At the end of the 2012 film Lincoln, Daniel Day-Lewis’ Lincoln character makes some weighty statements before dramatically leaving for a night out — at Ford’s Theatre. It wraps the film up in a nice bow, but some of us watching might roll our eyes. Though we know he’s about to get shot, until that happens, it’s just another day, so it must be inauthentic to slather all this significance on his final hours.
And yet, in reality, leaders totally do have weirdly significant final hours. Take a look at the last day of any famous man who was assassinated, and you’ll find bits seemingly crafted by some screenwriter who cares nothing for keeping things believable.

在2012年末,电影《林肯》,丹尼尔饰演的林肯在戏剧性地前往福特剧院过夜之前发表了一个重要的声明。这使得整部电影得到了良好的结尾,但是对于我们这些看的人来讲,则会给翻一个白眼。尽管我们知道他将要被枪击,但在此之前,这对林肯来讲只不过是普通一天罢了,所以在他生命的最后时刻大肆宣扬这些意义一定是不真实的。
然而,在现实中,领导人们的确有着奇怪而重要的生命的最后时刻。请看一些那些被刺杀的领导人的生命最后时刻,你会发现其中有些像是由那些不在乎故事真实性的电影编剧所写的,。
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5
Robert F. Kennedy Saved His Son’s Life

罗伯特肯尼迪救了他儿子的性命

Kennedy and his wife Ethel had 11 kids, seemingly in an attempt to remind the world that they were Catholic. The fourth of these kids, David, was 12 years old in 1968. People would later get to know David for some high-profile troubles with drugs, but he was lucky to even get a chance to sample all those drugs — as a boy, he nearly drowned, on the day his father died.

肯尼迪和他的妻子共育有11个孩子,似乎在努力提示世界他们是基督徒。这些孩子中的第四个,David,在19689年的时候是12岁。 人们之后会因为毒品风波而了解David,不过他能有机会接触毒品本身就是幸运的——作为一个男孩,他在其父去世的那天差点儿淹死。

The family was at the beach, at a house owned by director John Frankenheimer, which might explain why what happened next was so cinematic. David was swimming in the water and got caught in the undertow. Dad dove in to save him, and it was serious enough that even Kennedy got cut and bruised on the head from the rocks below.
Robert Kennedy delivers remarks to a crowd in the Ambassador Hotel moments before the assassination, June 5, 1968

当时家人们正在海滩上,住在导演John Frankenheimer的房子里,这也可以解释为什么接下来的事情这么具有戏剧性。当时David正在水里游泳,结果陷入了暗流中。肯尼迪跳了进去救出了他,但是情况有点儿严重,肯尼迪的头部被下面的岩石割伤了。
1968年6月5日,肯尼迪遇刺前不久在大使酒店向人群发表了讲话。

They covered up those bruises with thick makeup that night, when RFK, who was running for president, spoke at L.A.’s Ambassador Hotel. David, filled with renewed faith in his father, watched live TV coverage of that event, which morphed into live coverage of the man’s assassination. It’s the sort of TV broadcast that’s bound to leave a kid with a lifetime of issues.

当为了竞选总统的肯尼迪在那天晚上在大使酒店发表讲话时,用浓妆掩盖了淤青。而David对于父亲充满了信心,观看这一事件的现场直播,却演变成了对于父亲的刺杀现场的直播。这是一场带给一个孩子一生心理问题的电视直播会。

4
Abraham Lincoln Created the Secret Service

亚伯拉罕林用创建了特勤局
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On April 14, 1865, Lincoln awoke from an ominous dream. In it, he’d been on a “singular and indescribable vessel that was moving with great rapidity toward a dark and indefinite shore.” He’d had that same dream before several important moments of the Civil War, so maybe this dream portended something great.

在1865年的4月14日,林肯从一场不祥的梦境中醒来。在梦中,他乘坐了一艘奇异而难以描述的船,正以级快速度驶向黑暗而未知的海岸。“在内战期间的几个重要的时间节点前他也做过同样的梦,所以也许这个梦是在预示某些伟大的事情。

Later that day, he signed legislation creating the Secret Service for the first time. Just a few hours after that, he was assassinated, which is the sort of thing we generally imagine the Secret Service aims to prevent.

