Prepare to be shocked as we dive into the darkest, most horrifying moments in human history that are often glossed over. From wartime atrocities to systematic persecution, these stories reveal the depths of human cruelty that textbooks rarely explore in full detail.
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00:00Many of their fellow workers are already dead, yet no one seems willing to take
00:04responsibility for their pain and suffering."
00:06Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at times when the nitty-gritty
00:09details of major events were even worse than you may recall.
00:13Belgium had recently become an independent kingdom.
00:16Its ruler, Leopold II, wanted to acquire what he called
00:20a slice of this magnificent African cake.
00:24Cannibalism During World War II
00:26War can turn men into monsters.
00:28Perhaps there's no better example of this than World War II.
00:31While the Nazis may have gotten much of the attention,
00:33the Imperial Japanese Army committed numerous atrocities during World War II.
00:37Among the most horrifying were acts of cannibalism committed against civilians and POWs.
00:43Japanese historian Yuki Tanaka details dozens of cases where Japanese soldiers engaged in
00:48cannibalism.
00:49Often, these acts were driven by hunger, amid Allied attacks on supply lines.
00:53But that was not always the case.
00:55In the Chichichi Incident of 1944, Japanese officers executed and consumed captured American
01:01airmen.
01:02It's unknown how much food the Japanese soldiers had on the island, but many claimed that they
01:06were by no means starving, as there were plenty of resources available.
01:09One of their commanders, Lieutenant General Yoshio Tachibana,
01:13was later tried and executed along with some of his subordinates.
01:16The Japanese government does not allow this part of Japanese history to be taught
01:20or discussed in public as it seemed too sensitive.
01:23Scholars who wish to publish information about the atrocities that happened during
01:26World War II have to leave Japan to do so.
01:29The U.S. Soldiers of the My Lai Massacre
01:31One morning in March, Task Force Barker moved out from its firebase headed for Pinkville.
01:37Its mission? Destroy the trouble spot.
01:41And all of its inhabitants.
01:42The My Lai Massacre is one of the worst crimes in U.S. military history.
01:47Hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians were brutalized and murdered by American soldiers
01:51in 1968.
01:57Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson Jr. and his crew saved as many Vietnamese civilians as they could.
02:02He ordered his crew to open fire on their fellow soldiers if they continued the slaughter,
02:06evacuating those he could and reporting the incident to his superiors.
02:10The U.S. government then attempted to cover up the event.
02:13Lieutenant William Calley Jr., the only man convicted,
02:16served just three years under house arrest after President Nixon reduced
02:20the length and severity of his sentence.
02:22The population of the village had been 300 to 400 people and that very few, if any, escaped.
02:29Meanwhile, Thompson faced years of death threats.
02:32He carried the psychological scars of his heroism for the rest of his life.
02:36I couldn't quite accept it.
02:38Somehow I just couldn't believe that not only had so many young American men
02:42participated in such an act of barbarism, but that their officers had ordered it.
02:46The Partition of India
02:48August 1947.
02:52The British are quitting India nearly 200 years after they took power.
02:56World War II led to the release of many colonial holdings by major powers.
03:00The most significant example is the 1947 Partition of India.
03:04It was meant to bring peace.
03:06British India was spun off into a mostly Hindu India and mostly Muslim Pakistan.
03:11As a British barrister draws a line on a map, a once peaceful land implodes.
03:16Instead, it unleashed chaos.
03:19Critical boundaries were drawn by a British lawyer
03:21with little understanding of local complexities.
03:23This led to one of history's largest migrations.
03:26Around 15 million people fled across hastily drawn borders,
03:30often facing violent mobs, starvation, and disease.
03:34At least one million died in the process.
03:37This huge mass of humanity just moving along, barefooted, no food, thirsty.
03:46The terrible sight.
03:47Communal hatred exploded into massacres, sexual violence, and kidnappings.
03:52An estimated one to two million were killed.
03:54The scars remain visible today.
03:57It was so senseless, so utterly senseless.
04:01And yet there's nothing you can do about it.
04:03The current India-Pakistan nuclear conflict
04:05makes their shared border one of the most dangerous flashpoints in the world.
04:09Paragraph 175.
04:12In the 1920s and early 1930s, Berlin was a beacon of gay progress.
04:16Berlin has largely ignored Paragraph 175,
04:20Germany's anti-sodomy law, enacted in 1871.
