It can be pretty disconcerting to realize that things are happening all the time around us, to the point that massive events with far reaching consequences might be going on right now and most of us have no idea. However, the truth is that there is often not enough time to process every historical mystery.
We’ve gathered some examples of historic events that seem to often go overlooked. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and be sure to share your own examples in the comments below.
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The Panama Papers that exposed the list of elite who were hoarding vast amounts of wealth in offshore bank accounts. Conveniently forgotten about entirely.
The Clinton administration funded nationwide fiber optic cable. The cable companies took the money, then disappeared it in all their late 90’s corporate consolidations. Paid for fiber optic cable, did not get it.
Over 800 tons of dead sealife including dolphins, washed up in Tampa Bay due to a fertilizer plant spill - never heard about this disaster again.
There was a huge scandal involving the UK foster care system. Social workers were getting paid more for each child they placed in foster care. This resulted in 100s/1000s of children being placed into foster care that didn’t need to be. To this day there has been no uproar or anything about it, it got swelter under the rug and unless you was personally involved (myself) then you will more than likely not have any idea about it
Created an account just to comment on this: I'm a judge in the family court in the UK and this is not how the system works at all. Social workers cannot choose to put a child in foster care. There is a multi levelled system with multiple agencies and, ultimately, the court makes the decision based on copious amounts of evidence. No social worker in the UK has the autonomy to place a child in foster care. In the interest of fairness, there have been plenty of mistakes and scandals within the UK care system, but it has never involved a social worker taking cash for removing a child. It is not how the system works, in fact, removing a child is a last resort as it is the last thing any court wants to happen and costs tens of thousands of pounds. Standard journalistic fact checking clearly isn't happening here.
The Universal Music fire of 2008. The fire on June 1, 2008, destroyed anywhere from 120,000 to 175,000 master recordings.
The protests in Hong Kong seemed to vanish like they never happened when COVID started up.
Yes they pretty much did. But I suspect that that may have something to do with Covid being a pandemic, as well as likely Chinese goverment censorship.
The US government admitted it couldn’t account for 2.3 trillion dollars of the budget on 9/10/01. The world forgot about it the next day.
The Malaysia airlines flight disappearing... Still creeps me out
How is this collectively forgotten? Plenty of youtube videos on it, netflix documentary. Maybe only OP forgot about it.
If it’s anything like the world devastating Spanish flu then I think Covid will soon be denied and forgotten except by health experts.
Those few months in 2016 when people started dressing like clowns and terrorizing people
We got used to people wearing weird clothes and excessive make-up and contouring. So that doesn't scare anyone anymore. I think those Kardashians made a great job desensitizing us, because whoever look at them can't no longer get scared of anyone
They chased people in parking ramps. Some had weapons. People were terrified in the videos I've seen
Load More Replies...My wife and I were hoping we saw one. I would've never run from those losers. Those weirdos needed to get slapped.
Seriously. None in West Texas that's for sure or this good ol not boy woulda dealt with it. God I've always hated clowns
Load More Replies...I can’t be the only one who feels the Vegas shooting was massively swept under the rug considering it’s magnitude. Was in the news for a few weeks then was never really spoken about again. We have never been told an actual motive for it and I just feel like there’s so much more investigating that can and should be done.
The australian wildfires that were all the news just prior to covid.
I can assure you. They were reported in New Zealand in graphic detail.
Astroworld, why is no one talking abt this anymore! The Kardashians used all kinds of slightly smaller ‘scandals’ to try and cover the fact that they were involved with it such as getting their bbls removed or making a picture of their kids look deliberately photoshoped to get people talking abt them. It’s very smart of them and their teams but it still isn’t ok
The Great Smog of London in the 1950’s. Killed up to 12,000 and injured thousands more. A mysterious pea soup fog mixed with coal smog that covered the city for days. In the fog there was a crime wave where criminals were hidden by the fog and police couldn’t operate, and there was even one famous serial killer who killed in the fog. John Reginald Christie. A book about it called Death in The Air is very interesting and worth a read.
So, I know this is not exactly forgotten or erased as such, but the story of the Darien Scheme is remarkably unknown given its consequences.
To clarify, this was a Scottish attempt in the 1690s to set up a colony in the Panama region that failed disastrously and caused financial ruin to many investors in Scotland. It was this financial crisis that ultimately was a major contributing factor to Scotland agreeing to form a union with England in 1707, because the English would financially bail them out.
In short, combined with the Union of the Crowns that happened because Elizabeth I died childless, it caused the emergence of the United Kingdom.
