Mental illness and absolute power. Bad combo.
Not true.
Progressives don’t have the unwarranted, ridiculous reverence for Reagan that conservatives do so no matter who a Republican nominee is and no matter how poorly he is perceived, progressives will not compare him in any way to Reagan, nor consider Reagan at all.
Gary Webb, the subject of a soon to be released movie Kill The Messenger. He was destroyed by his own peers and the people he worked with. All this despite the fact that he was proved correct soon afterwards.
One of the guys who fucked him over recently apologized.
Hey, you’ve got to give the guy some credit, he killed Hitler.
Not to mention that Cawdor wasn’t built til about, what, 400 years after MacBeth…
There are multiple theories out there, and the exposé one is definitely valid. As a diplomat, Machiavelli traveled extensively to the leaders of other countries, and saw their tactics firsthand. Another weird aspect of The Prince is how different it is stylistically from his other works - most of his stuff it rather dense, filled with long, technical sentences and citations. The Prince is rather fast paced and witty (although I don’t speak Italian, I heard the original copy is filled with puns and such), which could mean he was aiming for something that would have a wide appeal. If so, it was a genius move - instead of just saying “hey, citizens, these are the immoral tactics your rulers use,” say, “hey, princes - here’s a how to guide on how to rule all those stupid peasants! Yeah, this definitely isn’t a book for civilians to read . . . but maybe I’ll just leave it lying on this table right here, 'cause it’s not the kind of thing all of you normal people are interested in, right?”
Serious historians or idiots out of their field? Because serious historians look at evidence, and we’ve made sure that Hitler’s crimes are documented to an amazing degree. Only a historian who was incredibly biased, incredibly incompetent, or the victim of a massive campaign of lies would seriously try to redeem Hitler. The best anyone can reasonably say is “He wasn’t actively engaged in wholesale genocide twenty-four hours a day, even once the war began.”
Everyone always seems to take for granted that the knowledge of our era a hundred years from now will be as scanty as our knowledge of eras thousands of years ago. Everyone also seems to imagine that historians are just as ill-informed as the average person.
Anyway, Jesus actually existed, Edison wasn’t a monster, and Watson and Crick did manage to do some science instead of stealing everything from poor black women. That takes care of a lot of the second-option bias I see on a daily basis.
In what way was Benedict Arnold libeled? A case could be made that insufficient attention has been paid to his military achievements on behalf of the Revolutionary Army.
But his loathsomely traitorous activities have been accurately reported.
You mean Cyrano Jones. Mudd was more interested in illegal beauty enhancers, peddling wives to settlers, and lording it over androids. 
As for Samuel Mudd…isn’t there evidence that at the very least he was in on Booth’s conspiracy when they were still out to kidnap, not kill, Lincoln? From there it’s not so hard to surmise that at the very least he was perfectly aware that he was helping Booth all along.
According to James Swanson, author of Manhunt, Mudd confessed on his deathbed that he DID know all along that Booth was his patient.
Did he deserve his harsh sentence? Probaby not. But was he the innocent, unfairly railroaded dupe that the movie The Ordeal of Dr. Mudd portrayed him as? Probably not.
Dang it.
Whats worse than a bad joke?
A bad joke with a wrong fact.
And worse than that?
One with two wrong facts 
If you think that after seeing the movie, you’re not paying any attention to it. Yes, Salieri did say he killed Mozart, but the entire point of the film was that God killed Mozart so Salieri could not share in his genius.
As for my own, it’s **Fatty Arbuckle. ** There’s no evidence he did anything to cause Virginia Rappe’s death. Hearst saw a good way to sell papers, though, and sensationalized and misrepresented the case.
That’s true, but in the end he had change of heart and worked for the crown.
Some posters seem to be confusing fictional Plays with attempted historical accuracy.
Now your name is mudd.
I can’t find the links at the moment but I have read that it goes even further than that. Caligula was apparently a decent emperor. His sin was he wanted to take power away from the Senate and institute democratic reforms so the Senate had him killed and made up the stories we all heard to tarnish his name.
My pick for a relatively modern one would be Richard Jewel whose life was ruined because he was accused of trying to murder the people he saved.
He was a traitor, but he wasn’t a really strong example of one. There have been many who were worse. Arnold, in the U.S., is treated as the traitor of all traitors, the national Judas. And…he was just an ordinary garden-variety turncoat.
I can totally see it.
[QUOTE=Hypothetical SMDB Lenin]
The progressive historical role of capitalism may be summed up in two brief propositions: increase in the productive forces of social labour, and the socialisation of that labour. But both these facts manifest themselves in extremely diverse processes in different branches of the national economy.
Also check out my adorable Mischka chasing this ball of wool
[/QUOTE]
This one, perhaps?
The reason being is that the person he betrayed was Washington. Washington had a habit of thinking his fellow officers whom he was friendly with as near family. So that when Arnold (and a couple of other people during later on during his Presidency) betrayed him he took it very, very hard. This nation reveres Washington, so by extension we find him the most loathesome US traitor.