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External_Ad_930

James Marion Sims “The father of modern gynecology” actually committed some pretty nasty human rights violations when he experimented on slave woman.


hagantic42

Didn't he vivisect them like operate while awake and unsedated?


scr33m

Yes, he did. He was most well known for operating on vesicovaginal fistulas (a condition wherein urine leaks from the bladder into the vagina), and he developed the procedure by practicing it on slave women without anesthesia. The myth that Black women have an inherently higher pain tolerance persists today, and is part of the reason why Black women are still more likely to die in childbirth.


notthesedays

When he devised the operation in the early 1830s, he didn't use anesthesia because it wasn't available. However, even after it was a decade later, he STILL didn't use it. And instead of going out and finding other women who had fistulas, a common problem at the time in women of all races, he would simply find a slave woman he had operated on, tear open her stitches, and re-operate when teaching the procedure to other surgeons. I have known exactly one woman, that I know of, who had an obstetric fistula (rectovaginal in her case) and that was because she had a 4th degree tear while birthing a 10 1/2 pound baby (had her doctors known how big he was, yes, they would have done a c-section) and it didn't completely heal. YEEEEEE-OWTCH!


Visual_Lie4906

Good god. My legs clenched tight reading the last paragraph. Fistulas are still too common in Africa (and elsewhere) and though the woman is physically suffering, she is most often shunned (particularly with rectrovaginal) and forced to live outside of society, alone. We go to Africa to repair obstetric fistulas, usually an easy fix, which gives an otherwise doomed woman a chance at life. The cost is under $100.


[deleted]

I'm pretty sure that Toni Morrison's Beloved character "the schoolteacher" is a reference to this guy. These studies were part of the eugenics movement, and the nazis picked up on them years later.


Stock_Garage_672

Nazis learned a lot about eugenics from the United States. For a while, it was more popular in the US than in Germany. I was rather surprised to learn that, though maybe I should not have been.


wowguineapigs

Ugh, I never fucking get it. Imagine you’re trying to do any procedure or exploratory surgery on a person. Wouldn’t it just be EASIER if they were put to sleep and laid still? Imagine trying to get a good angle while the “patient” is screaming, thrashing, flexing against you, which they must have been doing. Any normal persons stomach should turn watching someone suffering so badly. It’s just all beyond science and apathy, it’s cruel people taking enjoyment from suffering.


pollyp0cketpussy

It's because anesthesia isn't as simple as people think, it's a fine line to balance between awake and dead. So when people don't care about the cruelty and the humanity of the subjects involved, it's easier to just not sedate people. It's super fucked up.


TheBeardedMan01

Plus, shock is a hell of a drug. I'm sure there was screaming and thrashing to begin with but it's also possible that it eventually devolved into quiet sobbing


pollyp0cketpussy

Yeah I was reading about it because of this post. First, I'd like to clarify that I am in no way defending what he did, it was and is absolutely wrong and he was clearly disregarding their humanity and pain. But anesthesia for surgery didn't really become standard until well after he started his experiments. At the time, standard practice was to do the surgery as quickly as possible then administer opium post surgery, which is what he did. And the women he experimented on all had severe complications from childbirth (fistulas specifically in most of their cases) that he did successfully fix in most of their cases. He did perform over 30 experiments on one woman alone before he successfully repaired her fistula, which is abhorrent and I can't even imagine the pain she went through. His negligence did almost kill one of them as well. And his overall racism and disregard for their pain and suffering cannot be excused, he was very much using these enslaved women and girls to hone his technique before he performed this procedure on white women (though they didn't receive anesthesia either).


External_Ad_930

I don’t know what he did specifically, but this dude was a straight up Human Rights Abuser and people still think he’s some sort of hero


LilMissChocolatine

They weren't all women, 2 of the enslaved people were little girls, Lavinia was 13 and Anne was 16. The only reason some of them even got named was because a doctor he worked with thought he was a weirdo, didn't agree with what he was doing, and started telling of his practices.


Much-Meringue-7467

Obstetric fistula is more common in women who are forced to have babies too young.


