Marat

There's a very bizarre parallel between the stabbing of the Lib Dem MP last May by a 21 year old woman who was seeking vengeance for the Iraq War, and the killing of Marat, the radical French Revolutionary, in his bath, by Charlotte Corday. The two young women were of a similar age and similarly single minded. They had no care for the consequences, in fact didn't seek to make any excuses for themselves, just made a plan and went ahead.

I wonder if it's partly to do with powerlessness. Charlotte Corday was at the end of her tether. She wasn't actually anti the Revolution - in fact rather supported it in its early stages. But for many reasons she became disenchanted (to put it mildly), and the focus of all her contempt and fear became Marat, who was indeed a leading light and very vocal and prominent. Although she never lived to know it, as a result of his murder, Marat became a martyr, and his fellow Jacobins, or Montagnards, were able to use Corday as an excuse to stamp out the opposition.

But then hey, we never do learn from history, I fear. How much suffering might be saved if we had a quick check to see whether nations/leaders/citizens had tried similar in the past...