History RoaringRampageOfRevenge / RealLife

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akku_Yadav Akku Yadav]] was a criminal who had been committing rape and murder in the Indian city of Chennai for over a decade, and getting away with it due to police corruption. When he was brought into court, he spotted a woman in the crowd he had raped and called her a whore. This prompted an angry mob of over 200 women to lynch him on the spot, with one of his victims reportedly hacking off his penis.

* Princess Olga of Kiev -- while later known for her deft and efficient leadership of the UsefulNotes/KievanRus -- made her mark delivering a ''massive'' crusade towards the Drevlians for [[CrusadingWidow murdering her husband]]. Prince Igor of Kiev was killed after he had gotten greedy with demanding tributes, and soon afterwards, the Drevlians -- evidently not thinking about the consequences -- approached Olga to convince her to marry their Prince Mal, ''her late husband's murderer''. Olga accepted the offer and invited the Drevlian delegates to her court... then tossed them into a ditch and [[BuriedAlive buried them alive]]. After that, she asked Mal to send his best men to help her on her journey to him, inviting them to the bathhouse... where she had them locked up before she [[KillItWithFire set it on fire]]. Then she invited some more Drevlians to her husband's funeral, and, after they were drunken, [[LeaveNoSurvivors ordered her army to massacre them]], claiming a reported 5,000 Drevlians. When she finally went to actual war against them, her campaign led to a successful siege on their capital of Iskorosten, eventually offering peace by requesting a tribute of "three pigeons and three sparrows from each house," which -- feeling this to be a show of mercy amidst whatever other horrible thing Olga could do -- the populous complied with. She then had her army attach cloth strips with sulfur on each of the birds' legs and let them return back to their nests, [[ActionBomb allowing them to set the entire city ablaze]], decisively defeating the Drevlians. Later in her life, Olga became canonized as a saint of the Orthodox Church -- appropriately enough -- as a patron saint of widows and converts.

* Princess Olga of Kiev -- while later known for her deft and efficient leadership of the UsefulNotes/KievanRus -- made her mark delivering a ''massive'' crusade towards the Drevlians for [[CrusadingWidow murdering her husband]]. Prince Igor of Kiev was killed after he had gotten greedy with demanding tributes, and soon afterwards, the Drevlians -- evidently not thinking about the consequences -- approached Olga to convince her to marry their Prince Mal, ''her late husband's murderer''. Olga accepted the offer and invited the Drevlian delegates to her court... then tossed them into a ditch and [[BuriedAlive buried them alive]]. After that, she asked Mal to send his best men to help her on her journey to him, inviting them to the bathhouse... then locked them up and [[KillItWithFire set it on fire]]. Then she invited some more Drevlians to her husband's funeral, and, after they were drunken, [[LeaveNoSurvivors ordered her army to massacre them]], claiming a reported 5,000 Drevlians. When she finally went to actual war against them, her campaign led to a successful siege on their capital of Iskorosten, eventually offering peace by requesting a tribute of "three pigeons and three sparrows from each house," which -- feeling this to be a show of mercy amidst whatever other horrible thing Olga could do -- the populous complied with. She then had her army attach cloth strips with sulfur on each of the birds' legs and let them return back to their nests, [[ActionBomb allowing them to set the entire city ablaze]], decisively defeating the Drevlians. Later in her life, Olga became canonized as a saint of the Orthodox Church -- appropriately enough -- as a patron saint of widows and converts.

