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Herodotus is widely credited as being the first historian—he traveled across Ancient Greece and wrote down what he saw and the stories he heard.
Classical scholar and poet Peter Levi said that what made him the first serious historian was his combination of great scope and precise focus, as well as his imaginative power as a storyteller and his rationalism, his concern with truth. However, while some call Herodotus 'The Father of History', others say he's actually 'The Father of Lies' and could've included more than facts in his tales.
Of course, current academic historians are more than just storytellers. Most of them have developed a rigorous approach to studying the past. But they are only as accurate as their sources.
In an attempt to see how misleading they can be, Reddit user Vo_Lair asked other platform users to share examples of the phrase "history is written by the victors." And they did!
Continue scrolling to check out the replies as well as the talks we had on the subject with Tudor historian and bestselling author Hayley Nolan and family historian, author, and digital archivist Andrew Martin.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Anytime someone says "Well, by the standards of the time, it was okay." When talking about an atrocity or horrific practice.
It usually means "By the standards of the people doing the atrocity."
For example, Slaves *knew* the Slave trade was evil. But when we say "People thought it was okay" we arent counting the slaves as being people.
The victims of history are voiceless, even if our sensibilities have evolved over time. We try to justify things by saying 'they couldn't have known' and almost always ignore a large group of people who certainly did know.
Timmy Pillinger 3 years ago
In the transatlantic slave trade yes, but in some societies (Rome, the Greece) slavery was thought to be normal. Ex slaves would own slaves, which suggests a different mindset.
Phil Green 3 years ago
Even today, there are over 40 million slaves on the planet. People seem to think it was a "white man's" thing, especially during the 16th and 17th centuries, but the African slaves came from somewhere and it was usually their somewhat less-than-caring neighbouring villages selling them to the white slavers. Slavery goes right back to pre-history and is endemic today. People need to wake up to what is going on around them right now.
JK Rowling 3 years ago
There were also non-slaves who didn't think it was ok, too, like John Laurens. Similarly to how there was a German resistance during the Third Reich. So the argument falls apart completely.
Aunt Riarch 3 years ago
They did know at the time. When Jane Austen refers to "the trade" she means slavery, and the characters become defensive.
Colin Timp 3 years ago
That's the thing. We like to blame horrible actions on mental health, but human beings don't need to be mentally ill to do horrible things. The only thing a person needs to commit an atrocity is a justification; and that justification is usually that another group of people is somehow "less than human."
Elizabeth Elliot 3 years ago
"By the standards of the time' only holds if the persecuted group would have behaved the same if they had had the upper hand.
Coffee 3 years ago
I kinda agree, but the example isn't that correct. A lot of freed slaves across history acquired slaves themselves as soon as they could afford it. Some slaves didn't think slavery was evil. They instead thought it was an unfortunate situation to be in and that they were the unfortunate ones in that moment.
At first, you might wonder why should we care about such questions in the first place. But the past (and our relation to it) can teach us a lot about the present.
"History repeats, so if we have a true understanding of how history has played out before, we can hopefully try to make better decisions so it never happens again," Hayley Nolan, whose book called 'Anne Boleyn: 500 Years of Lies' has become a number one Amazon history bestseller, told Bored Panda.
"From the average person's point of view (as opposed to a monarch or parliamentarian), this can mean recognizing certain behaviors in politicians and thinking 'perhaps I shouldn't vote for them.' Or seeing how a person in history was treated and recognizing those same patterns in, say, the modern media in how a celebrity is being treated and just questioning the narrative we are being fed."
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#2
I mean, the US technically stole Hawaii from a legitimate government.
But we have just normalized it as a state.
JoyfulZebra 3 years ago (edited)
Yep, Hawai'i had it's own kingdom and everything, until we brought "democracy" to it
Wilf 3 years ago
My house in the UK is older than European colonisation of North America. Trust me, American 'history' is basically yesterday by European standards. You were fighting wars to protect the right to keep slaves only 160 years ago. You were committing genocide in the American west as recently as 120 years ago. You were invading and annexing neighbouring countries 100 years ago. You were confiscating black property and burning down black neighbourhoods in race riots 90 years ago. And You were legally segregating public spaces and violently preventing black people from voting in MY LIFETIME. This is all a blink of an eye.
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pink_panda 3 years ago
There were many indigenous governments in the Americas that Europeans straight up attacked to steal their land. Many many many.
Gin. No tonic 3 years ago
Western Europeans colonialized a lot of places hundreds of years ago. That was bad, and I'd like to think we learned form the past. But Hawaii was annexed by Americans, not Europeans. USA was a well established country by then. Please stop blaming Europeans for all imperialism in the world. Also, Europe is more than Spain, Portugal, UK, Belgium, France and Netherlands.
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David Harris 3 years ago
It isn't only European powers that invaded and colonised, China still are to this day. Just ask Tibet
SparkleFarts 3 years ago
You want to learn about some messy ish, look into what the US has done at the behest of the United Fruit Company.
Kayjunmoon 3 years ago
This is true for so many places. Australia had an indigenous population, NZ also. Europeans took what they wanted.
Remi (He/Him) 3 years ago
Didn't know much about the history of Hawaii before reading this, so thank you. Also could we not make a post about erasure of Hawaii's history into a weird d1ck measuring contest about everything stolen in history?
lkthorlyn23 3 years ago
Since the dawn of civilization people have been moving around the globe to obtain land and power..the Greeks, the Romans, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Hitler...to name a few famous ones...so stop with the "colonization" nonsense. Every Country has obtained land is some way or other, whether you "wokesters" approve or not is irrelevant...life goes on the same as it has for eons.
#3
You need only to look at Ukraine. If Russia would win, people living there would forever be taught that brave Russians saved Ukraine from Nazi government and evil NATO influence.
Who Panda 420 3 years ago (edited)
And there would be a picture of Putin on every wall. But I don't think this is going to happen the Ukrainians are putting up a hell of a fight.
Stannous Flouride 3 years ago
I had to leave my local bar two days ago because some clown was spouting, "We were just postponing the inevitable by supporting the Ukraine and we should stop." (He cited his 10 years in the USAF as his grounds for his so-called 'expertise.') I only regret leaving before asking him if he'd have said the same thing about Poland in 1939, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Norway, and the UK in 1940, and the USSR in 1942.
Krásnoočko 3 years ago
As a person whose country was first betrayed and given to Hitler in Munich agreement and then invaded by Russia thirty years later, I'd honestly get up and break his face. S**t like this feels personal.
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General Anaesthesia 3 years ago
Stalin 'won' but Ukraine has not forgotten his terror-famine, Holodomor, that killed millions of Ukranians in the 1930s.
Katie Lutesinger 3 years ago
Putin being surprised to find the people of the Ukraine were not in fact prepared to just roll over and give him what he wanted always reminds me of Homer Simpson trying to shoo the bees off his pile of stolen sugar and then running around yelling "OW! They're defending themselves somehow!"
Lucky2BAlive 3 years ago
Win, lose, draw. The Ukraine deserves their place in history by tenacity alone, and the only real Russian export is fictional at best.
Mr. Pigeon 3 years ago
the majority of those Ukrainian women soldiers are hot as hell....Id love to serve with them, the stats would be at least four to one...I'd be a love slave, an option I'd be perfectly pleased with....HAHA!!!!
Nitka Tsar 3 years ago
I'm not sure there would be enough Ukrainians left, judging by what is done now to them
Jenelen Jenelen 3 years ago
Ukraine is somewhere between Spain and Poland in population size. And in the last five months the patriotism and sense of national identity here skyrocketed like never before.
Load More Replies...Andrew Martin, who has been researching his family tree over the last 25 years and also hosts 'The Family Histories Podcast', agrees that history has so much to offer us all.
"Studying it academically, or simply casually consuming historical information allows us to learn where we (as a population) have been before - whether that's geographically, politically, morally or another factor," he told Bored Panda. "With knowledge behind us, we as nations and individuals are able to navigate our lives right now, and plan a path in the future without being defeated by the same things every time. History enriches our understanding of the world and our place within it, and therefore having a knowledge of history helps us become better people and achieve more."
#4
Pretty much any indigenous population that got in the way of any colonial power. No single country has a monopoly on the violence and oppression that was done worldwide as the colonial powers expanded. ALL were guilty of it..
JoyfulZebra 3 years ago (edited)
I remember seeing a Ted-Ed video about the Dutch East India company, and how they brutalized the indigenous populations of Indonesia for spices. They wiped out an entire island just so they could control the trade of nutmeg.
Who Panda 420 3 years ago
They were an early power corporation. They were slavers too.
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Lady Z Azrael 3 years ago
This one hurts me personally. Not only am I Chickasaw, but the Supreme Court just stepped a bunch of our own policing powers (BIA) and even stole back our own land to give to the state that was in a treaty for hundreds of years. Our tribal nations are losing so much that soon there will be nothing left of us.
v 3 years ago
Interesting that you mention no single country having a monopoly on violence and oppression but you still pin it to colonial power as if colonial power had a monopoly on violence and oppression. You, like so many others in your history writing game, never talk about indigenous populations moving around and playing the same colonial power games writ small...or even sometimes large, depending on the respective populations of the contemporary groups. It's almost as if you'd like the history books to only read that no populations outside of the standard colonial powers ever brought harm upon other populations.
Catie Marie 3 years ago
That's the point though. "Writ small". It's not denying smaller nations, cultures, civilizations were also violent to gain power but larger civilizations inflict a lot more damage from a greater distance
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Uber Mensch 3 years ago
The war in Viet Nam started because the French wanted to go back to re-colonizing that country after getting THEIR freedom back in WWII. More than anything else, Ho Chi Minh was a Viet nationalist; he just figured he had a better chance of gaining liberation for the country with Communist support.
Jackie Nettleton 3 years ago
The British empire was one of the most recent power that brutalised everyone that they came across that they could beat in a war and yet it isn’t taught in any of our schools
Víctor Alfonso García Olmo 3 years ago
Nor the Spaniards. Look at the natives of America from México to Chile.
#5
Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Astor, Mellon, Morgan, Schwab, Stanford...
They were called robber barons for a reason. All those schools and music halls and community centers are all built on the backs of crushed men and named after the men who crushed them.
Kim Kermes 3 years ago
Today's robber barons not only do not build schools, music halls, and museums, but they demand local taxpayers buy THEM sports arenas.
SabbeRubbish 3 years ago
And take casual trips to space and call themselves "astronauts"
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GoGoPDX 3 years ago (edited)
Yeah, about Astor. So the was the first person to sail from the east coast around south America to the west coast. Here get all sorts of recognition for it. Funny thing is, no mention of the 2 Hawaiians the saved the ship and entire crew during a storm. They also did numerous other things that ultimately helped get Astor to has final destination, which is Astoria, OR.
Cara G 3 years ago
Hang on. Is he why we also have an Astoria in Queens? Was that his starting point?
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Vanessa Panerosa 3 years ago
They’re why we have unions, minimum legal working age, safety measures, institutionalized 8 hr work days. . . I could go on. Clearly it was needed
Aunt Riarch 3 years ago
It still is needed. Our government is trying once more to hamstring the unions, and wriggle out of human rights legislation.
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Judit Hajdu 3 years ago (edited)
at least they gave back something to society, what did ever Trump give back from the money he coerced from other people
Robin Roper 3 years ago
And they were huge racists as well as huge eugenicists, especially toward poor people who they viewed as completely unworthy to procreate. They believed being poor was a genetic disease.
ask 3 years ago
Crushed men? Sorry, there were no oppressed women, right? Ono & Lennon said it right: Woman is the n------ of the world.
Turanga Leela 1 year ago
Don't forget the wonderful Sackler family, who so selflessly brought us the opiod epidemic. /s
#6
There is a bunch of Chinese history that is pretty much speculation because whenever a new king would conquer places, pretty much the first move was always to burn all the records and take out the historians to establish dominance.
