It can be pretty disconcerting to realize that things are happening all the time around us, to the point that massive events with far reaching consequences might be going on right now and most of us have no idea. However, the truth is that there is often not enough time to process every historical mystery.

We’ve gathered some examples of historic events that seem to often go overlooked. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and be sure to share your own examples in the comments below.

#1

The Malaysia airlines flight disappearing… Still creeps me out

Image credits: bww1380

#2

The Universal Music fire of 2008. The fire on June 1, 2008, destroyed anywhere from 120,000 to 175,000 master recordings.

Image credits: Donkeybog

#3

The australian wildfires that were all the news just prior to covid.

Image credits: Eye_Doc_Photog

#4

There was a huge scandal involving the UK foster care system. Social workers were getting paid more for each child they placed in foster care. This resulted in 100s/1000s of children being placed into foster care that didn’t need to be. To this day there has been no uproar or anything about it, it got swelter under the rug and unless you was personally involved (myself) then you will more than likely not have any idea about it

Image credits: anonymous21123

#5

Battle of Tours. If Charles Martel lost, Christendom would have been destroyed by the Umayyad Caliphate. There would be no Papal States, no Charlemagne, no Holy Roman Empire, No Germany, no third reich. Quite frankly history as we know it would turn out quite different.

Image credits: gentryadams

#6

Thailand Tsunami of 2004. Horrific, but never spoken about now.

Image credits: cbabcbabcba

#7

Those few months in 2016 when people started dressing like clowns and terrorizing people

Image credits: Spare_Republic_6453

#8

Snoop Dogg changing his name to Snoop Lion for about a month

Image credits: Level_Grapes

#9

Astroworld, why is no one talking abt this anymore! The Kardashians used all kinds of slightly smaller ‘scandals’ to try and cover the fact that they were involved with it such as getting their bbls removed or making a picture of their kids look deliberately photoshoped to get people talking abt them. It’s very smart of them and their teams but it still isn’t ok

Image credits: GoodFig3691

#10

The Panama Papers that exposed the list of elite who were hoarding vast amounts of wealth in offshore bank accounts. conveniently forgotten about entirely.

Image credits: regisgod

#11

Does anyone remember the Notre Dame burning? Idk it just feels weird, like, this happened about 2 years ago and nothing really is talked about it

Image credits: reddit.com

#12

Several nuclear weapons the US DOD straight up lost.

Image credits: knotpolkadottie

#13

The US government admitted it couldn’t account for 2.3 trillion dollars of the budget on 9/10/01. The world forgot about it the next day.

Image credits: reddit.com

#14

That Miami mall incident with the aliens, like what was that about

Image credits: Natural_Bug956

#15

The Clinton administration funded nationwide fiber optic cable. The cable companies took the money, then disappeared it in all their late 90’s corporate consolidations. Paid for fiber optic cable, did not get it.

Image credits: encantoMariposa

#16

The War of the Roses

Image credits: AwardNew7864

#17

The Philippine-American war. The war started in 1899, when the newly established Philippine republic, itself a product of a war of independence from Spanish rule that started in 1896, objected to the terms of the treaty ending the Spanish-American war that ceded the Philippines to the United States. Officially the war was over in 1902, but small resistance groups continued to fight on for several years. The war produced some 200,000 Filipino dead, a butcher’s bill approximately 10 times higher than that of the more famous Spanish-American war that preceded it.

Image credits: DanTheTerrible

#18

The early history of Yamato Japan.
It’s not ‘erased’ so much as ‘burned.’ This state did have an official record of its history, but the record was burned down in a great fire in the 6th/7th century. It was then recreated afterward, but… Well. There’s better people than me who have discussed how the recreation seems to have done a lot to suit the interests of contemporary politics that doesn’t seem to make much sense or line up with the archeological record of Japan’s earlier history.

Image credits: Lord0fHats

#19

I’m gonna go for a wild one here and say Caesar’s conquest of Gaul.
While a pretty well-known historical event, almost everything known about it comes directly from Caesar’s diary or statements by people who were politically motivated to make him out as a savour/warmonger.
As an example of how little we actually know, Caesar would talk about a hard fought battle, uphill against an entrenched enemy and how they spent hours fighting under the worst possible conditions before having to withdraw but then state the Romans casualties were “simius threw his back out during a coughing fit, no other injuries, the gauls lost a million men”

Image credits: Martinw616

#20

So, I know this is not exactly forgotten or erased as such, but the story of the Darien Scheme is remarkably unknown given its consequences.
To clarify, this was a Scottish attempt in the 1690s to set up a colony in the Panama region that failed disastrously and caused financial ruin to many investors in Scotland. It was this financial crisis that ultimately was a major contributing factor to Scotland agreeing to form a union with England in 1707, because the English would financially bail them out.
In short, combined with the Union of the Crowns that happened because Elizabeth I died childless, it caused the emergence of the United Kingdom.

Image credits: Herald_of_Clio

#21

The Great Smog of London in the 1950’s. Killed up to 12,000 and injured thousands more. A mysterious pea soup fog mixed with coal smog that covered the city for days. In the fog there was a crime wave where criminals were hidden by the fog and police couldn’t operate, and there was even one famous serial killer who killed in the fog. John Reginald Christie. A book about it called Death in The Air is very interesting and worth a read.

Image credits: reddit.com

#22

Creation of the Federal Reserve Bank in America. Maybe not forgotten but definitely not remembered.

Image credits: LaserMaker88

#23

I can’t be the only one who feels the Vegas shooting was massively swept under the rug considering it’s magnitude. Was in the news for a few weeks then was never really spoken about again. We have never been told an actual motive for it and I just feel like there’s so much more investigating that can and should be done.

Image credits: ScreenRough5989

#24

The battle of long tan. 105 aussie, and 3 kiwi soldiers held back an entire NVA battalion for three and 1/2 hours. It’s estimated that the Vietnamese battalion was up to 2500 men strong. 18 Australian soldiers died and 24 were wounded. 245 Vietnamese soldiers died and 350 were wounded.

Image credits: Aussieboi393

#25

Over 800 tons of dead sealife including dolphins, washed up in Tampa Bay due to a fertilizer plant spill – never heard about this disaster again.

Image credits: ptypitti

#26

If it’s anything like the world devastating Spanish flu then I think Covid will soon be denied and forgotten except by health experts.

Image credits: oudcedar

#27

The SS Eastland tragedy in 1915. Happened in the Chicago River. Boat topples over and kills 844 people.

Image credits: LikesStuff12

#28

The protests in Hong Kong seemed to vanish like they never happened when COVID started up.

Image credits: SpankyDomingo

#29

Boston Marathon Bomber. Never hear anything on him.

Image credits: seeisme

#30

The Bronze Age Collapse comes to mind. All the Bronze age civilizations crashing into barbarism for a few hundred years.

Image credits: Catlenfell

#31

The US invasion of Grenada

Image credits: NeutralityTsar