10 Forgotten Incidents Of Racial Violence In US History

Racial violence is still a hot-button issue in the US. Even today, America experiences riots and police brutality at times. Unfortunately, racial violence has always been a part of US history. But many of these sad incidents have been forgotten by the modern public.

10. Cincinnati Riots Of 1829.

The Cincinnati riots of 1829 were some of the earliest incidents of racial violence against immigrants in the US. These riots were mostly incited by white Irish immigrants in Ohio who felt threatened by the influx of African-American settlers.

Ohio was a free state when it became part of the US. That made it a refuge for African Americans who had escaped slavery or were trying to make a life in the West. During the mid-1820s, the African-American population in Cincinnati increased dramatically from 700 to close to 3,000, which concerned many white settlers.

The most fearful group was made up of poor, white laborers, who believed that the uneducated former slaves would force them out of jobs. Most of these white laborers were Irish immigrants.

Tensions reached their peak in August 1829 when 300 white people attacked African-American neighborhoods to drive the residents out of Cincinnati. At first, African-American community leaders advocated staying in Cincinnati to stand up for their rights. But the violence was too intense, and many African Americans decided to head north.

Their goal was to find a safe haven in Canada. A few thousand did make it across the border and settled in Canada. The exodus even led to black towns forming in Ontario. However, a good number of African-American citizens stayed in Cincinnati and suffered from the racial tensions for decades.

9. Greek Town Riot.

Anti-immigrant sentiment is not new to the US. Most people around the world have heard of historic Irish discrimination or the American debate on Mexican immigration. But less well-known is the anti-Greek sentiment that fomented violence in the US during the early 20th century.

One of the more shocking incidents was a riot in Nebraska in 1909. It started when a police officer arrested a young Greek immigrant. The Greek man pulled out his pistol and shot the officer during the arrest.

This inflamed racial hatred against the Greeks, with Nebraska newspapers calling the Greeks a menace to the American working class. Tensions reached a peak on February 21, 1909, when a mob of 3,000 men attacked the Greek settlement in South Omaha known as “Greek Town.”

Mob members indiscriminately attacked Greek houses, beating men, women, and children alike. One Greek boy died during the attacks, and community leaders asked the government of Omaha to help them quell the mob.

Help did not come, so the Greek community made a mass exodus from South Omaha. Within a few weeks, there were no Greeks left in the city.

8. Orange Riots.

In the 19th century, one of the most deadly but forgotten incidents of racial violence in New York was the “Orange Riots.” Tensions between Irish Protestants (aka Orangemen) and Irish Catholics were common during this time and resulted in the deaths of eight people during a holiday march in 1870.

When the Orangemen asked permission to march again in 1871, New York officials banned the parade. This caused discontent among the Irish Protestants, who complained continuously to government officials.

Eventually, the officials gave the Orangemen permission to hold a parade but under protection of the National Guard. On the day of the parade, the Orangemen marched while surrounded by infantrymen. Even so, the streets were filled with Irish Catholics.

Immediately, the Catholics began attacking the Protestants and the National Guard with gunfire and rocks. The National Guard responded by shooting their muskets into the crowd and bayoneting rioters. Still, the parade continued.

Without permission, the police fired into the crowd and even started a cavalry charge. When the riot ended, 60 people were dead and 150 people were injured.

7. Camden Riots Of 1971.

In 1971, police in Camden, New Jersey, pulled over Hispanic motorist Rafael Gonzales for a routine traffic stop. During the arrest, the police officer responsible for the traffic stop felt threatened by Gonzales and beat him to death.

Public fury ignited into riots when the police officer was not charged with any wrongdoing. Hispanic residents took to the streets to demand action against the officer. Although Camden officials gave in and charged the officer, they let him stay on the job and did not really punish him. Outraged, Camden Hispanics took to the streets again on August 20, 1971.

For three days, the city was under siege. Rioters looted stores and destroyed buildings, prompting the police to get involved. However, a lack of cohesion in the police force led to multiple incidents of police violence. The streets of Camden were filled with tear gas and officers firing their weapons.

In the end, police arrested 90 people. The officer responsible for the death of Rafael Gonzalez was finally suspended from his job. Although forgotten by or unknown to most people, these riots bear similarities to the Baltimore riots in 2015. Forty-five years later, it appears that America still has serious issues with police brutality.

6. Houston Riot Of 1917.

When the US entered World War I in 1917, the US armed forces—including the Third Battalion of the 24th Infantry Regiment—began training for the conflict. This battalion was exclusively for African-American soldiers.

