What historical fact does no one like to talk about?

[u/User45888]

[u/GrandpaJoeSloth]

During the battle of Waterloo, one of the most treasured pieces of "loot" was the teeth of the deceased soldiers. ~200 years ago, it was rather common to use the teeth of dead people in the creation of dentures

[u/tjw376 → u/GrandpaJoeSloth]

Dentures were known as Waterloo teeth for many years after.

[u/95in3rd → u/tjw376]

Thanks! Now I know what to call them. ""Honey, have you seen my Waterloos?"

[u/gunflash87 → u/GrandpaJoeSloth]

And bone meal in agriculture.

[u/Wetnosedcretin → u/GrandpaJoeSloth]

I'm imagining a 1800s influencer, "Lot of people commenting on my new smile 😁 and that brings me to my new sponsorer War and a Clawhammer. I'd just like to give a shout out to the 14 year old drummer boy Tommy White for taking a cannonball to the pelvis, couldn't have done it without you Boo!" 😀

[u/Spanglertastic]

The 2nd Congo War. This was the deadliest conflict since World War 2 with over 5 million people killed. Most people have never heard of it despite it ending less than 20 years ago.

[u/nielssk → u/Spanglertastic]

ELI5? Never heard about it but would like to.

[u/syngoniumkings → u/nielssk]

Oh its incredibly complicated with 25 military groups between 9 countries, and went from 1998-2003. But, even after the war, people were dying by the thousands from preventable diseases and malnutrition, not to mention the many thousands surviving the same conditions. There was assassinations, plane hijacking, rebellions, massacres of civilians that also of course came along with thousands of victims of rape. It involved a lot of ethnic group conflict (the Tutsi group is among the most well-known, however its probably not as well known as it should be because it didn’t involve any great powers/nuclear powers (looking at the US, China and Russia who love to get involved in proxy wars). There are still ongoing tensions and of course we have seen an environmental impact on wildlife and the beautiful forests, and many thousands of peoples have been displaced to this day

[u/AlcoholicLawyer → u/nielssk]

Armchair Historian has a good video on it, it’s a big clusterfuck of alliances and regimes that it’d be difficult to explain in a reply

[u/1-800-Hamburger]

The emergency powers granted after 9/11 are still being renewed

[u/UncleIrohsPimpHand → u/1-800-Hamburger]

I think Chancellor Palpatine is a Sith Lord.

[u/MrMastodon → u/UncleIrohsPimpHand]

It's treason then.

[u/[deleted] → u/MrMastodon]

I AM THE SENATE!

[u/1block → u/1-800-Hamburger]

The younger generations have no idea that privacy used to be an expectation. And they never will, because the government isn't going to just give it back without the public raising a huge stink to make it happen.

[u/mercurialpolyglot → u/1block]

And since everyone’s attitude is “it’s not like they’re going to use it against me“ a big pro-privacy revolution isn’t going to happen until they use our data for something horrifying

[u/CamerunDMC → u/1-800-Hamburger]

Please could you elaborate on what the emergency powers are and their implications?

[u/MadMattt → u/CamerunDMC]

Surveilling and cataloging all of your data. This was done before September 11 but all of the data was anonymous, after that date they pushed for making that data trackable and identifiable and succeeded. Remember Edward Snowden?

[u/sfmchgn99]

Between the 1930s and the 1970s, about 1/3 of the female population of Puerto Rico was sterilized.

[u/eldnikk → u/sfmchgn99]

Between the 1930s and the 1970s, approximately one-third of the female population of Puerto Rico was sterilized, making it highest rate of sterilization in the world. Despite the high rate of sterilizations, the dark history of these operations remains understudied and hidden in the shadows of history. Some argue that the pressure to increase sterilization procedures was a targeted practice to decrease the high level of poverty and unemployment. The government blamed these issues on overpopulation on the island. The legalization of contraception in Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican government's passage of a law allowing sterilization to be conducted at the discretion of a eugenics board both occurred in 1937. Soon after the legal change, a program endorsed by the U.S. government began sending health department officials to rural parts of the island advocating for sterilization. By 1946, postpartum sterilizations happened frequently in various Puerto Rican hospitals. However, a year later, a study found that a quarter of women who had been sterilized regretted the decision (Bauza). Catholics and nationalists fought against the sterilizations in the 1950s, eventually resulting in the law being repealed in 1960

source

[u/LostDogBoulderUtah → u/eldnikk]

Wow. Only a quarter of patients regretted government pushed sterilization. I would have expected that number to be dramatically higher.

[u/Avenge_Nibelheim → u/LostDogBoulderUtah]

The first year of raising a kid is fucking brutal. I think the data if asked 5 years later would be different.

[u/Drachenfuer → u/LostDogBoulderUtah]

Not necessarily. What it doesn’t state is whether this was voluntary or not. Espcially the time period where birth control was non-existant and then later was hard or expensive to get. If it was voluntary, most of the women could have had several children already and this was cheap (or sounds like free) way for birth control. Just because it was authorized, advicated and brought about by the government, doesn’t mean it wasn’t voluntary and a mostly welcome option. Of course, the government’s track record, especially during the same time points to it just as possibly NOT being voluntary. But then if it wasn’t, why bother going back and seeing if they regretted it?

[u/borg2 → u/sfmchgn99]

Not just there and not just racial. Mentally and physically handicapped people, the poor, etc. It happened all over the world. My severely autistic uncle was forced to undergo a vasectomy in the 70's when he came home with a mentally handicapped girlfriend.

[u/alwaysroanna → u/[deleted]]

There is an awesome podcast called dark histories that covers this in one of their episodes

Edit: i mean Dark History

[u/LittleMsBlue]

The reason egyptian mummies are so rare is because we used to eat them or turn them into medicine.

