31 Surprisingly Wholesome Moments from History

‘The Quakers boycotted products of slave labor. Imagine trying to avoid cotton’
31 Surprisingly Wholesome Moments from History
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Most of the time, if you’re learning about history, you’re basically jumping from tragedy to tragedy in the timeline of the world. The big bullet points are usually war and murder, with maybe a couple feel-good triumphs mixed in just to keep your faith in the human race in general. When you consider how much death made them happen, history textbooks shouldn’t be fun hardcovers with pictures of hieroglyphics. They should be skin-bound tomes that scream and are written mostly in blood. 

Which is why it was so refreshing to read through a thread where Redditors with history knowledge shared wholesome moments from our collective past. It’s enough to dredge up the smallest bit of hope — at least until you realize most of them are only necessary because of some other global tragedy.

ShoganAye . 6y ago In 1989 a man named lan Kiernan got a bunch of people off their asses and outside to Clean Up Australia. 30 years on and it's still a massive annual event.. oh and now worldwide.. I remember that first time teenage me went out to my local beach to help and the amount of McDonald's rubbish was shocking... unfortunately it STILL is. But every year brings more people out to clean in their local areas. lan died last October, rest his clean soul.
RedWestern 6y ago I don't remember how long ago it was, but certainly around the time of the Arab Spring, when Egypt's Coptic Christian community was particularly vulnerable, a bomb planted by Islamic extremists exploded near a Copt church shortly before Christmas, which put the fear amongst the Copts that they were being targeted. Sure enough, on Christmas day they arrived at their Churches to find them surrounded by crowds of Muslim demonstrators. Who then acted as human shields to protect them from more bombs. They knew that the extremists would be less likely to risk killing fellow Muslims.
roarlikealady 6y ago In December 1917 a horrible accident in the harbor of Halifax, Nova Scotia resulted in an explosion the largest ever created by conventional bombs. Two ships carrying ammunition for the war crashed into each other and exploded. The resulting damage killed 2000 people and injured over 5000. A 16-inch snowfall the following day made matters even worse. Boston responded and sent trains and boats of medical and building supplies. They also sent most of the entire school of medicine at Harvard to help save lives. To this day, Halifax remembers Boston's kindness by sending a large Christmas
Myfourcats1 . 6y ago . Edited 6y ago The Quakers boycotted products of slave labor. Imagine trying to avoid cotton.
6y ago Edited 6y ago 1997, North Dakota/Minnesota. We had a shit of a winter - brutally cold, snow up to the rooftops- and in the spring, all that snow had to go somewhere. Except it didn't. Everything flooded. Countless people lost everything. Grand Forks/East Grand Forks got hit the hardest and when you thought it couldn't get worse, buildings downtown caught fire (yup, water up to the second floor, top floors on fire.) I have never seen people band together like during the flood. I was just a kid, but between sandbagging, cleanup, and getting lives back together, it was
ThreeDuckslnAManSuit 6y ago Edited 6y ago After the 2011 Christchurch earthquake hit us here in New Zealand, relief came, un-requested and unconditionally, from all over the world. From our brother nation Australia (we love 6) the UK, the USA, the European you... ya Union, Canada, Japan. Every day on the news was a new story about rescue workers from Mexico touching down and getting to work or a significant donation of relief money coming in from Australia, or a statement from the pope, the queen, Barack Obama reaching out and offering comfort. It was an overwhelming gesture of international support.