John Dilligaf 3 years ago
Not just conquering new territory either. They did it to themselves as well. Whenever a dynasty fell, the new dynasty often destroyed official records, books, etc from the previous one
Who Panda 420 3 years ago
Like the ancient Egyptians erasing someone's name from all their monuments.
Michael Largey 3 years ago (edited)
We have the same problem today. The people who decry critical race theory want to erase the record of the crime of slavery as much as possible.
David J Buchanan 3 years ago
The 'Like' and 'Dislike' button is not enough... we need extra buttons like 'Shocked'!
PurpleUnicorn 3 years ago
The Chinese weren't the only ones. The Spaniards did the same in south and central America. Christianity usurped earlier "pagan" festivals. There are probably plenty of others that played the same game.
Yugan Talovich 3 years ago
As someone who has studied Chinese history for decades, I would like OP to list their sources. Not to mention that China was ruled by emperors, not kings, since 221bce.
Nolan thinks that the phrase "history is written by the victors" is absolutely true. "I quoted it in the first chapter of my corrective biography 'Anne Boleyn: 500 Years of Lies.' Anne Boleyn's story is the perfect example of this. As the infamous second wife of King Henry VIII, evidence in my book proves that Anne Boleyn was an activist and humanitarian who was taken down when she wanted to set up a rival government council in order to launch a Poor Law, providing free healthcare for the people of England," the historian explained.
"King's advisor Thomas Cromwell framed Anne for adultery and she was executed, while he, the victor, re-wrote her story so that the world only knew her as a scheming, cruel adulterer."
#7
The Philippine-American war. Because of WWII the americans were portrayed as heroes who had the Philippines’ best interest at heart. But few people know about the genocide during the Philippine-American war that started in 1899. Almost 200,000 civilians dead, with civilians dying to disease, famine and US troops wiping out villages.
GoGoPDX 3 years ago
As a citizen of the US, I am so sorry. I wish everyone here would acknowledge still the horrific things this nation has done.
Stannous Flouride 3 years ago
The tactics that the US used for its genocide against the First Nations of North America were repeated in the Philippines. And we promised them their freedom if they fought against the Spanish but then immediately reneged on it. In WW2 we told them if they fought against the Japanese they'd be given US citizenship but after the war demanded that they show proof of their service (like guerrillas carried picture IDs). It took 50 years before this promise was honored. I just finished an excellent book about the women guerrillas who fought the Japanese. I highly recommend it: images-62e...bb479.jpeg 
Vanessa Panerosa 3 years ago
NEVER taught this in school growing up. Don’t know anyone who was. Dated and lived with an ex for years who was first gen Philipino and never even heard of it.
mrs bob Mrsbob 3 years ago
America is not a good country..they come to other countries and make trouble...and they think other countries like them
Starhawk Hunt 3 years ago
Starting with the conquering the continent to become those “Americans”…..
DamnBecky 3 years ago
I wish we learned about this in school in the US. I was in Manila for work and would go to the museums in the city on my off day. I saw an exhibit on this and was blown away because I studied history more than most people and had never heard of it. I caught a docents attention because I was spending longer than most in the exhibit, he saw I was translating all the signs to read everything so he went through with me to explain, translate and give more context. I was very grateful he did that, because as the American in an exhibit about the horrible things we had done to his country and people, he had every right to ignore me.
Vera Diblikova 3 years ago
1899 lot of to-day US citizen was in their original counties - Ireland, Italia etc, considerate immigration. They has nothing in common w. this.
#8
Nobody is gonna talk about what china is doing to Hong Kong?
LoneTomato 3 years ago
We've been seeing it happen, in real time, and yet we'll also have to explain our inaction to our children
Isaac7lego🇺🇸 3 years ago
I mean its a little more complicated than that considering how strained chinas relationships are right now
Load More Replies... Keith Edmondson 3 years ago
Hong Kong was taken by the British as spoils of war (The Opium Wars) which were about not being allowed to sell more opium into China. The trading company selling the opium and who got the British navy to come was Jardines. That’s the true example of the winners writing history.
Hiram's Friend 3 years ago
It will be. The Chinese will change it and the rest of the world won't care.
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CD King 3 years ago
Maybe we should be talking about the British taking Hong Kong from the Chinese....and keeping it for 100 years... maybe we should be talking about that.
Jane 3 years ago
Although this is very important, that was a fairly long time ago and there is nothing we can do about it now. What is going on now is a unique and current struggle for Hong Kong people, getting bullied and threatened by China who they do not want such association with or to be controlled by.
Load More Replies... Ellie McGrath 3 years ago
Add is nobody going to talk about the government sanctioned wholesale organ trade in China via forced organ removal from prisoners of conscience.
Jos Tiguidou 3 years ago
China "taking back" HK was always in the plan. They just sped it up by like 40 years. No worries though, China is slowly currently collapsing and on the verge of a civil war (probably). Don't know how much longer the CCP gov will be able to keep it up on their own.
#9
Christianity is the most popular religion on Earth and is seen as the religion of love, all because the Europeans were really good at genocide a thousand years ago.
Lara M 3 years ago
And forced conversions. The reason for Christian antisemitism (which mutated into mainstream right-wing antisemitism) is because the Jews wouldn't convert to Christianity, often choosing to die rather than convert. Other people were less obstinate and less able to resist Christian pressure - and that's why we don't hear much about their religions anymore.
Cowws 3 years ago
Jesus isn't about forced conversion either... something went horribly wrong
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Isidien Gudmundsdottir 3 years ago
" I like your Jesus but His followers are so unlike Him "- Mahatma Gandhi
Rick Hoppenbrouwer 3 years ago
They all call themselves the religion of love, and will kill you if you say otherwise. Religion is bull s**t.
Penny Hernandez 3 years ago
Just another mythology, albeit with weapons that grew/grow more sophisticated as time passes.
sleepy bean shaped bugcat 3 years ago
as well as only the new testament on christianity in the bible the entire bible is majority judaism and minority christianity
Nila Pevetti 3 years ago
It was and is still horrible, but also expected. The Bible does talk a lot about the corrupted tendencies of humanity in the fallen state. Jesus warned more about people who claimed to be His followers, our supposed brothers and sisters, within the Christian community than the outsiders.
Martin also finds these words to be true, but he thinks they can possess plenty of nuances, too. "Sometimes there is not a consensus of who 'the victors' are," he said.
"For example, a country that goes to war with another may appear to have a victor, but you often find that both claim to have won through their country's media or published literature. A lot of history has also been written and published by white men - allowing for a very patriarchal or incredibly biased view to be depicted of what they deemed to be everyday life, as well as some truly horrific events. You can see this in historical accounts of colonialism and slavery from around the world, and the shadows of those are still present today. Sadly, this is only just beginning to alter, as modern historians re-interpret the evidence and allow other historians from different cultures to contribute to these accounts," Martin said.
#10
The Vietnam War. America didn't win but we sure as f**k told everyone we did. And glossed over the crimes against humanity.
Who Panda 420 3 years ago
I asked my friends mom who's a teacher why we never learned about Vietnam. She said they were told that the issue was too contentious to bring up in school.
Kate 3 years ago
During prior wars, public opinion was largely in support of the country. But during Vietnam, things changed. For the first time, the ugliness of war was in the front room every evening. The government literally couldn't put a positive spin on things, not with nightly death tolls and Walter Cronkite outright saying we weren't winning. It's still a hard thing to talk about for people, too -- ask someone over 50 what they remember about that time. Honestly, you can't do a decent job of teaching about the Vietnam War in a couple 50-minute social studies classes; maybe if you devoted a full semester to it, that might be enough.
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Ed 3 years ago
I've never heard a single person in the US, or any news story or documentary ever try to claim we won the Vietnam War. Absolutely nothing has been "glossed over" about Vietnam. The stories have been told exhaustively. Consider #17 utterly and completely inaccurate.
LoneTomato 3 years ago
I totally appreciate your personal experience. But in mine, the Vietnam War was totally glossed over. Yes, even fairly recently. Our instructor didn't yell WE WON, but it's not uncommon to see that kind of attitude
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Kalina Krumova 3 years ago
I really don't believe someone outside the US believes USA won the Vietnam war.
Den Ver 3 years ago
Nobody inside the US believes they won the Vietnam war, although there are so many ill informed conspiracy theory nuts in the US it might be possible to find a few. ... ... ... Vietnam is the most pro-free-market country in a 2014 survey by the Pew Research Center, with 95% of its citizens support free market system. This is what the US, (and France before that) was fighting for. I don't think anybody will claim it was worth the cost.
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Notyomama 3 years ago
No one who has spent time around Vietnam veterans thinks the US won. Once spent the night at a friend's house whose father was a decorated (by both US and Vietnam) officer in the military. I don't know what he did to get honors from both countries, but I know how bad he suffered for it later. It was horrible how much pain he suffered.
Den Ver 3 years ago
3 sentences and 2 are wrong. America did not tell everyone they won. In fact, the opposite is true. During the war veterans came home and and told the truth. Decorated soldier John Kerry (2004 US Presidential candidate; Democrat; 59 million votes/48.3%) testified to congress in 1971. He cited evidence from 150 honorably discharged veterans testifying to war crimes. ... "Not isolated incidents, but crimes committed on a day to day basis, with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command," ... The Fall of Saigon was 1975 but in 1971 the movie,' The Visitors' about war crimes was released. In 1979 the movie 'Apocalypse Now' (98% rating) wins 8 Academy Awards incl. best picture. The point of the movie was that America lost and the war couldn't be won. "Crimes against humanity" were NOT glossed over. ... 6 years after Vietnam, Bill Murray quips, "Were ten and one" (US war wins and losses) in the comedy 'Stripes'. No Americans were saying, "We Won". ... READ KATE BELOW.
Shauna Voigt 3 years ago
And John Kerry was viewed as a traitor during his presidential campaign for his testimony.
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Gavin Johnson 3 years ago
In my experience the only ones who claim victory are the ones who are deep into the pockets of the political bigwigs or those who refuse to accept that military might shouldn’t be the metric we judge countries by. The ‘American military is awesome’ crowd love to shout about their amazing power but they quickly move on when presented with the Vietnam War.
Den Ver 3 years ago
Don't know why you are getting downvoted for stating a fact. ... Wikipedia = "The Vietnam War and the Kargil War were undeclared wars and hence are sometimes described as police actions. The Soviet–Afghan War was an undeclared war and hence also could be described as a police action, especially since the initial troop deployments into Afghanistan were at the request of the Afghan government."
Load More Replies... #11
The UK's affect on India, and the 45 trillion dollars worth of material they stole from India.
Mohammad Ammar 3 years ago
I don't care what the British did to us hundreds of years ago. I do care however, how they left the subcontinent just 70 years ago. The borders they haphazardly drew in the subcontinent are the cause of sooo much of our problems. What's happening in Kashmir today is their problem too, yet they don't seem to give a damn.
Charles Roberts 3 years ago
The borders the politicians drew, not the people.
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Cooter McCoughlin 3 years ago
Can you please give me an easy way to remember which one to use? I try so hard to not use that word because I never know the right way to spell it. I need a trick or something like, "there are too many o's in too." I will be forever grateful to you if you can end this struggle for me
Load More Replies... Stannous Flouride 3 years ago
Every time the Queen puts the Koh-i-noor diamond on her head she's endorsing that theft.
Sarah Richardson 3 years ago
The Kohinoor is in the Queen Mothers crown, so doesn’t get worn by the Queen…
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Jessica Wood 3 years ago
We're never taught about this in British schools (at least not when I was at school)
Sapna Sarfare 3 years ago
The thing is in every country will never talk of the s**t it did... All of us need to go out of the classrooms to hear the unheard voices
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Sapna Sarfare 3 years ago
Not really... Churchill is considered a hero but what he did to India is pure evil
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Vinita Talaulikar 3 years ago
India's GDP from 1st century till the British rule was from 25-35 % which plummeted to 2% in 1947 when India got independence.
luvdemhogs 3 years ago
The gdp of England last year was 742 billion and you say they stole 45 trillion? There is 1000 billion in one trillion, so it this rate it would take more than 45000 years to get to that number. That is a BS stat..
