There is so much we don't know about history. We've been lied to and bamboozled. Why is so much truth left out? The world is ugly. Each country has been built on blood and drama. Why hide that? The more we know about history, the less we are doomed to repeat it.
And one of education's biggest issues is not exposing more evil. There are more Hitlers out there than we could've imagined. And we should know their names. So... pencils up kids...
Redditoru/Pencil-lampwanted to list some of the worst overlooked villains of the past, by asking:
Dear Reddit, who are the lesser known evil fools of history?
Why do we always focus on the same ole same ole? I feel like that is how history is taught. We just consistently reexamine the same people. It's important to know all the influencers, and crazies. And how they were influenced to spread their bile. That's how you study history.
Leo
america analogy GIFGiphy"Leopold II of Belgium."
"Am Belgian. Can confirm. I'm 33 and the horror that monster inflicted on the people of the Congo wasn't in any school books. BeCaUsE tHe kInG."
PP
"Pol Pot wasn't talked about in my history classes."
"Possibly the worst dictatorship to live under as a regular middle class person."
"I remember learning about him in my 8th grade World History class. Shout out to Dr. Pierce - one of my favorite teachers in all my school years. What blew my mind, though, was when a decade or so ago I realized that the monster had been alive and free until 1998!!! I had just assumed he was dead and had spent time in jail or at least exiled, of not executed at some point."
- arcinva
The General
"Surgeon General Shirō Ishii, commander of Unit 731."
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731"
"I can't believe we were never taught about this in school. Instead, everything we learned re!ated to WWII was about the Nazis. Sure, they mentioned the war in the Pacific, but it was only glanced over."
- arcinva
Qi...
"Empress Lu Zhi. She wanted her son to become the emperor's heir but he preferred the son of his consort, a woman named Qi. So she had Qi shaved, placed in chains and had her eyes gouged out, her ears cut off and her tongue removed, then cut off her arms and legs and threw her in a pigsty."
Bad Gov
Plotting Mr Burns GIFGiphy"Wilson Lumpkin. Governor of Georgia way back when. He played a big role in the Indian Removal and trail of tears. Though blame usually just goes to Andrew Jackson."
- user deleted
New names and lots of info. Info that won't help me sleep at night, but it's good to know the who's who of history. Especially when it comes to my country.
Strangest Things Seen In A Contract's Terms And Conditions | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Traitors
The Color Purple GIFGiphy"The slavers in Africa who sold their own people to the Europeans."
"Not just the Europeans, they were slaving to each other for a long time. They eventually taught the modern slave trade to Europeans."
The Worst
"Francisco Macias Nguema was dictator of Equatorial Guinea in the 1970s, and was absolutely freaking brutal. Like, Pol Pot levels of violence. Learnt about him from a podcast that I can't remember the name of, and I was shocked that I simply had never heard of this man. One of the most brutal dictators of all time."
Cecil
"Cecil Rhodes, the architect of apartheid. He ran the British South African Company, cofounded deBeers creating a diamond monopoly, and mined the sh*t out of Africa in the name of the Crown. He started the second Boer War, and set in place several laws and taxes that gave white settlers land rights in Southern Africa. Super racist and thought whites were destined to rule the world and he wanted the British to control Africa."
"Eventually the colonies he oversaw named after him, Rhodesia. He died young because underneath all the white superiority was a frail body and a weak heart. When he died, Rhodesia turned into a white supremacist state until civil wars broke it up into Zambia and Zimbabwe. The Rhodes scholarship at Oxford is named in his honor."
The Banality of Evil
"There's a book on Eichmann called The Banality of Evil. It perfectly describes what I think is the creepiest thing about the Holocaust. I can get hateful, racist people, even though I don't subscribe to it. But I can't wrap my head around the hundreds of people who processed people for death like they were recycling bottles or milling logs."
"They reviewed efficiency reports, thought up new ways to improve processes, promoted people for doing it well. There was a whole group of middle managers who seemed to go from, "Oh we are machining sprockets," to "Oh we are sending Jews to gas Chambers," like it was just another job."
- kjm16216
Rafael
Pure. Evil."Rafael Trujillo Molina. Not a lot of people know about him. Pretty much the evilest guy to come to power in the Americas."
Evil is as evil does, and it walks amongst us, and it has power. It's so unfair. People who don't deserve it garner power. That's why we have to learn more, to avoid.
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An unwillingness to learn
"I feel like the classic example is being unable to change your opinion or idea when you are presented with new information."
"You don’t have to set everything you believe in stone."- Rusty_of_Shackleford
"I think a key thing that separates the intelligent from the less intelligent is curiosity and how far you actually go to learn."- TuxedoWolf07
When even they don't know what they're talking about.
"Maybe not unintelligence but ignorance."
"People getting angry when I ask them to explain what they just meant as I want to understand them and not misunderstand."- smokinstuff·
"Getting angry when someone ask them to explain their point."- SuvenPan
Working Julie Andrews GIFGiphyIt's never attractive to gloat
"Obsessively telling everybody how intelligent you are."- terribleUsername18
It's ok to admit defeat every now and then...
