These Times History Took a Turn for the Batty

1. Gandhi Slept Naked With Young Girls

Mahatma Gandhi, who led India’s independence struggle, is one of the 20^th century’s most revered figures. Along the way, he perfected the strategy and tactics of nonviolent civil disobedience and inspired other independence and civil rights movements around the world. Martin Luther King studied Gandhi’s methods, and used them in America’s Civil Rights movement. In his private life, however, Gandhi was a complex man, as evinced by his sleeping habits.

Gandhi slept naked with young girls. Supposedly, he did so to test his willpower and strengthen his resistance to the temptations of the flesh. However, it was probably less about spirituality, and more about the gratification of sexual desires. As an early acolyte who shared Gandhi’s bed put it after his death: “Later on, when people started asking questions about the physical contact with women … the idea of experiments was developed… in the early days, there was no question of calling it an experiment“.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Ancient History Encyclopedia – Draco’s Law Code

Ancient Origins – The Brutal Draconian Laws of Ancient Greece

Baltimore Sun, March 25^th, 2005 – English Civil War Led to Battle on Severn

Cracked – How a Petty Scam Ended in Bloody Human Sacrifice

CrimeZZZ Net – Serial Killers Hernandez, Cayetano; Hernandez, Santos; and Solis, Magdalena

Encyclopedia Britannica – Profumo Affair

History Extra, November 1^st, 2013 – Where the Pulverized Bones of Soldiers and Horses Who Died at the Battle of Waterloo Sold as Soil Fertilizer?

History Naked – Blind to His Fate: The Heroic Life and Death of John of Bohemia

Independent, The, September 18^th, 2015 – King Edward VIII: Uncle Who Encouraged Young Queen’s Nazi Salute Plotted With Adolf Hitler to Regain Throne

India Today, November 30^th, 1999 – Mahatma & Manuben: Newly Discovered Diaries of Gandhi’s Personal Attendant Reveal How His Experiments With Celibacy Changed Her Life

National Geographic History Magazine, June 11^th, 2019 – Money Was Not Enough For Crassus, the Richest Man in Rome

New York Times, July 3^rd, 2010 – America’s Revolution: The Prequel

Open Learn – What is the Evidence That King Edward VIII Was a Nazi Sympathizer?

Radzinsky, Edvard – The Rasputin File (2001)

Smithsonian Magazine, October 11^th, 2011 – Edison vs Westinghouse: A Shocking Rivalry

Smithsonian Magazine, November 25th, 2015 – Reagan and Gorbachev Agreed to Pause the Cold War in Case of Alien Invasion

Soldiers of Misfortune – The Taiping Rebellion and the Formation of the Ever Victorious Army

Tudor Society – The Madness of Juana of Castile

Vanity Fair, June 1^st, 2008 – Lost in Enemy Airspace

Wikipedia – Arthur Aston (Army Officer)

Wikipedia – Electrocuting an Elephant

Wikipedia – Shrigley Abduction