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Many horrific catastrophes have rocked the world and shaped history forever. However, some of these events were apparently worse than initially perceived.
A Reddit question recently went viral: “What event in history is grislier or grosser than we think?” Commenters unearthed these tragedies with some extra information that many likely didn’t know until then.
Someone talked about how horrific medicine was before anesthetics and painkillers. Another individual who claimed to have been on the scene painted a picture of the atrocities in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
This list is quite dark, but it provides insight into the harsh realities of these historic mishaps. Scroll through this somber trip down memory lane.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
The Irish Famine. It was actually a genocide and gets downplayed quite frequently as a result of a potato blight but it was more than that. The British shipped out any and every morsel of food available and the Irish were left with nothing to eat. Forced to eat grass or whatever was available and others (millions) fled across the sea to America.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 month ago
For you stole Trevelyan's corn, So the young might see the 'morn and now a prison ship lies waiting in the bay.
RELATED:
#2
The Belgians' treatment of the people of the Congo during King Leopold's reign.
If a parent worker didn't meet their quota, it was common practice to cut off the hand or foot of one of their children.
#3
The Trail of Tears.
Zapkin:
I live in Memphis, and there are signs around that say ‘Path of the Historic Trail of Tears.’ As a kid, I didn’t think much of it, but now I can’t help but think about how those people were going through one of the worst things imaginable, carrying what little they had, with hundreds of miles to go—and now I drive on that path to get to Target. We really don’t do enough educating on the topic here in the states.
#4
The atrocities carried out by the Imperial Army before and during WW2. Truly horrific, inhumane s**t.
Yes, Americans, the Russians, and the British did some ghoulish s**t, but Japan’s Imperial Army did next level cruelty.
The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) and the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) were responsible for a multitude of war crimes leading to millions of deaths. War crimes ranged from sexual slavery and massacres to human experimentation, torture, starvation, and forced labor, all either directly committed or condoned by the Japanese military and government.
Evidence of these crimes, including oral testimonies and written records such as diaries and war journals, has been provided by Japanese veterans.
#5
I'd argue many people don't know about the Holodomor. Hell, I didn't until I started learning about it after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. I'm not a major history buff and I'm on the (literal) opposite side of the planet, which is probably why I didn't know about it, but still... Death toll estimated between 3.5-7 million (some estimates as high as 11) with most settling around the 3.9 million mark. That's the number of Ukrainian people who died in the Holodomor. It was a man-made famine in 1930-1933. Genocide carried out by Stalin on the Ukrainian people.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 month ago
I am a history buff and that was Stalin's effort to "Russify" the population. He wanted to empty the land so good RUSSIAN people could occupy the newly empty land. His own version of Hitler's Lebensraum. Stalin did it first though. Now Putin is trying that same trick again.
#6
Unit 731. The majority of what we know about hypothermia comes from the cruelty of Japanese scientist to POWs at this place during WW2.
Luis Hernandez Dauajare 1 month ago
Worst still, nobody was punished by it. While some Nazi doctors were trialed and executed, chief surgeon Shiro-Ishi was given immunity by the US government. He died of natural causes, respected and in peace, converted to Christianity.
#7
Reading about the Sand Creek massacre in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee forever changed my perspective on the American West. The details are absolutely horrific especially what happened to the children.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 month ago
That's history that needs to be taught in school no matter how uncomfortable it is. The kids need to know about these things to prevent them from happening again.
#8
The sinking of the SS Princess Alice
The ship sank in September 1878 in the River Thames 4 minutes after colliding with another ship. Around 600-700 passengers are thought to have died and a diver reported seeing masses of bodies jammed together still standing upright in the doorways.
What made this sinking particularly horrible was that the ship sank in an area where 75 million gallons of raw sewage had been released into the river an hour earlier. The water was also polluted by untreated waste coming from nearby chemical factories.
A chemist described the water as being “Two continuous columns of decomposed fermenting sewage, hissing like soda water with baneful gases, so black that the water is stained for miles and discharging a corrupt charnel-house odour”
16 passengers who had been rescued subsequently died within 2 weeks after accidentally ingesting the water. Many of the passengers couldn’t swim and were dragged under by the weight of their heavy woollen clothing.
Bodies that were recovered were covered in slime that was difficult to clean off and the corpses rotted extremely fast due to the polluted river water.