#12
In the UK, it is not taught that the famine in Ireland was a genocide committed by Britain. Our population still has not recovered.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Charles_Trevelyan,_1st_Baronet#Role_in_the_Irish_Famine
Ursula Johnson 3 years ago
It drove immigration to America, escaping the famine. I didn't learn that in school, from a History Channel documentary.
Sean Sean 3 years ago
The American Gov't paid the UK Gov't for their tickets as well. When the men got off the boat they'd have to sign up for the Union Army, or leave. But they couldn't leave since they couldn't afford a ticket back to Ireland. If they refused they would be arrested since they would then be there illegally. Then, as a prisoner, they would be conscripted to fight in the Union Army. So they had no choice but to leave their wife and kids on the docks while they left to fight in a war to end slavery.
Load More Replies... Timmy Pillinger 3 years ago
Weirdly the technical description of genocide used by the UN means that the anti Irish language measures taken by the British were genocide, and the but the potato famine was not. People died in the famine not because their rulers wanted them dead but because the English politicians were bone headed idealogues who didn't look at evidence of what worked. I envy the Irish in getting rid of these people. We've still got them in England.
Donnie Mc00 3 years ago
it is not taught for a reason. It was not a genocide committed by Britain, but rather a deliberate campaign of inaction. the government of the time listened to the advice of Sir Charles trevelyan, who was a noted anti irish person. he is quoted as saying about the famine - ""the judgement of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson" Since we are speaking about forgotten history, it should be noted that the potato blight hit Scotland also resulting in thousands of deaths but that is rarely remembered or mentioned. The same inactive governments answer to the problem in Scotland was to enact mass emigration to Australia.
De Burke 3 years ago
IDK, deliberately shipping food out of the country under armed guard doesn't seem like 'inaction' to me.
Load More Replies... Mohammad Ammar 3 years ago
The UK barely discusses it's colonial history in classrooms which I find weird given how they ruled over India for like 200 years.
Deborah Harris 3 years ago
In the UK it is not taught about how 'the Welsh Not' introduced in 1852 where children were ostracised and punished for talking in Welsh in School was still used up until 1942 when Wales was allowed to once again speak their own language. Currently Only 21% of people in Wales are welsh speakers due to the fact that children were not allowed to learn or speak welsh
Elizabeth Elliot 3 years ago
It was more complex than that - history written by the victims isn't always 100% accurate either.
KariAdoresHerKats 3 years ago
The history written for the victims who were mostly illiterate was written by English people who took great pride in divulging what they did to 'civilise' us Irish. They wrote books and recorded their atrocities and printed them in the English papers to justify it to the English public. They were and are savages.
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Laura Robertson 3 years ago
I was taught about in in my Scottish primary school. Mind you it was a catholic school so at least half the kids were of Irish ancestory
Lucky2BAlive 3 years ago
I learned of this from my own family. They wanted us to know the truth. So we are not part of repeating the past.
#13
How nobody cares about the thousands of native American children that were taken out by the Canadian government until 1998
B 🇺🇦🇨🇦 3 years ago (edited)
Not sure what OP is trying to mean by “taken out,” but - the children were forcibly removed from their families and communities, forced into religious residential schools, harshly punished if they spoke anything other than English (even if they couldn’t speak English), severely abused, basically tortured……so many died from trauma, malnutrition, and diseases that could have been cured/prevented, and they were buried in mass unmarked graves that are still being found today. The ones who survived are scarred for life. Huge, disgusting black mark in the (shockingly recent) history of Canada. It’s incredibly heartbreaking.
Kate 3 years ago
I took issue with "nobody cares." OP, you don't have the first clue what other people think or feel. For a lot of us, this wasn't something we'd heard much about before recently. Sorry, but they just don't teach much Canadian history outside of Canada. That's the point of this thread -- finding out about events so that we CAN care.
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keighterz 3 years ago
There were residential schools in the states too, not specific to Canada. I love learning history and am one of those people who did extra reading outside of class and still collects history books. Not everyone has access to the same information sources. Not everyone has access to education. Like the title of this thread says, history is written by the winners, you can’t get mad at individuals for not knowing about historical events that were swept under the rug. You can get mad at the government and other organizations who tried to cover it up or who perpetuate the horribleness. But instead of getting angry at your fellow Canadian or American citizens, inform them!! Communicate! Getting angry at people for not knowing about parts of history doesn’t solve the problem.
Elladine DesIsles 3 years ago
We are not "Native American." I have never met a single person who identified as such. We are Indigenous and are members of our individual First Nations, of which there are hundreds. I wouldn't say that "nobody cares," but many Canadians have been shockingly ignorant. With the discovery of several mass graves at former residential schools over the last couple of years, there have been numerous expressions of outrage and shock from non-Indigenous Canadians, politicians, organizations. Indigenous people were not shocked. We grieve, over the hard evidence finally revealed, but we knew, of course we did. We have been speaking our truths all along, and only with the proof of tiny bodies in the ground are people beginning to listen (though others still deny and excuse).
Paddling Panda 3 years ago
Thank you. I came here to make some corrections too, but you've covered them. We're all leaning about our horrifying Canadian history and we want to participate in helping heal and ensure this never happens again. I am so sorry our government and churches commited these atrocities on your people.
Load More Replies... ask 3 years ago
Of course people care. It's in the news every day and there is a national day of remembrance.
Hyde and Seek 3 years ago
It is glossed over in the US exactly what we did to them . It is a footnote
Load More Replies... Katie Lutesinger 3 years ago
I have a friend whose mother was one of the victims. :(
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Songbirdcaon 3 years ago
First - I'm insulted that OP thinks no one cares. We do care and are hopping mad at what our ancestors did. Also, not sure what OP means by native "American" children. Pretty sure we don't have native Americans here in Canada. But, if you meant to say native American children were taken out by the American government you would not be wrong. Both our countries were heavily involved in this travesty. https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/united-states-canada-residential-schools-1.6114085
S Mi 3 years ago
The intent here is, I believe good. The language...not so much. Canada's First Nations children were brutalized as an attempt at genocide, which still persists in many ways. There have been movement's towards Reconciliation, but there is a long way to go. I'd encourage all BP, especially those in western countries to explore their historic (and current) relationship with Indigenous peoples. I wish Canada was unique in this....
Kelly Aitken 3 years ago
It's never stopped. It's still happening, but government agencies like the ministry of children and families. This is not a "100" year ago thing. This is an actual current event happening behind the backs of non-indigenous, non-educated, and those that have rational ignorance :(
ttttt 3 years ago
It is not still happening. There is no "ministry of children and families". There is a MINISTER of "Family, Children and Social Development" but there is no organization, it's just one person who helps set policy. they don't remove children from indigenous families except where it's dangerous to the child.
Load More Replies... Nolan pointed out that historians, in their pursuit of truth, have to let go of any preconceived biases they might have. Whatever it is you're researching, you need to look at the person, event, or period without dismissing any research just because it doesn't align with your own views and feelings.
"My book never set out to paint Anne Boleyn as an innocent martyr, and there is a whole chapter dedicated to the questionable decisions she made in life," Nolan said. "Similarly, the history books, or even historical movies as this is how the majority consume their history these days, should always endeavor to present a balanced view of an event, country or person."
"Yes, it's uncomfortable to face some of these truths, particularly if it's our own history, but if we are to learn from the past then we have to know what really happened first," the historian said.
#14
I knew when I saw this thread stuff like this would come up. I'm a Japanese person, and I would never defend any of the horrific things Japan did in the past.
But I'd like to defend the majority of our citizens who are sick and tired of the revisionist fascist government we currently are stuck with. I sentiment I was so sick of I left. If you know anything about Japanese politics you know that the current party doesn't have a serious contender party and hasn't for a while. Racist boomers rally around the "nothing bad ever happened" party, while the rest of us can't rally around a credible threat.
I was a teenager when I learnt what our country really did, and it was horrifying. I wish I could do more than just post a reddit comment, I'm sorry I don't know what to say anymore.
Kim Kermes 3 years ago
You have nothing to apologize for. I hope you and your peers can re-instate a decent government, as I hope the decent people in my country can..
Jerry Ryan 3 years ago
I say the u.s. NEEDS at least two more legitimated political parties
Load More Replies... Starhawk Hunt 3 years ago
While not on the same scale, I learned in 3rd grade about USA’s internment camps for immigrant and 1st gen Japanese. To an extent, I must say that I learned about many of these horrors when I WAS in school here in the old US of A. But I was a voracious reader from before I ever entered school, and my parents would talk about things when asked. We still need more of that for people to learn, sadly.
Ruben Sanchez Gonzalez 3 years ago
You know what's beautiful about posts like this one and these threads? We can see how most people are ok accepting the horrific things rulers, dictators, governments, their own countries do. Most people can discuss it, apologize if necessary, and willing to move on while making things right, making things better, being more loving and understanding. We can see how the minority (and people in power) hides behind the "nothing happened, it wasn't like that, there's two sides of the story, it was necessary" and keep pushing their agendas and keep creating conflicts. I know it might sound utopic or extremely idealistic, but I have hope that the people in this planet, regular people, we will come together one day, support one another, and stop that minority from pitting us against each other and stealing everything from resources, to power, to money, to our own human rights. Keep connecting with others, reaching out, speaking out, and welcoming others, and we'll make a difference.
Autumn 3 years ago
That was a wonderful speech. And honestly, I have thoughts that are considered utopia too. The problem is, I have no idea how to make anything a reality.
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Robin Roper 3 years ago
Absolutely do not apologize; it's the government who needs to acknowledge and apologize for the horrors previous governments authorized, condoned, ordered, and committed.
Lucky2BAlive 3 years ago
Your voice is your strongest weapon. So long as you use it. One voice can change the world.
Izzy Curer 3 years ago
What were the bad things that 'didn't happen'? I don't know much about Japanese politics.
Alex S 3 years ago (edited)
Google the Rape of Nanking. For a start. Oh I forgot Unit 731. Google that too. But don't eat before you read about either of them.
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#15
Surprised to see no one mention the massacres of Caesar during the gaulic wars. He deliberately targeted certain gaulic tribes to make them cease to exist, which straight up is genocide. Almost every time I hear someone speak of the Gaulic wars I see them either side lining them to the civil war that followed it or it is a heroic struggle from both sides. The Gauls are trying to remain free while Rome is trying to expand and civilize.
Almost every time I read about it the atrocities are omitted which I find to be really bad.
MissPrideGirl 3 years ago
I’m learning about Caesar right now in my Ancient History class and we were told about Caesar’s dictatorship style. It’s crazy how some people believe Caesar about what happened when he invaded Gaul.
Stannous Flouride 3 years ago (edited)
And the excuses the Romans used for their conquest, that the people were "barbaric" because they gave equal rights to women and practiced a collective form of government that favored what people brought to the table instead of how much they owned.
Hugh Cookson 3 years ago
Sounds like far too many current Western governments to me ....
Load More Replies... Vinita Talaulikar 3 years ago
So those Asterix Obelix comics of Gauls give a reality picture.
Load More Replies... René Studer 3 years ago
Caesar didn’t manage to conquer all of it though, there was one small village of indomitable gauls that was still holding out against the invaders.
René Studer 3 years ago
I must have missed the part where he said he was.
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CultOfBambi 3 years ago
The only reason I know about this at all is from reading Astrix comics - and obviously that was very far from the whole story.
Jerry Ryan 3 years ago
Any one who likes history should go to YouTube and watch a guy named Simon Whistler he doesn't tell one sided history lessons
Fudge 3 years ago (edited)
No, Julius Caesar. The one where the title Caesar actually originated. Usually when people talk about just "Caesar", without any other name, they are referring to Julius.
