| 1 | ->''"Well, [[UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy Mister President]], you can't say that the people of [[UsefulNotes/DFWMetroplex Dallas]] haven't given you a warm welcome!"'' |
| 2 | -->-- [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_assassination Nellie Connally, 22nd of November 1963]] |
| 3 | |
| 4 | * Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini's tragic second defense of his WBA lightweight title against South Korean boxer Duk Koo Kim at Caesars Palace in 1982: after 13 punishing rounds, the camera cuts to the little-known South Korean challenger in his corner and commentator Tim Ryan says: "This is the challenger, Duk-koo Kim. You may not have heard of him before. You will remember him today, win or lose." A few seconds later, Mancini hit Kim with a right hook, knocking Kim to the ground and, at that point unknown to anyone, causing a massive subdural hematoma. As the Kim struggled to rise, referee Richard Green declared Mancini the winner by TKO. Unaware of Kim's condition, Mancini celebrated with his corner and the cameras for several long minutes, before commending Kim's "tremendous chin" in the post-match interview. Four days later, Kim died at Desert Springs Hospital, and both Kim and Mancini became infamous. |
| 5 | * During the filming of ''Film/TheCrow'', the crews of other films shooting nearby had a joke that the production was cursed due to the high number of accidents, punishing production schedule (permitted because it was filmed in Wilmington, in "right-to-work" North Carolina), cocaine use among the crew, and too-low budget. This became HarsherInHindsight ''twice''; firstly when a fire destroyed part of the other films' sets (and most of ''The Crow'''s), and secondly, with the tragic, accidental, and easily-preventable fatal shooting of [=Brandon Lee=]. |
| 6 | * As you may have seen on other HarsherInHindsight subpages, the tragedies of September 11th, 2001 in New York, New York; Arlington, Virginia; and Shanksville, Pennsylvania left a lot of ill tastes in a lot of media. Even the date September 11th was considered a downer for people who were born on it (cf. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludacris Christopher "Ludacris" Bridges]]). |
| 7 | ** Also that same day, a blue-ribbon panel released the final and definitive report, roughly an hour earlier, concerning another massive sneak attack on the U.S.: the one on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. |
| 8 | ** It gets even [[CrossesTheLineTwice more brutal]] when you consider that [[http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/11/nyregion/news-summary-129348.html?scp=8&sq=arrest&st=nyt the headlines of the New York Times newspaper that morning]] talked about arrests in an airline hijacking case, confiscated uranium-235 on the black market, and the Taliban killing off the last of their opposition. [[NightmareFuel And then the men at the front of the plane stand up...]] |
| 9 | ** It's even worse when you realize that the date coincides with the infamous [[https://bit.ly/390uNoI 1973 coup d'etat in Chile]], which led to a dictatorship with the hobby of UnPerson dissidents and was long speculated to have been orchestrated by the U.S. |
| 10 | ** And, naturally, '''every''' source of media that depicted MonumentalDamage for NYC got hit with this afterward. |
| 11 | ** A December 5, 1993 article of the British newspaper The Independent is titled "Anti-Soviet Warrior Puts His Army on the Road to Peace." The subject of the article was none other than Osama Bin Laden, fresh off his work fighting for the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan and nearly 8 years before the tragedies of September 11th, 2001. |
| 12 | ** After September 11th, 2001, Howard Stern suggested that America bomb a Middle Eastern nation in retaliation. In 2003, the U.S. invaded Iraq, deposing Saddam Hussein, even though they weren't involved in the attacks, leading to a long, costly occupation. |
| 13 | * In the days leading up to the primary for the New York City mayoral election of 2001, Democrat Mark Green [[http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/mark-green-son-details-tumult-2001-mayor-race-record-9-11-election-blog-entry-1.1694899 repeatedly touted]] the "Twin Towers of [his] plan to run City Hall." The primary, scheduled for September 11th that year, had to be postponed two weeks due to the destruction of said towers. |
| 14 | * "Hitler indicates only one way out of the over-population of Europe, primarily of Germany, and that is the East. (...) The Nazis are against assimilation but not against annexation. They prefer the extermination of the conquered 'inferior' peoples to their Germanization. For the time being, fortunately, [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII this is only a matter of hypothetical conquests]]." UsefulNotes/LeonTrotsky on UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler |
| 15 | * The French right despised the Jewish Prime Minister Leon Blum so much that one of their most famous slogans was "Better Hitler than Blum." [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor They got]] [[LiteralGenie their wish]]. Of course, as the French ''right'', [[LesCollaborateurs they didn't mind]]. |
| 16 | * ''War of Machines'' contains the line "Japanese scientists further advised their government that neither the Germans nor the Americans could possibly deflect enough of their productive resources to a bomb project to have a weapon [usable] in the current war." |
| 17 | * During [[TheEdwardianEra the early 1900s]], Germans composed [[BlackComedy a satirical song]] which contained the verse: ''"a corpse floats on the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landwehr_Canal Landwehrkanal]]"''. In January 1919, Communist activist Rosa Luxemburg famously got murdered and thrown into the said Canal. |
| 18 | * During UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, the Entente frequently propagated that Germany and its allies were committing genocide in its occupied territories. And while the Germans were pretty trigger-happy when it came to executing civilians in reprisal for partisan attacks, especially in Belgium, it barely rose to the level of war crimes, let alone genocide, which didn't stop the British and French from propagating the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_of_Belgium 'Rape of Belgium']]. Thus, [[CryingWolf when the same accusation was made three decades later, not a lot of people believed it.]] Only after 1945 did these exact things came to light and they were revealed to have been a whole ''lot'' grander than imagined, not just in Belgium but in other parts of Europe as well. Guess who were the ones responsible? The facts speak for themselves in the most macabre and irrefutable manner possible and suddenly, the whole world collectively got nonplussed. An entire generation would forever be scarred after this [[TheForties particular decade]]. |
| 19 | ** Germany may not have been guilty of genocide at the time but ask any descendant of the Armenian Diaspora and they'll tell you that the "allies" part is spot-on and may have inspired those grander events. |
| 20 | * [[TheRoaringTwenties In 1925]], when [[{{UsefulNotes/ThePresidentsOfGermany}} Generalfeldmarschall Paul von Hindenburg]] ran for President of the German Reich, philosopher and professor Theodor Lessing wrote a scathing article on him, ending: "No philosopher ascends the throne in Hindenburg. Only a representative symbol, a question mark, a zero. One might say: better a zero than a [[{{UsefulNotes/Nero}} Nero]]. Sadly, history shows that behind every zero lurks a future Nero." [[{{UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler}} He certainly did lurk, man]]. |
| 21 | * An American journalist, [[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,764628,00.html Eugene P. Lyle Jr.]], wrote that by 1938 [[TemptingFate a defeated Germany would rise again to start]] [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII a war of "monstrous proportions"]]. This was in 1918, ''two months'' before the end of [=WW1=] (which caused everyone to forget about the article, according to the link). |
| 22 | ** He wasn't alone in this prediction, either--the list of people who expected this to happen (especially at the end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI as the peace was negotiated) is sufficient and push it through this trope and into wondering how one would think it really ''was'' going to be the War to End All Wars. Among the most influential voices warning of conflict as a consequence of the peace treaties was the great economist [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Consequences_of_the_Peace John Maynard Keynes]]. |
| 23 | ** When Ferdinand Foch took one look at the Treaty of Versailles (signed June 28, 1919), the agreement that ended UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, he said "This is not a peace. It is an armistice for 20 years." Guess what happened [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII on September 1, 1939, 20 years and two months later?]] |
| 24 | *** This is a bit of an unusual example, however, if only because unlike most modern commentators, Ferdinand Foch's argument was not that the Treaty was too harsh but rather that ''it wasn't harsh enough''. Foch was among many French statesmen and military figures who believed that Germany after WWI should have been partitioned and forcibly disarmed. Incidentally, this is EXACTLY what Machiavelli proposed (roughly paraphrased): either destroy your enemies so utterly that they cannot seek revenge or be lenient so that any desire for revenge would be outweighed by the fear of another defeat. After [=WW2=] both happened: West Germany was treated leniently and became a staunch NATO ally throughout the worst of the Cold War. East Germany was totally stripped of anything useful and lost almost all of its autonomy to the USSR. In other words, the Treaty managed to be EXACTLY wrong, proving practically all of its critics right. Of course, that treatment also resulted in [[UsefulNotes/ColdWar a bad side-effect...]] |
| 25 | *** Even the USA, not famous for treating beaten foes kindly, considered the treaty too extreme and refused to be a part of it, forging its own treaty with Germany instead. |
