Fact: Peter the Great had his wife's lover executed and his head put into a jar of alcohol. He forced her to keep it in her bedroom.

What I took from this: A man's cock doesn't just have a brain of it's own it also has perfected the ability to divert just enough blood from the brain so that when it presents it's arguments as to why you should fuck a woman whose husband can twist a silver platter into a scroll with his bare hands they sound faultless.
Peter the Great stood about 6 foot 8 and was well over 200 pounds. The average height at the time was around 5'6. Through the habitual use of ax and hammer, he had developed his strength to such an extent that he was able to twist a silver platter into a scroll. So if you are still willing to give the Queen regular meat injections behind the back of a man who was undoubtedly considered to be the Herman Munster of his time, when this guy's cock got hard this must be comparable to an episode of demonic possession.

Fact: When a Chinese bystander ashore was killed accidentally by a canon salvo of greeting from an English ship during the early days of the China-Western trade, the English were forced to turn over to China the hapless gunner, who was promptly strangled right there on the spot.

What I took from this: No wonder England made it a point to turn as many of the Chinese as they could into Opium addicts. As soon as word got back to the King of England that Kato strangled this motherfucker right there on the beach in full view of everyone, they knew then that if relations with these people were to continue something had to be done to try to mellow these little son-of-a-bitches out a bit.

Fact: In medieval times, Church bells were often consecrated to ward off evil spirits. Because thunderstorms were attributed to the work of demons, the bells would be rung in an attempt to stop storms. Lightning killed lots of God fearing bell ringers back in those days. In fact, lightning killed too many to count.

What I took from this: During medieval times not only did the church make unfortunate choices, but time and time again their insistence on playing for just one franchise for the duration of their careers robbed them of the ability to realize that if demons were that sweet, and since God had failed to provide them with a weapon a little more intimidating than ringing a God damn bell, no one would've blamed them if they would've applied for free agency to see what their blind faith was worth on the free market.

Fact: In 1555, Ivan the Terrible ordered the construction of St. Basil's Church in Moscow. He was so pleased with this piece of work by the two architects responsible for designing the church, Postnik and Barma, that he had them blinded with a spoon so they would never be able to design anything more beautiful.

What I took from this: Despite defying all logic it seems that the more ruthless you are as a ruler the longer you hold on to power. And the reason is because of the human need to control what we fear. We are afraid of going hungry so we create a God of food. The theory is that if we can somehow appease this God through prayer, deeds, rituals or what have you we will gain its favor and he will reward us by seeing to it that we never go hungry. However, when the same logic is applied to a psychopath despot that has been inbred into megalomania the results are always disastrous. Instead of just putting a bullet in his head or a cobra under his pillow people think they can appease the angry tyrant, win his favor by showing your loyalty and serving his every wish to the detail and thus controlling him. You see how far it got poor Postnik and Barma.

Fact: The Ch'in Dynasty (221-207 B.C.) buried alive many of its scholars in mass graves in its attempt to suppress all learning.

What I took from this: Studies show that the more education that you have the less likely you are to vote for the candidate on the Republican ticket. It was a well-known fact that Adolph Hitler hated intellectuals almost as much as he hated Jews. You would think that if your message was less persuasive the more educated the person was that listened to it one might want to reexamine your plans. However, when you are already in power it is much easier to just say "education" is the problem and introduce those infected with literacy and reasoning skills to mass graves, acid baths or bombard them with public service commercials from the office of National drug control policy to simply drive them insane.