At first, they trained in New Mexico. But they were soon transferred to Houston, Texas. Having African-American soldiers in this heavily segregated Southern city caused problems between the soldiers and the white community.

Not used to the strict segregation, many of the soldiers chafed at their treatment by white residents. Tensions came to a head when the Houston police violently arrested an African-American woman in the area.

Battalion soldiers became involved in protecting the woman. When violence ensued, the police shot one of the African-American soldiers three times but did not kill him. Word got back to the battalion about the incident, and tensions increased.

Knowing that a riot was imminent, the commanding officers of the regiment ordered all men to turn in their weapons. Instead, the soldiers of the battalion raided their camp of all weapons and marched into town.

Once there, the battalion exchanged gunfire with police officers and fired at civilian buildings occupied by white residents. The gun battle lasted throughout the night. In the end, 19 people died of gunshot wounds.

Houston imposed martial law, and the leaders of the battalion were court-martialed in the largest such trial in US history. Their defense highlighted the racism they faced, but the tribunal was not convinced. Nineteen men received death sentences and were hanged. Sixty-three others received sentences of life in prison.

5. Thibodaux Massacre.

In 1887, Thibodaux, Louisiana, experienced a three-week labor strike from local sugarcane workers. The protesters organized a force of a few thousand people, most of whom were African American.

Early attempts to end the strike failed. Strikers demanded increased wages and more consistent pay periods. They also demanded that payment be in actual US currency. Back then, companies paid their workers with special tickets that could only be redeemed at company stores.

Both sides refused to budge. In the late 19th century, most labor strikes ended in violent shows of force, and this one was no different. Taylor Beattie, a state judge who had once owned slaves, put Thibodaux under martial law and declared that African-American residents could not leave the city without special passes.

A vigilante group formed, which boxed in the strikers in Thibodaux. When the strikers fired on the vigilante group and killed two of them, mass violence began.

For three days, the vigilantes attacked the strikers and their families, executing them on the spot or in the nearby woods. According to official numbers, 35 people died. But citizens kept discovering bodies for some time after the strike ended, prompting historians to estimate casualties at 300.

The massacre also had a racial element. Every single one of the dead strikers was African American, and nearly all of the vigilantes were white.

4. Agana Race Riot.

When the US took Guam during World War II, Americans quickly began building airstrips for B-29 Superfortress bombers. The US intended to use the island as a base from which to launch bombing raids on Japan.

Soon Guam became a staging area for operations all over the Pacific theater. Soldiers, ships, and airplanes constantly traveled through Guam. However, the effectiveness of the island was marred by a race riot that happened over Christmas in 1944.

Trouble started when the African-American Marine 25th Depot Company arrived on Guam and was stationed near the major city of Agana. Distrustful of the African-American Marines, white Marines tried to prevent them from entering the city, especially if they were looking for women.

For months, tensions increased. Then, right before Christmas, a white Marine fatally shot an African-American Marine in a quarrel over a local woman. Although the white Marine was court-martialed, the African-American Marines were still outraged.

On Christmas Eve, a group of nine African-American Marines used their leave passes to visit Agana. When they got into the city, white Marines opened fire on them. Eight of the African-American Marines made it back to base, but one got left in the city.

Rumors circulated that he was dead, so 40 African-American Marines stole some trucks and drove into the city. Alerted to the incoming trucks, the military police set up roadblocks. When the Marines showed up, the MPs told them that the missing man was safe.

The African-American Marines returned to base. But even though they hadn’t engaged in violence, their barracks were attacked by white Marines in retaliation for what the African Americans had planned to do.

This led to firefights throughout Christmas Day. White Marines killed some enlisted men in the African-American camps. Eventually, the attacks stopped, and many of the people responsible for the violence received court-martials.

3. Bloody Monday.

In the mid-19th century, the US Whig Party shattered into a variety of extremist parties. One of the most well-known was the Know-Nothing Party, a radical anti-immigrant party that spread inflammatory rhetoric against any foreigner trying to move into the US. In Louisville, Kentucky, the rhetoric focused on German and Irish immigrants.

During the August 1855 election, leaders of the Know-Nothing Party organized to “protect the polls,” threatening violence against immigrants to keep them from voting. Throughout the day, violent threats escalated until the Know-Nothings began to attack the immigrants. Mob leaders shot at immigrants and raided their houses and stores, breaking windows and stealing products.

Gun battles erupted across Louisville, with some Irish immigrants fighting back against the Know-Nothings. Rioters set Irish houses on fire in retaliation. Eventually, the Louisville mayor, who belonged to the Know-Nothing Party, got the violence under control and ended the riots.

