
u/ZERO_PORTRAIT

Statistically, transgender people are more likely to be violently attacked. Hate crimes targeting transgender and gender nonconforming people tripled in the state of California between 2013 and 2024. 37% of transgender women and 51% of transgender men have been sexually assaulted in their lifetime.
>Instances of sexual violence against transgender women happen for the first time at the median age of 15 years old. The notion that transgender youth are more likely to experience acts of sexual violence has been verified by several other studies.
Physical violence
>A study of transgender individuals in Virginia, published in 2007, found that 40% of those interviewed had experienced an instance of physical violence. Around 69% of such attacks were, according to interviewees, due to their gender identity. The assaults occurred at a median age of 16 and were reported as early as 13 years old. Of those participants who reported at least one assault, at least 12% said they had experienced over 20 instances of physical violence in their lifetime
>A study published in 2021 by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law found that transgender people in the United States are more likely to be violently attacked than cisgender people. The study found 86.1 attacks for every 1,000 transgender women and 23.7 attacks for every 1,000 cisgender women; it also found 107.5 attacks for every 1,000 transgender men and 19.8 attacks for every 1,000 cisgender men.
>Transgender women who are sex workers experience a disproportionately higher level of violence in the United States. A study of transgender female sex workers conducted in Washington, D.C., found that approximately 65% of those interviewed reported an instance of physical assault, most often by their customers.
On June 21, 1964, 3 civil rights movement activists, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, were murdered in Mississippi by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Earlier, after being arrested, they were followed by law enforcement who were associated with the Klan. One was convicted in 2005.
>After being followed for some time, the three were abducted by the group, brought to a secluded location, and shot and killed. They were then buried in an earthen dam.
>The murder of the activists sparked national outrage and an extensive federal investigation. In 1967, after the state government refused to prosecute those involved in the murders, the United States federal government stepped in and charged 18 individuals with civil rights violations. Seven were convicted and another pleaded guilty, and all received relatively minimal sentences. Outrage over the activists' murder helped pass of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Forty-one years after the murders took place, one perpetrator, Edgar Ray Killen, was charged by the state of Mississippi for his part in the crimes, and in 2005 was convicted of three counts of manslaughter and was given a 60-year sentence. On June 20, 2016, federal and state authorities officially closed the case. Killen died in prison in January 2018.
The New Orleans massacre of 1866 occurred on July 30, when a peaceful demonstration of mostly Black freedmen was set upon by a mob of white rioters, many of whom had been soldiers of the recently defeated Confederate States of America, leading to a full-scale massacre. ~40-200 Black Americans died.
>According to the official report, 38 were killed and 146 wounded, of whom 34 dead and 119 wounded were Black freedmen. Unofficial estimates were higher. Gilles Vandal estimated 40 to 50 Black Americans were killed and more than 150 Black Americans wounded. Others have claimed nearly 200 were killed. In addition, three white convention attendees were killed, as was one white protester.
>The massacre expressed conflicts deeply rooted in the social structure of Louisiana. The New Orleans massacre was a continuation of a longer shooting war over slavery (beginning with Bleeding Kansas in 1859), of which the 1861–1865 hostilities were merely the largest part. More than half of the whites were Confederate veterans, and nearly half of the Black Americans were veterans of the Union army. The riots catalyzed support for the Fourteenth Amendment, extending suffrage and full citizenship to freedmen, and the Reconstruction Acts to establish military districts for the national government to oversee areas of the South and work to change their social arrangements.
Massacre
>"The whites stomped, kicked, and clubbed the black marchers mercilessly. Policemen smashed the institute’s windows and fired into it indiscriminately until the floor grew slick with blood. They emptied their revolvers on the convention delegates, who desperately sought to escape. Some leaped from windows and were shot dead when they landed. Those lying wounded on the ground were stabbed repeatedly, their skulls bashed in with brickbats. The sadism was so wanton that men who kneeled and prayed for mercy were killed instantly, while dead bodies were stabbed and mutilated."