04:26But as long as the law existed, so did the threat of blackmail and prison.
04:31Its thriving gay scene made Berlin the global capital of queer culture,
04:35full of gay bars and entertainment.
04:37But the rise of the Nazis shattered this haven.
04:39Gay people became prime targets for persecution,
04:42seen as symbols of the so-called public immorality eroding Germany.
04:46Within a month, the Nazis ordered most of Berlin's
04:49homosexual and lesbian nightclubs, dance halls, and bars closed.
04:54Paragraph 175, a law criminalizing intimate acts between men,
04:58was weaponized by the Nazis.
05:00Over 100,000 men were arrested.
05:03Thousands were subsequently sent to concentration camps.
05:06Marked by pink triangles, many were tortured, experimented on, and killed.
05:11The Nazis saw male homosexuality as a contagious disease
05:15that corrupted and weakened the blood of the German people.
05:18Astonishingly, the post-war German government upheld Paragraph 175.
05:23The statute was enforced in various forms for the next 50 years,
05:27until it was removed from the German criminal code in 1994.
05:31In 2017, Germany overturned Paragraph 175 convictions from 1949 to 1969,
05:38a small step toward justice.
05:40Friedrich's partner of 28 years, Bernd, died without seeing justice.
05:45He regrets not being able to share this milestone
05:48with the man he shared his life with.
05:50Government-backed terrorist radio in the Rwandan genocide.
05:53The 1994 Rwandan genocide is widely recognized
05:57for both its staggering loss of life and the world's inaction.
06:01Up to 800,000 lives were snuffed out in about 100 days,
06:05and the world watched it happen.
06:07The UN mission was not given a mandate to intervene and stop the killing.
06:11A lesser-known yet undeniably horrifying aspect of the massacres
06:15was the role of state-sponsored media.
06:17Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines,
06:20a radio station backed by the Hutu-led government,
06:22broadcast hate-filled propaganda.
06:25Day in and day out, radio, the primary source of mass communications,
06:29dehumanized the Tutsi minority by referring to them as, quote,
06:33cockroaches.
06:34DJs explicitly called for their extermination.
06:36Neighbors killed neighbors,
06:38and some husbands even killed their Tutsi wives,
06:41saying they will be killed if they refused.
06:44This orchestrated media campaign not only fueled the genocide,
06:48but also mobilized ordinary citizens to commit atrocities against their neighbors.
06:52Mass media was a propaganda tool deadlier than any gun or machete.
06:56More than 1.2 million people were tried in local courts
07:00for their role in the genocide,
07:02and dozens of senior Hutu officials were convicted
07:05at a UN tribunal in neighboring Tanzania.
07:08The Holodomor.
07:09A new law punished anyone who took even a handful of grain
07:13or was caught hiding grain or bread
07:15with 10 years in prison or the death penalty.
07:18You've heard about the war in Ukraine after the 2022 invasion.
07:22Maybe you even know about the Russian annexation of Ukrainian Crimea in 2014.
07:27But did you know about the disputed human-made famine
07:30during Soviet Ukraine in 1932?
07:32The Holodomor, or death by hunger,
07:34wasn't just a famine though.
07:36It's considered by many as an act of terror by Joseph Stalin's regime.
07:40In the fall and winter of 1932,
07:43Soviet police began seizing not just grain,
07:47but anything edible, even livestock.
07:50Soviet soldiers and officials confiscated Ukrainian grain.
07:54Worse, they banned trade and prohibited many villagers from leaving their homes.
07:58The plan gave Stalin direct control over grain production,
08:02which meant he could extract all of the crop to sell to the West
08:05as a way to fund Soviet industrialization.
08:08Millions of Ukrainians starved to death.
08:10To ensure the world wouldn't know,
08:12the Soviet government suppressed census data.
08:15They even executed statisticians who exposed the population collapse.
08:19This wasn't just mass starvation.
08:21It was a mass erasure,
08:23engineered to break the Ukrainian spirit and erase their identity.
08:27The Congo Free State and a Savage Belgian King
08:30Whether in bustling cities or remote villages,
08:33the 1880s and 90s were years of terrifying upheaval in Africa.
08:39Often overlooked by Western activists,
08:41the Democratic Republic of Congo remains one of the most dangerous places on Earth.