Twenty-two people had died, but local judges did not charge any rioters with crimes. The Louisville city government also refused to compensate the immigrants for property damage. Recently, Louisville erected a monument to honor those who died in the senseless violence.

2. Crown Heights Riot.

The Crown Heights riot of 1991 started in Brooklyn when a Jewish man named Yosef Lifsh was driving in a rabbinic motorcade. During the drive, he crashed his car into two African-American children.

African-American residents attacked Lifsh and his passengers, beating them severely. When a Hasidic ambulance service arrived, the police ordered them to get the Hasidic men out of there. Later, one of the African-American children died as a result of the crash, creating more anger in Crown Heights.

Black residents believed a false rumor that the police and EMTs had prioritized care to Lifsh because he was Jewish. African-American residents in Crown Heights were already distrustful of the increasing Jewish population, and the crash only fueled their anti-Semitism.

On August 20, 1991, rioting began against the Jewish residents. Within three hours, rioters had killed a Jewish man. For three days, the riots raged with African-Americans and Caribbean-Americans attacking Jewish houses and stores.

People who did not even live in Crown Heights came to take part in the violence. Among the rioters was Reverend Al Sharpton, who spread anti-Semitic propaganda and organized marches during the riots.

Police officers swarmed the area and finally took control of the situation after three days. They made hundreds of arrests, but many Jewish stores and residential areas suffered damage.

Even so, most Jews in Crown Heights did not relocate, and race relations between Jews and African-Americans significantly improved right after the riots. The riots remain one of the worst acts of anti-Semitism in US history.

1. 1921 Tulsa Race Riot.

After World War I, racial tensions in Tulsa, Oklahoma, reached a peak. For years, the city had strict Jim Crow laws that segregated African Americans and made them second-class citizens. World War I also created profound economic and social changes in the city, especially as soldiers came back from their horrific experiences overseas.

In 1921, this tension came to a head when a rumor spread that Dick Rowland, an African American who shined shoes for a living, had sexually assaulted a white elevator operator. On May 31, police arrested Rowland. Quickly, more rumors spread about a possible lynching by white vigilantes.

That night, a white group stormed the courthouse and demanded that Rowland be handed over to them. A group of armed African Americans arrived to try to stop the lynching. But when the first gunshot was fired, the African Americans fled back to their neighborhood.

With the support of the Tulsa police chief, a white mob formed, took up arms, and chased the African Americans. The rioting that followed destroyed about 40 city blocks in the part of Tulsa where African Americans lived. African Americans also suffered most of the 100–300 deaths and the approximately 800 injuries that happened that night and the following day.

There were no criminal convictions for the perpetrators of this violence, and no one was compensated for their losses. The charges against Dick Rowland were dropped after the riots.

17 Astoundingly Accurate Diagrams Showing What It’s Really Like To Be An Introvert.

Introverts are unique people. Many of them prefer to spend their evenings and weekends spending time with themselves at home rather than hanging out in a noisy bar or supporting their favourite football team at the stadium. Sometimes they end up with a negative reputation which they really don’t deserve.

1. YOUR SOCIAL CIRCLE

2. YOUR SOCIAL CALENDAR

 3. THE PERKS OF BEING AN INTROVERT 

4. WHAT YOU DO WHEN YOUR PHONE RING

5. SECRET DESIRE FOR A NEW PLAGUE

6. HOW FRUMPY YOU ARE

7. WHAT YOU MEAN WHEN YOU SAY "I'M BUSY"

8. WHEN YOU DREAM OF YOUR FUTURE, YOU IMAGINE

9. MONEY, YOU'D PAY TO NEVER HEAR THESE QUESTIONS AGAIN

10. WHAT PEOPLE THINK "INTROVERTED" MEANS

 11. SIMPLE PLEASURES FOR AN INTROVERT

12. THE BEST THINGS ABOUT PARTIES

13. WHY YOUR FACE LOOK LIKE THAT

14. HOW CLEARLY AND CONCISELY YOU CAN ARTICULATE YOUR THOUGHTS

 15. STAGES OF SOCIALIZING FOR AN INTROVERT

 16. WHY YOU ALWAYS CARRY A BOOK

 17. HOW EXCITED YOU ARE ABOUT DATING

Top 10 Supervillain Projects From Around The World

Fictional supervillain plots are just that: fictional. Except that some of the things that governments and even individuals have managed to pull off are just as outlandish as the things we’ve seen in James Bond movies. Here are 10 of these supervillain projects from around the world.

