# What historical events have slipped down the memory hole? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 13, 2022, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478 "2022-12-13T19:46:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2022, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/21 "2022-12-15T13:59:44Z")
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > I will try to get it fixed Fixed. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2022, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/22 "2022-12-15T14:00:12Z")
Danke! ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2022, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/23 "2022-12-15T14:05:22Z")
The first genocide of the 20th century was committed by German colonial authorities in Namibia. Estimates of deaths range from 20,000 to 100,000: [Herero and Namaqua genocide - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herero_and_Namaqua_genocide) ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2022, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/24 "2022-12-15T14:53:25Z")
Many people are familiar with the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which burned 3.3 square miles of the city and killed 300 people: > **[Great Chicago Fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chicago_Fire)** > > The Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned in the American city of Chicago during October 8–10, 1871. The fire killed approximately 300 people, destroyed roughly 3.3 square miles (9 km2) of the city including over 17,000 structures, and left more than 100,000 residents homeless. The fire began in a neighborhood southwest of the city center. A long period of hot, dry, windy conditions, and the wooden construction prevalent in the city, led to the conflagration. The fire leapt the s... Relatively few people are familiar with the much worse Peshtigo Fire that happened on the same day, but burned a staggering 1875 square miles and killed somewhere around 2000 people: > **[Peshtigo fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshtigo_fire)** > > The Peshtigo fire was a large forest fire on October 8, 1871, in northeastern Wisconsin, United States, including much of the southern half of the Door Peninsula and adjacent parts of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The largest community in the affected area was Peshtigo, Wisconsin which had a population of approximately 1,700 residents. The fire burned about 1.2 million acres and is the deadliest wildfire in recorded history, with the number of deaths estimated between 1,500 and 2,500.\[2 Oc... ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2022, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/25 "2022-12-15T17:15:49Z")
The Port Huron Fire of 1871 happened THAT day too: > **[Port Huron Fire of 1871](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Huron_Fire_of_1871)** > > The Port Huron Fire of October 8, 1871 (one of a series of fires known collectively as the Great Fire of 1871 or the Great Michigan Fire) burned a number of cities including White Rock and Port Huron, and much of the countryside in the "Thumb" region of the U.S. state of Michigan (a total of 1.2 million acres, or 4,850 km²). > On the same day, other fires burned the cities of Holland and Manistee, Michigan, as well as broad swaths of forest in various areas of the state; the Great Chicago Fire and... ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2022, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/26 "2022-12-15T17:46:53Z")
I’m surprised nobody’s mention the Spanish Flu pandemic that followed World War One. It basically fell out of popular memory, at least until the Covid19 pandemic. > [@SpoilerVirgin](#): > > Use of hot air balloons in the American Civil War. I had studied and read a lot about the war, but it wasn’t until I recently saw the movie The Aeronauts, and then went on to read the book “Falling Upwards” that I realized the role balloons had played. I’ll expand this to lighter-than-air craft in general. Manned balloons predate the Wright brothers by over a 100 years. Rigid airships have been around since the late 19th century, were in commercial passenger service before World War I, and in regular trans-Atlantic service during the 1930s. Yet only the Hindenburg get’s remembered and only that one flight. Which is a little odd given how widespread they were in popular imagination in the 1920s and '30s. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2022, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/27 "2022-12-15T17:49:36Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > Europeans (Brits in particular) like to claim they ended slavery before the United States did (the British Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 for one) but instead slavery continued in British and French African colonies well until World War 2 and only really ended once those countries got independence. This sounds like you might be referring to the Indian Indenture System, which was something we would recognize today as slavery (but was then, for want of a better word, a workaround). Anyways, whether you were referring explicitly to this or not, the Indian Indenture System (and for that matter British Slavers in India in general) are pretty much a forgotten part of history. We choose not to teach this stuff, perhaps? The system ended with the First World War, not the Second - not that _that’s_ exactly something to boast about. > **[Indian indenture system | Final ban on indenture system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_indenture_system#Final_ban_on_indenture_system)** > > Gopal Krishna Gokhale, a moderate Congress leader, tabled a bill in the Viceroy Legislative Council to end the export of indentured labour to Natal (present day South Africa) in February 1910. The bill passed unanimously and came to effect in July 1911. However, the British-led Indian indenture system for other colonies finally ended in 1917. According to The Economist, "When the Imperial Legislative Council finally ended indenture because of pressure from Indian nationalists and declinin j ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2022, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/28 "2022-12-15T18:10:32Z")
