They say that history is written by the winners…

Well, that’s true, but in today’s age of misinformation, history is being written by anyone with access to the Internet…and that’s kind of terrifying.

Check out what Reddit users had to say about historical events that are purposely being erased.

Scary.

“Everyone seems to know about North Korea being a nasty place, but they forget the country that’s fighting it out with NK to be worst in any given category: Eritrea.

It’s in Africa, across the strait from Yemen, and VERY not part of Ethiopia.

Military dictator, the law is what he says it is, conscription, displacement, the works.

But little corruption, see “the law is what he says it is” which means that anything he does is legal, and if anyone does what he doesn’t want they’ve committed *******.”

Bananagate.

“Chiquita is a pretty messed up company.

They were implicated in Bananagate, which pretty much led to Congress passing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977.

Then, a few decades later, Chiquita pled guilty to making payments to a terrorist organization.

And the company is currently on trial for human rights violations for financing paramilitary ***** squads in Colombia.

So, yeah, don’t buy Chiquita.”

Sri Lanka.

“So in Sri Lanka, the British left two rival kingdoms as one democratic country.

Predictably, the larger Sinhala kingdom voted their own people in and started persecuting the people who’d belonged to the smaller Tamil kingdom.

After many race riots in which many Tamil men, women and children were hacked to ***** and burned alive while the Sinhalese police stood by or joined in, a small number of victims managed to organise their own resistance force (the LTTE).

They fought and negotiated for independence, or at least a 2-state system, so they could run their own country instead of the Sinhalese, but were called “terrorists”.

After a huge injection of aid money to Sri Lanka after the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami, surprise! The Sinhalese government somehow now had a lot more weapons. They finished off what they’d started, ******* Tamils indiscriminately.

At the end they refused international observers (aid workers, UN, journalists) access, told the Tamils “we’re only attacking combatants, so go here to the safe exclusion zone if you’re just a civilian” and then shelled the civilians (including women and children) in that zone. Tens of thousands ****.

They say there’s “Peace” now in Sri Lanka.

Can you really call it that when the bad guys just finished ******* all their victims?

Collusion.

“If anyone is more knowledgeable about the topic than me please correct/inform me but from what I’ve picked up through podcasts and documentaries: the British and Irish governments are desperately trying to forget collusion in Northern Ireland during The Troubles.

There’s heavy accusations of collaboration between Mi5/RUC and Loyalist paramilitaries and the Gardai/Irish Army and the Provisional IRA.

But there’s still a lot of people alive who would be compromised if all the information came out.”

Baffled.

“Expansionist Japan and the atrocities they committed during the 1930’s are completely skipped over in most school curriculum even though it was less than 100 years ago.

I’ve always found that baffling.”

Ever heard of it?

“The Business Plot.

A group of powerful Wall Street types tried to raise an army of 500,000 men to take the White House by force, overthrow FDR and put a fascist government in his place.

Congress investigated it, under seal, and concluded the plot was real but never named the conspirators.

Kinda like what’s happening with Epstein…”

WWII.

“In WWII, how France people in general were pretty ok and open to Nazi ideals. Under occupation shipping people to camps etc.

But they pretty much rewrote the history glorifying the resistance force who were just a little group of individuals resisting Nazi occupation.”

New to me.

“Sweden tried to assimilate Sami people by outlawing their language in schools and outlawing yoiking (traditional chanting) and drumming.

Sami women were secretly sterilized by the Swedish government — and that program lasted until the 1970s.

BTW secret sterilization without consent happened to Native American women at IHS hospitals in the United States through the 1970s, and in Australia to Aboriginal women as well.”

Secret police.

“The secret police in communist Romania – the Securitate, who would arrest, beat and ******* those who opposed the regime, and it’s numerous collaborators who stabbed their neighbours in the back for benefits.

I feel like it’s not talked about enough.

Right now there are a lot of older people who were part of the Securitate who never got punished for their actions, you can just see them walking on the street.”

Radical.

“The radical politics of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., particularly toward the end of his life.

In his writings and speeches, he was far more radical than what is conventionally touted.

Corporations wrap themselves in MLK quotes on January 15th and April 4th, but I would imagine that if Dr. King were alive today, he would be horrified at the level of wealth that these private-sector entities have accumulated while we continually fail to provide the basic necessities for human dignity, such as affordable housing and living wages.

I also wonder if his anger wouldn’t just be directed at wealthy corporate interests but at the many “progressive” special interests that promote idealistic solutions to satisfy their own self-righteousness but result in nothing for the people they are supposedly fighting for.”

Sad.

“Tibetan history, language, culture, religion.

It’s being erased daily, right now, and has been being erased for 60+ years, now.”

Yes!

“The labor history of most of the world.

People have little idea that things people today take for granted or even scoff at were fought for with blood.

Those who brag about working long hours or laugh at safety regulations spit on their graves.”

Did you know?

“The eradication of French from Lousiana.

It’s never talked about at all in U.S history courses and it’s only as of this past decade that Lousiana is bringing back French immersion schools and French theatres to try to repair the damage.

At the start of the 20th century, it was estimated roughly 3/4 of all Louisianians spoke French as their first language. By the 1920s the state had banned French for reasons pertaining to seeing the specific dialect as being uncivilized and to make the state more like the others. (Prior to this the creole and dialect of French in Lousiana had been considered, “savage” and attempts to make them speak, “proper” French were being done.)

The tactics used to get rid of French were the exact same ones as used on the Native Americans. The state purposely imported people from surrounding states who couldn’t speak a word of French and teachers who only spoke English were brought in.

Students who attempted to speak French were punished via corporal punishment. By the 1960s less than half of Louisiana was French-speaking.

Today, in 2024 it’s less than 10% of the population. The state only unbanned French in the ’80s, but by then the damage had been done.

If you were born in 1900s Lousiana you were amongst the last generation who’d en masse truly be fluent in French or creole, by the 1910s likely amongst the last to have some understanding.

The 1920s to 1980s is half a century where you were forbidden to speak your language at all in public, or in schools.

Many Lousianians stopped teaching their kids French because of the direction the state went and the language has nearly **** off. This was an extremely unique part of American culture we let ***.”

Some pretty scary stuff in there…

Thanks for the history lessons!

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