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gerard julien 3 years ago
the gauls got their revenge later though : " Brennus (or Brennos) was a chieftain of the Senones. He defeated the Romans at the Battle of the Allia (ca 390 BC). Later that year, he led an army of Cisalpine Gauls in their attack on Rome and captured most of the city, holding it for several months. The Senones were a Gaulish tribe originating from the part of France at present known as Seine-et-Marne, Loiret, and Yonne. "
#16
Pretty much anything about the pre-Columbian Americas. I mean it's gotten a bit better in recent years, but most people still don't understand just how much was lost. Even today, "Native Americans" are often talked about as a singular culture of people who "lived off the land" and had no technology or cities, when in reality, there were as many cultures with as much variation between them as there are between Norway and Botswana. Europeans didn't just commit a genocide when they came to the Americas, they committed hundreds of genocides. While the "civilized" people of western Europe were dumping their chamberpots out their windows onto the street and drinking beer because their water was too dirty, Mayans were using pressurized plumbing systems to distribute water and manage sewage. While Europeans were dying of horrible diseases from living off of contaminated meat, grain, and beer, numerous cultures of the Americas were using highly advanced agricultural practices like crop rotation, complex irrigation systems, cultivation, pest control, and many other techniques to give them rich, diverse cuisines. So many of the foods we take for granted today were carefully bred from inedible, often poisonous plants. Imagine Italian or Spanish food without tomatoes. Imagine modern American food without corn and beans. Imagine any western culture's food without potatoes. Imagine a world without chocolate. All of those and many more were cultivated from mostly inedible plants by people in the pre-Columbian Americas. I could go on - there are truly endless examples of agriculture, engineering, urban planning, architecture, art, and science in the pre-Columbian Americas that far surpassed their European counterparts. Europe decided to just go all-in on military technology though, so as backwards as they were, they were able to brute force their way through the Americas and beat the much more civilized cultures they encountered into submission and rewrite the story to make all those hundreds of cultures sound like one big group of dumb savages.
Jonahs Mrs 3 years ago
Where would I start in finding out more about the history of pre Columbas America and all that's mentioned in this post? It's fascinating and I'd love to learn more x
Izzy Curer 3 years ago (edited)
Sort of along the same vein, back in the late 1800s, Cuba had one of the most advanced meteorological stations in the world. They were experienced in watching the weather of the carribean, and for quite a while, America would use their forecasts to warn themselves about hurricanes and storms coming their way. But the weather station was run by 'brown people' Jesuit priests, and Americans felt that there was no way they could be scientific enough to know what they were doing, so in 1900, America shut off all communication with the weather station. Cue the great hurricane that destroyed Galveston TX a week later. To date, it's still the disaster with the most deaths in American history. Something like 30,000, but we'll never actually know, because the sea washed away so many bodies.
Charlie Taube 3 years ago
"BrOwN pEoPlE dUmMiEs" -The government and priests, as said people correctly predict weather more often then my local weatherperson
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Bobby 3 years ago
Hopefully someone will know the name of this book. Read a sci-fi book that addressed one of these points. Earth is invaded by aliens who have weapons similar to muskets because they didn't develop war tech like we did. So basically all of their tech was better than ours except for weapons. Wonder where we would be if some of these surprisingly advanced cultures hadn't been wiped out
Autumn 3 years ago
Oh, that’s intriguing! Please tell me if you remember the name!
Load More Replies... Charlie Taube 3 years ago (edited)
Something I learned that I found really cool is that, When the Mayans collapsed (because they over farmed the land and crops failed) some refugees migrated north to the American southwest and conquered the Anasazi (ancestors of the hopi and navajo) and procceded to engage in cannibalism to establish dominance. the Anasazi were able to regain their freedom around 100-150 years later.
Lara Verne 3 years ago
It make me so mad, because -imagine, how world would look today, if this didn't happened. If Europeans were willing to learn from these cultures , instead of calling them savages and decimate them.
BobTDG 3 years ago
They attempted to do a similar thing during the Crusades.
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Randy Klefbeck 3 years ago
Indigenous cultures were superior in every way from colonial Europeans except two. The two features were oceanic travel (and that was by accident) and firearms (and that is because of incursions into Asia where gunpowder was invented). Europeans went to colonize due to overcrowding and inability to reside in one space due to inferior technology of infrastructure design.
Autumn 3 years ago
I actually knew the majority of this! That’s good. Tbh, both sides were advanced in different ways. While the incredible agricultural developments and many other stuff was going on they were still giving human sacrifices to their gods. And yes, English people had terrible hygiene and stuff they were making industrial advances and advances in medicine too. (Btw, of I’m remembering stuff wrong please tell me, I have a lot in my head and it’s entirely possible for me to mess stuff up)
#17
Nobody cares about the massacres in Africa by Belgium and King Leopold. When I read the stories it gave me absolute shivers. It is absolutely outrageous and incredible that there is a few who are aware of such atrocities. The Croatian massacres towards Serbian population during the WW2 with the help of the Nazis. The Greek massacres in the south of Albania in 1940-46.
JoyfulZebra 3 years ago (edited)
Millions of Congolese people died under King Leopold (many reports say as many as tens of millions). They were ordered by the Belgians to collect natural rubber. If they didn't meet the harsh quotas, a common punishment was to cut off one of their hands. This was done to both men and women, as well as children. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocities_in_the_Congo_Free_State
T'Mar of Vulcan 3 years ago
My brother tried to bring this up on Facebook a while back and got banned for a week for his efforts.
Load More Replies... Calci 3 years ago
Belgian here, we Belgians all know what king Leopold II did in Congo. This event is even thaught in school, I learned it in primary school and again in secundary school. Also, there's a statue of Leopold II in the Cinquantenaire ( which is built due to all of the stuff stolen from Congo) that has been vandalised for years and even now
Mortague 3 years ago
You had I better school than I did, then. Our school just mentioned Leopold II existed and moved on to the next one.
Load More Replies... Stannous Flouride 3 years ago
Another "nobody cares" post. People care, but they generally just don't know.
JoyfulZebra 3 years ago (edited)
Yeah, I'm pretty sure the Congolese, Serbs, and Albanians care
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keighterz 3 years ago
Yeah again, people need to calm down with the “no one cares” business. With the internet and the world at our fingertips, we are more and more aware of the inequality of education around the world. And as someone raised and educated in the states I can tell you my education is seriously lacking in the global affairs department. Stop getting mad at people for not knowing things when they literally have had the information kept from them.
Notyomama 3 years ago
Right? I'm from the south east and it is abhorrent to me that the quality of my schooling was so poor. Fortunately, I loved to read all kinds of books and gained knowledge from those. I feel bad for the people I went to school with that had issues with reading. I feel they were very cheated.
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Snakebite Mcghee 3 years ago
Add in Sand Creek and Wounded Knee, where the US Calvary massacred hundreds of women, children and old men
censorshipsucks 3 years ago
PS the Serbs nowadays have an issue with NATO because of the Kosovo issue (religious genocide), and NATO bombed them, so now they support russia. This c**p keeps happening over and over. You'd think we'd learn/
Lucky2BAlive 3 years ago
Turkeys attempt at removing the Kurds from the planet while he thought no one was watching, as the world watched Syrias not so civil war. These are times that will be lost to history. Humankind will ALWAYS be the most violent animal on the planet because we are more than willing to fight over a patch of earth.
All of that being said, it's still difficult to pinpoint sources where we can search for historical data without having to worry about its legitimacy. "This is so difficult ... because even academic literature isn't immune to bias," Nolan said. "The main problem with the manipulation of history isn't usually the facts that are included, more so the evidence that is strategically left out."
"It really is a minefield knowing who to trust, and I share the readers' frustration! I think having a healthy level of skepticism helps. If someone is promoted as all good, or all bad, or if the blame is conveniently heaped entirely upon one person, then just be aware that there may be more to that story."
The historian believes this also extends to modern-day news. "Question what you are told; the good and the bad, check the sources listed in the history books; if the evidence listed is vague or not there at all, then perhaps take it with a pinch of salt," she said. "But I think our generation is so much more aware of propaganda now, which is great because it will make it harder to be hoodwinked. So trust your instincts when something doesn’t ring true and read as widely as you can on a topic in order to form your own opinion."
At the end of the day, since the past is not directly observable and is not repeatable, history can only make educated guesses about what happened.
#18
Carthaginian Civilization existed for well over 600 years. They controlled large parts of North Africa, Spain, Mediterranean Islands, and had trade networks going All over the Mediterranean and even explored the African coast. They were powerful enough to bring Rome to the brink of defeat in two massive wars.
Romans won, and as a result, not a single Carthaginian primary source exists.
adiiantryx 3 years ago
well that's also because they were the first recorded genocide in written history. cato the censor even proclaimed it: 'carthago delenda est'
Hiram's Friend 3 years ago
"Recorded" is the operant word. It most likely occurred any time there was an "other" who had something we wanted.
Load More Replies... Stannous Flouride 3 years ago
It is believed that they were part of the Phoenician 'empire.' which was more of a trade union that a homogenous civilization. It stretched from the Levant to Spain and was based in no small part on the trade in Tyrian purple dye made from the shells of muricidae snails. At the time it was valued more than gold.
Cara G 3 years ago
Because the Romans savagely salted the earth in Carthage ensuring no life could exist there again.
Alexandru Bucur 3 years ago
Well, they did a pretty lousy job, considering the modern city of Tunis now sits on top of the ruins of ancient Carthage...
Load More Replies... Timmy Pillinger 3 years ago
The Romans had doubts about thier own imperialism. Tacitus makes up a speech for a pictish leader to that effect
#19
Until relatively recently, the mass r*pe of German women by Soviet soldiers. They r*ped anyone with a vagina, including liberated prisoners, young girls and old women.
Who Panda 420 3 years ago
You're probably right about that. A lot of these poor people survived the bombings only have this happen to them there was a very high suicide rate after.
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Gin. No tonic 3 years ago (edited)
The worse part is the the Russian military hasn't changed in decades since. They use the same tactics in Ukraine, as they did in post-WWII Europe - rape, deportation to Siberia, killing everyone in sight, changing education etc.
Notyomama 3 years ago
I learned about this in approximately 1991. I asked my Grandfather about his time in the military just one time. He was stationed in Germany after the war. What he told me made me never ask again. Other soldiers had to hold him down to keep him from going over the wall to stop an atrocity that he witnessed. I won't put what happened here because it is horrific and could be triggering for alot of people.
Paul Macdonell 3 years ago
Wow. Just researched it on Wikippedia. Thank you for opening my eyes.
Dragons Exist 3 years ago
Can u pls put the Wikipedia link so I can read about it to?
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Lenka Smetanová 3 years ago
sadly... there are reports of US soldiers doing the same. War is awfull
JasonBrown1965 3 years ago
There were, and for UK and other allied forces as well. Nowhere the level of Soviet troops though, either in scale or depravity.
Load More Replies... GramDB 3 years ago (edited)
Over the centuries soldiers in peace and in battle felt that they had NO rules … that they had a free pass to commit any atrocity they desired without consequence. This, only lately, Thank God, has this been classified as "war crimes" and the offenders are being punished like any other common criminal. Sadly too late for those who have already suffered and died at the cruel hands of uniformed mobs.
cryssH 3 years ago
The Soviets also killed them. My neighbors were German immagrants, arrived in USA about 1959. Mr & Mrs W. Mrs W's youngest sister (age 14) was taken by the Soviets troops and never seen again. Her mother and older sister (about 24) were starved to death by Soviets because they were to sick to work in the fields every day. Mrs W. (my neighbor) went to work in the fields every day to provide food for her and her daughter and as a result had severe back problems and pain.