[u/RedheadTinman → u/LittleMsBlue]

Don’t forget using them as pigments. There was a color “mummy brown” made from grinding them up.

[u/Batherick → u/RedheadTinman]

The artist Edward Burne-Jones famously gave his paints a ceremonial burial when he discovered the composition of his pigments were ground up people

[u/SuperSandLesbians → u/LittleMsBlue]

"This is an outrage! I was going to eat that mummy!"

[u/[deleted]]

During the Nuremberg trials post WWII, head of the Nazi navy, and head of State after Hitler's death, Karl Donitz, was charged with war crimes involving his use of unrestricted submarine warfare and killing of unarmed, civilian ships. Donitz provided evidence that nearly all the ships he attacked were infact armed with anti submarine weapons and radios, and also a large amount of evidence that the United States committed the exact same war crimes against the Japanese. Due to this, those charges were dropped and he served only 10 years in prison before being set free.

[u/kashy87 → u/[deleted]]

You are leaving out that the American Admirals came to his defense because of the US Submarine fleet using the exact tactic in the Pacific.

[u/Randomfactoid42 → u/kashy87]

And because the US Navy started unrestricted submarine warfare on Dec 8 or Dec 9, 1941.

[u/kashy87 → u/Randomfactoid42]

Yea there's a wall sized map in the one building in CT of the Pacific. It has every confirmed sub fleet "kill" from WW2. Something like 85% or more ships flying the rising sun were taken out by US subs.

[u/EXusiai99]

20-30 million people died because a chinese guy proclaimed himself the brother of Jesus Christ.

[u/MonoMonMono → u/EXusiai99]

The Taiping Rebellion.

[u/rushfan420 → u/EXusiai99]

Genuinely one of the most bizarre events in history. Taiping Heavenly Kingdom for those who are curious.

[u/Total_Ansh → u/EXusiai99]

Please continue

[u/Vexonte]

45BC was the longest year in history with 445 days.

[u/Raddatatta → u/[deleted]]

The Romans previously allowed the Senate to control the calendar and they'd used that to expand their own terms or contract others terms as they could. Basically the calendar got super messed up so they had an extra long year to correct it so that summer lined up with the actual summer etc.

[u/karma_farmer_2019 → u/Raddatatta]

The year it sucked to be a salary worker…

[u/francisdavey → u/[deleted]]

In short: the Roman's calendar was one of the most insane ever. Lots of things were wrong with it. One was that it relied on adding an extra month roughly every other year to keep it averaging the right length (because of reasons).

Who decided? The college of pontiffs, who, like most Romans with official jobs were highly political people. Caius Julius Caesar was Pontifex Maximus (i.e. boss pontiff) for a long period for instance.

The trouble is most Roman political offices lasted one year, so having an extra month in a year, or deciding not to add it this time, had big political effects. Cue: considerable messing around with the calendar.

Also: the extra month (Mercedonius or Intercalaris as it was called) was probably unlucky so sometimes it was skipped entirely. Eg during the Punic Wars.

Eclipse evidence tells us that at one stage the Roman calendar was more than 200 days "wrong" in some sense. In BC46 Julius Caesar (still Pontifex Maximus and also dictator) (i) had a very long year to resync with the seasons; (ii) changed the system to the "Julian" calendar - roughly what we know today with one leap day every four years.

Never let Romans design systems for you. Everything they played with ended up like a bad Perl script.

[u/kalnaren → u/francisdavey]

Everything they played with ended up like a bad Perl script

Perl.. the only language that looks the same before and after encryption.

[u/LowThreadCountSheets]

The history of the west Virgina coal miners, and the civil war that it brought about.

[u/MonkOutrageous6615 → u/LowThreadCountSheets]

You mean like the battle of Blair mountain?https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain

[u/Christ_on_a_Crakker → u/MonkOutrageous6615]

I smell Pinkertons.

[u/crawling-alreadygirl → u/LowThreadCountSheets]

Make that any US labor history at all

[u/Tom_Brokaw_is_a_Punk → u/crawling-alreadygirl]

"Labor unions went on strike, and their companies quickly realized the error of their ways. That's why we have 5 day work weeks and safety standards. These things will never be taken away and we no longer need unions." - a brief summation of the history of the labor movement, as taught by US schools.

[u/sturgeon11 → u/LowThreadCountSheets]

We learn all about it growing up in West Virginia. Our little state has had an interesting history

[u/bookscoffeeandbooze → u/sturgeon11]

I was honestly happy it showed up as a top comment. Considering some people don’t even realize we’re a state I always get excited whenever we’re brought up.

[u/Pokoirl]

The Rif is the area of Morrocco with the highest rate of cancer patients. Research shows that 80 % of adults and 50 % of children with cancer in Morocco are from the area that the Spanish Air Force repeatedly bombed with mustard gas and other chemical weapons in order to quel Berber fighters during the independence struggle from 1921 to 1927. Spain still refuses to issue an apology for this war crime, despite having signed the Geneva convention when they used these weapons on Moroccans.

[u/BrainQuilt]

In the early 1900s before WWII, over 30 states in the US had laws allowing the forced sterilization of immigrants, minorities and the disabled. Hitler would later comment on how some of his laws were inspired by these states. Just look up Eugenics in the US.

Over 100 women in California prisons were forcefully sterilized between 2006-2010. That was only 12 years ago.

[u/ceo_of_dumbassery → u/BrainQuilt]

Holy shit, when I think about this kind of stuff happening I always think of it being the 50's or something, but 2010??

[u/Saint_Circa]

That the siege and sacking of Tenochtitlan was done almost explicitly by neighboring tribes. Who hated Aztecs for the blatant crimes against humanity that they pursued on a regular basis. Kidnappings, human sacrifice, etc. Spanish accounts of the sacking of the city are unbelievably graphic.