The Norman occupation of Sicily qualifies I think. Basically a random Norman adventurer conquered all of Sicily, fighting the Byzantines and the Arabs, and founded a diverse multi-ethnic kingdom that lasted more than a century. Also interesting is the fact that at the time the Byzantines employed the [Varangian Guard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varangian_Guard) an elite force of Northern European mercenaries (mainly viking but also other Northern Europeans.) After the defeat of the Anglo Saxons by the Normans in the (much better known) battle of Hastings, many Anglo Saxons fled England and ended up in the Varangian Guard, so there was a “Battle of Hastings part 2” (thousands of miles to the east of Hastings) when Anglo Saxons in the Varganian Guard fought Norman invaders in the Byzantine empire. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2022, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/29 "2022-12-15T22:59:40Z")
I believe that all these 1871 fires were NOT a coincidence - that it was actually a meteorite fall that caused them. Among other things, ore boats on the Great Lakes saw them, and possibly heard them if they exploded in the sky, a la Chelyabinsk. In other words, a version of the Tunguska Event that happened to strike in a populated area. ETA: The Tunguska event was this. > **[Tunguska event](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event)** > > The Tunguska event (occasionally also called the Tunguska incident) was an approximately 12-megaton explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Yeniseysk Governorate (now Krasnoyarsk Krai), Russia, on the morning of June 30, 1908. The explosion over the sparsely populated Eastern Siberian Taiga flattened an estimated 80 million trees over an area of 2,150 km2 (830 sq mi) of forest, and eyewitness reports suggest that at least three people may have died in the event.\[4 The Tu... ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2022, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/30 "2022-12-15T23:15:18Z")
Funny you should mention conspiracy theories when this happened earlier today. > **[Thousands of unedited government JFK assassination files released](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63994729)** > > The CIA reiterates it "never engaged" the alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, as over 13,000 files go online. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2022, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/31 "2022-12-15T23:38:37Z")
So much of America’s race relations have been obscured from history. For example, it’s only been recently that people have started to become aware of the race massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that razed “Black Wall Street”, an area of Black prosperity. [https://www.tulsahistory.org/exhibit/1921-tulsa-race-massacre](https://www.tulsahistory.org/exhibit/1921-tulsa-race-massacre) Other such events remain obscure or unknown, however. How about when racist terrorists literally overthrew an elected local government to assert racist hegemony? This occurred in North Carolina. > **[Wilmington 1898: When white supremacists overthrew a US government](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55648011.amp)** > > In 1898 a white mob stormed Wilmington, North Carolina and forced locally elected leaders to resign. Or the fact that the summer of 1919 was marked by race riots. > **[Red Summer of 1919: How Black WWI Vets Fought Back Against Racist Mobs](https://www.history.com/.amp/news/red-summer-1919-riots-chicago-dc-great-migration)** > > The ink had barely dried on the Treaty of Versailles, which formally ended World War I, when recently returned black veterans grabbed their guns and stationed Or did you know that there was once consideration in Congress to approve a national monument dedicated to the subservient, happy slave? > **[The Mammy Washington Almost Had](https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/05/the-mammy-washington-almost-had/276431/)** > > In 1923, the U.S. Senate approved a new monument in D.C. "in memory of the faithful slave mammies of the South." Equally interesting to me is the original purpose of the Statute of Liberty. It was an homage to the freed slave (note the broken chains around her feet). The poem about immigrants came years later. > **[The Statue of Liberty was created to celebrate freed slaves, not immigrants,...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/05/23/statue-liberty-was-created-celebrate-freed-slaves-not-immigrants/)** > > The new museum revives Lady Liberty's forgotten history. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2022, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/32 "2022-12-16T00:15:34Z")
