched in utterly ecstatic glee the bizarre Berlin suicide 73 years ago of that Cosmic Herostratus, World Garbage Mouth and Nihilistic Ruiner of All Things Adolf Hitler, who took his own life with poison even … Continue reading
On this day in 1945, Italy’s fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was summarily executed by communist partisans and his body brutalised, violated and hung up for public display in Milan’s Piazzo Loreto – as ignominious a death as any of those … Continue reading
On this day in 1975, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge captured Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh and declared revolutionary Year Zero. After five years of bloody civil war, the conquering Communist guerrillas were welcomed as heroes by a relieved population desperate for … Continue reading
On 11th April 1979, Idi Amin was deposed as president of Uganda after his attempt to annex part of Tanzania backfired. Following a counterattack by the Tanzania People’s Defence Force, the former stooge of Imperial Britain who, in 1971 had … Continue reading
Today we put our hands together and give a round of applause to the Liberatores, those forty Roman senators who off’d that despicable cad, Julius Caesar – his death foretold (“Beware the Ides of March”) by a soothsayer earlier that … Continue reading
On this day in 1953, the people of the Soviet Union were finally shown cosmic mercy for their long sufferance, freedom at last from their quarter-century endurance test at the hands of a peripheral mad man. Peripheral? J. Stalin hailed … Continue reading
Fifty-six years ago today, the Soviet Union’s policy of de-Stalinisation reached its peak when the tyrant’s body was removed from Lenin’s tomb in Red Square and reburied about 300 feet from that mausoleum, among minor leaders of the Revolution. A … Continue reading
On this August day on which no great act occurred worthy of commemorating as an On This Deity entry, let’s take this opportunity to remind ourselves of the two ancient world tyrants – Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar – both of … Continue reading
An alternative "On This Day", On This Deity aims to bring light to and celebrate Culture Heroes, Outsider Icons, Beloved Immortals and Revolutionary Events in history.
Disclaimer: These are spirited and informed opinion pieces. Photos have been credited wherever possible, which hasn’t often been the case. Please contact me (via Comments) if you are the photographer of any pictures used by On This Deity and would like your photo to be credited or removed.