* Princess Olga of Kiev -- while later known for her deft and efficient leadership of the UsefulNotes/KievanRus -- made her mark delivering a ''massive'' crusade towards the Drevlians for [[CrusadingWidow murdering her husband]]. Prince Igor of Kiev was killed after he had gotten greedy with demanding tributes and -- evidently not thinking about the consequences -- approached Olga to convince her to marry their Prince Mal, ''her late husband's murderer''. Olga accepted the offer and invited the Drevlian delegates to her court... then tossed them into a ditch and [[BuriedAlive buried them alive]]. After that, she asked Mal to send his best men to help her on her journey to him, inviting them to the bathhouse... then locked them up and [[KillItWithFire set it on fire]]. Then she invited some more Drevlians to her husband's funeral, and, after they were drunken, [[LeaveNoSurvivors ordered her army to massacre them]], claiming a reported 5,000 Drevlians. When she finally went to actual war against them, her campaign led to a successful siege on their capital of Iskorosten, eventually offering peace by requesting a tribute of "three pigeons and three sparrows from each house," which -- feeling this to be a show of mercy amidst whatever other horrible thing Olga could do -- the populous complied with. She then had her army attach cloth strips with sulfur on each of the birds' legs and let them return back to their nests, [[ActionBomb allowing them to set the entire city ablaze]], decisively defeating the Drevlians. Later in her life, Olga became canonized as a saint of the Orthodox Church -- appropriately enough -- as a patron saint of widows and converts.

* Princess Olga of Kiev -- while later known for her deft and efficient leadership of the UsefulNotes/KievanRus -- made her mark delivering a ''massive'' crusade towards the Drevlians for [[CrusadingWidow murdering her husband]]. Prince Igor of Kiev was killed after he had gotten greedy with demanding tributes and -- evidently not thinking about the consequences -- approached Olga to convince her to marry their Prince Mal, ''her late husband's murderer''. Olga accepted the offer and invited the Drevlian delegates to her court... then tossed them into a ditch and [[BuriedAlive buried them alive]]. After that, she asked Mal to send his best men to help her on her journey to him, inviting them to the bathhouse... then locked them up and [[KillItWithFire set it on fire]]. Then she invited some more Drevlians to her husband's funeral, and, after they were drunken, [[LeaveNoSurvivors ordered her army to massacre them]], claiming a reported 5,000 Drevlians. When she finally went to actual war against them, her campaign led to a successful siege on their capital of Iskorosten, eventually offering peace by requesting a tribute of "three pigeons and three sparrows from each house," which -- feeling this to be a show of mercy amidst whatever other horrible thing Olga could do -- the populous complied with. She then had her army attach cloth strips with sulfur on each of the birds' legs and let them return back to their nests, [[ActionBomb allowing them to set the entire city ablaze]], decisively defeating the Drevlians. Later in her life, Olga became canonized as a saint of the Orthodox Church, specifically as a patron saint of widows and converts.

* After Prince Igor of Kiev was killed by the tribe of Drevlians, they sent 20 ambassadors to his widow, Princess Olga, to convince her to marry their Prince Mal. She buried them alive. After that, she asked Mal to send his best men to help her on her journey to him. She invited them to the bathhouse, locked them up, and set the building on fire. Then she invited some more Drevlians to her husband's funeral, and, after they were drunken, killed about 5,000 of them. And then Olga went to war against them, and defeated them, and burned down their capital Iskorosten.
** Supposedly, the reason the Drevlians killed Igor is because, after coming with a large force to take the yearly tribute, he got greedy and came back with a token force to take even more. Seeing their chance, the Drevlians easily overcame his bodyguards, [[TreeBuchet tied him to two bent tree trunks, and let go]]. They, obviously, didn't think about the consequences.

** On the other side, there was [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Hinson Jack Hinson]]. Hinson joined the Confederate war effort after Federal troops cut off his sons' heads and stuck them on his gate posts. Hinson killed as many as 100 Union soldiers with his [[ColdSniper 50-caliber Kentucky Long Rifle]]. He was never apprehended despite the commitment of four Union regiments to pursuing him.