Ahh, but who else remembers what also happened in the 1690's. Earliest sighting of Uranus - foundation of the bank of England - battle of the boyne (granted some never forget) Unless you either studied that period or read widely, how could you 'remember. Yes, I have read about the Darien scheme, and that it was proposed by the Scottish parliament.
The Philippine-American war. The war started in 1899, when the newly established Philippine republic, itself a product of a war of independence from Spanish rule that started in 1896, objected to the terms of the treaty ending the Spanish-American war that ceded the Philippines to the United States. Officially the war was over in 1902, but small resistance groups continued to fight on for several years. The war produced some 200,000 Filipino dead, a butcher's bill approximately 10 times higher than that of the more famous Spanish-American war that preceded it.
Well, we can't pay attention to every war the USA were involved in. We're right now busy enough with the ones from the last three decades...
Battle of Tours. If Charles Martel lost, Christendom would have been destroyed by the Umayyad Caliphate. There would be no Papal States, no Charlemagne, no Holy Roman Empire, No Germany, no third reich. Quite frankly history as we know it would turn out quite different.
Was just recently in an episode of "Eine Stunde History" on Deutschlandfunk Nova
The SS Eastland tragedy in 1915. Happened in the Chicago River. Boat topples over and kills 844 people.
There might have been something happening in europe at that time slightly overshadowing this event...
The early history of Yamato Japan.
It's not 'erased' so much as 'burned.' This state did have an official record of its history, but the record was burned down in a great fire in the 6th/7th century. It was then recreated afterward, but... Well. There's better people than me who have discussed how the recreation seems to have done a lot to suit the interests of contemporary politics that doesn't seem to make much sense or line up with the archeological record of Japan's earlier history.
I'm gonna go for a wild one here and say Caesar's conquest of Gaul.
While a pretty well-known historical event, almost everything known about it comes directly from Caesar's diary or statements by people who were politically motivated to make him out as a savour/warmonger.
As an example of how little we actually know, Caesar would talk about a hard fought battle, uphill against an entrenched enemy and how they spent hours fighting under the worst possible conditions before having to withdraw but then state the Romans casualties were "simius threw his back out during a coughing fit, no other injuries, the gauls lost a million men"
The Bronze Age Collapse comes to mind. All the Bronze age civilizations crashing into barbarism for a few hundred years.
Just listened to a podcast about it a couple of weeks ago. Not surprising most people don't know about it, 3200 years is a long time, and there is a lot happening in the world today that is much more urgent.
The battle of long tan. 105 aussie, and 3 kiwi soldiers held back an entire NVA battalion for three and 1/2 hours. It's estimated that the Vietnamese battalion was up to 2500 men strong. 18 Australian soldiers died and 24 were wounded. 245 Vietnamese soldiers died and 350 were wounded.
The US invasion of Grenada
A "Wag the Dog" operation to distract the press from how the Reagan administration had just made a dog's breakfast out of its intervention in Lebanon.
Snoop Dogg changing his name to Snoop Lion for about a month
That Miami mall incident with the aliens, like what was that about
Kids setting off fireworks. Bayside is out doors and ppl thought it was gun fire. No aliens.
Creation of the Federal Reserve Bank in America. Maybe not forgotten but definitely not remembered.
A large portion of right-wingers in the US knows it's there though, and want to end it, even though so many of them have no idea what it does or why they want to end it.
The War of the Roses
Not exactly forgotten, but something that happened between 1455-1487 is hardly going to be a common topic of conversation today. And what's with the picture of a Näzi death camp?
Thailand Tsunami of 2004. Horrific, but never spoken about now.
Err...I watched a programme about it this week.
None of those were "swept under the rug", they've simply been replaced by new disasters in the news. Maybe a story about "why are there so many disasters/violence?" Should be written?
The title is very misleading. It's not about anything being swept under the carpet. The world simply moves on and other things happen.
Yes, its not exactly shocking that people have moved on from the friggin Bronze Age
Load More Replies...IMHO, this list is kind of silly. Events are “news” when they first happen. But time doesn’t stand still; it moves forward, and…..new stuff happens, which becomes the “news.” The stuff that happened earlier becomes “history.” Granted, some education systems do a p1ss poor job of teaching history (ahem, U.S.) But if there isn’t an actual cover-up, I wouldn’t say these things get swept under the rug. I’m sorry, but things that happened in the 1400s that do get taught in history classes are not being “swept under the rug.”
The only one that I do think fits this list is the Panama Papers.
