The Amazing Stuff

Fascism is defined as “a political system headed by a dictator, in which the government controls business, and labor and opposition is not permitted.” Many people confuse fascism with communism, as both are well-known systems under which the government exercises extreme control over its citizens, but the two are ideologically dissimilar in one important way: While communism ostensibly (if not usually in practice) distributes power evenly among the people with “communal” ownership of resources, fascist societies tend to concentrate power among very few individuals with an emphasis on corporate interests over public.

Such a system inevitably leads to populations mired in poverty with restrictive laws, loss of basic personal freedoms, and no means of escaping debt, let alone accumulating wealth. Many in the United States believe that the country is scarily close to embracing this form of government, and still others believe that it already has. And indeed, there are many well-established aspects of fascist societies that have taken root in the United States, some more recently than others.

10 Intense Nationalism And Demagoguery

Much more than simple pride for one’s country, extreme nationalism is rooted in the notion that one’s individual identity is entirely associated with their national identity—such that individual identity cannot exist separately from that of their nation. Strong emotional ties to one’s nation result from such attitudes, but more often than not, the allegiance gained is to a perverted notion of national identity put forth by politicians or demagogues.

The term “demagogue” is used mostly derisively to refer to a politician who grows their base and amasses power not through the discussion of policy and real solutions to problems but by blatant appeal to fear, xenophobia, and outright ignorance. Of course, history has shown this to be an effective tactic among populations with little understanding of complex political issues but a strong sense of national identity. The fascist totalitarian regimes of World War II began with populist, grassroots movements headed by charismatic leaders who were able to use fears over loss of national identity to quickly amass power.

Obviously, the 2016 US presidential election cycle has demonstrated that demagoguery and appeals to bigotry and a desire to return the country to a mythical state of “greatness” can still gain substantial political points even in the modern day. But appeals to this ideal of “greatness” go nowhere without a contrast—an idea or group that can be pointed to as the problem. This is why campaigns based on intense nationalism will always have an accompanying feature:

9 Demonizing The ‘Other’

Those with even a basic knowledge of modern world history know that the Jewish people bore the brunt of the consequences of Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. Though non-white races, homosexuals, and ill-defined “gypsies” were persecuted as well, it was the Jews in particular who were singled out as being mostly to blame for Germany’s economic misfortunes and a perceived erosion of German culture. And this—the broad illustration of an easily definable enemy, an “other” that undermines the precious national identity—is an incredibly key component to the development of a fascist society.

It should go without saying that in the US today (though non-whites and gays are still part of the rhetoric), the scapegoated “other” is the Muslim. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Muslims have been the go-to counterpoint to the American identity. Immediately after the event, and despite decades of complicated US relations with the Middle East, then-president Bush insisted that the attack happened simply because Muslims “hate our freedom.”

Today, mainstream presidential candidates seriously advocate a moratorium on all Muslims entering the country, suggest (also in apparent seriousness) that all of the world’s billions of Muslims know which ones are terrorists, and state that ISIS is the greatest existing threat to the US. This is in spite of the fact that acts of radical Islamic terror overwhelmingly kill other Muslims—between 82 and 97 percent, according to a study by the United States’ own Counterterrorism Center.

This is the type of highly relevant data that is easily buried when the bulk of the public discussion is rooted in fear and irrationality, and the discussion is easily steered in that direction—not by politicians or demagogues themselves but by the corporations that fund and support them in a fascist political structure through use of the media.

8 Corporate Ownership Of Media

It bears noting that the fascist regimes of Hitler and Mussolini took place before the advent of modern mass media, including television, which, along with the Internet, is the means by which the vast majority of Americans consume their information. It can be demonstrably shown that instances of the type of selective reporting noted above are standard in Western media. To illustrate this example, analysis abounds showing that Islamic terrorism is reported on far more extensively in the Western media when it occurs in the Western world. In November 2015, in which three major terror attacks occurred, the one that took place in Paris received roughly 93 percent of the coverage within that month. The other two attacks took place in Beirut and Baghdad.

The reason that so many seemingly disparate media outlets are able to fall in line on such issues is simple: There really isn’t that much disparity. In the United States, six corporations—General Electric, NewsCorp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, and CBS—own 90 percent of all media in all formats. This is the result of serious consolidation over the last several decades; in 1983, that number was 50.

Thanks the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision, such corporations now have the ability to contribute freely to organizations that support political candidates or movements. For a recent example, look no further than Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Dozens of individual media companies (all owned by the above six) have contributed to the campaign, and CNN has come under some fire during the election season for biased reporting on Clinton’s behalf. CNN is owned by Time Warner, a major contributor.

7 Dismantling Of Labor Unions

Key to fascist ideology is state ownership not just of resources but of labor. That being the case, privatized labor unions, which negotiate terms on behalf of workers and prevent abuses by employers, aren’t compatible in any way with a fascist government. After the Italian parliament elections in 1924, in which Benito Mussolini solidified his power, one of his first acts—after declaring other political parties illegal—was to outlaw labor unions and strikes. It was Mussolini who said, “Fascism should rightly be called corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.”

Labor unions have historically been a rich source of funding for political candidates, and endorsements from important unions could help secure elections, but in recent decades, there has been a dramatic shift in this dynamic. Strong anti-union platforms—particularly within the Republican party—have gotten several high-profile conservative politicians, such as Wisconsin governor Scott Walker and Michigan governor Rick Snyder, reelected in recent years in states with a traditionally strong labor presence.

This is due at least in part to a long-standing and ongoing effort on the part of the US political right to undermine, discredit, and disperse labor unions, and it has achieved a sort of snowballing effect: As unions become less visible, fewer Americans see them as essential, which further precipitates their decline. In the mid-1950s, union representation among wage and salaried worker in the US was around 35 percent. Today, it is less than eight percent.

6 Government Involvement In Religion

Historically, powerful religious institutions haven’t hindered the rise of fascist regimes—quite the opposite, in fact. Mussolini’s regime again provides an easy historical frame of reference for this, as the Roman Catholic Church was (and still is) the most powerful institution in Italy at the time of his rise.

