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Archiver > QUEBEC-RESEARCH > 2004-09 > 1095865731
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Subject: Excerpt Of History
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 11:08:51 EDT
"Camille Racource, a French woman, dressed in men's clothing so she could
carry out her role as one of the official executioners of Lyon, France. Ms.
Recource was said to have excelled at the arts of flogging, bone breaking,
hanging and beheading."
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"After his first encounter with the Arawak Indians of the first island he
discovered in the Caribbean, Christopher Columbus wrote, " They would make fine
servants." He instituted a rule whereby every inhabitant of that island,
Hispaniola(Haiti & Dominican republic) over 14 was required to cough up a
certain amount of gold every three months or have both hands cut off. Once having
reconciled himself to the fact that there wasn't enough gold on Hispaniola,
the great man took a more humane tact, instead of cutting the Arawaks hands
off, he shipped those who had not previously fled or bled to death to Spain,
where they were sold in the slave markets of Seville."
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"In the mid 1700s Duke Antonio Ferdinando, ruler of Guastalla, Italy, was
warned by a local soothsayer that alcohol would kill him. Frightened, the Duke
swore off drinking forever. Still sober in April of 1749, Duke Ferdinando was
massaging his aching muscles with rubbing alcohol after a hunting trip,
somehow caught fire, and burned to death.
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