If you’re a firm believer inkarma, you probably don’t worry too much about getting revenge on the person who cut in line at the grocery store or who refused to make space for you to sit on the bus. They’ll get what’s coming to them! But unfortunately, life isn’t fair. And sometimes, even the mostterrible peopledon’t get what they deserve while they’re still alive.Redditors have recently beendiscussingevilhistoricalfigures who somehow managed to leave the Earth without ever having to answer for their crimes. Whether they were let off way too easily or avoided any punishment at all, below, you can read all about these awful people who somehow “won.” Keep reading to also find a conversation with Alan Bellows ofDamn Interesting, and be sure to upvote the people that you wish had seenjustice!This post may includeaffiliate links.
If you’re a firm believer inkarma, you probably don’t worry too much about getting revenge on the person who cut in line at the grocery store or who refused to make space for you to sit on the bus. They’ll get what’s coming to them! But unfortunately, life isn’t fair. And sometimes, even the mostterrible peopledon’t get what they deserve while they’re still alive.
Redditors have recently beendiscussingevilhistoricalfigures who somehow managed to leave the Earth without ever having to answer for their crimes. Whether they were let off way too easily or avoided any punishment at all, below, you can read all about these awful people who somehow “won.” Keep reading to also find a conversation with Alan Bellows ofDamn Interesting, and be sure to upvote the people that you wish had seenjustice!
This post may includeaffiliate links.
Mother Teresa.Lived in luxury, and died with dignity, while the people she was supposed to help suffered, dying in agony, because she believed pain in death brought you closer to god.A belief she didn’t have the courage to test.
Shirō Ishii The commander of Unit 731 and other facilities that performed medical experiments on human beings during WW2 in Japan Surgeons would cut open someone without anesthesia, ripping off limbs, or tearing out body parts. They’d sometimes tie a person to a pole outside in the freezing winter and then pour cold water on them to speed up the process of freezing their limbs. Once completely frozen they’d then smash the limbs off with a metal rod. Some of the most sickest, heinous s**t imaginable. The part that angers me the most is that he, along with several others were granted immunity in exchange for information and research. Got away free and never was punished.
To learn more about some of these terrible historical figures, we reached out to Alan Bellows ofDamn Interesting, a site dedicated to sharing fascinating information about science, history and psychology. Alan was kind enough to have a chat withBored Pandaand discuss some figures that he believes didn’t get what they deserved.
Rupert Murdoch.fractiousrhubarb:No person has done more damage to Australia, the UK and the US than this despicable man… he’s done nothing but manufacture so hatred and division for 70 years.
The answer is the Sacklers.n0ahhhhh:Did you read Empire of Pain too? That book was insane. I highly recommend it for anyone who is interested in why the pharmaceutical industry is the way it is. The Sackler family essentially created the opioid crisis in America. It’s honestly a pretty wild story.
Mitch McConnell. He is one of the most corrupt, partisan politicians who ever held office. He’s retiring at the end of this year and he will never be held to account for all of the harm his policies and actions have caused.
Alan also named several lesser known evil historical figures. “Du Yuesheng, an orchestrator of the Shanghai massacre. On 12 April 1927, members of his Green Gang murdered as many as5,000 political enemies. He was exiled, but lived the rest of his life in wealth and comfort,” he shared.“The American Liberty League, whoattempted to recruita World War I hero in a coup against the US government,” Alan added. “The administrators of theUntreated Syphilis Study at Tuskegee, a study started in 1932 tomonitor the progressionof syphilis in a Black population. In the mid 1940s penicillin was discovered, and it was found to be an effective cure for syphilis, but the study administrators kept this a secret from the test subjects, and warned local doctors not to provide the medication. Even after the study was forced to shut down due to public outcry, none of the administrators were ever charged.”
Alan also named several lesser known evil historical figures. “Du Yuesheng, an orchestrator of the Shanghai massacre. On 12 April 1927, members of his Green Gang murdered as many as5,000 political enemies. He was exiled, but lived the rest of his life in wealth and comfort,” he shared.
“The American Liberty League, whoattempted to recruita World War I hero in a coup against the US government,” Alan added. “The administrators of theUntreated Syphilis Study at Tuskegee, a study started in 1932 tomonitor the progressionof syphilis in a Black population. In the mid 1940s penicillin was discovered, and it was found to be an effective cure for syphilis, but the study administrators kept this a secret from the test subjects, and warned local doctors not to provide the medication. Even after the study was forced to shut down due to public outcry, none of the administrators were ever charged.”
