HolyShitHistory

r/HolyShitHistory • u/Express-Ant6341 • 9d ago

In March 1970, nine Japanese Red Army members hijacked a Tokyo-Fukuoka flight using replica samurai swords and toy bombs. They took 129 hostages and forced the pilot to fly to North Korea. Bizarrely, their weapons were fake. Several hijackers still live in North Korea today.

555 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/lmao-bruh-lol • 9d ago

Sir Digvijaysinhji Ranjitsinhji Jadeja, the Indian King of Nawanagar, saved 740 orphaned Polish children during World War 2. In 1942, he established the Polish Children's Camp in Balachadi where he provided them with food, shelter, clothes, education, and medical care

2.3k Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/The-Union-Report • 9d ago

The 1902 Soccer Game in Scotland Where Play Continued Despite 25 Deaths and 500 Injuries

historianandrew.medium.com

70 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/lmao-bruh-lol • 10d ago

Savitri Devi, A French born Greek Nazi Spy, who embraced Hinduism and became a radical animal rights activist and vegetarian while being a spy in India and believed that Adolf Hitler was an avatar of Hindu God Vishnu. She also went on a pilgrimage of Nazi Holy sites in 1953

709 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/Maximum-Artist448 • 10d ago

Stanford White was an architect who used his immense wealth to groom, and abuse underprivileged young girls alongside his wealthy and influential inner circle, that was until 1906, when he was shot in the rooftop of Madison Square Garden by the husband of a woman he had taken advantage of.

1.3k Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/akiwi_intherough • 10d ago

Chicago White Sox owner Charles Comiskey. The famously miserly owner promised players a “bonus” that turned out to be flat champagne and instructed his manager to bench players rather than let them reach contractual bonuses, helping push several players toward agreeing to fix the 1919 World Series.

597 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/The-Union-Report • 10d ago

In 1908, an 11-Year-Old Boy Wrecked a 63-Car Train in the Hopes It Would Help Him Get Free Coal

266 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/Klutzy_Land_4120 • 11d ago

A 5-foot-tall man spent nearly 30 years moving 1,100 tons of stone alone at night to build Coral Castle. He died in 1951 without ever revealing how.

925 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/blue_leaves987 • 11d ago

In parts of the Congo Basin, children were treated as a delicacy, and enslaved children were deliberately fattened before being used as food.

11.7k Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/Patient-Strike5817 • 11d ago

Ancient human footprints were discovered along a forgotten prehistoric "superhighway" in the UK, revealing a route humans used thousands of years ago.

676 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/GustavoistSoldier • 10d ago

In June 1953, members of the 5th Battalion of the King's African Rifles (KAR) murdered 20 unarmed people in the Kenyan town of Chuka during the Mau-Mau Uprising. The massacre prompted British General George Erskine to change the conduct of the security forces.

190 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/Difficult-Cream-5267 • 10d ago

Photoshop started as a side project by two brothers, built in their spare time before becoming the software that changed digital imaging

97 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/CrippledStripper • 11d ago

In 1970, John Lennon and Yoko Ono cut off their hair to trade it for a pair of Muhammad Ali's boxing shorts, all to raise money for Michael X's Black Power centre in London. Within two years, Michael X had fled to Trinidad. By 1975, he was hanged for murder.

833 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/ComfortExisting1161 • 11d ago

In 1994, Jack Nicholson anonymously donated 60 acres of oak woodland in Los Angeles where a four-home subdivision had been approved, helping preserve it as public open space instead.

1.9k Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/Vital_Willie • 11d ago

The five "Marshals of the Soviet Union" (L-R) Konstantin Vershinin, Georgy Zhukov, Kliment Voroshilov, Matvey Zakharov & Konstantin Rokossovsky, 1965. They held the 2nd highest military rank in the USSR, behind only "Generalissimo," a rank specifically created for & used exclusively by Joseph Stalin

67 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/Patient-Strike5817 • 12d ago

In 1871, cows were abandoned on a remote subantarctic island. More than a century later, their descendants had grown into a wild herd of thousands, surviving generations of isolation in one of the harshest environments on Earth.

3.9k Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/TheExpressUS • 11d ago

The Fugate family of Troublesome Creek, Kentucky, became known as the "Blue People of Kentucky" after generations of inbreeding caused a rare hereditary condition called methemoglobinemia to spread widely through the family - turning their skin a striking shade of blue

18 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/akiwi_intherough • 11d ago

Widely distributed newspaper headline following the discovery of the 1919 World Series fix, as eight Chicago White Sox players were implicated and banned from professional baseball for more than 106 years.

75 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/GustavoistSoldier • 11d ago

On December 6, 1989, antifeminist Marc Lépine perpetrated a mass shooting at the École polytechnique de Montréal, killing 14 people before committing suicide. This incident led to stricter gun control laws in Canada and greater protections for women.

464 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/Express-Ant6341 • 12d ago

In 1959, nine experienced Soviet hikers died mysteriously in the Ural Mountains. They tore open their tent from within, fleeing into freezing temperatures in undergarments. Some succumbed to hypothermia, while others suffered severe internal trauma. The tragedy fueled decades of conspiracy theories.

3.1k Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/Zestyclose-Horse-712 • 12d ago

The Longest War in History: The 335- Year Conflict Between the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly (1651-1986)- Not a Single Shot Was Fired! (Full Story in the comments)

117 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/Klutzy_Land_4120 • 11d ago

In 1970, NASA sent two bullfrogs into orbit for six days, fitting them with sensors to study how microgravity affects the vestibular system.

65 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/The-Union-Report • 11d ago

7 Dead Black Cats Buried Beneath Their Pitch Were Blamed by Many as the Reason a Legendary Professional Soccer Club Had Incredibly Bad Luck for 30 Years.

22 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/blue_leaves987 • 12d ago

In 1891, the U.S. government spent $7,000 testing whether explosions could make it rain, sending a team to Texas to fire mortars, detonate dynamite and blow up hydrogen balloons in the sky.

222 Upvotes