Top 10: A Secret Nuclear Smuggling Network

There are smuggling networks and black market operations which deal in exotic things like animal furs and illicit drugs, but there has probably never been a black market network quite like the one run by Abdul Qadeer Khan. It dealt in information on how to build nuclear weapons as well as the actual nuclear material and equipment to make those weapons.

While countries have peddled nuclear secrets before, Khan is the first individual to have ever built a business providing these services. However, unlike a supervillain in a Bond movie, he didn’t face a dashing MI6 agent trying to stop him. Western intelligence agencies purposely overlooked Pakistan’s nuclear program for years and missed Khan’s nuclear network as well.

Khan is considered the father of Pakistan’s nuclear program and is revered in Pakistan as a hero. While working in Europe, he stole two designs for nuclear centrifuges and brought them back to Pakistan, using these designs to advance Pakistan’s then-fledgling nuclear program.

In the early 1990s, he tried to sell the nuclear technologies Pakistan had used to make a nuclear weapon. Deals were signed with Libya, Iran, and North Korea for Khan’s networks to provide centrifuge parts, bomb material, and a complete blueprint for a compact nuclear warhead that could fit on a missile. Khan appears to have grown rich and egotistical on the profits from his sales, and Pakistani politicians were none the wiser.

The entire network started to unravel when shipments of nuclear weapons to Libya were uncovered in 2003. Further findings implicated Khan, including documents wrapped in bags from an Islamabad dry cleaning company. In 2004, Khan gave a public confession and was put under house arrest in Pakistan—a mere slap on the wrist because he was released just five years later.

Top 9: Anthrax In World War II

Dropping biological weapons over an entire nation to starve their populace sounds like something so evil that only a supervillain would advocate for it. During World War II, someone did strongly advocate for such a thing, but it wasn’t Adolf Hitler. It was Winston Churchill championing Operation Vegetarian.

The plan involved British bombers dropping anthrax-contaminated cattle feed over Nazi Germany. The German cows would eat the anthrax and die, depriving the Germans of all their livestock. Starvation would occur rapidly, with more deaths caused by the anthrax infecting humans.

To accomplish this massive undertaking, the British needed to manufacture and inject anthrax into five million linseed cakes. Then bombers would have to be modified to drop this unusual payload. However, smaller tests showed that the project was feasible.

Churchill overruled the concerns of several top scientists and ordered 500,000 anthrax-laced cakes from America in 1944, but World War II ended before the plan could be put into action. Although more tests were conducted on isolated islands as late as the 1950s, the British government favored nuclear weapons, which were far more practical. Postwar development of Operation Vegetarian was not pursued.

Top 8: The CIA Mining Operation

In 1968, the Soviet ballistic missile submarine K-129 suffered an accident and sunk into the crushing depths of the Pacific Ocean. A major loss for the Soviet Union, this represented a golden opportunity for the CIA, which could finally get its hands on Soviet missile technology.

There was just one small problem: The submarine was about 5,000 meters (16,000 ft) underwater. The CIA responded with a massive operation that would have made any supervillain proud. In complete secrecy, they attempted to raise the entire ship from the depths in an operation called Project Azorian.

To cover up the operation, the CIA approached billionaire Howard Hughes, who agreed to help. A massive ship, the Glomar Explorer, was built and ostensibly funded by Hughes, who announced that his new ship would mine the sea floor for the valuable mineral manganese. In fact, the CIA had secretly provided Hughes with the money to build the ship, and its real purpose was to use a gigantic claw to retrieve the sunken Soviet submarine.

Constructed from 1970–1974, the ship finally arrived at the site of the sunken submarine in July 1974. For over one month, the ship attempted to raise the submarine in complete secrecy while curious Soviet ships looked on. In the end, the mission was not entirely successful, with part of the submarine breaking off and sinking back into the depths. No nuclear missiles were recovered.

Before the Americans could try again, the entire operation was exposed in a strange series of events. Paranoid about a mundane burglary which had coincidentally made off with secret Azorian documents, the CIA enlisted the help of the FBI, which attracted media attention. Eventually, someone in the government leaked the entire operation, and the Soviets sent a warship to guard the remains of their submarine. Further salvage operations were canceled. The Glomar Explorer sat gathering dust until the 1990s, when it was purchased for oil drilling. The ship has now been scrapped.

Top 7: Control Of The World Copper Market

In some Bond movies, supervillains want to control the supply of a specific commodity, with Goldfinger being a well-known example. In the mid-1980s, a Japanese trader tried to do the same thing with copper, but he didn’t need nuclear weapons to do it.

