Times Heroes Lost, Villains Won

From Redditoru/Antmon666:

A heap of farms in Western Australia switched to Monsanto seeds. One farmer did not; he kept his organic seed.

Another farm's seeds blew onto his, mixing about 70%. Now, he cannot sell the product as organic. He also cannot sell it at all because Monsanto owns it. Thus, he must discard it.

He sued the other farmer for loss. Monsanto paid for the defense, paying much more than he asked for just to make him lose.

So YAY, the big bully wins.

Context:In 2014, Australian farmer Steve Marshlost a lawsuitMarsh sued his neighbor Michael Baxter. He claimed wind blew Baxter's GMO seeds onto Marsh's land, contaminating his crop. Australia's strict organic rules meant Marsh could not claim his produce was organic.

Marsh sued for $85,000 AUD. The court ordered him to pay $804,000 AUD in court costs. Monsanto admitted it helped Baxter with legal fees.admitted to helping BaxterFrom Redditor

u/DubiousPeoplePleaseru/DubiousPeoplePleaser:

King Leopold got away with brutalizing the Congo.

Context:In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, King Leopold II of Belgium ruled the "Congo Free State" as his personal property. His administration took huge wealth from the region through rubber and other goods. It also violently crushed the local population and committed acts of cruelty to keep production high.

Other colonial powers denounced this regime. Leopold gave up the colony in 1908 but stayed in power until he died in 1909.Controversially, many statues of him still stand in Belgium.

From Redditoru/HotSpicedChai:

Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act.

Context:In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed theIndian Removal Act, which allowed the forced relocation of Native Americans from areas inside US States to lands further west. This enabled the so-calledTrail of TearsIn 1838-39, thousands of Cherokees and other tribes were forced to move. This caused about 4,000 deaths.

From Redditoru/MansfromDaVinci:

Spartacus was one escaped slave who fought for freedom and for other slaves. He was a Thracian, trained as a gladiator. He and about 70 slaves organized themselves. They armed themselves with tools and kitchen knives. They broke out of the gladiator academy, killed the guards, took weapons, and fled into the Capuan countryside. They besieged Mount Vesuvius, climbed down the side using vine ropes, and surprised the Roman militia camp in the rear.

After that, they built up numbers. They trained themselves and defeated everything Rome sent against them: consular legions and praetorians. Eventually, Crassus came against them with eight legions. Spartacus tried to escape to Sicily with some of his men and raise the island, but the Cilician pirates they hired to ferry them across betrayed them.

Context:TheThird Servile WarThe Third Servile War occurred during the Late Republic period, spanning 73-71 BCE. Escaped slaves, led by the Thracian Spartacus, grew into a massive army. This force won several fights against Roman troops, even challenging Rome itself.

Crassus's legions finally defeated them. Thousands of captured rebels received crucifixion. A 1960 Hollywood epic portrayed this story.Spartacus.

From Redditor u/arcaneformula:

Bob Kane, thought to be Batman's creator, actually copied an idea from Bill Finger. Bill shared his idea with Bob, sketched Batman, and discussed his superhero powers. Bob took this to Detective Comics and excluded Bill from that work.

Bob Kane became very successful. Bill Finger lived his life without that credit and became somewhat poor. He lies in an unmarked grave, its location unknown (speculated).

I find comfort in this story because DC and WB now credit Bill Finger (along with Bob Kane) for creating Batman over the last couple of years.

(Watch the documentary “Batman and Bill”)

Context:Bob Kane traditionally received creator credit for Batman and financial rewards, even though his colleague Bill Finger made major contributions.Bill Finger made key contributions.Finger helped with the superhero's look and the comic's supporting characters' origins. Finger got paid for his work but did not get creator credit or royalties like Kane.

The Batman franchise's value is estimated atover $26 billion.

From Redditor u/Bones870:

The US Government and businessmen overthrew the government of Hawaii.

Context:The government of Hawaiian Queen Liliʻuokalani faced overthrow.The government was overthrown in 1893.A group of sugar growers, supported by 300 US Marines, overthrew the monarchy. President Grover Cleveland tried to restore the monarchy but faced rejection from the new Republic of Hawaii. William McKinley, Cleveland's successor, annexed Hawaii as a US territory.

From Redditor u/schrodenkatzen:

The Bolsheviks defeated the White Russians in the Russian Civil War; the openly totalitarian, genocidal Bolsheviks completely crushed Whites, including monarchists and other communists.

Stalin ate every humane leader within the Bolsheviks. In 1930s Russia, it functioned like the TNO Burgundian System in real life.

Mikoyan, commissar for the Food Industry, wrote memoirs. He was totally loyal to Stalin, supported the described actions, and Soviet censorship allowed it. Still, it remains a story of running a country like a concentration camp outside and running the government like a street gang inside.

Context:Although the Bolsheviks took power in Russia in the autumn of 1917, the revolution led to aprotracted civil warThe Red Army fought a loose coalition of anti-communist forces called the Whites until 1921.

Josef Stalin took power in the Soviet Union a few years after the Bolsheviks won, starting a series of terrors, famines, and purges.The Bolsheviks inflicted a series of terrors, famines, and purges.this happened before WWII.

From Redditor u/ShadowCobra479u/ShadowCobra479:

Chinese Civil War: Nationalist China fought and bled against the Japanese for eight years. The Communists fought only a small part of the Japanese military. After WWII, the PLA defeated the Nationalist forces that had beaten them in the 1930s and seized power.

Context:The Chinese Nationalists (Kuomintang), led by General Chiang Kai-Shek,were embroiled in civil warwith the Chinese Communist Party since 1927. Hostilities stopped around 1937 so both sides could fight the invading Japanese. Conflict resumed after Japan lost in 1945.

The Communists' final success created modern China, a regime often criticized asauthoritarianit enacted atrocities both past—the famine from the Great Leap Forward—and present—ongoing crimes against the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang.Great Leap Forward; theCultural Revolution) and presentongoing crimes against the Uyghur minorityin Xinjiang.

From Redditoru/Tacosgood890:

Christopher Columbus definitely killed Indians and claimed America. When my school district learned, we had to have school on Columbus Day, and I was happy people finally saw the truth about what that person really did.

Context:After reaching the Americas, Columbusbehaved horriblytoward the Taino people on Hispaniola, brutalizing them for gold and turning them into slave laborers.

From Redditoru/flyer2x:

Julius Caesar singlehandedly caused the genocide of the Gauls. A confederation of ancient rivals united in a last stand to save their race and confronted him. These tribes let Caesar wipe out enemies one by one, accepting his peace offer, only to learn too late Caesar never intended to leave. They chose Vercingetorix, a charismatic noble who was exiled and regained status, to lead a guerrilla war. Despite weaker weapons, armor, and organization, they achieved some success. They burned their homes and crops so Caesar's undefeated legions had no food.

Caesar trapped Vercingetorix in Alesia and won his greatest battle. Caesar crushed the confederations' reinforcements and Vercingetorix's besieged armies despite being outnumbered. Vercingetorix surrendered; Gaul was lost. By the end of his campaign, Caesar killed one in three Gauls, enslaved another one in three, and annexed the rest and made them Latin. Caesar did this to pay personal debts and gain political power back in Rome. Vercingetorix later died by strangulation in a parade honoring Caesar.

Context:Historians still argue about the real death tolls ofCaesar's campaign in Gaul(58-50 BCE), as well as theApplicability of inflammatory terms.Such as "genocide."

Caesar's campaign caused massive death. It also boosted the Roman general's personal wealth. This provided Caesar a power base to move against Rome. This started the Civil Wars and his dictatorship.