The House of Saud.Mtfdurian:They destroyed an entire religion from the inside out with their extremist views. Now, almost a quarter of the world is lured into believing the more extreme views that they represent, destroying vernacular adaptations of Islam, that had more room for matriarchy, for gender diversity, and a lot of other concepts that salafism does barely leave any room for, if any.
Pol Pot got to die in his sleep in 1998. He deserved far worse.Baboshinu:Also important to note that he was interviewed a few times prior to his death. Whenever he was asked about any of his atrocities, he would play dumb about it and skirt the questions. He would say things like the classic denial technique of “oh come on it wasn’t that many people” and “okay but I didn’t kill babies. Just adults. I’m not a monster, you know”. He openly stated he had a clear conscience and had no remorse for the millions he killed all the way through to the end. He was a genuine monster.
Thankfully, however, some people who have committed atrocities did get their comeuppance. “One example that comes to mind is Thomas Midgley,” Alan shared. “One of his inventions was leaded gasoline, which caused the whole planet to become polluted with neurotoxic lead.”
“He knew about lead’s ill effects, even suffering some of them himself due to his close contact with it. Nevertheless he deliberately misled the public about the danger. He later invented CFCs, the spraycan propellants that famously damaged the ozone layer,” Alan continued.
I’ve haven’t seen Nestlé.
Leopold the 2nd.Reasonable-You8654:He is one of the few people who truly make my blood boil with seething rage when I read and think about what he did, and that’s only to start with the fact that they held conferences preying on African countries with permission of absolutely nobody to go and treat human beings like animals.He is one of the few people that I would’ve genuinely wished to dig out of his grave only to spit on him and throw him to some vultures. He will never have been able to suffer enough for the disgusting acts of horror he ordered and committed towards Congo, to this day in 2024 they haven’t recovered.
The Catholic Church during the Inquisition, The Spaniards in Central and South America, destroying everything in their path through blood and disease, courtesy of the church, the Europeans that destroyed Indigenous culture in North and South America because of “God’s will” , the Roman’s, Marco Polo, etc.
The guys that tortured Junko Furuta.n0ahhhhh:It’s terrible that just reading reading the name Junko Furuta immediately conjures the most gruesome upsetting and imagery in my mind. That poor girl, I can’t believe her killers are all walking free.
Iranian theocrats. Almost half a century later still in power and causing a lot of trouble in the region, in addition to oppressing their own people.
Stalin. Terrorised his way to controlling one of the largest empires of all time and wielded absolute, despotic power.Sure, nature eventually got him but she gets us all. So I think he got away with it.
Any politician that walked out of office with billions more than they had when they took office.
Reagan. Had the CIA sell crack to black neighborhoods to raise secret funds to give to Iran. Destroyed black neighborhoods and families, gave rise to the projects and has overshadowed U.S. black culture for decades to come. Also, helped get rid of insane asylum funding which flooded the streets with mentally ill homeless. Economic depression causing stock buy backs legal again, which is why we have a short term investor driven economy resulting in massive layoffs without any real notice.
Goebbels, his propaganda still runs strong today, 90 years later.
Joseph Smith. Died a “martyr” but that led to the creation of one of the largest and wealthiest cults in modern history that’s filled with abuse of women and children, a long history of racism, and continues to profit off the poor and needy.
Andrew Jackson basically orchestrated a genocide and a lot of folks sing his praises to this day.MyHamburgerLovesMe:Andrew Jackson - The Indian Removal Act>The Removal Act paved the way for the forced expulsion of tens of thousands of American Indians from their land into the West in an event widely known as the “Trail of Tears,…»In the 21st century, scholars have cited the act and subsequent removals as an early example of state sanctioned ethnic cleansing or genocide or settler colonialism
Kissinger.proscriptus:The blood of countless millions is on his hands, and he remained an accepted and welcomed part of American politics until his death.
Augusto Pinochet. Died in 2006 under house arrest, in the lap of luxury, without being tried for multiple charges of human rights violations (including wrongful detention, physical torture, sexual abuse, psychological repression, and just plain murder) and illegal enrichment.
Mao Zedong. Killed as many as 80 million people as a direct result of his policies. The communists still enshrine him as a great leader and national hero and idiots in the Western left take his writings seriously.
Daughters of the Confederacy… they pushed a revisionist view of the Civil War in the south and this idea that it was about states rights and not slavery… also took part in building statues of confederate soldiers and glorifying them. It’s why so many conservatives and people from the south have a positive outlook of the confederacy and that it’s a part of “southern heritage”.