scrumblejumbles 6y ago During the 1930s in the Soviet Union, there were a series of arrest campaigns that targeted various groups (party leaders, wealthier peasants, and certain national groups were particularly at risk). One day in the archive, | found a file of an engineer accused of industrial sabotage. That wasn't unusual, but what was was a letter written and signed by over 100 other workers at the factory, which essentially was a character reference for the accused man. The letter was incredibly emotional-it was clear he was beloved by those who worked with him. Everyone who wrote and signed
MrGallant210 6y ago Edited 6y ago A severely deformed English man named Joseph Merrick and known as the Elephant Man was treated horribly for most of his younger years, used as a circus freak show by different people (they covered him in a blanket and would take it off for people to see his disfigurements) who all robbed him blind and left him to die. Не wound up in a hospital in London, where a doctor examined him and took care of him as best he could (the deformities were not painless). The hospital couldn't afford to take care of
sadeiko . 6y ago Edited 6y ago Having a hard time finding the video of it. But Tom Morello did a benefit concert for immigrant Korean workers that moved to America because Gibson fired them all after they unionized at the factory in Seoul. But the day before the benefit show, the earthquake in Haiti happened, the fired factory workers voted to donate 100% of the proceeds to the Haiti relief fund.
sebastianrasor 6y ago Edited 6y ago This is just one man, but his story has stuck with me ever since I heard it. In 1939, Maximilian Kolbe was arrested and later sent to Auschwitz. During his time there all he did was help others, praying for the dying and comforting many. In 1941, after a prisoner from his block escaped, an SS officer arrived and announced that he would select 10 prisoners to be starved to death, and Kolbe was not among them. After hearing one of the men cry out for his wife and children, Kolbe volunteered to take
doublestitch . 6y ago The Choctaw Native American tribe sent relief funds to Ireland during the great potato famine. A remarkable act of generosity especially considering that was shortly after the Choctaw had been displaced off their traditional land.
etds3 6y ago Denmark banded together to evacuate their Jewish population during World War II. They estimate that 99% of the Danish Jewish population survived the war because of the collective effort. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue of the Danish Jews
Grey_Gryphon . 6y ago the Maasai tribe in Kenya gifted 14 cows (the highest form of wealth in that community) to the U.S. after 9/11.
nervehacker . 6y ago Edited 6y ago During the plague pandemic, the residents of the small village of Eyam, in the countryside of England, democratically decided to build a wall around the city - not to keep the plague out, but to avoid it spreading to the nearby cities. Supreme bravery and altruism, right there.
kamasutra971 a 6y ago There is this woman named Sulagitti Narasamma in the southern state of Karnataka, India. She helped deliver 15,000 babies by performing traditional deliveries free of cost. Imagine 15,000 babies owe an existence in part to you, thats almost and entire town and she took no money for that. She was recently awarded a civilian honor, Padma Bhushan by the Indian Government for her service to the society.
Alybank . 6y ago Because of 9/11, 38 jetliners had to land in a small Canadian town, 6,500 were stranded in a town of only 10,000. That town basically took care of all the people. There was a book about it called The Day The World Came to Town. But really it was more than a day, it was like a week or so.
rockskillskids . 6y ago Edited 6y ago lirc, a bunch of retired Japanese nuclear engineers came out of retirement and volunteered to do the work in the reactor building following the tsunami disaster at Fukushima Daiichi, knowing they'd receive a likely lethal dose of radiation. But they didn't want a younger generation who had more life expectancy to do it.
CaptainMimoe 6y ago https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashrath Manj hi This Indian guy, Dashrath manjhi, single- handedly carved a path through a stone mountain only with a hammer and a chisel over a period of 22 years (longer than building taj mahal) , which he bought in exchange of the only livestock animal he was left with... Не did this because his wife died due to lack of immediate medical attention at the time as the nearest hospital was very far away, so he decided that no one else should suffer like this!
NeverEnoughMuppets 6y ago In 1859, an insane homeless man from San Francisco named Joshua Norton proclaimed himself Emperor of the United States... and the people of San Francisco went along with it. Не was widely beloved, treated with great deference, and the currency he created himself was honored at the establishments he frequented. When he died, 10,000 people went to his funeral, and he is either referenced by or inspired characters in works by Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Christopher Moore, Morris and Rene Gascinny, Selma Lagerlöf, and Neil Gaiman.
