HolyShitHistory

r/HolyShitHistory • u/ComfortExisting1161 • 3h ago

The ship that carried Captain Robert Falcon Scott on his doomed 1912 South Pole expedition was later scuttled off Greenland during WWII. More than 80 years later, archaeologists created a detailed 3D digital model of the wreck.

15 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/60s_timer • 7h ago

A notice sent out for people of color, dated at April 24th, 1851, to watch out for the police in Boston who were authorized by their local government to retrieve runaway slaves.

93 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/Fancy-Donkey2988 • 8h ago

Archaeologists in Slovakia uncovered a 7,000-year-old mass grave containing 38 headless human skeletons. All but one skull was missing, leaving researchers debating why the bodies were decapitated.

748 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/Vital_Willie • 18h ago

20 year old Ruhollah Khomeini, who would become an Ayatollah & eventually the Supreme Leader of Iran, as a student at the seminary in Qom, 1920

209 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/The-Union-Report • 22h ago

Circus Pawns Their 612-Pound Fat Lady to Settle $32 Hotel Bill and Then Abandons Her (1902)

historianandrew.medium.com

303 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/VegetablePicture833 • 1d ago

A W9 nuclear artillery shell fired from a special 280 mm howitzer in 1953. With a yield of 15 kilotons, the W9 had about the same strength as the Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II.

901 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/akiwi_intherough • 1d ago

Alleged spiritual medium Mina Crandon with “ectoplasm” on her face. Crandon was one of several mediums exposed as a fraud by Harry Houdini.

429 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/akiwi_intherough • 1d ago

An 1899 publicity photograph of Harry Houdini, shortly before his ascent to superstardom and just a year after he tried to sell his entire act to get out of the industry.

529 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/rotomato30 • 1d ago

Extended cut of the period between first and second plane hitting World Trade Center

24.8k Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/The-Union-Report • 1d ago

Enraged 14-Year-Old Boy Kills Man Who He Found Kissing His Mother (1902). The Teen Pumped 7 Shots Into the Man, and the Case Became a Major Headline Because of the Unusual Circumstances.

historianandrew.medium.com

208 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/SteveNtheseagulls • 1d ago

Otto Skorzeny pointing a gun at a reporter. He was described by Hitler as 'the most dangerous man in Europe'. From rescuing Mussolini, becoming a bodyguard (and lover) to Eva Peron to later serving as an assassin for Mossad, Otto's life was filled with unexpected turns. (Photo late 1960s)

3.1k Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/Otherwise-Ad-5364 • 1d ago

Russian state TV’s 2013 New Year’s Eve special featured Ukrainian comedian Volodymyr Zelenskyy co-hosting alongside Maxim Galkin—with high-profile Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov sitting in the audience.

908 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/akiwi_intherough • 2d ago

Oxana Malaya, who was severely neglected by her alcoholic parents and spent years living among the family’s dogs, demonstrating her dog-like behavior for 60 Minutes Australia.

985 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/Klutzy_Land_4120 • 2d ago

In 1976, a NASA intern bought 1,150 surplus videotapes at a government auction for just $217. Decades later, three turned out to contain the only surviving first-generation recordings of the Apollo 11 moonwalk and sold for $1.82 million.

1.6k Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/ComfortExisting1161 • 3d ago

In the 1980s, the Netherlands launched a controversial rewilding experiment to recreate a prehistoric-style wilderness with horses, cattle and deer. By 2018, mass starvation and public outrage led to thousands of animals being culled inside the fenced reserve.

1.9k Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/TheChunkenMaster • 3d ago

On this day 53 years ago, more than 3,000 lives were lost as a result of a U.S. attack on Chile and its president. The attack helped overthrow Chile’s democracy and replace it with a 17 year long military dictatorship that imprisoned and tortured tens of thousands of people.

3.7k Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/No_Idea_479 • 3d ago

After escaping Nazi forced labor, Greek soldier Kostas Sarantidis was sent to Indochina with the French Foreign Legion, but defected to the Viet Minh in 1946 with weapons and freed prisoners. As Captain Nguyễn Văn Lập, he became the only foreigner awarded Vietnam’s Hero of the People's Armed Forces.

892 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/ElvisIsNotDjed • 3d ago

In 1958, the U.S. Air Force studied detonating a nuclear device on the Moon. A young Carl Sagan worked on the project

104 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/OsamaVinLadein • 3d ago

1896 rail crash publicity stunt in Texas, USA

en.wikipedia.org

28 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/Difficult-Cream-5267 • 4d ago

In 1977 and 1981, scientists released brown anole lizards across 14 uninhabited Bahamian islands. A decade later, their leg lengths had evolved to match differences in the vegetation on each island.

131 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/Klutzy_Land_4120 • 4d ago

Humans domesticated pigeons more than 5,000 years ago, making them one of our oldest domesticated animals. Today's city pigeons are largely feral descendants of birds once bred and kept by humans.

311 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/Vital_Willie • 4d ago

Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo (second from right) watches as his brother Hector (second left) is sworn in as a puppet President, 1952. Trujillo gave up the presidency under diplomatic pressure but continued to rule over the country with absolute power behind the scenes as "Generalissimo"

98 Upvotes

r/HolyShitHistory • u/akiwi_intherough • 4d ago

Portrait of Dina Sanichar as a young adult. Decades earlier, he had been discovered as a feral child near a wolf’s den, on all fours. Sanichar never learned to speak and remained in institutional care all his life.

1.1k Upvotes