Former NASA astronaut and Navy veteran Scott Kelly apologized Sunday after facing backlash for a tweet praising Winston Churchill.

“One of the greatest leaders of modern times, Sir Winston Churchill said, ‘in victory, magnanimity.’ I guess those days are over,” Mr. Kelly, a veteran of four space flights,tweeted to his 5.76 million followers Sunday afternoon.

The tweet received some backlash, with users blaming Churchill for the Bengal famine of 1943 and comparing the late British prime minister to the genocidal dictator he helped defeat, Adolf Hitler.

Seven hours later, Mr. Kelly apologized for the quote, saying he would work on educating himself on Churchill’s purported misdeeds.

Did not mean to offend by quoting Churchill. My apologies. I will go and educate myself further on his atrocities, racist views which I do not support. My point was we need to come together as one nation. We are all Americans. That should transcend partisan politics. — Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) October 7, 2018

The backlash against the latter tweet was much more fierce, with only 567 retweets and a whopping 5,900 replies as of Monday morning.

You are disgracing yourself here. Please stop bending to the will of deranged online trolls. — Yossi Gestetner (@YossiGestetner) October 7, 2018

Scott Kelly, please read a good biography of Churchill before making pronouncements on his “atrocities” and “racist views.” He committed no atrocities and his views on race 100-years ago cannot be judged by today’s standards—generational chauvinism. Are you lost …in space? — Paul Reid (@Paul_Reid2) October 8, 2018

FFS apologizing for quoting Churchill because ascribed to British morays on race? So we can no longer quote anyone born before 1950? Slippery slope people. — Space Shuttle Almanac (@ShuttleAlmanac) October 7, 2018

Churchill led the U.K. effort in the Allied defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945. Mr. Kelly toured the Auschwitz concentration camp just last month.