The United States has always had something of an uncomfortable relationship with the people that lived within its borders well before European settlers made their way across the ocean. Today, it’s a relationship that’s better than it ever has been, but there’s still a long way to go and a lot to make up for. Even in roughly the last 100 years, there’s been an incredible amount of horror visited on America’s native tribes. This article outlines the 10 atrocities committed against Native Americans in recent history.

10. Hopi Sentenced To Alcatraz

First discovered by the Portuguese and the Spanish in the 1540s, Alcatraz had already been inhabited for at least 10,000 years. By the time the Spanish came to the area, there were about 10,000 individuals settled in the Bay Area around the island. According to tradition, the island had long been used for exactly the same purposes it later was—isolating people who had broken a law.

In 1894, the Hopi were in the middle of a rebellion against government regulations, which stated that they needed to send their children away from home to attend government‑run schools. In order to force the children to go, it was first suggested that the military and law enforcement be sent in to arrest anyone who wasn’t sending their children away. When bad weather and snows made that impossible, it was decided that they’d interrupt the supply of goods and food instead. It was a completely legitimate strategy, as far as the law was concerned. According to the Rules for Indian Schools of 1892, food and other necessities could be taken away to force compliance.

When that didn’t work and the Hopi still refused to send their children to government schools, 18 tribal leaders were arrested and put on trial for their refusal. Found guilty, they were sentenced to Alcatraz. Those left behind still refused to comply with government orders, and when the original leaders were released a year later, they continued their non‑violent protests against the educational restrictions. With the resistance leaders unwilling to resort to violence, the government‑sanctioned development of schools continued.

In the 1960s and 1970s, members of the Sioux and Mohawk, along with a group going by the name “Indians of All Tribes,” occupied Alcatraz in order to demand that the island be returned to those who had been there first. They didn’t win the island, but they did succeed in bringing attention to problems that had gone unaddressed for too long.

9. Black Mesa

Black Mesa is in northern Arizona, and it’s huge. The coal fields cross both Hopi and Navajo reservations, and in 1909, an incredibly brief survey of the area would determine that there was a huge amount of potential resources that could be exploited. The area already had an operating mine, and the coal was being used on the reservation.

By the end of World War II, the country was looking for some ways to maximize use of their own resources, and that included coal. In 1943, the Navajo attempted to increase their mining operations in the area, recognizing what they were sitting on for what it was—cash. At the time, they were an extraordinarily poor nation, relying on an income from the Bureau of Indian Affairs for support, so they entered into an agreement with the Interior Department. Coal was selling for $4.40 per ton, and in a typical deal, $1.50 of that would be going to the owner of the land. That was the basic price, though it’s absolutely not what the government offered the Navajo and the Hopi; they got $0.17 per ton.

There was also no provision in the contract to renegotiate prices should the price of coal go up, and it did. By the time the country was in the middle of the 1970s oil crisis, coal was $15 a ton. The tribes whose lands were being mined were still receiving $0.17. To add insult to injury, the tribes, who had seen little choice but to agree to the contracts and allow the government to come in and start mining, had their hands tied when it came to how the mining was done. In the early 1970s, the mine was putting out about 1 million tons of coal each year, and the process was likened to tearing down St. Peter’s Basilica for the marble. It wasn’t just environmental groups that leaped on the companies for their strip‑mining processes; the tribes absolutely weren’t happy with the complete destruction of ancient sites.

8. The Termination Of The Menominee

A huge amount of US dealings with various tribes across the country has involved some absolutely audacious attempts to integrate them with what’s considered more mainstream American society. Beginning in the 1940s and continuing into the 1960s, there was a policy put in place that was ominously called Termination. In the 1930s, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs had been a man named John Collier, who had given the different tribes nothing less than the right to keep their own culture. When he left office in 1945, those that hadn’t agreed with him took the opportunity to reverse everything he’d done.

The Termination policy was touted as an emancipation process that would free tribes from the control of the government. What the policies were really doing was taking away the power for tribal governments to run themselves. Reservations were to be broken up and no longer receive any kind of government protection. In turn, groups that had previously been run by their own, generations‑old system of governance would now be answering to the same rules and institutions that European Americans did.

The process was a long one, and it required legislation to be drawn up for each individual tribe. One of the first was Wisconsin’s Menominee Tribe. In 1954, they were officially terminated, and Congress declared that they would no longer be recognized as a tribe. The council was told that they would be terminated whether they liked it or not. Several extensions were granted, but eventually, in 1961, they were terminated.

The fallout was fast. Programs that had been supported by the federal government before, like schools and hospitals, didn’t have a funding base. The small population couldn’t afford to support things like utility services on its own, and termination, bizarrely, meant the removal of government funding that small towns all over the country rely on to survive. Hospitals and clinics closed, courts were shut down, police departments dissolved, utility services were shut down, and suddenly, the people needed to pay for hunting and fishing licenses for the land that had sustained them for thousands of years.

Termination was repealed in 1973, largely due to its disastrous results with the Menominee, but the damage was already done. The tribe had been living in the same area for more than 10,000 years and were so closely tied to the land that they took their name from the Menominee River, where their origins were set. Before termination, they were one of the wealthiest tribes in the country, completely self‑sufficient with their own government, law enforcement, and schools. Fifty years later, the Menominee are reincorporated as a tribe, but they’re still picking up the pieces.

7. Lone Wolf vs. Hitchcock

By the turn of the 20th century, many tribes had been forcefully removed from their ancestral lands and forced onto reservations. An 1867 treaty called the Medicine Lodge Treaty appeared to give tribes at least some sort of say in what happened to the lands that they had been forced onto. In theory, the treaty said that in order for reservation land to be made available for other uses, a three‑fourths majority approval needed to be given by the tribe that was currently on the land.

In 1900, though, the government decided to parcel off the land that had been given to the Kiowa‑Comanche tribe. Those that accepted a specific plot of land were also given citizenship with it, and the extra land was also parceled off—to be sold to anyone, even though no approval was given. Kiowa leader Lone Wolf sued the government for breach of treaty, and he lost.

The verdict given was that Congress had the right to change absolutely any previous treaties as they saw fit, because as the government, they had complete control over everything that went on in a reservation. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, where the verdict was upheld. Members of tribes were deemed “wards of the nation,” and not long after, 50,000 settlers moved into what had been dubbed surplus reservation land. The verdict has never been overturned and is still a valid precedent.

6. The Cherokee Strip

When the Cherokee were forced to settle in an area that’s now Oklahoma, they were given about 7 million acres in three separate areas. By the 1880s, though, the country was expanding, and ranchers and settlers needed that land. The US government made an offer to the Cherokee, attempting to buy the land at $3 an acre. The offer was refused, and in 1889, Congress ordered them to sell at $1.25 an acre.

The Cherokee had been making a lot of their income from leasing their land to ranchers. In 1890, though, the president signed into effect a law that prohibited all grazing after October, cutting off a huge portion of their income. After several delays, during which the government agreed to enforce the boundaries on the land that the Cherokee had managed to keep, the Cherokee Strip was opened for land claims from settlers.

Somewhere around 135,000 people showed up to stand in line at the nine registration booths that were opened for registering land claims, and it went about as smoothly as you’d guess. Cavalry were called in to keep the peace, but it was a mass of fights (some drunken, some not), bribery, counterfeiting, and no small amount of heat stroke. Individual members of the Cherokee were allowed to make a run for a piece of the land that they’d previously called home, but an overwhelming majority of people who tried for land didn’t get it. And once the land had been handed out, those that did get it found that they were ill‑equipped to handle it. A huge number of claims were abandoned before a year passed. Towns failed, and farms folded, adding insult to injury to those that had been forced to sell their land at a pittance.

5. The Indian Child Welfare Act Of 1978

It wasn’t until the 1970s that a big problem was brought to light, and it was a problem that people didn’t even see as a problem before that. Children were being taken from their families on a huge scale. From 1969–74, 25–34 percent of all Native American children were removed from their homes on a temporary or permanent basis and passed into the system of federal schooling, foster care, or adoption. Compare that with the non‑Native American children removal rate of 5 percent.

Part of the problem was the idea of federally instituted boarding schools, and we’ll look at that more in a minute. The other problem was that laws didn’t take into account the differences in tribal conditions for raising children. Generally more communal in nature, it’s perfectly normal for extended family or even neighbors to take care of children a large amount of the time. In a system that was biased in favor of families made up of only parents and children, this was seen as a problem. In states like North Dakota, about 99 percent of children removed from families were because of cases like this, which were deemed neglect cases.

It wasn’t until 1978 that Congress established the Indian Child Welfare Act, which used a different set of guidelines for the removal of native children from their homes. It included a requirement for the tribal government to be involved in such rulings, added considerations for tribal customs, and, should a child still need to be removed from parent care, placement with a native family. For the first time, part of the guidelines definitely stated that maintaining family and cultural bonds was of the utmost importance.

4. The Burke Act And US Citizenship

For decades, the question of citizenship for Native Americans has been something of a weird dilemma, and the government used it as a sort of blackmail. The Dawes Act of 1887 automatically granted citizenship to any member of any tribe that left their lands and voluntarily moved away… except for those belonging to the Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, and Seminole tribes. They weren’t included until a 1901 amendment, but it was the 1906 Burke Act that was really strange and very bizarrely worded.

According to the Burke Act, anyone who moved away from their tribe and accepted an allotment of land was granted citizenship, with a catch: That citizenship was withheld for 25 years or until they received special notice from government officials. Further notes in the law indicated that they not only needed to move away from their tribe but that they also needed to embrace the “habits of civilized life” before they were eligible for citizenship and all the benefits that went along with it. It was up to the Secretary of the Interior to decide if they had fulfilled their obligation to the so‑called “civilized life.” Government officials were also the ones deciding whether or not people who wanted to take allotments were capable of running one. Those who received allotments and either did their 25 years or received their approval for citizenship early still weren’t in the clear; once they died, it was still up to the Secretary on whether or not their descendants were capable of running the land. If they weren’t, the land would be sold.

3. The Theft Of Geronimo’s Skull

According to the story, Yale’s secretive Skull and Bones society was responsible for robbing the grave of Geronimo and stealing his skull. For a long time, it seemed like the story would never be anything more than a rumor, until an author researching a book on Yale’s World War I veterans stumbled across a letter that seemed to prove that they had indeed stolen Geronimo’s skull.

Before the leader died, he had been very specific in his wishes: He wanted to be buried in New Mexico, on Apache land. He definitely did not say he wanted his bones to be in the hands of the rich, elite members of the secret society.

Yale still officially says that they don’t have the bones, but members of the society aren’t saying anything. With more than 800 of those members still around today, that makes things even more complicated. Geronimo’s great‑grandson opened a lawsuit in 2009, suing both Skull and Bones and Yale for the return of the bones. The suit cites plenty of evidence, including the letter and testimony from Skull and Bones members, which confirms that inside their headquarters is a glass case containing bones that they were always told belonged to the Apache leader. The letter, dated 1918, also says that they have other bones, along with some of the tack from Geronimo’s horse. Why steal it? It’s something called crooking, a competition among the society members to see what important things they can steal for their “tomb.”

Still, Yale insists that they don’t have the bones and that they have no control over Skull and Bones, while the society itself isn’t saying anything. It was only in 1990 that a law was passed to protect the graves and remains of Native Americans and to give their families rights to preserve them.

In 2010, Geronimo’s family lost. According to the verdict, only thefts that occurred after 1990 are protected by the law, and the government will not force the society to return remains that had been stolen prior to that.

2. The Innocent Fun Of Grave Robbing

For the citizens of Blanding, Utah, picking up arrowheads and pieces of pottery seemed like no big deal. It was all over the place, after all, and there was so much of it that it often ended up being used for target practice. Finally, Winston Hurst, a local boy turned archaeologist, realized just what it was that people were picking up, destroying, and in some cases selling—part of the history of an entire people.