Manae

A lot of modern medicine is built on some pretty heinous crimes. WWII in particular was rife with it to the point of an [attempt at a reckoning.][1] And yet there are still more horrible experiments that took place after. [1]:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Geneva


m1sterlurk

A tragic difficulty that presents there is "all rules are written for a reason". Many of the medical discoveries made that involved heinous abuse of patients (or prisoners) are the reasons the prohibitions against those activities now exist and that there are protections in place to ensure those activities do not happen again. Much of the transparency framework built around the COVID-19 vaccinations was built due to incidences in America where we experimented on people under the guise of giving them "vaccines". The field of psychology has several "we took one last piece as we shut the door" discoveries that both resulted in a discovery and also resulted in changes to ethics rules to keep that kind of experiment from being repeated because they discovered how harmful such experiments could be in the process. The Stanley Milgram Experiments are the most famous: it turns out that making people believe that they have no choice but to do something that harms another person traumatizes them, and "debriefing" of participants in experiments is now standardized. The unethical psychology experiment that is my personal favorite in history was the experiment that resulted in the book "The Three Christs of Ypsilanti". There were three schizophrenic patients at a psychiatric hospital in Ypsilanti, Michigan, who all had the delusion that they were Jesus Christ. The doctors decided it would be a great idea to have all three of them hang out with each other and see what happened. The three men got to know each other and actually got along better than expected. At the end of the experiment, the three men were asked about the other two men. All three men came to the exact same conclusion: "The other two men must have some kind of mental problem that makes them think they are Jesus Christ, which is impossible because I'm Jesus Christ." This is why the field of psychology understands a concept called "insight": "If you are mentally ill, are you aware that you are mentally ill?". This changed treatment approaches for several different disorders. Somebody on the autism spectrum being told that they have a mental condition that makes them overly sensitive to stimuli and have unusual repetitive thought processes will be relieved because they know something is up, and that "something" being explained helps them. Somebody with schizophrenia may be psychotic and telling them that they have a mental condition that makes them believe things that aren't real will not be well received because they don't think anything's wrong.


jawshoeaw

Sadly immortalized in a line of obscure video games


redhighways

John Batman, ‘founder’ of Melbourne. Also quite active in the Black Line, where hundreds of men and dogs raked the island of Tasmania in a long chain of merciless genocide. His biggest crime, though: he fully intended to name his new settlement Batmania.


Llyris_silken

There are quite a lot of fruit bats in the area; Batmania would have been totally appropriate. But obviously it should have been named Gotham City.


OlderThanMyParents

Well, the capital of Batmania would be Gotham City.


tilleytalley

I love that the Black Line was a complete and utter failure. Only capturing two aboriginals.


InfraredRidingh00d

CoCo Chanel was a literal Nazi. Edit: since folks have been messaging me; she was not only a Nazi spy, after the Germans invaded France she turned her Jewish business partners into the Nazis to gain control of the company. She helped started several anti Semitic newspapers as well. Also, she despised gays


yeokyungmi

Let’s also mention Hugo Boss who actually made Nazi uniforms


ChineseMeatCleaver

The truth is, most large companies in Germany that predate 1945 would’ve likely served the Nazi regime at some point in some way. Volkswagen, Adidas, and various firearm companies are some that come to mind.


herrmannator0013

Volkswagen didn’t just serve the Nazi regime, it was literally founded by the Nazi party


Roger_Cockfoster

Same with Fanta. The soda was invented by the Nazis after Coca-Cola left Germany at the start of the war and took the secret formula with them. The Nazis took over the bottling plant and developed Fanta. When the war ended, Coke came back and reclaimed the factory, and took over the Fanta brand.


Abba_Fiskbullar

To be perfectly pedantic, Coca Cola Germany remained a subsidiary of Coca Cola during the war, but was unable to get Coca Cola syrup imported from the US, hence the creation of Fanta. After the war was over there was no change in management, since the de-nazification board determined that the director had helped Jewish employees escape the Nazis.


bucket_of_coal

Max Keith, the inventor of Fanta, wasn’t a Nazi. He actually kept the Nazi’s out of Coca-Cola’s business in Germany, they pretty much reestablished themselves right after the war in Germany again because of his actions https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-reich-stuff/ “This man wasn't a Nazi, nor did he invent the drink at the direction of the Third Reich. Rather, in an effort to preserve Coca-Cola company assets and protect its people by way of keeping local plants operating, he formulated a new soft drink when it became impossible to produce the company's flagship product”


Gyges359d

“It will march over your taste buds!” “The final solution to your thirst!” …watch the John Oliver youtube clip about Fanta. Well worth it!


tsar_David_V

>The truth is, most large companies in Germany that predate 1945 would’ve likely served the Nazi regime at some point in some way. Would have implies it's a hypothetical when these companies absolutely did. Fanta was produced by the German branch of Coca Cola to compensate for trade embargoes. IBM helped Nazis keep meticulous record of the demographics of areas under their control. Almost all companies operating within Germany, German and otherwise, used slave labor from concentration camps. Bayer, who produced the gas that was used to kill people in chambers (Zyklon-B), is still Germany's largest pharma company. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_involved_in_the_Holocaust It's truly astonishing how many corporations willingly participating in the Holocaust are not only still around, but are still industry giants.


