
History, as taught in most schools, should be considered a crime against children.
If Hamilton proved anything, it proved that history can ABSOLUTELY be interesting if you serve it with a little spice. Leaving out the juicy interesting bits is a disservice to us all.
So we're adding them back in.
Hamilton covered the romance, the beefs, and the rapping - so we're going to go in a different direction.
How 'bout a side of mystery with your history? (uh-uh. Stopping myself right there. There will be no rapping.)
Reddit user Apart-Scale asked:
"What historical mystery is unlikely to ever be solved?"
True crime lovers, history geeks, awful-sh*t aficionados and wizards of weird - this article is definitely for you.
Heads up, though, we need to add trigger warnings for:
harm/death of a child
murder
war/enslavement
domestic violence
... yeah humans are awful.
"Hun, Can We Talk?"
"What Pope Leo said to Attila the Hun."
"Attila was taking over the world and made it to Rome and the Vatican. Leo rode out alone and spoke to Attila and convinced Attila to not destroy Rome and the Vatican."
"What was said, only the archives of the Vatican has any idea."
- Xikkiwikk
"Unfortunately the answer is probably really mundane and disappointing."
"Like a lot of miraculous historical events, it probably boils down to 'the story is just bullsh*t we made up later cause it sounded good.' ”
"They could’ve just bribed the Huns."
"Italy and Rome weren’t particularly rich by that time, so throwing a bunch of gold at the Huns and being like 'here let me spare you the time and energy of sacking it all' could’ve ACTUALLY worked because there wasn't enough there worth sacking for yet."
"Or no conversation ever happened and it’s a story developed later as a way for the Church and the Pope to take credit. The Huns could’ve left for any reason."
"Maybe the Pope did try to negotiate, it failed, but the Huns left after that anyway. Pope and Church still take credit."
- pyrhus626
After Alcatraz
"Whether Frank Morris, John Anglin, and his brother Clarence Anglin survived their escape from Alcatraz Federal Prison."
- onefinegander
"The History Channel has a great documentary about this."
"The two brothers families claim they survived by tying a rope onto a boat and holding on, which they used to do for fun as kids. Their friend claims he took them to Mexico and they lived to old age there with families and everything. They even offer evidence; Christmas cards they received and even a photo of them old."
"I'm convinced it's true."
- Crepes_for_days3000
"Freezing waters, rumors of sharks, handmade boat from vests that they probably had to inflate again and again throughout their trip."
"I saw a picture somewhere which was taken in or around 1985 and there were 2 people which pretty much were the Anglin brothers (you can find it if you search)."
"A body was also discovered by the Norwegian Navy, and it matched the description of Frank Morris."
"To me, the Anglin brothers made it and Morris drowned. Maybe they couldn't carry so much weight and the brothers conspired against Morris? Who knows."
"Fascinating nonetheless."
- CookieAdmiral
Where's The Prime Minister?
"One of Australias Prime Ministers just disappeared when he went for a swim in the ocean, so probably that."
- hulloiliketrucks
"There were suspicions the CIA had a hand in his disappearance because the US was royally pissed at him over his refusal to allow a US military installation in Australia."
"There were also rumours he was kidnapped by a submarine but those were most likely started by the CIA."
- Spookyrabbit
"Wasn't it assumed he was eaten by a saltwater croc?"
- Pyroclastic_Hammer
"Shark got him."
- SuperTrojan
"Probably just drowned and sunk into the ocean."
"The ocean has a tendency to completely an entirely delete corpses once they sink to the bottom. This is why it's rare to find the bodies of plane crash victims and sunken boats."
"Everything at the bottom is evolved to eat corpses with increasing efficiency. Not even bones last most of the time."
- jerrythecactus
"So the mystery is what Australian sea monster had Prime Minister for lunch?"
- CRANSSBUCLE
Not Too Neighborly
"Not a huge historical event, but one that will haunt my local history for a long time to come, I'm sure. My neighbor killed his whole family, buried them in his house, then went for a trip."
"Nobody knows if he's dead or hiding somewhere; and if so, where? The police kind of screwed up the start of the investigation, so he had a good head start on them."