Simply put, the rigid and somewhat archaic moral systems of traditional religious institutions tend to align very well with fascist, authoritarian notions of control. Mussolini was able to avoid coming into conflict with the church by simply adopting many of their official stances (which he likely would have done anyway) on issues such as contraception and divorce. A 1929 agreement between the church and regime known as the Lateran Treaties went so far as to make Roman Catholicism the official state religion.

Although the United States hasn’t gone to this extreme, an alarming 57 percent of Republicans asked in a recent poll believe that the US should, in direct violation of its own constitution, make Christianity its national religion. Demagogues like Donald Trump, a man who has earned that description ten times over in recent months, have always found convenient declarations of renewed religious faith to be an effective, cost-free means of immediately swaying a large portion of the populace. This is particularly true in heavily religious nations like the US.

5 Suspicious Elections

Since rigged elections are a hallmark of fascist regimes, any appearance of impropriety in the US election system, which has generally been considered sound, if inefficient and complicated, sets conspiracy theorists off about the rise of US fascism. From questions about the 2000 US presidential race, in which George W. Bush famously won the election despite losing the popular vote, up to the recent election cycle, in which candidates from both parties have encountered problems during the primaries with vote counts, late ballots, and even their names being left off ballots altogether, the perception of a “rigged system” has been picking up steam among the American public.

Even if elections aren’t directly rigged, the reality is that the old adage that “anyone can be president if they work hard enough” is probably completely untrue, and when it comes to who actually takes office, Americans have far less say than one might think. The presidential primary process, during which candidates are selected by their respective parties, has only been in place since the early 20th century. Before that, candidates were simply chosen in private by the parties.

Much has been made during the 2016 election of delegates and their role in the primary process, but even some delegates, like Curly Hoagland of North Dakota, admit that the process isn’t really designed to give the public as much of a choice as they may perceive:

The media has created the perception that the voters choose the nomination. That’s the conflict here. The rules are still designed to have a political party choose its nominee at a convention. That’s just the way it is.

If the presidential nominees and eventual winners did indeed represent the collective will of the American public, it would be a remarkable coincidence, as recent genealogy work has provided strong circumstantial evidence to the contrary. Every US president except one (Martin Van Buren) is directly related to the same English king, and the candidate with the most royal genes and chromosomes has won the presidency 100 percent of the time for the last 200 years.

4 Secret Trade Agreements

So-called free trade agreements, such as 1994’s infamous North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) pact between the US, Mexico, and Canada, have a reliable history of looking out for corporate interests. The newest and one of the most controversial of these, the Transpacific Partnership, or TPP, was finalized in 2016 at the tail end of the Obama administration. Negotiations were conducted in private over five years, and the general public was given no details on its terms until the deal was already done.

One of the main thrusts of the agreement is copyright and patent law, which sounds innocuous enough until you consider that practically every aspect of modern business hinges on this and that all of the changes being implemented benefit corporate interests, not workers. For example, a tightening of patent regulations on medications or surgical procedures will allow practitioners to price these out of the range of lower income patients. Also, corporations will now be allowed to sue governments over lost profits due to regulatory changes, as cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris is doing right now. The tobacco giant is involved in litigation with Uruguay because, by national law, the country requires warning labels on cigarettes, which of course hurts profits. Such lawsuits are now possible because of TPP—which, again, was not approved by voters and was never even up for a vote.

Such secrecy in service of further consolidation of corporate power (and erosion of oversight) is truly problematic. Remember Mussolini’s words about fascism being essentially the merger of corporation and state. And with consolidation of power comes concentration of wealth, which inevitably leads to . . .

3 Extinction Of The Middle Class

While “income equality” has only become a buzzword over the last few years, the fact is that the gap between the rich and the poor in the United States has being steadily widening for decades, since the mid-1970s. The middle class is vanishing, not just in economically disadvantaged areas but everywhere. A 2016 Pew Research poll covering three quarters of the population showed that a clear majority of Americans are no longer in the middle class, and the majority of those exiting were not becoming richer but rather joining the lower class, although this was, of course, not always the case.

This is what we would expect to see in a climate in which corporate interests come before any other, and it constitutes a strong argument that, despite a centuries-old culture of American ingenuity and self-reliance, the US has become such a climate. If further evidence were required, one could look to the fact that despite unprecedented mismanagement, misappropriation, and outright greed by Wall Street bankers contributing to an economic crash from which the US economy still hasn’t recovered, the current number of bankers in jail for this conduct stands at one.

This has the effect of creating vast numbers of poor and disenfranchised workers who will literally cling to any meager source of income they can get, which is a perfect fit for a fascist economy, which is ideologically opposed to redistribution of wealth by any means, even to those whose labor produced it. Historically,it has also had the effect of angering, mobilizing, and even radicalizing poor workers—leading to another unmistakable hallmark of the totalitarian regime, which has unfortunately started to show up in the US:

2 Militarized Police

Many Americans can probably remember a time when the sight of local police officers wearing full body armor, carrying military weapons, and riding through the streets in military vehicles would have caused a panic. One might have assumed that an invasion was taking place or perhaps that martial law had been declared for some unthinkable reason. It is highly unfortunate that, after widespread coverage of incidents like the protests over the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, the image and idea of US police responding to citizens as the US military would respond to foreign combatants is no longer unthinkable but almost commonplace.

The impetus for this unprecedented buildup of firepower by law enforcement, if not the reasoning behind it, can be traced to the 1990 version of the National Defense Authorization Act, which the US Congress revises and passes yearly. After a rise in drug-related violence in the 1980s, the Department of Defense was allowed to transfer surplus gear to local police departments at its discretion if said equipment was deemed suitable for antidrug activities. This, combined with $35 billion in grants to local law enforcement handed down by Congress after 9/11, has resulted not only with more and more police being armed with weapons of war, but in those weapons’ deployment and use on a regular basis.

That is to say, SWAT team deployments have risen from about 3,000 in 1980 to over 50,000 per year across the US currently, while in 2014, the FBI released data showing violent crime at its lowest level since 1978. The concern, as seen in Ferguson and elsewhere, is that this apparatus is just as effective—if not more so—at crushing dissent than deterring crime.

But for the truest indicator of the potential rise of fascism in the United States, one must look no further than its current political structure and the definition of fascism as set forth by Mussolini himself.

