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28 People Who Went Down In History As The ‘Bad Guys’, But Didn’t Actually Deserve That Title
Article created by: Ieva Pečiulytė
Who writes history? And how often do we question the narratives that are presented to us? I bet the answer is not enough. And it's understandable, life would be exhausting if we constantly doubted everything we know and where that information came from. But we don't really have the luxury of taking the backseat and just accepting things as we're told they are. Not after so many "conspiracy theories" turn out to be true.
One Reddit user wanted to know what people were deemed 'the bad guys' by history, but didn't actually deserve this title. And people were eager to share their picks. There's more to history than the side we're taught in schools, or wherever else we've heard about it, and as it turns out, many people are villainized to fit a certain narrative, or the 'us vs. them' mentality.
Bored Panda collected the most interesting stories of people being vindicated after being portrayed as the 'bad guys' for years. Scroll down and upvote your favorite submissions, and if you think something is missing, make sure to share it in the comments below!
- Read More: 30 People Who Went Down In History As The 'Bad Guys', But Didn't Actually Deserve That Title
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#1
Sinead O'Connor
Ripped up a picture of the Pope live on SNL in the 90s in a protest against covered up child abuse in the Catholic Church.
The world lost their s**t. She was demonized and professionally blacklisted for years, booed to hell at concerts, had her intelligence and sanity questioned, and was made into an international punchline. Even SNL disavowed her actions and wouldn't rebroadcast it.
And....turns out she was 1000% right.
RELATED:
#4
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.
#6
Edward Snowden. The NSA deserved to be called out. Whistleblowers should not be chased out of the country.
#7
So I grew up in a Christian school with a Christian history curriculum printed out of Pensacola Florida. They were dead set on convincing us that JIMMY CARTER is a villain in American history. It was a pretty hollow and nationalistic argument based almost solely on the signing away of the Panama canal. S**t aged like milk in my head because jimmy lives on as the greatest former president to be around during my lifetime
#9
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
#10
Janet Jackson deserved exactly none of the backlash she received for that Half Time Show disaster.
Everyone acted like her breast being exposed was an intentional part of the act despite how obviously it f*****g wasn't.
Meanwhile, Justin Timberlake gave the most bare minimum "I'm sorry you got offended" b******t ever, but he gets no punishment because he's a sexy white dude.
#11
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
#12
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".
#13
Hades
He barely cheated on his wife and was loyal.
He only kidnapped Persephone because Zeus told him to.
He's a good father.
He doesn't cause death, only what happens after.
Also he named his Dog Spot, adorable.
People always act like he's evil and malicious. But in all reality he's a sweet guy.
#14
Marie Antoinette never said “let them eat cake” when she heard that her people couldn’t afford bread.
She was executed out of frustration for how bad things became during the French Revolution and was wrongly misattributed for the ideology of someone in power being out of touch with being poor.
#15
Julius Caesar.
His murderers expected the people to rejoice upon being freed from the “tyrant.”
Instead the people wept and rioted, they loved Caesar because (unlike most of the senators) he truly cared for the people and sometimes would spend all night writing up laws, he is the reason the grain bill worked to feed to neediest. He grew up with the common man and it’s often forgotten how much he did for them, there is a reason the people loved him more than the senate.
Was he perfect? No. Did he try and gain power? Yes. But Is an dictatorship worse than an oligarchy? It’s clear that Rome was in much better hands with Caesar than the Senate.
#16
Anyone that is familiar with the movie 300 is aware of how it sanitises the Spartans and how it demonises the First Persian Empire.
The reality is that the First Persian Empire or the Achaemenid Empire was pretty forward thinking for the era; this is the empire that freed the Jews from the Babylonians and gave the world the Cyrus Cylinder which some regard as the first bill of rights.
As for Sparta? It was a militaristic society based on Social Darwinism (centuries before the birth of Charles Darwin) and it had a greater percentage of slaves than Persia ever did.
Edit: I am not suggesting that the First Persian Empire was perfect, I am just pointing out the historically inaccurate and racist portrayal of Persia in the movie 300.
#17
Malcolm X. History basically taught me he was the gunslinging MLK Jnr. counterpart, but really, they agreed on a ton of s**t and worked together a lot. In fact, Malcolm did a whole lot more outside of just civil rights, and arguably did more than MLK. MLK is remembered more because he was more outspoken (and the speech has kinda been overstated)
#18
Vlad the Impaler. He was fighting the invading Turks, and resorted to scare tactics. It worked.
#19
In the film Titanic the character Murdoch [unalived] someone, took bribes and generally came across as a right s**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.
#20
Honestly, I'd say King John of England. Many of the troubles during his reign were directly caused by his brother Richard I preferring to gallivant around Europe and the Middle East.
#21
In brave heart, William Wallace gets betrayed by Robert the Bruce which never happened, he was loyal to the end
#22
Not a guy but rather an organisation.
The IRA are practically the sole reason that Ireland is an independent country today, yet their legacy has forever been tainted by an offshoot organisation (the Provisional IRA) to the point that most people outside of Ireland simply view their entire history as terrorists and criminals.
#23
All of the Black Panthers.
Any American should see it as reasonable to start a militia in order to protect your family, friends, and community from a corrupt and [criminal] state. [Taking out] cops was justice.
#24
**Herbert Hoover.** He was a lifelong humanitarian and had a reputation as an excellent administrator, which led him to win the Presidency of the U.S in 1928.
- But less than eight months after he took office, the world was rocked by one of the worst economic depressions in history.
- It was also during Hoover’s Presidency that mass media like radio and newsreels started spreading wildly, and Hoover was a breathtakingly awful speaker with poor public relations skills.
So Hoover got trounced in the next election by FDR’s abundant optimism and wide toothy grin, and was forever tarred in history as being the uncaring standoffish bureaucrat who ignored all the hardships of the Great Depression from his White House perch.
#25
Richard III. Demonised by the Tudors, in part due to his curved spine (now confirmed) and their political agendas. He might have been a good King or a bad King/person but it is difficult to determine as the records that followed his death are so incredibly bias.
#26
Caligula.
A lot of the stories of him being mad were just posthumous propaganda by his political opponents. Considering the horrific abuse by Tiberius he suffered as a child, Caligula was remarkable well balanced.
#28
Carol Baskin. They found her husband alive . People still think she fed her husband to tigers.
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