I_am_BrokenCog

Nobody mentioning Ford in this list of "American corporations/individuals working with Nazi Germany".


pigcommentor

Ford, the famous anti-Semite fan of Eugenics? The Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation are among the long list of U.S.-based philanthropies that helped fund the eugenics movement during the early 20th century.


Quiet_Stranger_5622

Krupps, who makes appliances such as gas ovens, made... gas ovens.


TheMadIrishman327

Krupp made arms. They were the largest arms manufacturer in the world. The definitive work on the company is named The Arms of Krupp. The company was removed from the family after WW2. It was returned in around 1968 when we needed to rearm the Germans to help defend Western Europe from the Soviet Bloc.


youtocin

And IBM who did business with Nazi Germany providing them with computational tools that helped them track undesirables.


udontknowmegurl

That's why I don't buy Chanel. Also cuz I'm poor


BDS_Emma

If it makes you feel better, Chanel is now owned by a Jewish family.


[deleted]

I wish she got to witness that bc it’s the biggest karma and slap in the face. I know she’s rolling in her grave right now


luxmoa

Plugging the behind the bastards podcast on her that came out this week


GrundleTurf

This whole thread is just random people who have been topics on that show


simonbleu

Why would that person be considered good regardless of being nazi or not?


SashaKemper

Fritz Haber was a wonderful contradiction. Pioneered the synthesis of Ammonia which allowed the human population to get as vast as it is now, but also pioneered chemical warfare and oversaw it's implementation by the Imperial German Army.


Watson9483

The biggest irony is that his family was Jewish and some of his family was eventually killed in gas chambers with an adaptation of a chemical he created himself. He creates a chemical process to kill people, it gets used for agriculture. He creates a chemical to help with agriculture, it gets used to kill people.


ErenIsNotADevil

The irony goes even deeper During World War 1, he was a huge proponent of the use of chemical weapons in warfare. He was head of the Chemistry Section in the Ministry of War in Germany, personally leading the teams that developed chlorine gas and others. He defended the use of them and took offence to people deeming them inhumane, claiming projectile weapons were far less humane (as if bullets were nearly as effective at killing en masse as deadly gases.) He also remarked that "during peace, scientists belong to the world. During war, scientists belong to their state." He was a hardcore German patriot, even going so far as to convert to Lutheranism, essentially scrapping his Jewish identity. Not only did the Nazi regime fully and extensively utilize his research on chemical weapons to create their exceedingly efficient genocide camps (proving the horror of chemical weapons yet again), they used that same patriotism Haber believed he was full of in order to do it. The patriot who loved his nation enough to develop and excuse chemical weapons, was betrayed by that nation, and had his chemical weapons turned on his own people. It was no doubt a mercy for him that he passed away before WW2. The guilt he would no doubt feel would have been unbearable. **Edit:** Mistaken on the effectiveness of gas attacks when it comes to killing, but **only** when it comes to killing. Gas attacks were by far more effective at inflicting casualties in general, especially before countermeasures were developed. Bullet and shrapnel wounds can be treated if they aren't fatal, even in the early 1900s. Chemical burns from gases were (and still are) beyond awful, and not something they could treat easily. Hence, chemical warfare being inhumane; it would be a slow and awful way to die, and living afterwards would be pretty awful too.


WhiskeyRiver223

IMO the real kicker is what happened to his granddaughter Claire after WW2. Her work on a more effective counter *against chlorine gas exposure* (the very thing grandpa Fritz *personally* pioneered the use of in 1915) was mothballed in favor of focusing on nukes. That outright broke her, and she took her own life in 1949.


jojis05

I think Haber is quite interesting. Although he helped develop terrible things, it appears his beliefs were genuine and that he truly wanted to help sciense and his country. For example, he resigned his post as director of the Kaiser Wilhelm institute for physical chemistry when the nazi's forced him to fire all jews from the institute. In the other hand, as said he personally oversaw the release of the musterd gas attack on Ypres, which was so horrible his wife committed scuicide at the celebratory party afterwards. I think Haber is quite interesting because he is a double edged sword. He did a lot of terrible things and a lot of good things, all from genuine beliefs of bettering the world, and it would be a shame to villify him for his bad actions without looking at the good, or vice versa. That is the reason that the former Kaiser Wilhelm institute (now part of the Max Planck imstitute) still carries his name to this day.