"I went to the same school as the kids but we weren't the same age, so we didn't end up in the same class. He sent increasingly strange letters to family and friends before he disappeared."
"We didn't really knew them beside living nearby and frequenting the same places as a result."
"His name is (or maybe was if he is dead?) Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès. This was about ten years ago and he was since then featured in multiple TV shows and books."
- deadalnix
Before The Ancient Egyptians
"The disappearance of the Lake Fayum nomadic people that predated the pharaohs."
"They had no writing, no records of any form, and lived solely near the banks of the Nile and an ancient lake. They had a community for a long time that included bakeries, agriculture, weaving, and some precursor to religious or artistic elements."
"One day, the people vanished. But I mean JUST the people."
"They left their fish in the cooking pots, dry food stored under the floorboards of their houses, and pottery still on the wheel. It was like they were picked up and carried away or the people suddenly left in a hurry and left everything behind."
"Then shortly after, the material culture of early Pre-Pharaonic Egyptian kingdoms arose."
"Some believe the fayum people migrated north to become the early Egyptians because of unusually arid conditions - but you don't leave food cooking if you're going to migrate. They were nomads, packing up and moving on was their thing. This wasn't how it was done."
"Others say they were killed or captured, but there were no signs of struggle and they possessed and left no weapons. Also, that doesn’t make sense. Why would the invading people leave their entire culture and settlement intact and just poof the people away?"
- Squaragus_Asparagus
"I’d suggest that they may have died suddenly and were then buried by survivors or visitors. Similar to what happened at Lake Nyos?"
"Hypothetical, of course, but not impossible."
- Scottzilla90
"I'd assume some other folks came in to town, highly outnumbered them, and enslaved them all without giving the chance to take anything but the clothes on their backs."
"Egypt was built on the backs of slaves after all."
"This could have been common practice since before the pharaohs, and the people in that village knew it would've just meant their death if they fight back, so they all complied and no one died on site."
- shastaxc
These Low Effort Jobs Have Surprisingly High Salaries | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Have you ever worked one of those jobs that paid you to kinda sit there? If you have, you know the joy that comes with watching the entirety of Breaking Bad ...Read The Room
"What happened to the Amber Room."
"It was a big room in a Russian Palace that was covered ceiling to floor in sheets of amber and gold. The Amber Room was dismantled by Nazis and then all the pieces 'disappeared.' "
"Supposedly it was in a train carriage, hidden in some abandoned tunnels somewhere in Europe. The search continues even now."
"Germany helped build a replica in 2003, but the original panels and pieces are still missing."
- SweetieLove
"Sadly it was almost certainly destroyed during the burning of Königsberg Castle. It was its last known location, and a few non-flammable bits were found in the ruins."
- TheMightyGoatMan
"I had a Russian history professor at college who said that given the amount of debris from World War II in Russia that haven’t been found yet - he said that they continue to find train cars and other artifacts - he wouldn’t be surprised if it was just sitting around undiscovered in a lost train somewhere."
"I find it hard to believe, but it’s not like I have a PhD in Russian history to back anything up."
- Reasonable_Trash5928
"I think it’s just been broken down and scattered to many parts."
"They just found a sunken ship off the coast somewhere in Norway that supposedly has some pieces. On its way to South America with the rest of the Nazis stolen stuff."
- ksnizzo
Rasputin
"Rasputin."
"Even if he took the kings son off his asprin to help his hemophilia, how did he know to do that?"
"How did he even get so close with the royal family without anyone raising an eyebrow until it became completely public."
"Did Tsar Nicolas's advisories see nothing wrong with a homeless wizard being associated with the tsar?"
"How did he really die or how did he survive the shot and poison if that story is true? Just so many questions lost to time..."
- alexander_the_ok-
"The answers probably aren't lost to time; they are just ... kinda stupid."
" 'How did he know to do that?' Happy accident."
"Rasputin was a holy man who believed in the power of God over medicine, so he tried to cure the son with prayer. It's what any extremist would do."
"To the uncritical eye, it appeared he had cured him."
"How did he get so close? Alexandra."
"She was so insistent that he had healed her son and he became a confidant to her, even a best friend. She relied on his guidance and wouldn't listen to any bad words about him."
