Gratuitous American Bashing by Reuters
Hat-tip to Johah at the NRO:
Link to source:
World’s Oldest Person Celebrates 115th Birthday
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – A Dutch woman who swears by a daily helping of herring for a healthy life celebrated her 115th birthday on Wednesday as the oldest living person on record.Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper, a former needlework teacher, was born in 1890, the year Sioux Indians were massacred by the U.S. military at the Battle of Wounded Knee.
The passionate soccer fan celebrated her birthday in a nursing home in the northern Dutch town of Hoogeveen.
Here are some other noteworthy events of 1890 which the Reuters stringer ignored:
... the year Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh shot himself in the chest and died two days later.
... the year Britain received Zanzibar from Germany in exchange for Heligoland as European exploitation of Africa continued apace.
Granted, 1890 was a pretty lame year as far as things go as a Wikipedia search shows, so why not expand the timeline a bit?
... five years after King Leopold of Belgium began the systematic rape and looting of the Congo.
... 15 years before King Leopold’s Force Publique massacred men, women and children in order to force them to work on the King’s rubber plantations.
... 50 years before the May 1940 Nazi invasion of the Netherlands which resulted in the extermination of the highest percentage of Jews in Europe.
... 54 years before her Dutch neighbors turned Anne Frank and her family over to the SS.
... 98 years before the Dutch supplied poison gas to Chemical Ali used to massacre Kurds in Halabja.
