Won a major battle in New Orleans in the War of 1812 (the one where Canada burned down the White House), securing the respect of his peers. He was elected as the seventh president of the U.S.A., where he helped form the American Political system, and got his face on the 20 dollar bill. In his term he reduced national Debt, caused several structural changes to the bureaucratic and political system (including the implementation of the Spoils System), and pushed for expansionism, allowing the US to grow to the size it is today.
what's so crazy about him?
Jackson was Crazy He earned the nickname "Old Hickory" in his war days for being almost completely indestructible, and for regularly beating the **** out of people with a hickory walking stick. He won the battle at New Orleans by virtue of his both being a ****-***, and by hiring a crap-load of pirates to help out. That's right, pirates. They even brought their cannons down into the artillery. His men won with only about 24 deaths.
He was also known for participating in a great many duels. Understand that back then, duels were fought with muskets, the most hideously inaccurate gun in the history of guns. This meant a duel consisted of just shooting at one another until the other guy was so scared and/or bloodied that he surrendered. During his duels, Jackson sustained so many bullet wounds that (according to biographer Chris Wallace) he was known to "rattle like a bag of marbles" when he walked, and cough up blood on a regular basis. After seeing the guy take a few shots to the abdomen, and taking a few themselves, most surrendered, and Jackson only once ever actually killed a man in a duel
This unlucky individual was Charles *********, who was convinced by Jackson's political opponents to make fun of his wife, who Jackson he married before she divorced her first husband. Jackson, who just didn't stand for that kinda s***, challenged him to a duel. Then, even though ********* was well known as being an award-winning marksman, he let ********* shoot first. Just to reiterate, he actually had made money off of being particularly good at shooting things, and Jackson let him be first to try to shoot at him. ********* shot him square in the chest, missing his heart by about one inch. While any sane human being would have screamed all ****** **** and called for a medic, Jackson straightened up and shot the guy in the face, killing him instantly.
Jackson was also the first president on whom an ************* was attempted. The would-be ******** (a guy named Richard Lawrence who thought he was King Richard the Third) opted to try to shoot Jackson, even though he was by now probably more bullet than actual living flesh. Lawrence ran up to him, pulled out his gun, pointed at Jackson's heart, and pulled the trigger.
The gun misfired. So he pulled out a second gun he brought with him, pointed it at his heart, and pulled the trigger. In what can only be called a statistical miracle, it also misfired. Jackson charged the man with fire in his eyes, and proceeded to beat the living ******* of him with his walking stick until his aides pulled him off, with the help of local bystanders (including Davy Crockett). Lawrence later said that he "only felt genuine fear when he saw the 67-year-old president charge."
2. Pythagoras
Pythagoras was one of the founding fathers of mathematics. Aside from being credited with writing the Pythagorean Theorem, he also conducted a great deal of work with sound and harmonics, and discovered the Golden Ratio. The Golden Ratio is a number that represents the geometric relationship "A is to B what B is to C" and it appears a good deal in nature as well as art.
Pythagoras also created a model of the universe in which the universe was a series of glass spheres, all turning in harmony, with the earth at the center. This dominated astronomy for about 2,000 years, and was the favored view of the Catholic church who felt it was proof of ***. And we all know that you can't argue with the Catholics, or they'll Torture you.
what's so crazy about him?
He had a cult. A weird one. Not, you know, one of the average, lives in aspaceship under Antarctica cults. No, this was a number cult. Sure, they had all the weird rules. Have *** in the summer, not the winter, only drink water, only eat uncooked foods, don't wear wool, etc. Oh, and never ever eat beans. They make you fart and are "like the genitalia" therefore they are pure evil.
But they were also obsessed with numbers and geometry. Every number was a shape and every shape represented a number. And every number-shape had a purpose, a divine meaning, and a place in the order of everything. And Pythagoras loved them all.
Their symbol was a number-shape (of course), it was the number five, the pentagram, because the pentagram was infinite. The pentagram contained a pentagon. The pentagon, if all corners were connected, formed another pentagram, which was proportionate in every way to the original and which formed another pentagon. Pythagoras saw more numbers in music, in the ratios of the strings and the beauty of the notes. In fact, his views on philosophy can be summarized in his own words "All is numbers."
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