Hong Xiuquan failed his imperial civil service examinations so many times in nineteenth-century China that he had a nervous breakdown and hallucinated that he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ.

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Hong Xiuquan failed his imperial civil service examinations so many times in nineteenth-century China that he had a nervous breakdown and hallucinated that he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ. Instead of seeking psychiatric help, he formed a massive cult called the God Worshipping Society, built his own heavily armed militia, and launched the Taiping Rebellion against the Qing Dynasty. His claim to divine sibling status triggered a brutal civil war that lasted fourteen years and resulted in the deaths of approximately twenty to thirty million people, making it one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history. Most people just get really depressed and eat ice cream when they fail a massive career-defining exam, but this guy decided to establish a heavenly kingdom through unprecedented bloodshed. It is the ultimate cautionary tale about the dangers of academic pressure and unresolved psychological trauma