Load More Replies...Comfort Women during WWII. Practice a absolutely trivialized by the Japanese government even today. Thousands of women forced into sėxual slavery by Japan, nearly all records destroyed (by Japan) at the end of the war, and a complete unwillingness of the Japanese government to make reparations--or even really acknowledge--what they did. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_women
A couple of things that people seemed to have too quickly forgotten: 1) The destruction of ancient relics in Syria 2) That Trump was being charged with rape and they were working on going to trial when he was campaigning in 2016. They decided not to pursue the case I think shortly before the election. Most people I talk to have no recollection of this. 3) That Trump and US military actions in northern Syria bordering Turkey resulted in the release of over 100 ISIS people from prison.
First, I wonder if anyone but me watches documentaries and real history. Next, as said by other posters, it's impossible to keep one disaster or horrible happening on the "front page" because new ones happen every day. The murder of 15 people in New Orleans, MS, USA will be gone from the news in the US in another week when another mass murder happens. We hardly blink an eye when there is a school shooting. It's sad but true.
Not forgotten but not much discovered.. the 1989 Tiananmen Square man.
This is a pathetic post. "Oh no, that thing that happened FOUR HUNDRED YEARS AGO has been totally forgotten" . . . . . .
What's truly kept under the rug is the Israeli genocide on Palastinian civilians with more than 70 percent of the victims being women and children.
I hear reporting on this nearly every day on the PBS (Public Broadcasting Station) nightly news hour here in the US.
Load More Replies...BP writers like to use phrases they don't understand. Maybe they need AI.
And then people mysteriously stopped talking about it. Lol.
Load More Replies...People would rather believe in conspiracies than accept the truth that news media is a for-profit business. If a story doesn't get the coverage you think it deserves, the public plays no small part in that editorial decision making. Even the major news sites and broadcasts that are wildly biased are ubiquitous because people choose to watch them.
Load More Replies...Headline: People don't spend their time talking about events from history because they have lives to get on with.
Why are so many of these from the past. As some people brought out of course these are not going to be talked about. I thought this was going to be more modern stuff. Some were.
Most events happened in the past. The few that happened in the future will come around one day. As the Russians used to say, you never know what will happen yesterday.
Load More Replies...Many of these are just plain dumb and the people who posted them needs to be put in time out.
One winter morning In 2009 I was driving my hubby to work and we were listening to country 102.9 and the news came in and said that over 100 pounds of weed were found in Barack Obama's airplane (I forget what they call the president plane) and we were like holy s**t then tried to look up more info later and it never happened. No trace of it. And this was an ABC news clip not just the locals spewing off BS news. We still bring it up to this day but no one else knows about it
Trump's egregious lies were buried under a slew of newer egregious lies. And his cult members deny, deny, deny. Take a seat, folks. The sh!tshow has already started.
Wondering where the swept under the rug events. Out of all of this, maybe the Astroworld one. Everything else was a historical event, a battle of some kind, or just some random disaster. And then someone asking why the people who did something and is either dead or in jail isn't getting talked about today. Like seriously, the story ends and we all move on.
This list is wildly wrong. Why one earth would the rest of the world be discussing the Wars of the Roses today? Why would the world be interested in something the Kardashians got up to? At work, we don't talk about WWII, simply because it happened a life-time ago. It isn't ignored, it's just that the world has moved on, or what may be big news in some town in the US is definitely not massive news anywhere else.
Okay- here are my news items that have been "lost" -1 the bombing that happened in Nashville. 2- Both of the attempted assassins of he who shall not be named.
October 7th, 2023. Over 1,200 people tortured, r@ped, burned alive. Women and girls r@ped in their homes. Parents tortured in front of their children. Children beheaded in front of their parents. Music festival invaded by shooters who started killing indiscriminately and chasing people into shelters, ensuring they would kill as many as possible. 250 civilians taken hostage, 100 still being kept. All the while, the perpetrators love streaming their vile actions on social media. Some were even wearing UN vests, or media vests. The world stopped talking about it as the details of that horrible day were still emerging. Instead, the victims are asked to view this "in context" or outright being told it never happened.
I hear reporting on this frequently in the US (on the PBS news hour). Whenever there is new news about the kidnapped people who have not been returned, they report on it.
Load More Replies...None of those were "swept under the rug", they've simply been replaced by new disasters in the news. Maybe a story about "why are there so many disasters/violence?" Should be written?
The title is very misleading. It's not about anything being swept under the carpet. The world simply moves on and other things happen.