In 2009, his information led to a 150‑man FBI raid, along with a series of arrests. Jim Redd, a local doctor, was among those that were arrested for looting and selling antiquities; he killed himself the day after the raid. According to the townspeople, picking up artifacts was just a way of life, and according to Hurst, that’s the problem.

When the mayor pointed out that there was just so much of the stuff lying around that no one had seen what the big deal about collecting—and destroying—it was, the implications were horrifying. Archaeologists like Hurst were seeing the historical record of an entire culture wiped out, and as the relic‑hunting operations got larger and larger, so did the destruction. Sites around town, which were roughly 12,000 years old, were badly, amateurishly excavated. By the time Hurst had assembled a case, a staggering amount of artifacts had been looted and sold, which were later seized by the FBI. Once home to the Anasazi, the area around the town has yielded incredible treasures, jewelry, pottery, baskets, feather blankets, and other items, once left in graves as tributes to the dead.

The fallout was incredible, with other suicides following the arrests, and the people who had once been his neighbors cursed Hurst as a traitor. Meanwhile, graffiti is scrawled across pueblo walls and ancient cave paintings, and offerings once left along burial sites are sold on the black market. The town, founded in 1900, was also the site of a recent sting operation in which a single agent spent $335,000 purchasing illegal artifacts over the course of two and a half years. Meanwhile, the locals whose ancestors are buried in the caves won’t even enter them, simply out of respect for the dead.

1. Assimilation Via Boarding Schools

It started in the 1870s, and in 2015, there are still people who remember being sent away from their families to attend Native American boarding schools. The programs and the idea was based on a prison program, and statements made by the man who developed that program are horrific: “All the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.”

That was from a speech given in 1892 by Richard Pratt. Decades later, the practice was still in place and, in 2015, there are still people who remember their mothers crying as they were taken away, being beaten for speaking in their native language, being forced to cut their hair, and being given new, Americanized names. There were around 100 boarding schools operating in the United States, and even into the 1960s, teachers there were told that their first responsibility wasn’t to educate students but to “civilize” them.

The goal of the boarding schools was to take away everything that gave the students their identity. Schedules were so strict that in some cases, they were planned out in increments of five minutes, time that was precisely used for things like making beds and brushing teeth. From hairstyles and clothing to learning a new religion, they were taught everything they needed to know to not be Native American anymore.

Ironically, among those that have spoken out about their experiences in boarding schools, where they were discouraged from embracing their native culture, are the Navajo Code Talkers, whose language was of unprecedented importance throughout World War II—quite a difference from their experiences in school.

There are still a handful of these boarding schools in existence, but now, they have a different mission: to educate and to preserve culture. For those that still remember being torn from their families and forced to become something they absolutely weren’t, though, there’s still a lot that needs to be mended.

When you picture crime, you probably imagine humans pulling off heists, murders, or burglaries. Yet there are 10 crimes weren that were carried out by creatures without a driver’s license or a courtroom ever in sight.

Animals have been caught red‑handed—well, red‑pawed—committing offenses that mirror human misdeeds, from theft to assault. Below we tally ten of the most jaw‑dropping examples.

10 crimes weren: A Wild Look at Unlikely Offenders

10. The Bear Who Stole A Car, Crashed It, And Relieved Itself

Bears have a reputation for raiding picnics, rummaging through trash cans, and even barging into homes, but this particular incident takes the crown for sheer audacity.

A Colorado family awoke at dawn to discover that a bear had somehow slipped into their parked vehicle during the night. While rummaging for a snack, the massive animal became tangled, accidentally shifted the gear lever, and sent the car careening into the neighbor’s mailbox. Before making its exit, the bear left a… memorable souvenir in the form of its own droppings.

Fortunately, nobody was injured. The vehicle, however, suffered severe damage: the rear window was shattered, the radio and steering wheel were ripped from their mounts, and the overall interior was left in tatters. The homeowners were stunned but managed to laugh off the bizarre encounter.

All told, the bear’s nighttime escapade resulted in property destruction and an unintentional car‑theft, turning a quiet morning into a story the family will never forget.

9. The Rooster Who Stabbed Someone

Cockfighting is already a grim, illegal pastime, but a tragic twist unfolded in California when a weaponized rooster turned a spectator into a victim.

Thirty‑five‑year‑old Jose Luis Ochoa attended an underground cockfight and was unexpectedly impaled in the right calf by a razor‑shaped blade that had been strapped to the bird’s leg for the contest. While such knives are commonplace in these brutal events, it is exceedingly rare for a participant to be seriously injured by the animal itself.

Ochoa was rushed to a hospital, but despite medical efforts, he succumbed to his wounds two hours later, making this one of the few documented cases where a rooster’s weapon caused a fatality.

8. The Chimp Who Violently Attacked A Young Woman

In the 1970s, researchers embarked on Project Nim, hoping to raise a chimpanzee as if it were a human child. The experiment produced many insights, but it also led to a frightening encounter.

During a routine session, a female volunteer believed Nim was offering a friendly hug. Instead, the chimp lunged, sinking his teeth into her mouth and drawing blood. As the woman clutched her bleeding cheek, Nim repeatedly signed what translated to “I’m sorry,” a haunting reminder of the animal’s intelligence and the volatile nature of the experiment.

The volunteer survived the bite, yet the incident cast a dark shadow over the project, highlighting the ethical complexities of treating primates like human children.

7. The Emu Chased By The Police

Australia’s iconic emus are known for their size and speed, and one runaway bird turned a sleepy town into a police chase scene during rush hour.

The 1.2‑meter‑tall bird escaped its owner’s property and sprinted through suburban streets, apparently attempting to slip into nearby homes to avoid capture. Officers, unused to handling a massive, fast‑moving bird, found themselves both startled and amused.

After a brief pursuit, a local resident was asked to let the emu into her lounge, but she declined. Eventually, police corralled the feathered fugitive at 8:00 AM and returned it safely to its owner.

6. Fish‑Stealing Sperm Whales

Alaskan fishermen have reported a peculiar form of piracy: sperm whales shadowing their vessels and pilfering fish straight from the hooks.

The massive mammals use the boat’s engine noise to locate the fishing gear, then glide alongside, deftly snatching the catch and tossing it back into the sea. This clever thievery has become a regular nuisance, leaving crews frustrated but also impressed by the whales’ ingenuity.

While the practice is unlikely to change anytime soon, the whales’ behavior underscores their sophisticated hunting tactics and the unexpected ways nature can intersect with human industry.

5. The Unsuccessful Slow Thief

A sloth, famed for its leisurely pace, managed to infiltrate a closed café in the dead of night, seeking a midnight snack.

At first, the creature navigated the dim interior with surprising stealth, inching toward the counter. However, its notoriously slow movements proved its downfall; a misstep caused it to tumble onto the floor, triggering an alarm that alerted security personnel.

Although the sloth was apprehended without incident, the café owner found the episode both amusing and bewildering, noting that while monkeys have been seen during daylight hours, a nocturnal sloth burglary was a first.

4. The Cat Burglar

Meet Sir Whines‑A‑Lot, a feline with a penchant for pilfering cash from unsuspecting passersby.

The mischievous cat discovered a narrow gap beneath an office door where his owner worked. Employees, amused at first, began tossing dollar bills through the opening for the cat’s entertainment. Over time, the kitty amassed a surprisingly large stash of money.

Realizing the unintended consequence, the owner decided to donate the collected cash to local homeless shelters, turning the cat’s quirky kleptomania into a charitable act.

3. The Evidence‑Stealing Crow

Crows are notorious for their intelligence, but one feathered thief took audacity to a new level by snatching a crime‑scene knife in Vancouver.

Canuck, a crow belonging to a nearby resident, swooped down during a police operation involving more than twenty officers and seized the metal blade, which was crucial evidence in the investigation.

Investigators later learned that Canuck had been raised around humans and had developed a mischievous streak, but his daring theft added an unexpected twist to an already complex case.

2. The Dog Who Shot His Owner

In Iowa, a seemingly ordinary play session on the couch turned disastrous when Balew, a well‑meaning dog, accidentally disabled the safety on his owner’s firearm.

While the owner was lounging, Balew stepped on the trigger, firing a shot that struck the man’s leg. The owner later described his canine companion as a “big wuss,” noting that the dog appeared remorseful, lying down and whimpering after the incident.

Fortunately, the wound was non‑fatal, and both human and dog recovered, making the episode a sobering reminder of firearm safety around pets.

1. The Monkey Who Kidnapped And Murdered A Child

This grim tale tops the list: a rhesus monkey in India abducted a sleeping infant and later caused the child’s death.

According to the mother, the baby was napping when the monkey seized the infant and fled. The mother’s frantic chase proved futile; the monkey was too swift, and the child was later discovered dead behind the family’s home, where the animal presumably set the infant down.

The incident marks a harrowing escalation from typical monkey mischief—such as stealing food—to a fatal kidnapping, underscoring the potential danger of human‑wildlife interactions.

10 horrible atrocities: The SS’s Darkest Crimes Revealed

The Schutzstaffel, better known as the SS, was the black soul of the Nazi regime. The group, whose name means “Protection Squadron,” was founded in 1925 to guard Adolf Hitler and his inner circle. When Heinrich Himmler seized control of the SS in 1929, he reshaped it into an elite force that embodied the Nazi party’s twisted master‑race doctrine. He filtered recruits by ancestry and unwavering political loyalty, turning the SS into the self‑styled guardians of “racial purity.” This article walks you through the ten most chilling atrocities they committed, each a stark reminder of how far cruelty can be systematized.

10. Horrible Atrocities Overview

Below you’ll find a countdown of the ten most grotesque crimes carried out by the SS, from the early days of political repression to the industrialized murder of millions. Each entry includes vivid details, dates, and the horrifying scale of the violence, accompanied by original photographs that bring the history into sharper focus.

10. Torturing Political Prisoners

The first Nazi concentration camp, Dachau, opened its gates in March 1933, not as a death factory for Jews but as a holding site for German political dissidents. Roughly 4,800 inmates—mostly communists, socialists, and democrats—were crammed into the SS‑guarded facility after Hitler’s rise to the chancellorship made open opposition a capital offense. Without a trial, these prisoners faced either brutal incarceration or outright execution.

The murder of a detainee named Sebastian Nefzger sparked a public investigation by a Munich prosecutor, but the inquiry quickly hit a wall. Hitler responded by stripping Dachau of any judicial oversight, granting the SS unilateral authority over its affairs. This move eliminated any external checks, allowing the SS to kill at will.

New SS regulations mandated that any inmate who disobeyed rules would be beaten, and anyone attempting escape would be shot on the spot. These draconian rules set the template for every subsequent concentration camp, cementing a regime of terror that would expand across Europe.

9. The Night Of The Long Knives

Shortly after its formation, the SS earned a reputation as the ruthless enforcers of Nazi policy. By the early 1920s, Adolf Hitler had already encouraged his followers to use violence against political opponents. By April 1934, Himmler, now head of the SS, also commanded the Gestapo, the secret state police, giving him a powerful tool to hunt down dissent.

Himmler turned his attention inward, targeting the Sturmabteilung (SA), the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. The SA had grown too independent and powerful for Hitler’s liking. To consolidate power, the SS orchestrated a purge from June 30 to July 2, 1934, aimed at eliminating SA leaders and other perceived threats.

More than 85 murders—likely hundreds—were carried out, most by SS members, in what became known as the Night of the Long Knives, a name evoking the ancient Saxon surprise attack on the Britons. This three‑day bloodletting cemented the SS’s dominance within the Nazi hierarchy.

8. The SS Einsatzgruppen’s Destructive Polish Campaign

The SS’s top priority was to eliminate any perceived threat to Nazi rule, and the Einsatzgruppen—mobile killing squads—were a key instrument of that policy. Formed in 1938 as Germany annexed Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia, the Einsatzgruppen initially served as a military support unit. Their role exploded with the invasion of Poland in September 1939.