* In 1509 the Portuguese had pretty much managed to take over the Indian spice trade from the Venetians and the nations who profited from the old route. In reply, they banded together and financed the Mamluks to attack the Portuguese in the Indian ocean. They surprised an 8-ships strong Portuguese squadron ([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Man-o-war#Etymology who fought back for 3 days against 50+ Mamluk vessels]]) — killing the son of the Portuguese Viceroy before limping to Diu.\\

** Though to be fair, kingdoms that ''did'' surrender to him usually had to endure a period of RapePillageAndBurn before the Mongol Hordes moved on, so it's somewhat understandable that his emissaries weren't exactly popular.
*** He only did that to those who fought back. Those who surrendered instantly were treated well and allowed to retain their culture. Genghis Khan was actually surprisingly "progressive" for the time (provided he was allowed to rule).

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancho_Villa Pancho Villa]] himself went on this trope after his war effort against a corrupt Mexican government was virtually starved by a US presidential ban of aid to his forces. He found himself so embittered that he raided a train and had its 18 US occupants stripped naked and executed. Villa later also lead 500 men to raid Columbus, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Columbus_(1916) New Mexico]] for supplies and not only attempted to look but willingly attacked anyone on site with his men, setting homes on fire. Unfortunately for his men, they were beaten back with high losses. The US President and his people were not pleased and sent a 4,800 man strong army to hunt him down. Though they never succeeded in catching Villa himself, they did manage almost entirely dismantle his revolution.

* During the Haitian Revolution, where black slaves in Haiti successfully overthrew their French masters and established a Black Republic, the rebels and their Spanish allies executed the French colonialists indiscriminately in revenge for both their enslavement and a number of massacres by French troops in an attempt to suppress the revolution. Even after the revolution's success, Black Emperor Jean-Jacques Dessalines was unsatisfied with the fact that a number of their former enslavers were still living in Haiti and ordered that they be destroyed. This resulted in a FinalSolution in which squads of black soldiers went door to door torturing and killing entire white families until the white population of Haiti was practically non-existent.

** This also happened after the Battle of Teutoburg Forest, which saw three Roman legions massacred to the last due to the treachery of their Germanic guide Arminius. After all was said and done, the Romans waited a few years, then sent the army into Germania, wrecking shop, reclaiming the standards of the first three legions, and Arminius was eventually killed (though by rival German chieftains, rather than the Romans.) From then on the Romans were content to let their eastern border sit on the banks of the Rhine, but it's yet another example of why you didn't piss off Rome if you valued your freedom.
*** This was also the reason for Arminius's betrayal. As a son of a Germanic chieftain he had been sent to Rome as a hostage and had been educated there, even reaching the rank of equites. But that did not change the fact that the Romans had taken him away from his family and stolen his life. Three Legions worth of Romans rather regretted that.
* Do you remember the Khwarezmian Empire? No? [[AppealToObscurity That's the point--there's a good reason for that]]. Mainly because Genghis Khan ''literally wiped the entire civilization out of existence.'' The reason? Because one of the local governors harassed and even killed some of Genghis Khan's emissaries. When he was captured, that particular governor allegedly had [[KarmicDeath molten silver poured into his eyes and mouth]].

*** He only did that to those who fought back. Those who surrendered instantly were treated well and allowed to retain their culture. Ghenghis Khan was actually surprisingly "Progressive" for the time (provided he was allowed to rule).

* Buford Pusser was a sheriff in Tennessee who was riding with his wife to a call when a car pulled up and fired on them, killing her and critically wounding him. He [[OneManArmy single-handedly killed every man]] and then went on to wage a war on moonshining, illegal gambling, and several other criminal activities in his county before dying in a car accident. This man was so awesome that not [[Film/WalkingTall1973 one]], but ''[[Film/WalkingTall2004 two]]'' movies were made based on his story, the second of which starred Wrestling/DwayneJohnson.

* Quite infamously the United States during the Spanish-American War. While there is scant evidence that the explosion that sank the battleship ''Maine'' was deliberate, America was itching for a chance to go to war and took that as the best excuse. The following CurbStompBattle saw Spain lose the last of its colonial possessions to the United States, and other European Powers finally started taking the Americans seriously on the international stage.

