People Break Down Which Historical Figures Are Seen As Bad Guys, But Weren't Actually Bad
It's easy to assume things about history since we weren't actually there. We're taught to believe everything we read, but often times, it takes more research to figure out the truth.
There are a lot of historical figures we believe were bad based on what we first read or heard. However, upon further research, we find out they weren't actually that bad.
Some of them got a bad reputation even though all they did was make a mistake. Others just weren't appreciated for their ideas and inventions during their own time. Some of them are even heroes!
It seems Redditors did some of that extra research and are ready to share their findings.
It all started when Redditor jamespeech111 asked:
"Who is a bad guy in history who actually wasn’t a bad guy?"
Before His Time
"William Thomas Green Morton died broke defending his discovery of anesthesia. He was a dentist and didn’t get much respect from the doctors at the time. IMO one of the most important medical discoveries."
– tindalos
"anesthesia is arguably THE most important medical discovery in history. Modern surgery is literally impossible without it."
– pdlbean
The Wrong Story
"Richard Jewel - initially lauded as a hero and a brave man who ran towards the bomb to help…"
"then the FBI and media turned on him and accused him of doing the bombing himself… because;"
"he was actually just as f*cking outlandishly brave and ran toward the bomb to help people,"
"They took his truck for evidence, he had to go into hiding… made a villain by incompetent people… For YEARS… finally exonerated and dies shortly afterward"
– wagwa2001l
Aye Aye Captain
"Captain Bligh. His mistake was being too soft rather than too harsh. He let his crew slack off while they were waiting to make sure the breadfruit trees would survive transplantation, and they mutinied when he put them back to work."
– JJohnston015
"It should also be mentioned that when his some of his crew mutinied so many of them wanted to be allowed to leave with him on the ship's tiny open launch that even fully laden they would not all be able to go and had to draw lots to see who had to stay on The Bounty. Captain Bligh then had to sail the tiny overcrowded poorly provisioned boat 6700km to Timor using dead reckoning. He did not lose a single man."
"Absolute hero."
– cAt_S0fa
Legal Action
"The McDonald’s coffee lady - the woman who sued mcDonalds after she spilled coffee on her lap received 3rd degree burns in her pelvic area. She was hospitalized for 8 days and required a couple years of rehabilitation."
"The media jumped on the story making it a poster case for frivolous lawsuits."
– The-loon
"Omg I vividly remember this story! It was so sad tbh. At first I thought it was stupid too, but then I read she had severe burns and all. She really wasn’t overreacting."
– lizarkanosia
One Comment Changed His Life
"Niccolo Machiavelli. Machiavelli didn't invent the idea of lying or ruthlessness. He made an observation about what worked and tried to get a new gig."
"Now his name is synonymous with "heartless manipulator.""
– Sphinxofblackkwarts
"Agreed. People often reduce his message down to "you should be opportunistic and manipulative", which wasn't what he was saying at all."
"It was more that he recognised that the worst atrocities in society typically occur during or shortly after huge political upheaval, and believed that if preventing that sometimes requires being opportunistic and manipulative, then that is a price worth paying."
"And whilst we all have lines that we think a regime shouldn't cross, and limits to what power a state should be allowed to exercise, he did a have bit of a point. If we think of the worst atrocities across history, they do tend to follow political upheaval. Had the Treaty of Versailles not sought to punish a generation of Germans, Hitler may never have risen to power in the first place."
"Ironically, some of the people who were great admirers of Machiavelli's philosophy, like Joseph Stalin, were responsible for the very kind of terrible things Machiavelli was warning people about."
– Clem_Crozier
Queens On The Throne
"Pharaoh Cleopatra, she was actually a pretty good ruler with her focusing more on her nation than just abusing her position for her own benefit, there’s even some records saying that she wasn’t even all that beautiful, she was however very intelligent with stuff like how she learned around 10 different languages"
– No_Prize9794
"First member of the ptolemaic dynasty to bother learning Egyptian. She did amazing things in managing to actually expand Egypt's territory in a time of Roman dominance.... however in the end she monumentally screwed up/lost her nerve at the Battle of Actium and doomed pharaonic Egypt."
– menatarms
Money Talks...And Lies
"Captain Hazelwood of the Exxon Valdez."
"He is often pictured on the helm of the Exxon swaying drunkenly going full throttle into the reef talking like a "pirate.""
"What actually happened."
"Valdez's critical navigation equipment was out of commission, faxs sent to Exxon and Exxon told them to sail instead."
"Coast guard budget cuts removed vessel tracking in the area."
"Green and tired crew was on duty, request was made to relief crew. It was denied."
"XO who was on Conn at the time was inexperienced on the passage and neither requested pilotage."
"While Hazelwood did drink that day he was not in command of the conn at the time and was in his quarters resting."
"Hazelwood made a comment that "He needed a drink." Because of how upset he was over the situation."
"Exxon's PR paid off the media to blame Hazelwood."
"However Hazelwood was charged with only one charge which was for pollution. He proved he was not a drunkard and retained his captain's license. Even getting offers to sail again which he turned down."
"The real villains are mass media, False News, and comedians but Exxon's PRs spending power to keep the blame off them."
"Hazelwood passed away last year after the annv of the spill."