MrPopanz

His justification for the latter was similar to the mindset behind nukes later on: shortening the war by deploying a frightening new weapon of mass destruction. Obviously didn't work out as expected, but I'd rather put him in a grey area, than an evil one.


Worldsahellscape19

“It says here in this history book that luckily, the good guys have won every single time. What are the odds?” -Norm MacDonald


nomnamless

This quote is getting a lot of mileage. It's the third time I've seen it in a different thread In the past 2 days


NickAndHisGuitar

RIP


Spodson

Apparently Gandhi did some pretty sketchy shit.


RUZIONI08

Had 15 year old girls sleep in the same bed as him to see if he could control himself.


[deleted]

Had HIS 15 year old NIECE sleep in the same bed NAKED as him (along with other similar aged relatives) to see if he could control himself. FIFY


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Goleeb

Yeah I thought they were 12 or 13 not 15.


Ponsugator

Sounds like Joseph Smith. According to the Mormon church website essays his child bride was "a few months shy of her 15th birthday." Another family's mom died. Joseph volunteered to help take care of the older two teenage daughters and then married them. They reported in their journals they didn't know what to do because their mom was dead and were afraid he would kick them out of their home. He told them that an angel with a drawn sword appeared to him and threatened him if he didn't marry these teenagers. Her had 39 wives including multiple teenagers and several married women


[deleted]

Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb


lanboyo

"To see if he could control himself."


whoisdatmaskedman

Dear Diary, I failed to control myself. FML ~ Ghandi


danielisbored

Dear Diary, I failed to control myself. FM~~L~~ *underage relatives* ~ Ghandi


vireo_hero

Well? Did he?


gitty7456

He tried 343 times. He never succeded but you can’t say he did not try.


[deleted]

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[deleted]

Wouldn’t let his wife get modern medical attention, made her rely on “traditional medicine” like water from the Ganges, saying faith would have to heal her She died


bardghost_Isu

Don't forget the part where he suddenly became a huge proponent of modern medicine when it was he who was on the deathbed.


Hyro0o0

Yeah don't trust that guy with nukes


railwayed

he's been accused of being a racist against black Africans while in South Africa in order to lobby for better treatment of the Indian population, as well as siding with the British for the same objectives. obviously a contentious opinion


sphc88

Yeah he said black people "are troublesome, very dirty and live like animals”, though that was in his younger years and he apparently changed his views


Bald_faux_fraud

Yeah this one is a little more complicated, because he definitely was racist against black South Africans at one point but later was a big supporter of civil rights for African Americans. Scholarly opinion seems divided on the issue.


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unknownentity1782

Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a God" -Jean Rostand


Dooglers

Eddie Izzard has a [good bit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVH0gZO5lq0&t=115s) that is similar.


ikidre

"Well done! You killed a *million people!"*


caffeininator

There’s a quote from the show Firefly that sticks with me. “It's my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of sumbitch or another.”


TotallyNotHank

Came here to post that, with the caveat that there is a statue of Mister Rogers.


Literate_X

His wife has said that people should remember that he was human, and in some ways a “sumbitch”. But that’s okay. Not everyone is perfect. It’s human to be flawed, and as long as those flaws don’t infringe on other people’s liberties and happiness then who cares.


[deleted]

Y’all had a riot for me?


fantasmoofrcc

What are you, some hero of Canton?


[deleted]

The man they call Jayne


apathetic_revolution

Now pass me that mudders’ milk.


isapika

> Putting up a statue to someone who tried to stop a war is not very, um, statuesque. Of course, if you had butchered five hundred of your own men out of arrogant carelessness, we'd be melting the bronze already Terry Pratchett, *Jingo*


oby100

I find that to be a needlessly sweeping statement. There are plenty of good people that did great things. But, then again, people have WAY too high standards for what they consider to be a "good" person. Like, it's absurd to dismiss MLK as a good person because he was an adulterer. It's silly to try to dismiss Abraham Lincoln's ending of slavery just because he ran as a moderate who didn't oppose slavery. Neither were bad people because they weren't perfect, angelic figures, immune from sin and external pressures to conform. People are people, and there's no reason to dismiss the good works some have done just because they remain flawed. Sure, let's be careful glorifying Churchill much considering how viscously racist he was and really failed as a peacetime leader entirely.


