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Our fascination with history shows no sign of fading. We consistently flip through volumes of dusty books to learn more about our past and understand our influence on the world. When we read about intriguing characters or find exciting bits of knowledge we missed in class, we broaden our mental horizons and begin to realize the good and the bad of humanity.

We often applaud and raise toasts to historical heroes who showed kindness and courage to make society a bit better. But unfortunately, there’s no escaping that not every part of our past is worth celebrating. So user rockingkp reached out to fellow members of Ask Reddit to learn more about the dark and disturbing historical events few people know about.

Many users rolled up their sleeves to share the inescapable facts of some of the lowest points in our history. Discovering them might make us feel uncomfortable, but even the worst moments can carry significant lessons to teach us to never repeat them. Scroll down to read the responses and be sure to share your thoughts about them in the comments.

Psst! Just to warn you, though, some of these replies are not for the faint of heart. If you think this might be a bit too much and feel in great need of something positive, check out our recent compilation full of wholesome stories right here.

#1

People Are Sharing 35 'Dark Events' From History You May Not Have Known About Human “experimentation” by Japanese Unit 731 during WWII, committed primarily against innocent Chinese civilians. Nothing I’ve ever heard of in my life, including in fiction, is darker than the horrors committed for years by Unit 731, a military biological and chemical weapons research division of the Japanese Imperial military.

There’s not enough room in a Reddit post to list half of it, but here’s a taste: Dissections of living babies, pregnant women, etc. without anesthesia (also known as a vivisection) usually after they had been deliberately exposed and left to suffer from horrible diseases, chemical and biological weapons, and so on. Freezing limbs off of victims. Horror-movie sadistic surgeries involving cutting off limbs and attaching them to the wrong sides of a victim, or removing organs and connecting the tubes back together without the organs to see what would happen, such as running the esophagus straight to the intestines with no stomach in between.

Not to mention the fact that the victims were routinely tortured for the sake of torture, without even the flimsy excuse of “science” being conducted.

And we’re talking about thousands upon thousands of victims, usually hapless Chinese civilians, political prisoners, POWs, and the homeless, over the course of years in huge facilities with thousands of staff committing these atrocities.

The icing on the cake? General MacArthur and the rest of the US government found out about it when they captured Japan — and they granted Unit 731 immunity for their war crimes so long as they share their findings with America and ONLY America. Many of the former Unit 731 members even went on to have very successful and profitable futures in Japan after the war.

Edit: Based on a couple of the comments I’ve gotten where people are making judgement calls about the modern day Japanese for this - I’d just like to make clear that I hold no prejudice against the Japanese, and I’m certainly not encouraging others to — every country and people has truly horrific pasts, and almost all of them sweep it under the rug as best they can. Even in our generation. We can argue that torture conducted by US soldiers in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, for example, aren’t half as bad, or were more justified, but ultimately torture is torture and sadism is sadism. A culture or government that begins to permit such things and justify them is well on its way down the spiral with enough motivation. Let’s not fool ourselves into comforting racism or nationalism that our countries or people are incapable of atrocities of our own, even today.

SAM5TER5 , wikimedia.commons Report

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#2

People Are Sharing 35 'Dark Events' From History You May Not Have Known About One that really stands out to me is of the Filipino Zoo Girl that was on display in the Coney Island Zoo in 1914. She was bound by ropes and people tossed peanuts at her. It's just heartbreaking to see something like that happen, especially to a child so young.

Many people have no idea that [human zoos] existed, but they are definitely a dark part of history. What's crazy is that there have still been some that have popped up in the 21st century, although not as cruel as they used to be.

-eDgAR- Report

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Suzy the observer
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I want to jump in this picture, cut the ropes, take her in my arms, flee and snuggle her until my arms fall off.

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Louise B
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That's sickening. How could people do that to a tiny child? The look of trauma on her face is heartbreaking. What sort of person responds to that by throwing peanuts at her?

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Bobbi Johnson
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Because people were racist. They thought that they were higher than others, just because they did not look or think like them.

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Łukasz Markuszewski
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This child might have been still alive just a few years ago. Do you see it? The person who have been a prisoner in human zoo might have walking streets few years ago, in the age of equality, antiracism and diversity, and you could met her and talk to her and didn't know that kind of horrible things happened to this person.

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Rose the Cook
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Such "attractions' were not unusual at the time including so called "freak shows" featuring disabled people.

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V Michael Lazar
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Freaks, however, were, for the most part, performing voluntarily and made good money doing it. Some, like Julia Pastrana, were horribly exploited, but most received excellent care and some became wealthy.

