Irony in history

[ULTIMATEGP]

Well how aobut you guys list some ironies that have happened in history. I got one.

The Statue of Liberty was a woman when women didn't have equallity with men for years.

 

[Steph]

"Arbeit macht frei" at entrance of concentration camps.

 

[Tee Kay]

Alexander the Great attacked and destroyed the Persian Empire, but died an admirer of Persian culture/administrations.

Same with Kublai Khan/China

 

[Adler17]

Steph, that's not ironical, that´s cynical!

Adler

 

[Steph]

You are correct Adler, Ironical is not the correct term.
What about Mithridates? Ok, it's semi legendary.

 

[Verbose]

Erik XIV of Sweden, momentarily loosing his marbles, like any decent Renaissance prince had three very high ranking nobles imprisoned in the Royal Castle in Uppsala murdered.

(Erik was prone to stuff like that. In his youth he had some German princeling castrated for playing the two-headed animal with his sister Cecilia. She wasn't pleased at all, fought her three brothers for most of their mutual lives and ended her days in a brothel in Brussels. Colourful famliy the Wasas.)

When coming to his senses (after having run off mad and confused and gone missing for a couple of days), Erik made peace with the wife/mother of these murdered nobles, paying a hefty sum in compensation.

The mother, not being mollified in the least, handed the money over to Erik's royal dukely brothers John and Charles, who used it to raise an army an depose him, making John king in his stead.

 

[Tee Kay]

You are correct Adler, Ironical is not the correct term.
What about Mithridates? Ok, it's semi legendary.

Is that the one where he took poison to build up a resistance to poison but then tried to committed suicide via poison but had to stab himself instead?

 

[Steph]

Yep. That one.

 

[Plotinus]

You are correct Adler, Ironical is not the correct term.

Well, it's not the right term for any of this, since it means sarcastically saying the opposite of what you mean.

 

[deo]

Hmmm... what about:

Hannibal, destroyed the whole Roman Army at Cannae but couldnt destroy Rome, Scipio destroyed the whole Carthagrian army at Zama with the same tactics as Hannibal and destroyed Carthagre.

"Hannibal did know how to win battles, but not how to use them"

 

[Squonk]

Poland woke up in the second half of XVIII century as a Russian vassal (not in theory, but in reality), without real gouverment. Three our neighbours guarded the anarchic laws not to allow Poland to get stronger, and most of the gentry seemed OK with it, just as long as the king will not grow in power and threaten their "golden freedom". First irony was that a guy who became polish king just because he was a lover of Russian tzarine (Stanislaw A. Poniatowski) was to change that.
Second irony was that he was in fact once caught by the tzar, but he managed to convince him that killing him and letting out that he's being betrayed would be devastating for Peter III's already bad reputation, so he brought Katherine II's back to his bed.
Thirdly: while polish reformers wanted to fix the state to make it stronger and save it from our neighbours, Poland was divided between neighbours (finally in 1795) exactly BECAUSE of the reforms.
Fourthly: a year after the final partage of Poland, Katherine II died and new tzar regarded himself son of Poniatowski - a year more and Poland would have been saved
And fourth irony was that just a couple of year later on, Napoleon would have came and change our gouverment to a modern one anyway...
(though polish uprisings tied prussian and russian forces and helped french revolution, so perhaps it is not so)

 

[sydhe]

There's the famous prophecy of the Oracle of Delphi that if Croesus attacked Persia, he would destroy a great empire.

 

[steviejay]

yeah, his whoops

I love that one

 

[deo]

Oh, i know an Irony

Determined to avenge the sinking of Hood, the British committed every possible unit to hunting down Bismarck, the British had much luck when they found out the position and during the 26th may, Swordfish from Ark Royal launched an attack . Almost in darkness at around 21.00, a "miracle" hit (launched by pilot John Moffat's plane) by a single torpedo jammed Bismarck's rudder and steering gear. This rendered her virtually unmanoeuvrable, able only to steam in a large circle in the general direction of HMS King George V and Rodney, two frontline battleships that had been pursuing Bismarck from the west. The largest and most powerful warship yet commissioned had now been rendered a sitting-duck by a single aircraft. After extensive efforts to free the jammed rudders, the fleet command finally acknowledged their by-now impossible position in several messages to naval headquarters. Lütjens promised that the ship would fight until its last shell was spent.
She was sunk by it's own crew in the 27th may 1941 ( note, today is the 27th may ) after heavy fire from the British.

 

[YNCS]

The first battle of the American Civil War, the 1st Battle of Bull Run (Manassas for you Southerners) was fought on land belonging to Wilmer McLean, a Virginia farmer who took little interest in politics. In 1862, he had almost recovered from the damage when the 2nd Battle of Bull Run roared over his land. So he sold his farm, what was left of it, and moved 200 miles away from the war. McLean's house, at Appomattox Court House, was the site of the negotiations between Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant for the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia.

 

[Odin2006]

There's the famous prophecy of the Oracle of Delphi that if Croesus attacked Persia, he would destroy a great empire.

Unfortunately for Croesus the Oracle didn't say WHICH great empire he would distroy.

 

[puglover]

Alexander the Great attacked and destroyed the Persian Empire, but died an admirer of Persian culture/administrations.

Same with Kublai Khan/China

Hitler worked toward the annihilation of the Jewish race, but collected Jewish artifacts and sent researchers to find the location of the Ark of Covenant.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

@YNCS: the war started in his front lawn and ending in his backyard

 

[allhailIndia]

Something I mentioned before..

The Prime Minister of India was born in Pakistan, the President of Pakistan, in India.

Jinnah, the founder of Islamic Republic of Pakistan, was married to a Parsi, knew very little Urdu and regularly enjoyed his bacon in the morning.

Both of India's nuclear tests (6 devices in total) happened on the same occasion separated by 25 years; birthday of the founder of Buddhism, Buddha Pournami.

 

[Squonk]

The initial goal of crusades was to help Byzantines, help eastern christians and halt the progress of muslims into christian lands. The result was, however, destruction of Byzantine Empire --> Muslims reaching Vienna

Polish national epopee starts with "Lithuania, my fatherland", and later on depicts sights from over Niemen river (which does not flow though Poland anymore), and local byelorussian customs.