drDekaywood

Ulysses s Grant, top 5 greatest Americans ever, no controversies Only dirt they have on him was that he used to be a heavy drinker, had mostly cut it out by the civil war for the rest of his life except for a couple occasions And the stress that man endured his whole life…


UnconstrictedEmu

And before anyone says “Grant owned slaves” Grant was given a slave by his father in law. Grant, coming from an abolitionist family, promptly freed the guy.


dirtyoldmikegza

At great personal cost as well...this was the period at "hardscrabble" when Hiram Ulysses Grant was literally selling firewood in the streets of st. Louis. Little known fun fact is Grants family and the John Brown family knew each other in Ohio.


ghostinthewoods

My favorite, probably apocryphal story about Lincoln and Grant: "When some one charged Gen. Grant, in the President’s hearing, with drinking too much liquor, Mr. Lincoln, recalling Gen. Grant’s successes, said that if he could find out what brand of whisky Grant drank, he would send a barrel of it to all the other commanders."


occamhanlon

Grant was a naive president who failed to hold his cabinet accountable. Corruption was rampant under his administration. The one black mark for a man who truly tried to improve upon what Lincoln started.


SolidA34

Corruption was pretty bad at the time though in US politics. Tons of people begged for jobs from Lincoln. Bribes and scandals were everywhere.


Lord0fHats

Genghis Khan: "Now now, I didn't murder *everybody*. Just the ones who got too uppity for their own good. Killed those bastards is what I did!"


Cultural_Magician105

Charles Lindbergh was a rabid antisemite, pro nazi, and adulterer. He hid an entire other family in Germany - including two sisters he had children each with.


rhymesnocerous

My grandfather flew with Lindbergh. He hated the man. Nothing but bad things to say about him.


mindless_confusion

On the topic of aviators being dicks, I used to work with a guy who packed Chuck Yeager's parachutes during his "breaking the sound barrier" era. The dude was allegedly a massive asshole to literally everyone who wasn't a test pilot and went out of his way to belittle them.


schniggens

The guy who packs my parachutes is probably the last guy I'd want to be a dick to.


AnnaBanana1129

I 100% interpreted this as he got his own sisters pregnant. I’m glad I was wrong!


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hasta_la_pasta

You know the more I hear about him the more I don’t care for him.


PM_UR_HAIRY_BUSH

He was a real jerk!


[deleted]

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WhoAmI1138

But in his defence he did kill Hitler.


[deleted]

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WhoAmI1138

You mean Hitler lied and took credit for killing Hitler? That scoundrel!


OverFjell

Yeah but he also killed the guy who killed Hitler


GTOdriver04

Also promoted the first anti-smoking campaign on the national level.


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Fabulous_Smile_789

My 12th grade civics teacher once said “If they’re in your history textbook, they’re an asshole”


Its_Pajamas

Damn, just when you think know who Rosa Parks really was.


Reverend_Deek_Lovin

Oprah Winfrey has given a platform to some pretty awful people, like Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, and the prolific rapist John of God


fossilnews

And her early days were basically Jerry Springer type crap.


BettySuessisterjoe

"She stood on the head of those little people" Bill Burr


mothershipq

SHE DIDN'T WANT TO DO IT, BUT SHE RODE IT OUT!!


WinterBanana89

Would be interesting to find out that Jerry is actually a better person than Oprah given that he doesn't get the praise she does by a long shot


Tullydin

Only thing Jerry did that was bad was pay for a hooker with a check while in office. He knew what the show was and didn't hide it


davesoverhere

Jerry did that because of politics in Cincinnati. There were rumors he was gay, so a bounced check to a hooker stopped that rumor.


K-Zoro

This is where the story’s complexity hits. Curious to know more.


Ba_Sing_Saint

The Oprah interview of Nathan Lane and Robin Williams from yeeeeeeeears ago popped up on Reddit a few days ago where she basically tried to out Nathan Lane and Robin Williams being the absolute class act that he was basically jumped in between them and started doing his schticks to take the attention off of Lane.


shall_always_be_so

TIL Nathan Lane wasn't out yet when he filmed Birdcage.


TheBman26

He didn’t come out until 1999.


WickedChef0323

This needs to be higher. Oprah is not the Saint people make her out to be and has put a lot of dangerous people and ideas into the spotlight while taking zero responsibility for the damage done.


[deleted]

I have been banned for life from the Oprah Winfrey Show. My parents still have the letter from Harpo.