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...
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

How could they do this to anyone let alone a small child

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Daniel Marsh
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Holy c**p. I saw this from the thumbnail, and knowing about "freak shows," I wasn't so shocked. But a little girl bound by ropes with people tossing peanuts at her? It shows what people will do if only the social cues tell them it's acceptable, and it's thus terrifying, not merely tragic history.

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Alicia GriffonLady
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Humans are terrifying like that. And if they think what they are doing is right and you try to do what is truly right, they could kill you, just for being against them. Humans give me the heebeegeebees. (Hey, if some guy can become woman of the year, my seceeding from the human race is fine too.)

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Kitty Jordan
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I realize she's likely dead by now, but I just want to go back in time and hug that poor little girl and give her chocolate and puppies and apologize that this was the world she was born in.

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Drea Benoit
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It’s shocking that this wasn’t that long ago. It’s going to be a very long road for humanity to reach a point where people of all walks of life are valued equally.

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Jen T
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Why is a bound child an interesting “attraction”? I don’t understand the point of doing this to her.

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Alex Boyd
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

There were a lot of exhibits of people from "exotic" cultures--I've read a couple of books about the practice, one called The Lost Tribe of Coney Island, and another a biography of a man named Ota Benga. My guess, from what I learned in those books, is that the child was probably a big audience draw--similar to baby animals in a normal zoo--and they probably tied her if she wasn't staying in public view or behaved in ways that the audience would find unappealing. (I don't remember anything exactly like it in either book but I do remember the Coney Island book talking about how they made a mother display her newborn much earlier than she thought was appropriate, and both books talking about various methods--some more repugnant than others--that they to make adults in these exhibits perform in ways the audience would enjoy.)

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Lorrie Rothstein
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1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yes i heard a podcast once about human zoos..people who looked diffrent were kept like animals

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K- THULU
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Unfortunately all true... Many in europe in the early part of the 20th century. Disgusting part of history! Colonialism at its finest!

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Kiki
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

You could be shocked of the date but in France there was one in the 90s! As Pete Häkkinen shared below : "The Racist Zoo Where Visitors Paid to See Black People in the 90s" www.vice.com/en/article/xgda34/human-zoo-france-safari-africain

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suzanne van Doorn
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My stomache just turned, my heart is crying... she looks the same age as my youngest daughter. I wish I could time travel and save this girl :'(

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NotMe
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Is it known what happened to her or her name at least?

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Tiny Dancer
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yeah, history is not pretty: https://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/features/human-zoos-a-shocking-history-of-shame-and-exploitation

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Rocky Mom
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Immediate tears when noticed her hands bound like that. F**k, f**k, f**k... those people. Got damn.

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Alex Ernst
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

When Leopold II held an expo to legitimize his takeover of the Congo on "humanitarian" and "scientific" grounds, the presentations included a fully reconstructed Congolese village...complete with villagers. A lot of visitors tried giving the villagers treats - which made them sick because they'd never had candy before and didn't know to pace themselves. So the presenters put up a sign: "The Africans have been provided for by the Committee" (translation: "Don't feed the animals").

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Wilson.
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Jesus, id never heard of human zoos. What a depressing discovery.

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Melissa Rodriguez
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Unfortunately it was a very common occurrence and the last one closed in 1958! Ota Benga is a famous example on someone who was kept in the Bronx zoo and was forced to live among apes.

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Curry on...
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I wonder what the criteria was for this sweet little girl to become a zoo exhibit.

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Jerry Juneau
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

There are a few stories about “human zoo’s” out there. Literally people would be brought (captured) and displayed in zoo’s. Often families were brought over together, then the zoo would build them an enclosure and decorate it like their homeland. The exhibits would then perform their daily chores,rituals, etc for the patrons of the zoo. I believe that this was a big attraction over the years and it was featured at some of the world fairs.

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Dee Tag
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Human Zoo sounds too harsh. We've changed the name to circus or funfair or Ripley's. Let's gather around and look at the bearded lady.

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GoddessOdd
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1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I just want to take her and cuddle her and bring her home. I wonder what misfortune brought her to be treated this way... my guess is poverty.

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S Cooley
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

if time travel is a thing im gonna go free her and everyone else this is horribe

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Uncle Bud
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

How shocking! This has to be one of the darker moments on our history.

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B S
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

believe me, there are those of us who aren't interested in whitewashing or santizing things like the freakshows or bedlam. people need to know they existed otherwise these things have a habit of cropping up again and again.

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Lady of the Mountains
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1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Why was she so interesting, there were a lot of immigrants from all over at that time from all different races, how did her sideshow drum up any interest other than people wanting to blow off steam and be mean

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Cheryl Steyn
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This is disgusting! The Americans who did this were clearly far worse than any apartheid-era government in Africa. How utterly horrendous, poor child.