"Random fact the Valdez sailed until 2008 under different name Oriental Nicety"
– Iuka297
Not A History Book
"In brave heart, William Wallace gets betrayed by Robert the Bruce which never happened, he was loyal to the end"
– Paskyc
"That movie made me so angry. I grew up on it, and loved it for what I assumed was a historically accurate portrayal. Not only is the movie absurdly inaccurate, the real history is arguably more interesting that the movie! There was no need for "artistic restructuring". They could have just dramatized the actual events and it would have been a great movie"
– Youbettereatthatshit
Not Enough
"In the film Titanic the character Murdoch killed someone, took bribes and generally came across as a right sh*t. He was a real life person who was actually a hero and saved many lives. His living relatives were so disgusted that the VP of Fox travelled to Dalbeattie to personally apologise and presented a £5000 donation to Dalbeattie High School to boost the school's William Murdoch Memorial Prize."
– cooshed
"That movie's initial gross was over $1.8B! Donating £5000 is like the average US man giving them a dime and saying my bad"
– randologin
A Bad Accusation
"That woman who was accused of kidnapping children because her kids didn't have her DNA, but in fact her uterus had different DNA than the rest of her body."
– gavlegoat
"Lydia Fairchild. She has chimerism, so her uterus has different DNA from the rest of her body (the DNA of her absorbed twin)"
– Heart2001
"Tom the cat. Jerry is a menace."
– nocturnalfrolic
"There was a post the other day talking about them and how they are actually working together."
"As long as jerry keeps running around, the humans think they have a mouse problem so they keep the cat. As long as Tom keeps showing he’s making an effort they think he’s doing a good job. But they are both in on it and just do it to keep up appearances."
"There’s apparently an episode where they work together to get food from the fridge, then hide and share it as friends before going back out and chasing each other again."
– bunkscudda
I can so buy into that!
Well, this was more interesting than many of our history classes!
Do you have any interesting tidbits to share? Let us know in the comments below.
When we think about learning history, our first thought is usually sitting in our high school history class (or AP World History class if you're a nerd like me) being bored out of our minds.
Unless again, you're a huge freaking nerd like me. But I think we all have the memory of the moment where we realized learning about history was kinda cool.
And they usually start from one weird fact.
Here are a few examples of turning points in learning about history, straight from the keyboards of the people at AskReddit.
Redditor Tynoa2 asked:
"What's your favourite historical fact?"
Let’s start off with some super weird facts that you probably never even considered. These are the best.
Trees are honestly really effing cool.
"For 60 million years trees didn't decay. When they died the just fell over and laid there. For 60 million years trees existed before the enzyme that broke them down when they died. So tons of massive trees in the oxygen rich environment just laid on the ground. Until they burned. That's how we have coal."
Tkieron
Did they believe her though?
disney bambi GIFGiphy"In 1726 there was a woman called Mary Toft who tricked doctors into believing that she gave birth to rabbits."
Solarflannels
"There was another woman who would take the eggs from her chicken, etch 'jesus has come' into them and shove them back into the chicken who would then lay it again and people actually thought the chicken was a prophet."
Stitchmidda2
A whole river.
"Some time in around the beginning of the 1500's Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolo Machiavelli conspired to try to steal the Arno river. They both lived in the city of Florence and at the time there was hostilities with the city of Pisa which was nearer to the mouth of the Arno river and controlled trade on it."
"Da Vinci came up with the plan to create a canal to divert the river so it no longer flowed to Pisa which would allow Florence to dominate the whole region. Da Vinci drew up the plans and Machiavelli put them into action. However Da Vinci didn't oversee the project and instead the engineer who did decided to do it his own way."
"Which would take longer and need more people. In the middle of the project war broke out and the project had to be scrapped due to attacks from Pisa so it never came to be. Still a great historical footnote though."
Dakens2021
Some of the most stunning facts come from assassinations for some reason. Especially the ones that survive.
Beast mode.
"Roosevelt was shot in the chest during a speech and just continued on like nothing happened."
Alpaca1yps
"He was shot just before his speech and he knew it hadn't pierced his lung since he wasn't coughing up blood, so he bandaged it and went to give his speech."
Bob-Chaos
In another timeline, things might have been different.
John F Kennedy Democrat GIFGiphy"It is very possible - and some consider likely - that JFK could've survived the assassination had he not been wearing a thick, girdle-like back brace that kept him stiffly upright when in public. Kennedy had terrible back problems since serving in WWII that were continually worsening."
"The back brace began as early as JFK met Stalin for the first time and wanted to appear tall and strong since it was at the height of the Cold War, however his pain was so bad he often walked around the WH hunched over and looked decrepit. JFK continued to wear the brace to keep himself upright and portray the strong youthful image he crafted."
"When the first shot was fired, the brace made it nearly impossible to move, much less crouch down in the back seat to get out of the line of fire. He was then struck with the infamous shot to the back/throat which rendered him more immobile and finally the headshot that killed him."
"Parkland doctors testified to the Warren Commission how surprised they were at the size and tightness of the brace and how long it took to get off. One remarked it likely made him a "sitting duck" because of how immobile it would've rendered him."
StaySafePovertyGhost
Good to know before she was beheaded.
"When King Henry VIII was still married to Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard(his future fifth wife) was one of Cleves' ladies in waiting. They were close, even after Cleves' divorce. With all the tragedy and abuse from the men in her life, I'm just glad that she at least had one friend to trust."
