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Many events in recent and in long forgotten times occurred which have been written down by the authorities as historical events, while in fact these events where staged. They were staged on purpose to mislead the pubic to blame a patsy or a country for an attack which the patsy or country never committed. The culprits, or the once who gave the order were mostly the state itself.
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I The Great Fire of Rome
II USS Maine
III Manchurian Incident
IV Reichtag’s Fire
V Gleiwitz incident
VI Gulf of Tonkon
VII Lavon Affair
VIII Pear Harbor
IX Operation Northwoods
X 911 Attacks
XI London bombing
XIII Charley Hebdo
XIV Oklahoma City Bombing
XIV Las Vegas
XV Pittsburg Mosk bombing
XVI New Zealand Mosk attack
XVII Notre Dame
I The Great Fire of Rome
Did Nero Really Fiddle While Rome Burned?
(1) Did Nero Really Fiddle While Rome Burned?
Nero is today remembered as one of the mad and bad emperors of the Roman Empire. Nevertheless, this reputation may have been unjustly accorded to him, as some of the stories of his brutality were quite likely made up by the ancient writers, much like a lot of the media propaganda we see today. One such story is that of Nero merrily playing the fiddle while Rome burned in the Great Fire of the first century.
It was during the night of the 18 th July 64 AD, when a fire broke out in the merchant area of the city. Strong summer winds fanned the fire, with flames quickly spreading throughout the old dry wooden buildings of the city. According to the historian Tacitus, the fire raged for five day before it was finally brought under control. Of the fourteen districts of Rome, four were untouched, three were destroyed, and seven were heavily damaged. Tacitus was the only Roman writer alive during that period, apart from Pliny the Elder, who wrote about the fire. There is, however, an epistle, supposedly from Seneca the Younger to St. Paul, which states explicitly the damage done by the fire – according to him, only four blocks of insulae (a type of apartment building) and 132 private houses were damaged or destroyed. Still, one could question the motive of Seneca the Younger, as these figures were given in the context of the execution of Christians who were blamed for starting the fire. By showing that only a small amount of damage was inflicted by the fire, it would have highlighted the unjust punishment meted out against the Christians.
Artwork of the Great Fire of Rome . Photo source: Wikimedia.
In the aftermath of the fire, rumors quickly spread about the cause of the fire. As one popular account goes, Nero had been planning the construction of his grand palace, the Domus Aurea, but needed to clear a large area to accommodate the palatial complex. So he arranged for a fire to break out in order to clear the aristocratic dwellings on the slopes of the Palatine Hill and gleefully fiddled as he watched the fire encompassing Rome. He then, of course, needed a scapegoat for his actions, so he blamed the Christians for the fire because of their apocalyptic belief that Rome and the world would end by fire. This led to an active campaign against them. Both, the fire and the persecution of the Christians became the defining image of his reign. But how much of this account is actually true?
Nero and the Burning of Rome
Nero and the Burning of Rome by Henry Altemus (1897)
According to Tacitus, Nero was at Antium (about 60 km south of Rome) when the fire broke out in Rome. Thus, Nero would not have been about to watch on while it burned. Even so, Tacitus acknowledges that Nero appeared on a private stage and sang the ‘Sack of Ilium’ as a comparison between Rome’s present misfortune and the disaster that befell ancient Troy. Tacitus, however, dismisses the story as merely a rumour that was spread amongst the masses. This rumour was perhaps credible as Nero was known after all to be highly interested in the performing arts.
Notice that Tacitus does not make any reference to musical instruments. Even if Nero did perform while Rome burned, it most likely would not have been with knowledge of the fire taking place, and it would not have been a fiddle. This is due to the fact that the fiddle was not invented until much later, possibly in the 11 th century. If indeed Nero was playing some sort of musical instrument, the most likely candidate would be the cithara, an ancient Greek musical instrument in the family of the lyre.
Nero’s supposed lack of concern for Rome while it burned has stuck in our minds since the rumour first began. But Tacitus gives a very different account of Nero’s actions upon learning of the Great Fire. According to Tacitus, Nero opened up the Campus Martius and the public gardens for the people who lost their homes. In addition, he raised temporary structures, and even opened up his own gardens to shelter his subjects. In order to feed them, he brought food supplies from Ostia and the neighbouring towns, and the price of corn was reduced. Nevertheless, it is the image of Nero as the ruthless and conniving emperor that has remained in place over the centuries.
This deliberate attempt to mar the image of Nero may be due to the fact that the people who wrote Rome’s history were not very pleased with Nero. Although Suetonius and Cassius Dio claimed that the people of Rome celebrated Nero’s death, Tacitus paints a more complex picture. According to this writer, it was the upper class, the nobility, and the senators, who rejoiced at Nero’s death. By contrast, the lower class and slaves mourned Nero’s death because they felt he had their best interests at heart. Furthermore, two future emperors, Otho and Vitellius, would use the memory of Nero to gain the support of the Roman people. Thus, it may be said that the negative image that we have of Nero may not be entirely due to the evilness of the emperor himself, but due partially to the historians who wrote unfavourably about him.
This also leads us to question how much of what we know about Nero really is true. For example, according to popular accounts, Nero took great pleasure in throwing Christians to packs of dogs, and host parties while he and his guests watched Christians burning on stakes in his garden. The Sibylline Oracles, Book 5 and 8, written in the 2nd century, claimed Nero was the antichrist, and it has even been suggested that the number 666 in the Book of Revelation is a code for Nero.
