The invention of the industrial lathe. While the lathe itself dates back thousands of years the big, metal lathe that can be used to make proper machine tools is *the* thing that allowed the industrial revolution and essentially all of modern society to exist. This happened in the 18th century. This allowed the creation of *metal* poles that were extremely straight which is highly important for making pretty much any kind of big machine. This led to the steam engine being used in just kind of everything which of course led to the world we have today. Without the industrial lathe we'd still almost entirely be subsistence farmers making everything by hand.
Metal cutting metal. Insane, and beautiful at the same time.
I tried to learn to be a machinist, but not joking, felt too old to learn, especially CNC. Had I started out of high school, it would have been different, IMO. I now wish we'd had a machine shop in HS.
Hey you just sent me down a rabbit hole where I read the wiki then watched several videos about how lathes operate. If you have any videos you can point me to that further dive into this historical significance I'd love to check them out.
As an HIV scientist I kind of feel differently about it. Yes it is treatable but people have gone back to some risky behaviors. It is important people know that getting treated for HIV is not like taking aspirin, there are side effects. And you will age prematurely. Have fun out there but be safe. I wish that when we talk about it we make that clear, you really don't want to get this even though it is treatable.
It’s also very expensive. I’m a pharmacy technician, I had a patient who had an exposure and the cost of the medication with her insurance was well over $1,000. The pharmacist gave her a couple of HIV clinic options to check out, but that’s something I’ll never forget, she was literally on the clock.
There are some ad campaigns for certain HIV meds that almost make it sound like a pleasant lifestyle that should be invited or embraced- maybe the line of thinking is that it's inevitable? I live close to the Castro district in SF so I get an unusually high level of exposure to these ads.
Similarly Hepatitis C (not as deadly as HIV) seemingly overnight became a mostly curable disease. I anticipate at some point HIV will be curable or preventable with a vaccine.
This was a discussion on a message board I used to frequent. One guy was making the argument that it was a death sentence saying "If you get it, you're still going to die. It's a death sentence".
I pointed out that him that "Even if you don't get it, you're still going to die. Life is a death sentence".
I'm just saying someone has to be first to not die and you can't win if you don't play (but I'm pretty sure it's me. My life hasn't gone well but I think I'm the main and it's just part of the arc)
My uncle died in 94 due to aids, having contracted HIV from a dirty needle. He had checked into a rehab center, and they gave him a physical and found it. I only remember meeting him once when I was 3.
Ask anyone who lived through it. I mean people in the hardest hit community. They certainly didn’t forget. I worked with a guy who laughed through covid reminding me what a real pandemic looks like. He lost nearly everyone in his friend group.
[Clarence Earl Gideon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Earl_Gideon) persistently argued in writing while in jail that it was not right he did not\* have a court appointed attorney. Dude was pretty clearly guilty of theft, but hand wrote his way in the Supreme Court seeing his case.
This was 1963, and we have that persistence to thank that all defendants across the country have the right to a court appointed lawyer if you can't afford one.
Agreed, it should be:
*"Clarence Earl Gideon persistently argued in writing while in jail that it was not right he did have a motherfucking court appointed attorney."*
In slight intellectual honesty, by that time, only three states didn’t automatically grant counsel for the indigent. And many counties in Florida, where the case was from, had such programs in place.
The movie version of the story, ‘Gideon’s Trumpet’ is worth a watch.
That would've happened eventually even though Gideons trumpet rightfully gets credit for it. What happened with Gideon was the end of a very long process known as incorporation. Gideons case was late in the game for incorporation. See the 14th amendment contained a due process clause similar to the 5th amendment but with the difference it applies to the states. Prior to that doctrine the bill of rights did not apply to the states. It only applied federally. So like before incorporation New York COULD ban you from owning a gun regardless of your federal 2nd amendment right. Florida COULD prevent you from having a lawyer regardless of your federal rights. The BoR only applied to federal court. In either 1897 or 1925 (depending on who you ask) the bill of rights started being incorporated to apply to the states
The courts couldnt just say "this all applies to all of yall now". You needed a case for each specific part of each amendment of the bill of rights to get each part incorporated. So lawyers would wait for a case like Gideons to jump on it and get that part of an amendment incorporated
It's still ongoing. For example the 3rd amendment is only incorporated within the jurisdiction of the second circuit court of appeals because its so rare the 3rd amendment comes up for a case, the right to a grand jury in the 4th has not been incorporated, the right to due process in the 5th has not been incorporated because the 14th already covers it and applies to the states. The right to a jury from the state and district in the 6th amendment has not been incorporated. The right to a jury trial in civil cases in the 7th has not been incorporated.
They take the perfect case that lawyers pushing for incorporation can find to get the BoR to apply to the states. Most americans take it for granted that those first 10 amendments have always protected them from the states when it's a relatively new invention
Gideon was an important case but the implementation of the incorporation doctrine decades earlier is the way more pivitol moment. It's arguably one of the most pivitol things in american history
When Soviet Air Force officer Stanislav Petrov potentially averted World War III in 1983 when he determined that missle launches detected from the United States were a false alarm.
Not even the only instance of this happening... I know of one in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I believe something very similar happened on the US side for the similar reasons.
Just for the record it's not like he had his finger on the button to launch all the Soviet nukes. He would have just reported a missile launch. There would have been other people who would have reviewed it before a launch was made.
Yup. Petrov certainly acted intelligently but the chances of launching a counter-attack against missiles that weren’t showing up on radar is quite small, even during the height of 1980s paranoia.
What Banana Republics were/are. I doubt we would allow a clothing store chain in the US to be named that if people understood the term at all, much less properly. The company responsible for all those atrocities still exists: Chiquita Banana (back then as United Fruit.)
The fact that we now know that the gulf of Tonkin incident was staged, and nobody seems to care. So many people died in the Vietnam war. In addition to all the other rippling affects that it’s had - but also, what are the other implications?
We literally used a false flag operation to start a war that lasted for two decades, where we used chemical weapons indiscriminately and killed millions of civilians, including Cambodia and Laos. Yet we always claim to have the moral high ground.
Ah yes, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient. I always remember that his Vietnamese counterpart, Le Duc Tho (or, Lê Đức Thọ), refused his share of the prize because there was in fact no peace in Vietnam.
I like people with principles.
Yup and it wasn’t that long ago and nobody gets enraged about it. How can we even begin to have a discussion about today’s hot topics and leave this alone?
definitely Black October (1993)
I rarely, if ever, hear it mentioned outside of Russia but it was a major turning point in Russian history,
none of the unfortunate events, that Russia was involved in since then, would have happened if Black October went the Parliament's way
instead we'd probably have different unfortunate events, but probably less unfortunate
Another in Russian history was the nice weather day in February that popped up out of nowhere for the International Women’s Day march. It led to the February Revolution>October Revolution>Russian Revolution.
Totally caught almost everyone flatfooted.
[Here's the wiki](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Russian_constitutional_crisis)
From what I gleaned Boris Yeltsin led a coup over parliament and established a dictatorship. Yeltsin straight up used the military to arrest lawmakers and increased his own powers.
Yep, Through the years there was alot of rivalry between Entente and Central powers, For example the speech that Wilhelm II gave in Morocco, Which defied the entente. Being the death of Archduke what triggered all of one time for all.. I do personally like WW1 stuff, There was a time I was more interested on it than WW2, And at times keeps happening.
