372 years ago, on this day in 1652, the Act for the Settlement of Ireland was passed by the English Parliament, preceding the greatest exercise in ethnic cleansing in early modern Europe

Since the OP challenged me to explain why these pictures are actually cool, and not "mocking", let's go Focusing solely on the 1st two pictures (the shot from above and the table scene) The first one has a Brueghelian composition, it reminds vaguely of a village kermesse, a mixture of the battle of Carnival & Lent, the wedding dance and St Martin's feast... except of course the people are rather good looking. I understand that the lighting is intended to make those people look nasty and mean. Sure. To me, it looks more like the photographer messed with the filters on his camera, sloppily. It makes their features more prominent, but doesn't distract me: these are hot young people having fun. Now the second one. It has a Caravaggesque vibe, specifically the sense of a single light source giving nice, elongated shadows, such as with Dutch golden age painter van Honthorst or the 19th century Petrus van Schendel. The young male looking at us mischievously reminds me of Botticelli's self-portrait in his Adoration, or Il bravo by Tiziano (also a nice chiaroscuro), or even L'avvocato by Moroni and a many similar portraits. The commonality here is that, despite what the photographer intended, the end result is that the whole thing looks FUN and BASED. It's the kind of party any normal and non-degenerate young person wants to be invited to, not excluded from. (pictures of some paintings below)