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𝙸'𝚖𝚊𝚗𝚘𝚘𝚋!(new account)
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I wanna ask so many questions like: "did she eat?" "where was her mother or guardian of some sort?" "was she able to go home at the end of each day?", but I'm afraid I won't like the answers and probably start flipping tables.

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PenguinQueen
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11 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

How can people witness these and literally believe that they are not seeing another human being with emotions akin to their own In need of help?!

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Nobody Special
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That is a baby. That this was ever ok with anyone is so sad and disturbing.

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Mary Loftus
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Only whites think they are better than anyone and everyone else. Except, for the Japanese and Nazis during WWII!

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Juanita Phelps
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Poor baby. She needed to be loved and cuddled, not abused like that.

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Roslyn Madrid
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Not too much earlier, 'respectable' people visited 'insane asylums' for recreation, just as it has been appropriate to visit collections of non-human animals. It was appropriate to mock and abuse the inmates.

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Dunkel Esclave
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The Filipino girl? Really? How do the countless black children, men and women displayed as monkeys and apes not get mentioned? How convenient. Btw this def shouldn't be at #2

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Sean Simpson
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

One could argue that the television show Big Brother is just a modern and technological take on the idea.

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GPZ
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I don’t get this one. While the practice is barbaric and offensive (and in no way do I condone it) something (not necessarily a person as in the OP) that is unique in nature might draw attention but this is just a little girl tied to a post.

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Wise beauty
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Imagine how scared and confused she must have been. You are trapped and people are throwing peanuts at you? I would be horrified, not to mention that she was probably either stolen from her family or sold to someone, possibly even both.

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Ay-Ayu Ya Jularbal
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

the girl was supporting temporarily propped bellows from falling using a rope which is not tied to her wrists.

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TheKrucifix
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Where's all the historical outcry and reparations for this? Or does only once specific type of people get those?

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LaToya Mack
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Oh my god if you think that is bad there was a time in American history we are people with dark melon and their skin resold like chattel. When they were breaded dear children were sold to the highest bitter we call that slavery. Not for nothing but baby cry me a River.

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Rhyleigh Beer
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1 year ago

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Fxcku
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1 year ago

This comment is hidden. Click here to view.

I actually like this, kids are of no use, so throwing sh1t at them seems fun. Sign me on this one.

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Tamra Stiffler
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I'm making the assumption that *you* were a child once, too. Unless you simply sprang forth from hell fully formed. I'm betting the latter. POS.

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#3

People Are Sharing 35 'Dark Events' From History You May Not Have Known About 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.

Damn_Dog_Inappropes , wikimedia.commons Report

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Monday
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It was considered to be a glamourous job too so many young women flocked to these positions. They had to fight tooth and nail to get compensation years later when the dangers of radium finally became public knowledge. There was also a guy who drank huge amounts of radithor (radium infused water) every day until his jaw fell off. Look up Eben Byers if you want to see what a jawless man looks like.

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#4

People Are Sharing 35 'Dark Events' From History You May Not Have Known About The massacre of kalavrita. It is a village is 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 [perished] 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 [unalived] about 10 nazis.

Zaffa_07 , wikimedia.commons Report

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Sinkvenice
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

"Unalived"? I'm pretty sure nobody would be triggered or have an anxiety attack by reading that Nazis were killed.

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#5

Mother Theresa being an absolute evil b***h. Letting so many [perish] on her watch, while collecting millions from dictators for the Vatican.

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alwaysMispelled
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I don't understand why western media treated her like a saint, because they did. I don't remember any 20/20 or frontline stories about her not giving people pain medication because it was good for their souls to suffer, or whatever BS she spouted

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#6

People Are Sharing 35 'Dark Events' From History You May Not Have Known About Jellyboys
During the 1800s British noblemen in India would use so called jellyboys (local boys smeared in jam) to walk beside them attracting all the bugs, flies and mosquitoes, creating a neat golfing experience for the nobility and a not so neat experience for the boys.

Horseoftravertine , Markus Avila Report

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title track
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

King Pepi II had his slaves covered in honey so as to attract the flies to them and not him around 2280BC

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#7

People Are Sharing 35 'Dark Events' From History You May Not Have Known About Magdalene asylums, also known as Magdalene laundries. Places of "reform" for women that didn't fit the idea of a good upstanding citizen. The most well known ones were in Ireland. The women and girls were abused and mistreated by asylum staff, most of whom were nuns.