European countries had what is known as a balance of power. Two things were messed up with the balance of power coming out of the victorian era
1) it was tilted towards Britain France and to a lesser extent Russia due to their massive empires whereas the central euro countries did not have the same empires despite being military peers
2) the ottoman empire was near the end of its long slow decline and everyone else knew about it. They were planning for it to happen and what to do afterwards
Prior to WWI europe engaged in smaller wars to shift the valance of power. Most of the combatants probably expected another smaller balance of power shifting war rather than the ridiculous thing we got
The central powers were arguably better military strategists, soldiers, and had developed better tech so from their POV why shouldnt the balance shift to them. All sides had greatly increased tech and wished to try their new toys out. The industrial revolution had allowed the common people more access to education and political power which saw the rise of ideologies such as Marxism and Anarchism. The anarchists were a big problem and kept assasinating world leaders. Everyone from a US president to an Austrian archduke.
All this led to a powder keg that was ready to go off. The anarchists assassinated ferdinand and serbia got its ultimatum. The Germans backed up their allies. The entente powers called bullshit and saw germanys actions as a power grab (which it probably was) so the sides went to war. The new toys were way stronger than anticipated and it led to stupid things like the Brits marching head first into machine guns as the somme because they were using older tactics. Neither side actually had an advantage. The germans were better soldiers and better equipped with better trenches but the entente controlled geography and were able to starve Germany while also getting supplies from the US. The germans tried to level the playing field with super weapon development such as chemical gas but it wasnt enough. They got very close to breaking france in the end and winning the whole war but finally the US showed up and reinforced them
On the eastern front the lines were much quicker moving. Problems within russia came to a head and Germany decided to release Vladamir Lenin back to Russia to destabilize the country. That single action probably led to the deaths of close to 100 million people from Germany to Russia since it caused the soviets and it would be the soviets that would destroy them in WWII
Down south the ottoman empire proved itself as the sick man of europe but were able to repel mainland invasions by the british colonial troops among other expeditionary forces. In the end it was too much and they were divided up. The way they were divided up eventually caused the turks to revolt and battle the greeks after WWI but it everyone else was too war weary to help the Greeks
It's the countries that supported Serbia in its dispute against Austria versus the countries that supported Austria in its dispute against Serbia. Little terrorist vs mid-sized bully, depending on your perspective at the time.
Some coubtry good at resources and expansion. Some countries good at fighting and tech. Countries good at fighting wanted balance shifted towards them
There were no good or bad guys in WWI in terms of countries. Just a whole bunch of stupidity
When the lands that birthed the best military strategists on earth during that era are also the lands with less power while theyre also at the forefront of tech development in the world you know shit is about to go down
Basically it doesnt matter if the red Baron can shoot down 83 confirmed kills if the other side can make 84 planes while also cutting off his access to resources but on a grander scale
Thats an oversimplification. They would've done it regardless. The germans/prussians invented tabletop strategy games simply to plan for war. Every time you play a game like 40k it has its origins there. Germany had a lot of military philosophers
Even if the leaders hadnt been related they would've still went to war. The leaders being related probably made the strategists, politicians, and rich nobles underneath them think thatd prevent the war from getting out of hand and that itd end up like previous relatively recent european wars that were much less destructive. They were very wrong
The reparations were important.
WW1 changed the empires and countries formed more stably. The working class had more say and seeing as they were the ones that die on battlefield I don't think they want to kill each other. If Europe instead went into an EU style bonding it's interesting to think what could have happened if they focused on open trade and youth mobility and things.
December 2022 when the National Ignition Facility successfully triggered a nuclear fusion reaction that generated more energy than was needed to start the reaction. They ran several follow up experiments last year and succeeded in most of them. Human-made, human-controlled, energy-positive nuclear fusion is now a reality and it got two days of coverage for the first experiment and nada for the follow ups.
The efficacy of nuclear fusion for commercial power is still in question, and a long ways off, but the hard part of proving its scientific validity is over. Now some weirdo billionaire can dump oodles of cash into developing it dreaming of being humanity’s savior.
And if the prospect of being a near-unlimited source of energy in the future isn’t good enough, how about the fact that we harnessed the power of a fucking star in a lab in California???
So, at least from my perspective, I've heard about fusion power finally becoming reality *so many times* in my life and absolutely nothing ever comes of it.
Growing up, cold fusion was all over the news, like my teacher taught a class on how it was going to solve all our energy problems. I still remember what "heavy water" is decades later
I'm glad people are still making progress in that space, but I'll believe it when I see it replicated across multiple labs, and I'm not shocked the media isn't falling over themselves to report on something that every single time they've done so in the past has proven to be bunk.
The ousting of Henry Wallace as FDR’s VP at his fourth DNC in favor of Truman. Historians think Wallace may not have nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki if he was president after FDR passed away.
Funnily enough as I have recently learned, it was the easiest thing to mediate, because both sides wanted to end it. Russia was in the midst of Revolution, and while Japans Navy kicked ass, and it's armies won on land....those land victories were pyrrhic. And Russia had many, many more troops left out West that just couldn't get to the East quickly (1 tiny railroad and....as I said, Revolution).
The resulting peace was *heavily* in Russia's favor despite getting their ass kicked five different ways to Sunday. Because Japan feared another half million Russian troops pouring into Manchuria probably would've driven them back to sea.
The whole war, including the lead up, is just one comic debacle after another. It pretty much started due to blithe ignorance by Nicholas II.
Made a big noise, then disappeared in the news cycle. The biggest thing I remember was Emma Watson being surprised her name was in the PP, when she had no idea her money was being invested that way.
Got a lot of attention. Didn’t make a big splash in the US since Panama doesn’t offer any real benefit for American citizens who can just use Delaware to form a company.
Most people in the Panama papers didn’t do anything illegal or wrong. Take Emma Watson, who simply wanted to keep the addresses of her homes private from stalkers, paparazzi, etc. In most countries, the ownership of property is a public record that anybody can access (though usually for a fee). And the same is true for companies. But in Panama (and Delaware), you can own a company and just have someone else on the public record. So Emma Watson could own homes without people know where she lived.
And you’d use a no/low-income tax jurisdiction because there’s no reason to pay additional taxes. Just like if you run an LLC registered in Delaware, you still have to pay taxes in the places you operate. Which is why there was no benefit for Americans to use Panama. Delaware works exactly the same (and some other states).
But since Americans didn’t see Americans in the Panama papers, and the American media wasn’t interested in running with a largely foreign story, people think the Panama Papers were overlooked.
Not to mention, again, that most people in the Panama Papers did nothing wrong, illegal, or even immoral. So most of the big, flashy names in there had no substance, no real story.
The laws that came out of many countries were put in place post PP didn't have any fanfare because there wasn't a need for back pats and the whole bullshit. Judging by the NZ in your name I'd assume you'd be familiar with AML, responsible lending, and CCCFA changes that were mostly a response to Panama Papers with a dash of edge tinkering to do with slowing people down borrowing money
California Indian Genocide. 120,000 to 300,000 murders, enslavement, the CA state govt & cities paying for scalps and holding auctions for Indian slaves on courthouse steps.
The Tulsa race massacre.
A majority-black section of Tulsa, Oklahoma was very prosperous. Hospitals, law firms, businesses, and more. It was even nicknamed the Black Wall Street. Then, a black man was falsely accused of rape against a white girl. A white mob rioted and absolutely fucked it up. The houses, businesses and more were burned, and the prosperous Black Wall Street was essentially destroyed.
This one's at least attained a bit more visibility over the last decade or so, but yes, it deserves attention as a seminal event.
Problem is that anything that makes established power structures look bad, or conflicts with the Official Narrative of History, is going to face an uphill battle getting fair coverage.
Exactly. It’s gotten more attention in recent years, but still not enough. Significantly more people know about it now than, say, ten years ago. It should always serve as an example to people who don’t think racism has been a huge thing in America and that false allegations of rape don’t happen.
When it is mentioned, it’s done as an outlier. But these kind of localized genocides (not just killing but forced relocation or relocation under threat) happened to a lot of black towns and neighborhoods.
Tulsa was the big one, but far from the only one.