* In 2004, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Heemeyer Marvin John Heemeyer]] (October 28, 1951 – June 4, 2004), an American welder and an automobile muffler repair shop owner, armored a bulldozer, mounted guns, monitors, and cameras into the metalwork, and used it to destroy 13 buildings -- including the town hall, police station, and a recently-built concrete plant that cut off access to his shop -- in Granby, Colorado, all of which were owned by people he had some kind of dispute with and who were collectively responsible for his business being ruined. He also installed loudhailers that broadcasted his intentions for razing the community. The bulldozer rampage finally stopped because Heemeyer's insane modifications had stressed the mechanics of the bulldozer beyond anything they were meant to endure, and the beast died in a heap of smoke after getting one of its treads stuck in the basement of a hardware store. Heemeyer [[DrivenToSuicide pulled the trigger on himself]], leaving the authorities to find the scene of his suicide after carving open the bulldozer's armor with blowtorches. Also a TakingYouWithMe, because the bulldozer's steel/concrete composite-armored cocoon [[SuicideMission had no way for him to escape once it was lowered over him]].

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Southern_California_shootings Christopher Dorner]], after having been dismissed from the LAPD, went on one, posting a long, rambling manifesto, in which he named specific officers he wanted to kill, killed the daughter of the attorney who represented him at the hearing where he was dismissed, as well as her fiancé, before killing a police officer and running up to Big Bear mountain range, where he killed another officer and holed himself up in a cabin. Then the police themselves got in on the act, deciding [[Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan the Klingons were wrong and revenge is a dish best served]] ''piping hot'', they set the cabin on fire with the intention of watching him burn alive (the Sheriff officially denied this, of course, but few believe it), [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled though in the end, he shot himself to deny them the satisfaction]].
* The entire [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lusitanian_War Lusitanian War]] was a big rampage of revenge against the increasingly expansionist Roman Republic. When Rome pretended to make peace with the tired Lusitanians over war and land, only to slaughter 10,000 men, women, and children, huge numbers of them spent the next 3 years randomly attacking Roman territories and allies but slowly failing. Just as it looked like Rome would wipe out the last resisting warriors, a survivor named [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viriathus Viriathus]] of that same earlier massacre reminded them of why they had been fighting. Knowing how Romans fought, he managed to save the several thousand cornered warriors without a loss, leading to a renewed 8-year leadership of revenge against Rome. His leadership caused so much distress in Rome that other tribes rebelled, and the recruitment rate in Rome dropped, especially after three legions were lost in the war against the Lusitanians alone. However, the trope is somewhat subverted in that eventually he later spared an army of Romans for peace, knowing that over time, the war would simply drain his peoples' numbers, only for the peace treaty to be reneged and himself assassinated. Ironically enough his death triggered another brief rampage or revenge, but without his leadership, it failed. Adding to the confusion, the Romans ended up making peace later by giving this tribe exactly what they asked for before this entire mess began: fertile land.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancho_Villa Pancho Villa]] himself went on this trope after his war effort against a corrupt Mexican government was virtually starved by a US presidential ban of aid to his forces. He found himself so embittered that he raided a train and had its 18 US occupants stripped naked and executed. Villa later also lead 500 men to raid Columbus, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Columbus_(1916) New Mexico]] for supplies and not only attempted to look but willingly attacked anyone on site with his men, setting homes on fire. Unfortunately for his men, they were beaten back with high losses. The US President and his people were not pleased and sent a 4,800 man strong army to hunt him down. Though they never succeeded in catching Villa himself, they did manage almost entirely dismantle his revolution.