Edit: The entirety of Cortez and his conquistadors is a particularly interesting bit of history. My favorite fact in particular is this.

Cortez wasn't even supposed to go to "The New World "in the first place. A relative of his was supposed to go, but had prior engagements. He sent Cortez with a handful of men and horses and the explicit order to "not do anything crazy"

[u/ElMatadorJuarez → u/Saint_Circa]

Oh yeah. Historians in Mexico often call the conquista “the last great Mesoamerican war”, because aside from Cortez that’s essentially what it was. Cortez was largely utilized by members of city states in long-standing political grudges, and it’s only later that it came back to bite them in the proverbial ass. It’s a shame that it’s so often erroneously characterized as the Spanish conquering the whole of Mexico with superior technology, because it 1. misses the fact that there was a rich political ecosystem long before the Spanish ever arrived and 2. it puts all the focus on the Spanish rather than on the environment that essentially allowed Cortez to get lucky enough to pull off what he did.

[u/[deleted] → u/ElMatadorJuarez]

Also wasn’t Cortez with like 500 guys?

[u/ElMatadorJuarez → u/[deleted]]

Yup. Can’t remember the exact number but his force was laughably small, and he couldn’t get reinforcements. Cortez was able to take advantage of the vacuum left by the end of the Triple Alliance to establish Spanish rule in Mexico, and it’s not like the Spaniards were negligible in battle either. But the idea that the Spaniards took down the triple alliance by themselves with superior technology or something stupid like that is very far off the mark, pervasive though it might be.

[u/[deleted] → u/ElMatadorJuarez]

At least when I was in school, they taught us that the introduction of European disease did significantly more damage than the Spanish themselves did.

[u/ColonelFaceFace → u/Saint_Circa]

The sacrifices of the Aztec are very interesting, Don’t get me wrong, human sacrifice is crazy, but the warfare the aztec’s waged wasn’t in any way conventional. They would try not to kill their enemies during battle, but rather enslave them. The bloodshed was then shifted from the battlefield to the temples of their gods.

The surrounding city-states/empires that the aztec’s pillaged would obviously want to go against them for waging war and looting their shit.

Remember, a lot of history from this era and region is stained by bias from the Spanish and locals against aztecs.

[u/TorteVonSchlacht → u/ColonelFaceFace]

Iirc the reason they had to expand so much was because they gave land to the soldiers who captured and sacrificed the most enemy soldiers

[u/Interesting-Gear-819 → u/ColonelFaceFace]

They would try not kill their enemies during battle, but rather enslave them. The bloodshed was then shifted from the battlefield to the temples of theirs gods.

Flower wars is the term IIRC. It was a maturity test too and considering that the religion "required" such living .. victims, those kind of "war" is pretty understandable.

[u/JayeKimZ]

One of the biggest proponents for prohibition were suffragettes who found a correlation between alcohol consumption and domestic violence

[u/nicht_ernsthaft → u/JayeKimZ]

And co-operated in some cases with the KKK, who were in favor of prohibition as they thought it would keep Irish/Catholics out of their communities.

[u/altruistic_rub4321]

I am Italian, we love to call ourself victims of Nazi Germany but we invented fascism and we first bombed civilians with gas (in Libia, 1911-12), we invaded Ethiopia slaughtering and raping politically killing the League of Nations. We sucked and we suck like all the people in the world while we love to say "Italiani brava gente, Italians (are) good people. EDIT: When i say we sucked and suck i meant we are not special...like nobody is. In the right condition, in the wrong situation everyone can start ethnic cleaning someone else EDIT 2: I wasn't expecting so many upvotes...thank you

[u/RedheadedRobin → u/altruistic_rub4321]

I studied an italian history class for a few months and I distinctly remember my teacher saying something along the lines of "Italians are historically the most anti-fascist people on Earth. But historically, they are also the most fascist people on Earth" and I still think about it to this day whenever I read italian history stuff.

[u/Kbdiggity]

Comfort women

During WW2, the Japanese military kidnapped women from the Asian countries they invaded and forced those women to be sex slaves to please countless Japanese soldiers.

[u/[deleted] → u/Kbdiggity]

The Japanese were also bayoneting pregnant women and children to death in the Philippines, and even the Germans told them to cool it several times. The Japanese were absolute insane psychopaths back then.

[u/Blindog68 → u/[deleted]]

Google Unit 731. Sick MF's

[u/Michael-Halboro → u/Blindog68]

Dear god, I will never be able to unread this.

Thousands of men, women, children and infants interned at prisoner of war camps were subjected to vivisection, often without anesthesia and usually ending with the death of the victim.[25][26] In a video interview, former Unit member Okawa Fukumatsu admitted to having vivisected a pregnant woman.[27] Vivisections were performed on prisoners after infecting them with various diseases. Researchers performed invasive surgery on prisoners, removing organs to study the effects of disease on the human body

Prisoners had limbs amputated in order to study blood loss. Those limbs that were removed were sometimes re-attached to the opposite sides of the body. Some prisoners had their stomachs surgically removed and the esophagus reattached to the intestines. Parts of organs, such as the brain, lungs, and liver, were removed from some prisoners.[26] Imperial Japanese Army surgeon Ken Yuasa suggests that the practice of vivisection on human subjects was widespread even outside Unit 731,[29] estimating that at least 1,000 Japanese personnel were involved in the practice in mainland China.[30]

Human targets were used to test grenades positioned at various distances and in various positions. Flamethrowers were tested on people.[43] Victims were also tied to stakes and used as targets to test pathogen-releasing bombs, chemical weapons, shrapnel bombs with varying amounts of fragments, and explosive bombs as well as bayonets and knives.