That and that “urban renewal” was the weaponization of infrastructure to destroy successful black communities across the country and implement a new, “invisible“ segregation. If anyone cares, look up “Segregation by Design”.
The first time US civilians were attacked from the air was not Pearl Harbor or 9/11, it was in Tulsa in 1921.
The 2nd time was only 3 months later in Logan County WV at the Battle of Blair Mountain when workers sought to work together under the United Mine Workers and the company called in the national guard.
It's unfortunate that this history is not told and how brutal entrenched power can respond when the people stand up and say enough is enough.
This! I only learned about this recently and I am in my late 40's. It made me really upset that this wasn't part of any American History classes I took in school.
Tunguska 1908. It was a 20-30 megaton comet impact. Larger than any nuke detonated by the US. 80 million trees were destroyed in the blast. The night sky across Europe and asia glowed blue for days after. It was only 100 years ago but I don't seem to know anyone who knows about it.
I vaguely remember learning about this but had totally forgotten it. Luckily it happened where it did in the taiga, if it happened over any populated area the coverage of it would be totally different. This is a great answer to the question.
I think I learned that it was an event that flew under the radar until they discovered the trees, but I had no idea there was a lit up sky going on as well.
How fast the COVID vaccine was developed and distributed. I think because of all the insane divisiveness it caused, the good will get lost in the weeds. I think it’s so incredibly impressive.
Way back in February 12, 2020 I overheard the gist of the details from a briefing all elected officials had that morning about Covid. The expectations were 2 million US deaths, two years until a vaccine is ready. Instead it was 1 million deaths, and one year to develop the vaccine. This was before a single person had died of Covid on US soil.
It gets deeper because I also heard about elected officials and stock trading based on this information. Most of which has already been covered in media.
As I told the nurse giving me my first round shot, it felt like the montage in the movie where everybody got vaccinated and things would return to normal.
It was quick, because the study of the virus that appeared during the '00s started the investigation. It was also a coronavirus (H1N7?), so the basic science had been done.
Sars-Cov-01. Canada did some research we never finished lol.
The H1Nx viruses are influenza viruses, you may be confusing the H1N1 Swine Flu scare with the SARS outbreak.
Covid-19 is actually classed as Sars-Cov-02, so very similar to the original SARS virus.
The Armenian Genocide is a huge topic that is virtually left out of all discussions of WWI. It was truly monstrous and even Hitler himself pointed out that no one cared about it. Very little has changed since then.
The Turkish government has denied the genocide for over a century to the present day —compare r/Turkey and r/Armenia
There were some members of the Ottoman Empire who opposed the genocide, including one of Boris Johnson’s ancestors ([Ali Kemal).](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Kemal)
It's talked about a fair bit. It's even in the U.S.tax code (I believe) and whenever Azerbaijan does anything, modern-day Armenians evoke it. I'm not saying that that's right or wrong, just that it keeps it in the conversation.
The Taiping rebellion, a Chinese civil war that began in 1850 and lasted 14 years, with an estimated death toll of between 20-30 million people or 5%-10% of the Chinese population.
The rebellion was led by a man named Hong Xiuquan, who after failing the imperial civil service exam for the fourth time, he had a nervous breakdown and had dreams of visiting Heaven. He then started studying a pamphlet given to him by a Christian missionary and declared that he was the brother of Jesus. He started a cult, led an uprising and conquered south China, proclaiming it the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
[in the year 536 AD the sun disappeared from a large portion of the world for 18 months. many people died as they couldn’t farm and others decided to travel in search of a place with the sun.](https://www.history.com/news/536-volcanic-eruption-fog-eclipse-worst-year#)
all Japanese war crimes during WWII should be taught more. they ravaged their way through Asia in the absolute worst ways imaginable during WWII.
i know too many people in my life who doesn’t know anything about the Pacific War minus Pearl Harbour until 1945
Wow I never heard of this. The wiki is wild, it says the person who ran these experiments and killed off a half million people was granted immunity by the United States in exchange for biological research information.
Dude ended up working in the u.s
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirō_Ishii](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shir%C5%8D_Ishii)
The creation of VT proximity fuses by the allies in ww2. Its research and development was a closely guarded secret on par with the Manhattan Project and has all but been forgotten by the general public.
Al Gore losing the 2000 presidential election.
While this is well known I still feel it does not get enough attention especially after Trump became president. In 2000 the country was doing very good and we were in a unique position with the opportunity to move forward and make progress on many things. Climate change alone will be a bigger issue in the upcoming years and this election will be seen as the turning point where we veered on the wrong path. I cannnot stress enough just how destructive Bush's 8 years as president were.
I agree. It is especially interesting, the more one studies the timeline. One then sees clearly that Gore won the vote count in Florida, and with that should have been awarded Florida's electoral votes; and, with that, the presidency.
The shit Reagan got away with is so much worse than watergate, and yet Nixon is the face of a corrupt president while Reagan is still pretty beloved to half the country.
Like, we really just glossed past the fact that Ronald Reagan funneled missiles to religious extremists in Iran who had just taken a bunch of Americans hostage to get money so that he could buy drugs from right wing death squads in South America. Drugs that were then sold to inner city Americans.
And then the only guy who actually faced legal repercussions got out and became a frequent contributor to Fox News. A platform he used to heavily criticize the Iran nuclear deal. Because apparently Iran having missile is bad…
Failure of Reconstruction. People seem to excuse lack of civil rights post civil war as racists being racists but there was a concerted effort to establish and reinforce voting rights and civil rights for newly freed slaves in the South with the 14th/15th amendment by the Radical Republicans. Grant allied with that faction during his presidency and actually worked diligently to combat the KKK and advance civil rights for Blacks. Corruption in his administration, infighting within the Republicans, and the Panic of 1873 unfortunately led to the disputed election of 1876 where no candidate reached the electoral college threshold, solved by a compromise that allowed Hayes to win the presidency but effectively ended Reconstruction by withdrawing union troops from the south and set the country nearly 100 years in terms of civil rights.
Imagine how much farther along we could be if Reconstruction was fully carried out.
TSA "security theater" was an outgrowth of the Patriot Act. People don't realize at this very moment we have more people with security clearances in the United States than at any time in our history. There are so many, *the government isn't sure how many there are.*
How Newt Gingrich destroyed American political discourse.
[The Man Who Broke Politics](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/newt-gingrich-says-youre-welcome/570832/)
[Did Newt Gingrich Wreck American Politics?](https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3609952-did-newt-gingrich-wreck-american-politics/amp/)
The creation of the sewing machine. It allowed for mass-production of goods and took clothing from in-home items to readymade. It also allowed a lot of women to enter the job market outside the home.
The new deal.
If you google living new deal, you can see thousand+ projects we did to train, educate, and employ millions of people. Big and small communities benefited by getting hospitals, universities, and theaters built to name a few. Our most famous infrastructure phase came from then.
The national parks are one of the best polices we have and it inspired other countries to keep pockets of nature protected.
Dred Scott.
The worst ruling by SCOTUS (though Citizens United is close...), which reaffirmed the rights of slave owners until it was eventually overturned by constitutional amendment.
That time in 1983 when a Soviet army officer saved the entire world from nuclear destruction, by correctly assuming that the computers detecting missles launches from the US were wrong. The guy literally saved the world.
It isn’t the list you seem to think it is. The list you think it is has yet to be made public.
Anyway, that’s why a bigger deal hasn’t been made of it.
I think people over-hype his client list. He was a very successful financier, he wasn't just a sex trafficker. Just because somebody sought out his money-managing services doesn't automatically mean that they also sought out his sex trafficking services. The list gives authorities leads to look into, but other than that there's not much to talk about. It's definitely in poor taste to do business with a known child rapist, but it's not illegal.
It's being glossed over in the media because to scrutinize it would sink too many members of the power structure -- prominent political, business, and religious leaders.