#20
Here's a more recent example: America rolled into Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan on false and/or baseless claims and waged long and brutal wars simply to fulfill their own political ego, intentionally killing thousands or even millions of civilians in the process, even knowing full well that they wouldn't succeed in the long run. But the Americans kept it all hush-hush and now it's just like "yeah, we did that" without acknowledging how terrible it was ...And then Russia did the same exact thing with Ukraine. Now Russia is seen as evil, sadistic, and huge threat to global peace. Which they definitely are. But America has plenty of blood on it's own hands
keighterz 3 years ago
Everyone knows that Americans are aware of how much we suck right? I mean I love bashing the US as much as the next person, but stop acting like we are all completely clueless and just go along with everything our government does. I can tell you that the vast majority of us are not actually being represented in the government here and do not agree with what they do.
JE Cummings 3 years ago
Don't forget that plenty of Americans protested in the Vietnam War Era and that's the major reason the war ended as it did.
Jerry Ryan 3 years ago
I believe every u.s.war had it's protesters it's some of them really don't get talked about
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Khall Khall 3 years ago
The American public was outright lied to and tricked about Vietnam and Iraq. Afghanistan tho...nope. Direct result of the actions of Afghani govt and the Taliban.
Monkey Dingdong 3 years ago
This. The 9/11 hijackers were mostly Saudi, but their leaders were based in Afghanistan, with protection from the Taliban.
Load More Replies... JasonBrown1965 3 years ago
"..to fulfill their own political ego.." Um, no. The real reason was the "self-licking ice-cream cone" otherwise known as the military industrial complex Eisenhower warned about when he resigned all the way back in 1957. Or even further back to 1935, when Smedley Butler exposed war mongering and profiteering in his book titled, "War is a racket.' Much is made of the venality of politicians, but that only serves to obscure the true victors - obscenely rich industrialists.
David Alexander 3 years ago
Ah, but Ukrainians are white! You can't do those things to white people! (Sarcasm)
censorshipsucks 3 years ago
actually, that is PRECISELY what one reporter said. https://mobile.twitter.com/mehdirhasan/status/1498132218685837312
Load More Replies... GramDB 3 years ago
Every country on the planet has a lot more blood on their hands than the USA since it is the newest country on the planet! The planet has been drenched in innocent blood for over 5,000+ years!! Our only shame is the civil war! We have defended our own country and its borders many times... plus everyone else's borders on the planet... constantly, in our comparatively, very short life span since the 1400's. Complaining about the USAmericans is NOT O.K. … but not illegal, so go ahead. I love my country and, I hope and pray that we can prevail and succeed until we can choose a much younger and saner, new POTUS in 2024.
Vera Diblikova 3 years ago
I wonder why you stay in such horrible country. All welt is open around
Catrina Bomberry 3 years ago
No one mentions the black and brown people that were turned away at the border when war in Ukraine broke out. Do you think that will be mentioned or remembered in the future?
Kevin Hickey 3 years ago
Maybe it had something to do with political ego, but it definitely had something to do with large piles of cash.
#21
The Kyrgyz genocide. In 1916 when Kyrgyz families of the north (tired of oppression) refused to join Russia’s army in WWI, Russian soldiers massacred around 30% of population of the northern tribes. Now they present it as an uprising, which happened because of German-Turkish spies.
#22
Modern Israel. I mean, I don't support displacing anyone, but clearly the current regime is doing anything they can to fabricate a historical narrative that doesn't paint them as the oppressors they clearly are.
Paul Macdonell 3 years ago
The Israeli have, in 75 years, gone from being oppressed to being oppressors. And because of right wing religious politicians, they can't seem to right them selves.
Tim 3 years ago
The best protest flag I've ever seen is an Israeli flag with a swastika in place of the Star of David.
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Cheri Smallbeck 3 years ago
Palestine MUST be freed - such atrocities occurring everyday without comment is shameful. You can be anti Israeli government & military without being anti-semetic. Labelling anyone who points out the terrible behaviour as being racist is how it has been allowed to happen unchecked for so long. There are many anti-zionist Jewish people who prove that "defense" is wrong!
Uber Mensch 3 years ago
Who the lleh was the U.N. to say "Here, we'll take this land these people already own and are already living on and turn it into a whole new country!"
Ara 3 years ago (edited)
The state of Israel seems to have Holy Cow status. By any definition it is an appalling international citizen. The most egregious example being that it has nukes, but won’t allow external inspection. Right up there with North Korea! Any suggestion of impropriety is shut down with allegations of anti-semitism. The ultimate get out of jail free card.
CatGirl 3 years ago
Absolutely - I hate real problems with the modern state of Israel. They're liars, hypocrites, hysterics, and murderers. And the vehicle for this is that hateful book of fairy tales which has done so much harm.
Hiram's Friend 3 years ago
If having lived there a thousand years ago means that you can have it back, then my people should get England and Germany back.
Freya the Wanderer 3 years ago
And the First Nations should get all of the New World back!
Load More Replies... Lenka Smetanová 3 years ago
yeah, Imagine being Palestines in there before WW2.... and whole world told you "yeah, dude, this is yours. Have it to your fullest."... c**p happened during that times... and out of nowhere world came and told you "hey, heh... remember as we told you, this land will be yours? hahaha.... its crazy but... but actually no. This land will belong to this people now. Deal with it and be good."
#23
Notice that everything people are pointing out is well documented.
"people dont care" is not the same as history being erased.
It's a nonsensical thing people say. We have MANY records of people that lost conflicts. "History is written by the literate" is a more apt statement.
If history was only written by the victors we would have zero historical context for Jews even existing.
Linda van der Pal 3 years ago
But if Germany had won that war, the stories about the war would have been really different...
Kate 3 years ago
And if Hitler had died in WWI, a lot of s**t would be different. If Japan hadn't attacked Pearl Harbor, then what? If the Bolsheviks hadn't won, then what? These aren't history questions, they're writing prompts.
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Wilf 3 years ago
The main reason we have so much evidence of the holocaust, including photographs of it actually happening is because the N a zis in power were actually PROUD of what they were doing. Some of the most famous (and horrific) photographs that survive to this day were actually official photos.
Robin Roper 3 years ago
The point of "history is written by the victors" is not that the history is erased, it's that "written history is from the viewpoint of the victors." The dominate group choses what is included or excluded, also the context of that history especially in school texts - not college or non-fiction to be purchased by citizens. There will always be oral history and in at least for now, in the US, books written by historians.
v 3 years ago
I think the better way to state it is that popular history is written by the victors. Winners and losers both have literate people who can write their respective histories but your implication is that the losers lost simply because they were illiterate. The truth is that the winners simply get a better chance to have the history they choose to be known by more people.
Timmy Pillinger 3 years ago
Literate + alive is perhaps a better description of the people who have history. Contrast the Mongol empire with Scotland.
Pablo Ramos 3 years ago
Well, they're writing the history of the conflict against the Palestinians today
Stephanie Barr 3 years ago
Everything ISN'T well documented. More importantly, even the items that are well documented are not widely known. And that is also important.
censorshipsucks 3 years ago
no dude you are either deliberately missing the point or you are straw-manning it. The point is the SPIN on the event is made by the victor. The "discovery of america" not "the genocide of the native americans". "The exploration of africa" not the "stripmining and genocide of africans". "The discovery of australia" not "the genocide of the aborigines". See???
#24
the Armenian genocide. countries deny it just to even keep their relationship good with turkey F**k them.
Michael Largey 3 years ago
Hitler cited the world's indifference to the Armenian genocide as a reason that Germany should fear nothing for going ahead with the final solution.
Little but Fierce 3 years ago
Yes and it still continues to this day. Say a word about Armenia on social media and you'll get abuse and trolling.
#25
Aboriginals, the stolen generation.
Angela B 3 years ago
More than that. The atrocities commited agaist the Aboriginal people and that which has never been taught.
Gustav Gallifrey 3 years ago
It's coming, albeit slowly. More people know about, it now, and accept that most, if not all, such events actually occurred. I think it won't be long before it's acknowledged in school curriculums - as it should be. But, there needs to be a distinction made between 'being sorry' that these events happened, as Australians should be, and being made to feel personally guilty for it. The responsibility of modern Australians is to continue to tear down racism. They can't change the past, only the future.
Load More Replies... B 🇺🇦🇨🇦 3 years ago
Australia: “Thousands of children were forcibly removed by governments, churches and welfare bodies to be raised in institutions, fostered out or adopted by non-Indigenous families, nationally and internationally. They are known as the Stolen Generations.“ https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/stolen-generations
Con O Cuinn 3 years ago
The fact that native Australians are still called aborigines, when that was a term for "uncivilised savages" wherever the Brits went.
Jenn C 3 years ago
Honest question here - what are we supposed to call them then?
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Jo Cooper 3 years ago
The number of Aboriginal children in foster care now! The number of Aboriginal people incarcerated now!
Tunk Moot Lopper Reebit 3 years ago
Exactly. People seem to miss the point.
Load More Replies... censorshipsucks 3 years ago
I live for the day when Australia ditches that coloniser's flag and switches to this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Aboriginal_Flag#/media/File:Australian_Aboriginal_Flag.svg
#26
Not really a scary one, but I've always found it interesting that the word "barbarians" is used in such a negative way. It simply means people of different language and culture. But if you're the one writing history it gets a very negative connotation
PurpleUnicorn 3 years ago
"barbarian" means stranger, foreigner, or someone who doesn't speak Greek
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Kristal 3 years ago
Pagan means non-abrahamic. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all share the story of Abraham.
Load More Replies... Starhawk Hunt 3 years ago
Similar it the idea,6 thankfully less common a little now, that “Pagan” means Satanic/evil or at least ungodly. The word is more analogous to “dweller in the country” or Country Bumpkin! Also, will never forget, when I worked in retail, some kid, about 14, saw my pentacle and said “ I know what that means”. I said “You do?” “Yes, it means Satan!” So I explained the symbolism to him, to his obvious surprise. No sooner had I finished than Mom burst out laughing. I’d noticed a twinkle in her eyes starting at “Satan”. Dunno where the kid got his notions, but Mom was definitely Pagan friendly!
Kristal 3 years ago
Heathen would be the word for "country bumpkin", Pagan literally means practices/beliefs/religions that are non-abrahamic
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Stannous Flouride 3 years ago
Believed to be because to the Greeks their languages sounded like "Ba-ba-ba." But the word is related to things hair related (i.e., barber) and because they didn't shave or depilate themselves like the Greeks and Romans, this could be the source too.
Kate 3 years ago
I had a humanities teacher who was talking about the Dutch reaching Japan. "So the Dutch saw the Japanese as barbarians, and to the Japanese the Dutch were barbarians. So they called each other barbarians and traded goods and ideas." Because that's what cultures do -- sometimes they fight each other and sometimes they trade with each other.
#27
Nanking Massacre
Japan's actions during the war were both brutal and atrocious.
Alexandru Bucur 3 years ago
Yes, but Nanking was a special example on par to the Holocaust and you saying "oh war in general is atrocious" absolutely minimizes what happened there. We are talking here of Japanese soldiers going door to door, torturing, killing and raping to their heart's content, because they thought the Chinese were sub-human and thus didn't "deserve" to be treated as such... We're talking there of an orgy of violence that left 200,000 people dead and a further 80,000 women who were "only" raped, but escaped with their lives.
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David Alexander 3 years ago
Lived in Nanjing for 5 years, there's a museum over a mass grave, absolutely sobering experience
Lara Verne 3 years ago
Our textbooks didn't even mention Nanking. I lfirst learned about it while reading novel "Tokyo".
Hiram's Friend 3 years ago
And have contests for who could behead the greatest number in a set time.
Load More Replies... #28
The Spanish conquering the Aztecs (and Mayans). History through the eyes of the Spanish paint the Aztecs to be these horrific, dirty heathens that practiced cannibalism. They also depict the Mayans to be the same way. However, over time we have found out that although Aztecs did practice cannibalism and sacrificed their own people, they were also very clean people that practiced routine hygiene and even had a school system for their children. The Mayans had whole libraries that included untold amounts of Mathematical knowledge. They were also master astronomers that discovered things about the universe that Europeans had no clue about for at least several hundred years. But, the Spanish destroyed all of this and told the rest of the world nothing of these great things.