QueenMoogle B 6y ago This one is pretty well known, but it always warms my heart. The Christmas Truce of 1914, when soldiers all along the Western Front called for a temporary ceasefire on Christmas Eve. Soldiers on opposing sides screamed/sang Christmas carols from their respective trenches, and even started scurrying across No Man's Land to give each other small gifts. They shared food, cigars, stories, and even played football together. In the middle of one of the most violent wars we've ever known,
cornfedpig . 6y ago The city of San Francisco, and indeed, the whole world on twitter, played along with Batkid back in 2013. Kid survived his cancer, too, so an all around happy story.
Nek_Minnit_23 6y ago During ww1 a group of NZ troops liberated a small village in France and the town has never forgotten. They maintain the graves of the fallen soldiers and have tributes to NZ throughout the village. I don't know why but that one really gets me quite emotional. Every year since 1923 the people of this small village in northern France have marked Anzac Day on the Sunday before April 25. They have never forgotten the 135 men from the uttermost ends of the earth who lost their lives in a daring and deadly assault on November 4,
Ottoman92 6y ago At a time when Ireland was enduring the terrible loss of a million dead and the mass exodus of a million more during the Great Hunger, the story goes that the Ottoman Sultan, Khaleefah Abdul-Majid I, declared his intention to send £10,000 to aid Ireland's farmers. However, Queen Victoria intervened and requested that the Sultan send only £1,000 because she had sent only £2,000 herself So the Sultan sent only the £1,000, but he also secretly sent five ships full of food. The English courts attempted to block the ships, but the food arrived in Drogheda harbor
. 6y ago When Lichtenstein went to war with 80 men and came back with no deaths and a friend, therefore coming back with 81 men
dominiquec . 6y ago Cyrus the Great ended the Jewish captivity in Babylon and Darius the Great aided in the reconstruction of the Temple.
lelakat 6y ago Edited 6y ago The Angel of Budapest. Angel Sanz-Briz has been credited with saving about 5,000 Hungarian Jews by issuing them Spainish documentation, which stopped them from being deported to concentration camps. Не convinced Hungarian authorities that Spain had authorized citizenship to descendants of Jews expelled from Spain centuries earlier, meaning that the Jews were Spainish citizens and could not be touched by Nazi or Hungarian authorities due to diplomatic agreements.
thebrainmc2 6y ago In 1943, while the Nazi war machine was committing its atrocities across Europe, one country managed to protect a large population of its Jews: Bulgaria. The leader at the time was coaxed heavily by national outcry to not allow the Jewish citizens to be taken to the Treblinka death camp. Не instead, informed Hitler and Eichmann that Bulgaria couldn't let the Jews leave because they were needed for construction projects.
steviecortez 6y ago I intern at the UN and we just did a briefing about a little known secret. In Albania during WW2, not a single Jew was lost to the Nazis. Not ONE. They were hidden in Albania (among a mostly Muslim population) until the war was over. After the war Albania was the only country whose Jewish population had grown: it actually grew x10. Its not a widely known fact because most Albanian people don't consider it heroism, just hospitality. They wouldn't let any harm befall their Jewish guests.
sposth 6y ago The story of The forgotten 500 is remarkably. How serbian soldiers and serbian civilians in world war 2 saved 500 american pilots downed by Nazi/axis forces. The length they went to to save and hide them, and the sacrifices the civilians had to make, for the greater good. Yeah, there were a time were Serbia and USA were allies. Great times.
. 6y ago I'm amazed I had to scroll so far and not find any mention of Sir Nicolas Winton. Saved about 750 Jewish kids during WW2. Never told anyone, not even his wife. Only got found out when his grandkids went through his loft and found his ledger. Не didn't do it for any gain, he did it because it was the right thing to do.
Paragon761 . 6y ago The name of the earliest known cat which was found in Egypt can be translated to sweety and that's fucking adorable

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