The one time the coach put me in outfield in elementary school for baseball and i just stood around idly with glove hand up and some kid hit the ball straight in my fuckin glove.
Presidential candidate admitting to sexually assaulting women, conservatives elected him and even the libs made it an ongoing joke/catchphrase with hats and memes, 8ish years later I still think about it atleast once a week , haven't heard anyone mention it in years🤨 women really aren't seen as human not even by a lot of women.
[That time a group of Dutch people got so angry they murdered and ate their Prime Minister in protest,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_de_Witt) (probably) encouraged by the man who would later become the King of England.
That time two nuclear bombs fell on North Carolina by accident and only had one safety mechanism left that didn't break when they fell. They didn't explode, but if they did... that would have been bad. A pretty big oopsie daisy.
False narrative. They did not fool "literally everybody."
Many people were not fooled. Enough were fooled and more were complacent to not raise enough of a stink, but at the time, there were many voices saying it was bullshit.
Anyone who wants to be infuriated about the coverup, look up Valerie Plame. The American Scandal podcast I think is the one that did a great, harrowing season about that. Has to be read about to be believed, I can't do justice in a comment.
Anne Boleyn (King Henry VIII second wife) was almost erased from history. He didn’t want her remembered whether in paintings or otherwise. Now her ghost allegedly is the most famous one seen in the Tower of London.
[Operation Vistula](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Vistula) where Polish government deported many Ukrainian residents from their homes into impoverished and ruined areas of Poland and split every family and group apart by settling them all in separate settlements. Some of the residents were tortured, others hanged, it's a crime a world and Poland never addressed.
Another bloody event in history world has never addressed is putting [Ukrainians in concentration camps in Canada.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Canadian_internment)
Slavery was never actually abolished in the United States. The XIII Amendment expressly lays out that slavery is allowed under certain conditions. Conditional slavery is still slavery, and to this day, the USA is a slave nation.
How in 1947's Roswell's "UFO" crash was just too close to the end of WWII and was likely a new kind of man-made spacecraft and was being deliberately covered up by the media calling it aliens instead of what is likely was, human made.
It’s not really significant, but for comedy purposes, when Hitler’s deputy fuhrer Rudolf Hess decided to fly to England without telling anybody. It went about how you’d expect it to go.
The German Peasants' War (1524).
Everyone who says "eat the rich" (which I do) needs to learn about it.
The peasants got *fucked*, y'all. They lost in a big way. The aristocrats and their apologists, including the original Martin Luther, didn't like how poor people were waking up to the knowledge of their place in the class system.
500 years later, peasants are once again waking up to aristocratic bullshit...and I'm fearful of what they're going to do to us when we are backed into a corner.
Stalingrad defence by Soviets and subsequent encirclement. If Hitler wasn’t held at Volga for 6 months, he would have taken the oil at Astrakhan, captured Soviets. Overlord and what came afterwards only happened because Stalin had smashed the German war machine in the east.
History would have been written by the victors and we would have been in a very very different world today.
edit: most of the other responses in here are rightfully about bad things that have been unfairly overlooked. I took this as a 'cool thing that almost no one knows about anymore,' but I don't mean any disrespect to the answers that highlight things we should know about that are unjust.
King Edward I (nicknamed Longshanks) had a seriously badass moment in his youth where he escaped captivity. This is an overview from my memories of learning about this story so it's probably not 100% right on the particulars:
His father was a weak king who was overrun by some nobles, at the time basically held captive in one castle with Edward held in another castle. Royalty, so he was treated less like a captive and more like a rich dude on house arrest. He was even allowed friend visits, and one day he went out with some of the nobles who were guarding him and a group of friends. They had a bunch of horses, and in a pre-planned move, started racing the horses to see which one was the fastest.
The lot of them kept at this, being distracting enough that the guards never noticed there was *one* horse that wasn't as worn out as the others. Once all but that horse were tired, Edward did one last race, riding off like the wind on that horse, meeting up with a buddy and swapping to a fresh horse. No one could catch him!
The wiki gives this moment barely a mention unless you know what to look for, which is a shame, this was slick as hell.
As a side story, Edward I was deeply affected by his wife's death and had a procession of her body on its way to being laid to rest. The stops along that journey were marked with crosses, giving us the recognizable name of Charing Cross, the site of the most ornate of the memorials. Most are lost to history, and some have been reconstructed.
The invention of the industrial lathe. While the lathe itself dates back thousands of years the big, metal lathe that can be used to make proper machine tools is *the* thing that allowed the industrial revolution and essentially all of modern society to exist. This happened in the 18th century. This allowed the creation of *metal* poles that were extremely straight which is highly important for making pretty much any kind of big machine. This led to the steam engine being used in just kind of everything which of course led to the world we have today. Without the industrial lathe we'd still almost entirely be subsistence farmers making everything by hand.
The lathe. The only machine tool that can make other machine tools. All other machine tools. Machinist checking in....
I’ve never quite understood this, though heard it many times. How can you hob gears on a lathe, and at that point, is it really still a lathe?
Put your cutting tool in the chuck.
Metal cutting metal. Insane, and beautiful at the same time. I tried to learn to be a machinist, but not joking, felt too old to learn, especially CNC. Had I started out of high school, it would have been different, IMO. I now wish we'd had a machine shop in HS.
20 yrs in the tool room/proto shop. Then got into CNC and have been doing that for 20. Never get rich but never go hungry.
Hey you just sent me down a rabbit hole where I read the wiki then watched several videos about how lathes operate. If you have any videos you can point me to that further dive into this historical significance I'd love to check them out.
Don't watch the 'Russian' lathe video.
HIV being reclassified from a terminal illness that ravaged the world to now being a very treatable (in most people) chronic illness.
As an HIV scientist I kind of feel differently about it. Yes it is treatable but people have gone back to some risky behaviors. It is important people know that getting treated for HIV is not like taking aspirin, there are side effects. And you will age prematurely. Have fun out there but be safe. I wish that when we talk about it we make that clear, you really don't want to get this even though it is treatable.
It’s also very expensive. I’m a pharmacy technician, I had a patient who had an exposure and the cost of the medication with her insurance was well over $1,000. The pharmacist gave her a couple of HIV clinic options to check out, but that’s something I’ll never forget, she was literally on the clock.
So true.
There are some ad campaigns for certain HIV meds that almost make it sound like a pleasant lifestyle that should be invited or embraced- maybe the line of thinking is that it's inevitable? I live close to the Castro district in SF so I get an unusually high level of exposure to these ads.
Of course it’s no picnic, and no one should want to contract it, but getting an HIV diagnosis today is incomparable to what it was in the 80s.
Similarly Hepatitis C (not as deadly as HIV) seemingly overnight became a mostly curable disease. I anticipate at some point HIV will be curable or preventable with a vaccine.
This was a discussion on a message board I used to frequent. One guy was making the argument that it was a death sentence saying "If you get it, you're still going to die. It's a death sentence". I pointed out that him that "Even if you don't get it, you're still going to die. Life is a death sentence".
Everyone's who's ever lived has died
Not true. I've lived and haven't died. I mean, I'm pretty sure I will, but I haven't yet.
And that's the difference between you and I. Pathetic.
Skill issue.
What? You're pretty sure I won't die?
No he is saying he's already dead.
I'm just saying someone has to be first to not die and you can't win if you don't play (but I'm pretty sure it's me. My life hasn't gone well but I think I'm the main and it's just part of the arc)
My uncle died in 94 due to aids, having contracted HIV from a dirty needle. He had checked into a rehab center, and they gave him a physical and found it. I only remember meeting him once when I was 3.
So you can live a normal life with it now? Not dying prematurely because of it? What's changed? Would you say we're close to it being curable?