| 26 | * Before World War I, Norman Angell published a book titled ''The Great Illusion'', arguing that economic dependence between great powers made an all-out war between them difficult, if at all possible. (Not necessarily illogical--For example, German steel industry before World War I was dependent on British coal, while the British armaments industry was, in turn, dependent on German steel, produced with British coal. Having to readjust sources of industrial inputs during World War I was extremely painful for all involved.) Within a few years of its publication, World War I broke out. Undaunted, a second and revised edition was published in 1933. Not long afterward, World War II broke out. |
| 27 | ** Something of a subversion: ''The Great Illusion'' argued that any war would be too costly to be considered logical, making peace between all the major nations the best possible choice...and that proved right: after both world wars, the European powers (and Japan) went on to lose ALL of their colonies, gained no territory, accrued debt that took DECADES to pay off, and ended up trapped in a Cold War that terrified EVERYONE who lived through it with the possibility of nuclear extinction and forced military spending up so high for the US/NATO and the USSR/PACT countries that both ended up in a massive number of proxy wars in an attempt to justify the cost of their militarism, for fear that the civilians would undermine the military budget and lead either power unable to face the other. If neither war had occurred, the 20th century could very well have been the most prosperous in history; instead, it became the most terrifying. Specifically, if World War I hadn't occurred, the Great Depression and the later wars would never have occurred either. |
| 28 | ** In fact, current policy is peace through economic co-dependence. Unfortunately, this has given rise to the trend of exporting jobs, as economically linked countries are all brought down by one weak link, and the far lower cost of labor in less regulated nations like China and India have lead to massive human rights violations, child labor scandals and economic downturn in western nations. |
| 29 | * [[HopeSpot "I'm finally getting optimistic.]] Now, at last, things are going well! They really are! Great news! An assassination attempt has been made on Hitler's life [...] the prospect of going back to school in October is making me too happy to be logical!" [[DownerEnding That's the second-to-last entry in Anne Frank's diary.]] |
| 30 | * [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfWindsor King George V]] of the United Kingdom said about his eldest son, the future Edward VIII: "After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself in twelve months." He was even a bit too optimistic: Edward VIII lasted only [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_VIII#Abdication 10 months and 20 days]] on the throne. |
| 31 | * At midnight on July 20, 2012, Jessica Gawhi, one of the victims at the Aurora theater shooting in Colorado, had this to say on [[http://twitpic.com/a9vfbk her twitter post]] with her mom: "Get some sleep, mom. I'm really excited for you to come visit. I need my mama" This was posted at 1:04 AM, just moments before she was killed in the theater. The [[http://jessicaredfield.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/late-night-thoughts-on-the-eaton-center-shooting/ last post on her blog]] is about having missed the June 2, 2012, Toronto mass shooting by minutes, including "After Saturday evening, I know I truly understand how blessed I am for each second I am given." Relatedly, in 2008 Forbes published a list titled [[http://www.forbes.com/2008/12/10/media-newspapers-news-biz-media-cx_jz_1210boringcities.html "America's 10 Most Boring Cities"]]. Aurora is on that list. |
| 32 | * ‘Amit Zhorno, the daughter of Jerusalem-based attorney Natan Zhorno, wrote a Facebook status saying, "A morning of new beginnings," on the morning of her and her father’s murder. |
| 33 | * German romantic-nationalist poet and liberal thinker Heinrich Heine is most famous today for his observation that "Where they burn books, in the end, they will burn people too", made in 1821 in a play about the Spanish Inquisition. Heine's works were censored in his own time and later literally burned by the Nazis. Heine was a Jew. |
| 34 | ** This is the concluding passage of Heine's ''Religion and Philosophy in Germany'', written in 1832: "Christianity -- and that is its greatest merit -- has somewhat mitigated that brutal German love of war, but it could not destroy it. Should that subduing talisman, the cross, be shattered, the frenzied madness of the ancient warriors, that insane Berserk rage of which Nordic bards have spoken and sung so often, will once more burst into flame...The old stone gods will then rise from long ruins and rub the dust of a thousand years from their eyes, and Thor will leap to life with his giant hammer and smash the Gothic cathedrals...Thought precedes action as lightning precedes thunder. German thunder...comes rolling somewhat slowly, but...its crash...will be unlike anything before in the history of the world. ...At that uproar, the eagles of the air will drop dead, and lions in farthest Africa will draw in their tails and slink away. ...A play will be performed in Germany which will make the French Revolution look like an innocent idyll." The irony of all of this is that Hitler didn't even need to get rid of Christianity, just utilize centuries-old biases in the Christian population and twist the religion to his own whims, forming what was called [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Christianity "Positive Christianity"]]. |
| 35 | ---> '''Adolf Hitler''': And the Founder of Christianity made no secret indeed of His estimation of the Jewish people. When He found it necessary He drove those enemies of the human race out of the Temple of God; because then, as always, they used religion as a means of advancing their commercial interests. But at that time Christ was nailed to the Cross for his attitude towards the Jews; whereas our modern Christians enter into party politics and when elections are being held they debase themselves to beg for Jewish votes. They even enter into political intrigues with the atheistic Jewish parties against the interests of their own Christian nation. |
| 36 | ** Heine's use of Pagan imagery can definitely be harsher in hindsight. The Schutzstaffel is largely considered the scariest part of Nazi Germany, what with the role they played in the liquidations of untermenschen. While the rumors of Hitler being into the Occult aren't true, the leader of the Schutzstaffel, Heinrich Himmler, was a real Neo-Pagan. He even had a spiritual adviser, Karl Wiligut, who believed himself to be a descendant of Thor. Heine and Himmler even have the same first name. |
| 37 | ** Even though there wasn't a revival of Germanic Paganism in the Third Reich, there was certainly a revival of the culture of Germanic Paganism. The Nazis promoted a form of German Romanticism that centered on ancient Pagan traditions, blood and soil, and Wagnerian theatrics. The infamous Nuremberg Rallies are a good example of this. The SS were also, what you can call, "culturally Pagan." The rituals and ceremonies that were a part of SS life were based on ancient Heathen practices. And in addition to Himmler and Wiligut, a few SS members were worshiping the old gods. |
| 38 | * The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jennings_Bryan#Fighting_the_theory_of_evolution:_1918.E2.80.931925 opinion of William Jennings Bryan]] (prosecutor in Scopes Trial among other things) that Social Darwinism was undermining morality in Germany. The resulting eugenics movements of course being implemented in [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_T4 varying degrees]] involuntarily on the disabled or otherwise "handicapped (mentally or physically)" in Nazi Germany until the Catholic Bishops in Germany [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_T4#Opposition let it be known]] they considered the issue was non-negotiable, and Hitler needed all his troops available for his invasion of the Soviet Union. Also, by then Germany had newly conquered territory, so his killers were sent abroad to set up death camps for the Jews (though his eugenics movements continued on a smaller scale unofficially). Somewhat funny in hindsight in that Hitler technically died a Catholic (the only Nazi to be excommunicated was Goebbels - for marrying a Protestant, while Hitler had long ago stopped actively participating he was never formally separated from the church). Hitler promised religious education for youths in return for an endorsement from the Church. Now the Church supports the theory of evolution and the average American is woefully ignorant of it. Not to mention the US was conducting sterilization programs and the Tuskegee syphilis trials at the time. |
| 39 | * These statements from various world political figures of the 1930s make painful reading. A little digging reveals hundreds more. |
| 40 | -->'''Pope Pius XI''': UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler...a man implacably imposed to Bolshevism in all its forms. |
| 41 | -->'''Neville Chamberlain:''' My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. (''Not'' "[[BeamMeUpScotty Peace in our time!]]") |
| 42 | -->'''Stalin:''' I hope that the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact will mark a decisive turn for the better in the political relations between our two countries. |
| 43 | -->'''Ludwig Kaas:''' Hitler knows how to guide the ship. |
| 44 | -->'''Charles Lindbergh:''' Instead of agitating for war the Jewish groups in this country should be opposing it in every possible way, for they will be among the first to feel its consequences. Tolerance is a virtue that depends upon peace and strength. History shows that it cannot survive war and devastation. A few farsighted Jewish people realize this and stand opposed to intervention. But the majority still do not. Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government. |
