/r/TheGrittyPast
A collection of the most gritty, dramatic, and awe-inspiring moments from history.
Welcome to The Gritty Past!
Here, we post the most sobering, tragic, heroic - and often violent - accounts from history. History of any culture and era is welcome here.
Ultimately, the purpose of TheGrittyPast is to humble and inspire, but we encourage any academic discussion that may be the result of a submission. We heavily encourage other fans of history to post their own content - the more the better!
For similar content, consider the following:
/r/jessicamshannon
Sort by link flair!
Amazing
Disturbing
Heroic
Moving
Sobering
Tragic
Violent
Rules
Rule 1: All submitted content must be historical.
Submissions should always be historical - be they anecdotal, recordings, or published accounts. By our definition of history, we insist that content refer to events taking place 20 years ago or more. If you are confused as to whether or not your submission would qualify, feel free to contact the mods and we will be happy to weigh in on the issue.
Rule 2: Submissions must be verifiable.
Either link directly to a reliable source that supports every claim in your submission, or cite your sources in the text post. Citations do not necessarily have to follow a specific format, but they should include a title for the source-material, author, page, and year published, when available. If your content is another type of media (video/audio, etc), please leave a comment below your submission that explains it or lists any source material available.
Rule 3: Don't break Reddit's rules.
Violations of the global user agreement will not be tolerated.
Rule 4: Be civil.
Spamming, personal attacks upon, or harassment of a user will not be tolerated.
Rule 5: Factually inaccurate content may be removed.
Factually inaccurate submissions & comments are subject to removal. The user will be notified of this in the event of a submission/comment removal, and is encouraged to resubmit with any necessary corrections.
Rule 6: No pseudo-history or holocaust denial.
The merits of these things are best discussed elsewhere and are inappropriate material for the sub. This is not the place to "wake up the sheeple."
Rule 7: No politics or soap-boxing will be tolerated.
Submissions & comments that are overtly political will be removed; political topics are only acceptable if discussed in a historical context. Comments should discuss a historical topic, not advocate an agenda. This is entirely at the moderators' discretion.
Rule 8: Please post one or more submission highlights if posting links to articles or videos.
If submitting a link, we ask that you provide, in the comments, one or more particularly appropriate lines or passages that showcase the tragic or moving aspects of the event.
If submitting a video link, we ask that you provide selected, transcribed passages in the same manner. Timestamps to said material are required for video links that are more than 3 minutes in length (and encouraged in general).
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/r/TheGrittyPast
101,283 Subscribers
Black July, an anti-Tamil pogrom; a stripped naked Tamil youth sits on a concrete step at the Borella bus stand as a laughing Sinhalese mob dances around him. Later, petrol is poured on the youth, and he is burnt alive. July 1983.
01:37 UTC
Goran Jelišić shooting a victim in Brčko, Bosnia and Herzegovina in May 1992. Jelisić called himself the "Serb Adolf Hitler" and admitted that his "motivation and goal was to kill Muslims".
03:41 UTC
Exhumations in Srebrenica, 1996. The Srebrenica massacre, also known as the Srebrenica genocide, was the July 1995 genocidal killing of more than 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys in and around the town of Srebrenica during the Bosnian War, mainly perpetrated by units of the Bosnian Serb Army.
03:32 UTC
Sabra and Shatila Massacre, carried out by the Lebanese Forces and Southern Lebanese Army against the mostly Palestinian and Lebanese Shia population during the Lebanese Civil War, 1982
06:09 UTC
Soviet prisoner of war who killed himself using an electrified fence in Mauthausen concentration camp. September/October 1942.
01:36 UTC
A naval aviator is buried at sea in his plane
01:22 UTC
The seat of JFK’s Lincoln after he was shot
03:47 UTC
A picture of a “water detail” reportedly taken in May 1901, in Sual, the Philippines. "It is a terrible torture," one soldier wrote. This kind of torture is not identical with the practice of waterboarding, as it lacks the cloth or other cover of the mouth.
01:54 UTC
Voicemails And 911 Calls From September 11th 2001 Victims
21:29 UTC
One of over 900 Canadian troops killed in action during the Dieppe Raid on August 19th 1942
14:35 UTC
Today is the 40th anniversary of the San Juanico explosion in Mexico which claimed the lives of 600 people on 19th November 1984. RIP
10:35 UTC
"Human Wreckage in No Man's Land, Chemin des Dames, France." Appears to be a British or American soldier. World War 1, circa 1917 probably.
02:05 UTC
From... "The Observations & Experiences of an Alien in the South During The American Civil War" by William Watson
That the expression I had so often heard in the early part of the movement, that "there were plenty of sensible and respectable people in the country to overrule the ravings of the unprincipled demagogues", was no doubt true; but why they failed to do it, and why a nation of intelligent people should allow themselves to be goaded to destruction over a shibboleth [...] was a question for reflection, which seem to impress me with the idea that for a government to be controlled successfully by the direct voice of the people it is imperatively necessary that the people must be honest, intelligent, and possess a high tone of moral principle and be impervious to flattery; that every person must take an enlightened and independent interest in the government of the country and be ever vigilant and guarded against the insidious wiles of self-seeking agitators and demagogues, who live by agitation and prey upon the credulity of the masses.
From... "The Observations & Experiences of an Alien in the South During The American Civil War" by William Watson
01:24 UTC
Guamanians with Rhinopharyngitis mutilans/gangosa, 1922.
07:10 UTC
French war correspondent Jean Marin looks at the corpse of a Belgian child murdered by Waffen-SS troops led by war criminal Joachim Peiper during a retreat near Stavelot, Belgium. December 1944.
17:50 UTC
The execution of Marcel Numa and Louis Drouin, November 12, 1964. Louis Drouin and Marcel Numa, who had both been captured alive after running out of ammo, were brought to Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Schools were shut and principals were ordered to bring their students to witness their execution.
04:30 UTC
A group of U.S. Marines, some wearing trophy Japanese gear, pose in front of a pile of dead Japanese soldiers following the bloody Battle of Tarawa. November 1943.
19:15 UTC
Two unidentified Jewish girls awaiting deportation in Munich on Nov. 11, 1942. Their entire transport of nearly 1000 people was shot shortly after arrival in Lithuania.
07:11 UTC
Italians posing with the head of an Ethiopian during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. Circa June 1936.
20:06 UTC
My Lai Massacre. The bodies of Vietnamese civilians who were killed by US soldiers rest on a road in My Lai, Vietnam, on March 16th, 1968. Vietnamese government lists 504 killed in both Mỹ Lai and Mỹ Khe; United States Army lists 347 (not including Mỹ Khe killings).
19:41 UTC
Shooting of Serbian civilians by Austro-Hungarian soldiers in World War 1.
05:56 UTC
An Algerian man being tortured by French army members using water and electricity during the Algerian war for independence, 1961. Torture was widely employed by the French during the war, which may have included hundreds of thousands of instances of such violence
04:36 UTC
Ernst Henrici was a German teacher, writer, colonial adventurer, and antisemitic politician. He went on expeditions to the German colony of Togo and attempted to establish himself as a planter but failed. Here, he sits upon a native African. 1880.
06:13 UTC
Garroting a criminal sentenced to death at Bilibid Prison, Manila, Philippines. 1901.
01:32 UTC
Photograph of Haïrié Hanim, 13-year-old daughter of Pasli Oglou Mehmed, who after being raped by Greek soldiers, was wounded in the jaw with a bomb. 1921.
06:20 UTC