>— Ron Chernow, "Grant" (2017)
Wilder, Tennessee, 1974. Founded in 1902 as a coal town, eventually a coal strike in 1932-1933 occurred, resulting in union leader Barney Graham being shot and killed in front of the company store; the mine guard who shot him was acquitted. The town never recovered, and now has about 200 people.
Haptic technology/kinaesthetic communication/3D touch is technology that can create an experience of touch by applying forces, vibrations, or motions to the user. These technologies can be used to feel virtual objects and events in a computer simulation, or to control virtual objects and events.
en.wikipedia.orgOn October 25ᵗʰ, 2012, Icelandic television channel Channel 2 accidentally broadcast an episode of Teletubbies with subtitles intended for The Sopranos.
On 15 November 1988, white supremacist Barend Strydom carried out a shooting spree at Strijdom Square in Pretoria, South Africa, killing 8 people and injuring 16 others. He was sentenced to death, but was released from prison in 1992, and amnestied by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1994.
>Seven of the victims were black, while one was Indian.
Perpetrator
Bolding mine for emphasis:
>Barend Hendrik Strydom was born in Weenen, Natal, South Africa, in 1965. Strydom's mother killed herself at the age of 23, when he was 18 months old. At the time of the suicide, she was alone with Strydom, who was found with blue strangulation marks on his neck. Strydom was told she died in a revolver accident, which he believed until after the shooting. He had been a member of extremist right wing organizations since the age of 16, and was encouraged in his views by his father. Strydom viewed black people as animals. He joined the South African Police, but was dismissed after photographing himself holding a knife and the severed head of a black motorist at the scene of an automobile accident.
>A week prior to the shooting, on 8 November 1988, he had gone to a black squatter camp and shot and killed a black woman, injuring another, in what he called a "practice run" for the shooting. After the attack, Strydom claimed he was a member of a group called the White Wolves (Afrikaans: Wit Wolwe), but this was later dismissed as a fictitious organization invented by Strydom. Other sources claimed the Wit Wolwe were a real group, which had started in the 1970s. Strydom also said that he had meditated and prayed a number of days before the attack and said that God had not given him any sign not to carry out the attack.
Shooting
>On 15 November 1988 Strydom, age 23, dressed in camouflage and carrying a 9mm Vektor pistol, two magazines, and 200 loose bullets, travelled to central Pretoria. At about 3 p.m., Strydom parked his car on Prinsloo Street and walked to Strijdom Square, chosen as a location due to its namesake. Once at the square he opened fire at random at any black person he saw. He shot one man outside the State Theatre, before crossing Church Street and headed back towards Prinsloo street. On the corner of Church Street and Prinsloo street he shot an additional two people.
>He walked three more blocks, shooting people all the while, before turning down Struben Street and entering the Sato Engineering building. Once inside he walked over to a counter and began to reload his gun. The shooting ended when a black taxi driver, Simon Mukondoleli, followed him into Sato Engineering, and tapped Strydom on the shoulder. Once Strydom turned around, Mukondoleli grabbed Strydom's pistol from the counter and pointed it at him. Strydom raised his hands and said "You've got me." Both men then walked back out into the street, where Strydom was then arrested by several policemen.
>Strydom smiled throughout the shooting. Eight people were killed and 16 were injured in the aftermath. One of the wounded victims was paralyzed from the waist down. Seven of the victims were black, while one was Indian.
Aftermath
>After his arrest, Strydom said he felt nothing for the victims. He claimed he committed the shooting because he wanted to start a race war and that his actions were necessary for the survival of his people. He told the police he was sorry he had not killed more.
Legal proceedings
>Strydom made jokes and laughed in court, joking that he shot one of his victims because she "used up oxygen". During the proceedings, two psychologists and a psychiatrist testified that Strydom was "eccentric but not insane" and knew what he was doing. Strydom showed no remorse for his actions during the proceedings and claimed that he acted according to the will of God. When asked how an elderly woman could threaten him, he stated "She threatened my existence because she was black and because she was alive".
