The Nazis burned books in an attempt to erase historical records that Chancellor/Dictator Adolph Hitler did not like and did not want to deal with. The Nazis were hardly the first to do so. Throughout antiquity and the Middle Ages, the burning of books critical of regimes or simply as an attempt to destroy an entire culture took place, stretching from before the Early Modern Period (1492 to the turn of the 19th century) through the Industrial Revolution. Perhaps one of the most famous – or infamous – cultural purges began in 1966 in China, when communist leader Mao Zedong sought to reassert control over both China and his party. As noted by the website MassViolence.org: