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It’s no secret — fighting boredom is our specialty, and we recognized a long time ago that learning new and interesting insights about the world is the best way to do it. As history buffs, we love delving into remarkable moments from our past and the precious stories passed down from generation to generation. I still remember everything my grandparents told me about World War II, and I’m sure you have stories like that too.

Even so, have you ever stopped to think about the lesser-known events that have had a significant impact on the world but usually go overlooked or forgotten — our schools’ curricula frequently silent accomplices of which historical events get more recognition over others?

More often than not, we miss out on some of the most meaningful stories simply because they’re not taught in schools. They’re relegated to a small section of our books, mentioned in a line, or not included at all. And the same thing happens every day outside of school, with noteworthy but overlooked events that don’t get covered by the media, usually for lack of sensationalism or because they occur in a country far, far away from us.

Time to change that. We scoured the internet for some of the most impactful events that are often forgotten and found a goldmine of information on Reddit. This thread asked users to share which events and facts, in their opinion, make up the world’s unseen history. Thousands of users answered the call and shared their knowledge and perspectives on moments of history — both contemporary and less recent — that most people don’t know. Despite how limited our brain storage can be, some rarely mentioned events deserve their space in our memory and to be told again and again to future generations. 

By exploring some of the lesser-known but significant historical events, we challenge the often limited narratives we are exposed to. From the Tulsa massacre in 1921 to the ongoing civil war in Myanmar, we’ll uncover some of the hidden history and lesser-known facts that shaped, and still do, the world as we know it.

#1

"Nestle buying up water rights everywhere in the world and not only is no one doing anything about it, but most idiots are also buying single-use plastic bottles to enable them by paying $$ for their own water. Ban Nestle from being allowed any water rights. They can go home to Switzerland and try it there on their own citizens and aquifers."

macgruff Report

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#2

SomeCollegeGwy said:
"This August a VACCINE for CANCER will begin human trials in the UK using the mRNA innovations from the covid-19 vaccine. It should be able to directly target cancer cells and only cancer cells (much much superior to chemotherapy). A vaccine for Lyme disease has been completed using the same technology. And a vaccine for Malaria has been developed using the same technology."

AnDroid5539 replied:
"One of the silver linings of the pandemic was that it pushed the development of mRNA vaccines ahead by leaps and bounds. Necessity really is the mother of invention, I guess."

SomeCollegeGwy Report

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RagDollLali
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

And yet there will still be so many people refusing to give their kids these vaccines BecAuSe ESsenTiAL OiLs aNd CRyStalS WorK BeTteR

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#3

"26 September 1983 when a Soviet officer, Stanislav Petrov, literally saved the whole planet from nuclear war by identifying a nuclear missile attack alarm as false. Everyone owes him their lives today."

One-Respect-2733 Report

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and_a_touch_of_the_’tism
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yup. He was one of 3 officers that had to sign off on the launch from a nuclear submarine, the other two got false information or something, but he wouldn’t sign off.

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#4

"It was in this documentary I saw THE shady World of fast fashion on YouTube. All these mountains of used and unsold clothes from the first world are sold to western Africa. It's a huge business there. They are then sold to vendors who resell them. The leftover clothes are sent to a dump near the ocean and the pile of them is unbelievable. It stretches for miles. The environmental problems the textile industry causes at all levels from pesticides to water use and chemicals in dyes to transport of clothes is one of the number one pollution sources on the globe."

ComedianRepulsive955 , DW Documentary Report

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SlothyK8
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My 2023 New Years resolution: the only new clothing of any kind I will buy from now on are undergarments and socks. Period. I'm guilty of fast fashion buying over the last few years, too. No more. We have to stop this.

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#5

"China, despite not having any sophisticated matching system, is the world's second-largest organ transplant industry in the world. Some human rights scientists noticed that in China one could get an organ donor with a 2-week turnaround. They thought, hmmm, the US with one of the most sophisticated match systems in the world, and the wait list is YEARS - math ain’t adding up. Well, they looked into it - found out there is rampant organ harvesting from political prisoners, and the “disappeared”. Wanna guess where the majority of those organs turned out to be originating from? First the followers of Falun Dong, and secondly the Uyghur population is China’s biggest source of organ harvesting. They were able to back calc how many people must be dying a day to hit that mark compared to in the US. 2 weeks for an organ match… for Uyghur-sourced organs alone the prediction is 25-50 thousand are being murdered annually. Many are being harvested while still alive so they can continue to be a “source”. The followers of Falun Gong? Even higher numbers initially (though this may have flipped by now). And people are claiming no genocide is happening. Bone-chilling."

Danceswith_salmon Report

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D3v1lD0ll
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The plight of the Uyghur population just breaks my heart. "Superpowers" should be held more accountable for their actions by the rest of the world.

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#6

CompMolNeuro said:
"Bugs. We're losing insect populations at a staggering rate. Those beasties are central to many ecosystems. If there were ever to be a trigger to catastrophic, ecological collapse, then removing the creatures at the bottom of the food chain would do it. That's what's happening all over the world right now."

zeldafitzgeraldscat replied:
"It used to be that when you were driving at night, you would see 1000s of bugs in your headlights, and you would have to stop every so often to clean them all off your windshield."

CompMolNeuro Report

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Viv Justviv
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

A few years ago I moved back to Ohio from Southern California & one of the first things I noticed was the lack of lightning bugs. It used to be, right after dusk on humid summer nights, you'd see hundreds of beautiful little lights blinking - no more. Now, I feel lucky if I see maybe 10 or 15 bugs lighting up at dusk. I did google it at the time & discovered that I am not imagining the loss of the lightning bugs, but I blocked out any specifics from my mind, I'm so heartbroken. So, for any reasons or theories about the loss of lightning bugs, you'd have to google it, sorry. I can't even handle the bad news of it today :(

Linda R
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I live in the US deep South in a rural area, and I've noticed that I see far fewer bees, butterflies, and fireflies in recent years. I also hear fewer frogs, and rarely hear bullfrogs anymore. The only ones that don't seem to be declining are mosquitoes and flies - especially the ones that bite!

Xenon
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Fun lightening bug fact: its the females looking for a mate that light up, not the males.

Cassi Lyris
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yup. We're just destroying everything around us, to our own detriment...

Terri Martin
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I live in Houston Texas and I can assure you, the insect population is thriving here. You can't yawn outdoors without inhaling a bug😅 The mosquito is our state bird.

Jeremy Crocker
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

In Maine our state bird is the black fly. If you don't know what that is then you're clearly "from away"!

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foryouwhynot IB
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I haven’t seen a firefly population like we had when I was young in decades…my son is 7 now and growing up thinking they’re rare…overuse of pesticides has ruined summer nights.

Marilyn Russell
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

So sad. That’s like how there are so many less butterflies now than when I was a kid. I get excited when they visit my garden spaces and provide plants they like and water sources. I let milkweed grow and even saw a new Monarch emerge from a chrysalis last summer. So cool! Later I took the pods and spread the seeds around the brush adjacent to my house. We’ll see what happens.

Lacia Lew
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Huh, really? Bugs are thriving where I'm at. Ants, flies, mosquitoes, butterflies, bees, fireflies, even ladybugs, you name it and they're still here.

Jeremy Crocker
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I have a lot bugs around me, too, but I live in the woods. Have noticed I don't drive through clouds of May flies at night like I did years ago.

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No one
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I remember when i was little I would catch fireflys, and when the birds' song used to be my alarm. I wonder what happened to the mourning dove

Eli D
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I live in Virginia and I almost NEVER seen ladybugs any more, I used to see them crawling around all over the place

Stay Off My Lawn
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Oh my goodness and the way it creeps up on you. I live near a swamp but I haven’t been bitten by a mosquito in more than a decade. Nobody seems to notice, or maybe they see it as a blessing.

SeaLouse
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Maybe if the media started worrying less about climate change and more about pollution and habitat degradation we could see some progress.

Marylyn Tippeconnic
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That is what's causing climate change so yes focusing on climate change and how to fix it is focusing on pollution and habitat degradation.

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Disinforminationalisticalities
Community Member
1 year ago

This comment is hidden. Click here to view.

And everyone is uber focused on bůllshıt "climate change", letting real problems like this flourish.

Marylyn Tippeconnic
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Try education. It makes everybody look good. You think it's BS but that obviously means you don't understand. This is happening because of climate change. Climate change is only BS to people that don't know how to comprehend. It's climate change that is causing all of this. Well it's part of what's causing all of this but climate change is happening because of the way we are treating in the world. I wish you would pick up a book and stop calling BS about things that you just don't have enough understanding of.

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#7

YeetMeDaddio said:
"People in southern Madagascar have been facing severe drought for the last two years. More than a million left starving."

Emotional_Area_2754 replied:
"From Madagascar and currently in Madagascar rn, I confirm this...

To give more info, we are your typical predatory government state, with high corruption, not a lot of development projects, etc. I am not a huge fan myself of donating money to NGOs as it is often a band-aid solution, that isn’t sustainable, and exacerbates corruption in countries like mine (source: my international development BA and personal experience). But having been to the south myself, and seeing how scarce the resources are. Supporting NGOs that actively distribute food while waiting for the government to take responsibility is the humane thing to do. I linked an NGO that I know is helping out by giving food to the south.

It’s in French: Action contre la faim [action contre la faim] action contre la faim.

The situation: Madagascar is bigger than France in terms of surface which is a fact that not a lot of people realize. We are a biodiversity hotspot, as diverse as Costa Rica, and the south is our very own desert. It’s hard to access, as road infrastructures are poor, and it’s a very dry area, we are on the brink of the first climate change-induced famine. And there is in general no infrastructure such as schools, healthcare, etc. Hope you have a blessed day, it’s so nice to see people care, and one thing that could help is tourism, it’s a beautiful country, I am hoping you guys can google the south of Madagascar, and maybe hop on a flight and boost our local economy. Jokes aside, it’s worth it."

YeetMeDaddio Report

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#8

iremovebrains said:
"It's not that people don't know about it, you just can't imagine the scale. The opioid epidemic is extraordinary. Before I started as the medical examiner I was aware but not really aware. A full 30% of my cases are drug deaths. It's a silent genocide. There are no class, race, or religious lines. Just a parade of sick people who never got help for their trauma or mental illness and died chasing a solution for their unaddressed pain."

lowblowbro1 replied:
"For anyone reading this and wanting to know more, I'd really recommend reading the book Dopesick. Horrific actually seeing the stats on what's happened as a result of the Sackler family and their greed. The TV show was incredibly hard to watch but very well done also."

iremovebrains Report

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Jason Traver
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

As a 17 year addict, now clean over 4 years, I can say the biggest block to me getting help, at first, was the looks, whispers, and outright knowledge of people calling me junkie...people are dying, my friends are dying and tho we hear nice words...where's the help?

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#9

Madmarrdegan said:
"Pol pot wiped out almost a quarter of Cambodia's population during his reign using the Khmer Rouge. He died peacefully in his sleep in 1998, never being held accountable."

Historical_Wash_1114 replied:
"When I was a kid I saw a documentary about Pol Pot and it fu*ked me up for MONTHS! I became obsessed with the country and learned everything I could about Cambodia. Probably the first time kid me saw the true darkness of humanity. I can't even put into words how distraught I was."

Madmarrdegan Report

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Der Kommissar
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I lived in Cambodia for 9 years. Sadly, most young Cambodian people don't know much about the genocide. It is not taught in local schools. There is a Genocide Museum called Tuol Sleng, that is the most depressing place I have every been. Most of the visitors are Western tourists, I rarely saw Cambodians there, as I had to go there regularly, whenever one of my friends would visit me.

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#10

"The Carrington Event. It was the most severe recorded geomagnetic storm that happened in the 1800s. It was so powerful it set fires in telegram stations. If we had one of equal strength today it would be catastrophic and, I'm pulling a number out of my a*s here, the death toll would probably be in the millions because of how much most of the developed world depends on power. Hospitals, aircraft, etc. That's on the more extreme end of the course, we get hit by smaller solar flares often and don't even realize."

CertifiedSeqoia Report

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Stardust she/her
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

We nearly missed a Carrington level of magnitude solar flare back in 2012. If it had hit Earth, society would just fall apart and millions I believe will die due to many problems. Navigation will be tough as our satellites responisble for GPS may be knocked offline so even using most of modern technology won’t do anything. Our power grid would’ve also suffered and estimates for fixing it would be really expensive. We would still be fixing up the power grid if the storm had hit us 10 years ago

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#11

Frances_E_Farmer said:
"In the Armenian Genocide, around 1 million were killed during WW1 by the Ottoman Empire. Turkey still denies it to this day and the US only just recognized it last year."

skeletorbilly replied:
"If it wasn't for the System of Down even fewer people would know about it. It's just not taught in school."

Frances_E_Farmer Report

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Crouching hippo hidden panda
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Shockingly I learned about it from hearing something written about the Kardashians. I’m not a fan of them, but it was interesting to come across something actually newsworthy regarding them

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#12

Reddit user said:
"The Ogallala Aquifer, the largest aquifer in the world, has been drying up."

Kevin_Uxbridge replied:
"I think you mean 'being pumped dry'."

reddit.com Report

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liz MacClain
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Another theft of rights and life from the native American imagine that! We are so loud about everything happening everywhere but our own backyard

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#13

"It’s not that people don’t know about Hurricane Katrina, it’s that people don’t realize that there are still people who live with its impacts, to this day, and many of their people might not have even been accounted for (Aka, missing). Many of the victims may have been swept out into the ocean, and many of them were bussed to various parts of the country. Many of these people were children separated from their parents, and never heard from again. let that marinate. I’m not saying this to spread conspiracy theories, I’m saying this because we tend to think that New Orleans rebuilt, that people died and that the dust settled. But there are thousands of people who were never accounted for, so we don’t know whether they lived or died. We don’t know how many kids were taken advantage of, or anything."

Zestfullyclean87 Report

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Linda R
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

They also don't realize that coastal Mississippi was the "unnamed land mass between Louisiana and Alabama where Katrina actually made landfall. Many of the homes and businesses were washed away in the surge, which reached 30 feet in Bay St. Louis. It actually broke the Interstate 10 bridge that crosses the Pascagoula River, which was closed for weeks, forcing the interstate traffic inland. The alternate route was Highway 90 along the coast, but one entire lane of a low bridge at the lower Pascagoula River was also washed out with huge strips of asphalt standing on end. It took me nearly two hours to commute the normal 30-minute drive to work for weeks.

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#14

Coliebear86 said:
"The oldest known plague graves from "The Black Death" 1338-1352ish are in Kyrgyzstan. It is believed yersinia pestis made the jump from animals to people there, then spread across to Europe. It came back about every 50 years and is still around today."

soymrdannal replied:
"I lived in Kyrgyzstan for a short while pre-Covid. Bubonic plague is very much still a thing there, but luckily we have antibiotics to help treat it. People still die of it in extremely rural areas, though."

Coliebear86 Report

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SlothyK8
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Plague or not, Kyrgyzstan is STILL at the top of my bucket list. What a gorgeous country....

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#15

GreatJothulhu said:
"Witch Hunting in Africa."

sometimesagreat replied:
"People with albinism are targeted and their body parts are highly prized by witch doctors."

GreatJothulhu Report

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RagDollLali
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

There are a lot of really good documentaries available for free online about this, some of them are brutal but really really good in discussing how ugly it really is

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#16

"Both foreign and domestic massive companies are buying massive swaths of residential real estate, sometimes entire towns' worth, causing rent prices to soar and obliterating the possibility of homeownership for young adults. The US and Canada have taken steps to try to prevent this, but in the US the fastest fix to stop a takeover is actually HOAs making rules against rentals."

finzablazin Report

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Stay Off My Lawn
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I never thought I’d have anything nice to say about HOAs, but that is a point I’ve never considered.

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#17

"Modern-day slave markets in Uganda. Humans being sold for $14."

Virtual_Bug5486 , Godfrey Olukya Report

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kitten levels tokyo
Community Member
1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Bucket list: buy an enslaved person and set them free. Edit: @Thomas Sherwin and @Nicole Weymann, you make good points. I’ve always thought that giving an enslaved human being their freedom would be a great thing to do. I was not thinking about supply and demand issues.

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#18

syzygy_is_a_word said:
"Ongoing and hugely important: the global NPK fertilizer shortage. NPK (Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium) fertilizer is essential for modern agriculture, and around a quarter of the global supply used to come from Ukraine and Western Russia. Because of the war, Ukraine isn't making any, and ships aren't putting into port in the Black Sea to get out of Russia. A lot of countries absolutely depend on fertilizer from Russia to even achieve subsistence-level farming, mostly in Africa and the Middle East, but in India. China and Brazil are pretty big consumers too and Brazil is one of the largest food exporters. So by this fall, thanks to Putin's war, we're likely to see food shortages and famine across a lot of the planet."

Xirenec_ replied:
"Also, Ukraine was producing huge amounts of world neon supply(supposedly over half of it), and it is needed for something in chip manufacturing."

YNot1989 Report

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D3v1lD0ll
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Don't forget that the Ukraine and Russia are two of the world's major suppliers of feed grain for cows, poultry, etc.. I've recently learned that the war is a major factor in the crazy egg prices over the past months.

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#19

JaThatOneGooner said:
"There is a civil war in Myanmar (formerly Burma) between a Junta coup and the people who are anti-junta. The Junta is responsible for the coup that saw the deposition of a popular democratically elected politician."