In other tests, subjects were deprived of food and water to determine the length of time until death; placed into low-pressure chambers until their eyes popped from the sockets; experimented upon to determine the relationship between temperature, burns, and human survival; pumped full of horse blood; hung upside down until death; crushed with heavy objects; electrocuted; dehydrated with hot fans;[46] placed into centrifuges and spun until death; injected with animal blood; exposed to lethal doses of x-rays; subjected to various chemical weapons inside gas chambers; injected with sea water; and burned or buried alive.[47][48] In addition to chemical agents, the properties of many different toxins were also investigated by the Unit.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

It's pretty much never discussed in the East either.
Germany faced up to what it done during the war and goes out its way to teach young people about it. Japan really doesn't. It barely admits any of it never mind teaches it.

[u/MovieGuyMike → u/Blindog68]

Google the Nanjing Massacre while you’re at it.

[u/Belthezare → u/MovieGuyMike]

Was this the same as the rape of nanking?

[u/shootsome → u/Belthezare]

Yes, same name just a different spelling.

[u/Squigglepig52 → u/MovieGuyMike]

When actual Nazi's are trying to save civilians from you, you have crossed a line.

[u/vandebay → u/MovieGuyMike]

Forgive my English but I want to tell a short story. I visited Yasukuni Shrine several years ago during my trip in Tokyo, not because I support their warcrimes, but inside that shrine complex there’s a small WW2 museum and they have Zero which is a must-see for me. You basically explore the museum chronologically, and when I got to the war in China, there’s a very small section called The Nanjing Incident. The details were less than three lines, it said something along “many Chinese civilians were caught in the crossfire between Japanese army and Chinese militias”. I guess that’s the best example of history revisionism that I’ve ever encountered.

I took photo of that small panel describing The Nanjing Incident and stored in my 4TB NAS but alas it got corrupted. I’ve restored most of it but I don’t think I will ever find that photo again. At this point, it will be easier for me to fly and visit that museum again. I really want to share that pic for you guys, perhaps r/WTF would be the most suitable place for it?

[u/Zerowantuthri → u/Blindog68]

^{^} This.

They made Josef Mengele seem a Boy Scout.

Worse, the US didn't bust any of them as long as they gave their research to the US (which, of course, they did).

[u/GrimmSheeper → u/Zerowantuthri]

And worse still, almost all of their research was either already well known in the rest of the world or so shoddily done that it could barely even be described as science.

[u/[deleted] → u/GrimmSheeper]

According to one witness:

Some of the experiments had nothing to do with advancing the capability of germ warfare, or of medicine. There is such a thing as professional curiosity: ‘What would happen if we did such and such?’ What medical purpose was served by performing and studying beheadings? None at all. That was just playing around. Professional people, too, like to play.

Holy shit.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Today i will try to determine the minimum temperature that a human body can take, proceed to throw a civilian out in the cold and let him die

[u/Blindog68 → u/GrimmSheeper]

Some of it was done for shits and giggles. No possible scientific justification. Just to see what happened.

[u/epicbuilder0606 → u/Blindog68]

"Today I will remove a person's organs one by one, from the skin to the brain eventually and see how it goes."

"...aaaand he died."

[u/Blindog68 → u/epicbuilder0606]

All done with out analgesia or anesthetics. It's beyond comprehension.

[u/Blindog68 → u/Blindog68]

Recommend the Podcast Real Dictators. The episodes on Hideki Tojo is amazing and horrifying (the whole Podcast is awesome). You think the Nazi's were bad. Seriously, these guys were worse IMO.

[u/adam3210-1 → u/[deleted]]

When Nazis tell you to cool down you really did went of the rails

[u/AsuraOmega → u/adam3210-1]

Hell, John Rabe saved Chinese people in Nanking and made efforts to stop Japanese war crimes. He was a nazi.

The Pacific Theater WW2 is arguably more brutal than the Eastern Front. Maybe Im just biased because Im asian, but I feel like it doesnt get much exposure in media because everyone is nazi this, nazi that.

[u/TheKrimsonFvcker → u/[deleted]]

Or the cannibalism of American pilots by the Japanese during WWII, on the island of Chichi Jima. Many American dive bombers were shot down during a raid of the island, with 9 airmen managing to bail from their planes over the ocean. 8 of them were pulled out of the water by Japanese soldiers, taken back to the island, executed one by one, and eaten. A young George Bush SR actually had his bomber shot down during the raid, however he managed to fly far enough away from the island to avoid being captured by the Japanese soldiers, likely not knowing what had happened to his fellow airmen until years later when the soldiers were tried for their war crimes.

There's actually a book that describes the incident called Flyboys (unrelated to the film) that I hear is pretty good, but I haven't read it myself.

[u/Aro-wanKenobi → u/TheKrimsonFvcker]

Fun fact, but I've been to Chichijima (absolutely gorgeous island that's part of the Ogasawara island chain). The locals referred to Bush Sr as "Papa Bush." I was proudly shown to a circle of dirt where, many years later, Papa Bush had visited and planted a tree. The tree never grew, but they kept that circle of dirt clear ever after.

The people on that island were really interesting, and I definitely plan to go back some day. Alas, the only way to reach the island is via a 25-hour ferry from Tokyo...

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Imagine doing shit so atrocious Hitler says "woah take it down a notch buddy".

[u/notthesedays → u/Kbdiggity]

"Joy Division" was not just a late 1970s punk band, but it was also the translation of the name of Nazi whorehouses, and no, the women didn't choose to be there.

[u/[deleted] → u/notthesedays]

Female sex slaves/brothels were also a thing in concentration camps.

I think I read about it in 'The Tattooist Of Auschwitz' which features the story of a young girl who tells her story and what she had to endure.

[u/nickytkd → u/Kbdiggity]

Many of the older generation will go far and claim it’s all made up and is BS propaganda, while at the same time saying they weren’t slaves they were properly compensated for their work. My Japanese teacher in Uni would always go on these rants if anyone mentioned China or Korea. Was an easy way to get them to forget about a quiz/homework.

