A vandal is someone who deliberately damages or destroys property that is not theirs. Vandals often break, draw on, or ruin public or private things for fun, anger, or attention.
Named after the Vandals, a Germanic tribe who invaded parts of the Roman Empire and were later blamed for destroying Rome in 455 CE. Over time, their name became a symbol for people who wreck things on purpose, even though historians say their reputation was exaggerated.
This is one of those cases where a whole people got turned into an insult. Imagine if in 1,500 years, people used your town’s name to mean ‘troublemaker’. It shows how powerful (and unfair) history’s stories can be.
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