Yasuo Hamanaka, working for the Sumimoto Corporation, was once known as “Mr. Five Percent” because he controlled approximately that much of the world’s copper supply at the time. Although that doesn’t sound like a lot, copper, unlike gold, is constantly being used up. It is also difficult to move copper to where there are shortages, so prices that rise due to a copper shortage do not necessarily reverse quickly. These factors, along with Hamanaka being the biggest holder of copper at that time, gave him a huge amount of influence over the global copper market.

He used this influence to keep the price of copper high for over a decade, earning a huge amount of money in the process. He accumulated a lot of his copper in secret deals. But for years, the fluctuations in copper prices were explained away and were never linked to his influence, despite increasingly vocal complaints by other copper traders.

However, real-life business isn’t like the movies, and Hamanaka’s plans for world copper domination came to an abrupt end in 1996. Increased market regulations made his position untenable. When he tried to secretly buy up more copper, he was busted.

Everything quickly unraveled from there. Sumimoto fired Hamanaka, and he was jailed for fraud. Then Sumimoto learned they had been left with nearly $2 billion in debt as the price of copper (and all of Sumimoto’s massive copper holdings) went into free fall.

Top 6: Saddam Hussein’s Supergun

In the late 1980s during the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam Hussein wanted a weapon that could strike farther than any he had in his arsenal at the time. So like a Bond villain, he turned to outsize ideas.

Saddam commissioned Canadian physicist and engineer Gerald Bull, who specialized in long-range artillery and had worked for Iraq in the past, to build a gigantic supergun called the Babylon gun. This weapon would fire artillery shells thousands of kilometers and would be able to fire satellites into orbit.

The final gun design had a barrel 150 meters (500 ft) long with a diameter of 1 meter (3 ft). It was expected to launch a 600-kilogram (1,300 lb) projectile 1,000 kilometers (600 mi) using 9 metric tons of special propellant. The recoil of the gun would have been enormous, registering on seismic sensors around the world. Iraqi defector General Hussein Kamel al-Majeed claimed that Saddam planned several missions for the gun, including launching nuclear weapons and shooting down satellites.

A smaller, 350 mm prototype of the supergun was built. But before construction on the larger gun could begin, Bull was killed by the Israelis in 1990 because he was working to improve Iraq’s more mundane ballistic missiles. The same year, Saddam invaded Kuwait and was crushed by the US. Ultimately, the supergun project was dismantled.

Top 5: Stealth Satellites

Remember in the Bond film Moonraker where supervillain Hugo Drax had a stealth space station in orbit that was invisible to the US military? The US military actually had such a program—code-named Misty—to secretly deploy stealth satellites into space to spy on enemies. These satellites couldn’t be seen through telescopes or tracked with radar.

The first satellite was launched by a space shuttle in 1990. But just a few days later, the satellite apparently exploded. Believing that this was an ordinary spy satellite, both Russian and American space experts thought that was the end. In fact, the explosion had been faked, and the satellite had deployed a stealth shield to hide itself while the experts were distracted by the explosion.

Less than a year later, however, the satellite was spotted briefly by amateur astronomers while it was maneuvering in space. As late as five years later, other sightings were reported, again by amateurs. The military learned a lesson. When the next Misty satellite was launched in 1999, it contained a decoy that threw off the civilian astronomers for a while.

However, at a cost of nearly $10 billion, these spy satellites weren’t useful enough in real life to justify the massive expense. The project was canceled in 2007.

Top 4: X-Ray Lasers Powered By Nuclear Explosions

During the Cold War, the US government pursued a superweapon under the aegis of Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative. Called Project Excalibur, it was supposed to use X-ray lasers powered by nuclear weapons to destroy Soviet ballistic missiles. The project was proposed by Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb, who believed that a series of these weapons could secure the US against a missile attack by the Soviets.

The weapon consisted of a nuclear weapon with a modified casing containing hundreds of solid lasing mediums. The explosion of the nuclear weapon would dump energy into the mediums, which would be excited and produce intense beams of X-rays, frying a huge number of Soviet missiles with every atomic detonation.

The Outer Space Treaty prohibited nuclear weapons in space, so the X-ray laser devices needed to be stored on the ground. X-rays are also absorbed by the atmosphere after just a short distance, which meant that the devices had to be deployed on rockets in Western nations closer to the Soviet Union, such as Britain.

Ten tests were conducted to see if nuclear explosions could be used to generate X-rays. Although there was some success in later tests, the end of the Cold War also heralded the end of the program. It was canceled in 1992.

Top 3: An International Villain Organization For Hire

The Bond movie Thunderball introduced SPECTRE, a crime syndicate and terrorist organization for hire that was led by an evil genius. While the real-life Paladin Group didn’t steal nuclear weapons or hold Britain for ransom, they were a mercenary organization founded by the nearly mythical ex-Nazi soldier Otto Skorzeny, who must have been an evil genius to pull off as many feats as he did.

Formed by the scar-faced Skorzeny in the 1960s, the Paladin Group was envisioned as a global organization of mercenaries, who were neither military troops nor civilian spies. The organization specialized in training and equipping unsavory characters. In the geopolitical upheavals of the 1960s and ’70s, there were many dictatorships and failing governments around the world that wanted mercenaries and killers, demands that the Paladin Group was prepared to service.

Unlike SPECTRE, the Paladin Group wasn’t immortal. With the deaths of both Skorzeny and his patron, Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, the group appears to have faded into history.

Top 2: The Balloon Bomb To Destroy Soviet Harvests

The US once had a weapon, the E77 balloon bomb, that could potentially wipe out crops and livestock worldwide using biological agents. Inspired by Japanese balloon attacks on the US during World War II, the Americans combined a harmless leaflet-dropping balloon with a 40-kilogram (80 lb) payload of stem rust disease, which would destroy wheat harvests.

The stem rust was coated on turkey feathers, which would be released when the balloon had risen and then dropped to a predetermined height. Almost 5,000 of these weapons were ordered in 1950, enough to destroy more than 500,000 square kilometers (200,000 mi2) of cropland.

Designed to secretly destroy Soviet or Chinese agriculture, the balloons were tested over a decade and ready to deploy. However, the program was suspended in 1960. Bombs dropped by aircraft had become the favored delivery method of stem rust. As far as we know, all research into biological warfare ended in the US in 1969.

Top 1: The US Government Is Purposely Spreading Malware

In 2012, leaked documents from Edward Snowden revealed that the US National Security Agency wasn’t just passively tapping phone lines and Internet connections. The NSA has been systematically infecting tens of thousands of computers with malware since 2010, with hopes to eventually infect millions of computers. This malware steals information and opens up computer networks to outside influence.

An automated system called TURBINE is spreading the implants and has allowed the NSA to expand their ambitions from just a few hundred priority targets to potentially millions of computer systems. In internal documents, the NSA claims that the system would operate like a human brain, automatically deciding what it would use to retrieve information from compromised computers.

The system is also user-friendly. A human overseer can ask a computer about an application it’s running without being overwhelmed with coding minutiae. The entire villainous operation could put the safety of the Internet at risk, as holes in security created by the TURBINE malware make further intrusions by other organizations and individuals more likely to succeed.

10 Most Controversial James Bond Facts.

James Bond is a worldwide phenomenon—an icon to young and old, male and female. It seems that the character and his antics never go out of style. However, over the years, James Bond and the actors who play him have made as many waves outside of the movies as inside of them.

Facts 10: Roger Moore And The Race Debate

Roger Moore charmed countless fans as the third actor to officially play James Bond, transitioning from Sean Connery’s 1960s spy adventures into a swinging ’70s miasma of Bond weirdness, including the polarizing film Moonraker. Much more recently, though, Moore polarized fans again when he opined that Idris Elba should not play the superspy.

As Elba’s popularity has grown, many fans have speculated how bold and different it would be if he replaced Daniel Craig as the next James Bond, marking the first time the spy would be played by a black actor. In an interview with Paris Match, Moore allegedly responded to this suggestion by saying that Bond should be portrayed as someone “English-English.”

Of course, Elba is English, so many interpreted the odd phrase “English-English” to be a dog whistle for Moore claiming that Bond should only be played by a white man. While some fans defended Moore and his statement as being about nationality and not race, the interview also has him placing this “English-English” preference over the Scottish, Welsh, and Irish actors who have portrayed Bond.

Therefore, the interview has Moore insulting either all black actors or nearly all Bond actors, including the iconic Sean Connery. Of course, whether either implication is as offensive as the mere existence of Moonraker is a matter of taste.

Facts 9: Daniel Craig And The Bad Role Model

 
Generations of fans have looked up to the character of James Bond. He is a model of male sophistication in manners, style, and romance with each comely woman sharing his latest adventure. However, there is one solid authority on why James Bond is a terrible person: Bond actor Daniel Craig.

