8 Dark Facts About American History They Don"t Teach In School

American history has a dark side. 

As much as we like to boost our war hero, pinup girl, apple pie image, we actually have quite a sordid and checkered past. School history classes always seemed to focus on foreign enemies and world events, rarely teaching us about homeland tragedies or the blood on our own hands. So here are eight stories from American history that they likely didn’t teach you in school, dragged out of the shadows and laid bare for you to discover at last.

Know of any other dark facts from America’s past that should make the list? Tell us in the COMMENTS!

1. The Andersonville POW Camp in Georgia

Officially known as Camp Sumter, Andersonville, Georgia was home to the Confederate south’s largest prison for captured Union Soldiers. It was originally built to contain 10,000 men, but it soon housed over 32,000 — all living in despicable conditions. Despite being in operation for just 14 months at the end of the Civil War, the notorious military POW camp was responsible for the deaths of over 13,000 prisoners before being shut down in 1865. Captain Henry Wirz, the commander of Camp Sumter, was duly executed for his part in the war crimes perpetrated.

2. The 1865 Sinking of the Sultana

Imagine surviving four years of a hellish Civil War, of friends dying right beside you on the battlefield, of disease-infested Confederate POW camps, of being sick, injured, and underfed, to one day make it to a giant riverboat that promised to take you north, back to the comfort and safety of your home. Sounds like a dream come true, doesn’t it? And that’s what many of the more than 2,000 paroled Union soldiers thought who made it onto the Sultana. But after two days of pushing up the mighty Mississippi, tragedy struck the following night. Three of the boat’s boilers exploded in quick succession, killing some men instantly and blasting others into the water. Many of the men couldn’t swim, and those who could were hard-pressed to see or hear anything in the darkness aside from the panicked screams of men flailing for life. It’s estimated that 1,700 people died in the Sultana disaster — a death toll even higher than the sinking of the Titanic.

3. The Battle of Blair Mountain

After enduring years of being underpaid, of being mistreated, and of working in deplorable conditions, the miners of West Virginia’s coal country refused to tolerate any more abuse. In August of 1921, an army of nearly 10,000 unionized miners marched to Blair Mountain. What began as a bitter labor dispute quickly escalated into a lethal, armed coup. On one side, the fed-up workers (many of whom were WWI vets), and on the other, some 3,000 coal company supporters, militiamen, and state police. A week-long battle ensued with rifles, shotguns, machine guns, and even planes equipped with tear gas and shrapnel-filled pipe bombs. Ultimately the miners’ siege was brought to an end when President Harding ordered federal troops to intervene. There were dozens of casualties, but it would be over a decade until worker’s rights became nationally legislated.

4. The Bombing of the MOVE Organization

The MOVE organization was a Philadelphia-based black liberation group in the 1970s and ’80s. All members collectively took on the last name of “Africa,” they wore dreadlocks, they were practicing vegans, and they abstained from using drugs and alcohol. They were freedom and nature-loving activists. But the police, who had clashed with the group a number of times before resulting in the death of an officer in ’78, saw them as nothing more than dangerous radicals. And so on May 13, 1985, when Philadelphia police arrived to arrest four members for minor offenses,the group resisted. Things went sideways — fast. When fire hoses didn’t flush the group out, the police moved on to tear gas, then spent thousands of rounds of ammunition. All of which failed. Finally, a police helicopter dropped two bombs on the group’s house, which nearly leveled an entire city block. Firefighters were reportedly told to let the fire burn, and survivors claim they were fired upon when trying to escape the blaze. 11 people were killed in all, including 5 children, and somehow a grand jury cleared all those involved of any criminal liability.