Drowning is awful enough but drowning in a river of raw sewage is a whole other level of horrible….
#9
The Armenian genocide. Turkish military would march Armenians to Syria, and put them in fenced sections of desert with no food, water, or shelter. The only way to get mercy was to try to break out, because they would shoot you and that's quicker.
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 1 month ago
I think -- THINK -- I could have made that choice. What we do to each other.
#10
Honestly, I recently spent some time learning more details about the September 11th attacks than I had learned from the news as a kid. This might not be uncommon knowledge, and maybe even a “yeah duh” from most people, but I don’t think I had ever realized the amount of human body parts that littered the streets around the towers.
There was a moment when first responders realized the periodic bangs they were hearing were jumpers hitting the ground. Eye witnesses said the bodies would explode into pink mist upon contact, and one fire fighter was even k*lled by a falling body. First responders were begging people to stop jumping, that they were coming to save them… not realizing that they wouldn’t be able to reach them, and that the buildings would soon collapse.
#11
The aftermath of Katrina in and around New Orleans. I was down there twice immediately after the storm and the stench from dead bodies was almost overwhelming.
My sister and BIL bought a house on the other side of lake pontchartrain a few months later and there were STILL bodies floating up on the north shore of the lake.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 month ago
One of my favorite Top Gear episodes featured the crew buying cars in Florida and driving to New Orleans. The premise was buying a car in one place and selling it in another is cheaper than renting a car. Katrina happened while they were filming so the whole original premise was sunk. They donated their cars to a relief group and a lot of money to help as well.
#12
New London, TX school explosion.
"The force of the explosion was so great that a two-ton concrete block was thrown clear off the building and crushed a 1936 Chevrolet parked 200 feet away."
Why does the gas company add that odd smell to the natural gas supply???? Holy c**p!!! THIS is why.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 month ago
Methyl-Mercaptan. One of the smelliest substances in the world.
#13
The Death chambers in Germany. I lived in Germany for a few years. You know how we all heard of the nazi's gassing Jews. I took a tour to one of these places. As I got of the bus I was assaulted my whole body tightened up goose bumps appeared my brain was screaming evil walks here. I did not go in. I sat on the bus and cried to myself.
JoNo 1 month ago
When I visited a concentration camp, there was an old man wearing a suit and leaning on a walking stick, standing near the gas chambers. We were told how he had vowed that, if he lived through it, he would go to there every day in honour of those who didn't make it - his loved ones, his friends, and strangers who endured hell and died. That made me cry, and I still think of his dedication almost 30 years later. He would now be reunited with them.
#14
The sinking of the Britannic. Though she sunk with significantly fewer casualties than her sister ship Titanic, many of the deaths were due to the fact that the lifeboats were prematurely launched while the ship was still moving, which resulted in some of the lifeboats being sucked into the propellers, instantly obliterating the passengers on them.
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 1 month ago
I haven't read nearly as much of the Brittanic as the Titanic. Why did one become common knowledge, but not the other? Odd how some things just grab our consciousness.
#15
Syphilis.
When it first hit Europe it was nothing like the disease we know now.
It was fast-acting and MADE PEOPLE'S FACES ROT OFF (yes I do believe there are woodcuts of this).
As you might imagine, this was a bad transmission strategy long term for syphilis, so it eventually evolved into the decades-long misery we know today.
#16
WWII in Croatia. Ustashe commited crimes so gruesome that even the N*zis were shocked.
StarCrossedFriday 1 month ago
What is it about war that turns some people into collective absolute evil? I saw a documentary where they interviewed soldiers 60 years after WWII, and even they couldn’t quite believe the things they’d done themselves back then.
#17
The Great Stink of 1858 in London. The River Thames was so polluted with untreated human waste and industrial runoff that the city was overwhelmed by a horrific stench during a heatwave. It was so bad that Parliament had to be suspended, and the situation was considered a public health crisis. It wasn’t just gross, it contributed to outbreaks of cholera and other diseases.
#18
Before we had anesthetic and abundant pain k*llers, field surgery wells absolutely horrific. Here's a bottle of alcohol, we're going to saw your leg off now.
