- 7/23/2025
Discover the untold chapters of our past! Join us as we explore historical events that often go unmentioned in classrooms. From rebellions and massacres to revolutionary movements and social justice turning points, these stories have shaped our world yet remain largely overlooked in standard education. Which of these historical blindspots surprised you most?
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00:00No one, black or white, was prepared for what happened on the night of May 31st, 1921.
00:07Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for world events from throughout
00:12history that are often omitted or glossed over in schools.
00:20Number 20. Manco Inga's Rebellion. South American history in general is often not
00:25taught outside the continent. More on that later. During the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire,
00:31the conquistadors installed a puppet emperor, Manco Inca Yupanqui, to rule. However, Manco
00:36received such mistreatment at their hands that he rebelled. Under the pretext of retrieving a golden
00:41statue, Manco escaped his guards and managed to rally Inca warriors to his cause. With somewhere
00:47between 100 and 200,000 men, he laid siege to Cusco in what is now Peru. Despite a sustained guerrilla
00:54campaign and taking advantage of internal divisions among the Spanish, Manco was eventually assassinated
01:00and his successors could not offer the same resistance. Number 19. Business Plot. In the
01:06wake of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, not everybody in America was happy. Roosevelt needed
01:11an enemy in order to justify the major changes he knew he would have to undertake to get the economy
01:17moving. In fact, some wealthy businessmen decided that FDR would have to go. Permanently. They hatched a
01:23conspiracy to lead a military coup against the president. They approached retired Marine Corps
01:28Major General Smedley Butler to gather a veterans organization together to lead the planned coup.
01:33However, they underestimated how much Butler disliked the rich and supported Roosevelt.
01:39Butler alerted the federal government of the plot, leading to him testifying before a committee about
01:44the plot, although no one was ever prosecuted. Sadly, this would not be the last time far-right
01:50extremists tried to overthrow the U.S. government with depressingly few consequences.
01:55That is one of the closest historical parallels to what happened on January 6th. You know, sort of a
02:00motley assortment of groups, some of which hate each other, others are kind of unaligned,
02:06but they're all sort of working together in this effort to overthrow a democracy.
02:12Number 18. Expulsion of the Acadians. Given that this event happened during the French and Indian War,
02:18it's understandable why it fell through the historical curriculum cracks. Wars just get
02:22more attention. And in the meantime, the war went on. The tide might have turned at last,
02:29but hard fighting still lay ahead before the capture of Montreal and the final surrender of
02:35the French. Acadia, a former French colony in what is now the Maritimes of Canada and Maine in the
02:41United States, was ceded to Britain. However, some Acadian colonists remained loyal to France and aided
02:47them militarily. Regardless of their affiliation, Britain decided to forcibly deport over 11,000
02:53Acadians, nearly half of whom died of disease or drowning on boats. It was here that they were
02:59given their deportation orders. 2,000 Acadians were expelled, placed on small boats, and rowed out to
03:06larger ships waiting in the Minas Basin. Over the next seven years, 10,000 Acadians were deported from
03:12the area. Scholars today have labeled this event a crime against humanity, with some even considering
03:17it a genocide. Number 17, Port Chicago disaster. Nearly one in seven Black American military
03:24personnel during World War II didn't die abroad, but in a naval munitions hub in California. The
03:30Black sailors went through basic training, hoping to fight the enemy on the front lines, but they were
03:36barred from combat roles. At Port Chicago, they were assigned the most dangerous job, the loading of
03:42munitions. The Concord Naval Weapons Station at Port Chicago was disproportionately staffed with the
03:48lowest scoring Black naval personnel, most of whom weren't given training in handling munitions. On July
03:5317, 1944, the SSEA Bryan was loaded up with 4,600 tons of explosives. At 10.20 p.m., the ship exploded,
04:02leading to the deaths of 320 men, injuries to 400 more people, a chain reaction of further explosions,
04:09and shockwaves large enough to be registered on the Richter scale. The blast instantly killed 320 men,
04:15most of them Black sailors. It injured more than 400 others. A subsequent mutiny and refusal to work
04:22in unsafe conditions did lead to greater desegregation in the Navy, so some good came of it.