> [@zimaane](#): > > The first genocide of the 20th century was committed by German colonial authorities in Namibia. Estimates of deaths range from 20,000 to 100,000: Long forgotten and repressed from common memory in Germany, even long after the genocides committed by Germans in WWII had been acknowledged. Officially recognized as the first genocide by German hands by the Bundestag as late as 2021: > **[Germany recognizes colonial-era Namibia genocide – DW – 05/28/2021](https://www.dw.com/en/germany-officially-recognizes-colonial-era-namibia-genocide/a-57671070)** > > Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Germany had caused "immeasurable suffering" to the Herero and Nama people, in what is now Namibia, in the early part of the 20th century. ---
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2022, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/33 "2022-12-16T00:26:34Z")
America invaded Russia. About 13,000 American troops occupied portions of revolutionary Russia for a period of nearly two years. > **[The Forgotten Story of the American Troops Who Got Caught Up in the Russian...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/forgotten-doughboys-who-died-fighting-russian-civil-war-180971470/)** > > Even after the armistice was signed ending World War I, the doughboys clashed with Russian forces 100 years ago ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2022, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/34 "2022-12-16T00:41:30Z")
> [@flurb](#): > > America invaded Russia. About 13,000 American troops occupied portions of revolutionary Russia for a period of nearly two years. I would not call that an invasion, since we were there at the invite of what was considered the Legit government. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2022, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/35 "2022-12-16T00:48:06Z")
That’s the one I was going to mention. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2022, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/36 "2022-12-16T01:15:10Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > > [@flurb](#): > > > > America invaded Russia. About 13,000 American troops occupied portions of revolutionary Russia for a period of nearly two years. > > I would not call that an invasion, since we were there at the invite of what was considered the Legit government. A bit like Gitmo. We were invited in by the government of the day, then overstayed the non-welcome we got from the subsequent government. Not necessarily an evil thing to do, but also not real friendly. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2022, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/37 "2022-12-16T01:40:40Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > I’m surprised nobody’s mention the Spanish Flu pandemic that followed World War One. It basically fell out of popular memory, at least until the Covid19 pandemic. You beat me to the 1918 Pandemic (Spanish Flu). It infected ~500 million people (about 1/3 of the world’s population) and killed ~50 million. The United States lost ~675, 000 people, more casualties than World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War combined. Life expectancy dropped by 12 years. It was unique in that the mortality rate was particularly high in healthy young adults, 20-40yo. There was a severe shortage of coffins in many locations. In Philadelphia (one of the worst-hit cities with ~1000 deaths per day at the height of the pandemic), corpses were piled high on death wagons. It killed quickly, many were healthy in the morning and dead by night. Remarkably, it was largely forgotten shortly after the pandemic subsided. Psychologists say the reason is that it was too horrible to remember. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2022, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/38 "2022-12-16T02:00:34Z")
> [@Tibby](#): > > You beat me to the 1918 Pandemic (Spanish Flu). Camp Funston (now Fort Riley) in Kansas was Ground Zero for the spread of the virus, as thousands of soldiers trained there before shipping out to Europe. My Grandpa was stationed there from November 1918 to February 1919, but fortunately did not contract it or bring it back home. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2022, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/39 "2022-12-16T02:04:14Z")
History has pretty much decided to ignore the eugenics movement. The idea was that part of the general campaign to improve society involved discouraging inferior people from breeding. At its peak, it involved involuntary sterilization programs that were sanctioned by the government. The American eugenics movement was later cited by the Nazis as a historical predecessor of their own “final solution” which shocked Americans into a belated realization of how wrong the movement had been. But overall, the movement has now been erased from the general historical memory. ---
**Author:** ![Tzigone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Tzigone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tzigone)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2022, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478/40 "2022-12-16T02:18:17Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > I’m surprised nobody’s mention the Spanish Flu pandemic that followed World War One. It basically fell out of popular memory, at least until the Covid19 pandemic. This one is weird to me. Both Leverage and the older Numb3rs had episodes that mentioned this (fears of a new, deliberately engineered, strain in those shows). And they were far from the only ones. While it’s not mentioned daily or even weekly, it’s shown up on a significant number of tv shows in this context over the years. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-historical-events-have-slipped-down-the-memory-hole/976478.md?page=3)