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“Not Our Greatest Moment In History”: 34 Historical Photos From Around The World That Are Extremely Dystopian
History is full of bleak moments. And while it’s perfectly natural to be patriotic about your home country, there are probably a few moments from your nation’s history that you’re not particularly proud of. Whether it’s because of the government’s actions, the people’s actions, or another nation’s actions on your soil, I’m sure you have some unfortunate stories to tell.
Sometimes, there’s even photographic evidence of the events. People from all over the world have been sharing the most dystopian images from their nations’ history on Reddit, so we’ve compiled a list of them below. This may not be the most uplifting read, but we hope it teaches you something new about the past.
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#1
Australia
2019-2020 NSW bushfires.
Lurker-Forever-986:
It’s wild that the rest of the world forgot about almost all of Austrailia catching fire because the COVID lockdowns happened immediately after.
RELATED:
#2
United States of America
They're bison skulls from massive slaughter of the animals in the US, leading to their drastic decline and near extinction.
#3
Belgium
Human zoo, the Brussels world fair of 1958.
#4
Australia
Thousands of tons of blue asbestos tailings at Wittenoom, a town removed from road signs, maps and even Google Earth.
Illegal to go there, the blue asbestos fibres are incredibly dangerous.
IncredibleBackpain93:
Mount Cancer.
Nathaniel He/Him Cis-Het 7 minutes ago
Out of curiosity, are there many animals out there? Do they suffer like we would?
#7
Australia
Between 1952 and 1963 Britain conducted 12 major trials of nuclear weapons in Australia (and over 200 minor tests). Most of these were at Maralinga in South Australia. Some mushroom clouds reached 47 thousand feet into the atmosphere. Radioactive fallout was measured as far away as Townsville.
Australian authorities supposedly did not discover the extent of the contamination at Maralinga until 1984, just before the land was to be returned to its Aboriginal owners.
Plutonium-239 has a radioactive half-life of more than 24,000 years.
Nathaniel He/Him Cis-Het 4 minutes ago
Here you go, you can have your ancestral land back, no worries, just like it was. Radiation? What radiation?
#8
Australia
The Stolen Generation.
The Australian government enacted a policy to take all indigenous children from their families in an attempt to erase their culture. 1910's to 1970's.
#9
Northern Ireland
Omagh Bombing, 15th August 1998. This photograph was taken moments before the explosion. The bomb was hidden inside the red Vauxhall Cavalier in this image. 29 people died and around 300 were injured.
#10
Russia
Leningrad..
KuningasTynny77:
Germans chose not to storm the city, sieged it instead. Nearly three years before the big Soviet offensive in the late war made it to the city.
Three years combined with harsh winters. Starvation to the point of eating the zoo animals, and in many cases, the dead. Libraries full of books burned for warmth. You get the idea. Shit was rough. And all of that while also being periodically shelled by the Germans outside the city.
#11
Marshall Islands
The Marshall Islands were heavily impacted by nuclear testing conducted by the United States between 1946 and 1958. During this period, 67 nuclear bombs were detonated, mainly at Bikini Atoll and Enewetak Atoll. The testing caused widespread environmental destruction, forced displacement of local communities, and long-term health problems due to radiation exposure.
#12
Uruguay
Today, in Uruguay, it's the 31th Marcha del Silencio (March of Silence) for those forcibly dissapeared in the last dictatorship.
The picture below was taken at the Palacio Legislativo (our Congress) the day of the coup d'etat, 27th june, 1973. The shape of the Palacio Legislativo, familiar to any Uruguayan, in the background. You can see a tankette right in front of the building, very clear sign of the dark day: the military are taking over and closing the Legislative power. A bloody dictatorship has officially begun. But closer to the camera, you can see a man walking his dog, like any other day.
#13
Greenland
Authorities took 22 young children from their families in 1951. They sent them to Denmark to learn Danish and adopt a new culture. The plan aimed to create an educated elite. Most of these children lost their ability to speak Kalaallisut entirely. Many never returned to their original families.
#14
Poland
Hardly most dystopian, but hits hard. This freaking castle hotel build in the middle of national park that some disgusting corrupted jerks allowed to be build.
#15
New Zealand
After the earthquake in Christchurch, a large part of the city had to be abandoned.
#16
Venezuela
Vargas tragedy, was one of the biggest mudslides in history if not the biggest, death toll was around 10k and 30k.
#17
Finland
Probably not the most dystopian, but definitely up there. Finnish children photographed before being sent to Sweden to be temporarily fostered by Swedish families while their parents stayed to fight for their country. Some 80 000 children were sent away during ww2, 72 000 of them to Sweden. The piece of paper around their neck had their name, number of luggage, and address so that one day they could be given back to their parents. For a multitude of horrible reasons, over 15 000 of them never did return but instead stayed with their new families. Many of them came back to an economically broken country and bombed or burned homes, with no memory of their native language or parents. My still living great grandma was sent away not once but twice and never speaks of it.