>His legal defense was that he had committed justifiable homicide. During his trial Strydom became a "cult figure" to the extreme right wing in South Africa. On 25 May 1989, Strydom was sentenced to 30 years for attempted murder and was sentenced to death on the murder charges, to be carried out by hanging. The presiding judge stated Strydom's actions were "worse than those of terrorists", as he had laughed in the faces of his victims while shooting them instead of leaving bombs. Strydom's defense attorney stated he would appeal his sentence.
>In 1990, the government declared a moratorium on capital punishment. In 1992, he was released from prison by President F. W. de Klerk as one of 150 political prisoners, part of an attempt to reduce white South African criticism of de Klerk's concessions to the ANC. On the day Strydom was released, 29 September 1992, unknown persons poured a large quantity of red dye into the Strijdom Square fountain. At the time it was unknown if the action was done by people in support of or against Strydom's actions though responsibility was later taken by artist Jacques Coetzer.
>He was then granted amnesty in 1994 by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on the grounds that his attack was politically motivated. The ANC condemned the release of Strydom. His release was controversial, as was that of Robert McBride, a black man who had killed whites. Strydom stated after his release that he would do it again "if necessary". De Klerk stated he viewed the crimes of both McBride and Strydom as "atrocious", but that their release was to help black-white political negotiations move forward.
View in Ladinia, northern Italy. Ladinia is named after the Ladins, an ethnolinguistic minority group who inhabit valleys collectively called Ladinia. The isolation of the valleys helped them preserve a distinct national identity, starting around 1848. There are ~31,000 Ladins in Italy. | 1960s.
The Revolutions of 1848 are the most widespread revolutionary wave in European history to date. The revolutions had different goals, but broadly rejected conservative ideals such as absolute monarchy and feudalism in favor of nation states based on constitutions and popular rule.
Beginning of Ladin -- a complicated history for a minority people.
A decade-and-a-half before the Revolutions, in 1833, Micurà de Rü wrote the first grammar book of the Ladin language, Versuch einer deütsch-ladinischen Sprachlehre (An attempt at compiling a German-Ladin Grammar). Ladin is a Rhaeto‑Romance language, related to Romansh from Switzerland and Friulian from Northeast Italy.
Entering World War 2.
Going back to history, over a century after the first grammar book was written in Ladin, fascism grew in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, bringing figures such as Benito Mussolini to the stage, who wanted to expedite Italianization.
Attempts were made to erase Ladin identity and absorb them fully under Italian rule, such as claiming that Ladin wasn't its own language, but rather a dialect of Italian. Place names were Italianized as part of the program run by Ettore Tolomei, an Italian nationalist, propagandist, and fascist. Fascist policy dictated that Ladin was forbidden in schools, public office, and official documents.
After Mussolini's fall in 1943, Nazi Germany occupied northern Italy and the Ladin valleys under the Operational Zone of the Alpine Foothills (Operationszone Alpenvorland)/OZAV. The Ladin people didn't have a unified political stance, instead focusing mostly on simply trying to survive under the rule of these 2 oppressive regimes.
Some, however, did join the Tyrolean antifascist resistance. Others, still, were drafted into the Italian or later the German militaries, usually as menial labor or serving behind the frontlines as auxiliary units.
Ending of World War 2.
Later in 1945, after the end of World War 2 in Europe, Italy reversed fascist Italianization policies -- restoring Ladin place names, reopening Ladin schools, and allowing the publication of Ladin literature.
However, the Ladin valleys were still fragmented, scarred by World War 2 and fascism, being divided into South Tyrol, Trentino, and Belluno, the effects of which are still felt today in the form of weaker Ladin unity.
Post-war reparations.
The Special Statute for the Autonomous Region of Trentino-South Tyrol introduced with Constitutional Law no. 5 on February 26th, 1948, was designed to implement the Gruber - De Gasperi Agreement: a bilateral treaty that was signed by the foreign minister of Austria, Karl Gruber, and the prime minister of Italy, Alcide De Gasperi, on September 5th, 1946. Essentially, it restored place names back to their respective languages of either Italian or German. However, Ladins were excluded from the agreement.
