History is full of some pretty amazing jerks.
Take Charles Dickens. The English novelist known for classics such as “A Christmas Carol” and “David Copperfield” dumped his wife and their 10 children for a woman 27 years younger than he was.
Jerk.
Then there is John Adams. In 1798, our second president and Founding Father signed the Alien and Sedition Acts to silence his political opponents.
Jerk.
There have been some noted female jerks in history as well. From 1829-31, Floride Calhoun, the wife of vice president John Calhoun, led the shunning of Margaret “Peggy” Eaton, the wife of the Secretary of War John Eaton. What was Eaton’s crime? Floride objected to her “low status” and to the circumstances surrounding her marriage to John. The so-called “Petticoat Affair” ultimately led to the resignation of all but one member of Andrew Jackson’s Cabinet.
Vladimir Lenin: the facts
Author: Leon Trotsky (Encyclopedia Britannica, 14th edition)
Lenin
LENIN, VLADIMIR ILYICH ULYANOV (1870-1924), founder and guiding spirit of the Soviet Republics and the Communist International, the disciple of Marx, the leader of the Bolshevik party and the organizer of the Oct. revolution in Russia, was born on April 9 (22), 1870, in the town of Simbirsk, now Ulyanovsk. His father, Ilya Nicolaevitch, was a schoolmaster. His mother, Maria Alexandrovna, was the daughter of a doctor named Berg. His eldest brother (b. 1866) joined the “Narodovoltze” (a revolutionary terrorist society), and taking part in the unsuccessful attempt on the life of Alexander III., was executed (1891); this was a determining factor in Lenin’s life.