08:46This tragic fact is deeply rooted in its horrific colonial history.
08:50At the turn of the 20th century,
08:52the Congo was the personal property of King Leopold II of Belgium.
08:55Belgium had recently become an independent kingdom.
08:58Its ruler, Leopold II, wanted to acquire what he called
09:03a slice of this magnificent African cake.
09:05Leopold ruled his massive profitable state with unrelenting savagery.
09:09He turned the entire region into a nationwide labor camp.
09:13He forced millions into working in rubber and ivory extraction.
09:17Those who didn't meet quotas faced mutilation and or death,
09:20with entire villages wiped out.
09:22An estimated 10 million people perished during his reign of terror.
09:26The regime dramatically upended daily life in agriculture,
09:29causing widespread starvation and disease.
09:33Meanwhile, King Leopold built monuments and private estates
09:36with the wealth he extracted.
09:38While the Congo was eventually taken from him,
09:40the scars of his greed and inhumanity are permanently etched into the nation's soul.
09:45In the space of just 20 years,
09:4890% of Africa was brought under European occupation.
09:52The suffering of the Hibakusha.
09:53Then came something that would forever change perception of the bomb.
09:58A common narrative in the West is that the nuclear attacks
10:01on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary evils.
10:04Historians have debated that belief ever since.
10:06Very little discussion, though,
10:08is had about the Japanese citizens who survived the bombs.
10:11The atomic bombings claimed a combined death toll of nearly 250,000.
10:16For survivors, known as Hibakusha, the nightmare was only beginning.
10:20Beyond the searing trauma of lost loved ones and destroyed homes,
10:24they faced many health issues.
10:26A mysterious illness began to spread.
10:29I noticed it from about the fourth day.
10:31Survivors suffered decades of cancers and chronic illnesses
10:35caused by radiation exposure.
10:36Social ostracization compounded their suffering.
10:39Hibakusha were often shunned as tainted by other Japanese
10:42due to fears of contamination or illness.
10:45Many struggled to find work or marry, trapped by stigma.
10:48American scientists had always known the bomb would produce radiation,
10:53but the scale of the after effects came as a shocking surprise.
10:57The nuclear arms race poisoned Navajo Nation.
11:00Many of their fellow workers are already dead,
11:02yet no one seems willing to take responsibility for their pain and suffering.
11:06The Navajo Nation has paid a staggering price for America's nuclear ambitions.
11:10Between 1944 and 1989,
11:13uranium mining on Navajo land extracted over 30 million tons of ore.
11:18Neither private companies nor the federal government
11:20gave any regard to worker safety or environmental health.
11:24Many Navajo miners toiled unprotected,
11:26inhaling radioactive dust and drinking contaminated water.
11:30Navajo Nation has since been plagued with cancers and chronic illnesses.
11:34Clint Black worked underground in the VCA mine for 22 years.
11:38Today he has nodular fibrosis,
11:40a scarring of the lung caused by exposure to uranium dust.
11:44Even decades after mining ended,
11:46over 500 abandoned mines and polluted sites continue to poison the land and water.
11:51Federal nuclear testing in nearby regions
11:53likewise exposed entire communities to radioactive fallout.
11:56While programs like the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act offered some aid,
12:01they're only a small step in addressing the profound generational harm.
12:28The Black Death Led to Persecution of Jews
12:31The Black Death ravaged Europe,
12:33killing nearly half the population in the mid-14th century.
12:36But while the bubonic plague decimated cities,
12:39another horror unfolded in town squares across the continent,
12:42the widespread persecution of Jewish people.
12:45Jewish communities were accused of poisoning wells and spreading the plague,
12:49leading to both brutal massacres and pogroms.
12:52Ironically, their lower infection rates may have actually been related to Jewish everyday life.
12:57Religious practices like the Mikveh, a ritual bath,
13:00and strict dietary and hygiene laws seemingly helped keep Jewish communities healthy.
13:04But this was just misinterpreted as evidence of guilt.
13:07Instead of recognizing these practices as protective measures,
13:11superstitious fear fueled mass violence.
13:13Entire communities were wiped out in pogroms,
13:16and the plague became an excuse for rampant antisemitism.
13:20History is full of tragedies compounded by bad choices and malice.
13:24What other tragedies are worse than we remember?
13:26Let us know in the comments below.
13:56you