当天的晚些的时候,他签署了创建特勤局的法案。在此几个小时之后,他就遇刺了,而这正是我们所通常认为的特勤局来防卫的事情。

Now, when Lincoln created the agency, it wasn’t initially devoted to the president’s protection. It was an anti-counterfeiting unit. Still, their April 14th birthday remains our number one favorite fact about the Secret Service.

现在,当初林肯创建特勤局的时候,并没有负责保卫总统的工作。那是一个防伪单位。尽管,他们4月14日的诞生日仍然是我们最喜欢的关于特勤局的事实。

3
Franz Ferdinand Escaped a Different Assassination Attempt

斐迪南躲过了另一场刺杀

On June 28, 1914, some kid shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Earlier that day, when he was first being driven from the train station in Sarajevo, Ferdinand ran into a bit of additional trouble.

1914年的6月28日,一些孩子射击了斐迪南大公。在该天的早些时候,当他在萨拉热窝的火车站乘上车的时候,斐迪南遇到了一些额外的麻烦。

It was around 10 in the morning, and someone chucked a bomb at the his car. “The Archduke pushed it off with his arm,” reported the news at the time, but in fact the bomb bounced off the roof of the convertible. Had the top been down, as it had been earlier in the ride (convertibles have enabled quite a few famous assassinations), the bomb would have killed him, maybe with his balls as ground zero in the explosion. Instead, the bomb bounced off the roof, fell to the road and detonated under the car behind him. It injured a count, a colonel and half a dozen other people.
The Archduke's convertible car onto which Čabrinović's hand grenade failed to detonate.

当时大概是早上10点,一些人朝他的车上扔了炸弹。当时的新闻报道称“大公用手臂将炸弹挡开了”。但实际上是炸弹从敞篷车的车顶弹了回来。如是不是撑开了车蓬,那么就像以前曾发生过的那样,那枚炸弹就将杀了他,也许他的丁丁处就将成为爆炸的中心点。相反的是,炸弹从车顶上弹开了,掉到了路上,在他身后的汽车下面引爆了。。炸伤了一名伯爵、一名上校和另外六个人。

This assassin was Nedeljko Čabrinović, a member of the same Black Hand organization as Ferdinand’s next assassin, Gavrilo Princip. In fact, at least two other assassins from this group had been stationed along the motorcade route, but neither threw their bombs, so the task fell to Čabrinović. Right after making his move, he put a cyanide pill in his mouth and jumped in the river. The pill just made him vomit, and the river was only a few inches deep, so authorities dragged him out and arrested him.

这名刺客名叫Nedelijko,与刺杀斐迪南的下一名刺客Garilo是同一个黑手组织的成员。事实上,该组织至少还有两名刺客埋伏在车队的行进路线上,但是这两个人都没有扔出炸弹。所以任务就落在了Nedeljko的身上。在他动身逃离之前,他吞下了一枚氰化物并且跳入了河中。这枚药丸使得他呕吐了起来而且河水也只有几英寸深,所以他被当局逮捕了起来。

“Herr Burgermeister, it is perfectly outrageous,” said Ferdinand, when he reached the town hall. “We have come to Sarajevo on a visit and have had a bomb thrown at us.”
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“Burgermeister先生,这太离谱了,。”当斐迪南到达市政厅的时候说道,“我们是出于访问的目的来萨拉热窝的,结果却有一个炸弹扔向了我们。”

It was lucky for us all that he escaped that murder attempt. If he’d died that day, wow, the consequences would have been extreme and far-reaching.

对我们来讲他那天没死真是太幸运了,如果那天他死了,那么所引发的一系列后果将是深远且严重的。

2
Tsar Alexander Turned Toward Democracy

沙皇亚历山大转向民主

Alexander II, the Emperor of Russia, is remembered for war, genocide and escaping assassinations. People shot at him again and again, and one time, they filled his dining room with hundreds of pounds of dynamite. He escaped that last attempt because dinner was delayed, due to a late train.
Portrait of Tsar Alexander II

俄罗斯皇帝亚历山大二世,因为战争、种族灭绝和逃离暗杀而被人铭记。人们一次又一次地向他开枪,,然后有一次他们在他的晚餐室中安装了数百磅重的炸药,因为火车晚点,所以晚餐被推迟了,躲过了这最新的一次尝试。

Sometime around here, Alexander decided maybe he should try appeasing these angry peasants a little. A count proposed some reforms to the system that would give commoners representatives in a legislature. It wouldn’t exactly overthrow the monarchy, but it would be quite a step for an emperor to support something like this.