Here’s the part you’ve all been waiting for- the facts about famous animals. You’re welcome.
The student teaches the teacher.
"Benjamin Franklin had a pet squirrel. As a little girl, I dressed as him, with a squirrel beanie-baby on my shoulder. My teacher had to look it up on the internet to check if I was right. She was amused."
MasterAqua2
Sounds on-brand for Jackson.
happy dr pol GIF by Nat Geo Wild Giphy"When Andrew Jackson died they had to remove his pet parrot from the funeral because it couldn't stop swearing."
Belligerentbanana69
"He also had a comically large cheese wheel."
Klaudiapotter
Lastly, we gotta shout out the presidents. Sometimes they actually did weird sh*t.
I guess we’ll never know.
"Abraham Lincoln once gave a speech which was so good that all of reporters forgot to take notes, still to this day we don't know what exactly he said."
SmilE_HACK
Well-portrayed in the Hamilton musical.
"That George Washington was known as this Really Talented Dancer, and was very in tune with the dances at the time of his being... Idk why I just never woulda thought this at all but it's dope to hear that dancing/socializing was always a thing!"
"Like from the passage I read it seemed like Whenever George was in attendance at the function, everyone knew he was gonna cut a rug and tear the house down.. and the ladies considered themselves lucky to be his dance partner."
BobbyCodone303
When in Prussia...
"August von Mackensen, imperial German field marshal, commander of the death's head hussar regiment (who the SS would later steal imagery from), was born in 1849. He therefore grew up watching telegraph and train systems grow up around him, and would be 9 when the first ironclad warship was commissioned in France (1859)."
"At that time several of Napoleon's famous marshals were still alive. He served in the Prussian and later German military, and would lead the invasions of Serbia and Romania in WWI. He died in November 1945, just before his 96th birthday.
"Having grown up with muzzle loaders, wooden warships, horse carts, and trains only just being adopted, he ultimately witnessed the rise of telegraph, cinema, radio, powered flight, electricity for the home, recorded music and later film, the early theories of the atom, automobiles, submarines, airships, plastics, early computers, the jet plane, and the nuclear bomb."
"He witnessed 6 German regimes, saw both the rise and fall of imperial Japan, being alive while it was still in isolation, and watched the US go from civil war to superpower. That's how much the world changed in a single documented lifetime, from the mid industrial revolution to the end of WWII. The sheer rate of change boggles the mind. He also had a really cool hat."
greg_mca
Little Fella
Looney Tunes Animation GIFGiphy"Stalin was only about 5’4” and wore high raised boots to make himself look taller"
Russian_Catgirl
Don't Hit Snooze
"Hitler overslept on D-Day and refused to send reinforcements because he believed it was a decoy."
MeLlamoDave
"Another funny story about him: The Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun became a scumbag Nazi sympathiser in the 30’s and 40’s, which led to him having a meeting with Hitler."
"Since Hamsun’s hearing was very poor, he kept asking Hitler to speak louder, and louder, till Hitler was screaming in rage. Witnesses said they had never heard him so angry, and Hamsun was lucky to live. I think he was declared as a national disgrace. His books were good, too, but he was a despicable man."
Sproutykins
Fast & Furious
"Orville Wright of Wright Brothers fame lived long enough to see an airplane fly faster than the speed of sound."
Iceman_1325
"Yeah it's weird to think about: the first flight was 1903, and we landed on the Moon just 66 years later. That's easily within a single lifetime."
VonAether
Get the Dogs
"In WWII the Soviets tried to make anti-tank dogs which were dogs strapped with bombs trained to run under tanks. The problem was that they trained on soviet tanks that ran on gasoline when German tanks ran on diesel. So long story short the first field test resulted in them running under their own tanks instead of the Germans and thus ended that wild chapter of history."
TrentonTallywacker
Fun Facts
"Coolidge also liked to have Vaseline rubbed onto his head while he ate breakfast. Presidential fun facts are wild. One of my favorite ones is Andrew Jackson's inauguration turning into an absolute rager. And him beating the living crap out of his almost assassin with a cane."
"Mary Lincoln had to invite people over for breakfast because Mr.Lincoln would just start working and then forget to eat, which was apparently a very common occurrence. He'd be socially obligated to join everyone for breakfast."
Klaudiapotter
Tag! You're it!
scooby doo halloween GIF by Boomerang OfficialGiphy"Calvin Coolidge, as president, played hide and seek with the secret service."
Boi-inc
Taunted
"The taunt 'kiss my a$' was first recorded being used by a German mercenary lord named Gotz von Berlichingen and nicknamed Gotz of the Iron Hand. (He lost a hand in battle and a blacksmith made him a high tech fake iron hand). He shouted that taunt to his enemy when he was told the surrender a fort he was defending."
Panzer_Doggo
Found in1999
"Nobody truly knows who was the first person to reach the top of Mount Everest. Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first recorded people to reach the top, but many think climbers Mallory and Irvine reached the top before dying on the descent."
"Evidence pointing to this theory being correct is that Mallory always said how he would leave a picture of his family at the summit, and when his body was found in 1999 the picture was not in the pocket (but other papers like bills and otherwise unimportant notes were found)."