"When the Duma confronted Nicholas about how influential Rasputin appeared to be to his decision making and how bad it was making him look, he simply replied that he would rather deal with the bad press than feel his wife's wrath."
"Yes, advisors absolutely did see something wrong and speak up - but Nicholas was an autocrat so his decisions were final."
"As for the story of his death; the cyanide that Felix Yusapov had bought for the poisoning was later tested to be an inert powder."
"It's likely that a lot of the myth surrounding Rasputins death was invented by Yusapov himself as a way of making him sound like he had won some heroic battle rather than just shot an unarmed man 3 times and had him carelessly dumped in a river."
"Sadly, a lot of the stories that you hear about Rasputin are like this; tales that have been inflated over time to make him sound more like a mythical creature, rather than just a sexual predator and high powered manipulator hiding behind the fake persona of a man of God."
"There are a lot more Rasputins - manipulative predators hiding behind the persona of a man of God - out there."
- ImSigmundFraud
Mystery Men
"The missing men of Bermagui, NSW, Australia."
"Five men disappeared in the 19th century. Like completely vanished off the face of the planet, with some very confusing things left behind."
"So few people know this story, yet it's such a baffling one."
"The men, one of which was a geological surveyor, went on a trip to scout new gold mines along the coast. Three days later the boat was spotted sitting stationary with only one man aboard."
"Later that same day along the beach people found the boat and things got weird."
"From what I remember:"
"On the beach now called Mystery Bay (due to this mystery), there was a doused campfire with a meal for one, not quite finished."
"There was a boat nearby, which had been deliberately scuttled with holes made from the inside, rather than from the outside. At least some of the holes were confirmed to be bullet holes."
"The hull was also stuffed with rocks - but also pillows and clothes and everything was dry."
"Inside the boat were some papers belonging to one of the missing men, who was supposed to be taking a boat trip with a local policeman instead."
"Also inside the boat was at least one bullet cartridge and vomit, as though someone had maybe been seasick."
"The bay was right below the hilltop where two of the men had been camping, and the other three men who disappeared were boatmen."
"The problem is that there's no real evidence of a crime, so it's not considered an unsolved murder case. Five men vanished and there's all this confusing stuff, but it's not a crime. It's just... a mystery."
"Honestly, I'd believe alien abduction or sea monster over a crime, because I don't see how anyone could've killed that many men and not left evidence of it behind, even if it was a gang."
"There's a monument at the bay, but I've never been to that part of New South Wales. Would love to go, though."
- CeliaEquus
Baby Beauty
"Jon Benet Ramsey."
- lukovdolboy
"I don't remember the channel or program (I want to say PBS) but it was on child pageants and contestants. Jon Benet and another girl were the main ones because of all their wins."
"I swear it was PBS because I caught it at a weird hour and it all played back to back. It followed their circuit for maybe a year or so?"
"I mostly remember how pretty she was and learning words like 'flappers' (for hiding teeth) and just how much they go through to keep such a hectic schedule (the ones that went to lots of them) as far as school and even the practice and makeup and all that."
"It was such a blur."
"And I remember parents that didn't understand, or care, that their 4 year old had simply had enough."
"Not all were bad situations, many enjoyed it so it wasn't like an undercover or shockumentary or anything - but you could tell in some instances that being unhappy may be a norm for some of these babies."
"I remember the parents being especially cruel at times to the kids because of their frothing desire to always have winners. I remember Jon Benet saying she didn't want to do them anymore."
"It was uncomfortable to look at at times and it sure did stick with me. Next I had heard, that poor child was dead.
"I can't stop myself from believing the mom did it or had it done. I stay wondering about that baby."
- bonafidebunnyeyed
"Jon Benet and I were in pageants together."
"I knew her from age 3 til 6 and only a few things stand out from that time. Her whole family was always weird."
"We often stayed in the same hotels and her mom tried to control everything, I remember slipping her pieces of my waffle at breakfast since her mom only let her eat yogurt."
"I distinctly remember seeing her face and the words 'dead' and 'murder' on tabloids in the grocery store and asking my mom what murder meant."
"It was very upsetting and still breaks my heart."