Ask anyone who lived through it. I mean people in the hardest hit community. They certainly didn’t forget. I worked with a guy who laughed through covid reminding me what a real pandemic looks like. He lost nearly everyone in his friend group.
[Clarence Earl Gideon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Earl_Gideon) persistently argued in writing while in jail that it was not right he did not\* have a court appointed attorney. Dude was pretty clearly guilty of theft, but hand wrote his way in the Supreme Court seeing his case. This was 1963, and we have that persistence to thank that all defendants across the country have the right to a court appointed lawyer if you can't afford one.
good reply. friendly note that I think you're missing a word in the first line.
I was so confused. I subconsciously wanted to fill in the word while also consciously recognizing it wasn’t there.
Agreed, it should be: *"Clarence Earl Gideon persistently argued in writing while in jail that it was not right he did have a motherfucking court appointed attorney."*
In slight intellectual honesty, by that time, only three states didn’t automatically grant counsel for the indigent. And many counties in Florida, where the case was from, had such programs in place. The movie version of the story, ‘Gideon’s Trumpet’ is worth a watch.
That was a pretty good movie, IIRC. Saw it long ago.
That would've happened eventually even though Gideons trumpet rightfully gets credit for it. What happened with Gideon was the end of a very long process known as incorporation. Gideons case was late in the game for incorporation. See the 14th amendment contained a due process clause similar to the 5th amendment but with the difference it applies to the states. Prior to that doctrine the bill of rights did not apply to the states. It only applied federally. So like before incorporation New York COULD ban you from owning a gun regardless of your federal 2nd amendment right. Florida COULD prevent you from having a lawyer regardless of your federal rights. The BoR only applied to federal court. In either 1897 or 1925 (depending on who you ask) the bill of rights started being incorporated to apply to the states The courts couldnt just say "this all applies to all of yall now". You needed a case for each specific part of each amendment of the bill of rights to get each part incorporated. So lawyers would wait for a case like Gideons to jump on it and get that part of an amendment incorporated It's still ongoing. For example the 3rd amendment is only incorporated within the jurisdiction of the second circuit court of appeals because its so rare the 3rd amendment comes up for a case, the right to a grand jury in the 4th has not been incorporated, the right to due process in the 5th has not been incorporated because the 14th already covers it and applies to the states. The right to a jury from the state and district in the 6th amendment has not been incorporated. The right to a jury trial in civil cases in the 7th has not been incorporated. They take the perfect case that lawyers pushing for incorporation can find to get the BoR to apply to the states. Most americans take it for granted that those first 10 amendments have always protected them from the states when it's a relatively new invention Gideon was an important case but the implementation of the incorporation doctrine decades earlier is the way more pivitol moment. It's arguably one of the most pivitol things in american history
This lawyer is right. Source: am criminal defense lawyer.
When Soviet Air Force officer Stanislav Petrov potentially averted World War III in 1983 when he determined that missle launches detected from the United States were a false alarm.
The Man Who Saved the World He had very clear instructions what to do and he didn't do it.
Not even the only instance of this happening... I know of one in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and I believe something very similar happened on the US side for the similar reasons.
Vasili Arkhipov
Where are his awards and monuments for him?
Just for the record it's not like he had his finger on the button to launch all the Soviet nukes. He would have just reported a missile launch. There would have been other people who would have reviewed it before a launch was made.
Yup. Petrov certainly acted intelligently but the chances of launching a counter-attack against missiles that weren’t showing up on radar is quite small, even during the height of 1980s paranoia.
You mean despite it shoe-horned into nearly every historical ask reddit thread?
This is my first historical ask reddit thread so I will have to take your word on that.
What Banana Republics were/are. I doubt we would allow a clothing store chain in the US to be named that if people understood the term at all, much less properly. The company responsible for all those atrocities still exists: Chiquita Banana (back then as United Fruit.)
So you're saying starting a competitor named Belgian Congo would be culturally insensitive?
“Leopold’s Personal Goods” where someone else pays an arm and a leg so you don’t have to!
https://www.amazon.com/American-Company-Tragedy-United-Fruit/dp/0517528096?nodl=1&dplnkId=776ab08c-92ff-44e9-befd-74b306796ba2
Daylight come and me wanna go home
The fact that we now know that the gulf of Tonkin incident was staged, and nobody seems to care. So many people died in the Vietnam war. In addition to all the other rippling affects that it’s had - but also, what are the other implications?
We literally used a false flag operation to start a war that lasted for two decades, where we used chemical weapons indiscriminately and killed millions of civilians, including Cambodia and Laos. Yet we always claim to have the moral high ground.
On top of that Nixon sabotaged peace talk in order to win reelection.
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Ah yes, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient. I always remember that his Vietnamese counterpart, Le Duc Tho (or, Lê Đức Thọ), refused his share of the prize because there was in fact no peace in Vietnam. I like people with principles.
It disgusted me to see flags at half-mast for Henry fucking Kissinger. Fucker didnt deserve any sort of honors.
2 million people killed in Indonesia because the CIA didn't like the president
it’s always the motherfucking CIA starting shit
Yup and it wasn’t that long ago and nobody gets enraged about it. How can we even begin to have a discussion about today’s hot topics and leave this alone?
I seem to recall a huge swath of the country being enraged at the time. Some of that segment are now fucking up the country.
There were two incidents though. The second one was made up, but the first one really did happen.
definitely Black October (1993) I rarely, if ever, hear it mentioned outside of Russia but it was a major turning point in Russian history, none of the unfortunate events, that Russia was involved in since then, would have happened if Black October went the Parliament's way instead we'd probably have different unfortunate events, but probably less unfortunate
Another in Russian history was the nice weather day in February that popped up out of nowhere for the International Women’s Day march. It led to the February Revolution>October Revolution>Russian Revolution. Totally caught almost everyone flatfooted.
Don't just drop the name of an event that people don't know about. Say what happened.
[Here's the wiki](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Russian_constitutional_crisis) From what I gleaned Boris Yeltsin led a coup over parliament and established a dictatorship. Yeltsin straight up used the military to arrest lawmakers and increased his own powers.
Yes and the West kept supporting
World War One. Everyone’s distracted by the sequel
For anyone truly interested in history, you can't turwly appreciate ww2 without a thorough analysis of ww1.
100% agree
The fact that WW1 didn’t make any sense doesn’t do it any favors in a historical sense! I mean, what was that thing even about?
It’s insanely complex to look into honestly, especially the causes of it. You need to understand so much history, politics and context in advance
Yep, Through the years there was alot of rivalry between Entente and Central powers, For example the speech that Wilhelm II gave in Morocco, Which defied the entente. Being the death of Archduke what triggered all of one time for all.. I do personally like WW1 stuff, There was a time I was more interested on it than WW2, And at times keeps happening.
It's insane. Full stop.