"The last person to see them alive noted that they were determined to reach the top that day and he saw them pushing towards the summit. Mallory's body was found with a pick-axe wound to the head, suggesting that his tool had bounced off a rock when he tried to use it to stop himself from falling, killing him."
DerickDillardsManBun
The Bard
william shakespeare GIF by will herringGiphy"William Shakespeare, one of the greatest writers, poets and playwrights of British history, could not spell his own name right consistently, spelling it at least six different ways in his lifetime."
Diaper_Dragon
As for me, my favorite weird historical fact is that Anne Boleyn had an extra finger. That fact is frequently overlooked in favor of her identity as Henry VIII sixth wife. I could go into that, but they already made a whole musical about it.
Anyway, I hope this made history a little more fun for you. It's not all memorizing dates- sometimes you never know what you'll find in a history book
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Many people found high school history class exceptionally boring. There was so much reading, the years-old scuffles and cultural trends seemed far away in time as well as geography.
Add a boring teaching into the mix--if you were so unlucky--and you can forget it. That whole class period was a snooze fest.
But you also probably remember the occasional bolt of lighting that woke everybody up. The teacher, with a weird grin and twinkly in their eye, was excited to share a truly bizarre occurrence from the period in question.
Finally, the class was interested. Something just petty, grotesque, or inexplicable enough had been mentioned, and history was fun, if only for a fleeting moment.
Some Redditors recently gathered to toss around those bizarre events.
inmyelement asked, "What historical event from way back is just plain bizarre to you?"
A good amount of people found themselves most attracted to the inexplicable. They focused on the stories of people, groups, and even animals that behaved in a way that doesn't quite add up in our head.
Some of those old events even triggered a sense of spookiness. But most just left people feeling entirely bewildered.
A True Soldier
"Wojtek the Bear."
"He was a bear taken in by the wojska lądowe (polish army in ww2) and he helped move ammunition. his favorite thing to drink was beer and he was taught to salute when greeted."
"edit: he also liked to smoke and eat cigarrettes. there is also a statue to him in kraków :)"
Continental Boogie
"One of the weirdest historical events was the dancing mania that happened in Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries. People suddenly started to dance and couldn't stop."
"It could be up to thousand people just dancing and not stopping. They danced until they got exhausted and just collapsed. No one is sure why this happened."
A Persistent Corpse
"Dimitri, the Tsar of Russia, was killed, mysteriously reappeared, killed, mysteriously reappeared, killed, then mysteriously reappeared, then killed, then reappeared, then killed before they finally decided that he was really dead and no one after that could possibly be Dimitri."
"I might be exaggerating a little, but only by one death and reappearance."
-- TruthOf42
Still Uncertain
"The lost army of Cambyses. Around 524 BCE the Persian king Cambyses II sent an army of 50,000 men out into the African desert to subdue a rebellious outpost resisting the king's conquest of Egypt and surrounding areas."
"The army supposedly encountered a massive dust storm, which completely engulfed them and covered them with fatal dunes of sand. They were never heard from and never found."
"In modern times some archeologists have claimed to find remains but their claims are not universally accepted by their peers."
-- Finnsparrow
Other people gave their attention to singular historical figures.
After all, when we survey all the people who've lived over the past hundreds--even thousands--of years, we're bound to encounter some truly compelling biographies.
All About Personality
"Rasputin's whole life. The idea that this scraggly wizard/priest/maybe not even a real priest was able to influence the Russian royal family is just so wild to me" -- booboogriggs7467
"Kinda but also kind of completely normal for a celebrity to be attracted to nonsense. I.E. Carl Lentz, Gwyneth Partlow, Scientology." -- Upstairs_Past
"What is wild to me that for a smelly, unattractive, weirdo had so much game. He was sleeping around all over St Petersburg. NGL He is in the top 5 of my historic figures I would hook up with." -- lisasimpsonfan
Gluttony All Around
"A Swedish king killed himself by eating to much pudding..."
"...and a French noble had to be removed from his own court because he couldn't stop master baiting for more then a half hour"
-- Vexonte
When You Just Can't Let Go
"The Cadaver Synod in 897, when Pope Stephen VI put on trial the corpse of his predecessor, Pope Formosus, who by then had been dead for about 7 months."
"The body of Formosus was found guilty of perjury - it was declared he had never truly been Pope so all his acts could be annulled instantly."
"Though that didn't help Pope Stephen much as the bizarre event helped spark a popular uprising that deposed him. He was eventually strangled in his prison cell."
A Historic Boss
"Michelangelo, the man's whole life was him being a bada**. He was literally like an Italian cowboy with the profound ability to create mesmerizing sculptures." -- nNoodl
"So that's where Spaghetti Westerns originate." -- HotelMemory
An Incredible PR Turnaround
"A man named Diego Maradona scored a goal using his hand, even though that's an illegal move on Football, it was counted, and his reputation around the world escalated immensely after that move which would be called 'The Hand Of God' "
"I mean rest in peace Diego but c'mon that was illegal"
When Scientology is Only Half the Story
"L Ron Hubbard, the creator of Scientology, was big into black magic and used to hang out with Aleister Crowley and his whole crew."
"He had a weird battle of egos with Jack Parsons, a rocket scientist, and they all performed the Moonchild ritual to summon the antichrist. And the details of the ritual came to pass."