1 Corporate Money Rules Politics

It is a poorly kept secret that Koch Industries, owned by wealthy oilmen Charles and David Koch, wasted absolutely no time in exploiting the 2010 Citizens United ruling in every way possible. The Koch brothers and their small cadre of supremely wealthy donors have invested nearly $1 billion during this election cycle in order to influence the outcome. That’s over double the amount spent by the Republican National Committee in 2012.

Why? Well, according to the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute, it may be at least partially because Koch Industries is one of the top three polluters in the United States—right up there with ExxonMobil. With all of their formidable investment going to fill the coffers of Republicans (aka the party that’s extremely reluctant to even acknowledge the existence of man-made climate change) it’s not unreasonable to assume that Koch Industries expects a return on its investment in the form of continued lax regulations and impotent policies.

All of this is to say that while the merger of corporation and state in the US is not total, it is not theoretical, either. There are very powerful elements within both the political and corporate worlds that are making diligent progress down this road. In the interest of offering at least one concrete means toward helping to reverse it, perhaps start with overturning Citizens United?

A computer is defined as an electronic device capable of receiving information and performing a sequence of operations predetermined by a program to produce a result as information or signals. The original computers weren’t anywhere near the likes of the Apple, HP or Dell devices we’re all used to, they were huge mechanically driven juggernauts utilizing relays, telephone equipment  and  vacuum tubes. Most of the original computer concepts were used during World War II. The most famous being the Bombe created by Alan Turing, used to help decipher German Enigma codes.

Here we’re going to focus on the PC, the version of the computer we all know best, as well as the main developments in technology that affected it. The PC, or Personal Computer, was a massive leap for technology and it was all due to the development of the first microprocessor which allowed machines to be sold at a much lower cost and effectively made them consumer goods. The term PC covers a broad range of areas including, desktop, laptop or tablet. This is nowhere near a complete list but here is a timeline of the significant PCs and technologies;

1977 – The first wave of home computers, ‘The Trinity’ as dubbed by Byte Magazine. These were the TRS-80 selling over 10,000 in the first month which had, hence the name, a Z80 microprocessor. The Commodore PET used the newly marketed MOS 6502 microprocessor and was quickly beaten by the Apple II due to its high color graphics and it even came with the game ‘Breakout’ on cassette as standard. All these offered 4KB or 8KB of RAM, utilized BASIC programming language and cassette storage.

1978 – The 5 ¼” floppy disc was released, and although there were previous versions, they were too expensive for the PC. The 5 ¼” was the most common form of PC data storage until the CD’s release.

1981 – The dawn of the laptop, or portables, begins. In this year, both the Osborne 1 and Epson HX-20 were released. The Osborne 1 weighed 24 pounds, had no battery and a 5″ CRT screen. The Epson had a 120×32 pixel LCD screen, a small printer and a re-chargeable battery.

The IBM PC 5150 was, to many, the PC they remember as the original. It had dual 5.25″ floppy disk drives, 64KB RAM and successful BIOS, so successful in fact that it led to a group of new companies termed ‘IBM compatibles’, including Compaq, Dell and HP.

1982 – The Commodore 64 was the highest-selling single personal computer ever, with over 20 million sold by 1994. In 1983 it was selling as many units as every other computer combined due to its low cost and availability in retail stores. This was also the year the first flip style laptops appeared, including the GRiD Compass 1100 which cost over $8000 and was used mainly by NASA, the military and other organizations.

1983– This was a big year for touch technology, The Gavilan SC was the first computer advertised as a “laptop” and had the world’s first touch-pad. The HP-150, the first home computer with touch screen technology, was also released. It detected finger movements through a built-in grid of infrared beams across the monitor’s front. However, the sensors collected dust and needed a lot of cleaning. Touch technology would be a difficult concept to master with many brands releasing their devices, all with their own issues, and many chose to go for the simpler stylus system including Apple with their PDA, the Newton many years later in 1993.

1984 – The reign of Apple continued with the Macintosh, giving many their first look at a GUI or Graphical User Interface, a vital part of any modern PC. Its supreme graphics were a result of the MacPaint program. In this year, one of the biggest changes came for computing, the CD-ROM, it was a few years until CD-R & RW’s came along but the CD allowed for greater storage and easier data management.

1985 – Windows 1.0 was born, giving the GUI interface of the Mac to Windows and stepping away from MS-DOS. It was quoted by Gates as “unique software designed for the serious PC user” utilizing drop-down menus, icons, scroll bars and information boxes as well as the much loved MS Paint.

1988 – The Compaq SLT 286 was released and was the first laptop to use VGA display commercially.

1990 – Windows NT was released; another GUI style interface and an improvement on 1.0, sparking legal issues between Microsoft and Apple about the way the software looked and felt.

Tim Berners-Lee also built the World Wide Web in 1990, giving us the first look at the internet as we know it. It included; HTTP – the most important internet protocol, HTML – a web coding language and the first Web browser, web server, and Web pages describing the project.

1994 – The Apple Power Macintosh was released; a high-end PC aimed at digital media and graphic designers and thus the bond was established. Also in this year, Netscape’s browser was born and gave way to a new wave of people accessing the web.

1995 – The operating system I remember the most fondly, Windows 95 was launched and, due to its huge success, became the system at the forefront for a long time. 95 was the first Windows OS with built-in internet support, to use the plug and play concept and to feature the iconic start button, taskbar and minimize/maximize and close options.

1998 – Google, everyone’s favorite search engine, was created. Google brought for many the developments in web browsing they needed and saw more people using the web.

1999 – Apple released its new iBook, the first device to have a Wi-Fi slot for the new industry-standard wireless platform and other brands quickly followed suit. Wi-Fi drastically improved home computing, allowing connection wherever you were within its range, this meant PCs would soon become common place in bedrooms and studies without the need for a cable.

2000 – The first USB flash drives were sold, improving on data management again. However this wouldn’t be as quick a death for the CD as they were for floppy disks.

2001 – The most popular OS of our time, Windows XP, was released. XP became the standard to which all else aspired, it had numerous versions in its life time and supported the latest in technology including remote desktop, system restore and encrypting file system.

2002 – The Microsoft Tablet PC was, as the name suggests, the first real PC style tablet. It used a stylus based touch-screen and ran Windows XP tablet edition but due to their weight had little success. This was also the year 1 billion PCs were officially sold.

