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These Famous People had Truly Bad Sides to their Personalities

Khalid Elhassan September 15, 2021 36 min

Awful People - Stalin overseeing the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact — Stalin overseeing the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Euromaidan

Captain Bligh and loyal sailors cast adrift after the Mutiny on the Bounty. The Telegraph

19. Captain Bligh Turned Out to be an Inspirational Hero After the Mutiny Aboard the Bounty

When the Bounty finally weighed anchor and raised sails for the long journey back home, the jarring contrast between the dreary ship life and the paradise they had left behind was too much for many of the ship’s crew. So they decided to mutiny. On April 28^th, 1789, disaffected sailors led by acting-Lieutenant Fletcher Christian seized the ship, ditched Bligh and 18 other sailors loyal to him on a 23-foot boat, gave them provisions for five days, cast them adrift, and returned to Tahiti.

Voyage of the Bounty before the mutiny in red, after the mutiny in yellow, and of William Bligh and the loyal sailors in a boat in green. Wikimedia

The deposed captain’s conduct after the mutiny was actually inspirational. Bligh and the men aboard his boat had been left to die in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, thousands of miles from civilization. Instead, he demonstrated brilliant leadership under adversity. Bligh kept his men alive and navigated the dinky boat nearly 4000 until they reached civilization, all the while he battled thirst, hunger, illness, and the occasional hostile natives. It was one of the most extraordinary feats of seamanship in history.

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.