Philosophical_gump replied:
"It is insane what has happened/is going on there. The whole military Junta was in control for decades, followed by voluntary democratic reform (with the cooperation of a woman who was jailed for 15 years and is a Nobel Peace Prize winner) only to be followed by the most recent coup. I remember watching that fitness instructor video on youtube where the military vehicles roll down the street in the background when the coup started. But the real tragedy is the campaign of ethnic cleansing/genocide being carried out on the Rohingya people. A Muslim minority ethnic group. Even the now deposed Nobel peace prize winner has now been accused of ignoring/being complicit with the genocide."

JaThatOneGooner Report

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Debby Keir
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

But the Nobel prize winning democratic leader has never condemned or done ANYTHING about the treatment of the Rohingya, and she narrowly avoided having her Peace Prize withdrawn in 2018, when amnesty international withdrew their previous award to her. Listen to Philosphical_gump

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#20

"There's a current civil war in Ethiopia that has left approximately 600,000 dead since the beginning of 2018. It is a vicious war where both sides have been accused of forcing civilians to fight with very little training."

MapsActually Report

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#21

SuperTanker2017 said:
"That sand is the most stolen and unregulated resource in the world."

pickupurdirtyclothes replied:
"It’s the raw material for concrete (or cement—I always confuse the two). And it’s specifically river sand that’s needed because its irregular shape serves as a better binding agent. We can’t start using sand from say, the Sahara, because it’s round and can’t bind. China has used a huge percentage of the world’s sand in the last couple of decades."

SuperTanker2017 Report

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Der Kommissar
Community Member
1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I lived in Cambodia, which sold a lot of sand to Singapore, legally (condoned by the corrupt government) and illegally . There was a headline once in the Cambodia Daily; "Illegal sand exports to be taxed" which shows you what a corrupt, wacky country Cambodia is.

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#22

BoxytheBandit said:
"The Mount Toba eruption decimated the human population around 70,000 years ago. It could have been the end for us."

schilll replied:
"It's estimated that less than 1000 people existed on the southern tip of South Africa for 1000-3000 years. I've read the research that estimated less than 250 people at its lowest point. Almost all people can trace their lineage to those people. It is also speculated that fingertips wrinkle in water comes from that period. Since most of their food consisted of seafood like snails, crabs, etc. Those who were able to get the most food were also more able to reproduce. This is one of the reasons that I don't think humans will go extinct. We are like a virus, you can only kill 99.99%.of us. Some will survive and develop new traits that make us harder to kill."

BoxytheBandit Report

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#23

"Tunguska Blast. Meteor blew up a few hundred meters above the forest in Siberia. Flattened hundreds of acres of trees. Only two or three minutes earlier, and it would’ve airburst over any number of European capital cities."

Midnight_Poet Report

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RagDollLali
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I had never heard about this before, but I'm definitely going to go look it up now!

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#24

"There’s a research that is supposed to put bioluminescent molecules in trees so streets could be lit naturally (not counting the benefit of having trees in cities)."

eltrakt0r Report

#25

"Everyone is talking about climate change and a few years ago Polynesia was already under water. Some of its citizens tried to migrate to Australia but were refused because "ecological refugee" is not an UN-approved refugee status..."

ivolimmen Report

#26

"A dictator's son was just "elected" in the Philippines a few months ago."

Darrow723 Report

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Der Kommissar
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Unfortunately, he was legally elected. His name is Bong-Bong and his mom has an awesome shoe collection, paid for by the people of the Philippines

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#27

HeavyGooses said:
"Not a singular event, but that's why it was basically forgotten about: the drying of the Aral Sea."

Cathalised replied:
"It's been great seeing Kazakhstan stepping up, damming (and consequently slowly saving) their side of it with fauna returning to the area. If only Uzbekistan could do the same..."

HeavyGooses Report

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Silvermidnight
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I learned about this in History class. Looking at the miles and miles of desert that used to be water and the creaking old buildings with no one there . . . it's heartbreaking.💔

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#28

nocticis said:
"It took me to watch HBO watchmen to learn about the Tulsa massacre. Like as many history classes I’ve had and not once was it brought up is wild."

