This is a cultural history episode about sexuality in Ancient Rome. I thought the topic would be fun and juicy, but that’s because my memory of Roman sexuality was hazy. After refreshing it with lots of research, I can safely say that ‘fun’ is not a word I would apply to it. ‘Insanely disturbing’ is probably more fitting. Most of the ancient sources, in fact, seem to indicate that little to no attention was paid to the idea of sex being for mutual pleasure.

This episode covers some of the things that happened in El Salvador in the 1980s, in particular the story of the massacre at El Mozote, and how policies formulated by the White House supported death squads unleashing hell on civilians.

This is a story about what happened in El Salvador in the 1970s and 1980s, and the role that democratic as well as republican administrations played in this tale. As much as humanly possible, I’ll try to let the facts speak for themselves and not inject too much of my own commentary.

“Everywhere in southern Anhui they are eating people.” — Zeng Guofan “Infants but recently born were torn from their mother’s breasts, and disemboweled before their faces. Young strong men were disemboweled, mutilated, and the parts cut off thrust into their own mouths…” — A British testimony on the Qing treatment of POWs If I were to ask you which is the deadliest conflict in history, you’d probably answer WW II. But if I were to ask you, which is the second deadliest conflict ever—at least...

“Is not this insurgent movement truly wonderful? These rebels keep Sabbath as we do, they pray to God daily, they read the Scriptures, they break the idols, and they long for the time when, instead of those heathen temples, they shall have Christian chapels, and worship together with us… is it not a remarkable era in China?”  — A Christian missionary wife about the Taiping Rebellion  “Jesus our Elder Brother showed us the treacherous heart of this demon follower.” — Sign hanging around the...

“The entire story of the Taiping Rebellion might be told, from one perspective, as the rage of a failed exam candidate writ large.” — Stephen Platt “They may not intend to harm others on purpose, but the fact remains that they are so obsessed with material gain that they have no concern whatever for the harm they can cause to others.” — Lin Zexu about British opium traders  “Heaven is furious with anger, and all the gods are moaning with pain!... A murderer of one person is subject to the...

“If you know the way broadly you will see it in everything.” — Miyamoto Musashi Ever since I started History on Fire, one topic has been the most consistently requested by listeners. Over the years, I received hundreds of messages asking me to cover the life of Miyamoto Musashi. That time has come. Here we go.  Musashi has been the subject of one of the greatest bestsellers ever written, a novel by Eiji Yoshikawa that sold over 120 million copies. And yet, the story of his life is mixed with...

“All warfare is based on deception.” — Sun Tzu  Ever since I started History on Fire, one topic has been the most consistently requested by listeners. Over the years, I received hundreds of messages asking me to cover the life of Miyamoto Musashi. That time has come. Here we go.  Musashi has been the subject of one of the greatest bestsellers ever written, a novel by Eiji Yoshikawa that sold over 120 million copies. And yet, the story of his life is mixed with so many myths and legends that...

“But the years of peace and plenty was not to last. Slowly the days turned sour and the watchful nights closed in. Thrór's love of gold grown too fierce and sickness had begun to grow within him. It was a sickness of the mind. And where sickness thrives, bad things will follow...” — JRR Tolkien  “The more White investigated the flow of oil money from Osage headrights, the more he found layer upon layer of corruption. Although some white guardians and administrators tried to act in the best...

“The universities do not teach all things, so a doctor must seek out old wives, gypsies, sorcerers, wandering tribes, old robbers, and such outlaws and take lessons from them.  A doctor must be a traveler… Knowledge is experience.” — Paracelsus “They indulged in disgraceful immodesty, for many women, during this shameless dance and mock-bridal singing, bared their bosoms, while others of their own accord offered their virtue.” — C. Browerus describing the 1374 Dancing Plague  Weird seems like...

“We are all ghosts now. But once we were men.” — Anonymous POW from Cabanatuan camp “Never in history had the United States Army been called on to rescue such a large number of POWs from so deep in enemy territory.” — William Breuer “We were in the best shape of our lives, and with this mission we understood why he had driven us so hard.” — Alvie Robbins speaking about Henry Mucci’s physical training  “As far as we were concerned, they were gods.” — Bob Body about the Rangers who rescued him...

“Brother, this is the greatest sorrow and the greatest trial that could happen to me in the whole course of my life. But don’t despair; before you lose sight of him who did the mischief, you shall see yourself revenged by my hand.” — Benvenuto Cellini  “Folk too gathered round us, for it had become clear that our words meant swords and daggers.” — Benvenuto Cellini Italian artists from the Renaissance often lived lives that would make artists-gangsters a la Biggie or Tupac blush. Born at a...

“If one of you comes out of the shop, let the other run for a priest, because there’ll be no need for a doctor.” — Benvenuto Cellini  “The whole world was now in warfare.” — Benvenuto Cellini “And then falling on my knees, I begged him to absolve me of that homicide, and of the others I had committed while serving the Church in the castle. At this the Pope raised his hand, carefully made a great sign of the cross above my head, and said that he gave me his blessing and that he forgave me all...