"After performing the ritual a 'scarlette woman' was supposed to appear and give birth to the antichrist. The next day a random red-headed woman showed up at their place insisting she be involved in their magical/sexual escapades."
"Coincidence or not that she was there, they knocked her up thus fulfilling the requirements of the ritual."
"Then Hubbard, Parsons and his wife banded together to flip yachts for a profit. Hubbard stole the investment money and Parsons wife and disappeared to start Scientology later on."
-- Andyrootoo
Wedding Crashers
"The Bal des Ardents,' or 'The Ball of the Burning Men/Man.' "
"Charles VI of France (1368-1422) and some of his friends crashed the 3rd wedding of his wife's lady in waiting by wearing suits made of tar-soaked linen and strands of dried hemp."
"Unfortunately, Charles's own brother, drunk as ever, brought a torch into the ceremony, which had been forbidden. One of the men went up in flames before it spread to almost every single one of them, apart from Charles."
"Charles, seeing his friends go up in flames, hid underneath his 15 yr old aunt (Joan II, Countess of Auvergne)'s dress. 4 of the other 5 dancers died, save one who managed to jump into a barrel of wine in time to save himself from being too badly burned."
Total 180
"The presidency of Chester A. Arthur. This was a man neck deep in the political corruption machine back in the day. Every step of his career was built on the spoils system of the time, including how he became vice president."
"He enjoyed it too, building fabulous wealth during his time at the New York Custom House and giving favors to his associates as Vice President."
"You would think that this man would only continue this as President, but NO!"
"In his very first address to Congress, he specifically requested civil service reform. He wanted to dismantle the very machine that got him his wealth and power."
He was perfectly happy doing favors as a VP and being the recipient of other favors, but the second he became the big man he wanted to change the whole system for the better."
"In a little under two years after Garfield's assassination, Arthur signed the reform bill that mandates government positions are awarded based on merit."
And finally, with so many wars occurring throughout time, there are plenty of military events to choose from.
With so much at stake, when coincidences or strange circumstances struck in these situations, one can't help but wonder how different things could have been if just one or two variables were different.
All About the Angles
"Not really bizarre but more amazing was the Siege of Vicksburg by Grant during the civil war. The fortifications on the Mississippi River were damn impressive..."
"...but they didn't take into account that if you got close to the river's edge, the guns angle couldn't reach that far down, so by hugging the edge of the river closest to Vicksburg, grant essentially had a free shot at the city and allowed him to take out the last heavily fortified city on the Mississippi."
"The siege lasted like a month"
-- SerDire
Wrong Turn
"The Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated almost by accident. His killer had missed him earlier."
"Then, when the Archdukes car made a wrong turn, the assassin was sitting in a cafe when he happened to come down the street. Unfortunate history unfolded."
-- Dr_Talon
Plenty of Choices
"The fact that there are multiple incidents answering to the name 'Defenestration of Prague.' " -- KamilDonhafta
"The Prague Yeet!" -- OldElPasoSnowplow
"Other countries: Angry debates, violent fights, etc."
"Bohemia: Y E E T" -- ButterLander2222
Rough Waters
"It's not a single event, but it's amazing to me how much trouble people used to have crossing the English Channel."
"Starting with William the Conqueror and effectively ending with John, English kings held lands in both England and France."
"But even for royalty, it was difficult and risky to cross the Channel. And when they did cross, they were never quite sure where on the coast they'd land."
-- e_t_
Bizarre, No Wait. Totally Believable.
"I thought that the Petty Coat Wars were bizarre when I learned about them in high school..."
"...but now I know that some politicians are just children with a lot of power, so of course a president fired most of his cabinet because their wives wouldn't sit with someone else's wife."
-- Minaowl
Undoubtedly, there are bizarre historical events happening as we speak in some part of the world. You don't even have to look far, just hopen the paper.
Who knows which of the strange events of modern times will make the kids of the future perk up in their chairs.
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If we consider only a single year, it's not difficult to see just how many events and news stories will fall through the cracks as time marches on.
Sure, the events that affect many people and the stories that concern influential leaders may persist in our memory, but unfortunately, the experiences of so many common people will simply not make the cut of remembered history.
And that is just a single year.
Now consider hundreds of years of history. Imagine all the events and victims of disaster that you've never even thought of, never conceived existed at all. Truthfully, that describes most of the people who've ever lived.
There are plenty of tragedies that didn't receive much press at the time they occurred, let alone make it into the record of common knowledge.
But never fear, a Reddit thread is here to shed light on at least a few of those catastrophes, be they immoral transgressions or random calamities.
rockingkp asked,
"What are some of dark events happened in history not many people know about?"
The Value of Laws
"In the early 80's, Bayer knowingly sold millions of dollars worth of HIV and hepatitis tainted medications to Asia and Latin America. These countries didn't have laws to prevent the proliferation of tainted drugs. Thousands of people died as a result."
"It was hardly mentioned on any news platforms."
-- beardcloset
Taxidermy Surprise
"Once in the seventies, a film crew was filming an episode of The Six Million Dollar Man, and they were shooting at an amusement park fun house kind of thing."
"A stage hand was moving what he thought was a prop wax figure on a noose, only for one arm to fall off, revealing human flesh and bone underneath."