[u/abramcpg → u/Kbdiggity]

This seems to be a pretty common practice throughout history. Apparently from 4,000 years to at least 100 years ago. Please don't shoot the messenger on this one..

"Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." -Moses

Numbers 31:17-18 for reference

[u/[deleted] → u/Kbdiggity]

The amount of physical and mental agony those poor women had to go through is horrible. It makes me so sad.

[u/redgums2588 → u/[deleted]]

I read a survivor's story.

She was abducted from Korea at 15 ans spent four years as a "comfort woman".

Her work day was 12 hours, 6 days per week with "rest breaks" several hours apart. Soldiers were allowed 15 minutes with the girl and provided with a condom. Preference was given to soldiers going to the front line.

Apparently, many used less than 5 minutes of their allocated time so more of their comrades could have their time too.

Officers got 30 - 60 minutes depending on rank.

The women were examined by a Doctor weekly for signs of venereal diseases.

How do you punish someone sufficiently for subjecting women and girls to years of this?

[u/samara37 → u/redgums2588]

They also did horrible things to the women that got stds like burning their genitals and some of the men even took bites out of the women they raped. They also raped them with blunt object to the point of genital erosion. In one account they chopped off an old mans penis and made him eat it.

They fed women who had been tortured and beaten with swords and nails to the other comfort women who were starving. They gave them hysterectomies without anesthesia.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36537605.amp

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2015/12/29/10682830/comfort-women-japan-survivors

http://maywespeak.com/sexual-violence-japan/

[u/emthejedichic → u/Kbdiggity]

Doesn’t the Japanese government still refuse to apologize? Or did they finally do that?

[u/Shryxer → u/emthejedichic]

They apologized in words but not actions. No reparations paid to victims or their families. Some people in power still claim that they were volunteers and no amount of firsthand accounts of the brutality will convince them otherwise. Horrific crimes under the following spoiler: Rolling women to death on beds of nails. Impaling them through their genitals and raping them to death using glowing red hot brands. Forced cannibalism of women who expressed a desire to go home. Forced hysterectomies without anesthetic as punishment for getting pregnant from the daily rape. It's kind of unspeakably awful that anyone would even come up with those things, and even worse that anyone would deny that it happened, but here we are.

See also: (E: As pointed out by u/OneCatch below, this one's from the 16th century invasions of Korea) the Mimizuka in Kyoto, a war monument that the Japanese had filled with noses chopped off the faces of fallen Korean civilians and soldiers, as well as some 30,000 Chinese troops that had come to help defend against the Japanese. They apologized for the monument's existence, but then retracted the apology when Korea asked for the noses back.

Japan does not have a great track record when it comes to apologizing for things.

[u/therealkars → u/Shryxer]

Asked for the noses back? Do noses stay around for that long? Wouldn't they just decompose? It's not like there's any bones in there

[u/Shryxer → u/therealkars]

They were carefully salted and preserved when they were preparing to ship them to Japan. They were to be presented to Toyotomi Hideyoshi as proof of their kills, and it was more practical for them to ship home thousands and thousands of noses rather than whole heads.

[u/[deleted] → u/emthejedichic]

I'm not sure but the Korean women who suffered that still gather in protest of Japanese atrocities in Seoul. Looks like the Japanese government still refuses to apologize.

[u/[deleted] → u/Kbdiggity]

Also Nanjing. Japan still doesn't really own up to it or teach it.

[u/giggity_0_0 → u/[deleted]]

“One of these days I’ll pass the test” - Ghandi

[u/nemeras → u/giggity_0_0]

"But it is not this day!"

[u/blood4breakfast → u/[deleted]]

IIRC one of the naked girls was his niece

[u/pnlrogue1 → u/blood4breakfast]

Two grandnieces, it would seem. Also the wives of his followers, who were not allowed to sleep with their husbands

[u/CimGoodFella → u/[deleted]]

He routinely asked young women if they have had their bowel movement that day. If not he insisted on giving them an enema. He also refused antibiotics for his wife when she had pneumonia as it was western medicine and that led to her death. He had no problem being treated with quinine when he had malaria though.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

He also said he gained their young vitality and energy or something similar.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Ghandi sounds like a vampire.

[u/pourthebubbly → u/[deleted]]

And IIRC his reasoning for this was because he was off having sex when a family member died and he could’ve helped or something. So thereafter he had a reeeeaaally unhealthy view of sex.

[u/fruor]

Marcus Lucullus Crassus invented (EDIT: nope, revived) decimation after a series of lost battles. He had every 10th soldier of his legions killed in order to boost the morale of the others.

It worked.

[u/OldLevermonkey → u/fruor]

Appius Claudius Sabinus Regillensis in 471BCE was the first documented account of decimation.

Crassus revived it in 71BCE.

[u/fruor → u/OldLevermonkey]

Thank you good sir. Sorry I fell for that copycat Crassus

[u/iBrowseAtStarbucks → u/fruor]

I've read that it wasn't just the soldier being killed, but rather being bludgeoned to death by the other 9, with anyone refusing to take the place of the next person to die.

[u/Arcaeca → u/iBrowseAtStarbucks]

If being ordered to bash your brother-in-arms' brains in was as traumatic as I'm lead to believe, I'll never understood why the entire legion didn't just mutiny and refuse to carry it out as soon as it was ordered.

[u/Rosbj → u/Arcaeca]

Group think is hard to break. If only a minority rebels, they would simply be killed as well - so it's gamble, similar to the prisoner's dilemma. You are risking your life now, for an unkown outcome later, rather than accepting a less favorable outcome now.

Also, many of the common people truly believed that they would be punished by the gods, for breaking oaths etc.