* In 1509 the Portuguese had pretty much managed to take over the Indian spice trade from the Venetians and the nations who profited from the old route. In reply, they banded together and financed the Mamluks to attack the Portuguese in the Indian ocean. They surprised an 8-ships strong Portuguese squadron ([[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Man-o-war#Etymology who fought back for 3 days against 50+ Mamluk vessels]]) - killing the son of the Portuguese Viceroy before limping to Diu.\\
The Viceroy threw his recently arrived replacement in jail, scrapped together 18 ships for a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Diu punitive expedition]], and sailed off for some bloody revenge. The Gujarat governor of Diu sent him a messenger, to whom he basically replied that he was going to Diu to kick the ass of the guys who killed his son and of those who helped them and that if the Mamluks were gone by the time he arrived, then all his fury would fall on the city alone...\\
Cue the equivalent of an invasion by [[EldritchAbomination eldritch abominations]] in which the Portuguese easily reduced the port fortifications, [[ImmuneToBullets made short work of the 100-strong fleet]] anchored within and [[CurbStompBattle crushed the city defenders]] with [[MoreDakka arquebuses and hand grenades]].\\

* The [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_County_War Lincoln County War]] in the Wild West, the conflict in which UsefulNotes/BillyTheKid made his name as a gunslinger. After rancher John Tunstall was murdered by three members of a posse lead by Sheriff William J. Brady, several of his associates, including Billy the Kid, formed the Lincoln County Regulators to avenge Tunstall's murder. What followed was a five-month war between the Regulators, the Sheriff's Department and several other gangs brought in to help Sheriff Brady suppress the Regulators. First the Regulators apprehended three members of the posse, including one of the men who shot Tunstall, and executed them alongside one of their own who tried to stop them. Then they ambushed and gunned down Sheriff Brady, followed by another member of the posse. Then they cornered yet another member of the posse and killed him after a lengthy gunfight, although not before he wounded four of them and killed one. Another posse was set up and killed their leader, Frank [=McNab=], after which the Regulators retaliated by killing five members of the posse, including the man who shot [=McNab=]. This culminated in the five-day Battle of Lincoln, which ended with the surviving members of the rival faction going on a roaring rampage of their own, burning down the home of one of the Regulators leaders, killing several dozen Regulators and sending the rest running for their lives.

** The Indian Mutiny of 1857 is an infamous example. After the Indian Sepoys rebelled, the British public were outraged by reports of massacres at Delhi, Jhansi, Cawnpore and various other places during which men, women and children were savagely murdered. When the tide began to turn against the Sepoys, it was time for revenge. Indians suspected of participating in or supporting the mutiny were slain by the British forces, with many being hanged or [[CruelAndUnusualDeath blown from cannons]]. Some were also sown into cow and pig skins before they died to mock their religious prohibitions on killing the animals, which was the cause of the mutiny. At Cawnpore, where the most notorious massacre had taken place, captured rebels were forced to lick up the blood of their fellow mutineers before being killed themselves. Others were punished by being burned with hot irons or waterboarded in wells.