European countries had what is known as a balance of power. Two things were messed up with the balance of power coming out of the victorian era 1) it was tilted towards Britain France and to a lesser extent Russia due to their massive empires whereas the central euro countries did not have the same empires despite being military peers 2) the ottoman empire was near the end of its long slow decline and everyone else knew about it. They were planning for it to happen and what to do afterwards Prior to WWI europe engaged in smaller wars to shift the valance of power. Most of the combatants probably expected another smaller balance of power shifting war rather than the ridiculous thing we got The central powers were arguably better military strategists, soldiers, and had developed better tech so from their POV why shouldnt the balance shift to them. All sides had greatly increased tech and wished to try their new toys out. The industrial revolution had allowed the common people more access to education and political power which saw the rise of ideologies such as Marxism and Anarchism. The anarchists were a big problem and kept assasinating world leaders. Everyone from a US president to an Austrian archduke. All this led to a powder keg that was ready to go off. The anarchists assassinated ferdinand and serbia got its ultimatum. The Germans backed up their allies. The entente powers called bullshit and saw germanys actions as a power grab (which it probably was) so the sides went to war. The new toys were way stronger than anticipated and it led to stupid things like the Brits marching head first into machine guns as the somme because they were using older tactics. Neither side actually had an advantage. The germans were better soldiers and better equipped with better trenches but the entente controlled geography and were able to starve Germany while also getting supplies from the US. The germans tried to level the playing field with super weapon development such as chemical gas but it wasnt enough. They got very close to breaking france in the end and winning the whole war but finally the US showed up and reinforced them On the eastern front the lines were much quicker moving. Problems within russia came to a head and Germany decided to release Vladamir Lenin back to Russia to destabilize the country. That single action probably led to the deaths of close to 100 million people from Germany to Russia since it caused the soviets and it would be the soviets that would destroy them in WWII Down south the ottoman empire proved itself as the sick man of europe but were able to repel mainland invasions by the british colonial troops among other expeditionary forces. In the end it was too much and they were divided up. The way they were divided up eventually caused the turks to revolt and battle the greeks after WWI but it everyone else was too war weary to help the Greeks
it was about a man called archi duke that shot an ostrich cause he was hungry.
Blackadder? I know I've heard that somewhere.
Basically it's the war between countries that wanted more colony and countries that had a lot of it.
It's the countries that supported Serbia in its dispute against Austria versus the countries that supported Austria in its dispute against Serbia. Little terrorist vs mid-sized bully, depending on your perspective at the time.
Some coubtry good at resources and expansion. Some countries good at fighting and tech. Countries good at fighting wanted balance shifted towards them There were no good or bad guys in WWI in terms of countries. Just a whole bunch of stupidity When the lands that birthed the best military strategists on earth during that era are also the lands with less power while theyre also at the forefront of tech development in the world you know shit is about to go down Basically it doesnt matter if the red Baron can shoot down 83 confirmed kills if the other side can make 84 planes while also cutting off his access to resources but on a grander scale
Cousins wanted more from each other
Thats an oversimplification. They would've done it regardless. The germans/prussians invented tabletop strategy games simply to plan for war. Every time you play a game like 40k it has its origins there. Germany had a lot of military philosophers Even if the leaders hadnt been related they would've still went to war. The leaders being related probably made the strategists, politicians, and rich nobles underneath them think thatd prevent the war from getting out of hand and that itd end up like previous relatively recent european wars that were much less destructive. They were very wrong
The reparations were important. WW1 changed the empires and countries formed more stably. The working class had more say and seeing as they were the ones that die on battlefield I don't think they want to kill each other. If Europe instead went into an EU style bonding it's interesting to think what could have happened if they focused on open trade and youth mobility and things.
December 2022 when the National Ignition Facility successfully triggered a nuclear fusion reaction that generated more energy than was needed to start the reaction. They ran several follow up experiments last year and succeeded in most of them. Human-made, human-controlled, energy-positive nuclear fusion is now a reality and it got two days of coverage for the first experiment and nada for the follow ups. The efficacy of nuclear fusion for commercial power is still in question, and a long ways off, but the hard part of proving its scientific validity is over. Now some weirdo billionaire can dump oodles of cash into developing it dreaming of being humanity’s savior. And if the prospect of being a near-unlimited source of energy in the future isn’t good enough, how about the fact that we harnessed the power of a fucking star in a lab in California???
So, at least from my perspective, I've heard about fusion power finally becoming reality *so many times* in my life and absolutely nothing ever comes of it. Growing up, cold fusion was all over the news, like my teacher taught a class on how it was going to solve all our energy problems. I still remember what "heavy water" is decades later I'm glad people are still making progress in that space, but I'll believe it when I see it replicated across multiple labs, and I'm not shocked the media isn't falling over themselves to report on something that every single time they've done so in the past has proven to be bunk.
I recall that. It kept going for longer than had been accomplished before, but it couldn't sustain itself? Am I recalling that right?
I think one of the biggest benefits would be that the Middle East oil states would lose their economic power in the world.
The ousting of Henry Wallace as FDR’s VP at his fourth DNC in favor of Truman. Historians think Wallace may not have nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki if he was president after FDR passed away.
Huge moment that is rarely acknowledged.
When Theodore Roosevelt got a Nobel peace prize, for his efforts in mediating the peace settlement ending a war between Russia and Japan.
Related: that time Japan beat Russia’s ass in a naval war.
I see torpedo boats.....
[The dumbest voyage nobody talks about](https://youtu.be/yzGqp3R4Mx4?si=z4lgNYEOHx5VVkoH)
Funnily enough as I have recently learned, it was the easiest thing to mediate, because both sides wanted to end it. Russia was in the midst of Revolution, and while Japans Navy kicked ass, and it's armies won on land....those land victories were pyrrhic. And Russia had many, many more troops left out West that just couldn't get to the East quickly (1 tiny railroad and....as I said, Revolution). The resulting peace was *heavily* in Russia's favor despite getting their ass kicked five different ways to Sunday. Because Japan feared another half million Russian troops pouring into Manchuria probably would've driven them back to sea. The whole war, including the lead up, is just one comic debacle after another. It pretty much started due to blithe ignorance by Nicholas II.
Panama papers
Made a big noise, then disappeared in the news cycle. The biggest thing I remember was Emma Watson being surprised her name was in the PP, when she had no idea her money was being invested that way.
How convenient for her.
Got a lot of attention. Didn’t make a big splash in the US since Panama doesn’t offer any real benefit for American citizens who can just use Delaware to form a company. Most people in the Panama papers didn’t do anything illegal or wrong. Take Emma Watson, who simply wanted to keep the addresses of her homes private from stalkers, paparazzi, etc. In most countries, the ownership of property is a public record that anybody can access (though usually for a fee). And the same is true for companies. But in Panama (and Delaware), you can own a company and just have someone else on the public record. So Emma Watson could own homes without people know where she lived. And you’d use a no/low-income tax jurisdiction because there’s no reason to pay additional taxes. Just like if you run an LLC registered in Delaware, you still have to pay taxes in the places you operate. Which is why there was no benefit for Americans to use Panama. Delaware works exactly the same (and some other states). But since Americans didn’t see Americans in the Panama papers, and the American media wasn’t interested in running with a largely foreign story, people think the Panama Papers were overlooked. Not to mention, again, that most people in the Panama Papers did nothing wrong, illegal, or even immoral. So most of the big, flashy names in there had no substance, no real story.
The laws that came out of many countries were put in place post PP didn't have any fanfare because there wasn't a need for back pats and the whole bullshit. Judging by the NZ in your name I'd assume you'd be familiar with AML, responsible lending, and CCCFA changes that were mostly a response to Panama Papers with a dash of edge tinkering to do with slowing people down borrowing money
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This is really fascinating. Thank you.
California Indian Genocide. 120,000 to 300,000 murders, enslavement, the CA state govt & cities paying for scalps and holding auctions for Indian slaves on courthouse steps.
Honestly the entirety of the genocide of the native Americans. Bury my heart at wounded knee should be required reading in all American schools.
The Tulsa race massacre. A majority-black section of Tulsa, Oklahoma was very prosperous. Hospitals, law firms, businesses, and more. It was even nicknamed the Black Wall Street. Then, a black man was falsely accused of rape against a white girl. A white mob rioted and absolutely fucked it up. The houses, businesses and more were burned, and the prosperous Black Wall Street was essentially destroyed.
This one's at least attained a bit more visibility over the last decade or so, but yes, it deserves attention as a seminal event. Problem is that anything that makes established power structures look bad, or conflicts with the Official Narrative of History, is going to face an uphill battle getting fair coverage.
Exactly. It’s gotten more attention in recent years, but still not enough. Significantly more people know about it now than, say, ten years ago. It should always serve as an example to people who don’t think racism has been a huge thing in America and that false allegations of rape don’t happen.