Also, most people doing the work were far from qualified to do the work, they were just slightly better than the next guy in the platoon. I remember reading a first person account of a Civil War nurse who was tasked with curing pneumonia by removing the fluid from a man's lungs. She was given explicit direction based on "I guess this is how the body works". The process was to heat up the rim of a metal rimmed shot glass, sear his chest, and pop the resulting blister, thus removing the water from his body. This was done twice an hour. He died 3 days into the removal, likely a combination of dehydration and infection.
#19
Pretty much the entire Vietnam war. Open pits of burning bodies, and people being blown apart and impaled everywhere.
#20
Not really history, as both are still relevant, but they are a lot less so these days:
Ebola and rabies. What they do to a person is nightmare fuel.
hamburgersocks:
Rabies k*lls you by making your muscles spasm so hard you break your own back... if the hydrophobia doesn't dehydrate you first.
Still no cure if it's caught too late. Don't get bit, folks.
rricenator:
The stories of Ebola remind me of Poe, The Masque of the Red Death.
Insomniac 1 month ago
I got bit by a feral cat from an area where rabies was known. They couldn't find the cat. So I had to choose if I wanted to go through the post-exposure rabies shot protocol. I had just come off major surgery and was battling complications from that, so we knew it was going to be rough on my body and mental health. I watched a video on YouTube of a guy dying from rabies. I did the protocol, which took over a month. I was horribly sick and miserable and crazy and my boyfriend left me because he got tired of me being sick, but I am alive. And within the year, they found two feral cats in that area with rabies. It sucks, but get the shots if you've possibly been exposed, folks. I don't think it would be as hard on a healthy person, but UGH.
#21
So grizzly and gross is this:
The bubonic plague, often referred to as the Black Death, is one of the most infamous pandemics in history. It ravaged Europe, Asia, and North Africa during the 14th century, peaking between 1347 and 1351. The plague was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which was typically spread by fleas that lived on rats. The pandemic k*lled an estimated 75 to 200 million people, wiping out between 30-60% of Europe’s population.
The disease manifested in three forms: bubonic (affecting the lymph nodes), septicemic (infecting the bloodstream), and pneumonic (infecting the lungs). The bubonic form was characterized by painful, swollen lymph nodes (called buboes), fever, and skin turning black due to gangrene, giving rise to the name “Black Death.”
This pandemic had profound social, economic, and cultural effects. Labor shortages following the mass deaths led to significant social upheavals, including changes in feudalism, a rise in wages, and a shift in land ownership patterns. It also triggered a wave of religious movements and scapegoating, with many minorities, especially Jews, being wrongly blamed for the plague.
Smaller outbreaks of the plague have occurred since then, but none reached the same devastating scale as the 14th-century pandemic. Modern medicine, particularly antibiotics, can now treat plague infections effectively if caught early.
Imagine the smell alone.
David Paterson 1 month ago
It's still around. In Madagascar, sub-Saharan Africa, and Arizona. When it develops antibiotic resistance, it'll make Covid look like a nonevent.
#22
The Donner Party. Children choosing who dies to suck the marrow from the bones of their parents.
Randomizing flesh so that parents wouldn't know that they were eating their own children.
It was nuts.
wookiee42:
Yeah, just radomly ran into a mention of the Donner Party the other day and read the wikipedia. I thought it was a wagon train got stuck in the mountains and they eventually were forced to eat each other.
They survived for way longer than I thought and wayyyy more crazy stuff happened
TheNewJenBrady 1 month ago
Do not read that Wikipedia page if you want to sleep. I stumbled into it one late night, and it is absolutely devastating and horrific what they went through.
#23
The American Civil War in general. Old school war tactics meeting modern warfare sprinkled with pre germ theory medicine practices resulted in quite the s**t show.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 month ago
And yes, it WAS about slavery. Take your Lost Cause, State's Rights BS and cry into your racist flag. It was about slavery. It was always about slavery. It will continue to be about slavery until the USA is no longer a country.
#24
Look up the cannabilism during Stalingrad.
westwebwarlord:
Most people don’t talk about cannibalism during sieges. It starts with house pets when food runs out and leads to picking at your dead friends. War is hell.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 month ago
I think OP is talking about LENINGRAD not Stalingrad. It was way worse in Leningrad. Stalingrad was over in less than a year. Leningrad went on for three years.
