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America Accidentally Attacked the Soviet Union and Other Lesser Known History Moments

Khalid Elhassan February 27, 2020 34 min

Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star - Aircraft — American F-80s in action during the Korean War. Squdron

20. History’s First Terrorist Group

Sicarii waiting to spring into action. Pintrest

In 1^st century AD Judea, the Sicarii were formed as a militant faction of the Zealots, who were themselves a radical political movement that sought to spark a rebellion against Roman rule. They ended up sparking the Jewish Revolt of 66-73 AD. While the Zealots were radical, their Sicarii splinter went to extremes that made them history’s earliest identifiable terrorists, with methods that meet modern definitions of the term.

The Sicarii, meaning “dagger men” in Latin, earned their name from the knives known as sicae, with which they killed their victims. Their goal was to cleanse the Holy Lands of Romans and their Jewish collaborators. Their standard tactic was to blend into crowds at public gatherings and wait for an opportune moment. When it presented itself, they would suddenly charge their target, stab him, and escape during the resulting confusion and panic by blending into the crowd.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.