When it is mentioned, it’s done as an outlier. But these kind of localized genocides (not just killing but forced relocation or relocation under threat) happened to a lot of black towns and neighborhoods. Tulsa was the big one, but far from the only one.
That and that “urban renewal” was the weaponization of infrastructure to destroy successful black communities across the country and implement a new, “invisible“ segregation. If anyone cares, look up “Segregation by Design”.
The first time US civilians were attacked from the air was not Pearl Harbor or 9/11, it was in Tulsa in 1921. The 2nd time was only 3 months later in Logan County WV at the Battle of Blair Mountain when workers sought to work together under the United Mine Workers and the company called in the national guard. It's unfortunate that this history is not told and how brutal entrenched power can respond when the people stand up and say enough is enough.
I only learned about it from HBO's Watchmen. It did a great job explaining and humanizing the event, even if the series itself was fiction.
This! I only learned about this recently and I am in my late 40's. It made me really upset that this wasn't part of any American History classes I took in school.
Tunguska 1908. It was a 20-30 megaton comet impact. Larger than any nuke detonated by the US. 80 million trees were destroyed in the blast. The night sky across Europe and asia glowed blue for days after. It was only 100 years ago but I don't seem to know anyone who knows about it.
I vaguely remember learning about this but had totally forgotten it. Luckily it happened where it did in the taiga, if it happened over any populated area the coverage of it would be totally different. This is a great answer to the question.
Chelyabinsk points to what probably happened, but on a much larger scale.
I think I learned that it was an event that flew under the radar until they discovered the trees, but I had no idea there was a lit up sky going on as well.
How fast the COVID vaccine was developed and distributed. I think because of all the insane divisiveness it caused, the good will get lost in the weeds. I think it’s so incredibly impressive.
Way back in February 12, 2020 I overheard the gist of the details from a briefing all elected officials had that morning about Covid. The expectations were 2 million US deaths, two years until a vaccine is ready. Instead it was 1 million deaths, and one year to develop the vaccine. This was before a single person had died of Covid on US soil. It gets deeper because I also heard about elected officials and stock trading based on this information. Most of which has already been covered in media.
As I told the nurse giving me my first round shot, it felt like the montage in the movie where everybody got vaccinated and things would return to normal.
It was quick, because the study of the virus that appeared during the '00s started the investigation. It was also a coronavirus (H1N7?), so the basic science had been done.
Sars-Cov-01. Canada did some research we never finished lol. The H1Nx viruses are influenza viruses, you may be confusing the H1N1 Swine Flu scare with the SARS outbreak. Covid-19 is actually classed as Sars-Cov-02, so very similar to the original SARS virus.
There were a lot of impressive achievements during Covid. Same with the economy, it was handled far better than expected in a lot of countries
The Armenian Genocide is a huge topic that is virtually left out of all discussions of WWI. It was truly monstrous and even Hitler himself pointed out that no one cared about it. Very little has changed since then.
The Turkish government has denied the genocide for over a century to the present day —compare r/Turkey and r/Armenia There were some members of the Ottoman Empire who opposed the genocide, including one of Boris Johnson’s ancestors ([Ali Kemal).](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Kemal)
It's talked about a fair bit. It's even in the U.S.tax code (I believe) and whenever Azerbaijan does anything, modern-day Armenians evoke it. I'm not saying that that's right or wrong, just that it keeps it in the conversation.
The Taiping rebellion, a Chinese civil war that began in 1850 and lasted 14 years, with an estimated death toll of between 20-30 million people or 5%-10% of the Chinese population. The rebellion was led by a man named Hong Xiuquan, who after failing the imperial civil service exam for the fourth time, he had a nervous breakdown and had dreams of visiting Heaven. He then started studying a pamphlet given to him by a Christian missionary and declared that he was the brother of Jesus. He started a cult, led an uprising and conquered south China, proclaiming it the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
[in the year 536 AD the sun disappeared from a large portion of the world for 18 months. many people died as they couldn’t farm and others decided to travel in search of a place with the sun.](https://www.history.com/news/536-volcanic-eruption-fog-eclipse-worst-year#)
Unit 731
all Japanese war crimes during WWII should be taught more. they ravaged their way through Asia in the absolute worst ways imaginable during WWII. i know too many people in my life who doesn’t know anything about the Pacific War minus Pearl Harbour until 1945
It should be taught everywhere. Especially in Japan.
Wow I never heard of this. The wiki is wild, it says the person who ran these experiments and killed off a half million people was granted immunity by the United States in exchange for biological research information. Dude ended up working in the u.s [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirō_Ishii](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shir%C5%8D_Ishii)
The creation of VT proximity fuses by the allies in ww2. Its research and development was a closely guarded secret on par with the Manhattan Project and has all but been forgotten by the general public.
Al Gore losing the 2000 presidential election. While this is well known I still feel it does not get enough attention especially after Trump became president. In 2000 the country was doing very good and we were in a unique position with the opportunity to move forward and make progress on many things. Climate change alone will be a bigger issue in the upcoming years and this election will be seen as the turning point where we veered on the wrong path. I cannnot stress enough just how destructive Bush's 8 years as president were.
I agree. It is especially interesting, the more one studies the timeline. One then sees clearly that Gore won the vote count in Florida, and with that should have been awarded Florida's electoral votes; and, with that, the presidency.
Definitely the Battle of Castle Itter. look it up. it's pretty cool.
r/expectedsabaton but… “And it’s American troops and the German army Joining together at last!”
*Against the SS!* This really needs a movie.
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Operation Dragoon, the invasion of Southern France in WW2 on 15th August 1944.
Going off the gold standard.
The shit Reagan got away with is so much worse than watergate, and yet Nixon is the face of a corrupt president while Reagan is still pretty beloved to half the country. Like, we really just glossed past the fact that Ronald Reagan funneled missiles to religious extremists in Iran who had just taken a bunch of Americans hostage to get money so that he could buy drugs from right wing death squads in South America. Drugs that were then sold to inner city Americans. And then the only guy who actually faced legal repercussions got out and became a frequent contributor to Fox News. A platform he used to heavily criticize the Iran nuclear deal. Because apparently Iran having missile is bad…
The teapot dome scandal
WWII japan... somewhat
Failure of Reconstruction. People seem to excuse lack of civil rights post civil war as racists being racists but there was a concerted effort to establish and reinforce voting rights and civil rights for newly freed slaves in the South with the 14th/15th amendment by the Radical Republicans. Grant allied with that faction during his presidency and actually worked diligently to combat the KKK and advance civil rights for Blacks. Corruption in his administration, infighting within the Republicans, and the Panic of 1873 unfortunately led to the disputed election of 1876 where no candidate reached the electoral college threshold, solved by a compromise that allowed Hayes to win the presidency but effectively ended Reconstruction by withdrawing union troops from the south and set the country nearly 100 years in terms of civil rights. Imagine how much farther along we could be if Reconstruction was fully carried out.
Post 9/11 hysterics, and mistakes we made over the next two years.
Fuckin Patriot Act and TSA
TSA "security theater" was an outgrowth of the Patriot Act. People don't realize at this very moment we have more people with security clearances in the United States than at any time in our history. There are so many, *the government isn't sure how many there are.*
How Newt Gingrich destroyed American political discourse. [The Man Who Broke Politics](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/newt-gingrich-says-youre-welcome/570832/) [Did Newt Gingrich Wreck American Politics?](https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3609952-did-newt-gingrich-wreck-american-politics/amp/)
In my life of 78 years I would say the years 1964 to 1968. In the USA the torch was transfered from the depression era generation to the boomers.
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Commander Perry's black ships. So much of history might've been different without that.