- clarissaswallowsall
"Agreed. Whoever really knows what really happened has been keeping their secret(s) for a very long time and will likely take those secrets to their grave if they haven't already."
"I also think the truth is likely something we could never think of because it's such a unique situation."
"Web sleuths and journalists seem to have a very hard time figuring out what's important and relevant and what's not. I think many people point the finger at someone in the family, while others still think it's an intruder."
"I still have no idea what really happened but I wish someone would just come forward with the truth already."
- Hotlikessauce69
The Vault
"There is a huge ancient temple in south India with vaults full of treasure that have been locked since God knows when."
"Historians tried opening a few and it is said that those who entered the vault were never the same after they came back."
"Some people believe it was cursed. I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with superstition and everything to do with stuff that may have grown or been trapped inside coz it was undisturbed for many hundreds of years."
"I read on it and it appears they opened 5 small vaults and there is one massive one which holds around 1 trillion dollars worth treasure but it is sealed and they are not able to open it without destroying the 500 year+ old monument."
"The problem is that the temple is covered with gold so any damage would cost a fortune. I would love for someone to solve the mystery but for now government has sealed it away forever."
- Venomally
Reddit has had their turn, now it's yours.
What unsolved-something are you pretty sure we're never going to know the truth about?
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CW: Suicide
There is so much to learn in life.
And once you acquire certain things mentally, you regret it.
How much 411 have you come across over time that made you think... "How can I unlearn that?"
Yeah, not possible.
Knowledge is power and sometimes it's a nightmare.
Don't we have enough to keep us up at night?
Damn curiosity.
Well let's do some learning.
Redditor RedBoyFromNewy wanted to shed some light on creepy issues we need to be discussing. They asked:
"What’s a disturbing fact that not a lot of people know of?"
So who is ready to spill, and where do you find the info?
From the Guts
"Without mucus your stomach would digest itself."
Ddubsquizzee
"The reason you body produces more saliva before vomiting is your bodies way if protecting your mouth from the acidity of the vomit before you actually throw up."
-AntiVegan-
Death
"There are more suicides than homicides in the US every year."
tmsanch
"60% of all gun deaths in fact are suicides. It is estimated that someone offs themselves with a firearm every 20 minutes in the US. And 80% of them are males."
hymnsees
"And what's worse (knowing, as my family just went through this.)... 70% of suicides have no note. It's a common misconception that most people leave a note and it just isn't true. Mainly because a lot of people who write notes realize they don't want to go through with it. Those who are 'successful' just do it."
jdward01
After...
"You can give still 'birth' if you die while pregnant. The decomp process will force the baby out. It’s rare but it does happen."
MelissaAthalie
"This is usually what ends up happening when a pregnant woman gets murdered. They usually find the fetus either completely separate (like in the Lacy and Connor Peterson case) or in the same location as the mother, but clearly birthed (like with the case with Shanann Watts). It's something I never knew happened until very recently and I think it's one of the most horrifying aspects of death."
rivlet
Disaster
"The deadliest ship disaster was the MV Wilhelm Gustloff, a ship built during the Nazi Regime. In January 1945, she was evacuating 10,000 German citizens ahead of the soviet Invasion when (albeit ironically) a Soviet Submarine spotted them, and fired three torpedoes. The ship was on the freezing cold Baltic Sea, and the davits (ropes) for the lifeboats had frozen over."
"Not only that, but the ship was only meant to carry 2,000 people normally. These two factors, coupled with the harsh angle the ship was sinking at, meant only half of the lifeboats could be deployed. 9,400 people drowned to death that night, and nobody knows about it."
TheNonbinaryWren
I See You
"Your eyes have a separate immune system than the rest of your body, and if your normal immune system ever learns about your eyes, it will target them and you'll go blind."
hiruko_uchiha
Oh my eye. How do we protect them? As if I don't have enough stress.
Launched
"Penguins can launch their poop out of their butts like 5-6m far."
Bela_hrn
Despair
"Cotard's delusion, also known as walking corpse syndrome, is a neuropsychiatric disorder in which the person is in eternal damnation. They literally believe they are dead or dying [or don't have organs], the amount of despair is unimaginable and simply can't be grasped by people not suffering from it."