#25
The sand creek massacre and the following battle. In the massacre, the colonists k*lled women and children, up to ripping unborn babies out of their mothers and tearing ovaries from women to wear proudly on their persons. A horrifying event that should never have occurred.
In the following battle, the natives took revenge by grabbing the colonists by THEIR genitalia and twisting and jerking them around until said member came free from their body. Needless to say, war is gruesome and you should never mess with your enemies families lest you find yourself bleeding out of a delicate place.
#26
Great Chinese Famine (1959-1961) - With 15 to 45 million people dead - kicked off by Great Leap Forward. Mao ignored technical experts and economic principles and established agricultural collectives, relying on peasants to figure out industrialization. The government tried to cover up conditions, which only made things worse.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 1 month ago
Mao was a complete POS and if I lived in China, I'd be headed to jail just for saying that.
#27
Arab slave trade, they had the custom of castrating male slaves, about 60% of boys bled to death during this process. Mostly due to eunichs selling for more.
Like, slavery is bad enough, do you need to castrate them as well?!
#28
I had always read about how Jack the Ripper mutilated his victims but it wasn't until I saw the photo of one them and realised how f****d up it actually was.
#29
All of Genghis Khan invasions.
From memory, theirs the capturing and then skinning and then using fat as incendiary to launch and burn the enemies forts down.
Another one where they dug a huge hole and put the prisoners of war in this hole, then put a board on top and continued to use it as a bridge/road until they all died.
There are more but listening to Dan Carlin episodes covering it are epic.
Mr.Li 1 month ago
Please dont hate me for this: Ghengis Khan alllowed his people religious freedom. They were allowed to whorship whatever god/deity the wanted, as long as they pray for the great khans victory. He has also freed a complete land by telling the oppressed muslim subjects they were allowed to practice the islam without fear of punishment. Which leads them to revolt against their oppressors. He succesfully conquered this land within months. The lord of this land, who oppressed the muslims were caught and lynched by them, when he tried to flee that land.
#30
The Eastern Front of WW2. It was basically free reign to do any horrific thing they could come up with. I took a WW2 history class. The Holocaust as a whole was unprecedented in its horror. But the "Holocaust by Bullets" and the way they developed mobile gassing units as a precursor to the mass gas chambers was insane.
All the while the occupying forces were r*ping, pillaging, m*rdering, torturing, starving and basically enslaving people. Racially acceptable Women often made arrangements with n*zis to serve as their private girlfriends for food and protection from the other n*zis. Brothels with racially acceptable women were so overrun that the n*zis developed mobile and mass testing centers for syphilis I believe. They required soldiers get tested regularly and promoted it as part of being a good aryan soldier. Of course all the other STDS were there as well. The women were forced in a lot of cases. Keep in mind these guys were piling up bodies like sardines as they're r*ping and torturing. Truly the apocalypse.
What do you think ?
Insomniac 1 month ago
The Alexandru Radita case in Calgary, Alberta. Yes, just one boy, but the horror he lived.... His parents were absolute psychopaths. And there were so many chances to save him had someone in the medical, education, or social services sector thought to push for some investigation.
Julia H 1 month ago
Unfortunately history keeps repeating itself with k8ds who should be protected but are left with parents who would happily torture and starve them. Take the Turpin kids. Then revictimized (rap3d) in foster care.
Load More Replies...
I need a nap. 1 month ago
I read all of them, but I didn’t do any other research. It’s 12:20 for me, and I want to get some sleep. But tomorrow you know I’m visiting the Wikipedia pages of these so I can see what ACTUALLY happened.
Insomniac 1 month ago
A lot of these are relatively accurate. Surprisingly so.
Load More Replies...
Stardust she/her 1 month ago
Jallianwala baag tragedy was horrible. Only one exit to leave from and hundreds of people were in that enclosed space when Dyer opened fire and killed many innocent people.
Sapna Sarfare 1 month ago
The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre and the Bengal Famine.. horrible Also 26/11 Mumbai attacks.. it still shakes Mumbai
Patrick Linnen 1 month ago
Fort Pillow; After the fight, Confederate Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest had his troops massacre the Union troops, half of which were African-American. From the wiki page, "Only 58 (around 20%) black soldiers were taken prisoner, whereas 168 (about 60%) white soldiers were taken prisoner. Not all of the prisoners who were shot were black; Major Bradford was apparently among those shot after surrendering."