** In 1176 Kudō Suketsune led an ambush on his rival Itō Sukechika while Sukechika was out hunting, but they ended up killing Sukechika's companion Kawazu Sukeyasu instead while Sukechika escaped. This resulted in the famous [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge_of_the_Soga_Brothers Revenge of the Soga Brothers]], where Sukeyasu's two sons forced their way into the inn where Suketsune was staying and brutally killed him before [[ValuesDissonance deciding to conduct a massacre to make sure people remembered]], killing ten of the Samurai who came to arrest them in one go and going on to kill so many more Samurai that the number of victims is unrecorded. They were only stopped when one of them dropped his sword, reputedly because it was so slippery from the blood of his victims, and was cut down, allowing three guards to gang up on the other and capture him.
** Alongside the Soga Brothers is the [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igagoe_vendetta Igagoe vendetta]], sparked when retainer Watanabe Gendayū was murdered by Kawai Matagorō. Gendayū's master Ikeda Tadao was unable to bring Matagorō to justice for the crime before his death two years later, with his DyingWish being that one of those in attendance kill Matagorō for him. His wish was granted when Gendayū's brother Watanabe Kazuma and his brother-in-law Araki Mataemon ambushed Matagorō and his followers at a crossroads and slew all those surrounding Matagorō. Matagorō was then forced to duel Kazuma, with Mataemon and Matagorō's surviving followers not intervening or allowing him to flee as demanded by law. The two supposedly duelled for six hours before Kazuma managed to wound Matagorō and kill him. He and Mataemon then handed themselves in to authorities but were not punished because of the laws governing revenge in the era.
** The third and final major example is the [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty-seven_ronin Revenge of the Forty-seven Rōnin]]. After suffering repeated insults from court official Kira Yoshinaka, ''daimyō'' Asano Naganori had enough and struck Kira, who immediately had him forced to commit suicide as punishment for assaulting a shogunate official, rendering his 300 samurai ''rōnin'' (leaderless). 47 of these ''rōnin'' refused to let their master go unavenged, but decided to wait for two years before retaliating in order to lure Kira into a false sense of security. Once those two years were up, the ''rōnin'' met up and renewed their oaths before storming Kira's residence, with none of Kira's neighbours intervening as they all hated him. In the attack, the ''rōnin'' killed 16 of Kira's retainers and wounded 22 before finding Kira cowering in a closet in the veranda and [[OffWithHisHead cutting his head off]] after he refused to commit suicide. 46 of the ''rōnin'' were condemned to death, but were allowed to honourably commit ''seppuku'' rather than be executed due to overwhelming public support for their actions.

* The 1994 murders of SerialKiller and [[ImAHumanitarian cannibal]] Jeffrey Dahmer, who exclusively targeted gay black men, and wife-killer Jesse Anderson, who tried to blame his wife's murder on a ScaryBlackMan, by fellow prison inmate Christopher Scarver were reportedly revenge for their crimes against the black community.

** On the other side, there was [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Hinson Jack Hinson]]. Though he was initially neutral at the outbreak of the war, Hinson joined the Confederate war effort after Federal troops cut off his sons' heads and stuck them on his gate posts. Hinson killed as many as 100 Union soldiers with his [[ColdSniper 50-caliber Kentucky Long Rifle]]. He was never apprehended despite the commitment of four Union regiments to pursuing him.

** On the other side, there was [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Hinson Jack Hinson]]. Though he was initially neutral at the outbreak of the war, Hinson joined the Confederate war effort after Federal troops cut off his sons' heads and stuck them on his gate posts. Hinson killed as many as 100 Union soldiers with his [[ColdSniper 50-caliber Kentucky Long Rifle]]. He was never apprehended despite the commitment of four Union regiments to pursuing him. Of course, recent historical research into this story has shown that most of the legend of Hinson is nothing more than revisionist anti-Union hogwash. Hinson's sons were not killed, and he was always a violent pro-confederate man.

** When seventeen-year-old Herschel Grynzpan learned that his family had been deported from Germany by the Nazis along with many others, he responded by gunning down Ernst vom Rath, a German official who he had been seeing, as a form of protest against what the Nazis were doing. Unfortunately for Grynzpan, and for a great many Jews still living in Germany, [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom this was just the excuse the Nazis were looking for to launch the infamous pogrom known as ''Kristallnacht'', the Night of Broken Glass, in which the SA, the Hitler Youth, and various German citizens smashed the windows of Jewish businesses, ransacked Jewish homes, burned down synagogues, and arrested no fewer than 30,000 Jews all throughout Germany]] [[FromBadToWorse in what would prove to be the beginning]] of [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust one of the worst genocides of human history.]]

** In general, Nazi policy was to respond with mass reprisal if conquered people wronged them in any way. If any German soldier was attacked or killed, a certain number of the local populace, usually numbering in the thousands, were to be killed. Their allies the Ustasha sometimes took this even further, once wiping out the entire Lika region in retaliation for some soldiers allegedly being shot at in a village in the region.