SaltySinclair replied:
"I watched videos on it growing up. Then again I grew up in Oklahoma City so it was part of their history. It kinda shocked me when everyone started talking about it like they never heard of it then I remind myself."

nocticis Report

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Christy Means-Stephens
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I grew up in Tulsa, and when I was in school 70’s - 80’s, it was barely taught. It’s appalling that 1) it ever happened at all and 2) how long it was swept under the rug 😡

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#29

Ursus_Arctos-42 said:
"Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017) had a plot where a major drug dealer poisoned drugs with a slow-killing poison. He then offers the antidote if the USA stops the war on drugs. Instead, the President sees this as a win-win. The world will get rid of addicts, and the war on drugs can be won. The reality is even darker. The doctors pushed too strong and addictive drugs on their patients, making money for themselves and the manufacturer. When the patients got hooked, and couldn’t cut the use nor get a new prescription, they turned into illegal sources, turning themselves for raw material for the prison industry."

Jibebelele replied:
"This is a tragedy of the American capitalistic healthcare system. A healthcare system powered by greed, what could go wrong."

Ursus_Arctos-42 Report

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and_a_touch_of_the_’tism
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Tbh if it weren’t for family I’d move out of the US as soon as legally possible. Although Canada seems close enough.

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#30

SuvenPan said:
"The northern white rhinoceros or northern white rhino used to be found in several countries in East and Central Africa south of the Sahara. Since 19 March 2018, there are only two known rhinos of this subspecies left, which makes the subspecies functionally extinct. The two female rhinos live in the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya and are protected round-the-clock by armed guards."

luxxlifenow replied:
"I learned this no joke at Disney World at Animal Kingdom during the kilowhatever safari ride. The tour guide told us. She also mentioned embryos are made of this species so more might be coming about soon."

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Neuridivergent
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

They must have collected sperm from males before they died. Someone had the job of jacking off a rhinoceros.

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#31

MyFaceSpaceBook said:
"Halifax Explosion also called the Halifax explosion of 1917 or the Great Halifax Explosion, devastating explosion on December 6, 1917, that occurred when a munitions ship blew up in the harbor of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Nearly 2,000 people died and some 9,000 were injured in the disaster, which flattened more than 1 square mile (2.5 square km) of the city of Halifax. Shortly before 9:00 am. Many people were blinded by the shattering glass everywhere. To this day Nova Scotia sends a Christmas tree to the city of Boston in thanks for the aid provided after the explosion."

AngryWookiee replied:
"It was the largest human-made explosion at the time, it was only surpassed by the invention of the atomic bomb. My great-grandmother told my father that the explosion rattled the dishes in her house in rural Prince Edward Island."

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Natalie Kelsey
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The Longest Johns have a sea shanty about it that's very emotional and goes into detail about what happened

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#32

"Almost every river that is being used for irrigation the world over is running deficits. Almost all of them to varying degrees of deficit. Some of them are being mentioned here like the Syr Darya which leads to the Aral sea, but Colorado in America is responsible for about 10% of the entire world's GDP. It used to flow into Mexico and now it's starting to come up short in Nevada. Much more geopolitically important rivers like the Nile and Indus are hitting much of the same deficits. As the climate is changing this is going to lead to literally billions of people being food insecure as the former flood plain which fed their farms disappear. Grapes for example come primarily from California and Peru. They are a very water intense crop. They will quite soon cost so much to produce that they will no longer be marketable. Foods like bananas or coconuts will be more affordable and take up their space in supermarkets. We need to remember the political upheaval of the Arab Spring that got started from an East Mediterranean drought. The plague and the lockdowns caused supply shocks we all still suffering from. Demand for food will be constant however the supply of the capital needed i.e. farmland, as well as the supply of labor i.e. farmers, is going to disappear in the next few decades. If nations don't start transitioning to green housing and net zero irrigation then there will be a constant conflict as we have seen the last few years almost everywhere."

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Jeremy James
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

10 years ago, I remember reading an article where the author was saying that we'd start to see elderberries in more products for this reason. They're pretty drought-resistant, apparently. I could probably get used to elderberry wine.

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#33

TheEyeGuy13 said:
"99% of things the CIA has done and fully admitted to, but talking about any of them makes you sound like an actual crazy person."

RomanGrande replied:
"It’s wild how I thought that the CIA is wild coz of movies and series I have watched, but they pale in comparison to the things I am reading… IRL CIA sounds way worse."

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Der Kommissar
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

How about smuggling heroin from Vietnam into the USA? The airline was called Air America and it was a CIA front.

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#34

JustAPerspective said:
"There are 1,000,000,000 years of missing geological Earth history. The belief is that humans evolved over six million years. That leaves a tremendous amount of room for other things to have happened, right here on Earth."