SweetTimpaniofLogic
'hard problem'
"It may seem like we know a lot about the human brain, but our standard way of studying brain activity is an fMRI, where a single pixel contains over 3 million neurons. That is more than many vertebrate animals' entire brains. The truth is, we really have no idea how the brain gives rise to consciousness."
"Edit: Even if we somehow perfectly worked out all the neural correlates of consciousness so we could say a mental state happens if and only if some exact pattern of brain activity happens, we would still have the 'hard problem' of consciousness: Why do these physical processes give rise to raw subjective experience, rather than just happening 'in the dark?'"
zeugenie
2 Minutes...
"If your esophagus closes and you cannot swallow, you have about 2 minutes before saliva starts reaching your windpipe. It is not a long time, but it is long enough to panic..."
grat_is_not_nice
"I have Eosiniphillic Oesophagitis and have had food stuck in the oesophagus for up to 24 hours before. And it’s horrible. You don’t realise how much saliva you swallow, to be constantly choking and vomiting that back up isn’t the best experience!"
AwayFollowing554
Get Lucky
"You’ve probably been closer to dying multiple times in your life then you even know. Just got lucky, or unlucky depending on who you are."
GingeBeardManBro
Well that's enough to disrupt sleep for life. Thanks y'all.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
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The best stories are ones with exciting plot twists.
But the next best type of stories are the ones that continue spiraling out of control.
Curious to hear examples of this, Redditor _Mitnix_ asked:
"What's your best 'oh you thought this was bad, it gets worse' story?"
It's story time. You may want to buckle up.
It All Started With A Cat
"This is a long one, but I promise it's worth it:"
"A buddy of mine was cat-sitting for a friend of his while the guy was out of town on a vacation. My buddy didn't have a car, so the dude told him that if he needed to go out and pick up more cat food or anything, he could borrow the car."
"At the time, my buddy was living right down the street from this guy, staying at his parents' house. So my buddy was just going over for a few hours each day to feed the cat and keep it company, then going back home."
"Meanwhile, he's also been flirting with this woman online. She lives several states away, but he feels like they seem to be getting pretty serious. So he decides to take some liberties, really push the envelope on where he'll pick up cat food from, and he takes his friend's car on a little multi-state road trip."
"This is insane, right? Just atrociously bad judgement, especially since someone does need to feed the cat. To solve this, he left his parents a note. It read, 'I am camping in the woods behind our house. Please go over to ____'s and feed his cat. I'll let you know when I'm home.'"
"Boom. Problem solved, right?"
"Except that the 'woods behind our house' are about 20 yards deep. It takes less than five minutes to walk through them and come out into the neighboring housing development. So his parents went looking for him, calling out for him, and couldn't find him. They got worried and contacted a family friend, a local police officer. He subsequently got a hold of the fire department. There was a full-on search party combing through about 1/50th of an acre of woods. Unsurprisingly, they were coming up with nothing."
"This was before cell phones were common, so my buddy was completely unaware that his plan had fallen apart. He was cruising along on his 12-hour drive, expecting to get to this girl's house just in time for dinner. Except he didn't have a GPS. So he got lost. Very lost. Like, by the time he turned up at this woman's house, it was almost midnight."
"When he got there, she was crying her eyes out. He assured her that it was okay, he was fine, wasn't hurt or in a wreck or anything, he'd just gotten lost. And she said, 'No, no, I wasn't worried about you. My dad just died in a motorcycle accident.'"
"So he bailed on his cat-sitting duties, stole a car, and inspired his parents to file a missing-persons just so he could awkwardly watch a woman cry for a few hours and then drive back home."
– GavinBelsonsAlexa
The Beekeeper's Nightmare
"I will try to keep it short. I am a beekeeper. My 3rd year of beekeeping, I suddenly developed a severe allergy to bee stings. It was spring and I was installing bees for the beginning of the season. I was up to the last hive, went to install that package of bees and one stung me right in the top of my head."
"I finished up a few minutes after and went up toward the house to do some other things. I started feeling flush and I could feel my heart racing. After I few minutes I realized I was having an anaphylactic reaction."