“On these hills, where everywhere were rolling skulls, skeletons, and decaying body parts, Baron Ungern used to like to go to rest.” — Quote from one of Roman von Ungern-Sternberg’s officers “Look at [Europe's] past full of fire and blood and the vicious, savage struggle of man against God. The West has given man science, wisdom, and power, yet it has also brought godlessness, immorality, treason, the abnegation of truth and goodness. There, in the West, the destruction of entire empires has...

“My name is surrounded with such hate and fear that no one can judge what is the truth and what is false, what is history, and what is myth.” — Roman von Ungern-Sternberg “Ungern had fused with the war, and equally, the war, in turn, had fused with him.” — Willard Sunderland A recurring thread in History on Fire episodes is my soft spot for individuals who are mildly mentally deranged, but have something lovable about them. Today, thaqt thread doesn’t quite apply. The subject of our story...

“Most people go through life thinking they’re totally safe. People like us, we know the truth. Life is hard and dangerous, and sometimes you just got to chop off somebody’s head to survive.” — Ash vs. Evil Dead “No friend ever served me, and no enemy ever wronged me, whom I have not repaid in full.” — Lucius Cornelius Sulla  “Around four o’clock on that Monday afternoon of the thirteenth, with a light rain falling, the bandits attacked. To the sound of a trumpet—for Lampiao did things in...

“There a papoose cries by its mother’s breast which, cold and insensible, can nourish it no more; there lies a young girl with her long hair sticky of blood, hiding her mutilated face… And here—here rests the beautiful young squaw whom yesterday I offered a cigarette—dying, with both her legs shot off. She lies there without wailing and greets me with a faint smile on her pale lips.” — First Sergeant Ragnar Ling-Vannerus “The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the...

“Sent to report on a story that wasn’t there, reporters invented one.” — Heather Cox Richardson   “Lakota will kill you.” — A meadowlark speaking to Sitting Bull in a vision  “If the white men want me to die, they ought not to put up the Indians to kill me… Let the soldiers come and take me away and kill me, wherever they like. I am not afraid. I was born a warrior.” — Sitting Bull  In historical terms, it was just a blink of an eye ago. In the mid-1800s, the Great Plains in the United States...

“Kill the Indian and save the man.” — Richard Pratt  “The life my people want is a life of freedom. I have seen nothing that a white man has, houses or railways or clothing or food, that is good as the right to move in the open country, and live in our own fashion.” — Sitting Bull  “The white man knows how to make everything, but he does not know how to distribute it.” — Sitting Bull  “Possession—a war that doesn’t end.” — John Trudell  “We were faint with hunger and maddened by despair....

“I don’t want to have anything to do with people who make one carry water on the shoulders and haul manure. You are fools to make yourselves slaves to a piece of fat bacon, some hardtack, and a little sugar and coffee. The whites may get me at last, but I will have good times till then.” — Sitting Bull  “Let me live deep while I live.” — Robert E. Howard “Were I to run away from the enemy, no one will consider me a man.” — Kit Fox warrior society song  “A warrior I have been. Now it is all...

“Sitting Bull, leader of the largest Indian nation on the continent, the strongest, boldest, most stubborn opponent of European influence, was the very heart and soul of the Frontier. When the true history of the New World is written, he will receive his chapter. For Sitting Bull was one of the Makers of America.” — Stanley Vestal  “If you intend to do this for my sake, take good care of them and let them live. My father is a man and death is his.” — Sitting Bull addressing his fellow...

“…we venerate the crooks, rapists, and pillagers credulous historians have repackaged as ‘founders,’ ‘conquerors,’ and ‘civilize.’ We erect statues and consecrate tombs to commemorate their difference-making. But in fact, most of these monuments memorialize the dark deeds of unhinged lunatics driven by rampant ego and raving greed… most of the supposed ‘great men of history’ were criminals on a rampage. We celebrate them because they ‘changed the world.’ But where’s the evidence that they...

“Until the philosophy Which hold one race superior and anotherInferiorIs finallyAnd permanentlyDiscreditedAnd abandonedEverywhere is war” — Bob Marley, War, inspired by a speech by Haile Selassie  “Emmett Till is dead and gone… Why can’t people leave the dead alone and quit trying to stir things up?” — Roy Bryant  “I think black peoples' reaction was so visceral. Everybody knew we were under attack and that attack was symbolized by the attack on a 14-year-old boy.” — Rose Jourdain  “The...

“The Puritans feared that which was undomesticated.” — Jeff Hendricks “Our earliest American heroes were Morton’s oppressors, Endicott, Bradford, Miles Standish. Merry Mount’s been expunged from the official version because it’s the story not of a virtuous utopia but of a utopia of candor. Yet it’s Morton whose face should be carved in Mount Rushmore.” — Philip Roth  “He held out the promise of America as an earthly paradise, a pagan, not a protestant prospect, a zone of pleasure, not...