In a candid interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Craig used his famous “mince no words” personality to point out that people view Bond as a lady-killer and somehow overlook that he is a terrible misogynist. Craig also points out that the appearance of chivalry on Bond’s part is often more a result of the writers surrounding the single-minded agent with women who can put him in his place.

When the interviewer lobbed a softball question at Craig by asking what people can learn from the character of Bond, the actor remained equally candid and said, “Nothing.” Then he pointed out that these movies are about a simple, direct killer and are not the “life-changing experience” of male fantasy that some fans make them out to be.

Facts 8: Is James Bond Bisexual?

The James Bond film Skyfall was a refreshing return to form for the series, featuring amazing action and an absolutely captivating villain, Javier Bardem’s Silva. However, the most memorable scene for many people was Silva’s interrogation of Bond. Silva taunts the hero by implying that he may have sex with Bond and that this is the first time Bond has been the subject of male affection. Bond’s potentially monocle-popping reply: “What makes you think this is my first time?”

Depending on how viewers read this scene, there are some interesting implications. One is that veteran lady-killer James Bond may be bisexual. Interestingly enough, the cast and writer did not make the issue clearer when pressed on the matter. Screenwriter John Logan responded that the main point was to have Silva make Bond feel uncomfortable in a new way by making explicit the usually implicit homoerotic undertones of villain/hero exchanges.

Bond star Daniel Craig demurred when asked, simply saying that he does not think of the world “in sexual divisions.” Bardem commented that viewers intrigued about the possible homosexuality of the villain “could read it that way” and that he felt the director wanted the question of whether Silva was joking left unanswered. However, with no outright denials of Bond bisexuality holding them back, fan fiction writers found themselves both shaken and stirred by the new possibilities.

Facts 7: A Tale Of Two Bonds

In the 1980s, Sean Connery returned to the role of James Bond in the film Never Say Never Again. However, this movie is never included in Bond film compilations or broadcast in Bond movie marathons because it’s not actually a Bond film. At least not officially.

The plot goes back to the James Bond novel Thunderball. Author Ian Fleming collaborated on the film version of Thunderball with producer Kevin McClory. The original movie never happened, so Fleming transformed the plot into one of his James Bond novels. However, the author failed to credit McClory for the plot, resulting in a lawsuit.

McClory won two big prizes from his successful lawsuit. First, he received production credit for the eventual Thunderball movie starring Sean Connery. Second, McClory received the right to create his own film version of Thunderball after at least 10 years had passed.

McClory executed this right, even luring Connery back to create an intriguing new Bond entry that lies outside the official James Bond canon. The film also gave us a more down-to-earth counterpart to the increasingly flamboyant Roger Moore and his official Bond films.
 

 Facts 6: The Bond Girl Who Was A Boy

A key component of a James Bond film is that women find him irresistible, with a kind of cultural cachet forming around the starlet who becomes the latest “Bond Girl.” However, in 1981, a Bond girl was revealed to have once been a boy, both shaking and stirring international controversy.

In For Your Eyes Only starring Roger Moore, model and actress Caroline “Tula” Cossey played one of the extras in a pool scene. Born Barry Kenneth Cossey, she had enjoyed great success after transitioning to a female. She was a commercial actress and glamorous model, with credits from Vogue to Playboy. It seemed like appearing in a legendary James Bond movie would be the stepping-stone to an even larger media career.

Unfortunately, the high-profile movie also brought high-profile controversy. The UK tabloid News of the World sought to destroy her with an article entitled “James Bond’s Girl Was a Boy.” This revelation shocked both her personal fans and Bond fans, with the public backlash causing her to consider suicide. Fortunately, she did not take her life and was able to return to modeling, but the huge controversy prevented her from having a larger film career.
 

Facts 5: Daniel Craig Would Rather Die

For many male actors and perhaps almost all men, the idea of playing James Bond seems like a dream come true. The films can launch their stars to international fame while making these actors filthy rich. However, Daniel Craig shocked the world when he revealed that those opportunities weren’t enough for him to play Bond again.

When asked if he would return for another Bond movie after SPECTRE, Craig told Time Out magazine that he would rather slash his wrists than return. “All I want to do is move on,” he said.

Craig was even less talkative about who should be the next James Bond when he said, “Look, I don’t give a f—k.” Topping off the bluntness in his interview, Craig revealed that he would only return for the money rather than any energy or passion he has for the role.
 

Facts 4: James Bond Jr.?

James Bond has been a multimedia franchise for decades. Simple books about a spy became big-budget films, which in turn begot more novels, video games, comics, and so on. However, there’s one form of James Bond media that his fans mostly attempted to forget—the 1991 James Bond Jr. cartoon.

