The United States has a proud history that is rooted in the notion that it is exceptional and on higher moral standing than many of its global peers. While this is true in many respects, it is also undeniable that America, just like any nation, has also erred greatly at times throughout its history, occasionally with deadly consequences. Americans have plenty to be proud of, but they must also be keen students of their own history and learn from their mistakes, or else they will be doomed to repeat them.
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Check out our slideshow to learn more about the most shameful moments in American history.
18. Burr-Hamilton Duel
Source: Twitter @Cole_Niles
In 1804, bitter rivals, Alexander Hamilton, one of the Founding Fathers, and Aaron Burr, the then-vice president, engaged in a duel where Hamilton was shot and killed. Dueling had recently been outlawed, and Vice President Burr was brought up on murder charges, ending his political, and forcing him to go on the run. Could you even imagine something like this happening today? Joe Biden murdering a Republican?
17. The Atomic Bomb
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In 1945, the United States decided that it needed to end the war with Japan dramatically, emphatically, and immediately. Nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing 200,000 people. The atomic age had begun.
16. Trail of Tears
Source: Wikipedia
Congress passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, and for the next 20 years, the Native American tribes of the Southeast were forcibly evicted from their homes and herded to settlements west of the Mississippi River. Members of the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee, Creek, Seminole and Cherokee tribes were forced to trek through the elements and battled disease and starvation, with thousands dying mid-journey. Part of the removal was caused by the discovery of gold in Georgia, that led to a gold rush which the government didn’t want the Native Americans to block.
15. Great Depression
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The rampant excess and wild unregulation of the Roaring 20’s set up the conditions for the worst economic collapse in history.
14. The Dred Scott Decision
Source: Wikipedia “DredScott” by Louis Schultze
This “landmark” decision by the Supreme Court in 1857 stated that African-Americans, regardless if they were free or slaves, could not be American citizens. The court said that the enslaved Scott could not sue for his freedom, after he was taken by his owner into free states, since he was not a citizen. Outrage erupted in the north over the ruling, and it enflamed tensions that led to the Civil War. Scholars today universally call it the worst ruling in the history of the Supreme Court.
13. Battle of Antietam
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On September 17, 1862, Union and Confederate forces met in Maryland. What resulted was the bloodiest day of war in American history, with 23,000 casualties between the two sides.
12. Japanese Internment
Source: Imgur
After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, a wave of anti-Japanese paranoia swept through the U.S., and in 1942, President Roosevelt signed an executive order that directed the military to move much of the country’s Japanese population to “internment” camps. More than 110,000 Japanese Americans were forced from their homes, primarily on the West Coast, into camps across the country. An investigation later brought by President Carter found that the incarceration had been fueled by racial prejudice rather than national security, and President Reagan would order reparations be paid to the camp survivors and their families in 1988.
11. McCarthyism
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In the 1950’s, Senator Joseph McCarthy spearheaded a sweeping anti-communist campaign, investigating and ruining the careers of thousands of Americans, whether they were actual communists or not.
10. Vietnam War
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The sprawling conflict between the United States and its allies, and communist North Vietnam and its supporters was a war fought for no tangible reason, that cost millions of lives and billions of dollars. Vietnam lasted nearly 20 years, and over 58,000 Americans were killed with over 300,000 more wounded. Perhaps more tragically were the civilian deaths, estimated as high as 2.5 million, and the countless tragedies that spun out of this senseless conflict.
9. Tuskegee Syphilis Study
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From 1932-1972 the U.S. Public Health Service studied the untreated progression of syphilis by giving it to unknowing, poor, black farmers.
8. Watergate
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In 1972, operatives, who were later connected to President Nixon’s re-election campaign, were arrested while breaking into the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate building in Washington. An in-depth investigation over the next two years revealed that Nixon knew about the break in and tried to cover the scandal up, and additional improprieties were uncovered throughout the Nixon administration. On, September 8, 1974, President Nixon resigned amid the controversy and in the end, 48 other members of his administration were found guilty of various crimes and jailed. The confidence of the American people in their government was shaken to its core, and did not rebound for some time.
7. Invasion of Iraq
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In the Post 9/11, War on Terror fervor, the U.S. invaded Iraq on the basis of dictator Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction. Though Hussein’s forces were easily defeated, no WMDs were ever found, and sectarian violence has continued ever since the 2003 invasion first began. Nearly 5,000 Americans have been killed along with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis for no apparent reason.
6. Caning of Charles Sumner
Source: Wikipedia “Southern Chivalry” by John L. Magee
In 1856, debate surrounding slavery had reached a boiling point, with Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner giving a scathing indictment of the institution and the legislators in D.C. who supported it. South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks took great offense to Sumner’s speech and attacked him at his desk on the Senate floor, beating him savagely with his walking cane, while other southern Congressmen held off any bystanders who wished to stop the assault. The attack drew praise from the South and outrage from the North and represented the “breakdown of reasoned discourse” that led to the Civil War.
5. Project MKUltra
Source: Wikipedia
From 1953-1973, the CIA engaged in secret and illegal experiments on unknowing American and Canadian citizens in hopes of finding drugs and other substances that would alter people’s behavior and put them under mind control.
4. Hurricane Katrina
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The 2005 storm was a massive disaster, both natural and man-made. Making landfall as a Category 3 storm, Katrina caused an estimated $108 billion in damage, the most ever, and killed as many as 1,800 people. The real tragedy, though, was the seemingly indifferent and less-than adequate response from the federal government, that some still believe is the result of the storm’s victims being predominately low-income minority citizens.
3. Operation Paperclip
Source: Wikipedia
After the Nazis were defeated in WWII, the U.S. government brought 1,500 of their best scientists to the U.S. to work on secret government projects. Many of these scientists had done human experiments on Nazi prisoners, but were pardoned of their war crimes.
2. Jim Crow
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Though the Civil War was won by the North, the fight for racial equality was far from over. Typified by the “separate but equal” laws governing racial interactions, the Jim Crow laws preserved a rigid culture of segregation throughout the South. The various laws of Jim Crow were eventually overturned by Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
1. Slavery
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It can be argued that a good deal of American power today was built on the backs of slaves. A large part of the economy of the South before the Civil War revolved around the cotton industry which was dependent on the labor of many of the South’s 4 million slaves. America’s racial dynamics are still colored by the effects and implications of the institution, even 150 years after its abolition.