Mass graves, selling these women's children to people in other countries, blocking any parental rights... There's apparently at least one movie coming out, a lot of stories about it, and so many people sharing stories from their mothers and grandmothers. I guess it's more well known than I first thought.

quietfangirl , wikimedia.commons Report

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Jiminy
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1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

They had similar ones for adolescents in the GDR until 1990, though not led by nuns. They were for boys and girls alike, who were labeled as "hard to educate" (read: didn't fit into the "socialist" society) or whose parents spoke out against the regime.

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#8

People Are Sharing 35 'Dark Events' From History You May Not Have Known About Not many people outside of Canada know about the abusive residential schools many indigenous kids were forced to go to (up until the 90’s!!), but even less know that many were also experimented on in the quest to cure tuberculosis. Truly sick stuff.

xtrabi , wikimedia.commons Report

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Dre Mosley
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Pretty much every country with an indigenous population is guilty of mistreating it, sadly.

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#9

This is more modern history (current history to be precise) but ...

The Chinese Communist Party actively engaging in Nazi germany style genocide of Uighur Muslims via imprisonment in concentration camps. Forcing them into slave labour and [taking out] them if they do not comply.

There is an estimated 1 million Uighur muslims currently being held in these camps with an undisclosed number of them dead (due to the secrecy of the CCP)

Most people don’t know about this and the ones that do just bury their heads in the sand.

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#10

People Are Sharing 35 'Dark Events' From History You May Not Have Known About The New London School Explosion. On the afternoon of March 18, 1937, the shop teacher at the school in New London, TX turned on an electric sander. Unbeknownst to him, there was a massive natural gas leak under the school. The sander sparked, which ignited the gas and caused a massive explosion that [unalived] almost 300 students and teachers. It was absolutely horrific. The force of the explosion was so great that a two ton block of concrete crushed a car parked 200 feet away. This event is actually why natural gas has a smell now. They started adding it after the explosion so that something like this couldn’t ever happen again.

My grandfather was actually one of the survivors of the explosion. He never talked about it, even to his own family, so I didn’t really know too much about it (other than the fact that he’d survived) until after his [passing]. Toward the end of his life, he’d suffered a series of strokes that left him pretty physically incapacitated, so my dad had given him a voice-activated tape recorder and suggested maybe he could record his memoirs for his grandkids to listen to someday. As it turns out, he did. We have hours and hours of cassette tapes of him telling the story of his (actually very interesting) life, including a big section on the New London school explosion. For the sake of everyone’s privacy, I’ll call my grandfather Papa and use an initial for anyone else.

Papa was in eighth grade when it happened, in his English class at about 3:00 PM on a Thursday afternoon. At the beginning of class, Papa and his buddy T had been messing around and being loud in the back of the classroom (as eighth grade boys often do). His teacher, Miss M, had enough of their disruptions and made Papa switch seats with another student. He moved into the girl’s desk in the front row, and she moved back into his desk in the back of the room. When the school exploded, they were taking a test on the book Ivanhoe. Papa was knocked out for a short time, and when he woke up, he couldn’t see anything because the dust was so thick. He looked down and saw that his pencil had blown clear through his hand. When the dust cleared, he saw that the whole back of the room was gone. I won’t go into details, but there were bodies (and parts of bodies) everywhere. The students in the front half of the room survived. The students in the back half did not. That included Papa’s friend T and the little girl who’d been forced to take Papa’s desk because of his misbehavior at the beginning of class. If he hadn’t been acting up, he would have been [unalived] and she would have lived. He carried the guilt of her [passing] until the day he [passed away].

Papa’s classroom was on the second floor. There wasn’t any way to get to the room other than the open cavity of the explosion. After the few seconds of initial shock wore off, he and another classmate jumped into action. They were the only two kids in the class who hadn’t been badly injured. They made a tourniquet out of a sock and a shoelace for a girl with a severe injury to her arm and dug out their teacher, who was alive, but badly injured. By then, men were running up underneath the hole, so Papa and the other boy started lowering the injured to them. Then those who could walk, including Papa, climbed down. He ran off to look for his older brother, B, to see if he was OK.

As it turned out, B had been supposed to be in Geometry class. However, he and his buddy had snuck out to go fishing. The explosion happened as they were opening the door to head out to the parking lot. The force of the blast sent them tumbling head over foot across the lot. They were both banged up and dazed, but they survived. The rest of their Geometry class was [unalived]. I don’t know that there’s a moral in the fact that both my grandfather and his brother survived because they were misbehaving that day. I do know that it weighed very heavily on both of them for he rest of their lives.