About 3,000 men were organized into six units, tasked with eradicating Jews and crushing Polish political resistance after German troops seized control of an area. From September 1 to October 25, 1939, the Einsatzgruppen were responsible for more than 16,000 deaths and the razing of over 500 Polish towns. In the first weeks alone, they made 10,000 arrests.

Although early on the Einsatzgruppen conducted brief trials, SS intelligence chief Reinhard Heydrich ordered that all prisoners be shot or hanged without legal process, claiming the killings were not happening quickly enough. Their methods grew so barbaric that even Wehrmacht commanders lodged complaints, especially after reports of hundreds being burned alive inside synagogues.

7. Establishing The Generalgouvernement

When Germany’s 1939 invasion of Poland ignited World War II, the conquered territory was split into three zones. The central region became known as the Generalgouvernement, a pseudo‑administrative area designed from the outset to serve as a laboratory for SS atrocities against Jews.

Although the official governor was Hans Frank, real power rested with SS‑Obergruppenführer Friedrich Kruger and his cadre of SS officers and police. They imposed the Nazi racial agenda, exploiting the region’s 12 million inhabitants as forced labor. Any act of Polish resistance that resulted in a German death prompted public executions of 50‑100 Poles.

The SS also carried out mass arrests and killings to intimidate the population, plundered cultural institutions, seized artworks, and commandeered financial assets. Food supplies were deliberately restricted, leaving civilians with barely enough to survive. For Jewish Poles, the situation was even more dire: their property was confiscated, they were forced into slave labor, and by 1942 many were deported to nearby extermination camps where the majority perished.

6. The Night Of Crystal

Kristallnacht, literally “the Night of Crystal,” unfolded on November 9‑10, 1938, when Nazi officials orchestrated a coordinated pogrom across Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland. Local Nazi offices received orders to launch a “spontaneous” outburst of violence against Jewish communities.

Instructions explicitly forbade harm to non‑Jewish Germans or foreigners, required the removal of synagogue archives before demolition, and directed firefighters to stand by while synagogues and Jewish businesses burned. Police were told to arrest as many healthy, young Jewish men as possible.

During the two‑day frenzy, 267 synagogues were destroyed, hundreds more damaged, over 7,500 Jewish businesses vandalized, at least 91 Jews murdered, and countless rapes recorded. The SS and Gestapo rounded up more than 30,000 Jewish men and shipped them to concentration camps, where hundreds died. Kristallnacht marked the first large‑scale, state‑sponsored mass incarceration based on ethnicity and paved the way for the Nazis’ systematic expropriation of Jewish property, including a punitive fine of roughly $400 million levied on the community.

5. Kidnapping And Germanization Of Aryan Children

The SS’s obsession with “racial purity” extended beyond murder to a grotesque program of child abduction and forced Germanization. Himmler publicly declared that the war in Poland offered an opportunity to “sift” young people of “good racial stock” from the conquered populations.

In 1939, SS officials began systematically evaluating Polish children aged two to twelve. Those deemed “racially valuable” were ripped from their families and placed with childless SS officers or families deemed of “good race.” The children underwent intensive indoctrination in institutions designed to erase their native identities. Those judged “worthless” were often sent to forced‑labor farms in Germany.

Estimates suggest that roughly 200,000 Polish children were seized, with another 200,000 taken from other Eastern‑European nations. While a handful were eventually reunited with surviving relatives, many grew up never recalling their true origins, their lives forever altered by the SS’s twisted social engineering.

4. Using Rape And Sterilization To Degrade Women

Testimonies, diaries, and eyewitness accounts reveal that thousands of Jewish women suffered sexual violence at the hands of SS personnel during pogroms and within concentration camps. The SS sanctioned a network of at least ten brothels inside camps, where women were forced into prostitution to serve as a perverse incentive for male prisoners and as a source of perverse gratification for guards.

Although Nazi law forbade “Aryan” SS members from having sexual relations with Jewish women, countless violations occurred. Victims endured brutal assaults, often used as a method of torture intended to break their spirits. In addition, the SS implemented a campaign of forced sterilization and coerced abortions, rendering tens of thousands of women infertile. Many survivors also suffered permanent reproductive damage due to the repeated violence.

3. Biological Warfare

The SS, as the so‑called “Protection Squadron,” was tasked with internal security and also with seeking new ways to wage war. Among their more macabre projects was an investigation into biological warfare. In 1942, an entomological research institute was set up at Dachau, despite Adolf Hitler’s explicit ban on such weapons.

Himmler enlisted the expertise of Eduard May, who examined insects—especially mosquitoes, fleas, and rats—to determine whether they could be used to spread diseases like malaria among enemy populations. May’s work focused on identifying the most efficient vectors, though he personally refused to conduct experiments on human subjects and never handled infectious agents directly.

Ultimately, the SS never progressed beyond theoretical studies, as the war’s shifting tides and resource constraints prevented the development of a functional bioweapon program.

2. Mobile Gas Chambers

As the German war machine pushed eastward into the Soviet Union, the SS’s Einsatzgruppen—literally “mobile killing units”—expanded their murderous repertoire. One of their most chilling inventions was the mobile gas van, a vehicle whose exhaust system was altered to pump carbon monoxide into a sealed compartment, effectively turning the back of the truck into a moving death chamber.

These vans were first deployed at the Chelmno killing site in late 1941. Victims were rounded up at their homes, forced into the vans, and driven to nearby mass graves where the bodies were dumped after suffocation. By 1943, the gas vans had claimed at least 152,000 lives, and many historians view this method as a grim precursor to the industrialized genocide of the Final Solution.

1. The Final Solution’s Killing Centers

The “Final Solution” was the Nazi euphemism for the systematic extermination of the Jewish people. After years of escalating hatred and discriminatory legislation, the SS leadership formalized a plan to annihilate European Jewry. On July 31, 1941, following Hitler’s delegation of all security responsibilities to Himmler, SS General Reinhard Heydrich received orders to begin preparations for the mass murder.

The operation, initially trialed in the Generalgouvernement under the code name “Operation Reinhard,” established three extermination camps—Sobibor, Belzec, and Treblinka—each equipped with gas chambers designed for rapid killing. Soon after, Auschwitz‑Birkenau was expanded to function as the largest killing center, where roughly one million Jews perished.

In total, the SS oversaw the murder of approximately 2.7 million Jews across these death factories, a horrific testament to the industrial scale of genocide orchestrated by the Nazi regime.

The 10 horrific atrocities carried out by Japan’s secret police, the Kempeitai, during World War II reveal a terrifying chapter of history that rivals even the most infamous Nazi crimes. From gruesome mass drownings to secret medical experiments, each episode showcases the ruthless efficiency and brutal imagination of this shadowy force.

10 Pig Basket Massacre

After the Japanese occupied the Dutch East Indies, roughly 200 British servicemen found themselves stranded in Java. They resorted to guerrilla warfare from the hills, only to be captured and subjected to cruel torture by the Kempeitai. According to over 60 eyewitnesses who testified at the Hague after the war, the men were forced into one‑meter‑long bamboo cages—normally used for transporting pigs. The cages were loaded onto trucks and open rail cars, steaming under a scorching 38 °C (100 °F) sun. Dehydrated and desperate, the prisoners were then crammed onto waiting boats, taken out to sea off Surabaya, and the cages were tossed into the ocean. The men drowned or were devoured by sharks.

One Dutch witness, just 11 years old at the time, recounted the horror to a magazine: “One day around noon, the hottest time of day, a convoy of four or five army trucks passed the street where we were playing, loaded with so‑called ‘pig baskets.’ These were usually used to stack pigs for slaughter. In Indonesia, a Muslim country, pigs were only for European and Chinese customers; Muslims considered them filthy. To our astonishment the pig baskets were crammed with Australian soldiers, some still in uniform, some even with their distinctive hats. They were tied in pairs, facing each other, stacked like pigs, lying down. Some were in a terrible state, crying for water; I saw a Japanese guard urinate on them. The trucks drove through town as a show of humiliation for the white race, finally dumping the cages into the harbor to drown.”

Lieutenant General Hitoshi Imamura, commander‑in‑chief of Japanese forces in Java, was acquitted of war crimes by a Dutch court due to insufficient evidence, but later convicted by an Australian military court and sentenced to ten years in prison, which he served from 1946‑54 in Sugamo, Japan.

9 Operation Sook Ching

Following the Japanese capture of Singapore, the city was renamed Syonan (“Light of the South”) and its clocks were set to Tokyo time. The Japanese launched a sweeping program to eliminate Chinese residents deemed dangerous or undesirable. Every Chinese male aged 15‑50 was ordered to report to registration points across the island for intensive interrogation to assess loyalty. Those who passed were stamped with the word “examined” on their faces, arms, or clothing. Those who failed—communists, nationalists, secret society members, English speakers, civil servants, teachers, veterans, and criminals—were taken to holding areas. A simple decorative tattoo could be enough to brand a man as a member of an anti‑Japanese secret society.

For two weeks after the screenings, the “undesirables” were executed at plantations or coastal sites such as Changi Beach, Ponggol Foreshore, and Tanah Merah Besar Beach, where their bodies were washed out to sea. Execution methods varied with the whims of four section commanders: some victims were marched into the sea and machine‑gunned, others were tied together before being shot, bayoneted, or decapitated. Japanese authorities claimed about 5,000 victims, but local estimates range from 20,000 to 50,000.

After the massacre, the Kempeitai instituted a reign of terror and torture, including a punishment where victims were forced to ingest water from a fire hose and then kicked in the stomach. One administrator, Shinozaki Mamoru, was so appalled by the cruelty that he issued thousands of “good citizen” and safe‑passage certificates—normally reserved for collaborators—to protect Chinese civilians. He issued nearly 30,000 such passes, saving many lives, and earned the moniker “Singapore’s Schindler.”

8 Sandakan Death Marches

The Japanese occupation of Borneo gave them access to valuable offshore oil fields, which they guarded by constructing a military airfield at Sandakan using slave labor supplied by prisoners of war. Approximately 1,500 POWs—mostly Australians captured after the fall of Singapore—were sent to Sandakan, where they endured appalling conditions, meager rations of vegetables and dirty rice, and forced labor on an airstrip. British POWs joined them in early 1943.

Early escape attempts triggered a brutal crackdown. Prisoners were beaten or locked in open‑air cages under the scorching sun for offenses such as collecting coconuts or failing to bow deeply enough to a passing guard. Those suspected of operating radios or smuggling medicine were tortured by the Kempeitai, who burned flesh with cigarette lighters or drove metal tacks into their nails. One victim described the torture: “The interrogator produced a small piece of wood like a meat skewer, pushed it into my left ear, and hammered it in. I fainted, was revived with a bucket of water, and the pain was excruciating. I never heard again.”

Despite the crackdown, Australian Captain L.C. Matthews organized an underground intelligence ring, smuggling medical supplies, food, and money to prisoners while maintaining radio contact with the Allies. Arrested and tortured, Matthews never revealed his collaborators and was executed by the Kempeitai in 1944.

In January 1945, Allied bombing forced the Japanese to abandon Sandakan, prompting three death marches between January and May. The first wave, composed of the fittest prisoners, was loaded with Japanese equipment and forced to march through jungle for nine days with only four days’ rations of rice, dried fish, and salt. Those who fell were shot or beaten to death. Survivors were forced to build a new camp. The remaining prisoners were later marched south in two additional waves, while those left behind at Sandakan perished as the camp was torched. Only six Australians survived the entire ordeal.

7 Kikosaku

During the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies, controlling the Eurasian (mixed Dutch‑Indonesian) population proved difficult. These individuals often occupied influential positions and resisted the Japanese version of Pan‑Asianism. In response, the Kempeitai introduced a policy called kikosaku, a neologism fusing “kosen” (a Buddhist reference to the land of the dead, “yellow spring”) and “saku” (engineering or maneuvering). It has been translated as “Operation Hades” or “Hellcraft.” In practice, it denoted extrajudicial executions and punishments leading to death.

The Japanese labeled mixed‑blood Indonesians as “kontetsu,” suspecting them of loyalty to the Netherlands, espionage, and sabotage. They also feared communist or Islamic insurgency. Believing judicial processes inefficient, the Kempeitai adopted kikosaku to imprison suspects indefinitely without charge or to execute them summarily.

When the Kempeitai believed only the most extreme interrogation methods would elicit a confession—even at the cost of life—they employed kikosaku. A former Kempeitai member later told the New York Times, “Even crying babies would shut up at the mention of the Kempeitai. Everybody was afraid of us. Prisoners entered by the front gate but left by the back gate—as corpses.”

6 Jesselton Revolt

The city now known as Kota Kinabalu was founded as Jesselton in 1899 by the British North Borneo Company, serving as a rubber hub until the Japanese captured it in January 1942 and renamed it Api. On 9 October 1943, an uprising of ethnic Chinese and native Suluks assaulted the Japanese Military Administration, attacking offices, police stations, military hotels, warehouses, and the main wharf. Armed only with a few hunting rifles, spears, and long parang knives, the rebels managed to kill 60‑90 Japanese and Taiwanese soldiers before retreating into the hills.

In retaliation, two Japanese army companies and the Kempeitai were dispatched to unleash vicious reprisals aimed not only at the rebels but at the civilian population at large. Hundreds of ethnic Chinese were executed merely for suspected support of the revolt. The Japanese also targeted Suluk natives on offshore islands such as Sulug, Udar, Dinawan, Mantanani, and Mengalum. The entire male population of Dinawan was annihilated, while women and children were forcibly relocated. Similar massacres occurred on Suluk and Udar. Japanese estimates claimed only 500 deaths, but other sources suggest closer to 3,000, with the treatment of the Suluks described by some historians as genocidal.

5 Double Tenth Incident

In October 1943, a group of Anglo‑Australian commandos known as Special Z infiltrated Singapore harbor aboard an old fishing boat and folding canoes. They placed limpet mines that sank or disabled seven Japanese vessels, including an oil tanker. The operation went unnoticed, prompting the Japanese to believe the attack had been orchestrated by British guerrillas from Malaya, with intel allegedly supplied by civilians and Changi prison inmates.

On 10 October, the Kempeitai raided the prison, conducting a day‑long search for evidence and arresting suspects. A total of 57 internees were detained for alleged involvement, including an Anglican bishop and a former British colonial secretary. The detainees endured five months of confinement in brightly lit cells without bedding, forced to stand or kneel for interrogation, and subjected to starvation and brutal torture. One suspect was executed for alleged sabotage, while fifteen others died as a direct result of Kempeitai torture.

During the 1946 trial of those involved, British prosecutor Lieutenant Colonel Colin Sleeman described the Japanese mindset: “It is with no little diffidence and misgiving that I approach my description of the facts and events in this case… The keynote of the whole of this case can be epitomized by two words—unspeakable horror. Horror stark and naked permeates every corner and angle of this case from beginning to end, devoid of relief or palliation. I have searched, I have searched diligently amongst a vast mass of evidence to discover some redeeming feature… I confess I have failed.”

4 Bridge House

The Kempeitai maintained a presence in Shanghai since the Imperial Japanese Army occupied the city in 1937, with their headquarters located in a building known as Bridge House. Shanghai’s foreign presence and intellectual culture gave rise to resistance publications opposing the Japanese. The Kempeitai, together with the collaborationist Reformed Government, employed a paramilitary group of Chinese criminals called the Huangdao hui (Yellow Way Organization) to commit murders and terrorist actions against anti‑Japanese elements in foreign settlements. In a notable incident, Cai Diaotu, editor of an anti‑Japanese tabloid, was beheaded and his head was displayed on a lamppost in the French Concession with a placard that read, “Look! Look! The result of anti‑Japanese elements.”

After Japan’s entry into World II, the Kempeitai turned loose on Shanghai’s foreign population, arresting individuals on charges of anti‑Japanese activity or espionage and imprisoning them in Bridge House. Detainees were confined in steel cages and subjected to beatings and torture. Conditions were horrendous: “Rats and disease‑infested lice were everywhere, and no‑one was allowed to bathe or shower, so diseases from dysentery to typhus and leprosy ran rampant.”

The Kempeitai paid particular attention to British and American journalists who reported Japanese atrocities. John B. Powell, editor of the China Weekly Review, recounted his ordeal: “When the questioning began, we had to strip and kneel before our captors. When our answers failed to satisfy them, we were beaten on the back and legs with four‑foot bamboo sticks until blood flowed.” Powell was repatriated but later died after an amputation of a gangrenous leg; many other reporters were permanently injured or driven insane.

In 1942, a group of Allied civilians tortured at Bridge House were released as part of a repatriation deal brokered through the Swiss embassy. The journey was deliberately unpleasant: internees were packed below decks in overcrowded, sweltering conditions as the ship collected more prisoners from Yokohama and Hong Kong before making a slow, grueling voyage to the neutral Portuguese port of Lourenço Marques in Mozambique.

3 Occupation Of Guam

Along with the Alaskan islands of Attu and Kiska in the Aleutians (whose populations were evacuated before invasion), Guam was the only populated United States territory occupied by the Japanese during World II. Seized in 1941, the island was renamed Omiya Jime (Great Shrine Island), while the capital Agana became Akashi (Red City). Initially, the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Keibitai supervised the island, but in 1944 the Kempeitai assumed control as the war turned against Japan.

The Japanese employed brutal methods to eradicate American influence and force the native Chamorro people into compliance with the Greater East Asia Co‑Prosperity Sphere. Forced labor, initially imposed on Chamorro men in 1943, was expanded to include women, children, and elders. The Kempeitai, convinced that pro‑American Chamorros were engaged in espionage and sabotage, cracked down harshly. Civilians were raped, shot, or beheaded as discipline collapsed. One survivor, Jose Lizama Charfauros, encountered a Japanese patrol while foraging for food, was forced to kneel, and then had his neck chopped with a sword. He was later found by friends; maggots had entered his wounds, keeping him alive by clearing infection. He survived the war with a massive scar on his neck.

2 Comfort Women

The issue of “comfort women,” who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World II, remains a source of political tension and historical revisionism in East Asia. Officially, the Kempeitai oversaw organized prostitution from 1904 onward. Initially, brothels were subcontracted to the military police, who supervised them under the belief that some prostitutes might act as spies gathering military intelligence from talkative clients.

In 1932, the Kempeitai assumed full control of military‑run brothels, constructing facilities in barracks or tents to house women forced into service. These women were imprisoned behind barbed wire and guarded by Japanese or Korean yakuza. Railway cars were also used as mobile brothels. Girls as young as 13 were coerced into prostitution, with prices varying by ethnicity and rank of the client. Japanese women fetched the highest fees, followed by Koreans, Okinawans, Chinese, and Southeast Asians; Caucasian women were also forced into service. It is estimated that up to 200,000 women were compelled to serve up to 3.5 million Japanese soldiers. Conditions were appalling, and the women received little to no compensation despite promises of 800 yen per month for their “service.”

Many questions remain about Japan’s use of comfort women, owing to a high degree of secrecy and the destruction of evidence. In 1945, British Royal Marines captured Kempeitai documents in Taiwan that outlined a chilling policy for dealing with the women in emergencies: “Whether they are destroyed individually or in groups, or however it is done, with mass bombing, poisonous smoke, drowning, decapitation, or what… it is the aim not to allow the escape of a single one, to annihilate them all and not to leave any traces.”

1 Epidemic Prevention Department

While Unit 731’s human experiments are widely known, the full scale of Japan’s biological warfare program is often underappreciated, with at least 17 related facilities spread across Asia. The Kempeitai was placed in charge of Unit 173, located in the Manchurian city of Pingfang. To build the complex, eight villages were razed, making way for research labs, underground bunkers, a large crematorium, and Kempeitai barracks. The facility’s euphemistic label was “Epidemic Prevention Department.”

Shiro Ishii, the program’s director, introduced his staff with a grim statement: “A doctor’s God‑given mission is to block and treat disease, but the work on which we are now to embark is the complete opposite of those principles.” Prisoners sent to Pingfang were typically labeled “incorrigible,” “die‑hard anti‑Japanese,” or “of no value or use.” The majority were Chinese, but Koreans, White Russians, and later Allied POWs from the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia were also incarcerated. The Japanese staff referred to the prisoners as murata (“logs”) and described the facility as a lumber mill.

At these facilities, live human subjects were used to test biological and chemical weapons, as well as exposure to deadly diseases such as bubonic plague, cholera, anthrax, tuberculosis, and typhoid. Vivisections were performed without anesthesia. One researcher recounted a gruesome procedure on a 30‑year‑old Chinese male: “The fellow knew it was over for him, so he didn’t struggle when they led him into the room and tied him down. When I picked up the scalpel, he began screaming. I cut him from chest to stomach, and his face twisted in agony. He screamed terribly, then finally stopped. It was a day’s work for the surgeons, but it left a lasting impression on me.”

Other Kempeitai‑supervised facilities existed throughout China and Asia. Unit 100 in Changchun developed vaccines for Japanese livestock and biological weapons to decimate Chinese and Soviet livestock, while Unit 8604 in Guangzhou bred rats designed to carry bubonic plague. Additional facilities researching malaria and plague were established in Singapore and Thailand, though many records were destroyed before Allied capture.

For further inquiries, David Tormsen can be contacted at [email protected].

Welcome to the digital playground where innocence collides with mischief. In this arena we explore the 10 crimes committed on video games meant for kids, shining a light on the sneaky side of pixelated fun. From rule‑bending hacks to digital scams, each menace threatens the wholesome experience we all cherish.

10 crimes committed: The Dark Side of Kids’ Games

10 Cheating/Hacking

Cheating and hacking in children’s games? Imagine trying to slip Brussels sprouts into a candy shop—it just feels wrong! Yet even in the most whimsical kid‑centric worlds, some players can’t resist the siren call of bending the rules.

Picture little Timmy strolling through his favorite title, only to run into opponents who have mastered the art of cheating. These rule‑breakers deploy hacks that hand out unlimited lives, endless resources, or teleport abilities faster than you can shout “cheese pizza.”

Surveys reveal that roughly 37% of all gamers admit to using cheats at least once. Think of it as a virtual Wild West, with shortcuts popping up around every digital corner. It isn’t just kids; adults also dip into cheat codes, setting a questionable example for the younger crowd.

While it may look like harmless fun, cheating erodes the spirit of fair play and sportsmanship. It’s akin to showing up to a soccer match wearing rocket‑powered sneakers—sure, you’ll win, but where’s the joy in that?

9 Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying in kiddie games? Oh, you bet your power‑up mushrooms! Visualize your tiny hero cruising through a pixelated wonderland, only to be struck by a barrage of insults from a faceless troll lurking behind a screen.

This isn’t an urban legend whispered by gaming gurus; it’s as real as a high score on level 99. Recent studies indicate that nearly 40% of kids aged 12‑to‑17 have experienced cyberbullying—essentially, one out of every three teammates hurling digital taunts.

What makes the cruelty even worse is the cloak of anonymity these bullies wear. They’re like the ghosts haunting Pac‑Man’s maze, waiting to strike when you least expect it. Unlike playground squabbles of the past, today’s bullies can hide behind screens, making retaliation a tall order.

Fear not, brave adventurers! Just as Mario leaps over lava pits, there are tools to combat this menace. Parents and developers are joining forces to craft safer online spaces, complete with reporting buttons and moderation systems that squash bullies like pesky bugs.

8 Scamming

In a world where unicorns prance and rainbows sparkle, one might think only honest quests await. Sadly, the virtual realm isn’t immune to scammers who prey on trusting young gamers.

