Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Wikipedia vs. Wikipedia

Wikipedia tells us that on this day in 1927, Felix Dzerzhinsky died of a heart attack. What was his claim to fame? It depends on which Wikipedia you ask.

This one tells us that he was a murdering commie bastard:

Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky (Polish: Feliks Dzierżyński [ˈfɛliks dʑerˈʐɨɲski], Russian: Феликс Эдмундович Дзержинский; 11 September [O.S. 30 August] 1877–July 20, 1926) was a Communist revolutionary, famous as the founder of the Bolshevik secret police, the Cheka, later known by many names during the history of the Soviet Union. The agency became notorious for large-scale human rights abuses, including torture and mass summary executions, carried out especially during the Red Terror and the Russian Civil War.[1][2]

OK then.

This page tells us something different:
1926 – Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinskiy, Soviet law enforcement official (b. 1877)
A regular Wyatt Earp, I guess.

In other biographical news from Wikipedia, Josef Mengele was an anthropologist, Benedict Arnold was a pharmacist, and Tomás de Torquemada was a Dominican Monk.

2 comments:

  1. bluesunJuly 20, 2010 at 6:16 PM

    Well, they were. (In a really really really simplified way...)

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJuly 20, 2010 at 6:46 PM

    As long as you keep the difference between Law and justice separate in your head, it works. Further, if the list pages went into much detail they'd be miles long and defeat the original purpose.

    That said that entry is pretty sterile.

    Jim

    ReplyDelete

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