1972.
Finally, on January 20th, 1972, the Second Statute of Autonomy for South Tyrol went into effect, finally recognizing Ladin rights, granting official recognition of Ladin in South Tyrol, use of Ladin in public office, guaranteed representation in politics via the "ethnic proportion" system they had in place, and cultural funding from the government along with institutional support -- aiming to publish literature in Ladin, run language courses, preserve folklore and culture, and also maintaining archives and museums.
Ladinia today.
The Ladin people remain relatively isolated in their pockets in the valleys of Northeast Italy, preserving their culture and traditions, speaking 2-3 languages (Ladin at home, Italian for media and bureaucracy, and German in South Tyrol), relying on tourism for their main economic output with generations of families running local hotels, restaurants, and mountain retreats. They remain as a quasi-nation, and will be safe and sound in their vales for the foreseeable future.
END.
In early May 2009, three masked burglars reportedly broke into Dolph Lundgren's Marbella home. The burglars tied up and threatened his wife, but fled when they found a family photo and realized that the house was owned by Lundgren.
en.wikipedia.orgTIL that Kuwait is 18.2% Christian, and has over 1 million non-citizen Muslims residing in the country out of its population of 4.9 million.
en.wikipedia.org764 is a decentralized, internationally operating online sextortion network. It emerged in 2021. It has been described as a Satanic and neo-Nazi cult by some in the media. Investigations suggest that its members' misanthropic worldview and sadistic tendencies are more significant drivers
>Members of 764 frequently adopt the corresponding symbolism but are primarily described as being motivated by sadism.
Bolding mine for emphasis:
History
>764 was founded in 2021 by Bradley Chance Cadenhead. At the age of 15, school dropout Cadenhead (alias: "Felix") learned techniques of exploiting minors and sextortion on a Discord server named CVLT and subsequently founded 764. In the online game Minecraft, Cadenhead met an unknown person who assisted him in establishing 764. The 764 network is primarily active on Discord and Telegram, and to some extent on the gaming platforms Roblox and Minecraft. It is also publicly active on online forums. Its members are involved in systematic sexual, physical, and psychological abuse of minors through sextortion and other practices and in distributing child pornography and depictions of violence. Victims are selected from the 9- to 17-year-old age group, with a preference for children from marginalized backgrounds or with mental health issues.
>Cadenhead was bullied during his school years. A classmate called him an "easy target". In his early teens, Cadenhead suffered multiple psychological breakdowns and was isolated. He told probation officers that he stopped caring about anything and, after dropping out of school at 15, withdrew to his room. He founded the 764 online network and named it after the first three digits of the ZIP Code of his hometown, Stephenville, Texas. Cadenhead had been noticeably disruptive as a student. At age ten, he was fascinated by graphic online content depicting murder and torture. His assistant principal alerted authorities about Cadenhead, leading to an investigation into terrorist threats. Despite disciplinary measures, Cadenhead continued to use school computers to draw images of school shootings.
>Cadenhead extorted minors through sextortion or coerced them by threatening actions such as swatting attacks. He forced his victims, among other things, to produce child pornography, engage in animal cruelty, and to engage in self-harm. Cadenhead's Discord accounts were typically banned within about a day, but he repeatedly created new ones. A Discord Inc. spokesperson told The Washington Post that the company's moderation system primarily relied on user reports. When Discord learned of their illegal activities, it banned Cadenhead's accounts. Out of concern about retaliatory actions by 764 members, the spokesperson requested anonymity. After a house search on August 25, 2021, Cadenhead was arrested, and on May 16, 2023, he was convicted of possessing child pornographic files. He was sentenced to 80 years in prison and is currently imprisoned in the Estelle Unit in Huntsville, Texas.
>Cadenhead's behavioral therapist said during the trial that Cadenhead needed psychological treatment rather than imprisonment. After reviewing video evidence from Cadenhead's computer and listing the seven deadly sins, the presiding judge, Jason Cashon, addressed Cadenhead directly, saying, "There is something horribly wrong with you [...] Horribly."