"If you’ve never had one, aside from the physical symptoms, they also say you will get a feeling of impending doom. That was spot on. I absolutely felt I was going to die and people do die from these reactions."
"So I am now in the house and desperately searching for Benadryl of which I have none. I am also having trouble breathing, my body is going haywire and I feel like I’m going to black out shortly."
"I call my mom, who lives an hour away, to call 911 because I feel like I will be unconscious soon. She says okay, phone rings 30 seconds later. It’s my mom, she goes 'I called 911 but they said you have to call'. This was my first wtf."
"So I call and it’s a very typical 911 call she is trying to keep me talking and I essentially started vomiting and she is still on the line and I am waiting and waiting for this alleged ambulance."
"A full half hour goes by. At this point I am actually coming out of the reaction. So I go to sit at my kitchen counter. I’m still on the line with the 911 dispatcher. I see the ambulance pull up and I say, oh they’re here. She’s like great, are you okay? I’m like yes and then she says goodbye and hangs up."
"I see the EMTs outside but my driveway has a gate so they are just standing there and they ring the bell on my gate and I am just looking at them, dumbfounded. Like I called for an emergency over a half hour ago, and they’re gonna roll up here and ring my bell and wait for me to come out when I more than likely could be unconscious or dead on the floor."
"I literally had to go out and let them in. Then they basically talked me in to going to the hospital to get checked out. Another huge mistake because this took place in the 2 months in my entire life when I didn’t have health insurance. So I ended up paying $4000 for a late ambulance and some IV Benadryl and epinephrine."
"Oh which also reminds me, a paramedic also showed, put the IV in when I agreed to go to the hospital. Then I felt something dripping and turns out he put it in my artery rather than a vein and it was just pushing the fluid out of the IV."
"0/10 would not go through any of that again…but I did 10 years later when I had another anaphylactic reaction due to a bee sting. However this went a lot smoother and I had epi-pens and a responsive ambulance."
– soline
Oil Everywhere
"Arrive home from work, my house reeks of oil."
"Go in the basement, and there's a pool of oil, with my stuff floating in it. The oil filter on my burner rotted out (it was defective and recalled, but the tech never bothered to notify me or replace it). Call up the tech, he throws a new one, charges me the emergency call fee, and advises I call HO insurance before running away (it was his fault, I didn't know it yet)."
"This was February in NY, about 13F out, and obviously the burner wasn't on while sitting in a pool of oil. But, they get there pretty quickly soak it up, and get things running so my pipes don't freeze."
"Only way to get the smell out is to dry clean everything I own, then shampoo all the carpets, run deodorizers, etc. Takes weeks. Had a headache the whole time."
"Turns out, my basement has cracks, most of it leaked through. They had to cut out my foundation and dig out the contaminated soil."
"Oil in soil means DEC gets involved. Whole new can of worms as they now had to monitor the process, test at every step. Big enough deal I have a spill number in their database."
"A 20 yard dumpster, with 20 yards of oil soaked sand, is so heavy that it broke through my driveway, destroying it. They did that twice, took out my entire driveway."
"Remember how I said this was in February? March brought the COVID shutdown."
"I spent over a year with my basement in shambles, holes in my driveway, plastic sheets taped up, no washer/dryer, and all sorts of equipment kicking around."
"The next spring, they're back and working, and screwed everything up. Not going to get into every detail, but after a big fight, I managed to get rid of them and bring in a new company to fix their screwups and finish the job. Old crew got very difficult when the new crew requested permits and reports. Turns out, they never bothered. Had to do all that before they could start working again."
"New company dropped a storage crate on my yard to store my stuff while working, destroyed my grass, took out a sprinkler, took out my neighbor's driveway curb, got concrete all over my brickwork, but at least the nightmare was finally over."
– MyNameIsRay
These Redditors have been dealt with some major blows.
People who say that things will always get better, are partially right. Things do come around, eventually.
But you never know how many curve balls life has to throw at you until there's a resolution.
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Life is full of disappointments. We lose out on a job opportunity or the one designer article of clothing we really wanted is not available in our size.
But we go on.
But the biggest letdowns are the ones we never see coming but must contend with.
