On this day in 1520, the Massacre in the Great Temple occurred. This happened while the Spanish had Moctezuma under house arrest. He had asked Cortés’ representative, Pedro de Alvarado, if his people could celebrate Toxcatl. While as many as a thousand Aztecs were celebrating the event, Alvarado went in with his men and killed them all. He then took all the precious stones and metal from their bodies. Cortés was apparently displeased and came back, but by the time he made it, Moctezuma had been murdered.

Now there are Spanish stories that supposedly explain all this. Alvarado apparently claimed that he simply intervened to stop a human sacrifice. Why doing that would require killing upwards of a thousand unarmed and mostly naked people is never made clear. It strikes me as an obvious lie to justify his theft. Plus, everything I’ve read about Alvarado indicates that he was a psychopath.

As for the murder of Moctezuma, it is usually reported as his having been stoned to death by his own people — upset about the massacre. But this strikes me as being between unlikely and impossible. Moctezuma was under house arrest. How did these angry Aztecs get to him? About the only possibility would be that Alvarado threw him out to them hoping that he could calm them. So regardless, Moctezuma was still killed by Alvarado.

Finally, I don’t want you to get the idea that Cortés was a good guy. He seems to have been a very capable conqueror. There is no reason to believe that he was especially worse than other Spaniards of his day — and he may have been better. But what Alvarado did made no long-term sense. The least you can say about him is that he wasn’t a psychopath.

So we mark this day, 495 years later.

On this day in 1536, King Henry VIII had Anne Boleyn‘s head chopped off — after less than three years of marriage. She was a vile woman — convicted of adultery, incest, witchcraft… Wait, witchcraft?! Oh, that’s right: she didn’t do any of these things. It was just that Henry wanted to marry Jane Seymour. Boleyn had given birth to the future Queen Elizabeth I. And then she had three spontaneous abortions — all male. And Henry really wanted an male heir. So: off with her head!

What makes the whole thing worse is that Henry’s difficulties getting healthy children born were almost certainly his own fault. It’s either that, or he just had incredibly bad luck. I’ll go with “almost certainly.”

It is hard to see any king, but most especially Henry, as anything but a psychopath. Certainly, he didn’t seem to think that women had a purpose other than to pop babies out for him. But the idea that you would put someone to death just so you can move on to the next baby incubator is truly outrageous. I understand that there was politics going on behind the scenes. But he could have just annulled the marriage like he did with Queen Catherine. He was a monster.

On the plus side, Anne Boleyn: you never had to see him again!

On this day in 1096, 800 Jews were killed in the Worms massacre. That was Worms, Germany — just in case you were wondering. Apparently, there was a rumor that “the Jews” had poisoned the town’s wells. Now where have I heard that before? Oh, that’s right: everywhere! You know, for all my displeasure with Israel, it is not hard to see why a Jewish state would be hyper paranoid. Of course, I find it kind of funny that now American Christians are big supporters of “the Jews.” Of course, they don’t actually care about Jewish people; they just think that “the Jews” must be in control of the Holy Lands for Jesus to come back and kick some major butt.

This was all part of the First Crusade. It was started by Pope Urban II to take control Holy Lands. So why were they murdering Jews in Germany? You know: any excuse to kill Jews! In 1096, it was the Catholics. But just 400 years later, Martin Luther had this to say about “the Jews”:

Feel that Christian love, brothers and sisters! Actually, this is almost point by point what the Nazis did to the Jewish population up to the Final Solution. It makes you wonder, except, of course, that the Nazis were Christians.

We mark this very sad event 919 years ago.

On this day in 1770, Louis-Auguste — just 15 years old — married Habsburg Archduchess Maria Antonia — just 14 years old. They would become king and queen of France, better known as Louis XVI of France and Marie Antoinette. And in 1793, they would both have their heads chopped off after the French Revolution. Should they have been put to death? Well obviously, I don’t think so. I don’t believe in the death penalty — even for Hitler or Pol Pot or that boy who bullied me in grammar school. But a better question is whether they were more deserving to die than the kings and queens who came before them. And the answer to that is certainly no.

That’s not to say that they were good people. They would ghastly. They were the kind of people that royalty have always been. As Dr Willis said in The Madness of King George, “Deferred to, agreed with, acquiesced in. Who can flourish on such a daily diet of compliance?” But the general portrayal of them as particularly horrible is wrong. They do, however, seem to have been of above average silliness without the will or ability to manage their finances. And Marie Antoinette did seem to have an understandable fondness for her mother country, Austria, which also created the understandable nationalist resentment of the French people.

But hell: they got a good two decades during which they got whatever they wanted. They lived to their late thirties. Many people at that time and place did not live as long and no one had it as good. I suspect that most people of that time would have swapped their potential long lives for four wonderful decades. So I’m not shedding any tears for them. They still shouldn’t have been killed. But there were much greater injustices done during the Reign of Terror.

Happy anniversary you kids!