| 45 | * A lot of quotes from Bismarck (who helped to found the Second German Empire and was its chancellor until 1890) fall under that: |
| 46 | ** About the foundation of a German state in 1871: "Let us lift Germany, so to speak, into the saddle. Surely when that is achieved, it will succeed at riding as well." It didn't. After 1900, Germany spent the first 45 years of the century starting, fighting, and losing two world wars, had three different governments who all failed in the end, and was divided into two different countries after that. It took another 45 years until Germany was reunited. |
| 47 | ** "Not by speeches and votes of the majority are the great questions of the time decided — that was the error of 1848 and 1849 — but by iron and blood." The foundation of the Second German Empire happened after three "uniting wars" and that was a reason said empire was very militaristic. Said empire being militaristic was a reason UsefulNotes/WorldWarI broke out, and something Nazi propaganda made use of when starting UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. |
| 48 | ** "Hit the Poles so hard that they despair of their life; I have full sympathy with their condition, but if we want to survive, we can only exterminate them." During UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, Poland was one of the first victims of German aggression, and the country with the highest casualties;[[note]]in proportion to pre-war population; the highest overall casualties belong to the citizens of the Soviet Union[[/note]] half of the Jews killed during UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust were Polish. |
| 49 | ** Bismarck also disturbingly predicted the end of the [[{{Kaiserreich}} German Empire]]: "The crash will come twenty years after my departure if things go on like this". He was right on both the Kaiser's way of running things and the final. Bismarck died on July 30, 1898. The Empire collapsed when the Kaiser crossed the border on November 10, 1918 - 20 years, 3 months, and 11 days afterward. |
| 50 | * Former [[{{UsefulNotes/HerbertHoover}} President Herbert Hoover]] said in a radioed speech on June 29, 1941, one week into [[{{UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo}} Operation Barbarossa]]: "If we go further and join the war and we win, then we have won for Stalin the grip of communism on Russia... Again I say, if we join the war and Stalin wins, we have aided him to impose more communism on Europe and the world. War alongside Stalin to impose freedom is more than a travesty. It is a tragedy". By 1944-1945, people could say he had seen the future into a CrystalBall. |
| 51 | * "Anyone who has to fight, even with the most modern weapons, against an enemy in complete command of the air, fights like a savage [[EvilColonialist against modern European troops]], under the same handicaps and with the same chances of success" - said [[{{UsefulNotes/ErwinRommel}} Field Marshal Erwin Rommel]]. This is just what happened on the [[{{UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo}} Western Front]] after the summer of 1944 and the reason for which Rommel himself got strafed by a fighter plane and grievously wounded. |
| 52 | * ''Magazine/{{Playboy}}'' Playmate Dorothy Stratten, in her profile, listed "jealous people" as a turn-off. In 1980, she was murdered by her jealous husband, Paul Snider. |
| 53 | * UsefulNotes/MartinLutherKingJr's "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech, in which he relates being stabbed in the heart years before, when if he had even sneezed he would have died. He goes on to list all the remarkable things he had done since then, from sit-ins to freedom rides, to telling the USA about a dream he had, all of which he could not have done or seen had he died. He then goes on to acknowledge the threats that have been made against him, and states that "like anybody, I would like to live a long life", but concludes by telling his audience, "I have seen the promised land! I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything! I'm not fearing any man!" King gave this speech on the night of April 3, 1968. His assassination was on April ''fourth.'' In effect, King was reciting his own eulogy. To a point, he may have been expecting it or at least anticipated that someone might try to kill him, since he often gave versions of the "Promised Land" speech when violent events were happening, like the riots that had just broken out in Memphis. |
| 54 | ** ''WesternAnimation/TheBoondocks'' referenced this by positing an AlternateUniverse where King merely lay unconscious in a coma until very recently, and how he reacted to the modern world when he woke up. |
| 55 | ** To fully understand the speech, you must remember that Dr. King was a minister, and you need to read [[Literature/TheBible Deuteronomy]]. |
| 56 | * The musical ''Theatre/SeventeenSeventySix'' actually changed a quote of the real Samuel Adams (cousin of UsefulNotes/JohnAdams, who was given the quote in the musical) to avoid this. His comment on removing the slavery clause in the Declaration of Independence: "If we give in on this, there will be trouble a hundred years hence; posterity will never forgive us." He was off by a decade and a half. This and RealityIsUnrealistic: the writer feared the audience would think he was {{Anvilicious}}, not realizing Samuel Adams actually said this. |
| 57 | * Three-time UsefulNotes/FormulaOne champion Ayrton Senna once said "I want to live fully, very intensely. I would never want to live partially, suffering from illness or injury. If I ever happen to have an accident that eventually costs my life, I hope it happens in one instant." That's ''exactly'' what happened when he crashed and died at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. |
| 58 | ** On top of that, he denied the opportunity to drive in the UsefulNotes/IndyCar Series in 1992, because he was too scared of crashing into the wall with more than 220 miles per hour. |
| 59 | ** During the Eurosport coverage of the second qualifying session of the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, the commentators spoke at great length on how safe [=F1=] cars were these days and how driver safety was at the best it's ever been. This was interrupted by the sight of a wrecked Simtek spinning to a halt with Roland Ratzenberger at the wheel, dead. |
| 60 | * In 1969, Music/JohnLennon remarked in an interview that he tried to be as humourous as possible with regards to his political agenda because 'all the serious people, like Martin Luther King and Kennedy and Gandhi, got shot." Just over ten years after that interview, Lennon got shot. |
| 61 | ** Many of Lennon's interviews of 1980, some of which were recorded on December 8, 1980, find Lennon looking forward to the future, discussing [[WhatCouldHaveBeen plans for a tour and a musical based on his life with Yoko]], and state "when I'm dead and buried--which I hope is a long time from now". Also, one unreleased demo from that period is titled "Life Begins At 40". Not to mention that John, Paul, George, and Ringo had patched up their relationships [[WhatCouldHaveBeen and had begun talks of a massive Beatles Reunion tour..]]. |
| 62 | ** In an interview in the sixties, John was asked how he expected to die. He replied, "I'll probably be popped off by some loony." |
| 63 | * At the Memorial Amphitheater in Arlington National Cemetery, which houses the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the archway leading into the amphitheater is inscribed with words from Horace: "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" - "It is sweet and honorable to die for one's country." The Memorial Amphitheater was opened in 1913 by UsefulNotes/WoodrowWilson. By the end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, those words would be inextricably linked to Wilfred Owen's poem about the waste and futility of war [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulce_et_Decorum_est Dulce et Decorum est indeed]]. Worse, [[DownerEnding Owen was killed just days before the Armistice occurred]]. |
| 64 | * [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Maravich "Pistol" Pete Maravich,]] at age 25: "I don't want to play 10 years and then die of a heart attack when I'm 40." After a 10-year NBA career, Maravich collapsed and died of a heart attack on January 5, 1988 -- a little more than six months shy of his 41st birthday. |
| 65 | * During an interview, [[Music/TheDoors Jim Morrison]] heard about the deaths of Music/JimiHendrix and Music/JanisJoplin. Turning to the interviewer, he held up his glass and said: "You're drinking with number three." Not too long afterward, he was gone. |
| 66 | * [[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/101896-BP-Offshore-Oil-Drilling-Board-Game-Has-Unfortunate-Implications This board game.]] Or maybe it's HilariousInHindsight, depending on your sense of humor. (And yes, your rig could blow up in the game, for a penalty of one million dollars. I guess that one actually had the safeguards installed.) |
| 67 | * Horace, the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of [[UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire Augustus]], wrote in his ''Epodes'' a chilling perspective for the future Roman Empire: |
| 68 | ---> Now another age is worn away by civil wars, and Rome itself collapses with its own strength...we, impious age devoted of those devoted to blood, will destroy the land, and the land will again be taken over by wild beasts. Alas, a barbarian conqueror will stand on the ashes, and the cavalry will strike the city with resounding hooves, and the bones of Quirinus which are removed from the winds and the sun will be scattered arrogantly (a crime to behold). |
| 69 | He wrote so in the 1st century BCE, unknowing that 5 centuries later (5th century CE) the empire ''would'' collapse on itself (decay, instability, too much borders to protect) clearing the way for the Germanic tribes to invade the lands of the former empire. |
| 70 | * In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cjf27-uY0Ss&feature=related this interview]], David Foster Wallace talks about how, even though there have been hard times in his life, and he doesn't have a clear path or motivation going forward, it's not like he's going to kill himself or anything. |