Incidents
>According to Der Spiegel, 764-related arrests have been made for child pornography, kidnapping and murder in at least eight countries, including two men in Germany. The FBI estimates that thousands of children have been victims of 764 and similar groups.
2021
>A 22-year-old member of CVLT, Kaleb Christopher Merritt of Spring, Texas, kidnapped and raped a 12-year-old girl in Virginia, United States. He was convicted and sentenced to 350 years in prison. Cadenhead's splinter group also leveraged animal torture, incest, rape, self-harm, and bestiality from their victims.
>An American man who was stranded in Kyrgyzstan died by self-immolation for an audience on Discord. He had been encouraged to broadcast his suicide by a 15-year-old Eastern European girl he met online who herself had links to 764.
2023
>17-year-old Nino Luciano H., known as "Tobbz", livestreamed himself attacking an 82-year-old man in March 2022, and two weeks later he livestreamed his fatal stabbing of a 74-year-old woman, whom he believed to be Roma, on a 764-affiliated Discord server. This was allegedly so he could "prove himself" as a member of the "Maniac Murder Cult" (MKU). He was sentenced to 14 years in prison in August 2023.
2024
>Cameron Finnigan, a 19-year-old from Horsham, UK, known as "Acid", was arrested, and in January 2025 pled guilty to encouraging suicide, possessing a terrorism manual, and possessing indecent images of a child. Finnigan was subsequently sentenced to six years in jail. At the time of sentencing, the BBC reported that at least four British teenagers had been arrested in connection with the activities of the group, which has blackmailed children into carrying out sexual acts, harming themselves, or attempting suicide.
2025
>The Antioch school shooter, Solomon Henderson, made references to 764 and similar groups in social media posts before the attack.
Ricardo López (January 14, 1975 – September 12, 1996) was a Uruguayan-American stalker and exterminator. He stalked and attempted to murder the Icelandic singer Björk. He recorded a final video diary explaining his motivations, and ended it by filming his suicide by gunshot.
>López was born in Montevideo, Uruguay. He moved to Lawrenceville, Georgia, United States, with his family at a young age, and began working as a pest exterminator. He had poor self-esteem, was socially reclusive, and eventually developed an obsession with Björk in 1993. Though he did not hope to be sexually intimate with her, he was particularly angry over her brief relationship with the English jungle producer Goldie due to his Afro-British ethnicity. Over the course of nearly nine months in 1996, he made video diaries about her and other topics, at his apartment in Hollywood, Florida.
>On September 12, 1996, López mailed a letter bomb, rigged with sulfuric acid, to Björk's residence in London. He recorded a final video diary explaining his motivations, and ended it by filming his suicide by gunshot. Local police found his body and the videos four days after his death and contacted Scotland Yard, who located the bomb in a London postal sorting office. The parcel was safely detonated and Björk was unharmed.
19-year-old Konrad Schumann makes his iconic escape jumping over barbed wire from East Germany to West Germany during construction of the Berlin Wall. | August 15ᵗʰ, 1961.
Code Pink is a pacifist, anti-war organization registered in the United States. Code Pink opposed Israel's operation in Gaza following the October 7 attacks. In 2022, at protests in Oakland and San Francisco, Code Pink criticized the US for sending arms to Ukraine after the Russian invasion.
Israel and Palestine
>Prior to the Gaza Freedom March, Code Pink endorsed the "Cairo Declaration to End Israeli Apartheid", which calls for comprehensive boycott of Israel. During the march, Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin coordinated the organization's stay with Hamas. Members resided in the Commodore, a Hamas-owned hotel in Gaza City. Hamas security officials accompanied activists as they visited Palestinian homes and Gaza-based NGOs. Prior to the march, Benjamin said the Hamas government had "pledged to ensure our safety". However, Code Pink leaders claimed Hamas had hijacked the initiative from the onset after imposing prohibitions on the organization's movements around Gaza. Amira Hass referred to the event as "an opportunity for Hamas cabinet ministers to get decent media coverage in the company of Western demonstrators".