* In 1807, a Frenchman named Pierre Picaud was falsely accused of spying by three jealous so-called "friends" of his named Loupian, Solari and Choubart. Picaud spent the next seven years in prison before being released due to the fall of the government, and upon release found that Loupian had married his fiancée while he was in prison. After a ten-year absence spent accumulating wealth and plotting revenge against his former friends, Picaud returned to Paris in 1824 and first commissioned the murder of Choubart before fatally poisoning Solari. The most brutal revenge was reserved for Loupian, whose life Picaud set out to systematically destroy; first he tricked Loupian's daughter into marrying a criminal before exposing the man and having him arrested, at which point Loupian's daughter died of shock, before burning down his restaurant, leaving him impoverished, getting his son imprisoned for theft and finally stabbing Loupian to death. If that sounds vaguely familiar, it's because it was the inspiration for the plot of ''Literature/TheCountOfMonteCristo''.

* King Goujian of the Chinese kingdom of Yue acceded to the throne in 496 BCE, but immediately ran into a problem when the rival kingdom of Wu invaded during his coronation, took him prisoner and forced him to swear allegiance to Wu and become a servant of the Wu ruler Fuchai for three years. Fuchai then made the mistake of allowing him to return to Yue, where he spent ten years plotting his revenge. When Yue was weakened by a famine and the bulk of their forces were away fighting in the north, Goujian finally launched his retaliatory expedition against Wu, annihilating entire Wu armies by having his front line slit their own throats ''en masse'' so they would be too distracted to notice the Yue army flanking them. He eventually succeeded in attacking the Wu capital and killing crown prince You, establishing his independence from Wu. Not satisfied, he attacked Wu a second time in 473 and besieged the capital for three years until it finally fell. Annexing Wu, he razed the capital to the ground, forced Fuchai to commit suicide and slaughtered the leading Wu scholars, leaving nobody alive who could perpetuate the CycleOfRevenge.

* UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler considered World War 2 as a whole to be revenge against Europe for the Treaty of Versailles.

*** Similar scenes occurred after the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp, an infamously brutal camp for political prisoners. While most of the guards had fled, some remained and were subjected to brutal revenge by the prisoners. Around 30 or so former guards and kapos were brutally murdered in the aftermath of the liberation, and a similar number were killed in the Gusen subcamp where weaker inmates were left to die. Camp commandant Franz Ziereis was captured and shot several weeks later, with his corpse being hung up on the wall by jubilant former inmates.

* UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler considered World War 2 as revenge against Europe for the Treaty of Versailles.

** The Indian Mutiny of 1857 is an infamous example. After the Indian Sepoys rebelled, the British public were outraged by reports of massacres at Delhi, Jhansi, Cawnpore and various other places during which men, women and children were savagely murdered. When the tide began to turn against the Sepoys, it was time for revenge. Indians suspected of participating in or supporting the mutiny were slain by the British forces, with many being hanged or blown from cannons. Some were also sown into cow and pig skins before they died to mock their religious prohibitions on killing the animals, which was the cause of the mutiny. At Cawnpore, where the most notorious massacre had taken place, captured rebels were forced to lick up the blood of their fellow mutineers before being killed themselves. Others were punished by being burned with hot irons or waterboarded in wells.

*** Similar scenes occurred after the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp, an infamously brutal camp for political prisoners. While most of the guards had fled, some remained and were subjected to brutal revenge by the prisoners. Around 30 or so former guards and kapos were brutally murdered in the aftermath of the liberation, and a similar number were killed in the Gusen subcamp where weaker inmates were left to die.

* In 1925 the St. Nedelya Church in Sofia was bombed by that Bulgarian Communist Party during the funeral of General Konstantin Georgiev, who had been murdered by the Communists two days earlier, in an attempt to kill Tsar Boris III. The Tsar arrived late and survived, but 150 people were killed and 500 others were injured. In the aftermath, the army declared martial law and cracked down hard on the communist party, assassinating or executing the leaders of the party's military wing and shooting 450 party members without trial.