| 71 | * Before his VigilanteExecution by Jack Ruby, Lee Harvey Oswald was told (jokingly) by the policeman he was handcuffed to that if someone was going to shoot him in the mob of press they'd be walking out into, he hoped that they'd be a good shot. Oswald told the man he was being melodramatic and that nobody was going to shoot him. Shortly after they entered the mob of reporters, Jack Ruby shot Oswald. |
| 72 | * There's no shortage of moments in UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy's presidency that became harsher in hindsight after his [[http://timeanddate.com/date/durationresult.html?m1=1&d1=20&y1=1961&m2=11&d2=22&y2=1963 assassination in Dallas in November 1963.]] |
| 73 | ** His very famous inaugural address to his nation in 1961 features some very jarring examples. |
| 74 | ---> All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin. |
| 75 | ** At [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnBmueLDu2I Eleanor Roosevelt's funeral]], Adlai Stevenson said to President Kennedy, "It may be some comfort to you, sir, to know that the White House is not the end and that you may find something to do when you leave here, whenever that may be." Obviously, Kennedy never got to retire from the White House because that he was then assassinated that following year. |
| 76 | ** The last words said to Kennedy before he was shot, said by Nellie Connally, the First Lady of Texas: "Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you today." Kennedy responded with something like "you certainly can't" - those were his last words. |
| 77 | ** When Kennedy made two speeches in front of and inside the Hotel that he stayed at in Fort Worth, he said a very ominous sentence in the very last speech he would ever make. |
| 78 | ---> This is a very dangerous and uncertain world. We would like to live as we once lived. But history will not permit it. |
| 79 | * Robert Kennedy, during his own presidential campaign trail in 1968, had apparently earned the ire some of the people he used to work with during his time as Attorney General, in particular, Clyde Tolson, J. Edgar Hoover's deputy, reportedly saying "I hope someone shoots and kills that son of a bitch." On June 5, 1968, in a kitchen at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, he was shot by a Palestinian activist and died the following morning. Even eerier, precisely two months prior, he announced Martin Luther King's death to a horrified crowd, then proceeded to give one of his best speeches, little knowing that he himself would soon meet the same fate. |
| 80 | ** One related to both Kennedy assassinations: During Creator/{{CBS}} coverage shortly after UsefulNotes/RobertFKennedy was shot, CBS Evening News anchor Creator/WalterCronkite (having anchored California primary coverage earlier that evening) noticed a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUCnzxj68Hg quote in a book]] on the Kennedys by former Wisconsin Republican Senator UsefulNotes/JosephMcCarthy[[note]]despite the different political affiliations and philosophies, [=McCarthy=] was in fact a close [[OddFriendship family friend]] of the Kennedys, with Bobby having started his career working for [=McCarthy=] during the height of his career during what's known as the RedScare[[/note]] where [=McCarthy=] quotes JFK as mentioning his entry into politics because of the death of eldest brother Joseph Jr. (killed in action during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII); with Kennedy adding that if something were to happen to him, Bobby would take over that Senate seat and if something happened to Bobby; youngest brother Ted would step in.[[note]]Things worked out slightly differently, as Ted (upon reaching 30; the minimum age for a Senator) ran in a special election to finish the term John gave up upon becoming President - with Benjamin Smith having appointed effectively to keep the seat warm for Ted - stepping aside. Bobby would eventually run for and be elected to the U.S. Senate in 1964 but from the state of New York.[[/note]] |
| 81 | * After his Gemini 3 mission in 1965, astronaut Gus Grissom said at a press conference, "If we die, we want people to accept it. We're in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life." Grissom and his crewmates Ed White and Roger Chaffee died in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1 Apollo 1 fire]] two years later. (Somewhat mitigated by the fact that in the aftermath, NASA took him at his word and put a man on the Moon before the end of the decade, just as had been planned.) |
| 82 | ** In August 1966, the Apollo 1 crew, concerned about the safety of their spacecraft, took [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A1prayer.jpg this photo]] of them praying to God before a model of their spacecraft, with the following message addressed to Shea: |
| 83 | --->"It isn't that we don't trust you, Joe. But this time we've decided to go over your head." |
| 84 | ** During his first space flight on ''Liberty Bell 7'', Grissom nearly drowned when the explosive bolts holding the capsule hatch in place accidentally blew, opening the capsule to seawater. The hatch design was modified to an inward-opening design so that atmospheric pressure inside the cabin would keep the hatch closed if a similar incident ever happened again. Unfortunately, it also kept the astronauts from being able to open their hatch when the fire occurred. |
| 85 | ** The team had personally confided to Joseph Shea about the apparent flammability of Apollo 1 and he reassured them by ordering the nylon to be removed. However, Shea did not supervise the issue which proved to be fatal as someone had unknowingly/deliberately contravened his authority by having the nylon reinstalled prior to Apollo 1's delivery to Cape Kennedy. Shea suffered a nervous breakdown in the investigation following the Apollo 1 fire, probably spurred in some small part by the guilt of believing he had betrayed the trust of the crew. |
| 86 | * At the beginning of a [=NASA=] documentary of the second space shuttle flight, the narrator had this to say about ''Columbia'', over video of its first landing: |
| 87 | -->"But unlike spacecraft that had gone before, ''Columbia'' would not be retired from service to become a museum piece." |
| 88 | * This also happens when [[http://s3.amazonaws.com/akamai.netstorage/anon.nasa-global/CAIB/CAIB_lowres_chapter6.pdf reading the report]] about the ''Columbia'' accident. Some engineers raised concerns about potential heat shield damage and wanted to use military satellites to photograph the shuttle, but managers repeatedly turned them down. It becomes a TearJerker when you read statements like, "I consider it to be a dead issue" and "[[BlatantLies there is no concern for RCC or tile damage]]." Given that you're reading the [[ForegoneConclusion Columbia Accident Investigation Report]]... |
| 89 | * Music/MichaelJackson publicly announced to his fans & the world in early 2009 that he would be launching his final concert tour (though it was only at one arena in London, England) called "This Is It". He died June 25, 2009, just weeks before the series was to start. |
| 90 | ** The cover story of the August 2009 issue of the U.K. music magazine ''Q'' was a look at the then-pending concert residency. It examined all the financial problems and botched comeback attempts he'd gone through after his acquittal on child molestation charges in 2005, and the problems the residency was already having, with several of the 50 dates already postponed to 2010. Given his bad track record, the writers concluded the article by doubting he'd actually see the residency through, even though it would be the end of his career if he couldn't. Shortly after the issue hit the stands in June 2009, they were proven right. |
| 91 | ** Jackson left three children behind to be raised by his own mother. At his memorial service, his large family surrounded the kids as daughter Paris spoke of her love for her father. This show of solidarity and support comes off as a sad lie considering that those kids have become pawns in endless lawsuits and BigScrewedUpFamily disputes over Michael's death, estate, and earnings, with no means of escape as yet. Paris even attempted suicide in June 2013, which kept her from testifying in the lawsuit the family's brought against concert promoter [=AEG Live=], whom they blame for Michael's demise. (The family lost.) |
| 92 | * Rosie O'Donnell made a comment about not ever wanting to see Anna Nicole Smith again [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lup02Kt-_qI just hours before she died.]] |
| 93 | * Before the start of the [[UsefulNotes/OlympicGames Vancouver 2010 Olympics]] Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili's last phone call to his father included "I'll win or die trying." |
| 94 | * UsefulNotes/SarahPalin's "Take Back the 20" website showed crosshairs over various states, including the very district in Arizona Gabrielle Giffords was elected for. A fundraiser event for Gifford's opponent, Jesse Kelly, featured shooting a fully automatic AR-15 with Kelly. Then Rep. Giffords was shot in the head... However, she survived. |
| 95 | ** Just for the record, defenders of Palin's map claimed that they were surveyor's symbols, a common element of maps. Compare [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Baak.svg surveyor's symbols]] with actual [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Reticles_vector.svg crosshairs]], notwithstanding that this has nothing to do with the man who shot Representative Giffords. Whatever the truth of it, a number of totally unambiguous firearms metaphors used by Republican candidates (Palin's own "Don't retreat, reload!" being the most infamous) make for ''very'' uncomfortable reading now. |
| 96 | ** A blogger had stated that Giffords was, "[[http://twitpic.com/3o7s5c dead to me]]", just days before her shooting. It should be noted it was a figure of speech. |
| 97 | * In January 2001, Oklahoma State University basketball coach Eddie Sutton aired a broadcast of his regular OSU Basketball show, which opened with a CGI plane flying over an open field. The guest was OSU point guard Nate Fleming. The show ended with Coach Sutton thanking the OSU donors who provided the planes to transport the OSU players and staff to and from various road games. However, on the return trip from the following road game, one of the planes crashed in a field, killing ten passengers, including Nate Fleming. |
