For one reason or another, these uncomfortable
historical facts don't get talked about nearly enough. Maybe it's because it's a history that isn't often taught, maybe it was too awful to discuss, or maybe it just kinda got lost over time. Either way, it still happened, and we're here to talk about it.
1
"The 2nd Congo War. This was the deadliest conflict since World War II with over 5 million people killed. Most people have never heard of it despite it ending less than 20 years ago." - u/Spanglertastic
2
"Between the 1930s and the 1970s, about 1/3 of the female population of Puerto Rico was sterilized." - u/sfmchgn99
3
"During the battle of Waterloo, one of the most treasured pieces of 'loot' was the teeth of the deceased soldiers. ~200 years ago, it was rather common to use the teeth of dead people in the creation of dentures." - u/GrandpaJoeSloth
4
"45 BC was the longest year in history with 445 days." - u/Vexonte
"The Romans previously allowed the Senate to control the calendar and they'd used that to expand their own terms or contract others terms as they could. Basically the calendar got super messed up so they had an extra long year to correct it so that summer lined up with the actual summer etc." - u/Raddatatta
5
"The history of the west Virgina coal miners, and the civil war that it brought about." - u/LowThreadCountSheets
6
"The emergency powers granted after 9/11 are still being renewed." - u/1-800-Hamburger
7
"During the Nuremberg trials post WWII, head of the Nazi navy, and head of State after Hitler's death, Karl Donitz, was charged with war crimes involving his use of unrestricted submarine warfare and killing of unarmed, civilian ships.
Donitz provided evidence that nearly all the ships he attacked were infact armed with anti submarine weapons and radios, and also a large amount of evidence that the United States committed the exact same war crimes against the Japanese. Due to this, those charges were dropped and he served only 10 years in prison before being set free." - CactusBill248
8
"The reason egyptian mummies are so rare is because we used to eat them or turn them into medicine." - u/LittleMsBlue
9
"Comfort women: During WW2, the Japanese military kidnapped women from the Asian countries they invaded and forced those women to be sex slaves to please countless Japanese soldiers." - u/Kbdiggity
10
"Marcus Lucullus Crassus invented (EDIT: nope, revived) decimation after a series of lost battles. He had every 10th soldier of his legions killed in order to boost the morale of the others.
It worked." - u/fruor
11
"King Leopold II of Belgium was an all around awful person and what he got up to in Africa is not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach." - u/MomCat23
12
"America has been involved in more then 100 wars in the last 200 years" - u/Solid-Celery-2933
13
"One of the biggest proponents for Prohibition were suffragettes who found a correlation between alcohol consumption and domestic violence" - u/JayeKimZ
14
"In the Stone Age, when people would kill a bear, the first thing they'd do is rip open its stomach to eat the meal the bear had consumed before being killed." - u/GrandpaJoeSloth
15
"Sweden sterilized/castrated some 300,000 (probably more) disabled individuals, sometimes as early as childhood from the 1930s-1970s." - u/MaryPain666
16
"Hobby Lobby funded terrorism through the trade of looted artifacts for the Museum of the Bible. This money went to ISIS, which acquired the art and relics from Museum of Baghdad." - u/Nukdai
17
"The English government supported terrorism against Catholics in Northern Ireland." - u/BlearySteve
18
"President George Washington is often mistaken for having wooden teeth. Pretty disgusting.
What's correct is he had dentures, but made of slaves teeth." - u/AcceptablePianist
19
"The entry hole in the rear of JFK's head was measured by Dr. Pierre Finck, the only ballistics expert of any note whatsoever to examine his remains, as SMALLER than the calibre of bullet Lee Harvey Oswald was supposed to have fired." - u/MagicSPA
20
"For Americans at least, the Dole Fruit Company was basically responsible for more overthrown government than the CIA or KGB. Think about that next time your eating some pineapples or bananas." - u/Wildcat_twister12
21
"1921 Tulsa Race Massacre" - u/papachon
22
"How France has won the most battles in military history. But shhh, let everyone make the 'Haha France surrenders' joke." - u/McLarenMP4-26
23
"In ancient Egypt, if a beautiful woman died, they would leave their body’s out to rot for a few days so the fellas mummifying them wouldn’t, yk, do it with their dead bodies. Not sure if someone’s already said this but there you go." - u/Idkwhatim_doing_____
24
"Anne Frank, Martin Luther Kimg Jr., and Barbara Walters were all born in the same year (1929) and yet everyone thinks of them in completely different timelines/decades." - u/Next-Status8671
25
"Elon Musk didn't found PayPal or Tesla and has made no significant intellectual contribution to any field of programming or engineering. I know it's recent history but still, not enough people want to talk about it." - u/SuperfluousPedagogue
26
"Mount Rushmore being built on land that was promised to never be touched by the US government. They slaughtered the native people they promised that to, and then carved the faces of that very US government into the mountainside. Pretty sickening." - u/schrotestthehero
27
"Oklahoma banning whaling was actually very helpful to whaling becoming illegal. Anyone whose heard of it hears it as one of the 'pointless state laws.'" - u/SgtFrampy
28
"Napoleon was average height for the time." - u/GrumpyTorch
29
"A majority of countries have committed some form of atrocity or human rights violation." - u/Impressive-Morning76
30
"Edgar [Allan] Poe married his 13-year-old cousin... When he was in his 20s" - u/MINILAMMA