"After an autopsy, it was revealed to be the 60 something year old corpse of an old wild west outlaw that had been taxidermied to an extent."
Horrifying Practices
"The Ideal Maternity Home here in Canada. From the 1920s till the 1940s, they took in babies from unwed mothers and they were selling them especially to desperate Jewish families in New Jersey (adoption was illegal in the US back then)."
"It was later discovered that the people who ran this business would starve the 'unmarketable' babies by feeding them only molasses and water (the babies would last around 2 weeks on this diet). They put the corpses in wooden box often used for butter and that's why the victims are called the Butterbox Babies."
"The boxes were either buried on the property or at sea or burned in the home furnace. The parents who gave their child to this maternity home would go back and see how their child is doing but were told the child has died when in fact it had been sold to adopting parents."
"Between 400 and 600 died in that home and at least a thousand were adopted but sadly, the adopted babies often suffered from diseases because of the unsanitary conditions and lack of care at the home."
-- Pomsan
Totally Ineffective
"During prohibition the government funded and lead an operation to release barrels of alcohol that they had poisoned to make people sick and shy away from bootleg liquor."
"Lots of people ended up dying but people still drank more than ever."
-- maceman486
A Rough Decade
"The Halifax Explosion."
"Regarded by many as the biggest man-made explosion prior to the invention of the atomic bomb. A ship laden with explosives collided with another vessel in Halifax Harbour. The resulting explosion flattened much of the city's downtown core, killing roughly 2,000 and injuring 9,000."
"The blast is said to have temporarily displaced the water in the harbour, forming a tsunami that reached up to 15 metres high, surging over the wreckage of the waterfront."
"The following day, Halifax was hit by a blizzard that dumped 40 cm of snow on top of the city, further complicating rescue efforts."
"The city is also home to a cemetery where many victims of the Titanic were laid to rest. It is said that the body identification system developed at the time of the Titanic's sinking in 1912 aided efforts to identify victims of the Halifax explosion in 1917."
-- keoura
Nicer On Paper, Dreadful In Real Life
"In my family's region in Africa they used to carry out the death penalty by snakebite."
"Just a snakebite to each ankle, and then letting the man spend his remaining time with his family before he died (under supervision)."
"I thought it sounded sort of humane in a way, like our lethal injections, but apparently they say it was one of the most horrific ways that existed."
-- nonodru3
A Week Is Plenty
"'Khuk Khi Kai,' or the 'Chicken Poop Prison' in Thailand. Used by French forces to hold political prisoners (rebellious Thai people) in the Chanthaburi region."
"The long-standing impacts of this much-feared torture are still felt in the region today - there's a Thai saying for those who buck authority that roughly translates to 'Be careful not to get caught in a chicken poop prison.' I learned about this prison from my parents who learned about it from theirs."
"How it worked, was there was a small, 2-story prison. Bottom floor houses the prisoners, and the top floor is basically a huge chicken coop."
"The grated floor/ceiling ensures that the chicken poop falls onto the prisoners below."
"Apparently, even though the 'maximum sentence' in Khuk Khi Kai was around a week, it was one of the most feared punishments there was."
-- entlp
An Elder to Tell About It
"The massacre of kalavrita. It is a village in Greece. The Germans entered it and rounded up all the male villagers in a field. They then shot them all with machine guns."
"After that they got the children and women and put them in the church. When everyone was inside, they locked the doors and set fire to the church."
"Around 20 minutes into the burning, a German soldier couldn't take it anymore and opened the doors. Around half of the people escaped the fire but the rest perished. The German soldier was shot for this, and if you go to kalavrita today his name is on the memorial."
"No one was punished for this apart from the leader of the division, who I was told by my grandmother that he died in a gulag. But everyone else got away with it. It is sad that no one knows about this, as things like this happened all over Greece and Russia and Poland."
"I only know about this because my Great grandmother was one who escaped in the church. This massacre was in retaliation for the villagers supporting the local resistance force, which had recently killed about 10 Nazis."
-- Zaffa_07
PPE Problems Have Been Around for Awhile
"The Radium Girls. In the 1920s, they worked at a watch company painting the hours on the watches using radium, a radioactive element that glows in the dark. They did this with no PPE and weren't told radium is dangerous. Meanwhile, the chemists had full PPE and worked in a sealed environment."
"Worse, they were instructed to lick the tip of the brush to make a very fine point. Some of them would paint their nails or their teeth with it for fun when they went out at night."
"They would develop cancer whenever the paint touched, and many of them had such decay in their jaws that their mandibles had to be held on with bandages."
Earth's Sudden Changes
"The Children's Blizzard. It occurred in January 1888 on an unseasonably warm day. The weather was nice and many school-kids were tricked into not wearing coats or jackets to school, some only in short sleeves."
"While the kids were in class, the weather outside changed dramatically from warm and sunny at noon to dark and heavy like a thunderstorm, with heavy winds and visibility at 3 steps by 3 pm."
"Children left school to go home and do their chores (this was in Minnesota) and were expected to milk the cows and do whatever else was involved in the family farm."
"But they got lost in the darkness and snow and the wind and many froze to death in their town, just yards from houses or other sources of refuge. 235 people, mostly children died."