[deleted]

I grew up in Amarillo, Tx. An extremely large portion of our economy is beef related. I read once that 1/3 of our nations beef comes from there. In 1996 the major news story was Mad Cow disease from beef produced in the UK at the time. Oprah had said something along the lines of " that's a horrible way to die, I'll never eat beef again!" For an off the cuff remark, its mostly forgettable, but you have to remember, in the 90's Oprah was THE influencer. She controlled a major portion of the American Conversation. Beef prices plummeted. The Texas Cattle Feeder's association panicked, for a decent reason. The wounds from the 80's oil collapse in nearby Midland/Odessa were still very fresh. They were not going to let that stand. So, in 1997 they decided to sue Oprah for something like defamation or whatever (I was 17 I didn't pay much attention to it). At the time there were zero cases of Mad Cow Disease in the US beef supply, so they believed they had a good case on their hands. Oprah decided she was going to fight it, but to do that she had to move her show to Amarillo for the duration of the trial so she could manage both. Amarillo isn't a huge city and there were not a lot of places she could host her show, so she put up shop in the local community theater. The Amarillo Little Theater (great little production group if I do say so). That's the set up. I was a troubled kiddo, incredibly self-conscious, lashed out and was just unhappy, so I did what a lot of kids do. I drank. I showed up to school a little tipsy. School caught me and expelled me. The juvenile court system sentenced me to 150 hours of community service. (All underage drinking at the time went to a court of peers and adults that you were sentenced to at the time. it was kind of outside the legal system and probably not very legal) but I complied because I wanted to graduate. A good friend of mines, dad, was the director of the Little Theater and said I could complete my service hours during my expulsion at the theater because they were going to need a lot of help with the show coming to town. So, I went to work. My job was the help with the craft services trays for the local crews, not the Oprah crew and talents (they had union help and a lot more money). One of my big jobs was to go down the road to the local United grocery store to pick up the tray of cheeses, meats, etc. for the layout. It was an easy job except for one major problem. They tray was huge and my car was not. So, every day I had to balance this tray on my head, the passenger seat rest, the back seat loaded with boxes and whatever I could find and drive down a bumpy and busy Georgia St. It got tiresome, quickly. One day, the crew had gone to the local state park, Palo Duro Canyon (amazing place and I recommend a trip if you like mountain biking, horseback riding and just beautiful high plains scenery). Which meant the set was fairly empty and no one came by for food, not once. I did not want to toss away all this food and really didn't want to make that drive another day or I was going to lose my mind, so I had the 17-year old's brainy idea that I would just cover it and bring it back out the next day like nothing happened. Well, the next day, the crime went off without a hitch or so I thought. I was quite stupid, and I didn't know about the slime that lunch meat gets after it's been out a while. I figured no one would notice. Until about an hour before filming. Ms. Winfrey walk up to the table and asked who was taking care of the food at this table and why no one had picked up the days tray? I didn't know that the grocery store had dimed me out. She proceeds to get a little upset and tell us about food borne illness, the risk her company is put under if someone gets sick and how irresponsibly idiotic, you'd have to be to do this. Well, me being the poorly adjusted, unhappy and insecure person that I was, looked Oprah in the eye and said, "Who the Fuck do you think you are?" She turned to her stage manager and left. Two mins later, two large men asked me to grab my things and leave. A few weeks later, we received a letter in the mail from Harpo Industries tell me in not so many words, that Mr\_President- is no longer welcome at any event supported, produced or attended by Ms. Oprah Winfrey.


[deleted]

To be fair, this is a story of me being an asshole, not Oprah


cinemachick

Also to be fair, they should've given you a van large enough to transport the food, and they should've had a disposal/donation plan for food taken into a wilderness area.


masterofbeast

ESH - Everyone is the asshole


Never-Forget-Trogdor

Thank you for taking the time to type it out. That was fascinating. All teens do dumb stuff, but mine never got me banned from everything Oprah.


StabbyPants

i would fucking frame that letter


someonesaymoney

Obligatory [Bill Burr calling out Oprah on her hypocrisy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9YL04v-J5U).


Pymm

Sir John A MacDonald. First Prime Minister of Canada. Father of Confederation and completely decided that Indigenous people had no place in it and were disposable. In 1885 he even put a vote to the House of Commons to take the vote away from people of Chinese origin on the grounds they were a different race than Europeans.


youbignerd

We learned in history class that suffragettes fought for the right for women to vote. In reality they fought for the right for *white* women to vote. Various racial minorities didn’t get the right until decades later.