Imagine a seemingly innocent player trading hard‑earned virtual coins for a shiny new item, only to discover the deal is as genuine as a three‑dollar bill. In Roblox’s “Adopt Me!” a black market thrives, where fraudsters swap coveted pets for empty promises, turning a cute pet‑collecting adventure into a deceptive con.

But hope isn’t lost. Game creators are battling these digital swindlers with safety features and educational campaigns, reminding kids that not every rainbow leads to a pot of gold.

7 Stealing Items

Pinching items or currency in kid‑focused games might sound trivial, yet it remains a crime—albeit a virtual one. Picture wandering through your favorite realm, spotting a glittering chest or a pile of coins, and succumbing to the urge to swipe them.

Hold up, sticky fingers! Pilfering virtual loot disrupts gameplay balance and can trigger in‑game penalties. It’s not exactly heroic—imagine Mario pilfering coins from Toad’s treasury; that’s shady for a plumber in overalls.

Developers invest countless hours crafting these economies, and theft throws a wrench into their carefully calibrated systems. It’s like snatching candy from a piñata—tempting, but it ruins the fun for everyone else.

6 Griefing

Griefing is the mischievous art of ruining someone’s day, and it’s become a notorious crime in games meant for kids. Picture innocent gamers enjoying their wonderland, only to have joy shattered by digital tricksters.

These troublemakers exploit the seemingly safe environment of kid‑friendly titles, turning them into chaotic arenas of frustration. They unleash unsportsmanlike conduct—disrupting peaceful activities or outright sabotage—like inviting a clown to a tea party only to swap the tea for chaotic potions.

In Minecraft, griefers are famed for demolishing meticulously built structures with a few swift clicks. Roblox creators find their imaginative builds compromised, while even the serene islands of Animal Crossing can become virtual war zones under a griefer’s reign.

Such villains prey on the honesty of young players, leaving a trail of digital mayhem. With online communities expanding, griefing has evolved into a serious concern that developers must tackle.

5 Inappropriate Language/Behavior

Anything can happen in this virtual realm, including foul language and unsuitable conduct. Imagine a kid strolling through a game, ready to save the day or build a dream castle, when suddenly—BAM!—they’re hit with words that would make a sailor blush.

In supposedly child‑friendly games, inappropriate chatter can surface faster than you can say “respawn.” Whether it’s players dropping f‑bombs like confetti or engaging in conversations that would make grandparents gasp, the experience can quickly become unpalatable.

A Pew Research Center study shows that 16% of teens who play online games have faced harassment while gaming. That means unsavory language isn’t limited to non‑playable characters; real players bring it in.

Next time your child logs on, keep an ear out for any language that would have parents washing mouths out with soap. And if you encounter such characters, remember the mute button is your best ally.

4 Sharing Personal Information

Spilling personal details in video games may feel harmless, but it’s akin to taking candy from strangers—a recipe for disaster. Picture tossing your secrets into a digital abyss where anyone with ill intent can snatch them.

According to a New York Post article, 40% of kids have shared personal information while gaming. That’s like broadcasting your life story to a school of cyber‑sharks! Once you hit “send,” there’s no turning back; personal data can land in the hands of crooks, leading to creepy encounters or identity theft.

Before you blurt out details in a favorite title, think twice. Guard your information like you guard a high score, because in the digital world, sharing isn’t always caring.

3 Account Hacking

Account hacking in children’s games isn’t just a plot twist—it’s a real‑world nuisance. You’d expect these titles to be safe havens, yet hackers love a challenge, even if it means invading the playground of innocence.

Imagine logging in to discover your avatar dressed like a clown, or worse, your hard‑earned virtual treasures vanished. It’s like someone swiping your candy stash when you’re not looking—outrageous and rude.

Hackers exploit weak spots in game security or trick players into revealing login credentials via phishing schemes. They’ve mastered the art of sneaky maneuvers, turning a simple login into a virtual spy thriller.

What can gamers do? Stay vigilant. Keep passwords guarded like a dragon’s hoard. Developers, meanwhile, need to fortify security protocols as if building a castle wall against invading armies.

2 Modding/Creating Inappropriate Content

Modding—where creativity meets digital tinkering—has a dark side when it produces inappropriate content for kids‑focused games. Picture innocent characters morphing into horror‑movie monsters or explicit scenes sneaking into a wholesome world.

While modding often sparks innovation, some users push boundaries too far. With a few clicks, they can transform fluffy mascots into nightmarish beings, and kids can stumble upon these unsettling mods swiftly.

Sure, mods let players tweak games, add features, and unleash imagination. But when creators inject adult themes into children’s titles, it’s like mixing oil with water—an uncomfortable blend that simply doesn’t belong.

Developers strive to curb this, but it feels like a game of whack‑a‑mole: for every inappropriate mod they shut down, ten more pop up elsewhere.

1 Game Economy

In kid‑centric titles where characters frolic in fantasy lands, one might assume mischief stays on‑screen. Yet a cunning crime lurks in the shadows: the exploitation of in‑game economies.

Imagine a seemingly harmless marketplace where adorable creatures trade goods with the innocence of a lemonade stand. Some shrewd players, however, turn this setup into a den of deceit, manipulating virtual currency and items through fishy tactics, leaving young gamers bewildered and their hard‑earned treasures pilfered.

This virtual white‑collar crime disrupts the balance of idyllic digital realms. Masterminds employ duping, hacking, or even run virtual sweatshops to amass riches, tarnishing the whimsical charm of the games.

When you hear the phrase 10 horrifying scams, you probably picture crooked doctors and greedy hospitals raking in illegal cash at the expense of patients. The privatized health‑care system, which often promises miracles, can sometimes become a playground for fraudsters who twist the Hippocratic Oath into a profit‑driven mantra. Below we unpack ten of the most unsettling schemes ever uncovered, each one exposing a different way medical professionals have crossed the line.

10 Horrifying Scams

10 Changing The Definition Of “Sick” To Admit More Patients

In an era where headlines constantly warn us about carcinogenic additives and everyday objects that could threaten our health, the last thing anyone needs is a new excuse to become a hypochondriac. Yet, even when we try to keep a level head, we still rely on nurses and physicians to draw the line between a genuine illness and a fleeting ache.

Florida’s for‑profit chain Health Management Associates decided to blur that line. Leveraging sophisticated software and a good dose of intimidation, the hospital systematically admitted patients who required little or no medical attention, simply to pad Medicare bills. Their zeal was such that an infant whose temperature was a mere 0.1 °F above the normal 98.6 °F was logged as having a fever, prompting a cascade of unnecessary and costly tests.

Not everyone was complicit. A whistle‑blower lawsuit revealed that physicians who balked at the scheme were promptly terminated, and administrators with ethical qualms faced the same fate. As financial ties become ever more tangled and corporate scales expand, these kinds of abuses are likely to haunt regulators for years to come.

9 Delegating Medical Treatments To Unqualified Staffers

Dr. Ravi Sharma, a board‑certified thoracic surgeon, launched a Florida‑based weight‑loss clinic called Life’s Image. While a chest specialist might not be the first professional you’d picture overseeing a diet program, patients reasonably expected a team of qualified staff to manage invasive procedures.

Instead, Sharma outsourced critical tasks to untrained personnel—including an office manager—who performed vein injections and ultrasounds without any medical credentials. He rarely set foot in the clinic, preferring to text procedural instructions to his aides. Many of these interventions were unnecessary, merely a ploy to inflate Medicare reimbursements.

The scheme collapsed when Sharma’s former office manager, Patti Lovell, blew the whistle. Though he paid a $400,000 settlement to the government and continued practicing, the episode underscores how a surgeon’s “hands‑off” approach can endanger lives for profit.

8 Exploiting Workers’ Compensation Claims

Workers’ compensation is meant to cushion employees after a job‑related injury, covering medical care and lost wages. Orthopedic magnate Michael Drobot turned that safety net into a $500 million, 16‑year fraud.

By bribing doctors, chiropractors, and other providers, Drobot’s clinic siphoned off countless spinal‑injury patients, sometimes shipping them hundreds of miles away for surgeries that were neither necessary nor convenient. His political connections, notably a $100,000 payoff to California State Senator Ronald S. Calderon, kept the operation under the radar.

When authorities finally intervened, Drobot’s attempts to mitigate his punishment only prolonged the scandal, leaving a trail of compromised patients and a stark reminder of how lucrative the workers’ comp system can become when corrupted.

7 Pretending Patients Are Terminally Ill To Get Medicare Funding

Hospices serve as compassionate sanctuaries for those with six months or less to live, easing the final chapter while easing the financial load on Medicare. This built‑in incentive, however, birthed a massive abuse by Vistas Hospice Services, America’s largest private palliative‑care provider.

Between 2001 and 2013, Vistas funneled millions of Medicare dollars into the care of patients who were perfectly healthy. Staff received bonuses for enrolling these individuals, while nurses and doctors raised concerns that were ignored. The company also mis‑classified many beneficiaries as needing “crisis care,” a high‑cost service reserved for severely impaired patients, inflating expenses to nearly six times the national average.

One striking case involved a woman who, despite being able to manage daily chores independently, received $170,000 in intensive nursing services. Others attended church or bingo halls while being billed as terminal. The fraud eventually attracted a multibillion‑dollar federal investigation, exposing Vistas’ systemic deception.

6 Profiting From Dying Patients And Then Abandoning Them To Avoid Associated Costs

While some hospices blatantly lie about patient conditions, others adopt a subtler strategy: enrolling large numbers of dementia sufferers who often require less intensive care yet can linger for years, maximizing reimbursements while minimizing expenses.

The U.S. government tried to curb this by capping hospice payments at $25,000 before repayment is required. Yet many for‑profit operators routinely exceed this limit by 50 % or more. When financial pressure mounts, some simply declare bankruptcy, shedding debts while leaving patients and families scrambling for new care.

Sojourn Care Inc. exemplified this tactic. After amassing $27 million in debt, the company dissolved, only to re‑emerge under a new name, shedding its liabilities. The resurrected entity then cherry‑picked the healthiest former patients, abandoning 180 of the original 280, many of whom faced uncomfortable or even fatal conditions. Legally permissible, the maneuver left countless families without recourse.

5 Conning Drug Addicts Into Entering Psychiatric Lockdown

Individuals battling substance abuse already endure physical and psychological torment. In Broward County, Florida, a trio of executives at the Hollywood Pavilion—a psychiatric facility—decided to profit from that misery.

Over nine years, they bribed officials and forged documents to lure drug addicts into the hospital, locking them away for weeks in insect‑infested rooms that offered little to no genuine treatment. Once the patients’ Medicare benefits were exhausted, they were promptly discharged, leaving them no better off than before.

The scheme generated $67 million in fraudulent reimbursements. When the fraud was uncovered, owners Karen Kallen‑Zury and Christian Coloma received prison sentences ranging from 12 to 25 years and were ordered to pay millions in restitution, providing a rare glimpse of justice for the victims.

4 Performing Fake Surgeries

Surgery is a vulnerable moment: patients are anesthetized, trusting strangers to operate on their bodies. One would hope that only highly trained professionals hold the scalpel, yet Dr. Spyros Panos, an orthopedic surgeon at Saint Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie, New York, turned the operating room into a stage for deception.

According to over 250 lawsuits, Panos either performed “shoddy” surgeries or staged the entire procedure—sedating patients, opening incisions, and then stitching them back up without making any therapeutic changes. He crammed up to 22 operations into a single day, far exceeding the typical surgeon’s monthly average, and at least one patient died as a result of his negligence.

Although Panos initially remained silent about the accusations, he eventually pleaded guilty, offering a full confession. His conviction serves as a stark reminder that even the most credentialed doctors can betray patient trust for profit.