| 98 | * The fact that Creator/DemiLovato has been criticized for being 'larger' than the average Disney star when in reality they actually have an eating disorder. The line in "La La Land" of "I'm no supermodel, I still eat UsefulNotes/McDonalds" might count as HIH/FAM, yet in performances of the song on their 2011 comeback tour, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBNjM2q20iI they're very definitely]] both [[LampshadeHanging throwing a lampshade on it]] and using it notationally, all at the same time. [[EarnYourHappyEnding All to rapturous applause, too]]. |
| 99 | * When Pat Nixon died on June 22, 1993, an observer opined that UsefulNotes/RichardNixon, without his wife, "wouldn't last a year". He died on April 22, 1994, four days after having a massive stroke. |
| 100 | * In 2006, Bam and April Margera said that they had Jackass co-star Ryan Dunn [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbhh_fcfl_k "in the death pool" for "death by vehicle".]] On June 20, 2011, Ryan Dunn and his friend died in a fiery car crash after a night of drinking. |
| 101 | * Music/AmyWinehouse [[http://www.inquisitr.com/13488/stating-the-obvious-amy-winehouse-fears-early-death/ once said]] that one of her fears was joining the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/27_Club 27 Club]] (the name that's given to musicians who have died at age 27). On July 23rd, 2011, Amy's fears came true. Alicia Quarles, a report for the Associated Press at the time, explains that if Winehouse didn’t get her act together, she’ll die at 27. Quarles was on "Doomed to die? 13 Most Shocking Hollywood Curses" where she made that remark back in 2008 when the E! News special aired. What makes this eerier, Quarles was right. |
| 102 | * At the 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner, Seth Meyers joked that UsefulNotes/OsamaBinLaden was hosting a talk show on C-SPAN. The next day, Obama announced Bin Laden's death. This one was arguably HilariousInHindsight for most people. UsefulNotes/HillaryClinton had been at a wedding that weekend and someone had asked her "when are we gonna get Bin Laden?" Being one of only a handful of people who knew about the raid (she couldn't even tell her husband), she quickly made some non-committal remark and excused herself. |
| 103 | * A New Hampshire Christian teenage girl was forced to repent in front of her church for sexual misconduct leading to pregnancy. She had been raped by a deacon of that church. The ''pastor'' allegedly had even told her that "she was lucky not to have been born during Old Testament times when she would have been stoned to death". |
| 104 | * Jokes about former NFL bust Ryan Leaf got a lot harsher when he got diagnosed with a brain tumor. Fortunately for him, the tumor proved to be benign and was successfully removed. |
| 105 | * For Halloween, Kelly Ripa and Nick Lachey dressed up as wedding Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries on ''Live with Regis and Kelly.'' An hour later it came out that Kim had filed for divorce. It could be considered HilariousInHindsight based on your views of the Kardashians. |
| 106 | * ''[[http://www.amazon.com/Touched-Jerry-Sandusky-Story/dp/1582613575 Touched:]] The [[http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/7212054/key-dates-penn-state-nittany-lions-sex-abuse-case Jerry Sandusky]] Story.'' What's incredibly creepy about this isn't just the book's title. It's the fact that he spends a great deal of time discussing how much he likes kids, likes spending time with them, etc. It's horrifying to realize not only what he really meant, but that these kids could very well have been his victims. |
| 107 | * The 1928 Republican Party platform stated, "Under this Administration, the country has been lifted from the depths of a Great Depression to a level of prosperity." The very next year, the stock market would crash, plunging the US into '''[[TheGreatDepression the]]''' [[TheGreatDepression Great Depression]]. |
| 108 | * During the Comedy Central Roast of Creator/CharlieSheen, many jokes were made at the expense of Patrice O'Neal about his health. He ended up dying of a stroke ''two months'' after the Roast aired. |
| 109 | * There's a now-[[MemeticMutation memetic]] video of a large man dancing like a lunatic while playing DDR, only to fall off once he gets down, funny at first, but he was asked about the video and it turns out the fall made his ankle break clean in half. |
| 110 | * The New Orleans Saints' 2009 UsefulNotes/SuperBowl run looks a lot worse when you find out that they were running a bounty program and paying guys to deliberately hurt opposing players. |
| 111 | * The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted the Music/BeastieBoys in April 2012; the concert premiered on HBO a few days after Adam Yauch's death in May. Yauch had been too sick to attend. |
| 112 | * Ivan the Terrible received his nickname for being a fierce and admirable leader. Then he started living up to his name in a [[TheCaligula whole different fashion]]. |
| 113 | * In her book, "Forever Barbie", author M.G. Lord remembers cross-dressing her Ken and Barbie dolls in order to cope with her [[TearJerker mother's Breast Cancer treatment and later death]]. When she took her old dolls out again, she found Ken dressed as [[WholesomeCrossdresser Marlene Dietrich, Midge as a preppy male,]] and Barbie dressed as more "[[TomboyAndGirlyGirl Martina than Chrissy]]. (Barbie wore a tiny tennis skirt, but it was under Ken's sweatshirt)." Her logic being [[BreakTheCutie "Femaleness, in my eight-year-old cosmos, equaled disease; I disguised Midge in men's clothes to protect her."]] The reference made was to Tennis player [[LesbianJock Martina Navratilova]]; the fact that in 2010, Martina Navratilova announced that she was fighting a treatable form of breast cancer, makes the 1994 book a lot more acute. |
| 114 | * UsefulNotes/LeonTrotsky wrote in 1936 that "Stalin... seeks to strike not at the ideas of the opponent, but at his skull." Four years later... |
| 115 | * In summary, anyone famous who jokes about their death a short time before they actually die is going to count for this. Bonus points if they joke about dying in a certain way and they actually die that way. |
| 116 | * In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nACAlbpgsio an interview]] before the 2001 Daytona 500, Dale Earnhardt said, "You're gonna see something you've prolly hadn't never seen on Fox." These words took new meanings after Earnhardt was killed in a crash on the last lap. |
| 117 | * In November 2007, Creator/HeathLedger spoke about his sleeping problems, saying: "Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night. I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going.". Two months later, Ledger was found dead in his apartment, and his death was determined to be caused by an accidental overdose of sleeping pills. Due to various accounts from the set and his own room, it's been theorized that the addiction was caused by nightmares caused by trying to get into the Joker's head. Jack Nicholson, who played The Joker in the Burton film, when told of Heath's death, even said, "Well, [[IWarnedYou I warned him]]." |
| 118 | * After [=UConn=] won their homecoming football game against Louisville on October 7, 2009, cornerback Jazz Howard said to the media, "You have to play each play like it's the last play you'll ever play." Hours later, he was fatally stabbed outside the student union. |
| 119 | * Rachel Scott, the first victim of the UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}} shootings. Her life was ''full'' of this trope. Though a lot of the stories about her have been made up, there have been many essays she wrote and entries in her journal that are just damn impossible to read after knowing the girl's fate. Just moments before she was killed she made a drawing of an eye with 13 tears falling from it. Though almost certainly a coincidence, many have theorized that she predicted the shootings and each of the tears represents a victim of the shooting. |
| 120 | * During the 1976 Olympics, American swimmer [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Babashoff Shirley Babashoff]] made a rather bad joke about the gold-winning East German swimming team and their members's records, commenting on their almost manly voices: [[SoreLoser she was accused of baselessly saying they were taking steroids]]. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, however, it was revealed that [[http://web.archive.org/web/20010122090000/http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,37631,00.html East German female athletes of all kinds were unknowingly doped with steroids, which had among their side-effects the development of more irreversible traits that amount to "masculinization"]]. That had [[BreakTheCutie TERRIBLE physical and emotional effects]] on the ladies... and [[TheOneGuy on]] [[UsefulNotes/{{Transgender}} one]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Krieger gentleman]]. |
| 121 | * In late 2012, after the NFL murder and suicide of Jovan Belcher and the killing of an unarmed teen named Jordan Davis because of loud music (both by guns) well-known sports commentator [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOi7If0zW9s Bob Costas gave a speech]] during the half-time show of a football game, talking about the pervasiveness of gun use and violence in popular culture, and a perceived need for gun control in response. He was criticized by conservative personalities and gun advocates around the country. Then just over a week later, two gun massacres happened - the most tragic being the one in Connecticut. |
| 122 | * In a blooper real from ''Series/HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys'', Kevin Smith ([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Smith_%28New_Zealand_actor%29 this one]]) flubs a kick and falls into some tall grass. Kevin Sorbo reacts by doing an end zone dance. Smith says (In his natural Kiwi accent) "Looks like I'm Mr. Fally Guy!" Smith would later die after falling from some rafters. |