Yes, its not exactly shocking that people have moved on from the friggin Bronze Age
Load More Replies...IMHO, this list is kind of silly. Events are “news” when they first happen. But time doesn’t stand still; it moves forward, and…..new stuff happens, which becomes the “news.” The stuff that happened earlier becomes “history.” Granted, some education systems do a p1ss poor job of teaching history (ahem, U.S.) But if there isn’t an actual cover-up, I wouldn’t say these things get swept under the rug. I’m sorry, but things that happened in the 1400s that do get taught in history classes are not being “swept under the rug.”
The only one that I do think fits this list is the Panama Papers.
Load More Replies...Comfort Women during WWII. Practice a absolutely trivialized by the Japanese government even today. Thousands of women forced into sėxual slavery by Japan, nearly all records destroyed (by Japan) at the end of the war, and a complete unwillingness of the Japanese government to make reparations--or even really acknowledge--what they did. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_women
A couple of things that people seemed to have too quickly forgotten: 1) The destruction of ancient relics in Syria 2) That Trump was being charged with rape and they were working on going to trial when he was campaigning in 2016. They decided not to pursue the case I think shortly before the election. Most people I talk to have no recollection of this. 3) That Trump and US military actions in northern Syria bordering Turkey resulted in the release of over 100 ISIS people from prison.
First, I wonder if anyone but me watches documentaries and real history. Next, as said by other posters, it's impossible to keep one disaster or horrible happening on the "front page" because new ones happen every day. The murder of 15 people in New Orleans, MS, USA will be gone from the news in the US in another week when another mass murder happens. We hardly blink an eye when there is a school shooting. It's sad but true.
Not forgotten but not much discovered.. the 1989 Tiananmen Square man.
This is a pathetic post. "Oh no, that thing that happened FOUR HUNDRED YEARS AGO has been totally forgotten" . . . . . .
What's truly kept under the rug is the Israeli genocide on Palastinian civilians with more than 70 percent of the victims being women and children.
I hear reporting on this nearly every day on the PBS (Public Broadcasting Station) nightly news hour here in the US.
Load More Replies...BP writers like to use phrases they don't understand. Maybe they need AI.
And then people mysteriously stopped talking about it. Lol.
Load More Replies...People would rather believe in conspiracies than accept the truth that news media is a for-profit business. If a story doesn't get the coverage you think it deserves, the public plays no small part in that editorial decision making. Even the major news sites and broadcasts that are wildly biased are ubiquitous because people choose to watch them.
Load More Replies...Headline: People don't spend their time talking about events from history because they have lives to get on with.
Why are so many of these from the past. As some people brought out of course these are not going to be talked about. I thought this was going to be more modern stuff. Some were.
Most events happened in the past. The few that happened in the future will come around one day. As the Russians used to say, you never know what will happen yesterday.
Load More Replies...Many of these are just plain dumb and the people who posted them needs to be put in time out.
One winter morning In 2009 I was driving my hubby to work and we were listening to country 102.9 and the news came in and said that over 100 pounds of weed were found in Barack Obama's airplane (I forget what they call the president plane) and we were like holy s**t then tried to look up more info later and it never happened. No trace of it. And this was an ABC news clip not just the locals spewing off BS news. We still bring it up to this day but no one else knows about it
Trump's egregious lies were buried under a slew of newer egregious lies. And his cult members deny, deny, deny. Take a seat, folks. The sh!tshow has already started.
Wondering where the swept under the rug events. Out of all of this, maybe the Astroworld one. Everything else was a historical event, a battle of some kind, or just some random disaster. And then someone asking why the people who did something and is either dead or in jail isn't getting talked about today. Like seriously, the story ends and we all move on.
This list is wildly wrong. Why one earth would the rest of the world be discussing the Wars of the Roses today? Why would the world be interested in something the Kardashians got up to? At work, we don't talk about WWII, simply because it happened a life-time ago. It isn't ignored, it's just that the world has moved on, or what may be big news in some town in the US is definitely not massive news anywhere else.
Okay- here are my news items that have been "lost" -1 the bombing that happened in Nashville. 2- Both of the attempted assassins of he who shall not be named.
October 7th, 2023. Over 1,200 people tortured, r@ped, burned alive. Women and girls r@ped in their homes. Parents tortured in front of their children. Children beheaded in front of their parents. Music festival invaded by shooters who started killing indiscriminately and chasing people into shelters, ensuring they would kill as many as possible. 250 civilians taken hostage, 100 still being kept. All the while, the perpetrators love streaming their vile actions on social media. Some were even wearing UN vests, or media vests. The world stopped talking about it as the details of that horrible day were still emerging. Instead, the victims are asked to view this "in context" or outright being told it never happened.
I hear reporting on this frequently in the US (on the PBS news hour). Whenever there is new news about the kidnapped people who have not been returned, they report on it.
Load More Replies...