3 Recruiting The Homeless For Unnecessary Medical Treatment

While many assume that medical professionals will go to great lengths to protect patients, a chain of Los Angeles hospitals proved otherwise, exploiting the city’s most vulnerable residents for cash.

Hospital administrators bribed homeless individuals to undergo frivolous medical tests, then billed Medicaid for the services. In one alarming case, a woman received a nitroglycerin patch for a fabricated condition, causing a dangerous drop in blood pressure. The scheme relied on paid “runners” who shuttled these patients to the hospital, dumped them on Skid Row, and repeated the process, raking in more than $16 million.

Union Rescue Mission employee Scott Johnson noticed the pattern, alerted law enforcement, and helped dismantle the operation. The resulting investigation forced a $16.5 million settlement, highlighting how even the most marginalized can become profit machines for unscrupulous providers.

2 Unnecessary Chemo Treatments

Chemotherapy is designed to eradicate cancer, but its severe side effects—hair loss, organ damage, and more—make it a treatment that should be reserved for genuine cases. Oncologist Farid Fata turned this life‑saving therapy into a profit‑driven nightmare.

Over a three‑year period, Fata submitted $150 million in Medicare claims for patients who either didn’t have cancer or could have been treated with less invasive, cheaper options. A nurse reviewing his charts discovered that 95 % of the 40 patients examined were receiving inappropriate chemotherapy. In many instances, Fata prescribed lifelong drug regimens even when curative surgery was viable.

After an exhaustive FBI investigation, Fata was indicted, fined heavily, and sentenced to a decade in prison. His case underscores how a physician’s deception can inflict unnecessary suffering while siphoning millions from taxpayers.

1 Performing Unnecessary, Life‑Threatening Surgeries On The Elderly

Sacred Heart Hospital in Chicago became synonymous with a massive Medicare fraud scheme that endangered senior patients. Administrators paid kickbacks to steer referrals, used ambulance transports to trigger automatic billing, and prolonged stays to maximize reimbursements.

Dr. Vittorio Guerriero, a leading offender, deliberately induced breathing complications in at least 28 patients, forcing emergency tracheotomies—procedures that involve drilling holes into the throat. Five of those patients died as a direct result of the unnecessary surgeries.

The scandal forced Sacred Heart to shut its doors after federal agents seized its assets. The case illustrates how a profit‑first mentality can transform a care facility into a lethal enterprise, leaving families devastated and taxpayers bearing the cost.

If you ever found yourself waking up inside a mental hospital, you might wonder how you could prove you’re not crazy and get out. The truth is, the United States and many other nations make it surprisingly easy for an innocent person to be involuntarily committed to an insane asylum. Below are ten astonishing examples of individuals who were mistakenly labeled insane and confined against their will.

10 Banking Conspiracy Theorist

Gustl Mollath, a modest German mechanic specializing in vintage automobiles, stumbled upon a massive banking scandal that would land him in a psychiatric ward for seven years. While Mollath restored cars for a living, his wife worked at HypoVereinsbank, one of Germany’s largest financial institutions. Through her position, Mollath learned of a substantial tax‑evasion operation conducted by the bank.

His discovery strained the marriage, leading to a divorce and accusations of domestic violence from his wife. Undeterred, Mollath filed a criminal complaint against HypoVereinsbank, alleging illicit money transfers to Switzerland that bordered on money‑laundering. The German media initially ignored his claims, but authorities did not. His wife, amid the divorce, alleged that he had slashed her tires and was abusive. Prosecutors seized on his whistleblowing as evidence of “paranoid delusions,” and he was involuntarily committed.

Although confined, bloggers, activists, and conspiracy theorists investigated his allegations and found them credible. Years later, an internal bank report confirming the tax‑evasion scheme leaked to the public, prompting police raids on HypoVereinsbank. Mollath was released by a court after his claims were validated.

9 NYPD Whistle‑Blower

Adrian Schoolcraft, a New York Police Department officer, took a stand against corruption within his own force. Beginning in 2008, he secretly recorded conversations that exposed illegal arrest quotas and widespread misconduct. When he presented his evidence, superiors dismissed his concerns, suggesting he was losing his sanity and recommending psychiatric treatment.

After a brief evaluation, a psychologist forced Schoolcraft to surrender his weapons and reassigned him to a menial desk job. Undeterred, he handed his tapes to Internal Affairs, which responded by placing him under “forced monitoring.” A NYPD lieutenant later confiscated his notes, and his father warned him of impending retaliation.

Police obtained a key to his apartment by claiming he was suicidal, entered, and handcuffed him to his bed, preventing him from calling for help. He was taken to Jamaica Hospital’s psychiatric ward, where he was held against his will for six days. Upon release, he sued the NYPD and the hospital, and his allegations were later vindicated by the Village Voice.

8 The USSR’s Critics

The Soviet Union notoriously used psychiatry to silence dissent. In the 1960s and ’70s, officials invented diagnoses such as “delusion of reformism” and “sluggish schizophrenia” to label critics as mentally ill. Writer Valery Tarsis, after smuggling his anti‑government novel The Bluebottle abroad, was deemed insane and confined to a Soviet mental hospital for eight months, where he penned the autobiographical novel Ward 7.

Poet Joseph Brodsky suffered a similar fate in 1963, accused of a “parasitic way of life.” He endured forced tranquilizer injections and cold‑water immersion, spending 18 months in an asylum.

7 Pain Medication Side Effects

In 1993, Nebraska resident John Montin took prescription pain medication for chronic back pain, which triggered a temporary psychosis. In a confused state, he knocked on a rural home’s door, claiming ancestral ownership. Conflicting police reports described an 11‑hour shootout; at trial, the homeowners allegedly threatened him with shotguns, prompting Montin to hide in a ditch.

Although the jury cleared him of attempted murder and other charges, they found him “by reason of insanity” based on police accounts, leading to his involuntary commitment. The medication’s effects wore off, but the psychiatric staff never re‑evaluated him. Montin remained institutionalized for 20 years until a doctor finally reassessed him, declared him sane, and released him. He later sued the hospital for $33 million.

6 Anti‑Segregation Activist

Clennon Washington King Jr., a history professor at Alcorn State University, championed desegregation in 1950s Mississippi. After writing letters urging school integration, he faced threats, attempted to enroll his child in an all‑white school, and later applied to the University of Mississippi—an institution that barred Black students.

University officials labeled his efforts as “crazy,” resulting in his involuntary commitment. His brother secured his release after a 12‑day stay. Two years later, James Meredith succeeded where King could not, becoming the first Black student at Ole Miss.

5 The Surveiled Honors Student

Sophia Chinemerem Eze, a Nigerian international honors student at Brooklyn College, suspected her landlord of installing a hidden camera in her bedroom and defaming her online. She reported these concerns to campus security and a psychiatrist, but received no assistance. Despite having no mental‑health history, school officials forced her into an ambulance and transferred her to Kings County Hospital’s psychiatric ward without consent.

Eze was involuntarily committed for two weeks, during which she was barred from completing her final exams. After release, she transferred out of Brooklyn College and sued the mental‑health facility, winning $110 000, while also filing a lawsuit against the college.

4 China’s Dissidents

China, like the USSR, has a history of labeling dissenters as mentally ill. Farmer Xu Lindong, with only a fourth‑grade education, helped a neighbor petition for land ownership. After his petitions were rejected, authorities deemed his activism insane, committing him to a mental hospital where he endured 54 electro‑shock treatments, forced restraints, and medication.

Lindong attempted suicide three times and spent 6.5 years in two facilities before a journalist exposed his case, leading to his release. Similar cases include Xu Wu, a former security guard who faced four years of involuntary commitment after a wage dispute.

3 Homosexuality As A Mental Illness

Before the 20th century, psychiatry classified many non‑conforming behaviors as mental disorders, including homosexuality. The American Psychiatric Association listed it as a disorder until 1973. In 1991, 14‑year‑old Lyn Duff publicly came out as a lesbian. Her mother, rejecting her identity, placed her in Rivendell Psychiatric Center in Utah, where conversion therapy was attempted.

Hospital staff forced Duff to watch lesbian pornography while smelling ammonia—a Pavlovian technique—to “cure” her. She endured psychotropic drugs, hypnosis, and solitary confinement for 168 days. She escaped in May 1992, fled to San Francisco, and successfully terminated her mother’s parental rights, later being adopted by a lesbian couple.

2 Ex‑Muslim Nigerian

Mubarak Bala, a former Muslim from Nigeria, publicly renounced Islam, prompting his family to label him mentally ill. The first doctor found no signs of illness, but a second doctor, persuaded by the family, diagnosed his atheism as a “side effect” of personality change. He was involuntarily committed and drugged for 18 days.

While inside, Bala used Twitter and email to plead for help. A humanist charity intervened, securing his release. Post‑release, he faced death threats and went into hiding.

1 The First Hand‑Washing Doctor

In the 19th century, Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian physician, observed that doctors moved from dead patients directly to maternity wards without washing their hands, causing high infant mortality. He advocated rigorous hand‑washing, sparking outrage among colleagues who accused him of absurdity.

After being dismissed from Vienna General Hospital, Semmelweis fell into poverty and depression. In 1865, he was committed to an asylum, where workers violently beat him when he demanded release. He died at 47 from a blood infection.

Two decades later, Louis Pasteur’s germ theory validated Semmelweis’s recommendations, leading to widespread hand‑washing practices that dramatically reduced infant mortality. The “Semmelweis reflex” now describes the tendency to reject new ideas that challenge established norms.

It’s generally agreed that ghosts, if they indeed exist, were once living, breathing human beings. And, unfortunately, human beings are more than capable of committing crime. So it may follow that ghosts also seek to transgress against their (former) fellow men. In this top 10 crimes list we examine ten alleged offenses that allegedly sprang from beyond the veil. True ghostly perpetrators or just garden‑variety criminals trying to dodge justice? You be the judge.

10 Ghost Indecent Exposure

Imagine walking into your own living room only to discover two translucent figures locked in a passionate embrace. That’s exactly what Dianne Carlisle of Euclid, Ohio claims happened in her house. According to her, the apparitions were not shy; they were clearly copulating, complete with the lady’s high‑heeled shoes visible in the spectral tableau. Dianne isn’t new to eerie encounters—her late sister once left a voicemail that simply read “I love you,” and she’s spotted phantoms in mirrors and even seen them playing with her daughter, De’Onna. The ghostly lovers were caught in the act by her four‑year‑old granddaughter, Kimora, who was fiddling with a cell phone when she saw the scene. Dianne, bewildered, exclaimed, “I’ve never seen anything like this… I mean, ghosts still have feelings? They’re having sex?” She adds that the paranormal activity hasn’t waned; if anything, it’s gotten more frequent.

9 Ghost Theft

Former police officer Joseph Hughes of Mount Gilead, Ohio, found himself on the wrong side of the law in 2011 when a massive theft case landed on his doorstep. He claimed the stolen items—air conditioners, a generator, and other goods stashed in his basement—were placed there by a ghost. Hughes told the court, “It sounds ridiculous, but we believed there was some kind of paranormal presence in the basement.” Prosecutors were skeptical, and despite his spectral defense, Hughes was convicted on 18 of 20 counts. The courtroom drama left many wondering whether a ghost could really be a mastermind thief.

8 Ghost Vandalization

Lisa and Phil Rigley of Clifton, Nottingham, installed home cameras after a spate of mysterious attacks on their vehicles. In the dead of night—around 1:30 a.m. on August 1st, 2012—a camera captured a glowing white orb, resembling a child spirit wearing a hoodie, leaping over the roofs of their cars. Phil, a self‑confessed skeptic, admitted, “I am cynical about ghosts because I don’t believe in them but this footage is strange.” Lisa echoed his astonishment, describing the apparition as a four‑ or five‑year‑old child. Their dog, normally quick to bark at intruders, remained silent, adding to the mystery. Though no physical damage was found, the Rigleys decided not to pursue legal action against the spectral vandal.

