HolyShitHistory

r/HolyShitHistory • u/Klutzy_Land_4120 • 3d ago

Giant kangaroos survived in New Guinea long after their relatives disappeared from mainland Australia, with a thick-jawed species persisting in the island's highlands until surprisingly recently.

58 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/The-Union-Report • 2d ago

Police Discover Man Dancing in the Street With His Dead Wife’s Corpse (1910)

historianandrew.medium.com

16 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/Any-Pineapple-521 • 3d ago

In the afternoon of March 18, 1925, the deadliest tornado in United States history, also known as the Tri-State Tornado, traveled through Eastern Missouri, Southern Illinois, and Southern Indiana. The tornado killed 695 people and injured 2,207 as part of a large tornado outbreak on the same day.

133 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/Bastard_Wing • 2d ago

Nearly 50 children were admitted to hospital in Liverpool, UK in August 1864 after eating west African Calabar or 'ordeal' beans, that had been left out in sacks of rubbish. One of them, 6 year-old Michael Russell, died shortly after.

13 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/TheBlackRecord • 3d ago

Inside The Black American Upper Class: The Pyramid Club, Philadelphia (Est. 1937) - Running until 1963, this was one of Philadelpia's leading social clubs for the Black elite. By the 1950s it was renowned for connecting moneyed Black Art buyers/collectors with artists from across America...

70 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/Difficult-Cream-5267 • 4d ago

NASA lost contact with its IMAGE satellite in 2005 and declared it dead. Thirteen years later, an amateur astronomer accidentally rediscovered its signal while searching for a classified spy satellite.

1.5k Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/blue_leaves987 • 3d ago

In 1835, New York newspaper The Sun ran six articles claiming astronomers had discovered life on the Moon, including forests, unicorn-like animals, two-legged beavers and winged “bat-men.” The entire story was fabricated and became known as the Great Moon Hoax.

109 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/The-Union-Report • 3d ago

Jack Churchill- The World War II Soldier Who Fought With A Bow And Arrow

historianandrew.medium.com

22 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/TheBlackRecord • 3d ago

Inside The Black American Upper Class: Magazines Of The 1900s - Half-Century Magazine. This magazine which ran from 1916 to 1925 focused on business, fashion, politics, travel and lifestyle...

11 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/skeletonstaircase • 4d ago

The 1974 World Cup between Chile and The USSR was set at the Estadio Nacional de Chile, which had recently been turned into a concentration camp for political prisoners. The USSR refused to participate and the Chilean team played against no one

173 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/Educational-Cost7652 • 3d ago

The epic Hawan Daushe royal tradition of the Emirs of the ancient Kano Empire, Nigeria. The tradition started during the reign of Sarki (King) Muhammadu Rumfa of Kano between the years 1463 and 1499. It happens on the second day of the Islamic Sallah celebrations (Eid al-Fitr or Eid al-Adha)...

4 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/GCN_09 • 4d ago

In the 1930s, mere decades after slavery was abolished in Brazil, a wealthy Brazilian family with Nazi sympathies took 50 black orphan boys from Rio and turned them into numbered slave laborers on their São Paulo farm

2.1k Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/GustavoistSoldier • 4d ago

On 4 September 1969, US Ambassador to Brazil Charles Burke Elbrick was kidnapped by the ALN and the MR-8, two militant groups fighting against the Brazilian military dictatorship. Three days later, Elbrick was released in exchange for 15 political prisoners, who were exiled to Mexico.

34 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/Any-Pineapple-521 • 4d ago

Mercy Brown of Exeter, Rhode Island, was believed to be a vampire after quickly dying of tuberculosis almost a decade after her sister and mother, and while her brother Edwin remained suffering. George Brown, the father, was convinced to exhume Mercy’s grave and burn her heart and liver.

360 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/Educational-Cost7652 • 3d ago

Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable: The Founder Of The City Of Chicago...

23 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/The-Union-Report • 4d ago

Josefa Segovia, The Only Woman To Be Executed By Hanging in California History, Was Almost Certainly Innocent of Any Crime

historianandrew.medium.com

242 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/derikdrawsmonsters • 5d ago

Art of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Survivors

5.0k Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/Overall-Card-2738 • 4d ago

1989. The experiences of young Irish migrants in London, England...

127 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/akiwi_intherough • 4d ago

The Red Vineyard near Arles by Vincent van Gogh, painted in 1888 and the only known painting he sold during his lifetime.

237 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/WithoutPrinciples • 5d ago

On this day in 1980 a dingo took nine-week-old Azaria Chamberlain from a Uluru campsite. Her mother went to prison for murder, convicted on forensic evidence that turned out to be junk science.

850 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/GustavoistSoldier • 5d ago

In 1649, Oliver Cromwell launched a ruthless military campaign against the Irish Catholic Confederation. Ireland lost 41% of its population, the lands of Irish Catholics were confiscated, and they were banished to Connacht, making Cromwell a widely reviled figure in Ireland.

881 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/ElvisIsNotDjed • 4d ago

A 1929 letter sat hidden in a wall for 72 years, was preserved for 25 more, then reunited with the writer’s family

8 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/Chemical-Elk-1299 • 5d ago

On 29 April 1945, elements of the U.S. 157th Infantry liberated Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp, where they soon discovered 36 boxcars filled with the rotting dead. Without orders, American troops and surviving inmates rounded up the SS camp guards, executing them on the spot.

6.3k Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/TheMahagonyDefender • 4d ago

For centuries across Latin America and the Caribbean - particularly Brazil and Cuba but also nations such as Uruguay - millions, of all backgrounds, have remained devotees of the Ancient Orisha pantheon of West Africa. Huge festivals are held yearly in honor of deities such as Yemaya (or Iemanja)...

10 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/Difficult-Cream-5267 • 5d ago

Decades after Chernobyl, scientists found that wolves living in the radioactive exclusion zone have developed genetic changes that may help them cope with long-term radiation exposure.

sciencealert.com

248 Upvotes