2004 – A game-changing year for home computing. Facebook was launched gaining over 1 billion users to date. Skype was also released giving a simple and cheaper way of internet communication.

2005 – This year saw the death of the much loved IBM as it sold itself to Lenovo. YouTube was launched in 2005 giving us all infinitely more ways to procrastinate.

2006 – This year gave way to Microsoft’s biggest failure, Windows Vista. Vista was supposed to be a huge success offering Bitlocker drive encryption software for the first time, a more focused media centre and a brand new look. However, it was far from a success with the press and techy’s, myself included, branding it a failure. It was released prematurely with numerous problems such as its limited amount of compatible drivers.

2007 – Asus released the Eee, the first ultra-portable laptop called Netbooks, a term coined by Intel. The Eee was a huge success due to its small size, low cost and weight. It had a 4GB disk and 7” screen and gave way to a new wave of computing with many other brands releasing their version.

In this year, Estonia gave the world definitive proof of the significance of home computing when it carried out a general election on the internet. Although not technically home computing, in this year the Apple iPhone was released, and like the tablet saw many people move away from their PCs.

2009 – Windows 7, even after all these years and reinventions released, it’s still the option many companies go for. Windows 7 was built for the wireless age after Microsoft realized the success of laptops and the need to connect on the go.

2010 – The Apple iPad, the most well-known tablet of all, was born. With its 9.7” touch-screen display and the hordes of apps available it soon became a huge hit with customers, and competitor Android based devices started flooding the market.

2012 – The best of both worlds as it seems, the Microsoft Surface with its detachable keyboard and kickstand allowed you to have the convenience of a tablet with the usability of a laptop.

This was also the era of Windows 8 with its touch-friendly app and tile interface. 8 was the first real multi-platform software for use with touch devices and traditional PCs. It featured the Windows Store, a marketplace for apps. Although a great system for touch devices, it seemed to be less successful for the traditional PC, the start button being the biggest complaint.

2013 – The Apple MacBook used the revolutionizing Retina display technology which had 400 pixels-per-inch and was crowned one of the slimmest laptops around.

2015 – Windows 10 has been released, a free to upgrade OS seeing 75 million devices running 10 in the first month. Microsoft have definitely pushed the boundaries and improved the system significantly, offering a voice system similar to Apple’s Siri called Cortana, and the return of the start bar meant many sceptics are more than happy to fall for Microsoft once again.

So there we go, the first computers were nothing more than glorified mechanical machines built mainly for war-games. ‘The Trinity’ were the first leap forward, especially for Apple, establishing the home pc and leading the way for the likes of the Commodore 64 and the Apple Macintosh which made the PC more affordable and introducing new concepts like a GUI to the desktop world. The creation of laptops seemed to spell the end of the home PC, users loved the portability of these devices compared to the bulky desktop, and the tablet with its touch technology and size was the final nail in the coffin for most customers. Every concept, from the floppy disk to the flash drive, Windows 1.0 to 10, the Apple II to the Asus Eee, revolutionized the way we use the PC and home computing in general. There will always be a want for the new, the fast, the easy and the different and I personally can’t wait to see what the future holds. In 2009, laptops officially outsold desktop PCs and in 2013 tablets outsold both desktop PCs and laptops, reaching over 200 million more units by 2016. So whatever device you’re reading this on, remember where it came from, the originals, all pushing the boundaries of what we know as the PC.

10Lugalzagesi

Civilization was born in ancient Sumeria, in the rich lands between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. But by 2330 BC, the region was in an uproar and ancient cities lay in ruins. The culprit was Lugalzagesi, the king of Umma. Before inheriting the throne, Lugalzagesi was a priest of the goddess Nisaba and he has been labeled an “ecstatic” and a “bone fide berserk” by historians seeking to explain the unprecedented destruction he unleashed.

Shortly after inheriting the throne of Umma, Lugalzagesi also became king of Uruk, probably through marriage. He then launched a series of frenzied campaigns against the kingdom of Lagash, eventually conquering the city itself. A priest of Lagash reported that he “set fire to the [temples] . . . he plundered the palace of Tirash, he plundered the Abzubanda temple, he plundered the chapels of Enlil and Utu.”

In another inscription, the defeated king of Lagash bitterly cursed the conqueror: “The leader of Umma, having sacked Lagash, has committed a sin against Ningirsu. The hand which he has raised against him will be cut off! May Nisaba, the god of Lugalzagesi, ruler of Umma, make him bear the sin.”

But the conquest of Lagash only increased Lugalzagesi’s strength. Before long, he was ruler of all Sumeria, lord of primeval cities like Ur, Zabala, and Nippur. His armies raided from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean: “Enlil, king of all lands, gave to Lugalzagesi the kingship of the nation, directed all eyes of the land toward him, put all the lands at his feet . . . from east to west, Enlil permitted him no rival.”

Enlil must have changed his mind. Lugalzagesi’s conquests soon brought him into conflict with a minor ruler named Sargon. In a stunning upset, Sargon’s well-drilled troops defeated the primitive armies of Sumeria. Lugalzagesi was paraded in chains through Nippur and was soon all but forgotten, while Sargon of Akkad went on to found the first great empire in history.

9Modu Chanyu

The horse was first domesticated on the great Eurasian Steppe, the seemingly endless ocean of grass that runs from Mongolia to Eastern Europe. Every so often, the nomadic horsemen of the plains would unite under some great ruler and erupt on the civilized world. Some of these conquerors remain famous—-Attila, Genghis, Timur the Lame—-but Modu Chanyu, who was one of the earliest, is now almost forgotten in the West.

Modu’s father was king of the Xiongnu, a people who lived in what is now Mongolia. The king preferred Modu’s brother, so Modu had him killed and took power anyway. According to the Chinese historian Sima Qian, Modu invited his bodyguards for some archery practice and told them to use his favorite horse as a target. When some objected, Modu immediately executed them. Then, he told them to use his wife as a target. Again, some objected, and Modu killed them on the spot. Finally, he told the survivors that their new target was his father. They shot him without hesitation.

After murdering his siblings, Modu launched lightning campaigns against the Donghu and Yuezhi, forming a sprawling empire that stretched across the eastern steppes. In 200 BC, he lured the Chinese Emperor Gaozu into an ambush and forced him to sign a humiliating treaty. The Chinese had to pay tribute and Gaozu agreed to give his daughter as a concubine to Modu (he sent some other girl and lied that she was his daughter instead).