7 Ghost Harassment

A Saudi Arabian family grew so exasperated by unseen torment that they sued the “genie” they believed was pestering them. The alleged spectral harassment included threatening voicemails, stolen mobile phones, and even stones hurled at the children. The family’s legal battle pushed the courts to grapple with the difficulty of verifying a claim against an invisible, undead aggressor. While the case highlighted the challenges of prosecuting paranormal harassment, it also underscored how relentless, unseen bullying can drive a household to extreme measures.

6 Ghost Disorderly Conduct

In 2006, 18‑year‑old Thomas McGair of Glasgow, Scotland, was arrested after swearing at police officers and causing a public disturbance. His defense? A disembodied pirate ghost. McGair shouted, “It wasn’t me, it was the pirate!” while being handcuffed. Sheriff Rajni Swanney expressed intrigue, and McGair’s lawyer, Andrew Kennedy, argued that his client was “in a state of agitation because he claims he had just seen a ghost.” Although McGair admitted to breaching the peace, he denied intoxication and insisted a spectral voice had spurred his outburst. His sentence was ultimately deferred, leaving the case open‑ended.

5 Ghost Assault

A French family from Mentque‑Nortbecourt reported that the spirits haunting their home escalated from eerie noises to outright physical assault. One family member suffered a facial injury after a chair was flung at him, while another was struck in the back by a soap tray. A visiting friend was hit by stones allegedly thrown by the angry entities. Local authorities took the claims seriously, evacuating the family to a nearby campsite and arranging temporary housing. The household enlisted a local church’s exorcist, who now makes regular visits in an attempt to cleanse the residence of its hostile apparitions.

4 Ghost Domestic Abuse

In Wisconsin, Michael West’s marital argument over finances turned violent, prompting his wife to call the police. She reported being beaten, punched, and strangled. When officers arrived, they found her in tears with blood staining the front of her shirt. Initially, West claimed his wife’s injuries resulted from repeated falls, but later altered his story, blaming a ghost for the assault. The police dismissed his supernatural explanation, charging him with strangulation, battery, and disorderly conduct. West was taken into custody, leaving his wife to seek medical care and presumably therapy.

3 Ghost Kidnapping

A burglar in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, claimed he was abducted by a “supernatural figure” after breaking into a home. The homeowner’s family returned from vacation to find the intruder dehydrated, exhausted, and unable to leave because the entity repeatedly pushed him to the ground. Police official Abdul Marlik Hakim Johar confirmed the victim’s condition, noting the homeowner’s shock at the scene. The would‑be thief was rescued and taken to hospital, likely reconsidering any future break‑ins after such an otherworldly ordeal.

2 Ghost Rape

Between 2005 and 2009, over one hundred women in the Manitoba Mennonite colony of Bolivia reported waking with genital injuries, severe headaches, and tangled rope in their hair, accompanied by semen stains on their sheets. The youngest victim was a three‑year‑old child. Initially, the isolated community dismissed the reports as overactive imaginations. As the assaults persisted, locals turned to a supernatural explanation, attributing the crimes to demons. Even after nine men were arrested and convicted in 2011 for drugging and raping households, the violence reportedly continued, reinforcing the belief that otherworldly forces were at play.

1 Ghost Murders

Naiyana Patel of East Asheville, North Carolina, was arrested in August 2011 for the brutal murder of her two daughters, eight‑year‑old Jiya and four‑year‑old Piya. According to investigators, Patel’s husband, Lalo, discovered his wife wielding a hatchet, striking herself while the children lay bloodied on the floor. Despite frantic 911 calls, Jiya was already dead and Piya later succumbed to her injuries at a hospital. When questioned, Patel claimed the “ghost killed her children,” insisting she didn’t want to live and refusing medical treatment for her self‑inflicted wounds. Lt. Wallace Welch, interim police chief, described the incident as a “terrible, terrible incident.”

When we talk about 10 forgotten atrocities of World War II, the saying goes that history is written by the victors, and that holds very true when it comes to World War II. It is often referred to as the good war, with the Allies depicted as the shining white knights who came to save the entire world from the evils of Hitler and the Japanese. However, while the history books tend to depict the Allies as almost saintly, the reality of the situation was often a lot more disturbing and a lot less flattering.

10 The Massive Bombing Campaign Against Civilian Targets In Japan

Most people know of the moment in history when the United States dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The famous argument for their use was that the Japanese were impossible to bring to surrender and that such a shocking display was the only thing that would prevent a land war that would last decades and cost millions of lives. However, well before the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US had already been bombing Japanese civilian cities on a regular basis to demoralize the enemy and had caused quite a death toll.

In fact, General Curtis LeMay, who ordered the attacks, was of the mind that the Japanese might not actually surrender until they were pretty much all wiped out. It was for this reason that he decided the bombing campaigns of regular Japanese cities were not enough and that the US needed to go for one of their most major cities and do something drastic.

On March 9, 1945, he carried out his plan and ordered an air raid on Tokyo itself, but this was no normal bombing run. The bombers were dropping napalm cylinders and petroleum jelly to firebomb the entire city. More than 40 square kilometers (15 mi²) of city was burned to ruin, with many melted people stacked on top of each other. It was a horrific sight, with at least 100,000 civilians killed. General LeMay even remarked once that the United States may have killed more people firebombing Tokyo than they did in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined and admitted that he would have likely been charged with war crimes if his side had lost.

9 Russian Soldiers Raped Women After Liberating Poland From The Nazis

Russia certainly doesn’t have the best reputation among the Allies today and was always the more dangerous part of the faction, but the country was basically essential to stopping Hitler. They not only slowed his advance but came roaring back, pushing across the territory Germany had taken and eventually straight on to Berlin itself. The Russian soldiers were exhausted and demoralized after so much fighting, and with society breaking down around them in many ways, they found it fairly easy to revert to primitive behaviors. While some of this only took the form of looting, the amount of rape that went on is incredibly disturbing. To make matters worse, Stalin actually approved of his soldiers raping enemies—he believed that it was a great way to psychologically destroy them.

There wasn’t just revenge rapes against Germans in the major cities. The Red Army at the time was known for liberating camps in countries such as Poland and then raping all of the female victims. After so much horrific fighting, many of these men were only thinking about their basic instincts and also felt that they should be able to take what they want, considering how much of a favor they were doing Europe by liberating it from the Nazis.

8 Operation Paperclip Was Probably Even Worse Than You Already Thought

Not everyone knows it by name, but everyone knows the basics of what Operation Paperclip was. During World War II, the United States and many others had been eying the Germans’ technology and all the various things they were working on and desired to gain the Nazis’ scientific secrets. When the war ended, they found that the Nazis were working on many things they hadn’t even imagined, such as nerve agents and a weaponized form of bubonic plague. Instead of trying to destroy all the research on such horrible things, the US decided they needed these scientists for themselves.

The goal was to bring almost 90 German scientists into the United States, whitewash their past a bit, and get them to put their scientific knowledge to work for the US. Now, some may think this wasn’t really that bad, as they were just scientists and possibly following orders. However, these were not nice men. Some of them knew full well how the concentration camps worked and would personally handpick people to slave themselves to death on their projects—just to enjoy the cruelty of it. Others were, as we mentioned, working on chemical warfare and similarly terrible things, making it hard to simply accept the excuse of “following orders.”

Unfortunately, most of these men grew old and grey working for the US government and never saw any real consequences for their actions.

7 US Soldiers Started Collecting Japanese Skulls

The atrocities of the Japanese during World II are very well-documented, and in the United States especially, their misdeeds are very well-known. Most people have heard of Japan’s Unit 731 as well as of actions like the Bataan Death March. The Japanese were known for incredibly brutal treatment of prisoners of war and in some cases were witnessed burying captured enemies alive.

However, war brings out the brutality in all of us, and as the campaign in the Pacific dragged on, US soldiers began to perform actions that many people today would find to be shocking and horrific. They started mutilating Japanese corpses and taking trophies, even going so far as to send them back home to civilians, who were actually thankful instead of disgusted. One of the most common things to take were ears because they were easy to cut off and haul away as a trophy, but skulls were the real coup de grâce.

Unfortunately, neither process for obtaining the skull was anything short of barbaric. They would either have to boil the head to get the skin off or leave it out long enough for ants to eat all the flesh, leaving the skull underneath intact. To be clear, the United States military leadership officially was against the practice and tried to discourage it, but the soldiers kept taking skulls anyway.

6 The Americans Sent Soviet Dissidents Back To Russia To Die

The world was so excited when World II ended and just so glad to move on that many people completely forgot about some of the worst atrocities that happened directly after the war. At the famous Yalta Conference, one of the less famous things promised was repatriation of citizens trapped in another Allied country’s territory or kept as their prisoners. This seemed like a good idea at the time, and everyone was riding high on their emotions, but before long, it became clear just how brutal and awful such a generalized policy could be.

The United States had a couple million people they had to send back, and many really didn’t want to go back to Soviet Russia. The Americans initially resorted to force, but this led to some suicides, so they started going for a sneakier approach, and the British followed suit. They actually started tricking people, telling them they were taking them somewhere else and then sending them back to the Soviet Union. Many of the people sent back were executed for desertion or other crimes, and others were sent to be worked to death at labor camps.

5 The US And The UK Used German POWs As Slaves Back Home

As World II went on, the British started to end up with a bit of a problem: Storing all of the German prisoners of war and feeding them was becoming an incredible strain on the system. The United States, to help out their ally, agreed to take many German POWs themselves to ease the burden. However, this presented its own issue. The Americans had to find a safe place to put them, and they also were going to be dealing with an increasing burden to care for all these prisoners. And while the Allies did some atrocious things, actual concentration camps of the sort Germany and Japan used were completely out of the question. The Allies were also concerned with actually following the Geneva Conventions, which did not allow for captured soldiers to be used as slaves.

However, both countries quickly decided to go ahead and start using their captured Germans for mass labor, as they had a labor shortage from all their own men fighting the war and had to now take care of hundreds of thousands of prisoners. To get around the fact that they couldn’t technically treat them as slaves, they paid the POWs an incredibly tiny wage. (In England, this amounted to a single shilling a day.) The laborers were often not fed all that well, either, although the governments would claim their own people were also doing without due to war rationing. While Allied POW camps weren’t the horror shows that Axis camps were, abuse still happened, and the Allies still used enemy soldiers as slaves in all but name.

4 Millions Of Ethnic Germans Were Deported To Germany After The War

When the war ended, most people think that things quickly became sunshine and roses. However, the aftermath of World II was incredibly ugly, and the victors didn’t always make decisions that kept the sanctity of human life in mind. In fact, there was a strong desire to get revenge on anyone involved. We all know that the Nuremberg trials brought justice to many Nazi war criminals, but the Allies didn’t save their anger for only the leadership and soldiers. After the war, they approved a plan to forcibly deport 12 to 14 million ethnic Germans back to the ruins of Germany from the various surrounding countries that they had been born in, including Poland.

Most Western history books don’t talk about this because of how shameful it turned out to be. Rough estimates say that about 500,000 civilians died as part of the largest forced migration in known history. To make matters worse, many of these citizens were actually placed into the remains of concentration camps around Germany and were forced to do hard labor as “reparations in kind” for what Germany had done to other countries around them. If this wasn’t bad enough, the vast majority of the people being forced to migrate were women, elderly people, and males under 16 years of age who had been too young to fight in the war.

The sad truth is that the concentration camps didn’t cease operation when the war ended but went on for years afterward, imprisoning ethnic Germans who likely had no say or part in Germany’s initial decision to militarize. In their quest for justice, in this particular case, all the Allies did is get revenge on the wrong people—the innocent.

