U.S. President George Washington issued the first presidential vaccine mandate, requiring all soldiers within the continental army to become vaccinated against smallpox on February 5, 1777. 90% of deaths during the American Revolution were due to disease, with smallpox being the most prevalent and difficult pathogen for the military to control. Immunization was viewed as an achievable solution to a virtually insurmountable problem as death from smallpox plunged from 30% to 2% after a becomming immunized. Vaccination, or “variolation” as it was referred to during the era, was achieved by taking a small piece of an active smallpox sore from an infected person, and then introducing it to the person being inoculated via inhalation or by scratching their arm and introducing the virus by touch. The mandate, although initially detested, became highly successful in its pursuit of lowering soldier mortality rate, with 40,000 soldiers vaccinated by the end of 1777
The Iban people of Sarawak, Malaysia practiced head hunting until the middle of the 20th century. Iban warriors were infamous within the region for decapitating their conquered victims to save the head as a trophy. Heads were strung and hung together at the top of the loadbearing posts of the long houses which the Iban continue to live in during the modern day, housing up to 25 families in a single building. Every month the Iban light small candles or fires below the hanging skulls to keep them warm because if they do not, they believe the spirits of the vanquished enemies will come back to haunt the dreams of the Iban. This practice was used as a right of passage and milestone mark for young Iban men throughout history, with young warriors forced to kill an enemy within the jungle and then bring the head of that enemy back to their home in order to bless it for everyone in the community. It was also common practice for Iban women to carry these skulls up and down the veranda of the longhouse to signify celebration for the bravery of the males of their family
In Peshawar, Pakistan, Arabs who supported the Afghan Mujahideen during the Soviet-Afghan War reached out to displaced Afghan youth refugees, paying particular attention to the youngest and most impressionable minors. All camps had madrasas installed, which are religious educational facilities that young boys would attend, virtually always freely provided by their own families as the families believed this would provide a better future for themselves and Afghanistan. It has been argued that these young boys were segregated so that they could be brainwashed and taught to fight violently as it was these same boys who grew up, created, developed, and became the Taliban. No formal education was provided to the selected youth outside of Quranic texts which is why this tactic was so effective. The Soviet-Afghan War led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and permitted for the development of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria proliferated from al-Qaeda which had propagated from the Taliban which had developed from the Mujahideen, all of these groups cultivated at their root by the U.S. and Soviet need to control this region of the world with both groups sharing equal liability and responsibility
During the modern day, soldiers use plastic explosives to blast through walls, similar to that of the gunpowder powered cannons of antiquity, but different in the sense that they can be directly applied and finely controlled. Despite these differences, the principle of both weaponry remains the same which is to create a powerful burst of kinetic energy to smash apart solid structures. Soldiers with explosive expertise during the modern day plant explosives in a lowercase “i” or “t” shape format by separating the explosives with a gap in the middle. This design ensures the explosive will blow a hole in the top and the bottom of the blast site, as well as the sides in some instances, leveraging the physics of the shockwaves produced to disrupt the wall and weaken it in the middle. Explosive experts don’t attach plastic explosives at the bottom of walls for two distinct reasons, the first being because the foundation upon the other side of the wall which cannot be viewed has the potential to be higher than the foundation facing the impending soldiers, which means that the explosives would be blasting into solid ground soil which is much less effective than blasting into walls made of concrete or otherwise, and the second being that explosives close to the ground create rubble directly next to the hole created, making forced entry more difficult, especially under siege conditions with active enemy combatants attempting to stop the breach. The main difference between Medieval gunpowder and modern day plastic explosive is the amount of material required to produce the same effect as plastic explosives are an entire order of magnitude more powerful than gunpowder, with 2 kilograms of plastic explosive equating to multiple barrels of gunpowder. Explosives are categorized as either “high explosives” or “low explosives” with high explosives having the front of the chemical reaction travel faster than the speed of sound and low explosives having the front of the chemical reaction produced travel slower than the speed of sound. To provide comparison, modern day C4 plastic explosives have a detonation velocity of 8,092 meters per second whilst gunpowder has a detonation velocity of just 171 – 631 meters per second