| 123 | * Paul "Bear" Bryant: When asked by a reporter what he was going to do upon retiring after a fifty-year career in football, Bryant responded, "I'll probably croak in a week." The Bear died six weeks after coaching his last game. |
| 124 | * ESPN joked that Penn State coach Joe Paterno would never retire because he was afraid of suffering the same fate as Bear Bryant. In the end, Paterno was fired in 2011 due to his involvement in the Jerry Sandusky scandal. He died less than 60 days later. |
| 125 | * Chris Kyle's autobiography ''American Sniper'' closes with Kyle writing at length about his difficulty re-adjusting to civilian life after the military and his charitable efforts to help returning servicemen do the same. Barely a year after the book was published, Kyle and another man, Chad Littlefield, were murdered by a former Marine they had brought to a gun range to help with his PTSD. |
| 126 | * In the behind the scenes footage of the porn film called *ahem* ''I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU SUCKED A NEGRO 9'', the cameraman has a light-hearted conversation with porn star Sonya Sage and asks what her long term plans were in 5 years. She jokingly said she'll fire the interviewer/cameraman. His response was "I'm sure that'll happen before 5 years". He then pans the camera to male porn star "Sledgehammer" and says Sledge will probably survive. Unfortunately Sledge died under mysterious circumstances by police hands when they were trying to arrest him. More can be read [[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/16/sledge-hammer-tasered-_n_1429287.html here.]] |
| 127 | * On the morning of February 20, 2003, a man named Rick Sanetti was eating breakfast at a Denny's in Rhode Island, then struck up a conversation with the members of Great White, who were sitting at a nearby table. Lead singer Jack Russell invited him to see them that night at The Station, a nightclub in West Warwick, promising "it's gonna be a killer show." It was a show to literally die for: 100 people died after the club caught on fire from pyrotechnics lit by the band's road manager. Sanetti wound up helping to rescue several other survivors. |
| 128 | * [[http://wtfnsa.ytmnd.com/ This]] Website/{{YTMND}} was uploaded ''seven years'' before the Edward Snowden scandal revealed that the NSA has been doing these kinds of things all along. |
| 129 | ** Of course, 2006 was ''also'' when the initial scandal involving warrantless wiretaps ([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_(2001%E2%80%9307) bypassing even FISA in the process]]) broke in the news, so it was timely when it was written. |
| 130 | ** One of Website/{{YTMND}}'s most popular memes was about Creator/BillCosby. Many of them, especially the ones that also involve MemeticMolester Brian Peppers, can come off as unfunny after his sexual assault scandal. |
| 131 | * There is a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rT5l4D7GxOU YouTube clip]] showing the 19-year-old Hanne Kristin Fridtun, a Norwegian Labour Party youth politician, making a ''very'' touching and heartfelt speech about elderly care, with her main point being that "when I grow old, I don't just want to live, I want to live well". She was shot to death on Utøya three months later. |
| 132 | * In 2007, Boston experienced a bomb scare when several devices were found all over the city. Turns out they were actually just lite brites that were part of a viral ad campaign. Many people laughed at how Boston police could confuse a device like that for a bomb. It became less funny in 2013 when terrorists bombed the Boston Marathon using backpack bombs. |
| 133 | * On February 3, 1959, Music/WaylonJennings, Music/BuddyHolly, and Music/RitchieValens were supposed to fly in a plane between concerts on a tour of the Midwest. However, J.P. Richardson (Music/TheBigBopper), who was supposed to travel by bus to the next stop, had come down with the flu earlier on the tour and asked Jennings for his spot on the plane. Jennings agreed and took Richardson's spot on the bus. When Holly heard Jennings was not flying, he said in jest, "I hope your ol' bus freezes up." Jennings replied, "I hope your ol' plane crashes." It did, killing everyone on board in what is known as The Day The Music Died. That remark would haunt Jennings for many years. |
| 134 | * On the night of November 25, 2013, singer Arik Einstein, a pivotal figure of Israeli culture known for being very, very reclusive, was interviewed by phone for the first time in ages. The interviewer asked him about his health; Einstein said he was fine, only his eyes were growing a little bit dim. On the night of November 26, 2013, he died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm. |
| 135 | * On November 5, 1995, the well-known Israeli song "Shir Lashalom" (Song of Peace) was sung at a rally in Tel Aviv in support of the Oslo Accords. The song talks about the impossibility of bringing a person back from the dead, and thus the need for peace. As Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was leaving the rally, he was assassinated by a gunman angry with his support for the peace process. A blood-stained copy of the song lyrics was later found in Rabin's pocket. |
| 136 | * Rolf Harris used to be universally loved in Australia, the UK, and even Africa. He used to do a lot of children's shows and music. As of 30 June 2014, this becomes less heartwarming as he has been convicted of sexually harassing and assaulting children. |
| 137 | ** It makes [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0rlYSJQkyw this song]] a lot more disturbing... |
| 138 | ** Ironically, he once hosted [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUPFEdAmjBU a PSA]] teaching children to report people who try to touch them. The stranger in the first hypothetical scenario looks kind of similar to Rolf. |
| 139 | ** This is true of any personality who works closely with children or on children's shows who is later accused or convicted of sexual molestation, especially of children. Take Creator/JimmySavile, for instance. |
| 140 | * Late in the 2013/14 disastrous UsefulNotes/EnglishPremierLeague season for Manchester United, they lost 2-0 to Everton, and some people wrote messages '[[SarcasmMode congratulating]]' [=MU=]'s then-manager, David Moyes (who got fired soon after that loss). This by itself is cruel enough, but before coaching Manchester United, Moyes managed Everton, and to twist the knife further, early on in his Everton managing career, Moyes said that "we (Everton) are going to beat Manchester United". How true. |
| 141 | * Creator/DavidSedaris wrote several essays that mentioned his sister Tiffany. At age six, her older siblings convinced her to lie in the middle of the road and get hit by a car to make their mom feel guilty, telling her death is "like sleeping, only you get a canopy bed." In another essay, her father browbeats her for stabbing David with a pencil until she couldn't hold a crayon without bursting into tears. Finally, in "Put A Lid On It", he describes how his parents put her in a reform school (the now infamous [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/elan_School Elan School]], causing her to resent and separate herself from her family as much as possible. All of this presents enough of a sad portrait of his sister's life, but when you learn she committed suicide in 2013 and, in her will, banned her entire family from attending her funeral, all chronicled in David's essay, "Now We Are Five", the whole thing becomes downright heartbreaking. |
| 142 | * After Creator/{{Nintendo}}'s E3 2015 Presentation, many fans raged at the company due to the lacklusterness of the event and a number of divisive titles, including ''VideoGame/MetroidPrimeFederationForce''. In response, Creator/SatoruIwata apologized for it and promised next year's would be better. Fans were hit with this when he died on July 11, 2015, realizing their last communication with him was ''way'' too harsh. |
| 143 | * At the Chicago Blackhawks' 2015 [[UsefulNotes/TheStanleyCup Stanley Cup]] championship rally, star forward Patrick Kane, who had been working to shake his party-boy image for the past three years, said the following: "I know you said I’ve been growing up, but watch out for me the next week." That summer, Kane became the center of a rape investigation. While he ultimately was not charged, his reputation was tainted again and [[Creator/ElectronicArts EA Sports]] yanked him from the cover of [[VideoGame/NHLHockey NHL 16]], which he would have shared with teammate Jonathan Toews. |
| 144 | * During the years Jared Fogle was the spokesmen for Subway, their slogan was 'Eat Fresh'. That slogan has a sinister meaning, after Jared plead guilty to being a pedophile who had child porn on his computer and was having sex [[{{Ephebophile}} with underage girls]] for years, even while he was married. |
| 145 | * Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr., a Filipino politician who was one of the opponents of then-President Ferdinand Marcos, gave journalists an interview upon landing at the airport in Manila that would later bear his name. |
| 146 | ** "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuEPFt-Dd-Q You have to be ready with your hand camera because this action can become very fast. In a matter of 3 or 4 minutes, it could be all over, and I may not be able to talk to you again after this.]]" Moments later, his quote became both SelfFulfillingProphecy, and this when he was assassinated. The date: August 21, 1983. |
| 147 | ** Also the quotes "if it's my fate to die by an assassin's bullet, so be it. But I cannot be petrified by inaction or fear of assassination, and therefore stay in the side," and "the Filipino is worth dying for". |
| 148 | ** At a hotel in Taipei, when asked by journalists why he was wearing a bulletproof vest, he responded: "It's only good for the body, but in the head, there's nothing else we can do." And he was right. Didn't help that he was shot in the head. |
| 149 | ** Even worse in the present times, in which he is not the hero he is painted to be... |