In a way, Gaozu was lucky—-the king of Yuezhi had his skull turned into a drinking cup by Modu’s son. Modu himself died in 174 BC, as the ruler of an empire that rivaled Alexander the Great’s in size.

8Cyaxares

For centuries, the mighty Assyrian Empire dominated the ancient Middle East. Its influence even extended to the lands of the Medes, in what is now Iran. The Medes had mixed feelings about this and a nobleman named Phraortes led a revolt around 653 BC. But the bowmen of Assyria were justly feared, and the rebellion was crushed. Phraortes was executed and his grieving son Cyaxares swore to finish what his father had started.

This was no mean task, particularly considering that the Scythians had invaded Media in the meantime. But Cyaxares quietly submitted to Scythian rule until he was able to lure their leaders to a banquet. Once the Scythians were drunk, Cyaxares had them slaughtered. Next, he united the Medes into one kingdom under his command. He reformed the Mede army with new weapons and a focus on horsemen, which the Assyrians lacked.

In 614 BC, the Medes attacked, sacking the Assyrian stronghold at Ashur. Over the next two years, they ground closer to the Assyrian capital Ninevah, which fell in 612. Cyaxares had avenged his father and destroyed the greatest empire of the day. The Median Empire seemed destined to dominate the ancient world—-and it might have, had Cyaxares’s successor not had the misfortune to cross an young man called Cyrus, the leader of an obscure tribe called the Persians.

7Nabopolassar

But Cyaxares and the Medes weren’t alone in the great war against Assyria. To overthrow such a mighty empire, they formed an alliance with Nabopolassar, a rebel who had made himself king of the ancient city of Babylon.

Babylon was one of the jewels in the crown of the Assyrian Empire, but the Assyrians were cruel and greedy rulers, and the sprawling city always longed to regain its former independence. It revolted in 705, but the Assyrian king Sennacherib came down like the wolf on the fold and virtually leveled the city after a devastating siege. Another revolt in 651 was crushed almost as severely.

Nabopolassar himself was born to an obscure tribe of Chaldeans outside Babylon and even his monuments describe him as the “son of a nobody.” But he became a famed resistance leader, leading a guerrilla campaign centered in the marshy delta region of the Tigris and Euphrates. When the citizens of Babylon overthrew their governor in 630 BC, they invited the dogged veteran to become their king.

For 15 years, Nabopolassar fought a desperate campaign to dislodge the Assyrians from Babylonia. By 616, he had succeeded and was able to launch attacks on Assyria itself. In 612, he signed a treaty with Cyaxares and their combined forces destroyed Ninevah. Afterward, they split the Assyrian Empire between them. Nabopolassar then destroyed an Assyrian rump state in Syria, while his forces defeated an Egyptian attempt to intervene.

Nabopolassar died in 605 and the Neo-Babylonian Empire he founded crumbled when Cyrus the Great’s Persians appeared outside Babylon a few decades later.

6Piye

In the eighth century BC, the ancient kingdom of Egypt had collapsed into chaos. Minor kings squabbled over the cities, and the north was dominated by Libyan warlords, who were less than keen on the Egyptian gods. Concerned, the priests of Amun looked south to Nubia, to the “Black Pharoahs” of Kush. This powerful African kingdom was heavily influenced by Egypt (to this day, Sudan has more pyramids than Egypt itself). Now, Kush found itself keeping Egyptian culture alive.

Unlike most of the people on this list, the Kushite Pharaoh Piye was a rather reluctant conqueror. Although his influence extended over southern Egypt, he might have been happy to let the north go its own way. But Piye was a true believer and couldn’t allow Amun to be disrespected. A famous monument records his rage: “I swear, as Re loves me, as my father Amun favors me, I shall go north myself . . . And I shall let Lower Egypt taste the taste of my fingers!”

Sure enough, Piye’s armies stormed up the Nile, sprinkling themselves in holy water before each battle. The Libyan fleet burned on the Nile, while the Nubians stormed Hermopolis and Memphis. The Delta lord Tefnakht surrendered, writing to Piye that “I cannot stand before your flame, I dread your grandeur.” Then, having achieved total victory, the pious Piye withdrew and returned to his home in Nubia.

Unsurprisingly, his successor Shabaka was less retiring and returned to Egypt in 719 BC, mopping up the remaining opposition founding the 25th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt.

5 Dhu Nawas

In the sixth century AD, the last Jewish king of Arabia watched a bloody battle rage along a beach in Yemen. His name was Yusuf Al-As’ar, but due to his flowing hair, he was usually known as Dhu Nawas, “Lord of the Sidelocks.” Seeing that his enemies were victorious, he turned and spurred his heavily armored horse into the Red Sea, which was living up to its name with the blood of the fallen. Before long, the waves had swallowed him up.

In the decades before the arrival of Islam, Yemen was caught up in the struggle between Zoroastrian Persia and the Christian powers of Byzantium and Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia). In fact, Abyssinian governor had ruled Yemen before Dhu Nawas seized power. It’s possible that his conversion to Judaism was intended to assert his independence from both Persia and Abyssinia. Either way, the chronicles agree that he launched a campaign against the Abyssinians Christians in Yemen, massacring them wherever possible.

By around AD 525, Dhu Nawas was complete control of the Yemen. Unsurprisingly, this didn’t go down well in Abyssinia and the Negus (king) Kaleb soon launched a full-scale invasion from his capital at Axum. Always proactive, Dhu Nawas met the Africans on the beach they tried to land on, but the Abyssinians were simply too powerful and before long he was forced to undertake his famous ride into the sea.

4Brennus

Under Alexander the Great, the Greeks and Macedonians conquered much of the known world. But after Alexander’s death in 323 BC, his successors fell to warring with each other, and his empire collapsed. Just over 40 years later, things had deteriorated to the point that an army of Celtic tribesmen were able to sweep down from the north and plunder his old kingdom of Macedon.

The Gauls were led by a chieftain known as Brennus, who had brought together a large army from various tribes. After raiding Macedon, Brennus (which might actually be a title rather than a name) proposed heading south for the even richer target of Greece. Panicked, the Greeks threw together an alliance and decided to make a stand at the pass of Thermopylae, where the 300 of Sparta had faced the Persians many years before.