04:28Number 16, British Pet Massacre. War often leads to rationing and tougher living conditions all
04:34around, not only for humans, but also for pets. After the declaration of war with Germany in 1939,
04:40a pamphlet was distributed that suggested euthanizing pets as an option, should owners
04:45be forced to evacuate and be unable to place the pets with someone. Although feral pets during the First
04:51World War had also been a problem, the public's reaction was seen as overblown practically immediately.
04:56This minor piece of advice led to widespread panic among the British populace and the deaths of
05:02around 25% of the pets in England, some 750,000 cats and dogs. Number 15, Zoot Suit Riots. World
05:10War II is often seen as causing countries to come together to face a common foe, but it also brought
05:16out divisions. In Los Angeles, California, Latino and Mexican-American youths often wore Zoot Suits,
05:22oversized baggy coats and pants. Many young Mexican-Americans started donning the Zoot Suit,
05:28a style that incorporated an oversized coat, pork pie hat, long chain, thick-soled shoes,
05:34and baggy pants. This fashion evolved out of Harlem nightclubs and was popularized by cultural icons
05:41like Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway. However, due to their association with a controversial and blatantly
05:48racist smear campaign by police and the media, the Zoot Suiters were regarded as criminals.
05:53This exploded in early June 1943, when primarily white American military servicemen and Angelenos
06:00attacked young men and teenagers wearing Zoot Suits, considering the large amount of fabric
06:05on their clothing unpatriotic amid wartime rationing, plus the aforementioned racism.
06:10Even though the U.S. government came in, pretty much stopped the rioting and the sailors from going
06:15amok, the L.A. city itself went crazy to arrest Pachucos, put them away.
06:24While there were no deaths, the fact that many victims were arrested instead of the perpetrators
06:29is despicable.
06:3014. South American Independence
06:32We said we'd get back to South America. While North American independence from imperial rule is
06:38often well-documented there, its neighbors to the south are taught to them far less. And there are
06:43so many to choose from. There's SimĂłn BolĂvar and his creation of Gran Colombia.
06:48BolĂvar helped create Gran Colombia, a federation that is now the countries of Colombia, Venezuela,
06:54Panama, and Ecuador. Although the federation would ultimately fail, BolĂvar acknowledged his
07:00people's successful fight for independence.
07:02JosĂ© de San MartĂn liberated Argentina, Chile, and Peru. And then there's that time a Portuguese
07:08prince founded the Empire of Brazil. Each of these revolutions had their own bloody struggles,
07:14and likely wouldn't have been possible if their European colonizers weren't so busy dealing with
07:18issues closer to home, like that Napoleon guy.
07:21Instrumental to Napoleon's success was his skill as a leader. He didn't just inspire people,
07:27he made them feel that they were taking part in history.
07:30Number 13. Tuskegee Syphilis Study. In 1932, 600 poor Alabama black men were enrolled in a study
07:37conducted by the CDC and the U.S. Public Health Service. Of these men, almost 400 had syphilis,
07:44though they were not informed of this diagnosis.
07:46400 black men in Alabama were screened out and offered free medical treatment for what they were
07:51told was bad blood. In fact, they had syphilis. And the government wanted to see what happens
08:00when syphilis goes untreated. The purpose of the experiment was to study the effects of the disease
08:05if left untreated. They were given placebos instead. Despite penicillin being discovered during
08:11the extensive term of the study, none of them were informed or treated during the 40 years it continued
08:17for. Even after losing funding, the barbaric experiment continued until it was finally
08:22exposed in 1972. Immediately after the story broke in 1972, a congressional investigation began.
08:30The first decision was to stop the experiment. But no one was ever prosecuted. No doctor was ever
08:36reprimanded. Although its exposure led to greater protections for medical trial participants,
08:40public trust for health departments, particularly in the black community, was forever changed.
08:45Number 12. Gulf of Tonkin Incident
08:48Many people learn about the Vietnam War and the USA's role in it. What history classes rarely talk
08:53about is how the United States entered the war, however.
