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Warning: This post discusses intense violence, racism, sexual assault, and suicide.
American history classes spend a lot of time on a relatively short list of events, like the Revolution, the Civil War, the World Wars, and a few civil rights milestones. What gets cut, glossed over, or quietly skipped is often where the real story is, from the massacres and experiments to the broken promises and policies that shaped entire communities — and were then left out of the textbooks. So, here are 13 dark facts about American history that most of us were never taught in school:
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On October 24, 1871, a mob killed at least 17 Chinese men and boys in Los Angeles in roughly two hours — more than 10% of the city’s Chinese population — in what is still considered one of the largest mass lynchings in American history. Eight men were convicted. Every conviction was overturned on a technicality.
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On September 2, 1885, a mob of 150 white miners in Rock Springs, Wyoming, killed at least 28 Chinese coal workers, burned all 79 homes in the town’s Chinatown, and threw wounded survivors into the flames. The Chinese miners had been paid less than white workers for the same work, and the company that created those conditions faced no consequences. Neither did anyone else.
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Between the early 1900s and the 1930s, tens of thousands of young Filipino men were recruited to work American farms as US colonial subjects — then trapped by laws that barred them from marrying, owning land, or becoming citizens. An entire generation grew old alone. And the man who started the Delano Grape Strike before Cesar Chavez joined wasn’t added to California’s school curriculum until 2015.
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Beginning in 1917, the US Radium Corporation hired young women to paint watch dials with radioactive paint and told them to shape the brush with their lips. The company’s own chemists used lead screens and tongs. When the women’s jaws began disintegrating and they tried to sue, the company hired investigators to discredit them — and tried to blame their illness on syphilis.
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For 40 years, the US Public Health Service told 399 Black men in Alabama they were being treated for “bad blood” while deliberately withholding the cure for syphilis — even though treatment had been available for decades, and white patients were receiving it. At least 28 men died directly. No one was ever prosecuted.
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Between 1907 and the 2010s, more than 60,000 Americans were forcibly sterilized under state eugenics laws. California’s program directly inspired Nazi Germany’s sterilization law. Forced sterilizations were still happening in California prisons as recently as 2010. The Supreme Court decision that made it all legal has never been overturned.
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More than 260,000 Filipino soldiers fought under the American flag in World War II — including through the Bataan Death March — after being promised full veterans’ benefits. After the war, Congress passed a law retroactively declaring their service didn’t count. Of the 66 Allied nations in WWII, Filipino veterans were the only group singled out.
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Between 1946 and 1958, the United States detonated 67 nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands, the equivalent of more than 7,000 Hiroshima bombs. The atolls were not uninhabited. Residents were told the relocation was temporary and “for the good of mankind.” Then the government turned the exposed islanders into research subjects without their consent.
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From 1956 to 1971, the FBI ran a covert program called COINTELPRO that targeted civil rights leaders, antiwar groups, and Black activist organizations. The program ran over 2,000 operations, sent Martin Luther King Jr. a letter urging him to kill himself, and set up the raid that killed 21-year-old Fred Hampton in his bed.
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After Pearl Harbor, the US Navy seized a sacred Hawaiian island and used it as a bombing range for nearly 50 years. In 1977, a 26-year-old Native Hawaiian activist named George Helm disappeared at sea trying to stop it. His body was never found. When the island was finally returned, a quarter of it was still contaminated with unexploded ordnance.
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On June 19, 1982, Vincent Chin — a 27-year-old Chinese American man celebrating his bachelor party — was beaten to death with a baseball bat by two white autoworkers who blamed Japanese imports for Detroit’s economic collapse. Chin was not Japanese. His killers received three years’ probation and a $3,000 fine. Neither served a day in prison.
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On May 13, 1985, Philadelphia police dropped a bomb from a helicopter onto a rowhouse in a Black neighborhood, killing 11 people — including five children — and destroying 61 homes. Fire officials were ordered to “let the fire burn.” Decades later, children’s remains were found being used in a university forensics course without the families’ knowledge.
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During the 1992 LA uprising, more than 2,200 Korean American businesses were destroyed — roughly half of all property damage citywide — after the LAPD drew defensive perimeter lines around wealthier white neighborhoods and left Koreatown without police protection. Korean Americans call it Sa-I-Gu.
The entries above are just a small fraction of what doesn’t make it into most American history curricula. If there’s a historical event or figure you think more people should know about — particularly one your school glossed over or skipped entirely — share it in the comments below, or submit it anonymously using the form below.
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE, which routes the caller to their nearest sexual assault service provider. You can also search for your local center here.
Dial 988 in the United States to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. The 988 Lifeline is available 24/7/365. Your conversations are free and confidential. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org. The Trevor Project, which provides help and suicide-prevention resources for LGBTQ youth, is 1-866-488-7386.
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