There’s a lot more to his story about the day and the aftermath (most of it absolutely horrific), but I won’t go into all of it here. A few small tidbits though:
- Papa and the boy who helped him rescue the other students from their classroom were both awarded medals and certificates of valor for their actions that day.
- Nearly every family in town lost a child - some all of their children. I’m sure you can imagine the extreme toll this took on everyone’s mental health. Papa described New London in the months following the explosion as a “town with no children.” To help with the healing process, the oil companies actively recruited families with kids to transfer in, so that there was some sense of normalcy when school started again in the fall.
- Papa had played French horn in the school band. However, when school started up again, he was asked to switch to trumpet, as the entire trumpet section had been [unalived].

A few years later, my grandfather went on to fight in World War II, and he saw some of the worst conflict in the Pacific (including Peleliu and the liberation of Manila). But he said that nothing he saw during the war was ever as bad as what he saw the day of the explosion. I’m always amazed that more people don’t know about it. It was major international news at the time.

pepperjones926 , wikimedia.commons Report

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Monday
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

There's a documentary on this one available on Youtube from the channel BadHQ. It's called Disasters Of The Century | New London School Explosion if anyone is interested.

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#11

The Holodomor. Just Google it. Stalin starved around 10 million Ukrainians to further his political agenda. Was absolutely disgusting.

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#12

People Are Sharing 35 'Dark Events' From History You May Not Have Known About 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 in their town, just yards from houses or other sources of refuge. 235 people, mostly children [perished].

There is a novel about the blizzard out now, and there is a nonfiction book about the event as well. I think they have the same title, different authors:

The Children's Blizzard (Nonfiction by David Laskin)

The Children's Blizzard (Fiction by Melanie Benjamin)

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MissPrideGirl
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Those poor children. I wonder what happened to the parents after the blizzard.

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#13

People Are Sharing 35 'Dark Events' From History You May Not Have Known About Child marriage in America isn't talked about as much as it should be.

What's worse is that it's *still* a thing.

SpaceCowboy58 , __ drz __ Report

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Nubis Knight
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

And may become a even bigger thing as in some conservative states the conservative politics press Charge for Lifting the minimal age for getting married so they could marry their underaged child-brides.

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#14

People Are Sharing 35 'Dark Events' From History You May Not Have Known About 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. He [ended himself] by gunshot.

anon , wikimedia.commons Report

#15

People Are Sharing 35 'Dark Events' From History You May Not Have Known About In the US it was common to do invasive surgery on infants without anesthesia until the mid 1980s. It was thought that newborns couldn’t feel pain.

ArGrastaDe , cottonbro Report

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Monday
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That logic has never made any sense. Surely people must have noticed if you pinch a baby they cry?

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#16

The R*pe of Nanking, a six week episode of mass murder, r*pe, torture, theft, arson, and various other war crimes committed by Imperial Japanese soldiers against the Chinese civilians of Nanking (formerly China's capital) during the second Sino-Japanese War. This happened from December of 1937 when the Japanese captured Nanking after a crushing defeat for the Chinese (of varying severity depending on which side you ask) to January of 1938 when the Japanese finished establishing the new "collaborative" government in the city. The body count was massive (estimates range from 40-50,000 to over 300,000), but the massacre is not only remembered for how many people [perished]. It is mainly remembered for the staggering level of cruelty on display, to the point the soldiers even made *games* out of butchering people. One such "game" involved the soldiers throwing babies up into the air and trying to catch them on their bayonets when they came back down. Live burials, castration, brutal r*pe, and the roasting of people became routine then the soldiers started getting bored and thought up even more twisted s**t like hanging people from their tongues on iron hooks, burying them up to the waist and setting hungry dogs on them, or forcing families to engage in incestuous acts. Homes and businesses would be randomly picked out and raided nightly, the Chinese hiding inside all systematically [unalived], r*ped first if they were unlucky enough to be a woman that wasn't elderly or a toddler, and children were not exempt from the worst of it. Just about any horrible thing you can think to do to another person it probably actually happened in Nanking. Even the Nazis in the city at the time were horrified by the carnage, one calling it "the work of b*****l machinery".

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#17

People Are Sharing 35 'Dark Events' From History You May Not Have Known About The Vipeholm Experiment.

Sweden are mostly known as a not very scary country. With good and mostly accessible dental care.

The Vipeholm experiments were a series of human experiments where patients of Vipeholm Hospital for the intellectually disabled in Lund, Sweden, were fed large amounts of sweets to provoke dental caries (1945–1955). The experiments were sponsored both by the sugar industry and the dentist community, in an effort to determine whether carbohydrates affected the formation of cavities.