3 Stalin’s Scorched‑Earth Policy

Because the Allies won, when World II atrocities are talked about, Western history books mostly mention the horrible things done by the Axis. Commonly mentioned is the scorched‑earth policy put in place by Hitler. Essentially, if the enemy were going to take a territory, the Germans would burn down all crops, destroy all buildings, and ruin any railroad or other infrastructure to make it harder for the enemy to advance. Many of Hitler’s own commanders thought this was insane and got away many times with actively resisting it. Their argument was that they could always take the place back later, and they felt it would be easier to rebuild if everything wasn’t torn to pieces.

However, while most people only think of this as a Nazi thing, Stalin also put a scorched‑earth policy in place. And his was likely much more brutal than the Nazis’. Stalin had an iron grip on his military, so there would be no ignoring his orders, and he wanted it done proper. He had little care for how it would impact his own civilians or how hard it would be to feed them or move them to a safe place. Stalin had special demolition battalions whose sole job was to destroy infrastructure, crops, and entire towns that they had to leave behind to the Germans.

Stalin’s scorched‑earth policy hit Ukraine especially hard, as it was fought over by Germans and Soviets, both using a similar strategy to prevent the other side from advancing. By the end of the war, a huge portion of Ukrainian infrastructure had been destroyed.

2 The Americans And The British Turned Away Many Jewish Refugees

Whenever you mention any of the bad things the Allies did in the war, or anything that we put up with from Stalin, people will always argue that while it was bad, it was outweighed by the fact that we stopped the Holocaust from going any further. In fact, many people seem to be under the impression that the Holocaust was the main reason the United States and many other countries entered the war. The truth is that the United States officially entered the war after Japan attacked and had only been unofficially helping countries like France and England because they were allies.

While there was news filtering out of Germany about what was happening, most countries were more concerned about protecting their own borders than anything, and we didn’t know the full extent of the Holocaust until after Germany had been defeated. The world didn’t fully realize the problem, and Jewish people already had a history of being unwelcome in many parts of Europe and around the world, which made it easier for Hitler to massacre so many of them.

The United States in particular, while acting the hero today, turned away possibly as many as hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees over the course of the war, refusing to increase their quotas for those regions despite the horrific circumstances. Unfortunately, the British weren’t much better. While they did take in some refugees, they actually made it harder for the Jewish people to use an agreement that allowed them to take refuge in what was then Palestine. Many Jews who couldn’t make it to Palestine or into the US ended up being taken in by other European countries. Many of these countries then fell to Germany, putting the Jewish refugees right back in the arms of Hitler. Most died in the Holocaust.

1 Canadian Troops Burned Down An Entire Town In Revenge

Today, Canadians are known for being some of the nicest people on the entire planet. They take in loads of refugees with much less red tape than most countries, and their main national fault is apologizing too much—something they keep apologizing for and thus perpetuating the cycle. However, as previously mentioned, war brings out the brutality in all of us, and Canada was no exception. Near the end of World II, part of the Canada Corps were fighting off some of the last German resistance and ended up in a pitched battle near a town called Friesoythe—home to about 4,000 German civilians.

While they were advancing on Friesoythe to mop things up, the Canadians’ leader was killed in the midst of battle. An erroneous report went around that he was killed not by a German soldier but by a civilian sniper who had cowardly shot him in the back. The acting commander was so incensed that instead of taking the time to find out if it was true, he decided to take revenge on the entire town. Once the town was taken over and the population had fled, the Canada Corps set about burning it all to the ground.

Famous people, just like everyone else, make dumb mistakes. The only difference between those in the spotlight and your drunken, idiot uncle is the deluge of media coverage that accompanies these ill-advised blunders. Such is the price of fame. 

Here’s our top 10 list of celebs who made headlines for all the wrong reasons. 

10. Justin Bieber

In the early morning hours of January 23, 2014, Miami Beach police allegedly spotted two exotic sports cars drag racing down a residential street. One of the vehicles, a yellow Lamborghini Spyder, was driven by 19-year-old Justin Bieber accompanied by model Chantal Jeffries. After failing a field sobriety test, the Canadian pop star was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, resisting arrest without violence, and driving with an expired license.

According to the police report, Bieber’s entourage (which included his father) used several SUVs to block traffic, creating a drag strip for the singer to race his friend Khalil Amir Sharieff in a red Ferrari. The arresting officers estimated the cars were speeding at approximately 60 miles-per-hour in a 30 MPH zone. A toxicology test later revealed marijuana and Xanax in Bieber’s system.

The teen idol spent just under 10 hours in custody before being released on a $2,500 bond. He later recalled his harrowing ordeal in an interview, stating, “It was really cold. That was the worst part about it.” Bieber eventually reached a plea agreement in which the state agreed to drop the DUI charge in exchange for him pleading guilty to careless driving and resisting arrest. He also paid a $500 fine and was ordered to attend a 12-hour anger management course.  

9. Nicole Richie

Next up in our lineup involves another pint-sized offender who ran afoul of the law behind the wheel. In 2006, Nicole Richie, the waifish daughter of legendary singer Lionel Richie, drove her Mercedes-Benz SUV the wrong way on the Ventura Freeway just north of Los Angeles. Like her gal pal, Paris Hilton, she was arrested and charged with driving under the influence. Richie later admitted to smoking weed and popping Vicodin before hitting the road. 

The Simple Life co-star was sentenced to four days in jail at the Century Regional Detention Center in Lynwood, California, and fined $2,048. It was her second DUI conviction in three years. Due to overcrowding, she only served a little over an hour of actual hard time before being released. She then enrolled in a mandatory 18-month anti-drinking driver education program. 

8. Jim Morrison

As the lead singer of The Doors, Jim Morrison compiled an extensive arrest record before his death in 1971, thus earning permanent membership into the infamous “27 Club.” However, his first run-in with the law pales in comparison to the wild drug and alcohol fuelled shenanigans that marked his brief but colorful career.

While attending a football game at Florida State, Morrison stole an umbrella and a police officer’s helmet from a squad car. The Tallahassee Police Department charged him with “disturbing the peace by being drunk,” resisting arrest, and petty larceny. 

7. Eugene Robinson

Most athletes try to get a good night’s sleep to ensure peak performance — especially before playing in the Super Bowl. The Atlanta Falcons’ Eugene Robinson took a different approach, spending the night in jail after being arrested for solicitation of a prostitute from an undercover cop.

Despite his arrest, Robinson still suited up against the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXXIII. He probably should have stayed home and watched it on TV instead. The two-time All-Pro safety played dismally as the AFC champs romped to a 34-19 victory.

Robinson, a devout Christian, had recently received the Athletes in Action/Bart Starr Award, given annually to a player “who best exemplifies outstanding character and leadership in the home, on the field and in the community.” He later returned the award.

6. Robert Downey Jr.

Coming home late at night and passing out is usually not a crime. Unless it happens to be in your neighbor’s house, which is where Robert Downey Jr. found himself on the night of July 16, 1996, in Malibu, California. The incident led to criminal charges of trespassing and more jail time, but the troubled actor soon faced much bigger problems while in the grips of severe drug and alcohol addiction.

Few movie stars have endured such a lengthy stretch of substance abuse, arrests, rehab, and relapse — only to end up as the world’s highest-paid actor. But Downey, who began acting at the age of five, is no mere mortal. His perseverance and talents ultimately won out, resulting in a string of box office hits in roles, including the blockbuster Iron Man franchise. 

5. Plaxico Burress 

Possessing an unlicensed gun in New York carries some of the stiffest penalties in the country. NFL receiver Plaxico Burress learned this the hard way — and made the situation even worse when he accidentally shot himself in the leg at a nightclub in Manhattan.

Although the former Giants’ star would recover from the self-inflicted wound, Burress spent 20 months locked up at Rikers Island for his felonious fumble. He eventually returned to the gridiron in 2011 (this time in a Jets uniform) and went on to win the Comeback Player of the Year award.

As for that now-infamous nightclub shooting, Burress had this to say: “The stairway was narrow and dark and everything was black…I could barely see, and I guess I missed a step and my foot slipped. My gun came unhooked from my belt and went sliding down my right pant leg. My instant reaction was to catch it before it hit the floor, and I reached down with my right hand to grab it. And I guess my finger hit right on the trigger because it went off.”

4. Tim McGraw & Kenny Chesney

The old adage “You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy” can be applied to not one but two Nashville crooners in 2000. Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney were arrested in Buffalo after Chesney rode away with an Erie County deputy’s horse. McGraw and his manager Mark Russo then allegedly attacked other Sheriff’s Deputies who tried to stop Chesney from his galloping joy ride.

Both singers had performed earlier in the day at the George Strait Country Music Festival at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park, NY. Chesney, McGraw, and Russo were arrested, arraigned, and released on bail.Local authorities charged Chesney with disorderly conduct, but McGraw was ultimately charged with a felony for assaulting a police officer who suffered minor injuries. 

A year later, all three men involved were found not guilty. According to Chesney, the ‘horsing around’ had been a misunderstanding that began when the daughter of a Sheriff’s Department Captain gave Chesney permission to sit on her father’s horse. “Unfortunately, what was meant to be a totally innocent and fun gesture, was blown way out of proportion,” Chesney said. “Tim McGraw and I have been friends for a very long time. When he saw me in danger of being harmed, he simply came over to help out his friend.”

3. Conor McGregor

The trend of celebrity-branded booze continues to flood the marketplace with a wide range of products, including Trump Wine, Absinthe Mansinthe, and Dennis Rodman’s Bad Ass Vodka. In 2018, former UFC champion Conor McGregor tossed his hat into the ring with “Proper No. 12 Whiskey” — a name that has nothing to do with the spirit’s vintage but rather the postal code in Crumlin, Dublin 12 where the fighter was born and raised. The launch would result in a flurry of brutal reviews and a well-publicized bar room punch.

On April 6, 2019, the Irishman insisted on pouring free shots of his whiskey to patrons inside Dublin’s Marble Arch pub. But when a 50-year-old customer refused, McGregor slugged him. The MMA headliner was charged with assaulting Desmond Keogh and slapped with a €1,000 fine. McGregor later bought the pub and promptly barred Keogh from the premises.

2. Paul Reubens

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0avQQ1T8ASY

Best known for his wildly popular character “Pee-wee Herman,” Paul Reubens enjoyed tremendous success at both the box office and on TV throughout the 1980s. However, his career took a sudden nosedive in 1991 after being arrested for indecent exposure at an adult theater in Sarasota, Florida. In addition to providing grist for the tabloid mill, his five knuckle shuffle also yielded a slew of jokes, such as: What’s Pee-wee Herman’s favorite meal? Stroganoff. 

Reubens pleaded no contest to the charge and agreed to 75 hours of community service. He would later earn critical praise in various projects, including roles on Murphy Brown, Reno 911, and The Blacklist. In 2009, Reubens resurrected his bow-tied, man-child alter ego with a successful stage show and five years later starred in the Netflix original film, Pee-wee’s Big Holiday.

1. Dennis Hopper

The sleepy town of Taos, New Mexico, is renowned for its picturesque Sangre de Cristo Mountains and thriving arts community. The rural setting also served as the longtime home of Dennis Hopper, who once shot a tree with a .357 Magnum, having mistaken it for a grizzly bear. 

According to biographer Tom Folsom, Hopper had been hallucinating after taking some LSD he’d won in a late-night poker game. Local authorities charged the actor/director with reckless driving, failure to report an accident, and leaving the scene. Coincidentally, the 1975 bust landed Hopper in the same jail used during the filming of his seminal counter-culture movie, Easy Rider. He later pleaded guilty and paid a fine.

The notorious Hollywood rebel somehow managed to survive decades of drug and alcohol abuse, and several troubled marriages, before finding sobriety in the late 1980s. In addition to his role as “Billy” in Easy Rider, in which he directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Terry Southern, Hopper portrayed several other iconic characters in films such as Apocalypse Now, Blue Velvet, Hoosiers, and True Romance. He also kept busy as a prolific photographer, painter, and sculptor. 

Shortly before his death from prostate cancer in 2010, Hopper was honored with a well-earned star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.