Stannous Flouride 3 years ago
I recently read an article about the Aztecs' sense of humor. They were human, of course they did.
Zoz 3 years ago
I am Mexican and partly descended from Mayans, and now I know almost nothing about my ancestors because so much information has just been erased.
Cheri Smallbeck 3 years ago
So much history and knowledge just wiped out - it is disgraceful
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Izzy 3 years ago
i always wonder how much more advanced, wise, knowledgeable, progressed we'd be if the vast hoards of info from our ancestors hadn't been destroyed. we know how amazing they were in architecture, astronomy, botany, agriculture, mathematics, horticulture, design, irrigation, engineering etc. from the tiny bits left archaeologists find. imagine all we DON'T know. every modern miracle is built from the foundations laid for us in those millennia. our past creates our future. even now, structures like the stone henge, various pyramids, aqueducts and city-water systems etc baffle us. we could have known and learnt far more, to achieve far more, if only humans didn't have that disgusting, abhorrent itch to conquer. control. eradicating ALL trace of entire civilisations to wipe them off history as the final insult/win. i guess the universe has deemed us unworthy of accessing that potential. we'd only use it to hurt each other, other living beings and the planet anyway
Charlie Taube 3 years ago
the aztec were great in most respects other than the whole kill and eat people to please the gods part.
Víctor Alfonso García Olmo 3 years ago
Mayans dissapeared years before the spaniards discovered América
#29
How Spain always claimed to have conquered the Americas by killing and fighting millions of native Americans.
They did not. Most died of sickness but they played the badass army card for quiet some decades.
By today's standards it would be embarrassing to tell about how good of a genocide job you did.
Who Panda 420 3 years ago
This is why biowarfare is so scary to me. Plague and sickness can have a devastating effect on a population
Autumn 3 years ago
Oh it’s absolutely terrifying. So many war tactics are terrifying.
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Analyn Lahr 3 years ago
I grew up in California which is dotted with Spanish missions. In school they tried to teach that Spanish colonization was a fairly good thing, blah, blah. It never felt right to me. We went on a field trip to a mission once and I was extremely uncomfortable. Eventually I learned why.
Maria Batsouri 3 years ago
It was the first time in history, Spain used gifts contaminated with chicken pox. It was a new virus for the native Americans.
Ela 3 years ago
Smallpox. Not chickenpox. Smallpox is much more deadly and yes, was new to them.
Load More Replies... Snakebite Mcghee 3 years ago
Yeah ask the Mandan who were practically wiped out by White men purposely giving them blankets infected with smallpox and measles. Both of which the Mandan and most Native people had no immunity to
Stannous Flouride 3 years ago
Despite numerous theories about how homo sapiens drove the Neanderthals into extinction, I've always believed that it was most likely disease that did it. Every time that two isolated groups have come into contact, diseases have done the dirty work.
Víctor Alfonso García Olmo 3 years ago
Stupid nonsense!!!! The spaniards NOT killed millions. Look at today natives in all América. The english and yankees killed their natives in north América. Meanwhile in Spanish América there are millones of natives todas.
Diphylleia Grayi 3 years ago
Kind of. What I learnt in my adult years is that Spanish allied with enemies of other people's. For example here in Colombia Muiscas and Pijaos we're "enemies" so Spaniards would help them to gain. At the end of the day they were used it because indigenous people "have the right to work for Spaniards" I guess I have a love/ hate relationship with myself half of my blood was prosecuted because of their culture/language the other half maybe were poor in Spain and came here for a better future, so yeah. There is a lot of misinformation out there I have received many "arguments" such as you were illiterate, you should be thankful we brought you technology and knowledge, you can baptised in Catholic faith, indigenous people had rights -like caste system to illustrate how many mixes could happen between three different races- and so on. Also, there are people that says that if they dig treasures as Galeon San Jose Spain could ask for the good and silver because it has Spanish emblems. Well you can take the wood and return the gold and silver where it belongs if that happens someday. Because I guess they would have a lot of that for the excursions around Latin America :‑X
#30
The Treaty of Versailles (or how the War to end all Wars didn't end no war because of FRANCE and also UK)
* Italy didn't get invited, not was given the land they were promised.
* The Arabs (you know those who fought alongside Lawrence) didn't got the Independance they were promised.
* Germany got a way too violent punishment (asked by France) that caused the misery of the 20's in Germany and brought you know who to the power.
I'm french, and I wasn't taught all this in school, I had to search afterwards.
Cowws 3 years ago
as someone who also believes the treaty of Versailles was pretty bad, I agree with the vibe of this post but think that's a bit of an oversimplification: - Italy was there. They even were in the 'big five' with France, the UK, Japan and the US. But we hear more about the 'big three' because Italy and Japan were sidelined, Italy not getting the promised land in the 1915 treaty of London and Japan not getting the racial equality clause in the treaty of Versailles -The Arabs technically got independence in modern day Saudi Arabia, but the British basically promised most of the Arab world to be independent in a big kingdom... something that didn't happen
Completely Hatstand 3 years ago
"The Arabs technically got independence in modern day Saudi Arabia" The Arabs weren't monolithic. The Bedouins who worked with Lawrence were ignored. The house of Saud were favoured instead.
Load More Replies... Paul Macdonell 3 years ago
An economic rape that brought about a severely nationalistic attitude that Hitler exploited.
Sapna Sarfare 3 years ago
Also lets not forget that in both the WWs, the battles were fought also majorly by soldiers of countries which were under British or other Countries. Indian soldiers have died massively in a war that was mostly European... not even related to anyone else. But they become World Wars. How?
Geth Platform 3 years ago
"Majorly"... Not even close. Units made of colonial troops existed, but the bulk of the colonial powers' armies were composed of young men from these countries.
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#31
History being written by the ‘victors’ means certain things are erased and purposely kept from us. Roanoke- the people who ‘vanished without a trace’ actually went to live with the natives, but that kindness was erased from history so no one would think twice about slaughtering the natives. MKultra- which was labeled by the government as a big conspiracy theory until they had to release the documents. The CIA murdered Frank Olson, wasted millions on a microphone cat, and released deadly drugs to the public. The third gender- from the native Americans, to the Greeks (who even had a non-binary god) the history of the existence of a third gender, and the fluidity of gender expression, has been suppressed and erased (and we act like it’s a new thing invented by millennials)
Chancey 3 years ago
We were taught that the settlers from Roanoke vanished and no trace of them was ever found.
MetaMom 3 years ago
There has been DNA analysis done and they've found some descendants, so they did survive with help of the native population
Load More Replies... Party Poison 3 years ago
So many nonwhite cultures had third, fourth, even fifth genders and a lot more acceptance towards LGBTQ+ matters
Autumn 3 years ago (edited)
There is also a gender fluid Norse god! It’s none other then… (drumroll please) Loki!!!! Also, are we absolutely positive that the Roanoke colony joined the Native Americans? I was taught that there were many possibilities and that that was only one of them. The four I remember are 1:They died of sickness or starvation 2: They were massacred by a nearby Native American tribe 3: They attempted to leave the island by boat and sank 4: They joined the Natives. Was the last one confirmed?
just me 3 years ago
I learned in grade school about Roanoke. It was just a sentence or two, presented as a theory, because there were Native Americans with some European phenotypes locally afterward. I thought it was weird at the time that the school book claimed it was a mystery but hey, here's what happened.
Paul Pienkowski 3 years ago
Guys. Guys. The Roanoke colony vanished because of the virus. Sam and Dean take care of it years later!
#32
During WW1, although Persia (now Iran) insisted that they didn't want to side with any country throughout the war, they still were invaded by Britain and Russia in November 1915.
One of the first things that Britain did was to take over the grain storage of the country, resulting in multiplying the price of grains for the Persians. Not only that, the transportation of goods became difficult 'cause the roads were in control of Russia. So, you can imagine how hard became for the people to get their hands on grains, and soon after that, a massive famine happened across the country. The famine led to the outbreak of plague, typhus, etc.
Long story short, still to this day the total number of death remains to be uncertain but some historians have suggested it's something between 2 to 3 million people, in the span of two years. Some researchers have even made bold claims and presume the number is something between 8 to 10 million. who knows? The victor didn't seem to bother about the situation.
Source: The Great Famine & Genocide in Iran by Mohammad Gholi Majd. Harrowing stuff.
LoneTomato 3 years ago
As someone (us born) from a large Persian family, that has heard of many of these stories passed down through generations, there's a lot that "western" societies won't recognize
Notyomama 3 years ago
Poor nutrition equals poor immune systems. The people were easily sickened and it was harder to recover. Therefore, sickness was spread easier.
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Welcome Welcome 3 years ago (edited)
The US doesn't even recognize what it has done on US soil. What makes anyone think they will recognize misdeeds of the past done to Iran?
#33
MacArthur covering up the atrocities of Unit 731 so the US could get the results of their chemical and biological experiments on POWs and undesireables.
Japan wanted it to fade away and so did the US and that is what happened. They were given immunity. No one paid for those crimes in the east. MacArthur forced all in the Pacific to sign NDAs before being released from duty. No one could talk about what happened in the Pacific.
My mother's first husband was a POW in the Pacific. When he got back he started saying what happened and the authorities picked him up and took him away and would not tell her anything. They were Catholic and she had to annul the marriage as the one thing they did tell her was he ain't coming back any time soon.
Kate 3 years ago
Well, here's food for thought: Bayer, Pfizer, Merck, AstraZeneca... ever wonder why so many pharmaceutical companies are German? The Nazis kept records of their experiments.
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Catpawsarethebest 3 years ago
Omg! I knew the nazies were bad during WW2. But this... I cant understand how anybody in the world can turn into monsters like this, who perform such torture!
Crouching hippo hidden panda 3 years ago
Look it up, if you have a strong stomach
Load More Replies... #34
I think it’s harder to find examples in modern history because there are many cases where the victors control the narrative, but it’s not so easy anymore to completely silence or erase alternative interpretations. Still, two American examples spring to mind where most people (non-historians, at least) have it wrong. In the the enslavement of Africans and the genocide of Native Americans, it’s not the case that all those early Americans had a moral blind spot, but now we know better. Rather, those were contentious issues at the time, and many people opposed slavery and Native American genocide throughout America’s history. For example, there were priests who opposed slavery on moral grounds from the start. Later, wherever there wasn’t already an entrenched ruling class who relied on slavery for their wealth, Quakers, Methodists, Baptists, other sincere Christians, and others who believed in “all men are created equal” fought hard and successfully managed to ban slavery early on, e.g., in Pennsylvania. Then there was Andrew Jackson, clearly the Trump of his age, who ran on a popular platform of not honoring existing treaties with Native Americans, but instead killing and forcibly relocating them and stealing (“conquering”) their remaining lands for his voters. If it weren’t for Jackson, the U.S. would be smaller, but have less blood on its hands. And if it weren’t for the efforts of anti-slavery activists, who existed long before the civil war, it would have far more.
Stannous Flouride 3 years ago
I have a rubber stamp that I use on all my $20 bills that replaces Old Dickory with Harriet Tubman. (As long as it doesn't cover the bill's amount or serial numbers. it's still legal currency) XBMPIEKRT5...b707c6.jpg 
smugdruggler 3 years ago
Also the idea that white Europeans went to Africa and enslaved the people there. Those people taken as slaves were criminals, prisoners of war and the like enslaved by other black Africans. The slave trade was appalling but the Europeans were just that; traders in slaves. The slave takers were the Africans. And still are in some places.