Popes on Popes on Popes
"The Cadaver Synod"
"Basically the pope had a previous Pope's corpse exhumed so the corpse could stand trial for something made up. So they dug up his bloated 7 month old corpse and convicted him, retroactively nullifying his papacy."
"Then they dumped his bloated and convicted corpse in a river. The people got pissed and overthrew the pope, who was strangled in prison."
"The next pope came along and had the corpse collected from the river and its papacy posthumously reinstated."
"897 was a crazy year."
Sounds Familiar
"The San Francisco Plague of 1900-1904 was a terrible, scary time when the Black Plague was beginning to ravage San Francisco."
"California's governor tried to suppress information about the outbreak and restrict any activities to curtail it because he feared economic damage to the state. He even tried to get the doctor who was warning people about the outbreak fired."
"What information did get out was used against the Chinese residents as it was believed that it was a disease of the 'unclean.'"
"Had it not been for the earthquake in 1906 that devastated the city, the plague outbreak would have probably been more remembered."
-- jthanson
Not to be Forgotten
"There's a surprising amount of people that don't know about the Rwanda genocide that happened pretty recently (like when Bill Clinton was president)."
"Basically there were two 'types' of Rwanda natives: the Hutus and Tutsis. The Hutus believed the Tutsis were invaders of land that was theirs, and after the assassination of the Rwandan leader (who was a Hutu), the Hutus were ordered to 'chop down the tall trees' which meant kill the Tutsis."
"The 'differences' between Hutus and Tutsis were that Hutus were supposedly darker-skinned, shorter in stature, and had shorter faces. That's why the Tutsis were called 'tall trees.'"
"The events that followed killed so many Tutsis, yet the UN was stingy to call it a genocide (they never like using that term because of its association with WWII and the Nazis)."
"It wasn't until very recently that the killings stopped. To this day, Hutus and Tutsis that survived the genocide speak at events side-by-side speaking about how terrible the events were."
Battered by Forces Beyond Him
"The sad case of Ota Benga. He was a 'pygmy' boy from the Congo who was essentially captured and brought to the USA to be displayed in freak shows. He had undergone tribal customs such as having his teeth filed into points before his capture."
"He eventually got out of the carnivals and dreamed of returning to Africa, then WWI happened, making the trip impossible for the foreseeable future."
-- Hardcore_EHS
In the Closing Days
"The sinking of the Sultana which occurred in 1865. Legally allowed to carry 375 people, it was carrying over 2,300 recently released Union POWs, civilians and crew when the boiler exploded. About 1,800 people died from steam burns and drowning."
"Why so many people? Greed. The U.S. government would pay $2.75 per enlisted man and $8 per officer to any steamboat captain who would take a group north."
"So the captain took on more and more passengers. Plus the men were desperate to get home as the war had finally ended."
"The Sultana explosion occurred the same month the war ended and Lincoln was assassinated, so it was barely a blip in the news."
-- SylkoZakurra
A Disgusting Curiosity
"You know Jameson Whiskey? Well a long a** time ago in like the 19th one of their family Heirs fed a little girl to cannibals."
"Like legit went and bought a little girl in the Congo as a slave and brought her up to a cannibal tribe because he wanted to see them."
"Sick fu** drew pictures of it and sh** as it was happening."
"Of course for years the family tried to bury the fact, and the stories and such. Discredit the witnesses."
"But the crazy bastard was happy to document the whole thing, his only rebuttal in case it reflected badly on him was that 'he wanted to see if they would do it.'"
"And his accounts matched up with the evidence witnesses had provided."
-- MurrayMan92
Education System of Torture
"The Inuit people were brought to boarding schools in the mainland of the US. Then, since they lived full time at the schools, the school had some special rights over the kids."
"During the COLD WAR, the US military made these kids drink radioactive stuff for 'experiments' because the schools signed off on it. Obviously this has caused many of them to develop cancer, and many have had no reparations to this day."
-- Abstract-Pi
People Break Down Historical Facts That Sound Truthful But Are Actually Totally Wrong
There are some historical facts that we just love to talk about.
They humanize the faraway past by reminding that the human beings of long ago are humans all the same, full of petty flaws, shocking capacities for selfishness, and very weird traditions.
But those fun historical facts, though popular for their surprising nature, are actually not true at all. Perhaps that's why they were so surprising in the first place.
A recent list on Reddit showed that a head-scratching historical face may be stunning for a reason.
Here's to exercising healthy skepticism the next time someone drops one of these at a party.
doggies_keeper asked,
"What historical fact sounds truthful but is actually false?"
A Grotesque Imagination
"The Iron Maiden was a medieval torture device."
"As far as I recall, the concept was created by a rich old crazy man in the late 1800s for a display and it sort of worked its way into the public consciousness."
"But it was never used as a torture implement, medieval or otherwise."
-- I-Euan
Stranger Than Fiction
"I'm from the UK and I have a Aussie friend who couldn't believe that Sherlock Holmes was fictional and that 'Jack the Ripper' was a real person. If you think about it, it makes sense."
"A shrouded, invisible slasher prowling the streets of London (who's identity to this day is a mystery) is a real historical figure..."
"...and a man who investigates and solves real crimes who's address is known and who actually has a real statue outside of a tube station in London is a character made up in a fictional series of novels."
-- BlueLegiion
Vomit Them Out
"Vomitoriums were places for Romans to vomit during feasts so they could continue eating."