But Brennus was no fool and sent troops to raid the exposed Greek state of Aetolia. Panicked, the Aetolians abandoned Thermopylae to defend their lands, leaving the defenders reduced in numbers. Next, Brennus paid the locals to show him the same path Xerxes had once used to outflank the 300. Sensing which way the wind was blowing, the Greeks declined to make another last stand and managed to make a break for it onboard the Athenian navy.

Brennus now had Greece at his mercy and he marched on the rich oracle at Delphi. But the Gauls fell to arguing among themselves and were delayed. Just as they were about to attack Delphi, a sudden snowstorm set in. The Greeks, claiming a miracle, attacked and drove the Celts back into the north. But for many years after, there were rumors of a sacred pool in Gaul, glimmering with sacrificed Greek gold and jewels.

3Pachacuti

In the 15th century, a Peruvian group known as the Chanca were vigorously expanding their state. The Chanca had a large and experienced army and talented generals, and few dared stand against them. Around 1438, they decided to attack Cuzco, the capital of an obscure mountain people known as the Incas. The Incan ruler Viracocha and his heir, Urcon, sensibly abandoned the capital and fled. But Viracocha’s son Cusi Yupanqui refused to run.

Mustering a few loyalists, Cusi Yupanqui somehow managed to defeat the Chanca in a battle in which even the stones rose from the field and came to his aid. That boast might reflect the reality of how Cusi Yupanqui managed to defeat the larger Chanca army—-in later years the Inca had a penchant for crushing their enemies in rockslides. In any case, Cusi Yupanqui emerged triumphant and took a new name, Pachacuti, which means “Earthshaker.” His cowardly father was deposed and his brother was murdered and Pachacuti set out to make the Inca into an empire.

First, Pachacuti attacked the cities surrounding Cuzco, using the excuse that they hadn’t come to help the Inca when the Chanca attacked. Once he had established a solid power base, he struck out wider, conquering huge and ancient provinces: Vilcas, Soras, Aymaraes, Omayasos. When his general Capac Yupanki conquered the north, Pachacuti welcomed him back with open arms and then had him immediately executed, before he could become a threat.

By the time Pachacuti was an old man, the Inca were the dominant power in Peru. Finally satisfied, the Earthshaker passed the army over to his son and quietly retired to relax and tinker around with Cuzco’s architecture.

2Zenobia

Of course, very few women ruled in their own right in the ancient world, but the few who did were usually more than a match for their male peers. Take Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, who was so tough she marched on foot with her troops and often outdrank them as well. In the third century AD, Zenobia cobbled together a short-lived empire that spanned from Egypt to Turkey and seemed a real threat to the power of Rome.

Her rise to power started when she married Lucius Odaenthus, the Roman governor of Syria. The two apparently made a formidable team, although Zenobia famously refused to actually sleep with her husband except to conceive their only son. In 266 BC, Lucius was mysteriously assassinated, along with his son from a previous marriage. Instead of waiting for Rome to appoint a new governor, Zenobia gave the position to her young son and appointed herself as regent.

At the time, Rome was ruled by a succession of short-lived emperors who were too busy being murdered to challenge Zenobia. Next, she turned her gaze to Egypt. Not wanting to completely break with Rome, she sent an agent to Egypt to start a rebellion against Rome. Then her armies swooped in to crush the “rebellion” and return Egypt to Roman rule—-via Zenobia’s court in Palmyra of course. Unfortunately, an actual Roman army turned up in Egypt, forcing Zenobia to show her true colors and slaughter them.

Sensing which way the wind was blowing, the whole Roman east rapidly swore allegiance to Zenobia. But winds change, and Rome eventually did find a competent emperor in the old soldier Aurelian, who defeated Zenobia in a hard fought campaign (she escaped at least three sieges, in one case alone on a camel holding her son). The Queen of Palmyra was taken back to Rome, where she was allowed to live out her old age in quiet obscurity.

1Lord 8 Deer Jaguar Claw

In the 11th century, the Mixtec were a squabbling group of principalities on the Pacific coast of Mexico. They chronicled their history in codices that combined pictures and words in a way not unlike a modern comic books. Many of the codices tell the story of the conqueror 8 Deer Jaguar Claw, who rose to great heights and met a tragic end.

8 Deer Jaguar Claw was born into the royal family of Tilantongo, but he wasn’t in line for the throne. So at 18 he sought out a meeting with the oracle Lady 9 Grass, a terrifying figure who seems to have lacked any flesh on her lower jaw. The codices are a little unclear, but either 9 Grass advised 8 Deer to journey to the shore, or exiled him there. Either way, 8 Deer and his followers left Tilantongo and founded a coastal town called Tututepec.

Now 8 Deer’s genius really started to show through. He formed an alliance with a group of Toltec merchants, who were eager to acquire coastal goods like salt and cacao. With the profits, 8 Deer began a campaign of conquest, starting with small villages along the shore and moving on to larger cities inland. As his wealth and power grew, the other members of Tilantongo’s royal family started dying, putting him closer to the throne. Doubtless 8 Deer was shocked when a last brother was mysteriously stabbed to death, making him the new king.

8 Deer’s next move was to launch an assault on Tilantongo’s ancient enemy, a city known as Red-And-White Bundle. This was personal for 8 Deer, because he had long been secretly in love with 9 Monkey, wife of Red-And-White Bundle’s king. Tragically, 8 Deer stormed into the enemy palace to find 9 Monkey and her husband dying. In an uncharacteristic moment of weakness, 8 Deer couldn’t bring himself to execute 9 Monkey’s son. It was a mistake.

Before long, 9 Monkey’s son had escaped his imprisonment and made his way to the Zapotec Empire, which was concerned at the thought of 8 Deer uniting the Mixtec. With a Zapotec army at his back, 9 Monkey’s son returned and defeated the aging 8 Deer. The conqueror was personally executed by the boy he had spared for love.

The world today has its fair share of record-breaking tall buildings. Every several years, another one somewhere on the planet goes up and sets the new standard. But as humanity strives to go higher and higher, we can’t forget those buildings that today don’t seem that tall when compared to what else is out there, but which utterly dominate the urban landscape they’re in. Some cities around the world, though not especially known for their skyscrapers, if any at all, have buildings that stand alone, towering over everything else that surrounds them. We’ll be discussing 10 such buildings in this list below.