在那里的某些时候,亚历山大决定也许他应当尝试安抚那些愤怒的农民。一位伯爵提议对体制进行一些改革,让平民在立法机构中拥有代表权。这并不完全推翻君主制度,但是对于一个君主来说,支持这样的事情是迈出了相当大的一步。

On March 1, 1881, Alexander announced that he’d be bringing the proposal to his council of ministers. Two hours later, unrelated to the announcement, a socialist threw a bomb into his carriage, killing him. His successor, Alexander III, turned out to be no fan of his father’s liberalization plan and turned back some of the reforms Alexander II had already made.

在1881年3月1日,亚历山大宣布他将把这个提议递交给他的部长会议。两个小时后,一名社会主义分子向他的车厢扔了枚炸弹,炸死了他。事实证明,他的继任者亚历山大三世并不喜欢他的父亲的自由化计划,并且驳回了亚历山大二世已经进行了的一些改革。

Let that be a lesson to you all: Even when the threat of assassination gets leaders to act, actual assassinations might just make things even worse.

让这成为你们所有人的一个教训:即使采用暗杀的手段来逼迫当局,其实际效果很可能也起到反向作用。

1
Martin Luther King Jr. Had a Pillow Fight

马丁路德金枕头大战
原创翻译:龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


MLK was assassinated two months before Robert F. Kennedy. People had long known he was in danger. You know that “I’ve been to the mountaintop” speech of his, where he said he might not live to reach the Promised Land that’d he’d glimpsed? He delivered that speech the very day before James Earl Ray shot him.

马路金在肯尼迪之前的两个月被人刺杀。人们早已知道他处于危险之中。你知道他所讲的《我曾去过山顶》的演讲,在其中他说将可能活不到达成他所瞥见的应许之地的日子了?就在James Earl Ray 枪杀他的前一天发表了演讲。

So, you might imagine that the man’s last days were entirely filled with anticipating and fearing imminent threats. But not so.

所以你也许可以想象得到这个男人在生命最后听时日里充满了对于威胁的期望和恐惧。但并非如此。

The day he died, King was staying at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. His brother, A.D. King, was staying in the same motel, as was Andrew Young, future congressmen and U.N. ambassador. MLK asked them why they hadn’t phoned him all day, and Young said they’d been testifying to keep him out of jail (they’d been in court that day on behalf of the striking sanitation workers MLK represented). “Oh, you're getting smart with me?” said MLK, playfully. He threw a pillow at Young, who threw it back, and soon all three of them (plus one other friend who was there) were whacking each with pillows like a bunch of children. The pillow fight only ended when another minister knocked on the door, possibly disturbed by the ruckus. One hour later, a bullet hit King on the motel balcony.

他死的那天,马路金一直待在孟菲斯的Lorraine汽车旅馆里。他的兄弟AD金和未来的国会议员和联合国大使安德鲁,也待在同一个汽车旅馆里。马路金问他们为什么一直没有给他打电话。而安德鲁说道他们一直在作证让他免于牢狱(他们在那天一直作为马路金所代表的罢工环卫工人的代表在法庭里)。“噢,你越来越聪明了, ”马路金开玩笑地说。他朝安德鲁扔了一个枕头,而后者则回扔,然后三人战作一团(再加上另一个在场的朋友),就像孩子一样用枕头大战起来。直到当另一位部长敲门的时候战火才平息,可能是听到喧闹声了。一个小时后,一颗子弹击中了在汽车旅馆阳台上的马路金。

It’s a shame we have no footage of that joyous pillow fight. Or, maybe it’s for the best that we don’t have it — some advertising company would probably use it to sell pillows, using the tagline “I have a dream.”

对我们来说没有关于那场枕头大战的镜头真的很遗憾。噢也许我们没有其实是一件好事,——一些广告公司会将这些镜头用在枕头广告上,并且写上标语“我有一个梦想”

原创翻译:龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处