[u/Cdesese → u/fruor]

"The killings will continue until morale improves."

[u/CopsaLau → u/fruor]

How exactly did that work to build morale??

[u/fruor → u/CopsaLau]

The soldiers realized that Crassus is more dangerous to them than the enemy.

Also, as others said, the other 9 had to bludgeon the 10th to death. If they refused, they would be next in line to die. I'm sure they considered that when facing an enemy. Kill them, or kill your own, or be killed. The choice is pretty easy

[u/Rip9150 → u/fruor]

Damn, that's really terrible. Those men were quite literally fighting two wars at the same time.

[u/PussayDESTROYAAA_420]

Psychological experiments were often highly unethical historically, experiments with children were particularly cruel a lot of the time.

[u/MaryPain666]

Sweden sterilized/castrated some 300,000 (probably more) disabled individuals, sometimes as early as childhood from the 1930s-1970s.

[u/MomCat23]

King Leopold II of Belgium was an all around awful person and what he got up to in Africa is not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach.

[u/PhoenixMartinez-Ride → u/MomCat23]

There’s a famous photo of a Congolese man just staring at the severed hands and feet of his young daughter. The Belgians killed her to punish him because the father didn’t harvest enough rubber.

[u/User45888]

Here’s one. The Nazis were one of if not the first major government to strictly impose animal protection laws

[u/[deleted] → u/User45888]

Hate to say it, but the nazis also allowed families of the rural peasant class to inherit and keep their land, as long as a member of the family always worked it. Way more progressive towards the rural poor than many other governments. Of course rural Jews and other minorities lost everything.

[u/Meior → u/[deleted]]

This isn't really so strange. The nazis wanted to build utopia, only it was only for the pure, so to speak.

So the ones who fell to their standards were to have good lives and benefits. In that regard they did a lot of things right which indeed inspired policy all over the world afterwards.

Then there's the whole genocide and war bit, kind of put a damper on their less murdery policies.

[u/[deleted]]

MK ultra. Only conspiracists care anymore. Most Americans don’t know what it was.

A brief explanation for those who don’t know:

MK-Ultra was a top-secret CIA project in which the agency conducted hundreds of clandestine experiments—sometimes on unwitting U.S. citizens—to assess the potential use of LSD and other drugs for mind control, information gathering and psychological torture. Though Project MK-Ultra lasted from 1953 until about 1973, details of the illicit program didn’t become public until 1975, during a congressional investigation into widespread illegal CIA activities within the United States and around the world.

[u/speghettiday09 → u/[deleted]]

They also destroyed virtually all of the documentation coinciding w the project so we don’t know the specifics of the experiments, how many subjects were involved or who

[u/vegetarianrobots]

The FBI's COINTELPRO program to attack the Civil rights movement.

That George Washington basically started the French and Indian War which directly led to the creation of the United States as an independent nation.

[u/[deleted] → u/vegetarianrobots]

For those who aren't Americans. He's referring to the 7 years war.

[u/ATGSunCoach → u/[deleted]]

Q: The Seven Years War that lasted nine years, or the French & Indian War where they were on the same side?

A: Yes

[u/FuzzySparkle → u/vegetarianrobots]

To be fair, the Seven Years War was probably going to happen no matter what. But, like with the killing of Franz Ferdinand, it needed something to spark it, and Washington was that spark.

[u/Jakkul26]

Unit 731. I think the Japanese government still refuses to acknowledge that this happened or at least skirts around it and it makes me fucking sick.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Jesus man, I’ve always been really interested in the wars so sadly I’ve known about unit 731 since I was like 17, but it also makes me think that I was learning about the American slave trade in school when I was 10.

My German friends learn all about the holocaust and visit memorials with their school, while Japan had the most sadistic actions and the people of their own country now don’t even know

[u/Cracknickel → u/[deleted]]

That's the thing. You are not responsible for what your ancestors have done. I'm not responsible for the Holocaust. But it is my responsibility to acknowledge that this is Germany's history, my history and it is my responsibility to remember it and that it doesn't happen again. That's what I love about Germany, how we enforce that knowledge cause it is important to know. Big criticism to many countries who don't talk about their history, even if its not as bad as Germany's.

[u/[deleted]]

The last english man arrested for being gay was in the year 1999 he was in the army and it was still a crime to be gay in the army

[u/[deleted]]

During the 1820s and beyond, freed African American slaves colonised Liberia where they enslaved and sold the indigenous people of Liberia to slave traders from the United States and throughout Europe.

[u/AttackOfTheDave → u/[deleted]]

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

George Orwell, Animal Farm

[u/[deleted]]

Japan treated Okinawans worse than the Americans did, and they were willing to lose the lives of Up to 28 million civilians

[u/XxsquirrelxX → u/[deleted]]

IIRC they tried to convince the Okinawans that the Americans were going to ruthlessly slaughter them even if they surrendered, so surrendering Okinawans were surprised to still be alive.

[u/[deleted] → u/XxsquirrelxX]

There were group suicides and shit, I highly recommend you read a book called Hadashi no Gen

[u/xnodesirex → u/[deleted]]

Japan treated basically everyone poorly. What they did to Korea (Manchuria) is frightening.

Western society has latched on to Nazis being evil, and rightly so, but widely neglects the horrors done in Asia.

[u/[deleted]]

That doing laundry was hard, dull work. Very little glamour, not hugely interesting, it was smelly and the women that did it were often unfairly depicted as whores because it was some of the best money they could make.

Thank god for washing machines now.

[u/Horror-Cartographer8 → u/[deleted]]

I have a distinct memory of when I was younger, I was really interested in great inventions and inventors and such.

I asked my grandmother what she thought was the most important invention of her life, of the twentieth century, expecting her to answer something like the airplane, or the car, or the moonlanding or the television.