10. Burj Khalifa – UAE

In order to get the obvious out of the way first, we’ve decided to start off this list with the tallest: the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. While this city, and entire region for that matter, doesn’t lack its share of skyscrapers, the Burj Khalifa, standing at 2,716.5 feet, towers over the rest, as if they were mere hovels. This is the largest building currently in existence and there is no place within the city of Dubai where you can’t see it. Construction began in 2004 and the tower opened six years later.

Besides holding the record for the tallest building on Earth, it can also call itself the “tallest free-standing structure in the world”, with the highest number of stories and highest occupied floor. It also has the highest standing outdoor observation deck and an elevator with the longest travel distance. It’s so tall that those living at the top have to do their prayers two minutes after those on the ground, since the sun still shines up there, after the rest of Dubai falls into darkness.

In 2010 it received the “Best Tall Building Middle East & Africa” award by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat Organization (which is apparently an actual award?), as well as many other titles and awards. Though there are plans to build an even larger (7,874 feet tall) building called Dubai City Tower, three times the height of Burj Khalifa, it will be a while until that will become a reality, if it ever does.

9. Sagrada Família Basílica – Barcelona, Spain

The second tallest building in Barcelona, The Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família is only surpassed by Torre de Collserola, a communications tower, perched high up on a hill on the outskirts of the city. Nevertheless, down in the city center, no other building challenges this mighty church. Standing as high as 557 feet off the ground, its work began back in 1882 and was designed under Antoni Gaudi, who took over the project one year later.

He dedicated the last part of his life to it, dying in 1926 at age 73, when less than a quarter of the church had been built. Some 90 years later and still not finished, its progress can be called slow at best. The reason for this is the fact that its construction draws its funds only from private donations and was even interrupted during the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s, only to resume intermittent construction in the 1950s.

Combining Gothic and Art Nouveau styles, Sagrada Família is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and in November 2010, Pope Benedict XVI consecrated and proclaimed it a minor basilica. Describing it, art critic Rainer Zerbst said, “It is probably impossible to find a church building anything like it in the entire history of art,” and Paul Goldberger called it, “The most extraordinary personal interpretation of Gothic architecture since the Middle Ages.” George Orwell, on the other hand, called it “One of the most hideous buildings in the world.“ Whatever the case may be, construction reached its midpoint in 2010, with its completion being anticipated in 2026, 100 years after Gaudi’s death.

8. Ryugyong Hotel – Pyongyang, North Korea

The Ryugyong Hotel is a 105-story, pyramid-shaped skyscraper, located in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital. Its name, “Ryugyong,” translates to “capital of willows” – which is also one of Pyongyang’s historical names. Still unfinished, its construction began back in 1987, during North Korea’s height. But it was halted in 1992 when the country went through a severe economic recession after the Soviet Union’s collapse. It was estimated to cost somewhere around $750 million to build, or two percent of the entire North Korean GDP.

Even if it was topped out when work on it was stopped, it still had no exterior windows or interior fittings. North Korean officials were embarrassed by the project and had all the official photographs of the city edited, so as to not show the massive concrete monolith. The hotel was removed from all printed maps of Pyongyang and became known as the “Hotel of Doom” or “Phantom Hotel.” The Korean government went so far as to even deny the hotel’s very existence for over a decade.

In 2008, however, construction on it resumed, and the exterior was completed three years later. Plans were to open the hotel in 2012, thus celebrating the centenary of Kim Jong-un’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung, but it didn’t happen. Its original opening date was set in 1989, in time for the 13th World Festival of Youth and Students. Had this been achieved, Ryugyong would have been the tallest hotel in the world at the time. Nevertheless, at 1,080 feet, it still stands today as the tallest building in Pyongyang, and the rest of North Korea itself.

7. Taipei 101 – Taipei, Taiwan

Located in the capital city of Taiwan, Taipei, this tower was officially classified as the tallest building in the world in 2004, only being surpassed in 2009 by the Burj Khalifa. Towering at 1,667 feet, it’s by far the tallest building around. Designs for both the interior and exterior of the tower are rich in Chinese culture. It incorporates the traditional Chinese pagoda architectural design, within the shape of bamboo flowers. The total cost for its construction was estimated to be somewhere around $1.6 billion and has a LEED – EBOM Platinum Certification, making Taipei 101 the world’s tallest Green Building.

It also houses the fastest elevators in the world, with a top speed of 55 feet per second, and a total of 61 such elevators. Its outside blue-green glass offers UV light protection for those inside and the Tower’s lights display one of seven colors in the light spectrum from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. each evening. In order to protect it from any eventual typhoons or earthquakes, Taipei 101 is fitted with one of the largest damper systems in the world. Located at the 88^th floor, an 800 metric ton spherical ball acts as a counterweight anytime the huge tower swings or shakes, thus offering it a great deal of stabilization.

6. The Palace of Parliament – Bucharest, Romania

During the height of the Communist regime in Romania, the capital city of Bucharest was hit by a tremendous earthquake in 1977. Many buildings were severely damaged as a result, and the president at that time, Nicolae Ceausescu, took advantage of the situation. He proposed a plan to consolidate the city and rebuild it with a more “modern” design. While Bucharest was boasting its own unique architectural design, a fifth of the old city center was razed to the ground to make room for grand boulevards, tall apartment buildings, and a huge structure worthy of the dictator’s megalomania.

By no means the tallest in the world, the Palace of Parliament still dominates its immediate surroundings. Perched on a hill, the structure towers some 282 feet into the air, and goes another 301 feet underground. With a total of 1,100 rooms it covers a surface area of 3.7 million square feet, making it the second largest building in the world, after the Pentagon. And according to Guinness World Records, it’s the heaviest building in the world. It’s made out of 700,000 metric tons of steel and bronze, a million square feet of marble, 3,500 metric tons of crystal, and 900,000 square meters of wood. Its inside is luxurious, to say the least. In the 1990s, Donald Trump proposed to transform it into the largest casino in the world.