The experiments provided extensive knowledge about dental health and resulted in enough empirical data to link the intake of sugar to dental caries.[1] However, today they are considered to have violated the principles of medical ethics.

Hey, you are institutionalized and suffering and powerless - let's make your teeth rot out of your skull. For uhhh science.

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Jaguarundi
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Well, it's nice to know that America is not the only country to exploit their institutionalized, and/or mentally handicapped people, for advancing medical science.

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#18

British Gulags in Kenya. 1.5 million indigenous Kenyans were placed in concentration camps. Many of them were tortured. Many of them were [unalived]. But all of them suffered, and with silence from the international press. It's ironic that the Brits criticised the Soviet Union for their inhumane gulags yet they had gulags of their own in British Protectorate Kenya. This happened in the 1950s, after the second world war.

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juezyparte
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

If I read unalived one more time I’m gonna kill myself, I’m gonna shoot my brains out… what I mean is: if I have to read unalived till I’m old I think I’m rather gonna commit suicide, of the killing myself variety…

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#19

People Are Sharing 35 'Dark Events' From History You May Not Have Known About 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 [passed away] when in fact it had been sold to adopting parents. Between 400 and 600 [passed away] 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.

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#20

The Cambodian Genocide. You could have been [unalived] just for wearing glasses, therefore being an intellectual (at least this was the Khmer Rouge logic). The prisoners were tortured so badly that they tried to commit suicide in every possibile way, even by using some spoons.
The executions used to be like this: the prisoners were put on a straight line and to the second prisoner was given an object like a shovel or a hammer which he had to use to [unalive] the prisoner in front of him. Then, the same object was given to the third prisoners and the cycle would repeat until there was nobody alive except for the last prisoner on the line, who was then [unalived] by the guards.
Since many medics were [unalived] or sent to work as farmers, the local regime used child medics to conduct experiments on the prisoners: they used teenagers with no knowledge of western medicine to experiment on people without anesthesia. For example, they opened one person's chest just to see his heart beating.
Imho, this s**t is even worse than Unit 731.

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#21

People Are Sharing 35 'Dark Events' From History You May Not Have Known About 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.

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#22

People Are Sharing 35 'Dark Events' From History You May Not Have Known About "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.

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#23

Croatia's Ustachas. Sick radical m***********s. "An ustacha that isn't able to take out a baby from its mother's womb with a blade, isn't a good ustacha." -Ante Pavelic

Some of their most horrific crimes were burning babies infront of their parents, mangling kids from 0-14 y/o with axes, raping girls infront of their mothers, cutting off the ears and noses of their prisoners while being alive. Even the nazis were horrified by these guys methods.

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Caro Caro
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The Ustaše was a Croatian fascist and ultranationalist organization active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945, formally known as the Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionary. Its members murdered hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, and Roma as well as political dissidents in Yugoslavia during World War II. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ustase

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#24

The United Fruit Company’s crimes in Latin America. They perpetrated massacres, slave labour, overthrew governments and generally just ravaged each country they stepped foot in. They left when the soil was dry and no-longer efficient, leaving millions out of work, destabilised governments and still continued to extort locals for years later. It is absolutely disgusting what they did, I encourage everyone to read about it.

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Lucifer
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

They did this with the help of US government. And the term 'banana republic' was coined because of their monopoly in some regions.

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#25

People Are Sharing 35 'Dark Events' From History You May Not Have Known About In my family's region in Africa they used to carry out the "capital punishment" by snakebite.

Just a snakebite to each ankle, and then letting the man spend his remaining time with his family before he [passed away] (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.

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#26

People Are Sharing 35 'Dark Events' From History You May Not Have Known About 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.

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#27

People Are Sharing 35 'Dark Events' From History You May Not Have Known About The January 1945 sinking of the MV Wilhelm Gustloff. It was a German ship carrying fleeing Germans from the Eastern Front to the West through the Baltic Sea. It was sunk by the Soviet Navy shorty after setting sail. The total [perished] toll is unknown but estimated at over 9000 since there were so many stowaways. It is the worst maritime disaster ever, several times more than the Titanic.

It didn't get nearly the press because they were the enemy so who cares, and the Nazi media certainly didn't report it because they're at the waning days of a war they're badly losing so the last thing they need is more hits to their already sinking morale.

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#28

People Are Sharing 35 'Dark Events' From History You May Not Have Known About Anyone who's familiar with Mary, Queen of Scots most likely knows that she was beheaded, but many people don't know *how* she was beheaded. My APUSH teacher told my class this story and it's probably one of the most simultaneously interesting, funniest, and saddest executions in history.