MenlaOfTheBody

Oliver Cromwell to everyone except southern English people it seems.


sroche24

Even staunch protestants agree Cromwell was an arsehole


De47ezer

Stauffenberg... One of the guys who attempted to kill Hitler. Many see him as a hero. But he was just a Nazi like all the others. He just didn't like the way Hitler was progressing with his regime. He still supported the NS-Agenda. (iirc)


tc_spears

>(iirc) You do recall correctly. Stauffenburg and the other members of the July 20th plot were and wanted to remain nazis. Their goal in assassinating hitler was to end the war(which at the time was clearly going to be a loss for Germany) on armistice terms in the hopes that the Nazi government would not be dismantled like the Kaiserreich after the first world war. And in doing so retain much of the German conquered territory.


glefe

Imperialist reasons aside, the last months of the war were more intense (material, death rate) than the years before IIRC, I assume this was foreseeable for military command in 1944.


MysticalMoonbow

Thomas Edison


applezombi

"They'll sing 'ah, Topsy! at my autopsy..."


Ba_Sing_Saint

This is the bangerest of bangers from Bobs Burgers. Followed closely by “Bad Stuff Happens in the Bathroom”. It was so good that Bob and Linda were impressed, and Gene did it all without a single fart sound.


mulefire17

Electric Love!


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filthyrake

And I never noticed.... his electric junk


che_palle13

We just might have fooooound


redvelvetcake42

John Wayne. He was drunk everyday most of his life, so racist even racists thought he was racist, a complete asshole to the point where his idol hated him, a story thief who would take stories of others but make it his own (Carlos Mencia style) and helped perpetuate wars while actively avoiding ever being in them. He was apparently an ok dad according to his kids I think, but beyond that he was a cunt of epic proportions.


Special_Tay

Also, he would routinely punch women. His second wife was a teenager that he allegedly trafficked into the US from Mexico. Behind the Bastards has great three part series on ~~Marion Morrison~~ John Wayne.


[deleted]

He also apparently had to be held back when Sacheen Littlefeather was at the Oscars. If anyone isn’t aware, she was there on behalf of Marlon Brando to decline his best actor win in protest of how Natives were treated by the film industry. People were booing her and Clint Eastwood even made a jab at her when she got off the stage.


RudegarWithFunnyHat

He dodged the draft and make macho war movies to compensate


ElOsoPeresozo

John Wayne is a great example of the terrible people that some comments are defending. “He was a man of his times.” “It was different back then.” “No one is perfect.” For every John Wayne there is a Henry Fonda. He volunteered for the Navy at the age of 38, pretty damn old to join the military, and was an outspoken liberal, so much so he (allegedly) got into fistfight with his best friend Jimmy Stewart. For every Jefferson Davis there was a John Brown.


DumpedDalish

Henry Fonda was a great example of someone who was an outward great person, but an absolutely terrible person to his family. He was by virtually all accounts (including his own) an absolutely terrible, cold, and cruel husband and father.


remnant_phoenix

Some people still think Andrew Jackson was a good U.S. president, despite the fact that he was responsible for the Trail of Tears.


InformalFirefighter1

I’m from Tennessee and I’ll admit I’m young (under 30) and my 8th grade US History teacher devoted a whole unit to how bad of a person and president he was. I doubt it was like that when my mom was in school though.


NuggetSenpai69

Dude Andrew Jackson was /fucking brutal/. I loathe the guy.


Yellow_86_64

Erwin Schrodinger was a genius with a taste for girls as young as 12. He groomed a girl when she was 14 and when she was 17 he got her pregnant. He was 39. She had an abortion that left her sterile.


Milo_Minderbinding

Steve Jobs


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His authorized biography was pretty brutally honest about what an asshole he was and all the shitty things he did.


nevertellya

Yeah, and I don't believe he actually said all the brilliant quotes he's been attributed to. The first big cult of personality of the 21st century.


witchecate

Perseus in Greek mythology is revered for being a son of Zeus and killing the gorgon, Medusa. Medusa was a mortal woman who was raped by Poseidon in the temple of Athena. Athena was so pissed at this, that she turned Medusa into a gorgon (snake hair, hideous face, turns anyone she looks at into stone). Perseus, Poseidon, and Athena are all remembered in history for their righteousness, bravery, strength, etc. Fuck that bullshit. Medusa deserved to kill them all, not be raped, villainized, and killed herself.


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LordoftheSynth

The hit job on Salieri started with biographers in the 1850s, conveniently just after the last of people who knew both died. Amadeus is a great story, but it's 90% historically wrong.