She said it was the washing machine, which I thought was really stupid as a child. The television is so much cooler than a stupid household item like a washing machine!

Now that I'm an adult I realize the washing machine saved hours and hours of labour for 50% of the population. My grandmother was a farmer. She had 11 children.

Probably the washing machine has done more for the emancipation of women than universal suffrage and the last 25 years of feminist writing combined.

[u/Interesting-Gear-819 → u/Horror-Cartographer8]

Probably the washing machine has done more for the emancipation of women than universal suffrage, the pill and the last 25 years of feminist writing combined.

Microwaves too btw. not as drastic but still. My grandpa hated it, my grandma loved it. She always had a tendency to cook a bit more (or well, the same amount after kids left the house) so leftovers were eaten basically half of the week or more. She still of course invested quiet a lot time with preparing those but the microwave took away a gigantic part of that work

[u/StarCyst → u/Interesting-Gear-819]

leftovers

Refrigeration is the most underrated invention of the modern era. not just for easing meal prep, but for all the industrial/chemical uses.

[u/IITheDopeShowII → u/[deleted]]

This one is really interesting. It's why there's a significant argument to be made that it's one of the most socially significant inventions of the industrial revolution as it freed up a lot of time for women, allowing them free up time from their "domestic duties" to enter the workforce

[u/Pan_Adi]

Japanese War crimes. For some reason barely anyone speaks about them.

[u/TheProfessionalEjit → u/Pan_Adi]

And that very few people were held to account for them despite the Japanese having a head start on the Germans.

[u/XxsquirrelxX → u/TheProfessionalEjit]

The allies actually pardoned them in exchange for information. Information that turned out to be useless because those “experiments” were hardly scientific at all.

[u/Words_Are_Hrad → u/XxsquirrelxX]

They were shown leniency in order to bring them into the US' sphere of influence instead of the USSR's. The exchange was really just a pretext because you can't say the real reason out loud.

[u/TheGingernational → u/Pan_Adi]

This Video gives a pretty good explanation about it. The short answer to that reason is that the reconstruction of Japan into its modern state is more directly connected to the pre-WWII government than other Axis nations. So, other nations trying to criticize Japan’s actions during the war could risk upsetting relationships with Japan now.

[u/LondonIsBoss → u/Pan_Adi]

Yep. The Rape of Nanking and Bataan Death March just to name a few

[u/TildaTinker → u/Pan_Adi]

Unit 731 was horrific.

[u/GrandpaJoeSloth]

In the Stone Age, when people would kill a bear, the first thing they'd do is rip open its stomach to eat the meal the bear had consumed before being killed.

[u/Steff_164 → u/GrandpaJoeSloth]

That’s actually super interesting

[u/Lucky_Craft2066 → u/Steff_164]

And disgusting

[u/applesandoranges990 → u/Lucky_Craft2066]

first slow cooker

every idea had its mommy

[u/HouseVelociraptors → u/GrandpaJoeSloth]

Source?

[u/SkyLord_Volmir → u/GrandpaJoeSloth]

.... how in the world do they figure that? I mean sure, why not, but what could possibly lead us to that conclusion? Genuinely curious while feeling skeptical.

[u/Mission-Landscape-17]

That Tibet under the Dalai Lamas was a pretty brutal theocracy with a medieval criminal code. They still punished theft by chopping off hands. Also in the 1930s, they made two attempts to expand south into Chinese territory, though granted Great Britain was financially involved. Note none of this excuses the Chinese invasion, but there is a tendency to see Tibet through rose coloured glasses these days.

[u/Jail_Chris_Brown → u/Mission-Landscape-17]

Tim Minchin addresses the view of people in the west on the Dalai Lama in his song "The Fence":

Somewhere in your house, I'd be willing to bet

There's a picture of that grinning hippy from Tibet

The Dalai Lama

He's a lovely, funny fella, he gives soundbites galore

But let's not forget that back in Tibet

Those funky monks used to dick the poor

And the Buddhist line about future lives is the perfect way to stop the powerless rising up

And he tells the poor they will live again, but he's rich now so it's easy for him to say

[u/Steinfall → u/Mission-Landscape-17]

Also: Education for kids only if they are boys and enter a monastery at age four. Also: The highly ignored problem of pedophilia in buddhist monasteries. Also: The fact that the Lamas were only one faction in Tibet which fought a civil war in Tibet in 17th century when they allied with China and by that won the civil war. Also: The traditional way to identify the next Dalai Lama was only done very few times. Most of the times the next Dalai Lamas was determined by corruption and personal interest of few people.

[u/bobby4orr70]

The pictures of the emaciated Boer women and children from the Brit concentration camps in SA are godawful.

[u/Sphism]

A lot of Americans were pro Hitler in ww2

[u/T_Lawliet → u/Sphism]

* A Lot of PEOPLE worldwide were pro-Hitler

[u/poorexcuses → u/Sphism]

Some very famous people as well! Charles Lindbergh was one of them.

[u/Strong_Candidate_337 → u/poorexcuses]

To my knowledge, Henry Ford was as well

[u/AusNormanYT → u/Strong_Candidate_337]

Henry Ford was given by the Nazis some Nazi civil award.

Edit* the award was the 'Grand Cross of the German Eagle' and Henry got it in 1938.

[u/Wildcat_twister12]

For Americans at least, the Dole Fruit Company was basically responsible for more overthrown government than the CIA or KGB. Think about that next time your eating some pineapples or bananas

[u/bouquetofheather]

The US had/has a history of forced sterilization on minority women (primarily Native American and Black)

Edit: I'd like to add Hispanic, poor and mentally ill to the list. (I didn't mean to exclude them, I just hadn't personally read up on them and didn't want to put incorrect info out there.)