08:56Johnson would use this incident to acquire the power to make war in Vietnam whenever and however
09:02he would choose. On the 2nd of August 1964, the USS Maddox was near North Vietnamese waters,
09:09carrying out a patrol when it was attacked by local torpedo boats. While four of the attacking sailors
09:14died, no one on board the Maddox was killed. Two days later, the Maddox experienced radar returns
09:20that had followed intercepted communications, which led them to believe an attack was imminent,
09:25even opening fire. However, there were no ships.
09:28Were any North Vietnamese boats ever out there that dark night?
09:34At daybreak, reconnaissance planes scanned the ocean for a slick of oil, a stick of wood,
09:39anything that would be evidence of a North Vietnamese attack. Nothing could be found.
09:44Miscommunications led to the attack being viewed as genuine and the U.S. entering the war,
09:50partially under false or misunderstood pretenses.
09:53Number 11, Native Code Talkers. The roles of Native Americans in war have often been overlooked.
09:59Navajo Code Talkers, young Marine volunteers whose language was invaluable to the Corps in World War II.
10:07Each division had at least 80 Navajo Code Talkers. That enemy would not understand,
10:13will never understand what in the world is being planned.
10:17During both the First and Second World Wars, Native service members from nearly a dozen tribes
10:21were employed as Code Talkers. Due to enemy forces being unfamiliar with their indigenous languages,
10:27codes delivered using them had an extra layer of encryption. In fact, not only did their codes
10:32contribute to important battles such as Iwajeewa, but their codes were never broken. Despite some
10:37recognition in popular media, the Code Talkers are rarely a part of standard school history education.
10:44For the most part, their story was not told for many, many years. So it's such a relief,
10:52you know, to know that the legacy is going to live on.
10:55Number 10, Nanjing Massacre. Japan's invasion of China is undertaught as a whole. However,
11:01this incident in particular is often overlooked, or in the case of many in Japan, outright denied,
11:07likely because of how shocking and brutal it was.
11:09In December 1937, risking his life, my grandfather used his camera to film the horrifying events of
11:17Nanjing. Beginning in December of 1937, and continuing for several months, the Japanese
11:22Imperial Army killed thousands of prisoners of war, children, and women. Thousands of female
11:28residents of all ages were assaulted. You may be more familiar with the massacre's other name,
11:33the Rape of Nanjing. Torture and arson were also rampant, with a third of the city burning,
11:38while estimates of those attacked or murdered vary from a few thousand to hundreds of thousands,
11:44even the low estimates make it a horrific war crime. Japanese military and political leaders
11:49on trial denied the events in Nanjing, saying there had been no massacre of civilians and that
11:56claims of military captives being killed was misinformation. Number 9, The Wall Street Attack.
12:02Before 9-11, the worst terror attack in the United States happened in 1920. During midday in
12:08September, a horse-drawn carriage rode down Wall Street, New York. It stopped outside the U.S.
12:13Assay Office and opposite the J.P. Morgan & Company building.
12:17On September 16, 1920, as the bells of Trinity Church tolled, and hundreds of Wall Street workers
12:24headed out for their noontime break, an explosion struck outside the headquarters of J.P. Morgan & Company.
12:31The area was packed as workers went to get lunch, but then the driver vanished. Moments later,
12:36the wagon filled with dynamite exploded, causing shrapnel to fly everywhere. The carnage was unlike
12:42anything America's largest city had ever seen, and was splashed across headlines for days. At least
12:4738 people and the horse perished from the attack, with 143 seriously injured. No group or individual
12:53came forward to claim responsibility. While authorities had many theories on who was responsible,
12:58no formal arrest ever happened, and it remains unsolved.
13:02And in the end, no one was ever formally convicted of this heinous crime. Today, the only evidence that
13:08remains from that tragic event are from these shrapnel marks on the facade of J.P. Morgan's old building.
13:15Number eight, the Iranian Revolution. After years of Iran being reigned by Shah Muhammad Reza
13:21Pahlavi, and aligning himself with the West, tensions came to a head in 1978.
13:25Daily, it has become more difficult to look at the scope of opposition to the Shah of Iran,
13:30and still see his monarchy surviving. The Ayatollahs are committed to the ouster of the Shah,
13:36and nothing less than that. Supporters of cleric Rukhullah Khomeini, who had been in exile,
13:41believed he was routinely slandered by the country's press. On top of this, opposition against Pahlavi's
13:47rule, blamed his secret police for the Cinemarex fire that killed 477 people.