| 150 | * Fr. Zacarias Agatep once said, "If it is a crime to love the poor and support them in their struggle against injustice, then I am ready to face the firing squad." This was after his release. But this had a very haunting meaning when [[http://www.bantayog.org/?p=644 he and a former deacon were killed by the military]]. Thus, he was among the Martial Law victims. |
| 151 | * The Charlie Hebdo shootings of January 2015 were called "France's 9/11". Ten months later, a much deadlier terrorist attack happened in Paris. ''That'' is now considered "France's 9/11". |
| 152 | * Swedish actor Per Oscarsson, a legendary LargeHam and a profiled personality, once played a bookshop attendant in the Swedish TV special ''Sparrow Eyes'', introducing his character with a monologue concerning a bonfire, and later barely surviving an arson (in which one of the main characters perishes). Several years later, Oscarsson was reported missing after an incident where his cabin had burned to the ground. He was eventually found dead inside. |
| 153 | * A Google review for the Puttingal Devi Temple in India said, "The temple festival is very great for fireworks." Three months later, over 84 people died after fireworks caused a fire in the temple. |
| 154 | * A video was posted of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KER4SF4vAsM Frisbee Doge]] in 2013 that made it look like a memorial for Frisbee Doge (a picture of a dog getting hit by a frisbee while playing catch). However, on March 12, 2016, it was revealed that Frisbee Doge was put to sleep after suffering several health problems, making the video more harsher and sadder to watch. |
| 155 | * On the February 11, 2016 episode of ''Series/TheDailyShow'', after the Supreme Court blocked a climate change plan from going into effect, Trevor Noah joked about how global warming might not affect the Justices because they might not be around long enough. Antonin Scalia died two days later. |
| 156 | * When the last Russian soldiers left Germany in 1994 to return home after the end of the Cold War, one of them said in a toast: ''[[http://www.nytimes.com/1994/03/04/world/bitter-goodbye-russians-leave-germany.html?pagewanted=all "I propose that we drink to using our strength to change our country. May it be more prosperous than Germany one day! To our success!"]]'' Sadly, looking at where Russia is now, more than two decades later... |
| 157 | * The ''Scientific American'' article "Journey to Gunland". Appeared in the October 2017 issue, just early enough to have the Las Vegas massacre immediately putting a big exclamation point behind it. |
| 158 | * When presenting the nominees for Best Supporting Actress during the 2013 Oscars, Creator/SethMacfarlane [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCNvREKTnQc joked about how they no longer needed to pretend to be attracted to Harvey Weinstein.]] When news of Weinstein's ''decades'' of sexual assaults on female actresses came to light in October 2017, [[http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/seth-macfarlane-harvey-weinstein-oscars_us_59df3449e4b00abf36466ea1 MacFarlane himself revealed that "joke" was far more venomous than people realized.]] |
| 159 | * In 2014, the U.S. national soccer team's coach [[https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20171013140854/http://ftw.usatoday.com/2017/10/jurgen-klinsmann-2018-world-cup-usmnt-us-soccer-semifinals-bruce-arena-quotes Jürgen Klinsmann]] said that his goal was to get his team to the semifinals of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. He repeated this claim in 2016 but was fired later that year after losing two games in a row. In the end, the U.S. did not even qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup after losing their final qualifier 2-1 to Trinidad and Tobago, making it the first World Cup for which the U.S. had failed to qualify since 1986. |
| 160 | * Before October 2017, Creator/KevinSpacey was acclaimed as one of the finest and most popular actors on the planet. But after allegations grew of Spacey making unwanted moves and molestation of various actors over the years, his entire filmography is now much harder to watch (especially ''Film/AmericanBeauty'', ''Film/TheUsualSuspects'' and ''Film/LAConfidential''). Also, Spacey was fired from ''Series/HouseOfCardsUS'' which mars that entire show and his legacy now tarnished. |
| 161 | ** Especially, after you realized his best and most popular roles were those where he [[RealLifeWritesThePlot played a villain.]] |
| 162 | * “Attack will be launched as follows: Bombardment, attack to be made on Ford Island (Hawaii) at 7:30 A.M..... Attack to be made on Clark Field at 10:40 A.M.” - General Billy Mitchell in 1925, 16 years before the events of Pearl Harbor. |
| 163 | * On March 15, 2018, Toys "R" Us, after filing for bankruptcy in September 2017, announced it would be shutting down operations in the US. Just a week after the announcement, company founder Charles Lazarus passed away. |
| 164 | * When Lockheed rolled out the F-104 Starfighter, people started calling it the "Missile with a Man in it" which Lockheed liked so much that they swiftly trademarked the nickname for marketing. The nickname gradually became an irony as the number of accidents steadily rose over the years and into the hundreds. It was definitely a Missile... that was more effective at injuring or killing friendly pilots and innocent civilians instead of the enemy. |
| 165 | * On May 10, 2018, former White House official Kelly Sadler made a remark about John [=McCain=], who at the time was suffering from aggressive brain cancer that “He's dying anyway” resulting in her firing; on August 25, 2018 [=McCain=] died after announcing that he was stopping treatment. |
| 166 | * Sexual assault allegations against Creator/BillCosby became a meme almost overnight. Cut to 2018, where he has been found guilty of at least some of those allegations. |
| 167 | * Watch any recording of a USA Women's Gymnastics meet where a gymnast is injured between about 2000 and 2015. An injury is no laughing matter to begin with, but incidents from that specific time period are made that much worse by the presence of then-team doctor Larry Nassar, who is now known to have sexually abused over 300 girls, many of them USA gymnasts, using his profession as a cover. It's particularly horrifying if the injured gymnast is known to be one of Nassar's victims, such as when [=McKayla=] Maroney[[note]]who later said that Nassar molested her "hundreds" of times, including one incident so horrific she "thought [she] was going to die",[[/note]] fell on floor exercise and sustained a concussion in the 2012 National Championships. (The incident comes up at about 18:45 in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrwiYiFGQZE this recording of the NBC broadcast]] of the competition; Nassar is mentioned as having examined Maroney, and is seen walking beside her as she's being taken out on a stretcher.) |
| 168 | * When you learn Johnny & Associates founder Johnny Kitagawa and his family had been among those Japanese-Americans put in concentration camps during World War II, several of the anime entries on NoExportForYou and/or BadExportForYou become a whole lot more understandable. It's entirely possible Kitagawa held a grudge against the United States for the rest of his life over the internments and was using his well-known xenophobia to lash out against the nation specifically. |
| 169 | * [[https://www.insider.com/anthony-bourdains-favorite-books-2016-9#fear-and-loathing-in-las-vegas-a-savage-journey-to-the-heart-of-the-american-dream-by-hunter-s-thompson-5 In a 2016 interview]], Creator/AnthonyBourdain listed ''Literature/FearAndLoathingInLasVegas'' by Creator/HunterSThompson among his top 10 favorite books, saying it was "The book that probably influenced me more than any other. A prose stylist and a personality who changed my life.". Tragically, in 2018, Bourdain, like Thompson, would suddenly commit suicide. |
| 170 | * On New Year's Eve in 2011, ABC would air a primetime special for the 40th anniversary of ''Creator/DickClark's New Years Rockin' Eve'', which included a tribute to Clark. When asked if the on-air tribute to him would indicate it would be his final year on the program, Clark responded with [[https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/31/arts/television/dick-clark-and-rockin-eve-reach-milestone "I hope not."]] Unfortunately, that year would indeed be Clark's last, as he would die from a heart attack on April 18, 2012. |
| 171 | * Although it's hard to get much harsher than the original meaning, the (formerly) secret code phrase that would eventually be used to initiate the procedures for the death of Queen Elizabeth II, "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_London_Bridge London Bridge is down]]", certainly took on ''additional'' harsh meeting following multiple terror attacks there. |
| 172 | * Twitter employee Courtney Brousseau posted a tweet in May 2020 of his burrito saying [[https://twitter.com/cbrewsayso/status/1256422547966398469 "I just ate a delicious burrito in Dolores park and for a brief moment everything felt okay"]] mere minutes before [[https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Twitter-employee-transit-advocate-dies-after-15248295.php he was killed after getting caught in a crossfire]]. |
| 173 | * During the Team Ninja's promotion of ''VideoGame/DeadOrAlive6'' at EVO 2018, the biggest fighting game tournament of the year, the developers had a panel with two attractive, exotically dressed women flirting with each other to drive home the point that the sexy factor of the DOA series had not been censored which was a big rumor during the game's development. The stream was quickly cut on the main EVO channel on Twitch with a statement by EVO co-founder and CEO Joey "Mr Wizard" Cuellar claiming that the actions of Team Ninja poorly reflected on EVO's Core Values and banned the new DOA game from being at future events. The term Core Values became a meme within the scene being the subject of many jokes. The term is no longer a joke after it came out in July 2020 that Joey Cuellar is an alleged pedophile whom had groomed and sexually took advantage of young boys for years. This resulted in the first Online Edition of EVO to get cancelled literally days before it was to start (4th of July) after major game developers, top players, and popular commentators dropped out. Joey Cuellar himself was first put on leave but was then removed for good after he tweeted admission to one of the charges claiming he was young and dumb. |