The first thing to note was that Mary wore a red dress rather than a white one for a very specific reason: after the execution of a royal or high-class person, commoners would often tear off blood-stained fabric from their clothing solely to flex that they got their hands on the blood of a noble. With red fabric, it would be difficult to see actual blood on the dress. Smart move on Mary's end.

During the actual execution, it was said that Mary's executioner was not very experienced and actually *missed* the initial swing, jamming the axe or whatever weapon they used into the back of her head rather than through her neck. This didn't [take out] her yet, though, and she instead made some sort of medieval olden-time exclamation that can be roughly translated to "goddamn!"

EDIT: After the executioner was done, he picked up her head by the hair, not knowing it was a wig, and the head fell out and rolled onto the floor (thanks Plug_5 and moiochi for reminding me)

After Mary was properly [unalived], her body was left for public viewing, but the audience was surprised to see her red dress start to rustle before allowing Mary's small terrier dog to climb out from underneath. Tragically, the dog refused to leave the body and eventually passed away after staying at the same spot for a lengthy amount of time.

History buffs, please feel free to make any corrections as I heard this story a while ago and probably made a few errors in my recalling! :)

TL;DR: Mary, Queen of Scots avoided crazy memorabilia-savers at her execution with a very intelligent move, got shanked in the head during a failed attempt, the executioner dropped her head onto the floor, and had her dog in her dress with her the entire time

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Susie Elle
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Jesus christ BP, 'unalived', seriously? Aside from that; that's quite a way to go :/

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#29

People Are Sharing 35 'Dark Events' From History You May Not Have Known About Margaret Beaufort - mother of Henry VII (father of Henry VIII)

She was married off at age 12 to Edmund (25) who was desperate to get her pregnant as quickly as he could. It was not unusual for members of the aristocracy to marry young. It was slightly more unusual, because of the risk to both mother and child, for them to get pregnant before the age of 14.

Edmund [passed away] of plague while Margaret was pregnant, she was widowed and alone and pregnant during war. The birth was a very difficult one and would scar her forever. For a time they believed that she and her unborn child would perish. Not only was she very young but she was also slight of stature and undeveloped for her age so it’s a wonder she even survived childbirth. It was so difficult for her that she never became pregnant again over the rest of her years, despite remarrying two more times. It is widely believed that she was physically damaged during the childbirth and was unable to conceive again, but it’s also possible she was too traumatized to ever put herself in that situation again. Either way, Margaret devoted herself to her son, calling him “my dearest and only desired joy in this world.”

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Aileen Grist
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It's as well that the OP didn't say that she dedicated her life- or it would become unalivacated her life to him

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#30

The Parsley Massacre.

Dominican dictator really didn't like Haitians, so he ordered Dominican troops to the northern border region, which was fairly loose and undefined at that time (1937), and told the troops to [unalive] any Haitians on the Dominican side which, again, was fairly unclear. How they determined who was Haitian and who was Dominican was based on how they pronounced the word 'parsley'...the vowel sounds in French and Haitian Kreyol make a Kreyol or French speaker saying the Spanish word very obvious.

The reports of what happened are truly horrific...babies on bayonets, head bashed on trees, etc...and somewhere around 15-20K people were murdered in less than a week. Most Haitians have stories about extended family or friends who were hunted like animals and murdered, and it's said that the Dajabòn River is where the murdered souls live...lots of folks won't drink water or wash in the river because it is (still) a river of blood. It ran red during the Massacre.

The DR paid reparations and citizens/survivors in Haiti got about 2 cents as their reparations because of corruption. The DR is still engaged in trying to get rid of anyone that looks Haitian (read: dark-skinned) with regular deportation of even Dominican citizens who might be Haitian descended or are too dark skinned to be Dominican (by state standards). It has created a huge crisis at the border...people are being forced into Haiti and don't speak Kreyol, don't have anywhere to go, and will never find work on Haiti. It's almost like the Massacre never ended...just evolved.

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Mouse
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Ok, first the unalived thing didn't bother me much. But it's been said so much in all these BP post,now I'm annoyed. Stop infantilizing your readers ffs.

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#31

People Are Sharing 35 'Dark Events' From History You May Not Have Known About 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 [passing away] but people still drank more than ever.

maceman486 , wikimedia.commons Report

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Kathryn Baylis
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Government “forgotL to warn people about it. Since it had previously been OK to use in making “bathtub gin”, no one thought it would be hazardous. Just ONE warning would’ve saved lives.

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#32

People Are Sharing 35 'Dark Events' From History You May Not Have Known About The St. Pierre Snake Invasion / The Eruption of Mt. Pelee

Volcanic eruption, Snake attacks, Boiling Mud Slide, Government negligence, Major volcanic eruption, Tsunami.

