I have some really bad news about your family tree... [View all]

[Kurska]

Every single one of you (including me) is at some point descended from a rapist, a murderer and most likely a rapist murderer aswell. Probably many of them engaged in brutal conquests and genocides of innocent people. For example, 1 out of every 200 men alive today are directly descended from a man who killed around 40 million people (Ghenghis Khan).

In fact, if you're not familiar with the concept, we all share a single female ancestor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve

So while you're not directly descended from every butcher, murderer and general jerk in history, congrats they are in your family tree, some incredibly distant cousin.

You're even made of the stuff of murders and monsters (along with great men and women), here is one of my favorite Bill Bryson quotes "Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you. We are each so atomically numberous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of our atoms-up to a billion for each of us, it has been suggested-probably once belonged to Shakespeare. A billion more each came from Buddha and Genghis Khan and Beethoven, and any other historical figure you care to name.”"

Do with this information what you will.