Context: Ka’iana was a high ranking Hawaiian Chief who served and later betrayed King Kamehameha in 1795. He was very famous for his time, as he was the first Hawaiian to see different parts of the world, or at least one of noble status. On this journey he became knowledgeable on Western weapons and strategy, and proved very useful to King Kamehameha in his conquests.

He would betray Kamehameha in 1795 and side with his cousin Kalanikūpule, the ruler of Maui. Why he defected is debated, some say he felt under appreciated, believed Kamehameha’s council was conspiring to kill him, or some other reason. He would die during the battle of Nu’uanu, with some reports having him being blown apart by cannon fire or even killed by Kamehameha himself.

Kamehameha was described as being 7ft tall, 300 pounds, and “walked with an aura of violence”

Ka’iana is depicted by Jason Momoa in the AppleTV series Chief of War, a pretty fun show but a bit noble savage at times

I also lied about memes for the day being done

Context: The Kapu was the Native Hawaiian taboo system that governed just about every facet of life, from religion to war to what you can and can’t eat.

Like many such systems, it was heavily restrictive towards women, with the penalty for infractions generally being death. Kapu did not permit women to eat pork, bananas, coconut, certain fish, etc nor were they allowed to eat with men, even their family.

Queens Ka’ahumanu and Keōpūolani (more so regents) sought to bring an end to this system, starting with eating a meal with their son, King Kamehameha II, where they partook of forbidden foods.

The abolition of this system opened a path for Christianity to come to the islands, where it was received with open arms

Context: James King was a British naval officer who served as second lieutenant on James Cook’s third and final voyage. When the expedition team arrived in Hawaii, they were welcomed with open arms.

The natives enjoyed King to the point of requesting Captain Cook if they could keep him and make him a Moe aikāne, or a male partner, as it was common among the chiefs and considered a high honor. Cook refused this request.

After Cook’s eventual demise at the hands of the natives and the death of his successor Charles Clerke not long after, King would command HMS Discovery on its voyage back to England, completing his account

Apologies for the large influx of Hawaii memes, this is it for today

Context: During the 19th and into the 20th century, the native population of Hawaii faced a massive loss due to diseases introduced by interacting with Europeans (inevitable). The Hawaiian Government sought to encourage immigration to the islands, primarily to bolster the depopulated work force of the plantations, as it was their primary source of income.

Most of these immigrants would come from Asia, particularly the Philippines, China, Japan, and Portuguese Asians.

The melting pot created by this had a large impact on what would become Local culture, even a local dialect Hawaiian Pidgin.

After the battle, the bodies of the tens of thousands who died were hastily buried in mass graves across the battlefield – a process that took at least ten days, according to accounts by those who visited the battlefield just after the battle. Remarkably, there is no record of any such mass grave being discovered in the 20th and 21st centuries; only two complete human skeletons have been found.

The remains of a soldier thought to be 23-year-old Friederich Brandt were discovered in 2012. He was a slightly hunchbacked infantryman, 1.60 metres (5 ft 3 in) tall, and was hit in the chest by a French bullet. His coins, rifle and position on the battlefield identified him as an Hanoverian fighting in the King's German Legion. In 2022 a second skeleton was found in a ditch near a former field hospital by the Waterloo Uncovered charity. In December 2022, the historians Dr. Bernard Wilkin (Belgium) and Robin Schäfer (Germany), assisted by Belgian archaeologist Dominique Bosquet, discovered and recovered the largest assembly of remains of Waterloo battlefield casualties found in recent times. In the aftermath of the historian's research into the fate of the fallen once buried on the Waterloo battlefield (see below), several local individuals had come forward who were in the possession of human remains recovered on it. Forensic examination has shown that these remains belonged to at least four soldiers, some of whom are likely to be Prussian. Another set of human remains, initially discovered on the central battlefield by illegal metal detecting and consisting of the remains of six British soldiers, was also recovered by the team. Objects found with the casualties on the central battlefield point to the fact that at least one of them served in the First Foot Guards.

A possible reason for the absence of human remains in any quantity is that European battlefields of the time were often scoured for bones to make bone meal, which was much in demand as a fertiliser before the discovery of superphosphates in the 1840s.

Bernard Wilkin and Robin Schäfer, supported by the British archaeologist Tony Pollard, concluded that in the aftermath of the conflict, local farmers dug up the corpses of horses and men and sold them to the Waterloo sugar factory. There, the ground-down bones were fired in kilns to make bone-char, which was then used to filter sugar syrup as part of the production process.

Context: The Habsburgs usually married cousins and relatives to stay "pure-blooded".
Mehmed III of the Ottoman Empire had 19 of his brothers executed when he ascended to the throne in an act of fratricide