This picture is of Catherine the Great’s favourite horse. I think he looks worried.

Today is the 17th of July and historically it’s a very violent day. Nothing of any significance happened on the 17th of July except acts of violence.

  • On this day in the year one-eighty, six people in Carthage were executed for being Christian. It’s notable because it’s the first record of Christianity in North Africa.
  • In 1203 during the fourth crusade the siege of Constantinople began
  • In 1762 Catherine II - having murdered Peter III - became Zah-rina of Russia.

I just want to pause there on Catherine the Great. When I was at school - I think probably in year 8 - my history teacher told several of us that Catherine the Great liked to have sex with horses. This sounds alarming - but actually he was a very good teacher - one of the inspiring ones. He has left a legacy, in the sense that every time I see any mention of Catherine the Great, I have to look it up - on her Wikipedia page - and remind myself that her death crushed by a horse is an unsubstantiated urban legend.

Back to the 17th of July.

  • In the year 1918 the Romanov royal family was executed by a Bolshevik firing squad.
  • In 1936, the 17th of July saw the start of the Spanish Civil War.
  • And in 2014 Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over Eastern Ukraine by a surface-to-air missile, killing 298 people.

So - I’ve done some Google searches for phrases including “Why are we so violent” and I thought I’d share my findings.

  • Most animals do use aggressive displays, but it’s without any intention of causing serious injury. Predators kill - but not each other, it’s mainly for food.
  • Humans are a notable exception to the rule - and so are chimpanzees.
  • Chimp patterns of violence will sound familiar: childhood friends can end up fighting to the death. They raid competing territories, killing their opponents. And males tend to be more violent than females.
  • It’s all normal in chimpanzee society, so we can say that chimp violence is even worse than violence in humanity. One theory of human evolution suggests that proto-humans reduced the level of aggression in humanity today, by actively targeting and killing the most aggressive and disruptive people in their own societies. I guess it was a bit like the death penalty for getting thrown out of a nightclub.
  • Interestingly Bonobos are extremely closely related to Chimpanzees - so much so that they are often grouped together under the same term “chimps.” And yet Bonobos have a famously “make love not war” culture. Rather than fighting, they have sex with one another at every opportunity. But obviously not with horses.

I haven’t really arrived at a point to any of this. I guess if we have to degenerate from time to time into our ape evolutionary history, we should channel our inner Bonobo rather than our Chimp. And, also, we should take care with any idea that you might impress on a 12-year-old mind.

Have a good weekend.