Russian invasion of Ukraine
>In February 2023, Code Pink activists confronted United States President Joe Biden in a Washington, D.C. restaurant, "call[ing] for Biden to seek peace and an end to the war rather than escalation before being asked to leave by the establishment's staff".
>Republican U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene praised the protesters, writing, "We don't agree on most things, but we do agree Congress should STOP fueling the war in Ukraine!"
China
>Jodie Evans was once critical of China's authoritarian government. In 2015 she wrote: "We demand China stop brutal repression of their women's human rights defenders" In 2021, Evans described the Uyghurs as terrorists and defended China's mass internment of them. In August 2023, The New York Times wrote that Evans is now a strong supporter of China and she regards it as a defender of the oppressed and a model for economic growth without slavery or war.
>A third man, Ian Grillot, was wounded after he came to the two men's aid. Several hours later, Purinton was arrested in Clinton, Missouri.
Incident
>According to witness accounts, the incident, at Austin's Bar and Grill at Mur-Len Shop on 151st St. and Mur-Len Rd., began as patrons were watching a basketball game; a man started yelling racial slurs at the victims, asking them whether their "status was legal". The man had been escorted from the premises after he was confronted by restaurant staff and other guests, but returned later with a gun and began firing. He reportedly told the two targeted victims—South Indian men who work for Garmin, a technology firm—to "get out of my country" before firing. Ian Grillot, a 24-year-old white American, was shot and suffered multiple bullet wounds as he came to the victims' aid.
>The suspect, Adam Purinton, was arrested while drinking at a restaurant bar in Clinton, Missouri, about 82 miles (132 km) away. He had attracted the barman's attention by saying he needed a place to hide because he had just killed one Middle Eastern man and injured another.
The perpetrator
>Adam Purinton (born May 21, 1965), age 51, was arrested for the killing. After fleeing the bar, he was pursued by police in the Kansas City area who also went to his home. He eluded them, but was arrested after he was said to have admitted to "killing two Middle Eastern men" at a bar to which he had fled, 82 miles from the scene of the crimes. Purinton was said to have been a drinker whose alcohol consumption increased and whose behavior rapidly deteriorated after his father died from pancreatic cancer, 18 months before the crimes. Prior to his arrest, he had recently held a series of unskilled jobs including in hardware and liquor stores and as a dishwasher in a pizza parlor. He is a United States Navy veteran, had been an air traffic controller, and previously worked in information technology.
>Renowned for his expertise in defusing unexploded ordnance and saving lives, Schweizer was celebrated by Nazi propaganda as a hero, described as a "man with nerves of steel".
Role in saving political prisoners
Bolding mine for emphasis:
>In 1945, Schweizer learned that "the SS, Gestapo, and other authorities ordered the killing of political prisoners so that they would not fall into enemy hands." In March 1945, he was ordered to return approximately 100 forced labourers involved in an evacuation to their penitentiary subcamp in Lüttringhausen, where their deaths were almost certain. This was evidenced by the murder of 60 other prisoners during the final phase of Nazi war crimes. Defying this order, Schweizer, with the assistance of his junior officer, Oberleutnant Werdelmann, devised a pretext. Claiming an urgent need for additional personnel to defuse unexploded bombs, he retained custody of the original group and secured the release of 50 more forced labourers. Shortly after, he surrendered with these prisoners to the United States Army in Bergisches Land.
After the War and death
>Schweizer was released from U.S. Army captivity in July 1945, aided by testimony from former prisoners and forced labourers who spoke favourably of his actions to save them during the war. Ignoring warnings, he returned to his family in Biesenthal, near Eberswalde, within the Soviet-occupied zone of Allied-occupied Germany. In June 1946, he was fatally shot in Biesenthal by a Soviet Army soldier, who was reportedly intoxicated at the time. The exact circumstances of his death remain unclear.
Earlier on the day of her liberation, she survived a mass shooting by the Nazis, being wounded in the knee and falling among the corpses of other prisoners, before American soldiers eventually found her. She was 20 years old when liberated.