YeoChaplain

Freud. The man was a monster, and wrong about most things. I still see him quoted in healthxare and academia.


Twoteethperbite

Edison. Stole other people's ideas, didn't create them, but took credit.


EmperorHans

The original redditor


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Vexonte

Same. People chop out parts of the prince and ignore his other writings entirely.


SecretSIice

the is the opposite of what the question asked


[deleted]

Quite Machiavellichan, really


DeuceBuggalo

There’s some just good advice in there, like take care of your body, and that your own people will be more loyal to you than anyone you pay (mercenaries)


classyraptor

King Leopold II He was a known philanthropist and humanitarian at the time, so when news that he was conducting one of the largest genocides in history broke out of the Congo, many didn’t believe it at first. **Heart of Darkness** was written about this tragedy.


Evan64m

Isn’t he widely known as one of the worst people ever now though


Steambunny

Einstein was an absolute jerk to his wife


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_crucialconjunction_

He was also a big supporter of eugenics. And his hatred of sign language set back Deaf education in the US for decades.


JewishSpace_Laser

James Watson- one of the Nobelists with his partner Francis Crick for the "discovery of DNA". The guy was (still is) a terrible racist who believes that black people are inferior intellectually. He did not acknowledge the ground breaking work of Rosalind Franklin who did much of the work Watson took credit for. He believed that women were also inferior to men. Guy sold his Nobel medal to fund his other pet projects. He is (despite the award) an international pariah.


jadegives2rides

And my poor girl Rosalind died early in life from said work.


PanakinProkaryote

I had the chance to meet Watson a few years ago while I was in school. Incredibly classist and still managed to insult Rosalind Franklin all this time later.


ConnorMacLeod1518

Jebediah Springfield


ClearlyNoSTDs

But he embiggened everyone's spirits


WhoAmI1138

And did it in such a cromulent way.


TheSocialABALady

Don't you mean Hans sprungfeld


Eli_The_Rainwing

Dr Seuss, cheated on his wife till she died


saveyboy

A very indirect way to kill somebody.


pancakespanky

Nice of him to stop once she died


gears49

Henry Ford


drintelligent

Not a soul I know would call ford a good guy


Kind-Climate-2045

Hitler would!


drintelligent

I don't know Hitler though do I


GlobeTrekker83

Woodrow Wilson.


Gethighflykites

Mahatma Gandhi


Ivor_the_1st

I think the opposite question would be more interesting, given that most historical figures were assholes I would like to know which one is actually a good person.


smokecat20

Abraham Lincoln. He hunted vampires. Not cool if you're a vampire.


yeokyungmi

John Lennon. Total asshole


Leucippus1

Thomas Jefferson; it wasn't that he was all that much worse than others (he was no Hitler, OK?) but he was very much a man tied to his base instincts when it came to women / girls. His love slave was pretty young when he selected her. He never did get around to freeing her, and had to be convinced to free his children with her on his death. When he got into debt, he paid them off by selling 200 (out of the 600 he owned) slaves 'down river', which if you know anything about what that phrase means, it will send chills down your spine.


wirespectacles

In How the Word is Passed, Clint Smith also gets into how Jefferson and other plantation owners around this time deliberately raped their enslaved women in order to produce children — their own children — to keep enslaved. Like they kept ledgers about this. Deeply, deeply disturbing.


JMLKO

It was actually in a slave owners benefit to have a child be the result of rape. Children of slaves became property of the slave owner, so the owner became the owner of an infant slave. Cant import more slaves but they could rape their slaves and have more. If a child had even 1% black blood in them, they were considered 100% black.


metarinka

Read diaries of a slave girl. IT's terrible. You literally had brothers whipping their half brother because one was born a shade darker, and they knew. You would have to know that the guy on the other side had the same features as you. That's emotional damage on all sides. Also imagine being so depraved that you are using your own children as free labor. Also anyone who has been around enough mixed race people it's not uncommon for one to come out that's completely white passing. Which would make it all the harder.


FoldedaMillionTimes

Depends on what you call "history," but the popular perception of John Smith is pretty far off the mark. He did, however, say one of the most badass supervillain things ever (which could be taken as evidence): *"Any mouth that quibbles with my authority will soon find itself preaching obedience, wordlessly, from the top of a pike."*


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marttthew

He was also the #1 puggle breeder


AmySchumersAnalTumor

the fuck is a puggle


pappasw

Pug/Beagle mix


MGD109

He was? I wasn't aware Epstein had any involvement with the Children's community. I wasn't aware he was especially well known outside of very select circles.