20 Dark Chapters in History That Most People Never Learned About in School

From 1885 to 1908, the Congo Free State was not a colony like any other; it was the personal property of King Leopold II of Belgium. Under the pretext of “civilization” and commercial development, systems of forced labor were used to extract rubber and ivory, while the Congolese population endured all manner of atrocious treatment, such as punishment and exploitation. 

Between 1904 and 1908, German colonial forces targeted what is now Namibia. They waged a campaign against the Herero and Nama peoples, and research shows that this conflict and its aftermath resulted in the deaths of approximately 75% of the Herero population. Most scholars today consider this to have been a genocide.

Under British rule in India, the authorities maintained the “internal customs line,” which included, among other things, a hedge of thorns intended to enforce salt taxes. The sole purpose of this system was to prevent people from transporting salt without paying customs duties, and although this may seem almost absurd today, it illustrates just how deeply colonial bureaucracy could intrude on daily life.

You may have heard of it, but what do you really know about the Irish Famine? It began in 1845, after potato blight had destroyed crops for several years. About one million people died of starvation or famine-related diseases, and many others emigrated, which profoundly changed the Irish population and culture.

In 1943, a famine struck Bengal—then under British rule—during World War II, causing the deaths of approximately three million people. However, this was not simply a problem of food production; it is generally referred to as a “failure of food access policies,” as wartime measures, inflation, and panic made food unaffordable for a large portion of the population. 

When we think of famine, we often picture unfortunate farmers or harsh weather conditions, but that is not always the case. The Holodomor was a man-made famine that struck Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933. Millions of people lost their lives, and Soviet authorities denied or covered up this catastrophe for decades. Of course, these cover-ups made it even more difficult to preserve the collective memory and document these events, but historians have since uncovered new information. 

In August 1947, British India was divided into two new states: India and Pakistan. This hasty partition triggered one of the largest population movements in history, with approximately 15 million Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs crossing the new borders. The exact number remains uncertain, but estimates of the death toll range from 200,000 to two million.

During World War I, the Ottoman government was responsible for the mass deportations and persecutions suffered by the Armenians in 1915 and 1916. Thanks to the work of historians, we now know that Armenians view this campaign as a deliberate attempt to exterminate their people, although the Turkish government refuses to recognize it as such. 

From May 31 to June 1, 1921, a mob of white people violently attacked the prosperous Black neighborhood of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This massacre caused indescribable damage, destroying more than 1,400 homes and businesses and leaving nearly 10,000 people homeless. The total number of victims is estimated to be between 30 and 300 people. 

Beginning in 1942, the U.S. government carried out the forced relocation and internment of people of Japanese descent during World War II. Approximately 120,000 people were detained in camps, nearly two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens. While this topic is covered in schools today, it is generally presented as a wartime mistake, but this framing can give the impression that it was a minor incident, when in reality it was a serious violation of civil rights.

Although they play such an important role in Canadian history, Indian residential schools are still largely absent from school curricula. These institutions operated from 1883 to 1996 and were intended to assimilate Indigenous children into Western culture. Approximately 150,000 First Nations, Métis, and Inuit children were forcibly removed from their families and sent to schools run by churches. Many suffered abuse, and some even lost their lives while trying to escape. 

However, this phenomenon was not limited to Canada. In Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were also removed from their families by religious missions from the mid-19th century through the 1970s. These placements were justified by assimilation policies, even though they caused serious harm to families, culture, and identity. 

During the 1830s, the United States forced the Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Seminole, and other Indigenous peoples to leave their ancestral lands and settle west of the Mississippi River. These relocations, which followed the passage of the Indian Removal Act, had dramatic consequences, ranging from severe suffering and death to lasting dispossession. 

The Opium Wars were two conflicts between the Qing Dynasty and Western powers in China. The first, which took place from 1839 to 1842, pitted China against Great Britain, while the second, from 1856 to 1860, pitted China against both Great Britain and France. The first war was actually driven by Britain’s desire to protect its commercial interests after China had attempted to put an end to the opium trade. 

After Japanese forces captured Nanjing, China, in December 1937, a massacre ensued that lasted until January 1938. The number of victims is estimated to be between 100,000 and more than 300,000, although other researchers have since pointed out that these figures remain a matter of debate. 

In 1816, much of the Northern Hemisphere experienced extreme cold and crop failures. All of this was due to the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 in what is now Indonesia. Communities had to cope with freezing temperatures, food shortages, and economic hardship at a time when most people already had few resources to protect themselves against a poor harvest.

In the early 20th century, radium was marketed as something it was not: a substance beneficial to health. For some, it even carried a certain prestige before its dangers were fully understood. It was found in everyday consumer products, in medical claims, and in the industrial sector, thereby exposing people to risks for which they were often completely unprepared. 

In 1720, the British South Sea Company was at the center of a financial frenzy that attracted investors, all hoping to make enormous profits. But when the bubble burst, many lost their fortunes. Ultimately, the whole scandal brought to light cases of corruption and political favoritism.

The Moon has always been the subject of much speculation, but this was never more true than in 1835, when the newspaper The Sun published false reports claiming that astronomers had discovered life forms there. And not just any life forms: readers were captivated by descriptions of fantastical creatures and landscapes, even though these accounts were nothing more than fabrications. 

It’s not every day that people die because of dancing, but in July 1518, Strasbourg was the scene of a strange incident in which people reportedly danced uncontrollably—some say for days, others for weeks. Historians still debate the cause of this phenomenon today, with theories ranging from stress to a mass psychogenic illness to social conditions.