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22 Historical Facts That Have Completely Ruined The Way These People See The World
Learning history can be a transformative experience. It can challenge your long-held beliefs and assumptions about societies, their culture, and humanity in general.
Discovering that what you've been taught is not the (whole) truth, and that events you thought were isolated incidents are actually part of a broader pattern is jarring. But as uncomfortable as it may be, this process can liberate you, providing you with a new level of clarity and understanding.
So let's take a look at a Reddit post, created by user u/FlickTheSwitch167 that asked everyone "What historical fact have you learnt that ruined everything you ever thought you knew about this life?" And it has received a fair share of insightful replies!
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
I mean, I was pretty young when I learned about the Holocaust. I'm german, and we take this topic really seriously of course. It dawned on me then that the world wasn't as innocent as I thought it was back then. But I'm glad I learned about it at that young age. I was able to gain interest in that topic, and that's pretty important considering the latest events in the East of Europe. And it's important for my generation to really understand and grasp the horrors of the 3rd Reich to ensure that this won't happen again. Sadly it seems not all countries get educated that well in this topic. Not listing any names, there are many countries that now start to go into a rather fascist direction, which is more than concerning.
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#2
The church began the vow of celibacy for priests, not for any Biblical reasons, but so the priest didn’t have a spouse or any offspring who could inherit his wealth. This way the Church inherited all of it.
#3
That we domesticated pigeons thousands of years ago and then decided we didn’t want them anymore. People treat them like vermin after we relied on them for so much (food, messengers etc)
The pigeons you see in your cities are not wild, they’re abandoned.
#4
Old norse runes were found carved up like 20 feet in a cave- when they were translated, they just said "this is very high"
God I love people aksjsj
#5
African kings were the ones who advertised their people as work force/labor to the world.
They died regretting those decisions.
#6
“It says here in this history book that luckily, the good guys have won every single time. What are the odds?”
- Norm MacDonald
#7
When I got older and realized the countless atrocities the United States has committed. Genocide, collusion, bombing our own cities. I used to feel a sense of safety knowing that I lived with the good guys and we stood for justice. That feeling is fleeting
#8
Ancient Antarctica was actually a rainforest, a lush and verdant paradise, filled with flora and fauna.
Despite the interesting fact that there was a whole continent of animals who lived on this planet that we’ll never know about - as their remains are locked beneath miles of ice - it blew my mind that Antarctica only fully froze over about 35 million years ago, despite breaking from its supercontinent ~ 180 million years ago.
That means Antarctica supported independent life for ~ 145 million years, which ruined any sense I have for time and perspective. We really are specks on this planet.
#9
If you look at the history of mankind, you quickly see that nobody ever learned from our history.
#11
The Irish famine was an opportunity the British took to commit genocide against the Irish. They were intentionally starved, while other crops were shipped off island to the British citizens.
#12
95% of native people before Columbus died of diseases brought by explorers. That's 19 of 20 people, for two continents.
#13
There was a Spanish explorer that first visited the Inca empire and saw lots of prosperous cities and a great civilisation, and told his peers about it when he returned home. But when other folks went to visit the siad cities they found nothing but jungle and thought the explorer lied about his story. The fact that blew my mind is that nowadays we discovered that his story was true and the people he encounterd died from diseases brought into the new world and the cities and civilization they build were consumed by jungle in the spam of a few years
#14
I grew up in a conservative hometown. When I was in late college, I began to learn how the Bible is essentially a long game of telephone and one where the members playing telephone purposefully exagerrated and changed what they repeated to the next person.
The Bible was written by men who never met Jesus, who got their information about Jesus from other people, in a time period that relished mystics and it was normal to change facts, did not have any understanding of "facts" in general or reliability. The men also changed what they wrote about Jesus based on political changes at the time.
#15
I spent a lot of time at the library in my early 20's and learned that the Old Testament isn't very old and some of the oldest stories are just copies or much older Sumerian myths. The Exodus has no real world evidence whatsoever, and the Egyptians ruled over the holy land for thousands of years without ever mentioning the Hebrew people until the Bronze Age Collapse.
#16
Victorian era London was a terrible place to be alive as a member of the working class. If I recall correctly. You could pay a penny to sit indoors on a bench but no sleeping! Two Pennies and you could swing your arms over a rope and sleep standing up or if you made hella money that day you could pay 4 Pennies and sleep in a coffin. The water is undrinkable and children expected working hours were 12 to 18 a day starting at 4 yrs old. By those standards a lot of us would look like royalty to them.
#18
Learning about the depth and breadth of slavery in human history was a real eye-opener. We have really detailed documents from more modern history to show WHY that idea is so heinous, but it's always been a significant part of cultures all around the world serving as anything from a social construct to the very currency of war and with autonomy ranging from that of livestock to that of a low caste. Evidence of slavery predates written records and is even included in the code of Hammurabi where it was already an established institution and we still haven't stamped it out today, April 10th 2023, where slavery affects an estimated 46 million people (that's more than the total population of California, and approximately the population of Spain). It's crazy how awful humans have always been to one another and that we still can't seem to hold each other accountable for basic human rights, despite indelible proof.
#19
When I learned that NASA had discovered over 100 billion GALAXIES and seeing the image to put into perspective that our entire solar system is only about the size of a coin compared to our galaxy which in relation would be the size of the United States.
We are so incredibly small within the universe.
Edit to add: Here’s a [photo](https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2021/hubble-gazes-at-a-galactic-menagerie) of just a snippet of the various galaxies. Keeping in mind, we haven’t even ventured outside of our solar system which is within our Milky Way galaxy, just a grain of sand in context to the universe.
#21
More of a fun one, but lighters predate strike matches by a couple centuries. They originated from repurposed flintlock pistols that ignited tinder shoved in the barrel that were set aflame by the trigger mechanism.
#22
Being raised in all catholic schools it was really surprising to me to learn that a lot of sections in the bible and a lot of religious practices were instated by people who basically decided so and justified it with ideas that were hammered to fit whatever they said
Like it wasn't always that priests had to be celibate. Some pope decided that they should be and that was that but really all it would take to reverse that is a pope to say otherwise and a bunch of cardinals to support it. And it doesn't really matter what religious texts say, since the chuirch basically controls the "official interpretation", they can say whetever they want
edit: to the based redpilled people out there being all "oMg dId YOu ThINk rElIgionS aRe ReAL", yeah no, the surprising part was to learn how easily the church can change any aspect of their dogma when they actually manage to agree on it. And if their own texts refute said change, they can just say "oh we looked at it again and it actually means we are right now"
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