Starhawk Hunt 3 years ago
It does need to be remembered, though, that slavery has always been, and remains a practice world wide. So proud we in the USA stopped all that back in the 1860s! Sharecropper, in a word. And illegal workers now. Not to mention the “white” slavery trade - oh, wait! not confined to whites! And foreign domestics. I could go on.
kathy baughman 3 years ago (edited)
Slavery has been a part of all historical successful civilizations. Egyptians, Romans, Vikings, most religions, Etc…. The idea and practicality of owning other humans or being born into lower caste systems destined for slavery is as old as any written history we have. The idea of NOTpracticing this barbaric trait is young. What modern people should be proud of is that we are the millennia civilization who has had the most success in eradicating it from all cultures worldwide. We have evolved has humanists and compassionate beings who are capable of awareness of treating our fellow man as equals. We aren’t there quite yet, I thought I might live to witness this human evolvement, but seems like we’ve taken steps backwards lately. Hence, why this topic is so relevant. By ignoring, cleaning up, Gaslighting, destroying our history, we will repeat it. Most of what history reveals about humans is how awful of a species we are…but we chose to gloss over the brutal truth and make our historical accomplishments look noble, when we are far from
Creature Cargeaux 3 years ago
Bailey Sarian on YouTube does an AWESOME episode of her show Dark History about Andrew Jackson as well as the trail of tears. Her entire series is so good. She tells the real stories. Not the ones we were taught in school. It's fascinating how we've all been brainwashed to believe anything but the truth.
Creature Cargeaux 3 years ago
It's wild how priests & s**t opposed slavery... but now the religious people in the US are some of the most racist & would bring slavery back if they could.
Lenka Smetanová 3 years ago
yeah... But what sadding me more is... a lot of black americans don't know this, because they just are kinda ignorant to learn more about the history itself... now... There was a general in US, from Poland, called Tadeusz Kościuszko. This man, was openly against slavery! He give a lot of his money for education for slaves etc etc... And yet, some people vandalise his statue not knowing, what he actually did, because they never learned. They thous 'thought he's the same like others'.... and this making me sad.
#35
“Columbus Day”
GoGoPDX 3 years ago (edited)
So glad the federal government finally changed it to Indigenous Peoples Day. It won't make up for what happened to them, we have a long why to go. But hopefully it's a start and Columbus is not being treated some great person, he was a piece of s**t!
keighterz 3 years ago
You would not believe how hard Italian Americans fight for Columbus tho. It’s really startling. My husband’s family is Italian American. They really hold onto Columbus as a national hero. It’s kinda disturbing. There’s a whole episode of The Sopranos about it.
Load More Replies... Penny Hernandez 3 years ago
My husband, who was half Colombian (indigenous, not Spanish) and USA born. referred to it as Mumbus Day and didn't celebrate it in any way.
#36
After the Paraguay war, there were no losers left to write history… I guess Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina was what was left.
Alexandru Bucur 3 years ago
Yeah this one was an absolute disaster for Paraguay, but it can be argued it the whole thing started because of the ambitions of Francisco Solano López who decided to get involved into a war the country could not possibly win, and, as the war progressed, he grew more and more unhinged, going as far as to imprison and execute many of his supporters, including his own mother, and literally preferring to run the country into the ground rather than relinquish power, in a clear case of "if I can't have it, nobody will".
#37
That there's no ban on communist symbols like there is on nazi symbols. In eastern Europe you'll hardly find a family that has not been touched by soviet war rimes. My great grandmother survived the gulag and had to see the symbol of her opressors every year on the 9th of May when russian minorities very publicly (and drunkenly) celebrated their victory and were upset that natives didn't share the enthusiasm.
ask 3 years ago
Soviets does not equal communism. You can't equate a bad regime (or several) with the mode of government organization. Communism is a great idea. Capitalism has killed more, but we don't ban the f*****g dollar sign do we?
Justin Smith 3 years ago
Communism is a great idea, but one that can never be implemented.
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kathy baughman 3 years ago
If this thinking was right, Crosses should be banned. Religion has killed and oppressed more humans in history than any society styles.
Little but Fierce 3 years ago
Plenty of right wingers and racists right now are actively lobbying to make Nazi symbols socially acceptable. Look at this thread! They very desperately want racism and Neo Nazi beliefs to be accepted and use all kinds of underhand troll tactics to gaslight and soften people up and manipulate people into thinking Nazism is a good thing, by using tactics like pretending that being anti-Nazi makes you anti free speech, or by pulling the "both sides" card.
Starhawk Hunt 3 years ago
And the Nazi Swastika” was an ancient symbol usually meaning either the wheel of life or the tree of life. It is found in very nearly in all cultures at some point, both ancient and modern. And is a good and beneficial symbol. Needs to be detached from Nazism, like, now.
Gin. No tonic 3 years ago
Nazi Swastika is backwards/mirrored from ancient Swastika.
Load More Replies... Kate 3 years ago
You can't display the swastika in Germany. The difference, of course, is that the Nazis were ousted. The Soviets, however, were not, so why would they ban their own symbol?
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#38
The Bangladesh genocide caused by the fascist Pakistani army generals in 1971. It’s the reason why Pakistan and Bangladesh relations are bad. 3.000.000 bengalis got killed and 300.000 got raped.
CatGirl 3 years ago
According to someone else's post, further up this thread, it was the UK's fault.
Zaineb Bookwala 3 years ago
Yup. They made Pakistan, and (literally 100s of km away with whole India in middle) East Pakistan. Was never going to work.
Load More Replies... #39
WW1. Germany especially are always seen as the bad guys and in western films like Wonder Woman for example, that’s especially the case. But in truth the war was far, far more complex then that and so there wasn’t a clearly defined “good vs bad” like WW2.
Aunt Riarch 3 years ago
It's an excellent reference if you are talking about distortion of history.
Load More Replies... Michael Largey 3 years ago
The villains in WWI were not nations, but ruling classes. And the ruling classes in Germany, Austro-Hungary, and Russia were removed after the war because of their role (and a few other good reasons).
Ela 3 years ago
In this case I think perhaps history colors backwards, and as WW2 involved the same actors and allegiances as WW1, followed it so quickly and in many ways grew out of it, they get a bit mushed together in our thinking. The Holocaust side is always bad, and we throw that back to previous events. And some governments I think quite deliberately use that as cover for their own horrendous deeds.
Alexandru Bucur 3 years ago
Bit revisionist there, me lad. I mean, of you're using Wonder Woman as our reference, maybe you should also read on a little thing called "the Rape of Belgium". That bit of the war, at least, was as black and white as it gets and you have one guess who were the baddies...
CatGirl 3 years ago
Rubbish - Germany shouldn't have invaded Belgium and that's the end of it. Germany started WW1 and they had to deal with the consequences. Their refusal to accept their defeat, and the belief that they'd been mistreated by the Treaty of Versailles led to the rise of the NSDAP. Many Germans didn't see it as two wars, but as one long war with a long hiatus between where Germany got a leadership that would 'rectify' the problem she'd caused.
Kevin Teng 3 years ago
I have no clue why this was downvoted. I don't see anything incorrect or inappropriate here.
Load More Replies... Judit Hajdu 3 years ago
b******t, Nazi Germany was definietly the bad guy but they also had collaborators, countries which helped them or looked the other way
BobTDG 3 years ago
WW1 You moron! Germany was ruled by Kaiser Willheim II.
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#40
Robespierre, one of the main figure of french revolution has been taken out by political opponent, they tried to delete his name from history, accused him of all the kills during the Terror (3 years where a lot of people got killed bcs of a fear of a royalty return), they even used the body of a very ugly man to make ppl believe it was him (ppl still think its him except historian) and basically now he is seing as a monster by some ppl
Geth Platform 3 years ago
... Maybe because he WAS a monster? He created the Committe of Public Safety, who's responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of people guilty of only not believing in the French Revolution (or sometimes not guilty of anything at all). He ordered a genocide against the Vendéens (the general in charge of defeating the counter-revolution was asked to kill not only fighting men, but also women, kids and elders). There is a current school of thought in the left wing parties in France that Robespierre was an misunderstood man of the people. Robespierre was the perfect example of the 18th-century bourgeois, a lawyer who got medals and recommendations from royal institutions. He certainly wasn't a fishmonger or a baker who rose to power thanks to the Revolution.
#41
In WW2, the American/British bomber command took out some 600,000 German civvies. The US Bomber command encouraged something called “area bombing” in large civilian centers with firebombs which they supplied to British Bomber command. Many of the pilots were informed that they were bombing important railways/roads/military/industrial targets, and felt “something wasn’t right” when bombing cities like Dresden. America didn’t lose a single civilian to German bombers, and Britain lost 60,000. Thats 1/10 the amount they took out in their combined bombing campaign
Kim Kermes 3 years ago
My dad was a bombardier in B 24 Liberators, luckily out of Italy. He still never got over it. My first performance in an Army band in Germany was in Schweinfurt, which had been leveled to destroy war industry. Felt creepy and no one else understood.
Stannous Flouride 3 years ago
Less than 5% of the bombs landed within 5 kilometers of their intended targets. Again and again strategists have claimed that warring against civilians will "break the spirit" of the populace but it has NEVER worked. It only makes them more united and their war mongering leaders use it as rallying cry. The Allies, the Nazis, the Soviets, and the Japanese all did it and it has continued through modern wars like Vietnam and the Balkans. Putler is making the same mistake in the Ukraine.
#42
The 2003 Invasion of Iraq. The US slaughtered hundreds of thousands of civilians (and to this day it still for some reason doesn’t count as a genocide) because of a lie.
Paul Macdonell 3 years ago
No doubt it was an invasion predicated and excused by lies of weapons of mass destruction. But to say hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed is just completely false. At the time the population heralded the removed of Saddam Hussain.
#43
The Soviet Union getting away with invading Poland at the same time the nazis did and for Starlin killing millions more then hitler but they needed there help so it was ignored
#45
Germany being at fault for WW1, everyone was at fault during that period
Destruction of the natives in Canada
War crimes of Japan
Edit:
for more info to japan: look up, "rape of nanking", "Unit 731", "Alexandra Hospital Massacre", "bataan death march", "comfort women"
For more info to Canada: "High arctic relocation", "MMIW", "Beothuk people", "60s scoop", "residential schools"
For Germany, just scroll down the thread, someone else had already made a good answer.
Stalin's Moustache 3 years ago
so I'm Canadian and my dad's great grandma was mi'kmaq, which was a native tribe in eastern Canada who "allied" (paid by) with the British to systematically exterminate the Beothuk People of Newfoundland
#46
That fact that not nearly enough people acknowledge the fact that Australia lost a war to Emus
Gin. No tonic 3 years ago
This is a special case of history being written by the loser. Because history is being written by the literate.
#47
How china massacred Tibet around the same time as the vietnam war and not many people seem to know about it (in my experience). Buddhists do not believe in using violence, these people couldn’t even defend themselves. Just like how the western world delved into developing technology they developed their minds and did things that are almost miraculous. A lot of our findings in psychology also back up what some of their teachings, that they’ve known for hundreds of years. We don’t know how much information was lost because of that.
Ray Heap 3 years ago
I think you need to revise you opinion on Tibet, what the lama´s did to the people of Tibet was nothing short of slavery with the kind of atrocities that would make a nazi blush. Right up until the early fifties when China stepped in and put a stop to the Tibet feudal system.
#48
Entire Indian tribes were wiped out with blankets that were deliberately infected with smallpox.
Vera Diblikova 3 years ago
Smallpox is very contagious, no need deliberate infection, for "whites" were dangerous too.
Elladine DesIsles 3 years ago
I'm sorry, did this happen in India as well as in the Americas? We here in Turtle Island are Indigenous, not Indian.
Jacob Ross 3 years ago
Out of curiosity, and for the sake of clarity, in your mind what are the wrong and right terms?
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#49
During WW2, the British firebombed German cities such as Hamburg (Operation Gomorrah) and Dresden with the express purpose of taking out civilians. Mass-scale firebombing is especially dangerous for civilians, as it massively depletes the oxygen in a given area, causing many people to choke to death. Operation Gomorrah alone took out 37,000 civilians and injured another 180,000 over just 8 days.