Population of 30,000 reduced to a population of 2.

In the late 1890’s and early 1900’s, St. Pierre, Martinique was known as the “Paris of the West Indies”. It was renown for its red-tiled cottage, beautiful tropical plants and charming streets. Although most of the population of 20,000 were native Martiniquans, most of the wealthy were Creoles or French colonial officials. The only thing marring this paradise was the volcano looming over its picturesque streets. Citizens of the area were so use to the volcanic activity on the ‘bald mountain’, that no one took it seriously when the fresh steaming vent-holes and earth tremors stared during April 1902.

On April 23, 1902, minor explosions began at the summit of the volcano. By early May, ash began to rain down continuously, and the nauseating stench of sulfur filled the air. The homes on the mountainside were made uninhabitable. Even worse, more than 100 snakes slithered down and invaded the mulatto quarter of St Pierre. The 6-ft long serpents [unalived] 50 people, mostly children, and many animals.

There are reports of horses, pigs and dogs screaming as red ants and foot long centipedes crawled up their legs and bit them. Things came to a head when on May 5, a landslide of boiling mud and water from the Etang Sec crater lake spilled into the River Blanche. Near the mouth of the river, 23 workman were [unalived] in a rum distillery.

This was followed by a tsunami that [unalived] hundreds. This naturally caused concern in the town, and many wanted to leave for Fort-de-France, Martinique’s second most important city. Unfortunately, this all coincided with a national election and public officials wanted to keep people in town to cast their ballots. They convened a committee to assess the danger, with the only scientist involved being a high school science teacher. The report they sent to Governor Louis Mouttet said “there is nothing in the activity of Mt. Pelée that warrants a departure from St. Pierre.” It concluded that “the safety of St. Pierre is completely assured.” On the assurance of that report, people from the countryside flocked into St. Pierre for safety.

They could not have been more wrong.

Three days later, May 8, Mt Pelee finally exploded, sending a murderous avalanche of white-hot lava straight toward the town. Within three minutes, St Pierre was completely obliterated.

There was a V shaped notched cut through the cliffs surrounding the summit crater. This acted as a gun sight pointing down at the town sending super-heated gas, ash and rock down at more than 100 miles per hour. The on slot was enough to move a three ton statue sixteen meters from its base, and blow one meter thick masonry walls to smithereens. It continued down to the shore and hit the ships in the harbor with hurricane force, capsizing several ships killing their crews. The heat set rum warehouses and distilleries ablaze and sent rivers of flaming liquid through the streets.

Of its 30,000 population, there were only two people survived.

Louis-Auguste Cyparis survived because he was in a poorly ventilated, dungeon-like jail cell.

Léon Compère-Léandre lived on the edge of the city and escaped with severe burns. Havivra Da Ifrile, a young girl, reportedly escaped with injuries during the eruption by taking a small boat to a cave down shore, and was later found adrift two miles from the island, unconscious. The event marked the only major volcanic disaster in the history of France and its overseas territories.

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Chinmayee Kalghatgi
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

“Unalived”. What is it with this ridiculous censorship? I am curious in genral. I understand for most swear words since there may be a few kids but why censor words such as “r****m” or “death” in the posts?

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#33

People Are Sharing 35 'Dark Events' From History You May Not Have Known About 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, [unaliving] 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 , wikimedia.commons Report

#34

Dekulakization. The soviets [unalived] an entire social class of people. My great grandma was one of them, and witnessed her whole family be slaughtered in front of her. Then was told to run. My grandma was then raised in a gulag. Apparently it's not genocide though, because [taking out] an entire social class doesn't fit the technical definition.

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Jonny Man
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I recall being in a bar back in early 2013 helping some friends with a gig they had there, Pink Floyd tribute concert. One of the guys we met there was a hardcore Tankie - if you're involved in leftist or progressive politics at all you know the kind. Got a few drinks in him and started spouting off about the necessity of dekulakizing the peasantry back in the day to kill off - sorry, [UNALIVE]-off class enemies. Sick thing is, this stupid jerk would've been first to go if that stuff happened today. Comfortable semi-bourgeois "working class" guy like him? Yeah, they'd've shot him and taken his stuff and that'd be the end of it. Someone oughta do a song called "Tankie Punks F*** Off!"

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#35

People Are Sharing 35 'Dark Events' From History You May Not Have Known About You know Jameson Whiskey?

Well a long a*s 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 f**k drew pictures of it and s**t 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 incase 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 , wikimedia.commons Report

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Eastendbird
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yeah, this is disputed. Link to the Snopes article: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jameson-whiskey-slave-cannibal/

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