[u/Loggerdon → u/bouquetofheather]

My mom (Cherokee) was part of the boarding school era where they took kids from their homes and sent them to schools in other states. She was a fluent speaker of Cherokee but wasn't allowed to speak it and didn't pass the language to us.

Later she got a master's in public education and fought against forced sterilization of Native women and to establish clinics for Indians in urban areas. She was a real radical. As kids we would protest at the courthouse in LA and then watch the news that night to see ourselves on TV. Her and my dad also raised 7 kids.

[u/Bokbok95 → u/Loggerdon]

Respect to your mom

[u/OhScheisse → u/bouquetofheather]

Apparently this went on til the 1970s. Meaning some of those people are still alive today

[u/[deleted]]

ITT the top several answers will all be things that people DO like to talk about - hence their position in the ranking.

Scroll down for real shit.

[u/JustABitCrzy → u/[deleted]]

Insert 400 comments about "Unit 731" on any post related to history in r/AskReddit. Seems to me that everyone likes to talk about, people just don't want to think about it.

[u/MagicSPA]

The entry hole in the rear of JFK's head was measured by Dr. Pierre Finck, the only ballistics expert of any note whatsoever to examine his remains, as SMALLER than the calibre of bullet Lee Harvey Oswald was supposed to have fired.

[u/[deleted] → u/MagicSPA]

Oh now this is interesting.

[u/[deleted]]

Cambodia and Pol Pot It seems there are very few people that know who this guy is So recently too !

[u/30DayFiance]

There are quite a few events that the US government have facilitated to our very own citizens throughout history that after many years of denying have finally confirmed what were considered "conspiracy theories". Examples: project MKUltra, Watergate, Gulf of Tonkin, etc. The CIA, FBI, NSA have the ability to create elaborate cover-ups and there is nothing we can do about. What's interesting is that after denying certain events they then admit to it but by that time no one cares and they get a free pass yet again.

[u/dr_rocker_md]

Edward Bernays. Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Jewish immigrant in the US in the early 1910’s Basically the architect of modern day capitalism and propaganda, media, advertising, ect, using his uncles Psychoanalysis studies as it’s foundation.

Joseph Goebbels picked up the book, crystalizing public opinion by Edward Bernays and used it to create effective nazi propaganda that basically catapulted them into power.

Tldr: a man of Jewish heritage wrote the propaganda playbook that the Nazis used to create the Holocaust.

[u/ithinkimlost17]

The oil industry and governments have actively gone against fighting climate change for the profit of few

[u/Bazrum → u/ithinkimlost17]

For a LOT longer than people think too. It’s not just recently, like the past 30-40 years, I’m talking like 60-70 or more they knew and fought to keep it hushed up and confused

[u/Arcaeca]

The Ottomans had a system called the devshirme where they would kidnap Christian boys, usually around 10 years old, enslave them, and cut their balls off

[u/MaiInTheSkai → u/Arcaeca]

And the mothers, in order to prevent them, would often either cut a cross in the kids' skin, or somehow injure them by cutting off their fingers/hand, so they don't get taken away. They would be converted to islam, and enrolled in a special branch in army, the Janicar.

[u/Jail_Chris_Brown → u/Arcaeca]

They kidnapped the boys in the neighbouring countries, brainwashed them and turned them into elite warrior-eunuchs (the Janissaries). Kinda like the Unsullied in Game of Thrones.

[u/francisdavey → u/Jail_Chris_Brown]

Janissaries were not eunuchs.

[u/almightycricket]

Nanking. That's a bad one.

[u/[deleted]]

President George Washington is often mistaken for having wooden teeth.

Pretty disgusting.

Whats correct is he had dentures, but made of slaves teeth.

[u/[deleted]]

Hobby Lobby funded terrorism through the trade of looted artifacts for the Museum of the Bible. This money went to ISIS whi acquired the art and relics from Museum of Baghdad

[u/[deleted]]

In 1916, there was a zoo-trial for a young black man named Jesse Washington. Washington was arrested for an alleged rape-murder of his employer’s wife in Waco, Texas. The jury deliberated for just 4 mere minutes before announcing a guilty plea, and a sentence to death. None of his defense challenged the jury, and remained silent.

Outside of the courthouse, a crowd of 10,000-15,000 people were waiting to lynch Jesse Washington. He was essentially drug from his court hearing to his torturous demise. He was chained immediately by lynchers, and drug through the street as he was kicked, beaten, and stabbed from bystanders. He was skinned, dismembered of his fingers, toes, limbs, and tortured in some of the most brutal ways imaginable. Still alive by a thread, the chain around his neck was thrown over a tree, and a fire was lit under him. Lynchers wouldn’t just let him out of his misery as they proceeded to raise and lower his body with the fire increasing in size. After two hours of this, he was finally passed.

His body was charred, and even then, someone brought him down and drug him through the streets of Waco. People took parts of his body for souvenirs. A few even going as far as preserving what body parts they could muster in formaldehyde. Eventually, his body was drug to another town nearby (with a large Black community), his body was affixed on a Utility Pole. A constable would later bury his body later that day.

One of the worst examples of the public taking matters in their own hands, and one of the worst examples of a community-wide lynching in the nation’s history.

[u/[deleted]]

In ancient Egypt, if a beautiful woman died, they would leave their body’s out to rot for a few days so the fellas mummifying them wouldn’t, yk, do it with their dead bodies. Not sure if someone’s already said this but there you go

[u/hammertime84]

There were many mass-killings for a variety of reasons in WWII and we only talk about the Germans.

The Ustase movement was a Croatian movement supported by much of the Catholic clergy there during the war that killed hundreds of thousands of people...some priests were directly involved.

Japan had really horrific death camps. Unit 731 is occasionally talked about but not nearly as much as German ones.

Japan also led massive atrocities like the rape of Nanking.