Kraneia The Dancing Dryad 1 month ago
Surprised no one mentioned that kid who fancied himself a "bear whisperer".... Till it ate him and his girlfriend... You want something that'll keep you up at night, read the Wikipedia article on HIM. Oi.
G A 1 month ago
He wasn't a kid by any means. He was a very naive man who thought he was friends with starving bears who got himself, his girlfriend and the bear responsible killed due to his own stupidity.
Load More Replies...
Julia H 1 month ago
Agreed. It is painful to examine the past atrocities of people who share a genome. We can't just skip over them because it's uncomfortable.
Load More Replies...
Paulina 1 month ago
And my "favorite" is missing again, as in every history piece ever :( Look up Bengal Famine of 1943 - it's a manmade disaster that took at least 3 MILLION people. In India during WWW2, British rulers decided to take away food from people and send it to their white soldiers. As a result, horrific amount of people died of starvation. And yet, no one talks about it. Ever. I highly recommend BBC podcast called "3 million" - despite being British, it is quite comprehensive account of the disaster.
Insomniac 1 month ago
Was that the one where White administrators in India were forbidden to feed the starving ppl out of their own pockets?
Load More Replies...
Cronecast AtTheRisingMoon 1 month ago (edited)
Well, that was unrelentingly grim. In fairness, the title was accurate.
Insomniac 1 month ago
The Alexandru Radita case in Calgary, Alberta. Yes, just one boy, but the horror he lived.... His parents were absolute psychopaths. And there were so many chances to save him had someone in the medical, education, or social services sector thought to push for some investigation.
Julia H 1 month ago
Unfortunately history keeps repeating itself with k8ds who should be protected but are left with parents who would happily torture and starve them. Take the Turpin kids. Then revictimized (rap3d) in foster care.
Load More Replies... I need a nap. 1 month ago
I read all of them, but I didn’t do any other research. It’s 12:20 for me, and I want to get some sleep. But tomorrow you know I’m visiting the Wikipedia pages of these so I can see what ACTUALLY happened.
Insomniac 1 month ago
A lot of these are relatively accurate. Surprisingly so.
Load More Replies... Stardust she/her 1 month ago
Jallianwala baag tragedy was horrible. Only one exit to leave from and hundreds of people were in that enclosed space when Dyer opened fire and killed many innocent people.
Sapna Sarfare 1 month ago
The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre and the Bengal Famine.. horrible Also 26/11 Mumbai attacks.. it still shakes Mumbai
Patrick Linnen 1 month ago
Fort Pillow; After the fight, Confederate Major General Nathan Bedford Forrest had his troops massacre the Union troops, half of which were African-American. From the wiki page, "Only 58 (around 20%) black soldiers were taken prisoner, whereas 168 (about 60%) white soldiers were taken prisoner. Not all of the prisoners who were shot were black; Major Bradford was apparently among those shot after surrendering."
Kraneia The Dancing Dryad 1 month ago
Surprised no one mentioned that kid who fancied himself a "bear whisperer".... Till it ate him and his girlfriend... You want something that'll keep you up at night, read the Wikipedia article on HIM. Oi.
G A 1 month ago
He wasn't a kid by any means. He was a very naive man who thought he was friends with starving bears who got himself, his girlfriend and the bear responsible killed due to his own stupidity.
Load More Replies... Julia H 1 month ago
Agreed. It is painful to examine the past atrocities of people who share a genome. We can't just skip over them because it's uncomfortable.
Load More Replies... Paulina 1 month ago
And my "favorite" is missing again, as in every history piece ever :( Look up Bengal Famine of 1943 - it's a manmade disaster that took at least 3 MILLION people. In India during WWW2, British rulers decided to take away food from people and send it to their white soldiers. As a result, horrific amount of people died of starvation. And yet, no one talks about it. Ever. I highly recommend BBC podcast called "3 million" - despite being British, it is quite comprehensive account of the disaster.
Insomniac 1 month ago
Was that the one where White administrators in India were forbidden to feed the starving ppl out of their own pockets?
Load More Replies... Cronecast AtTheRisingMoon 1 month ago (edited)
Well, that was unrelentingly grim. In fairness, the title was accurate.
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