13:52The protest of the masses turns into open violence. Tehran is ablaze. The military intervenes.
13:59These, mixed with the Shah using the military to supplant his rule, and viciously attacking
14:03opponents, caused many people to protest the monarchy. By 1979, this led to Pahlavi fleeing,
14:10and the return of Ayatollah Khomeini, who became the first supreme leader of Iran,
14:14turning the country more politically conservative. During his 10-year reign,
14:18he implemented his ideas of an Islamic revolution with uncompromising vigour,
14:23and turned Iran into a theocracy. Some believe this event inspired several
14:28uprisings in the Middle East. 7. The Stonewall Riots
14:32Being part of the LGBTQ plus community in 1960s New York was rough. The police regularly targeted the
14:39then-illegal group. When people attended LGBTQ plus bars or clubs, many of which were operated by
15:00organized criminals, the cops would raid them and arrest those inside, often taking liberties with
15:05detainees. By June 1969, the situation hit a boiling point at the Stonewall Inn when the police raided the bar.
15:12With years of discrimination, violent attacks by the cops, and inspired by the civil rights movement,
15:18the LGBTQ plus community and supporters began rioting, which lasted for several days.
15:24In the civil rights movement, we ran from the police. In the peace movement, we ran from the police.
15:32That night, the police ran from us. The lowliest of the low.
15:38And it was fantastic. This sparked LGBTQ plus leaders to petition for rights.
15:44By 1970, the first pride events happened in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
15:49Gay Liberation Front was born out of the ashes of Stonewall. Gay Liberation Front is literally
15:56why we have everything we have today.
15:576. Bacon's Rebellion
16:00Way before the American Revolution against Great Britain's reign came to be,
16:04the seeds of rebellion were sown in Virginia in 1676. The colonist Nathaniel Bacon was livid at
16:10Governor William Berkeley, his cousin, for the high taxes and his lack of support for attacking a
16:16Native American settlement. As such, he organized a makeshift militia formed of white and black people
16:21to lay siege to Berkeley within Jamestown. Bacon's forces caused the governor to flee as they set
16:27Jamestown aflame. By the time England sent a navy to battle the rebellion, Bacon had already passed
16:32from dysentery. With the lack of leadership, Berkeley's newly engorged forces defeated the militia,
16:38but the governor's reputation was left in tatters.
16:405. The Mao Massacre
16:43In 1966, Mao Zedong's power in China was threatened after the disastrous Great Leap
16:48Forward that caused a massive famine. So he initiated the Cultural Revolution to renew the
16:53communist spirit and remove infiltrators. Mao launches an attack on his internal political opponents,
16:59saying there are bureaucrats everywhere who want capitalism back. The people ought to display
17:05placards and expose these class enemies and their bourgeois thinking. This caused youths to form groups
17:12like the Red Guard, who shut down schools, ransacked religious places, and slaughtered any perceived
17:18enemies of Mao's vision, such as party officials and intellectuals. Mao sends his Red Guards into a war
17:24of symbols. He considers China's traditions and culture to be anti-socialist, and seeks to destroy them.
17:32While art and entertainment believed to be too western were banned, including work by William
17:37Shakespeare, the Cultural Revolution eventually finished in 1976 with Mao's passing. But not before
17:43it destroyed the country's economy, took the lives of up to 2 million people, and forced around 20 million
17:49to flee the carnage Chairman Mao instigated. Now it's the regular generation, 70. I hope that they reflect,
17:59they regret, they re-examine what should we prevent this kind of human tragedy from happening again.
18:08Number 4. The First Bus Refuser
18:11While Rosa Parks is credited for ushering in the civil rights movement in the US after refusing to give up
18:16her bus seat to a white person in 1955, there was someone before who made a similar stand.
18:28Nine months before this monumental event, 15-year-old student Claudette Colvin refused to move on a bus
18:35for white passengers in Montgomery, Alabama. This led to her arrest, and being convicted on multiple
18:40charges.