The brutality of Rome and its emperors is well known and well recorded, as was the persecution of Christians, but are such horror stories ascribed to Nero based on fact, or has history been manipulated by those who sought to use it to gain and maintain power? Historians today continue to search for answers to these questions, and as excavations on his palace continue, more and more information is emerging about Nero and the world he reigned over. As for Rome, a city made of marble and stone grew from the ashes of the Great Fire.
Featured image: Image of Nero fiddling while Rome burns by leviathansmiles
By Ḏḥwty
References:
https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-famous-people/did-nero-really-fiddle-while-rome-burned-001919\
Ask History, 2012. Did Nero really fiddle while Rome burned?. [Online]
Available at: http://www.history.com/news/ask-history/did-nero-really-fiddle-while-rome-burned
Clark, J., 2014. Did Nero really play the fiddle while Rome burned?. [Online]
Available at: http://history.howstuffworks.com/history-vs-myth/nero.htm
Gill, N. S., 2014. Nero Burning Rome. [Online]
Available at: http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/nero/qt/012911-Nero-Burning-Rome.htm
Gyles, M. F., 1947. Nero Fiddled While Rome Burned. [Online]
Available at: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Journals/CJ/42/4/Nero_Fiddled*.html
Upton, E., 2012. Nero Didn’t Fiddle While Rome Burned. [Online]
Available at: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/07/nero-didnt-fiddle-while-rome-burned/
Wikipedia, 2014. Nero. [Online]
Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero
II USS MAINE
The island of Cuba was first claimed by Spain in 1492 when Christopher Columbus landed on the island. They remained a Spanish colony until the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898. For many years the Cuban natives attempted to free themselves from the rule of Spain and gain their independence. The horrendous actions of the Spanish in the years leading up to this war and the yellow journalism tactics of American newspaper men like William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer helped gain the sympathy of the American people towards the rebel cause. The U.S. government was also interested in controlling Cuba and the other Spanish owned Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico.
The USS Maine arrived in Havana Harbor on January 25th, 1898 to protect U.S. interests and civilians during pro Spanish rioting in Havana. This had a calming effect on the riots. Then on February 15th the forward hull of the Maine exploded in a devastating blast and was sunk. 266 of the 355 sailors on board were killed.
The papers of Hearst and Pulitzer wasted no time in casting the blame on the Spanish and sounded the alarm to go to war. The Navy, in another classic case of the government investigating itself, determined that a mine caused the blast despite the fact they had no real forensic evidence. They would not however place any blame on who was responsible for the mine. This didn’t matter though as the U.S. public’s mind was already made up. “Remember the Maine, to hell with Spain” was the cry. The USS Maine false flag was born.
The day following the blast Theodore Roosevelt wrote a letter to a friend and proclaimed, “Being a Jingo, as I am writing confidentially, I will say, to relieve my feelings, that I would give anything if President McKinley would order the fleet to Havana tomorrow. This Cuban business ought to stop. The Maine was sunk by an act of dirty treachery on the part of the Spaniards, I believe; though we shall never find out definitely, and officially it will go down as an accident.”
President McKinley went to Congress and got permission to place a blockade of Cuba on April 21st. Spain then declared war on the U.S. on April 23rd and immediately following the U.S. followed suit and declared war on Spain on April 25th. The war was over within three and a half months and ended August 12th with a U.S. victory. The Treaty of Paris (1898) had Spain forfeit control of Cuba, The Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, and parts of the West Indies.
In 1911, the Department of the Navy floated the remains of the ship and conducted another investigation. They once again concluded that the blast was the result of a mine. Many investigators disagree and have a conflicting theory that there was spontaneous combustion of coal next to the magazine of ammunition in the forward hull. The evidence suggests that the blast blew outward from the hull and not inward as a mine would cause.
Regardless of whether a mine did the damage or not, Spain never claimed responsibility for the blast and the fact that Spanish officials and civilians from the ship City of Washington helped with the survivors speaks volumes as to whether Spain had any intentions of war towards the United States or not.
Crucible of Empire – The Spanish American War:
reference https://www.falseflag.info/uss-maine/
III Manchurian Incident
Manchurian Incident
Manchurian Incident or Mukden Incident, 1931, confrontation that gave Japan the impetus to set up a puppet government in Manchuria. After the Russo-Japanese War (1904–5), Japan replaced Russia as the dominant foreign power in S Manchuria. By the late 1920s the Japanese feared that unification of China under the Kuomintang party would imperil Japanese interests in Manchuria. This view was confirmed when the Manchurian general Chang Hsüeh-liang , a recent convert to the Kuomintang, refused to halt construction of railway and harbor facilities in competition with the South Manchurian Railway , referring Japan to the Nationalist central government. When a bomb of unknown origin ripped the Japanese railway near Shenyang (then known as Mukden), the Japanese Kwantung army guarding the railway used the incident as a pretext to occupy S Manchuria (Sept., 1931). Despite Japanese cabinet opposition and a pledge before the League of Nations to withdraw to the railway zone, the army completed the occupation of Manchuria and proclaimed the puppet state of Manchukuo (Feb., 1932). See Sino-Japanese War, Second .
See T. Yoshihashi, Conspiracy at Mukden (1963); S. N. Ogata, Defiance in Manchuria (1964).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Chinese, Taiwanese, and Mongolian History
Reference: https://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/history/asia-africa/china-mongolia/manchurian-incident
IV Reichtag’s Fire
V Gleiwitz incident
VI Gulf of Tonkon
VII Lavon Affair
VIII Pear Harbor
IX Operation Northwoods
X 911 Attacks
XI London bombing
XIII Charley Hebdo
XIV Oklahoma City Bombing
XIV Las Vegas
XV Pittsburg Mosk bombing
XVI New Zealand Mosk attack
XVII Notre Dame