Redditor Frequent-Pilot5243 asked:
"What is a depressing truth you have made peace with?"

No matter how much you prize a friendship, not all of them are for forever.
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
"A friendship you thought would last forever can end in an instant."
– Febreze4200
The Best Mate Who Quit
"My best mate of 20 years, said that he didn’t want to be my best man and just said he didn’t want to be my friend any more. Hurt like hell."
– Gavindasing
It's Okay To Let Go
"Sometimes people you care deeply about will choose to drop out of your life and all you can really do is have the grace to let them."
"edit. to everyone struggling with being left behind, and to everyone struggling with having to be the one to leave- I hope the pain eases for you soon."
– girlloss
Restarting The Process
"I have a really hard time with this one. Every friendship I've had in my adult life has only lasted a couple years tops. Rarely a falling out or anything, but just drifting apart or sh*t happens type deal. It's hard for me to make friends in the first place because I'm pretty shy, so having to regularly restart that process is really discouraging. Right now I don't really have any friends because I've just kinda given up trying."
– plebeian1523
The harsh reality of losing the people we love hits home for these Redditors.
Grandpa Time
"My grandpa just wanted to get to know me and the man I was becoming during his last year of life. Which I was too young and too selfish to realize."
– MrMunky24
Lost Opportunity
"Yeah, this hits home. I spent 90% of my childhood with my grandparents. I was at their house almost everyday. When I got into my teens and obviously found friends, discovered women, all that stuff and then I just stopped seeing them. They’re both gone now and they died with the memories of me as a child. Although they seen me sometimes while I was older, they didn’t know me because I didn’t give them the chance."
– Loud-Distance-1456
In Grief
"My dad passed away 6 weeks ago and I will NEVER see, hear, chat or get to hug him ever again & that forever is a long time."
– somethinggood19
These sobering facts were huge disappointments.
Truth About CPR
"This is coming from a firefighter:"
"If you have to perform CPR on them, it's most likely over for the patient."
"I'm not sure if I've made peace with it completely, but I've accepted it at least."
– Rukhnul
The After Effects
"I've taken CPR training twice in the past 10 years. The instructors were so completely different... The second one flat out told us 'you're giving them about a 15% chance of living, and even if they live, they will probably have some kind of severe trauma that will dramatically decrease their quality of life.' Wow..."
– DavidAg02
Despite Having Good Intentions...
"No one is coming to help."
– _meddlin_
That Train Has Left The Station
"I'm aging nonstop."
– insaight
Innocence Is Gone
"My childhood is gone, and I have no good memory from that phase of my life."
– anonymoose_mrx
No matter what, life goes on with or without us.
The best that any of us can do while we're passengers on this giant spaceship is to take life as it comes and pick up the pieces the best we can when things don't pan out as we'd hoped.
Sometimes, it's about celebrating the small victories–like finally finding a store that has your shoe size.
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People Describe The Times Someone Mocked Them For Being Wrong But They Were Actually Right
The truth matters.
Something one would think was a given in modern society.
Yet all over the world, there are people so unbelievably stubborn, that they simply refuse to believe the facts.
Sometimes even when presented with evidence.
This could be for something menial, such as refusing to believe that a cotton candy was actually invented by a dentist.
But sometimes, refusing to believe the truth could have serious consequences, up to and including climate change, the effectiveness of masks, and the disproportionate amount of gun violence in the US.
Redditor Lady_Of_The_Water was curious about the many things, both frivolous and serious, people refused to believe were true, leading them to ask:
"Whats something someone thought you were wrong about and ridiculed you for it, but it turns out you were right?"
What's that smell?
"That there really was a gas leak in the apartment building."
"Thankfully, the fire didn't cause much damage."- yamsnavas2.
There's a reason the bill is so high.
"Our water usage at work went up a lot."
"They checked all the toilets, sinks for leaks, couldn't find anything."
"I mentioned that it seemed to coincide with the new water cooler system installation, maybe that should be checked."
"They basically laughed at me."
"That stupid water system never worked good and the guy came in 3 different times and said it was just the filter."
"Every month it needs changed???"
"Didn't seem right."
"Finally a different technician came in and result was it was never installed correctly."