"Playing 'last word' in an argument you've lost."- LennonMcCartney65
"Being defensive when corrected instead of just accepting it."- Marthstewart123
"Claiming they are always right but not being able to argument why or have a serious debate about it."- GReatChinook
Drop The Mic GIF by In Real LifeGiphyAre you sure about that?
"Constantly saying 'facts' that are extremely false."
"Gets on my nerves."- Sharkifish
Read the instructions!!!
"I just started driving for UberXL."
"The amount of people who think they can fit 8 people with all their luggage into a midsize SUV is astonishing."
"You can see which car comes to pick you up and it says fits 5 people."
"If you have a piece of luggage each then it's more like 3 people."
"I had one group sit there and stare me down like they didn't understand."
"I swear some people just have a mental limit for figuring things out and they all find each other and never get anywhere."- predict_irrational
One should always reserve judgment, as one never knows for sure what lurks beneath the surface.
Even if more often and not, you are left with little to nothing which encourages you to see what's there.
Overprotective parents tend to be evasive about discussing the birds and the bees with their kids because they feel it's not up to them to have that conversation.
Remember Carrie White's religious mom who refused to talk about intimacy with her 16-year-old?
We all know how that turned out in the classic Stephen King novel.
Anyway, parents turning down an opportunity to have the uncomfortable convo or having their kids miss out on sex education can lead a child to potentially develop damaging misunderstandings about their body and puberty.
The effects of which were explored when Redditor sparklingshanaya asked:
"What’s a sexual misconception you had for way too long?"
It helps to have an earlier understanding about your body when you're younger.
Sex Education
"As a girl, I had no real idea of where/what the vagina was until I was like 11 or 12. My mom didn't give me a real sex talk, just a puberty/body book that said 'the vagina is between the woman's legs' and just had a full frontal diagram (legs closed) of a woman with an arrow pointing to her pelvic region. I also didn't know a period lasted longer than a day until I got mine at 14, and then wondered why it was still going on the next day."
"When my mom realized how abysmal my sex education was, her solution was to rent a video from the library about it and make me watch it on the big family TV in the living room at like 3pm. Granted— it was a very educational video but I won't ever forget one of the educators (a 50 year old woman) talking about how to give a satisfactory blow job."
– ash-on-fire
Hard Epiphany
"Ok so I grew up in a VERY conservative household. Was not allowed to take sex ed in middle school and they helicoptered in high school. Any internet access they had access to view so I never watched porn/looked at pics. Absolutely nothing. So for a long time I thought penises were shaped like a smaller pringles can. I thought it was just like...a straight up cylinder. Moved out at 17 and googled some things and man I had men's anatomy SO wrong."
– WholeLottaIntrovert
Wrong End Of The Stick
"Friend of mine has a similar background and I just about lost my mind when she said the balls are the END of the penis. Like she had seen those doodles and had it upside down so they just dangle off the end of the shaft lmaooo."
– xchakrumx
Let's get verbal about getting oral.
Satisfy A Woman
"Learn to go down on a woman, like become a master at it. Do this."
– ecallawsamoht
Excuse For Supper
"I second this. Been married for 20 years and it's something I'm happy to do."
"Get involved, people."
"Edit: thanks for the medals and upvotes, people! Be assured that I'll be celebrating tonight."
– AhabVanCleef
Semantics
"Friend of a friend thought it meant kissing. And they were like 19. So glad they found out through a conversation and not through a dude asking for it, or her talking about it. That would've been extremely confusing for everyone."
– SilverWaters793
Pucker Up
"My friend back in middle school thought a blowjob meant to literally blow on it. I still tease her about it to this day."
– Ashurii_desu
Failed Expectations
"Man, I thought I was gonna get so many blow jobs. That’s just not true."
– Studying_Politics
As young adolescents, these Redditors got these terminologies mixed up.
Dirty Talk
"When I was around middle school age I thought that oral sex meant talking dirty :’)"
– strawbrykat
"I used to sext with my girlfriend in high school. When we broke up, she just went crazy and told everyone in our grade that I was great at 'oral sex' (she meant sexting💀) School hasn’t been the same since then."
– Particular-Ad4356
Learning By Example
"I was kind of sheltered growing up, and like most sheltered kids, I learned a lot about sex through porn. I kept seeing 'blowjob' videos, and (i had no idea what a blowjob) assumed it was some kind of sex blooper. Like, something got messed up and the director said 'Oh darn, you blew it! Let’s take it from the top.'”
– Danny_my_boy
I had sex education in sixth grade after my parents gave the school permission for me to attend the special assembly centering on the topic.
But I remember how vague the instructor was. By the time I eventually had my first nocturnal emission, I remember being terrified, yet simultaneously elated. It was very confusing, and I didn't know what happened.
I remember reflecting back to sixth grade and thinking the school must've skipped that part in sex ed.