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Mobutu Sese Seko, president of then-Zaire. He died in a luxurious exile in Morocco at age 79.He would have meals flown in from Michelin-rated restaurants in Paris on chartered flights of the supersonic Concorde, because regular airliners weren’t fast enough to deliver it fresh enough to his liking. He even spent millions to build a new airport, as none of the existing airports had the 3-kilometer long runway to handle the Concorde.The average citizen under his rule had an annual salary of less than $150, roughly 50 cents a day.A single passenger ticket on the Concorde is about $20,000 in today’s dolars.
The Marcos family.This family plundered almost the entire Philippine treasury during Ferdinand Marcos’ two decade rule.They were exiled to Hawaii for a few years, but they were able to go back to the Philippines nevertheless. They (Imelda (the wife of Ferdinand Marcos), Imee (the daughter of FM), and Bongbong (the son) were also able to run for politics again.Despite the records being unequivocally clear that the Marcoses plundered the Philippine government, (Imelda was actually convicted, but was never jailed for “humanitarian reasons”) the Marcoses are now back.Imee is a senator, and Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. is now the president of the Philippines.Imelda is also still convicted but has still not, and it looks like will never in her life, taste jail time.Trillions of pesos and tens of thousands of lives lost.
Idi amin of Uganda.
General Francisco Franco, after the end of the Spanish Civil War. Through him, the country endured all manner of brutal unchallenged fascism (and over a decade of near total isolation from the rest of the world) until his peaceful death in 1975.
Koch Brothers.
Dr. John Money’s theory behind gender has reached mainstream acceptance in much of the civilized world, despite the unconscionable experiments he performed on innocent children. A truly evil man whom history does not vilify anywhere near enough.
Genghis Khan.asterboy:Was waiting for this. Few people in history, let alone this list, come close to the level of civilisational and cultural death and destruction this man caused. Not only did he get away with it, he died an emperor and spawned a dynasty.Workin_Ostrich:He would starve out entire cities because his army was so big, they would enslave or kill everyone and he would marry his daughters off to kings and whatnot then his daughters would kill them and take over the ruled lands to give to Kahns armies. Throughout his reign Kahn and his armies killed over 40 million people and enslaved twice that many.Nearly 8 percent of the men living in the region of the former Mongol empire today carry y-chromosomes that are nearly identical to that of Genghis Kahn.
Casey Anthony.BostonFigPudding:Casey Anthony’s crime says more about the American legal system than it does about her.
General Franz Halder, chief of staff of the German Army (Wehrmacht) from 1938-1942 reporting directly to Adolf Hitler. Halder oversaw the planning for the invasions of Poland, France and Russia (Operation Barbarossa). Among other abominations, he added language into the Barbarossa battle order giving German officers the right to destroy Russian villages and massacre their civilian inhabitants. Thus Halder sanctioned some of the most heinous atrocities committed in all of human history.Despite Halder’s complicity in war crimes of the greatest magnitude, he wasn’t tried at Nuremberg and was instead allowed to join the U.S. Army as a historian. Recognizing an opportunity to rewrite history, he manipulated the official Army account of the war to elevate the Wehrmacht into a force fighting for a noble cause.In 1961, the Army, on behalf of President Kennedy, awarded him the Meritorious Civilian Service Award. Halder died in his bed in 1972 at age 87.
The terrorists definitely won when you realize they got our entire society to change because of what they did.
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Yasser Arafat.Sabotaged the peace process in the Middle East, died a billionaire after stealing unfathomable amounts of money from his people.
Nobusuke Kishi, r*pist of Manchuria and twice Prime Minister of Japan.You mean the Nobusuke Kishi who served in Tojo’s cabinet and who was the grandfather of Shinzo Abe, who often openly stated that he admired his grandfather and hoped to rule in similar ways as him?KWilt:Still blows my mind that people don’t know one of the founders of the Liberal Democrats, still one of the largest parties who effectively controlled the government for half a century in Japan, was literally a fascist.
Christopher Columbus. He’s absolutely evil.
Oliver Cromwell.
Fidel Castro.yojifer680:It’s glorious to see them undoing his life’s work as soon as he died. Died in 2016, changed the constitution in 2019 to roll back socialism, de facto abandoned socialism in 2021.
The man who killed Renée Hartevelt.
Augustus.He was actually a pretty good emperor. He wasnt evil in the sense that he killed tens of thousands for his enjoyment but if it was advantages for him to kill thousands he wasnt thinking for a second.So once he was on top and everyone did whatever he wanted anyway he became a good leader.His way to the top however was covered in blood. The only reasons he is remembered as a good leader is because he outlived almost everyone who was already adult when he made his way up the roman ladder. If he had died after 10 years or something he would be hated.
Winston Churchill, starved millions in Bengal. Sent the black and Tans to terrorise and murder Irish civilians. An evil man who is widely regarded as a good guy because of the evil of those he fought in WW2.
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