Late in February, an active-duty US Air Force airman set fire to himself outside of Israel’s embassy in Washington, DC; afterwards, some journalists rushed to try and provide historical context for the practice of “self-immolation.” Time magazine, for example, published a story on “The History of Self-Immolation as Political Protest,” tracing its roots back into antiquity. Unfortunately for Time, they got the history factually wrong. The subsequent chain of events, where online outcry prompted one band-aid of a revision after another, deserves to be traced and recorded.
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