#18
Canada
This photo needs some context:
Canada is a contender for the "Country with the worst history ever" award thanks to the oh so wonderful residential schools.
These were basically concentration camps for indigenous children. Colonists would forcefully steal first nation children away from their families, and put them in these schools where they would:
* Be stripped of everything that connected them to their heritage, including given a christian name, cutting their hair, forcing them to eat certain foods, etc.
* Be a****d and beaten when they disobeyed the nuns and priests who ran the schools. This includes being physically beaten, bloodied knuckles with a reed, locked in cages, starved and refused meals, and have any belongings destroyed in front of them.
* Very often Died due to the awful conditions, disease, and while unconfirmed, there are stories they were k****d outright for disobedience. And very recently it was discovered that several of these schools had Mass graves containing hundreds of children's bodies.
The worst part though, was this was all government sanctioned, and there were over 130 government backed schools, with an unknown number more without federal backing.
All of this was to assimilate the first nations into the colonists society. This wasn't just assimilation though, this was a purge, and eviceration of their culture by flaying it from their children
#19
Poland
I didn’t want to go to WW2 related pictures from Poland. But for dystopian irony I’d go with this. After the introduction of martial law by the communist regime in th 80s, military was omni present on the streets. Thus leasing to troops boeing deployed in front of Cinema Moscow which just started to screen Apocalypse Now (that’s „The time of Apocalypse” - that’s the sign and of course Moscow is also ironic). All this during a harsh winter.
#20
Wales
From the Abefan disaster in 1966
Nathaniel He/Him Cis-Het 1 minute ago (edited)
Coal mining spoil sliding down the hill, covered a school. Many children lost their lives. Very sad.
#21
Chile
We have a territorial designation in Chile called 'Sacrifice Zones', areas where environmental destruction is accepted as the price of industrial development. Quintero is emblematic of this.
The population of Quintero suffered massive chemical poisoning in 2018 (approximately 1,700 residents, including many children, over a three month period).
Since then, little has changed. Besides high cancer rates, people living there keep falling ill from acute poisoning. Sometimes doctors cannot diagnose those affected by the toxic environment with any known illness. The surrounding industries have faced minimal to no consequences. Although the Ventanas copper refinery plant was ordered to close its smelting operations during President Boric's administration, the facility kept its electrolytic refinery running, a compromise reached amid the debate between environmental safety and job preservation.
There are probably other images from my country's history, but this one remains an open wound.
#22
El Salvador
One of the acceprable "collateral damage" victims of the current dictatorship. A guy mistakenly captured by the police because he looked to them like a gang member.
#23
Austria
Some of our people have built piles. One was made of human hair. Not our greatest moment in history...
Fufflin:
For me it was the pile of luggage and suitcases with victims names on them.
Just...all their memories and lives contained in small cases. Only thing that remains was their tombstone.
#25
United States Of America
This is Pittsburgh, midday, in 1944. Pittsburgh was called "Hell with the lid off' once.
qriousqestioner:
I think there's so much smog from industrial pollution that it's like it's dark out. (I searched for the city and the forties and these images came up with references to smog.
You would think a country who'd survived this would be less eager to burn the world down for some rich white dudes, but where's the money in that?
#26
Sweden
Not the most dystopian but they're moving a city (or parts of a city) in the north of Sweden so that the mining operation underneath can expand.
#29
Austria
Lassing mining disaster, 1998
The illegal expansion of a talq mine led to a massive collapse. Ten people died during a rescue effort of one miner that could later be rescued. The ten bodies are still burried in the mine to this day.
#30
United States Of America
The Passenger pigeon, the heath hen were hunted to extinction. Which makes me sad everytime I think about it. The last passenger pigeon died in a zoo in 1914. The heath hen was 1934. Habitat loss was also in factory in both too.
#31
Spain
It's the map of mass graves found (by the moment) of nearly 40 years of fascist dictatorship in Spain.
#32
Argentina
Francisco SALAMONE was an architect who performed many brutalist-monuments and different buildings created for government institutions such as this municipal cemetery.
There are many small municipalities all over Buenos Aires Province in Argentina where you can find part of his work: government, cementeries, churches, slaughter houses, etc but always in small-medium cities who were kinda keep as a secret for many decades. Nowadays there are even architectural tours visiting those sites.
This is a very 30-40s view of a dystopian future erected on ciment, marble and huge dimensions.
#33
Bosnia And Herzegovina
Srebrenica Memorial Centre. Where around 7000 men and boys remains are buried, with many more still not found over 30 years later.
#34
Germany
The aftermath of the allied bombing of a civilian area that was collateral damage because it was too close to the harbour where submarines were being built.
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