"They were actually just entrances/exits to amphitheatres." -- Lucaanis
"I've heard it said that the Colosseum in Rome could empty in 15-20 minutes. This was amazing design." -- displaced_virginian
Collective Will is the True Variable
"Electric cars are pretty recent technology."
"Actually, around 1900 about 30% of cars were electric. New York even had a grid of public charging stations." -- MeltingDog
"It is astounding how much engineering has been (rightly) justified by gasoline's simple energy density advantage."
"The internal combustion engine has been refined for more than a century, and even now is orders of magnitude more complex, expensive, and fragile than an electric motor... but it runs on gasoline and that's enough." -- aetius476
Smear Campaign
"Napoleon wasn't short. He was average height." -- thedudeisalwayshere
"For his time, it was even a bit more than average!" -- Taurock
"It was pretty much propaganda by the British. His personal guards were all big guys too, so gave the appearance of him being shorter." -- tunkerz
Get This Straight
"The 1989 Tiananmen Square protests were peaceful and the 'Tank man' standing in front of the tank was the highlight of the protests."
"In reality somewhere between 300 and 10,000 students were massacred."
What Was Nero Like?
"Nero playing the fiddle as Rome burned"
"1.) That instrument hadn't been invented yet, and wouldn't be for centuries."
"2.) Even if you swapped it out with a lyre, historical sources disagree on Nero's true character (as they do for many emperors)."
"He might have actually done all he could to save as many lives as possible during the fire (e.g. opening the gates of his imperial gardens, so people trapped in the cramped urban space had somewhere to evacuate to)"
And Tour Guides Have Been Dealing With It Ever Since
"Marie Antoinette said, 'let them eat cake.'"
"Actually, she didn't, and this is such a widely accepted mistake, that when you take a tour of Versailles one of the first things your tour guide will tell you, unprompted, is 'and no, Marie Antoinette did not say let them eat cake, please stop spreading this lie.'"
-- Aniosophy
A Hodge Podge of All Things Not Calcium
"George Washington's teeth..."
"Despite many people believing they were made of wood, they contained no wood. They were actually made of slave teeth, as well as other materials such as hippopotamus ivory, brass, or gold."
-- boffohijinx
Wildly Impractical
"That Vikings had horns on their hats. That was invented by the Victorians." -- GLaDOS815
"If they did have horns, they wouldn't be very useful. They're just a target to knock your hat off, or if it's strapped on, a lever to chop your head off." -- BlueManedHawk
Don't Over-Analyze It
"In brothels in Ancient Rome and Pompeii they had picture over the doors to show what the prostitute was offering."
"Nah, they were just sexy pictures guys."
Not Rude, Poisonous
"Putting your elbows on the dinner table is considered rude, but it traces back to 19th century British copper mining."
"Miners would come home for dinner and, by putting their elbows on the table while eating dinner, transfer copper ore residue to the table."
"That residue would then make its way to other surfaces, particularly dishware and cutlery, and the members of the household would eventually ingest toxic levels of copper, leading to illness and death."
-- 0xD153A53
Not At All Consensual
"'Romans were openly accepting of gay relationships and sex.'"
"The homosexual acts that occurred during the time were by men of a higher status forcing themselves onto slaves and underage boys."
"It wasn't a sexual utopia by any means and was based on toxic ideals of hyper masculinity, slavery, and class."
Nope, They Kept the Boobs
"That Amazon warriors cut off their breasts in order to shoot a bow. Like that's even necessary."
"That came from someone saying the word was Greek in origin, and jamming together 'a' (without) 'mazos' (breasts). Except the word isn't even Greek. It's suspected to come from an Iranian compound."
Cities All of Wood
"The statement that pre-Columbian USA was made entirely of hunter-gatherers."
"Nope. In some parts they farmed corn, built pyramids and had a city that was once bigger than London. The reason why you don't see so much of it today is because wood doesn't preserve very well."
-- sega31098
Thanks, Hollywood
"General Sherman set the whole of Atlanta on fire after occupying it. The reality is Sherman took the city, kicked everyone out, and before he left ordered the business district burned and anything of military or logistical value destroyed."
"In fact, the popularized image of Atlanta burning given to us by Hollywood via Gone With the Wind was actually from Confederate General John B. Hood's destruction of 80 railcars of ammunition as they retreated."
"The reality is, Atlanta did not burn down, only parts of it. And it wasn't entirely of Sherman's doing. Not that facts or historical accuracy are a large part of the southern narrative for the war, anyway."
Anglo Saxons Have a Great PR Team
"Vikings were dirty stinky barbarians and Anglo Saxons were very clean like you see in all the tv series.'"
"It was actually the other way around by the standards of those days cause Vikings would bathe once a week and Anglo Saxons would only bathe once a year."
"We also know that vikings had things like combs for their hair and beards and would bleach their hair in winter to kill of things like lice because washing in winter would be a damn sight colder."
-- Yordleranger
Read the Name!
"Christopher Colombus discovered America."
"Probably the ultimate hoax in american history. Outside of, obviously, the people already on the continent, he'd been beaten by the vikings and Amerigo Vespucci who has actually set foot on the continent (instead of the Carabibbean) and literally put his name on it to call dibs"
-- Taurock