"I asked, 'could that have anything to do with the increased water usage that started when this got installed?'"
" He smiled 'I wondered if anyone caught that, yes the valve was not correct and water has been running'."
"For 5 months!!"
"If only they had listened."
"Total redemption!"- McTee967.
Have you ever looked at a map?
"I had a coworker doubling down repeatedly, claiming that new Zealand is north of Australia."
"I even told her about how I had lived there and she just assumed I was such a huge idiot that I didn't know where on the globe I was living."
"Brought the smartphone out and put an end to that."
"Let me just say, it's ok to not know where all the countries are."
"The problem is if you heavily assert you are right and others are stupid."- PlopPlopPlopsy.
Is it supposed to hurt this much?
"My husband told me that I was a 'baby' about my IUD insertion and insisted that it wasn't painful."
"That my concerns about entrusting a stranger to shove a foreign object into my body were paranoid."
"I listened to him because really, the info you'd find online is overwhelmingly positive."
"Long story short: the provider placed it wrong, didn't check/fix it when I asked her to."
"I spent 4 years in pain that I eventually 'got used to."
"It expelled half way out my cervix, had to get it yanked out at the ER."
"That's when I was told that copper IUDs are notorious for breaking inside the uterus."
"Because it broke inside me."
"The cherry on top?"
"The female gyno with three kids I saw to get the broken piece removed told me that 'cervixes don't really feel pain' and that I didn't really need to remove it."
"Goes without saying, I was in severe pain for 2 weeks straight before this appointment."
"Tons of women came out with their stories about lawsuits over IUDs, how they got pregnant with an IUD."
" Stories similar to mine."
"And how women should really be offered anesthesia or pain pills for this procedure."
"And when my husband was surprised to learn about the pain I endured I reminded him 'You called me a baby and everyone else told me it was all in my head'."
"Which is why I didn't talk about it."- PopK0rnAndMMs.
Seems like you could learn something from me.
"In sixth grade chemistry a teacher asked us what element was a gas that was lighter than air, and extremely flammable/explosive."
"I grew up on science because of what my dad does for a living and Bill Nye."
"I knew about the Hindenburg, and so I was really proud of myself when I raised my hand and said 'Hydrogen'."
"The teacher laughed at me and said that no, it was Helium, and the entire rest of the class proceeded to laugh too."
"Almost three decades later I work in a lab now, and f*ck that teacher I was right."- vanyel_ashke.
The dictionary is your friend.
"I have worked as a translator and a proofreader."
"For one of my translations, it went something like 'and he piqued her interest'."
"My proofreader docked me for an inaccuracy and switched it to 'and he peaked her interest'.”
"I’m still salty."
"I tried to get the agency I was working for to remove this person as a proofreader since I question his/her command of the English language."
"Had a similar problem with the phrase “lynch pin” used metaphorically."
"I stopped working with that agency because it pissed me off so much being 'corrected' incorrectly."- spot_o_tea.
No, that's just an illusion.
"When I told my mom that the clouds were moving and she laughed like I was crazy."-
Did you even read the menu?
"I was in the passenger's seat at a Carl's Jr Drive Thru with a friend."
"He asked what I wanted and I requested the Fried Zucchini."
"He puts half his body through the window to the voice box and goes on this 'My friend here thinks you have some kind of food I know you don't have so I am just going to say it for laughs because you will get a kick out of this'."
"She wants FRIED ZUCCHINI' and starts laughing."
" Well guess who ends up eating fried zucchini."- User Deleted.
And how do you spell that?
"Believe it or not, the pronunciation of my own middle name."- ThePlantie.
We have standards in this community...
"Not me but my Mom tells a story about how she wrote a paper for school about how tough her small town makes it for any new people moving in."
"Basically if you didn't grow up there you were a social outcast for decades and were excluded from a lot of things."
"The teacher didn't agree so she got a bad grade and scoffed at."
"A few years later a news paper reporter essentially wrote the same thing and won a local award for calling out the same small town BS that was going on."- Jberg18.
It's pretty amazing that anyone in this day and age would jump to tell someone they're wrong without having any authority.
Particularly when someone can quickly look up the truth on their phone in less than a minute.
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