It now houses the Romanian Parliament, which occupies a mere 30% of its space. Its construction began in the early 1980s but wasn’t finished by the time the Communist regime was toppled in 1989. No further additions have been brought to it, and the decision was made to leave it as is. It has an energy consumption equivalent to a city of 250,000 inhabitants.

5. Eiffel Tower – Paris, France

When the Nazis took over Paris, Hitler came by to gloat in his triumph over the French and parade throughout the city. But in the night before his arrival, the French Resistance cut the elevator cables of this famous landmark, forcing Hitler to climb the 1,665 stairs, which he never did. While he did manage to conquer Paris, he never did conquer the Eiffel Tower. In 1944, when it became evident that the Allies would retake the city, Hitler ordered General Dietrich von Choltitz, the military governor of Paris, to turn the city into rubble, including the tower itself. The General never did carry out the command, and shortly after Paris was retaken the Tower’s lifts began working again.

Standing at 984 feet tall (1,063 when including the antenna at the top), the Eiffel Tower was the largest manmade structure in the world for 41 years from 1889 to 1930, when the Chrysler Building in New York was finished. It’s still the tallest in Paris. Though it was built for an exposition, it was never intended to be permanent and was scheduled to be demolished in 1909. However, it was spared this fate after being repurposed as a giant radio antenna. It was also originally intended to be built in Barcelona, but obviously that never happened.

It’s made out of 18,000 individual metallic parts, joined together by 2.5 million rivets, and its height varies by up to six inches depending on the outside temperature. At the moment it’s the most visited paid-for monument in the world, with roughly seven million visitors each year. And as a result, the lifts that Hitler couldn’t use back in 1940 travel on average a distance of 64,000 miles; two and a half times the circumference of the Earth. What most of us don’t know is that in 2008, the tower got “married” to a woman by the name of Erika La Tour Eiffel, whose name is in honor of her “partner.”

4. Lotte World Tower – Seoul, South Korea

Though not yet finished, the Lotte World Tower in Seoul, South Korea was topped out in December 2015, with the completion of its 123^rd floor. Towering at 1,820 feet, it is the tallest building in South Korea and in fact, the entire OCDE. It’s expected to be finished in October 2016. The uppermost part, floors 120 to 123 of Lotte World Tower, will serve as an observatory. Floors 117 to 119 will be home to an art gallery. A hotel, offices, a medical center, and other amenities are also expected to open.

On March 27, 2016, there was a break-in reported at the tower. While fearing North Korean infiltration, the authorities were alerted about this intrusion. That turned out to not be the case, however. Two photographers, Vitaly Raskalov and Vadim Makhorov from Ukraine and Russia, respectively, climbed to the top in order to take pictures and a video. The duo is renowned throughout the world in the exploration of high-rise architectural structures like skyscrapers, bridges, historic sites, and cathedrals.

3. The Eastern Gates of Belgrade – Serbia

While Serbia’s capital city of Belgrade is renowned for its many gates were built throughout the centuries, offering its citizens both access and protection, the latest two additions had a somewhat different purpose. Built during the late 1970s and early 1980s by the Yugoslavian Communist regime, the Western Gate, more commonly known as the Genex Tower, is 35 stories (460 feet) tall. One part serves as an apartment block, while the other is an office building for the Genex Group. The building was designed to greet and amaze people coming in from the west, as the road connects Belgrade to its airport. But while this tower was especially designed as a gateway, per se, its Eastern counterpart was not.

The Eastern Gates of Belgrade are in fact a series of three identical, gigantic apartment blocks. They’re officially known as the Rudo Apartment Complex, after a town in Bosnia. This complex utterly overshadows the surrounding urban landscape of Belgrade, and is made to house more than 2,000 people. Made in a Socialist Realist architectural style, more commonly known as brutalist architecture, the three towers each stand at 325 feet tall. As if from an Orwellian dystopian future, they do look like something out of Blade Runner. Compared to their sister building at the other side of town, these three giant monoliths were dubbed as “the Eastern Gates of Belgrade.”

2. Tokyo Skytree – Tokyo, Japan

In 2011, upon reaching an astounding height of 2,080 feet, Tokyo Skytree became the tallest building in Japan, the tallest tower in the world, and the second tallest structure ever made after Burj Khalifa. It acts as the primary television and radio broadcast site in Tokyo, since the old tower was slowly surrounded by tall buildings and its signal power decreased over time. Completed in 2012, the base has a structure similar to a tripod. From about 1,150 feet upward, the tower’s structure is cylindrical, offering to those inside a beautiful panoramic view of the river and city. It has two observatories, located at 1,150 feet and 1,480 feet, with the top one featuring a glass floor for its visitors to look straight down at the streets below.

Typical to the Japanese, the Tokyo Skytree is equipped with state of the art security systems, specifically tailored for the country’s frequent earthquakes. Its name was selected from a total number of six candidates, and was put to a national vote. The name “Tokyo Skytree” won by a majority of 30%, with the second most popular name being “Tokyo Edo Tower.” Its exterior is painted in a unique color called “Skytree White.” This is based on the traditional Japanese bluish-white color called aijiro, and helps the tower blend in harmoniously with its surroundings. After dark, the tower is illuminated in two different patterns, alternating daily. A sky-blue one, called Iki (chic, stylish), and a purple one called Miyabi (elegance, refinement).

1. Abraj Al Bait – Mecca, Saudi Arabia

Also known as the Makkah Royal Clock Tower Hotel, this humongous building is government-owned and located in the holiest place within the Muslim world: Mecca, Saudi Arabia. With a height of 1,972 feet, it is the fourth tallest freestanding structure in the world. It holds the largest clock on Earth, and the structure itself is visible from up to 16 miles away. Some 21,000 white and green colored lights, the same as the Saudi Flag and fitted at the top of the clock, flash to signal Islam’s five-times daily prayers, and are visible as far as 19 miles away.

Abraj Al Bait’s construction began back in 2004 and was completed in 2012, offering 1,542 guest rooms and residences for around 10,000 pilgrims arriving in the city during the annual Hajj ceremony. It is conveniently located just across the street from the Masjid al Haram mosque, and has countless other facilities throughout its immense structure. The entire complex was built after the demolition of the Ajyad Fortress, an 18^th century Ottoman citadel overlooking the Grand Mosque. The destruction of the fort in 2002 by the Saudi government sparked Turkish, international, and even domestic outcry.