Despite the title, the 65 episodes of this cartoon did not feature the son of James Bond but instead focused on the insane high school adventures of his nephew. Even if we ignore the fact that Bond is an orphan and probably wouldn’t have a nephew, there are many reasons why the cartoon series is the most controversial Bond of all.

The cartoon borrowed and twisted adult elements of the Bond films. For example, Bond Jr. teamed up with I.Q., the grandson of Q, and flirted with Goldie Finger, the daughter of Goldfinger. Bond Jr. also fought actual Bond villains, such as Oddjob and Dr. No.

In the strangest twist of all, Dr. No—a normal-looking male human in the movie sharing his name—instead looks like a green alien with pointed ears and a Fu Manchu mustache in the cartoon. There is no shortage of reasons why Bond fans label this cartoon as “For No Eyes Only.”
 

Facts 3:  From Cold War To Capitalist Icon

Nowadays, most people view James Bond as a globetrotting British hero—nothing more, nothing less. However, Bond was created as Cold War propaganda. Specifically, Ian Fleming’s original novels portrayed a British superman adept at destroying communists wherever he encountered them.

Interestingly, these Cold War connotations were toned down as soon as Bond landed on the silver screen. Although the literary Bond struggled against the Soviet intelligence agency SMERSH, the films replaced that with the international cabal known as SPECTRE.

According to early Bond critics, the films’ emphasis on nifty gadgets in place of low-tech spywork played its own role in Cold War culture. John le Carre—a writer and former spy—dubbed the reliance on these gadgets as a tawdry way to impart “a kind of magic” on our otherwise “drab and materialistic” lives.

Of course, by flaunting the ability of the economically booming West to deploy such technology against its enemies, even the cinematic James Bond served to smash debt-ridden communist countries in the eyes of the public, although with ejector seats in his Aston Martins instead of his fists.

Facts 2: Bond Swaps The Martini For A Heineken

The famous phrase “shaken, not stirred” cemented James Bond as a drinker—specifically as a consumer of meticulously made martinis. That’s why many Bond fans felt shocked and betrayed when Bond swapped his favorite martini for a Heineken beer.

Heineken has actually sponsored a number of Bond films over the years, including most of Pierce Brosnan’s Bond films and all of Daniel Craig’s. However, Skyfall marked the first time that Bond consumed the brand on-screen. In addition, Craig began starring in Heineken ads as James Bond.

Some people felt that this was a bridge too far for product placement, adjusting the plot of the movie to support a sponsor rather than the typical method of allowing the sponsor’s product to sit quietly in the background of a scene. The motivation for having Bond consume the beer on-screen is clear: Heineken wants viewers to think they are the best because James Bond will settle for nothing less.

Not everyone saw it that way. By making James Bond a less formal character, some people believe that this product placement was a cheap attempt to appease a casual audience into thinking that their consumerism brings them closer to the superspy—all at the expense of 50 years of cinematic, martini-filled history.
 

Facts 1: The Most Popular Psychopath?

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of James Bond is the world’s never-ending fascination with a cold-blooded murderer. Matt Damon, who famously portrayed the spy Jason Bourne, described Bond as “an imperialist, misogynist sociopath who goes around bedding women and swilling martinis and killing people. He’s repulsive.”

Of course, it’s easy to write off Bond’s excesses as part of the medium he inhabits. After all, is he really that much worse than your average action hero?

As always, it depends on how you define things, but Bond ticks off several items on the literal psychopath checklist devised by Dr. Robert Hare of the University of British Columbia. These traits include a “cunning and manipulative nature, pathological dishonesty, lack of remorse, [and] promiscuous sexual behavior.”

According to a study published in New Science in 2008, Bond exemplifies a psychopath because “he’s clearly disagreeable, extrovert and likes trying new things—including killing people.”

Of course, Bond is not your run-of-the-mill psycho. He’s more of a socialized psychopath, someone who is actually malevolent but appears mostly normal to friends and colleagues.

Arguably, this subtext came to the surface in the Skyfall movie, which portrayed Javier Bardem’s villainous Silva as a kind of evil Bond twin. Silva was the unsocialized psychopath but one who still had the presence of mind to criticize Bond for his “pathological rejection of authority based on unresolved childhood issues,” another possible symptom for a psychopathic diagnosis.

Ultimately, Bond’s mental state is less fascinating than this simple fact: He is the most celebrated serial killer–hero in books and film. By using charm, women, and one-liners, Bond disguises the fact that he would be the hated villain in any movies but his own.