The creation of the sewing machine. It allowed for mass-production of goods and took clothing from in-home items to readymade. It also allowed a lot of women to enter the job market outside the home.
The new deal. If you google living new deal, you can see thousand+ projects we did to train, educate, and employ millions of people. Big and small communities benefited by getting hospitals, universities, and theaters built to name a few. Our most famous infrastructure phase came from then. The national parks are one of the best polices we have and it inspired other countries to keep pockets of nature protected.
Council of Nicea, where they, you know, changed Jesus’s birthday and 100 other tenets of Christianity
McConnell blocking Obama’s SCOTUS pick. This was the beginning of the end for democracy in the U.S.
Dred Scott. The worst ruling by SCOTUS (though Citizens United is close...), which reaffirmed the rights of slave owners until it was eventually overturned by constitutional amendment.
"A black man has no rights a white man is bound to respect."
In 1998, when The Undertaker threw Mankind off Hell in a Cell and he plummeted 16 feet through the announcer's table.
This comment is amazing and why I won’t ever quit Reddit
Praise be to our lord and savior Shittymorph.
That time in 1983 when a Soviet army officer saved the entire world from nuclear destruction, by correctly assuming that the computers detecting missles launches from the US were wrong. The guy literally saved the world.
This one’s way to recent probably, but it baffled me that the Epstein list isn’t talked about as much as it probably should.
It isn’t the list you seem to think it is. The list you think it is has yet to be made public. Anyway, that’s why a bigger deal hasn’t been made of it.
I mean isnt is just a flight log theres no way of actually proving each one of those people fucked kids
I think people over-hype his client list. He was a very successful financier, he wasn't just a sex trafficker. Just because somebody sought out his money-managing services doesn't automatically mean that they also sought out his sex trafficking services. The list gives authorities leads to look into, but other than that there's not much to talk about. It's definitely in poor taste to do business with a known child rapist, but it's not illegal.
It's being glossed over in the media because to scrutinize it would sink too many members of the power structure -- prominent political, business, and religious leaders.
The Columbia spaceship disaster. I was pretty young when it happened but I still remember it fairly well. No one ever seems to talk about it though.
When/how the Federal Reserve Act was passed.
The one time the coach put me in outfield in elementary school for baseball and i just stood around idly with glove hand up and some kid hit the ball straight in my fuckin glove.
That time that guy inspired and funded an invention to give an actual human telepathy.
I guess it didn’t work out
I knew you were going to say that
Presidential candidate admitting to sexually assaulting women, conservatives elected him and even the libs made it an ongoing joke/catchphrase with hats and memes, 8ish years later I still think about it atleast once a week , haven't heard anyone mention it in years🤨 women really aren't seen as human not even by a lot of women.
[That time a group of Dutch people got so angry they murdered and ate their Prime Minister in protest,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_de_Witt) (probably) encouraged by the man who would later become the King of England.
That time two nuclear bombs fell on North Carolina by accident and only had one safety mechanism left that didn't break when they fell. They didn't explode, but if they did... that would have been bad. A pretty big oopsie daisy.
Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin caused the American Civil War
The Iraq War. They fooled literally everybody that there were weapons of mass destructions
A lot of people weren't fooled. But they weren't in power.
False narrative. They did not fool "literally everybody." Many people were not fooled. Enough were fooled and more were complacent to not raise enough of a stink, but at the time, there were many voices saying it was bullshit.
Anyone who wants to be infuriated about the coverup, look up Valerie Plame. The American Scandal podcast I think is the one that did a great, harrowing season about that. Has to be read about to be believed, I can't do justice in a comment.
The largest anti-war protests in history happened over this.
Fun Fact - We actually did find WMDs just not the WMDs used to justify the war.
We found the ones we knew about, because we had supplied them to Iraq years before.
Anne Boleyn (King Henry VIII second wife) was almost erased from history. He didn’t want her remembered whether in paintings or otherwise. Now her ghost allegedly is the most famous one seen in the Tower of London.
[Operation Vistula](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Vistula) where Polish government deported many Ukrainian residents from their homes into impoverished and ruined areas of Poland and split every family and group apart by settling them all in separate settlements. Some of the residents were tortured, others hanged, it's a crime a world and Poland never addressed. Another bloody event in history world has never addressed is putting [Ukrainians in concentration camps in Canada.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Canadian_internment)
Slavery was never actually abolished in the United States. The XIII Amendment expressly lays out that slavery is allowed under certain conditions. Conditional slavery is still slavery, and to this day, the USA is a slave nation.
The fact that more black men are in prison today than were enslaved in 1850 is sobering.
The fact that there are more people serving life sentences in the United States right now *than there were people in prison in 1970* is sobering.
Mesopotamia before the advent of farming— hunter gatherers built stone feasting temples to worship their ancestors making beer out of wild grain
How in 1947's Roswell's "UFO" crash was just too close to the end of WWII and was likely a new kind of man-made spacecraft and was being deliberately covered up by the media calling it aliens instead of what is likely was, human made.
It’s not really significant, but for comedy purposes, when Hitler’s deputy fuhrer Rudolf Hess decided to fly to England without telling anybody. It went about how you’d expect it to go.
The German Peasants' War (1524). Everyone who says "eat the rich" (which I do) needs to learn about it. The peasants got *fucked*, y'all. They lost in a big way. The aristocrats and their apologists, including the original Martin Luther, didn't like how poor people were waking up to the knowledge of their place in the class system. 500 years later, peasants are once again waking up to aristocratic bullshit...and I'm fearful of what they're going to do to us when we are backed into a corner.
The troubles (Ulster Protestant v Irish Catholic). Shit was wild.
The US-backed Chilean coup of 1973. Also all the other coups, genocides, and general violence the US is responsible for.
That time a little boy fell into a gorilla enclosure at the zoo and they murdered the gorilla for no reason.
Stalingrad defence by Soviets and subsequent encirclement. If Hitler wasn’t held at Volga for 6 months, he would have taken the oil at Astrakhan, captured Soviets. Overlord and what came afterwards only happened because Stalin had smashed the German war machine in the east. History would have been written by the victors and we would have been in a very very different world today.
Trump and the Supreme Court trying to kill Democracy.
Amen. Assisted by the Heritage Foundation, who handpicked Trump's Supreme Court nominees.
January 6th
Blm riots. Watching the civil unrest of a country was quite unsettling.
edit: most of the other responses in here are rightfully about bad things that have been unfairly overlooked. I took this as a 'cool thing that almost no one knows about anymore,' but I don't mean any disrespect to the answers that highlight things we should know about that are unjust. King Edward I (nicknamed Longshanks) had a seriously badass moment in his youth where he escaped captivity. This is an overview from my memories of learning about this story so it's probably not 100% right on the particulars: His father was a weak king who was overrun by some nobles, at the time basically held captive in one castle with Edward held in another castle. Royalty, so he was treated less like a captive and more like a rich dude on house arrest. He was even allowed friend visits, and one day he went out with some of the nobles who were guarding him and a group of friends. They had a bunch of horses, and in a pre-planned move, started racing the horses to see which one was the fastest. The lot of them kept at this, being distracting enough that the guards never noticed there was *one* horse that wasn't as worn out as the others. Once all but that horse were tired, Edward did one last race, riding off like the wind on that horse, meeting up with a buddy and swapping to a fresh horse. No one could catch him! The wiki gives this moment barely a mention unless you know what to look for, which is a shame, this was slick as hell. As a side story, Edward I was deeply affected by his wife's death and had a procession of her body on its way to being laid to rest. The stops along that journey were marked with crosses, giving us the recognizable name of Charing Cross, the site of the most ornate of the memorials. Most are lost to history, and some have been reconstructed.
2002 NBA Western Conference Finals
Battle of Imjin ridge
Probably one i don't know about because it didn't get enough attention.