These fire-bombings were war crimes, but because the UK was on the winning side, no one was ever punished for it and now its never taught or mentioned here. I even remember my grandparents coming back from Cologne and commenting that they were disappointed there wasn't much of the old town to see, apparently unaware that that's because the British deliberately levelled the city.
The Germans definitely do not forget it though. But they didn't win, so who cares right?
Who Panda 420 3 years ago
Sad when civilians get caught up in a war. I feel so bad Ukraine now being bombed in their houses.
Gin 3 years ago
I was taught about Dresden and Hamburg. I also remember my mother, who was a child during the second World war, talking about it with disgust. Ordinary people do and did care, just not have the knowledge in sufficient numbers. People do awful things and in war that gets ramped up by thousands. Should let dogs run the planet!
#50
If you think back 200 years and further. Never was there a war that was won by the bad guy.
#51
US history. How many times have you heard the same story about George Washington then skip ahead to the Civil War in a US history class? The US ignores and leaves out the process of the westward expansion, the Indian Wars and treates the US has brokenkn. The atrocities commited and the graves of Native children in Catholic residential schools. One kid in my high school US history class thought the Native Americans were "extinct." It breaks my heart to see the school system conveniently leave out "unimportant" details that just so happen to show when the US were the ones commiting the attrocities. Wounded Knee, Reservations, forced steralizations.
Hugh Cookson 3 years ago
Hmmm - should be ' OUR schools are RUN by anti - American leftists' , however, if you want to debate on what sliding scale of 'left' you are alluding to and can string together a cohesive and literate argument, I'd be happy to debate your point of view ; if not, please just f**k off back to whatever tiny inbred swamp you hail from and stfu OK sugar tits .... idiot.
Load More Replies... #52
Well, much of Roman history was written by the people who wanted to discredit whoever they succeeded. So all these weird stories like "so and so was f*****g his mother and enjoyed kicking puppies" should be taken with a massive grain of salt instead of being presented as "You'll never believe this crazy fact!" Basically, when someone new came into power they launched a retrospective negative publicity campaign against their predecessor.
#53
The 'Space race' wasn't ran between Americans and Soviets. It was ran between Nazi engineers captured by both sides at the end of WW2 when Germany had invested hard in research into rocket science.
#54
People gotta understand any imperialist country does this and it's not something that should then be normalized. Colonialism seeks to benefit those in power at the expense of the original inhabitants, and brain washing and erasure by writing history mainly about colonists and for colonists is core to this. Think about how indigenous people around the world have been viewed as "relics of the past" and "getting out of the way of 'civilization' and 'progress.'" History isn't written only by the victors. This version is just what gets the most airtime because people think it's the only history out there and is objectively true. That's usually not the case. If you want to learn more, decolonization is all about revealing this myth and more. Take time to learn about alternative and indigenous histories. https://globalsolidaritylocalaction.sites.haverford.edu/what-is-decolonization-why-is-it-important/
#55
Soviet gulags. They were on the winning side, so there genocide got to be covered up.
#57
American war crimes in Syria. that s**t is messed up
Paul Macdonell 3 years ago
US War crimes in Syria ?? Sorry but not from anything I have read. Perhaps we should check out the author here ?
#58
everything japan did to china,korea and asian countries during ww2 usa doing the same thing russia is doing to ukrain but to middle eastern countries but since its usa its good
#59
People in general view WW1 with less clear good guy-bad guy lines, but this leads to people thinking Imperial Germany was entirely clean of shitty acts
#60
Did you ever reed an Italian history book? The ww1/2 parts are treats more like a good war for a better country but it was one of the wrost period of Italys history
#61
The entire British Empire as a ‘good thing’ brining civilisation and commerce to the ungodly rather than a mercantile driven rolling genocide with efficient admin
#62
Post WW2 history was written with a serious bias. 1. "Hitler was mad" excuse for most generals, especially Halder for the generals poor decision making (Hitler unfortunately wasn't mad - if he was 70 million people would be alive not dead in 1945) 2. Surviving Generals led by Halder whitewashed history so they were "clean" of mass murder 3. USA went along with it to make out Soviets were weak, due to cold war. Idea was Soviets only won as "hordes" out numbered the "superior German" soldier, and as America beat the Germans, easy to beat the Red Army.... This biased history became the "standard narrative" that is now being challenged with real facts. It is dangerous as Hitler was a human being. So were the Nazi leaders to soldiers who shot civilians. They made bad decisions. We must learn from these. ANYONE of us could be seduced by similar ideologies. Just look at Russia now. Worse it makes serious debate hard, and people label extreme views as "mad" (eg Trumpists) instead of engaging with them to bring them back. I think people are scared by the fact Hitler was a normal intelligent human being who decided, ideologically, that 10s of millions must die for the "greater good". He didn't start out way. People prefer the mad label. But we must learn the temptation of simple solutions and hate lead to mass murder.
Khall Khall 3 years ago
White washing of history...can we talk about how Russia was allied with the freaking Nazis and only switched sides when they got double crossed? The idea that they were 'on our side' at all is historical fiction. They had no problem with it until it started happening to them. This is the plain truth.
Paul Macdonell 3 years ago
Yes Trump followers must be educated and helped to eliminate extremism. Trouble is no one has yet to find a way for them to listen. BECAUSE THEY ARE MAD ! (Sorry couldn't help myself)
#63
William the Conqueror was the Duke William before and during. He had a deal from the King of England’s successor that William would have the throne if the King died. The King died and the successor went back one his word and took the throne. England wanted the successor anyway. So Duke William gathered his men and Conquered England. To the English he was a conqueror but to William he was taking what was promised to him.
Justin Smith 3 years ago
But he was a conquer by definition. He overcame and claimed what was promised (the throne) by military might.
#65
Everything in the history of US and UK. From another perspective, imagine if Germany had won the WW2
Stannous Flouride 3 years ago
To its credit, the UK can be credited with giving the rest of the world more Independence Days to celebrate than any other. /s
#66
World war 2. The nazis were obviously awful but nobody talks about how awful Winstin Churchill was. It was only when his statue got vandalised during the BLM protests in 2020 I learnt that he wasn’t the hero that my grandparents and history teachers had led me to believe.
#67
The giant propaganda war between the american board of health and the pfizer and bayer companies in the 1950s and 1960s regarding the difference between an immunization shot and a vaccine shot, unfortunately it has been erased from history books since the 90's but i first learned about it in middle school history(1998) and it gets harder and harder to find real information about it. Unfortunately one of the few sources that havent been suppressed by big pharma is a video by Dr.Tent about viruses and vaccines, but it has some other unrelated, and off the wall, stuff in it, so its not the best source. One of these days ill try and find a copy of my history books from middle school that had a chapter devoted to it. It was a huge lawsuit that went before the supreme court and was national news. It took place before and during the JFK administration. Before i get downvoted into oblivion, my children are vaccinated and i am not anti-vax, but it is important to learn how the vaccines and immunizations are made and pick the company that creates them using a less or non-harmful way. If anyone else reading this has more information on it, or some better sources, i would appreciate it. I have had little luck finding evidence and records on the internet, although i do remember reading news articles about it when i was a kid, and doing a test for the chapter in history class. Edit: IIRC, one of the cases reviewed during the supreme court hearing was a batch of polio vaccines that had live virus in them and infected thousands of americans. Another was related to viruses being contracted from the kidneys used to grow the vaccine, that where not the virus the vaccine was being designed for.
GoGoPDX 3 years ago (edited)
Vaccines are the the actual substance that here injected, vaccination is the act of introducing vaccines into tree body, and immunization is the process of the body making the immunity. They are similar terms that people have interchanged for decades.I don't understand what OP is saying about fighting about the difference between a vaccine shot and an immunization shot, which doesn't exist.
Cara G 3 years ago
Exactly. It's two processes in the same larger concept but even when used interchangeably we know what they both mean.
Load More Replies... Paul Macdonell 3 years ago
Just Google Cutter labratories and polio vaccines. But in reality it was lack of government oversight and a rush to get the vaccines out that caused the problems.
What do you think ?
Elizabeth Elliot 3 years ago
History is too complex for pop judgements. One biased revisionist can be seized on by the internet and cause an avalanche of hate and division.
Chich 3 years ago
Well lets not forget these fire wielding simians that emerged out of africa and spread over the plant. Decided that they themselves were the "top of the food chain" and that the entire planet was theirs for the taking. Even made up Gods to validate their claims. You should read some of their stories. In their minds they are the greatest that has ever been or will ever be.
JustinTime 3 years ago
Rob O’Neil, the SEAL who shot Bin Laden- “We’re only killing each other because the narcissists at the top are having us do so.” Very good interview on Vigilance Elite on YouTube.
TheDivineMsM 3 years ago
I feel like America's history of how we "earned" our land as a country, how we treated the indigenous who already owned that land, and today we celebrate it as "freedom" and "rights" as if we owned it outright from the beginning. Basically celebrating what we stole. And still slighting and disregarding the Native Americans who are left in our country, by pushing them to the side and still trying to take away their land and rights. Despicable.
Completely Hatstand 3 years ago
The "Cuban" missile crisis. It was about american missiles in Turkey. Khrushchev complained that the Americans had put Jupiter missiles, which were known to malfunction, and "cook-off" in their silos, in Turkey. He was worried that the missiles burning in their silos would be mistaken for launches by the Soviet defence systems and start a war, as there wouldn't be time to check what was really happening. Khrushchev saved the world from WWIII. JFK almost killed us all. There were never any missiles in Cuba, but the American sanctions remain.
Kristine Phillips 3 years ago
These are horrible, never knew about this stuff, never taught in school.
JasonBrown1965 3 years ago
Indonesia - an extreme example of victors wiping out the defeated, in Papua. When they invaded the former Dutch territory in 1963, there were just under half a million indigenous Melanesians in West Papua. Roughly the same number lived on the eastern side in what would become Papua New Guinea. Today, PNG has a population of seven million while the western half is barely two million. This represents five million missing people over half a century - one of the largest genocides in history.
Elizabeth Elliot 3 years ago
History is too complex for pop judgements. One biased revisionist can be seized on by the internet and cause an avalanche of hate and division.
Chich 3 years ago
Well lets not forget these fire wielding simians that emerged out of africa and spread over the plant. Decided that they themselves were the "top of the food chain" and that the entire planet was theirs for the taking. Even made up Gods to validate their claims. You should read some of their stories. In their minds they are the greatest that has ever been or will ever be.
JustinTime 3 years ago
Rob O’Neil, the SEAL who shot Bin Laden- “We’re only killing each other because the narcissists at the top are having us do so.” Very good interview on Vigilance Elite on YouTube.
TheDivineMsM 3 years ago
I feel like America's history of how we "earned" our land as a country, how we treated the indigenous who already owned that land, and today we celebrate it as "freedom" and "rights" as if we owned it outright from the beginning. Basically celebrating what we stole. And still slighting and disregarding the Native Americans who are left in our country, by pushing them to the side and still trying to take away their land and rights. Despicable.
Completely Hatstand 3 years ago
The "Cuban" missile crisis. It was about american missiles in Turkey. Khrushchev complained that the Americans had put Jupiter missiles, which were known to malfunction, and "cook-off" in their silos, in Turkey. He was worried that the missiles burning in their silos would be mistaken for launches by the Soviet defence systems and start a war, as there wouldn't be time to check what was really happening. Khrushchev saved the world from WWIII. JFK almost killed us all. There were never any missiles in Cuba, but the American sanctions remain.
Kristine Phillips 3 years ago
These are horrible, never knew about this stuff, never taught in school.
JasonBrown1965 3 years ago
Indonesia - an extreme example of victors wiping out the defeated, in Papua. When they invaded the former Dutch territory in 1963, there were just under half a million indigenous Melanesians in West Papua. Roughly the same number lived on the eastern side in what would become Papua New Guinea. Today, PNG has a population of seven million while the western half is barely two million. This represents five million missing people over half a century - one of the largest genocides in history.
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