Opeth-Ethereal replied:
"This is particularly interesting because we have no idea what happened in all of that time. What if the Cambrian explosion was simply a second wave of life after a massive extinction event (the snowball earth)? Crazy."

JustAPerspective , L. Joel Report

#35

Passing4human said:
"The fact is that petroleum is not just a source of fuel but also essential for manufacturing fertilizer and pesticides. When the oil runs out it's not just the horror of having to take mass transit, it's that a lot of people don't eat."

thetruthhurts2016 replied:
"As much as 99% of pharmaceutical feedstocks and reagents coming from petrochemical sources."

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#36

Swampsnuggle said:
"Syria. Congo cobalt mines."

Emergency_Flounder58 replied:
"The cobalt mines are just insane. The entire world should know about this but doesn’t. To see the images of them is really sad."

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#37

"Chang Kai Shek intentionally broke the flood walls of the yellow river during the Japanese invasion of China in WWII. The Japanese were invading from the north and circling in on Wuhan, the capital at the time. Shek was advised that breaching the river should flood the invaders. This was an incorrect assumption. The yellow river in China has a long history of changing courses, and they failed to predict that recourse correctly. It instead flooded mostly to the south, flooding and killing millions, and destroying homes and cities. Also, the yellow river is very silty from the dirt in the mountains, and covers over a 3rd of all the farmland in China with a thick layer of clay, destroying the farmland for decades. This led to mass deaths and general lawlessness in the chunk that was flooded. Oh, and the floods didn’t even really bother the Japanese. They retreated for a little bit, took another path to Wuhan, and captured it a few months later anyway. So Shek just murdered millions of his own people in possibly the worst known backfire in human history."

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Marilyn Russell
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Wow. It’s like the leaders of China not only don’t care about the rest of the world but their own people either.

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#38

"Everyone knows what the Holocaust is. Everyone. There’s an entire class in school about it. But what very, very few people know is the event that started it all. September 29th, Ukraine. THE MASSACRE AT BABI YAR. I seriously recommend that you look into it, I’ve explained this horror story too many times before."

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and_a_touch_of_the_’tism
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

“Babi Yar (Russian: Ба́бий Яр) or Babyn Yar (Ukrainian: Бабин Яр) is a ravine in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and a site of massacres carried out by Nazi Germany's forces during its campaign against the Soviet Union in World War II. The first and best documented of the massacres took place on 29–30 September 1941, killing some 33,771 Jews. The decision to murder all the Jews in Kyiv was made by the military governor Generalmajor Kurt Eberhard, the Police Commander for Army Group South, SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln, and the Einsatzgruppe C Commander Otto Rasch. Sonderkommando 4a as the sub-unit of Einsatzgruppe C, along with the aid of the SD and Order Police battalions with the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police backed by the Wehrmacht, carried out the orders.[2][3][4] Sonderkommando 4a and the 45th Battalion of the German Order Police conducted the shootings. Servicemen of the 303rd Battalion of the German Order Police at this time guarded the outer perimeter of the execution site.”

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#39

User No 1 said:
"I don't know how many people know this but I haven't seen many people talking about the folk dwelling near massive landfills of trash in India, and making living by scavenging the trash and selling items for the little profit they live off of."

CloudsTasteGeometric replied:
"This isn't just an Indian problem - it's huge in Guatemala as well. If you're interested in learning more or donating to the cause check out International Samaritan."

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Megan Duffy
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I went on a mission trip in high school to a Mexican dump that had 100's of people living there.

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#40

"When the government secured Nikola Tesla’s work after he passed away."

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#41

ReindeerNo3921 said:
"Long-haul trucking in the US is dying. No one wants to do it because it pays poorly, and no one wants to get into it because the pay is really bad, and depending on which company you try to go thru the benefits are also awful. I knew 2 guys that tried to become truckers. One gave up because he said 50% of truckers are drunk or on drugs and he didn’t want to be involved when it comes out. The other got a job that paid way more than just driving a box truck around the city. It’s definitely going to be a problem when the current truckers are too old to keep going. Everything is going to get expensive and everyone will be super confused about why the poor got poorer."

mr_marshian replied:
"That's what trains are supposed to be for."

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Neuridivergent
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

We don't use trains for several logistical reasons. But this is why i think the major trucking highways should have self driving truck only lanes. Safer if the trucks don't have humans doing stupid things in front of them. But the trucks never enter the cities. They have a parking zone like a rest stop where a human driver takes over to handle the city driving and deliveries. Then it goes back to the parking zone and proceeds to it's next destination.