18:41Not as though Harriet Tubman's hand was pushing me down on one shoulder, and Sojourner Truth's hand
18:48was pushing me down on another shoulder. And between these two historical women, iconic women, I could not move.
18:57Colvin was also involved in the court case that forced Alabama to end bus segregation. But even further back,
19:03in 1854, in New York, Elizabeth Jennings Graham was forcibly removed from a whites-only streetcar.
19:11As they rode, he saw a police officer and flagged him down. The officer came aboard and ignored
19:16what Elizabeth had to say, throwing her to the ground and ruining her Sunday best.
19:21So, she took the Third Avenue Railroad Company to court and won, causing the firm to desegregate its
19:27streetcars. Number 3. The English Civil War
19:31While England still has a monarchy, that hasn't always been the case. Charles I clashed with
19:36Parliament several times. Charles distrusted Parliament absolutely, and had governed the
19:41country for long periods without recourse to one. With Catholics facing off against Protestants in
19:46several skirmishes, adding to the fire, and Charles' religious loyalty questioned, things escalated when
19:52he entered the House of Commons, and tried, and failed, to arrest opponents in 1642. The attempted arrest
19:59was a tragic farce. The five members had long since escaped by boat. For the first time,
20:05a reigning monarch entered the House of Commons only to find himself humiliated.
20:10This kicked off the first of three civil wars in England, Scotland, and Wales between the Royalists
20:15and the Parliamentarians. In 1649, a captured Charles was tried for treason, found guilty, and executed.
20:22By 1651, the parliamentarians had won the final battle in the Civil War.
20:27Charles died bravely on the scaffold, impeccable courage, but that's no more than would be expected
20:33from any gentleman facing the bloc. With Oliver Cromwell in charge, and later his son Richard,
20:39the Commonwealth of England reigned until 1660, when Charles II re-established the monarchy.
20:45Number 2. The Armenian Genocide
20:47In the dying days of the Ottoman Empire, the Young Turk Revolution happened in 1908. After years of
20:53Christian Armenians being targeted by the country, they believed this was a positive turning point.
20:58Ethnic groups within the Ottoman Empire were pushing separatist agendas. This rise of nationalism
21:04contributed towards the breakdown of the so-called Millet system, in which religious communities
21:09under Ottoman rule were allowed a degree of autonomy. Sadly, it wasn't. As nations were engrossed by
21:15World War I in 1915, the empire suffered heavy losses. As such, they shifted the blame onto Armenians.
21:22Authorities began arresting and either deporting or executing Armenians for treachery.
21:27Then, groups were taken from their homes and forced to walk through the Syrian desert without supplies,
21:47causing many to perish before they reached the terrible conditions at concentration camps. By 1916,
21:53there are estimates that at least one million Armenians were massacred in the genocide.
22:06Number 1. The Tulsa Race Massacre
22:25In May of 1921, the neighborhood of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was thriving â so much so,
22:32that it was deemed Black Wall Street. But the segregated city was about to erupt in horrifying
22:37violence when Black teenager Dick Rowland was falsely arrested.
22:40The newspaper story is published around three o'clock. By four o'clock,
22:45a small group of white men have begun to assemble around and mill around the courthouse.
22:52After the white and Black communities faced off outside the courthouse, it sparked into a fight.
22:57However, the Greenwood community was outnumbered. Several white residents were deputized,
23:02handed weapons, and attacked Greenwood violently for over 18 hours.
23:06I remember the people coming in, white people coming into our house with torches,
23:14setting the curtains on fire, and setting our house on fire.
23:19On top of buildings being set aflame, as many as 300 people were killed, with 800 injured,
23:25while thousands of people lost their homes.
23:27The Red Cross recorded more than 300 people had been killed. Newspapers listed almost 100 deaths,
23:34but city officials put the death toll at 36.
23:38In the immediate aftermath, the event was suppressed by the media. Only in recent years has it become
23:44more well-known. Is there a forgotten part of history that we forgot? Transcribe your picks in the comments.
23:50People have a tendency to forget their roots, and it's very important that we have some sense of
23:56where we came from, who came before us, the contributions they made,
24:00so that we can pass on some of their traditions to future generations.
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