| 174 | * The Series/EurovisionSongContest 2020 was supposed to be held in Rotterdam, UsefulNotes/TheNetherlands, with the theme "Open Up". However, two months before the event, the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic spread to Europe, forcing everyone to stay inside and socially distance to prevent spreading the virus, which in turn resulted in Eurovision being cancelled for the first time in its 52-year run. Instead, a different version of Eurovision called "Europe Shine a Light" aired, hosted by the Dutch team that was supposed to host Eurovision proper, with the 2020 contestants and many former contestants performing their songs live over the internet or sending in pre-recorded videos. |
| 175 | * In medieval times, the Catholic church believed there was a certain female saint protecting people against plagues and diseases. Her Name: Corona. |
| 176 | |
| 177 | * One [[http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1952/nixon-on-corruption#3953 1952 campaign ad]] features Senator Usefulnotes/RichardNixon (shortly after being named UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower's running mate) hammering away at the corruption that had plagued the administration of outgoing President UsefulNotes/HarrySTruman. "And I say that the best thing that can be done for them is to kick out the crooks and the others that have besmirched their reputations in Washington D.C. and that's what we're going to do." 21 years later, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney%27s_Contemporary_Resort#Richard_Nixon%27s_1973_press_conference he was denying being one of those crooks]]. One year later, he was renouncing for being a proven one. |
| 178 | * UsefulNotes/BillClinton's campaign song was [[Music/FleetwoodMac "Don't Stop"]] from ''Music/{{Rumours}}'', which was, as Creator/JohnMulaney pointed out (subtly referring to the affair with Monica Lewinsky that would get Clinton impeached), "an album written by and for people cheating on each other. He let us knew who he was right away." |
| 179 | * Andrew Cuomo, the 56th governor of New York, had fans and supporters in 2020 who humorously identified as [[https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2020-04-28/andrew-cuomo-sexual-ellen-degeneres-youtube "Cuomosexual"]], including Creator/EllenDeGeneres, Creator/TrevorNoah, and Creator/StephenColbert. Comedian WebVideo/RandyRainbow wrote a satirical love ballad about the governor titled "Andy" that name-dropped the term. The following year, Cuomo resigned after being faced with allegations of sexual harassment. |
| 180 | |
| 181 | * When Creator/SandraBullock appeared on Creator/DavidLetterman to promote ''Film/TheBlindSide'', she was played out with "Jessie's Girl", presumably as a joke to how she was married to [[Series/MonsterGarage Jesse James]]. One year later, both were having an acrimonious divorce. |
| 182 | * According to his childhood friend Asher Wright, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Hale Nathan Hale]] had a mole on his neck and as a boy, he was teased about by other boys who said it meant he would be hanged. One day he and Asher were out sailing and a storm blew up. Nathan laughed and said cheerfully, "Don't worry, I know I won't be drowned today. I'm going to be hanged, you know." And indeed, he died by what spies received back then, the gallows. |
| 183 | * [[Music/TheMonkees Davy Jones]] quipped "You know I used to be a heartthrob, now I’m a coronary" in [[http://nj.broadwayworld.com/article/BWW-Interviews-Hey-Hey-Its-The-Monkees-Davy-Jones-20110825 an interview]] in August 2011. Less than a year later, a heart attack had taken him. |
| 184 | * ''[[UsefulNotes/BritishNewspapers The Guardian]]'' published a letter from a reader wishing she could be out of the country to avoid the inevitable frenzy come the demise of the Queen Mother, but realizing it wasn't the kind of thing one could plan in advance. It was published in the exact day the Queen Mother died, March 30, 2002. |
| 185 | * The city of Brussels started a campaign named [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsHYK1eMs2E #callbrussels]] in January 2016, to reassure potential tourists of how safe and welcoming the city was and to downplay the then-recently issued terrorist threat alert. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Brussels_bombings It took two months to not be only a threat]]. |
| 186 | * Helen Keller, who lived during the first half of the 20th century, owned a dog named Kamikaze. That was a pretty beautiful name for a dog back then, as it's Japanese for "Divine Wind"... except, thanks to UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, most people who hear "kamikaze" think of suicide bombers. |
| 187 | * Gregory [=McDonald=], most famous for the Fletch novels, started out as a reporter in Boston who grew up in Massachusetts and went to school with the Kennedys. He mentioned in one of his articles that there was a time when they were going out for the drive, and Jack got into the backseat of the car (which was a convertible) but slid over to the passenger's side so that [=McDonald=] could have the driver's side seat. For some reason the image always stuck in his mind, until years later when he saw the Zapruder film, and says that JFK's movements as he was shot were almost identical to what he remembered on that day. |
| 188 | * When Creator/WilliamShatner made his journey to space aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket in October 2021, numerous jokes made the rounds on the internet, including [[https://2w6kxc22rrr9mabqt1mglgait6-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Star-Trek-red-shirt-william-shatner-1-1024x538.jpg a photoshopped image of him and his three crewmates]] showing Shatner wearing a gold shirt and the others wearing {{red|Shirt}}. This became a lot less funny when, just one month after the original picture was taken, Glen de Vries -- the one on the right side of the photo -- [[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/glen-de-vries-dies-plane-crash-blue-origin-flight/ was killed in a plane crash]]. |
| 189 | * [[https://www.huffpost.com/entry/chadwick-boseman-thurgood-marshall_n_59de15d0e4b01df09b779dfd An interview with]] Creator/ChadwickBoseman around the time of ''Film/BlackPanther2018'' questioned how [[DyeingForYourArt he bulked up, lost weight, and returned to being buff]], and the response ("[Nods his head, looking exhausted] Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, you don’t even know [laughs]. You have no idea. One day I’ll live to tell the story.") seemed just about the tolls of getting in shape. Then Boseman's death by a cancer [[SecretlyDying he had hidden for four years]] makes one realize he had to be tired from getting an HeroicBuild while suffering from both the disease and its aggressive treatment. |
| 190 | * A video created for the 5th anniversary of the Spirit rover's landing on Mars used a song with the lyric "She's run aground, she's run aground." Shortly thereafter, Spirit got stuck in a sand dune and can no longer, um... rove. |
| 191 | * In the 1970s [[https://kotaku.com/bps-official-oil-spill-board-game-5580291 there was a board game supported by BP, all about managing an offshore oil rig]]. Complete with hazard cards, such as ‘Blow-out! Rig damaged'.) Oil slick clean-up costs. Pay $1million.’ Come [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill 2010]], and the whole thing is too real, and those indenization fees ''really'' low. |
| 192 | * Canadian model Tanya Melissa Makse (whose profile can be found on a certain model website), mentioned on her official Facebook page in 2010 about Wigan/Bolton/Bury council's planned budget cuts for 2011, speculating about them. And how prophetic she was, as [[https://blog.policy.manchester.ac.uk/whitehallwatch/2011/12/cuts-in-the-city-how-manchester-fared-in-2011/ by the actual end of 2011]], the cuts were estimated at over a million pounds for each of the following, [[https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-30478822 and things]] [[https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/manchester-council-still-proposing-50m-19636049 never improved]]. |
| 193 | * Google's Chrome browser's Incognito mode is designed to leave no local trace of your web activity once you exit it. One of the warnings about traces it cannot cover is "surveillance by secret agents". [[Film/CitizenFour Edward Snowden]] and others turned that fluffy bit of absurdist humor into rather [[BlackComedy dark commentary]] of how the government can (and maybe ''will'') collect your data. Later updates don't include secret agents in the warnings. |
| 194 | * In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h5yPJ8s8IM this]] video, a man is frequently heard calling the coaster he's on a "Togo Death Machine" (TOGO was the name of the manufacturer). In mid-2007, a woman was killed on that very exact ride when the trains derailed, and the park ended up closing later that year. |
| 195 | * Creator/AnthonyBourdain's wife once went on a vegan diet and dragged him into a vegan restaurant. He announced that the food was so bad it would break up their marriage and he would commit suicide. They divorced a few years later and he died of suicide in 2018. |
| 196 | * Around 2018 and 2019, there was [[https://i.imgur.com/BGrvYZw.jpg a popular drawing shown in meme pages]] of a plane falling towards the ground, before hitting the ground and bouncing up with a "Boeing!" noise. Months later, 2 Boeing 737 MAX planes suddenly dived into the ground and crashed, killing hundreds and forcing Boeing to ground its entire 737 MAX fleet. |
| 197 | * In March 17, 2018, a Creator/CirqueDuSoleil performer by the name of Yann Arnaud posted an Instagram photo with the caption, "After so much work and training and staging, our straps duo is finally in the show tonight. It's time to go for it." Hours later, he lost his grip and plummeted several feet to the ground, dying of his injuries in a hospital that same night. |
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