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#42

"The Great Chinese famine. The natural ones were horrific enough but this was a man-made one, the scale of death is hard to comprehend. A series of famines that come about due to economic changes (collectivization of agriculture) in China between 1958 and 1961 ranged between 15 million and 55 million. The range itself is scary."

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Roadkill The Brave
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

There is a really good and heart rending book done on this called: Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962 - The author gets into a lot of details into what the causes were and he's won awards on this book - however he has been monitored by the Chinese Government since it's publication and the book is banned in China last I knew.

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#43

"Bhopal Disaster. A preventable gas leak killed thousands of people almost instantly and injured over half a million people. The deaths and injuries could’ve been avoided, but they turned off the emergency sirens. And of course, the victims barely got any reparations or justice."

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Faern Grey
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It's so much worse than that honestly. Corners were cut, safety measures ignored, etc etc. The affected families were given barely anything to make up for it, as well.

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#44

ProfessorMx said:
"Afghanistan was able to fuel its war against the US by selling opium, the major market of which is in the US. For 20 years, the US couldn't curb the cultivation of opium and ultimately had to evade it. American consumption of Drugs: 1 American War on terror: 0."

dirtyhappythoughts replied:
"America war on drugs: also 0."

ProfessorMx Report

#45

Ghostforever7 said:
"Two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs were accidentally dropped over Goldsboro, North Carolina on 23 January 1961. Thankfully they never detonated."

Shevek99 replied:
"I can top that. Two American military aircraft, one of them carrying 4 hydrogen bombs, collided in flight and fell in Almería, on the Spanish coast."

Ghostforever7 , wikipedia.org Report

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Bisexual Axolotls
Community Member
1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I was waiting for someone to mention this! The entirety of my dad's family lived within 60 miles of Goldsboro, it's insane to think what could've happened to them all if they'd detonated.

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#46

"Operation Morning Light. A nuclear Russian satellite crashed in the Canadian north in the 70s, during the cold war. Operation Morning Light was the name of the clean-up endeavor. This incident has had a major impact on the land, the animals, and the people. Many suspect the increased cancer rates experienced around the Great Slave Lake are a result of the crash."

yasqween92 , wikipedia.org Report

#47

nowhereman136 said:
"The amount of people who don't know what the Seven Years' War was is pretty surprising. While it was mostly between England and France in the 1750s, it was basically World War Zero, being fought by several nationals on a global stage. For people in the US, the French and Indian War was actually just a small part of the Seven Years' War. This was was fought in Europe, America's, Asia, and Africa. It lead to revolutions in America's and Europe and was a precursor to the Napoleonic Wars."

lobstaman1 replied:
"The 30 years war and the wars of religion, in general, were devastating, both by the wartime death toll and the civilian casualties through atrocities, famine, and disease."

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#48

Comfort_Lucky said:
"The Panama Papers."

Acc87 replied:
"A lot has happened with its data and is still happening. It's mostly dull legal stuff tho, so almost no media coverage."

Comfort_Lucky , en.wikipedia.org Report

#49

"1755 Lisbon earthquake. One of the deadliest in history changed the political, social, and intellectual landscape in Europe so much that the aftermath we can still experience today. Kant alone had 3 papers written about it. And nobody I know, including highly educated people, has ever heard about it."

syzygy_is_a_word , wikipedia.org Report

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Mimi M
Community Member
1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The death toll from the 1755 earthquake is estimated to be as high as 50k people. The death toll from the recent Syria/Turkey earthquake is currently 47k and that is not the final number.

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#50

Basic_Football_6766 said:
"Something I think about all the time is that super volcano underneath Yellowstone that could take us out at any moment. I'm sure it's not considered a serious world event, but it's serious and something people tend to forget about very easily."

jdyerjdyer replied:
"I'm more concerned with the island in the Azores. All it would take is some evil person with a crate of dynamite to slip in one night and plant some along the fault of the volcano there. The fault basically splits the island in two, is very unstable, and has enough material that it would cause a 300-meter tall wave to race across the Atlantic destroying the Eastern seaboard and covering all of FL and South GA up to within 50 miles of Atlanta. Afaik, there is no one really guarding or watching that island. Although the supervolcano could be triggered by drilling, I doubt the equipment needed would go unnoticed... But then again, the park is rather large..."

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#51

"The president of Gabon used deep fakes after suffering a stroke and wouldn't appear in public amidst a myriad of corruption claims and human rights violations committed by the Gabonese government. It's still rumored that he's possibly dead and the regime hasn't revealed it."

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