The Injustice of History: 18 People Wrongly Condemned as Villains

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Captain Hazelwood of the Exxon Valdez. He is often pictured on the helm of the Exxon swaying drunkenly going full throttle into the reef talking like a "pirate."

What actually happened. Valdez's critical navigation equipment was out of commission, faxs sent to Exxon and Exxon told them to sail instead. Coast guard budget cuts removed vessel tracking in the area. Green and tired crew was on duty, request was made to relief crew. It was denied.

XO who was on Conn at the time was inexperienced on the passage and neither requested pilotage. While Hazelwood did drink that day he was not in command of the conn at the time and was in his quarters resting. Hazelwood made a comment that "He needed a drink." Because of how upset he was over the situation. Exxon's PR paid off the media to blame Hazelwood.

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Ty Cobb. The stories about him being racist were lies spread in a rag, and told by a guy who made up a bunch of lies to sell a book, and Cobb tried to sue him before he died He never stabbed a black waiter. The three black people he got into a fight with at a bar were actually white. He was never a member of the KKK, and actually supported integration in baseball and was participated in the opening of a Negro League ballpark. He was a big fan of Willie Mays.

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Niccolo Machiavelli. Machiavelli didn't invent the idea of lying or ruthlessness. He made an observation about what worked and tried to get a new gig. Now his name is synonymous with "heartless manipulator".

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Sinead O'Connor. She was trying to warn us on SNL about the Catholic kiddie-diddling problem, and we shat on her for it. The world lost their shit. She was demonized and professionally blacklisted for years, booed to hell at concerts, had her intelligence and sanity questioned, and was made into an international punchline. Even SNL disavowed her actions and wouldn't rebroadcast it. And....turns out she was 1000% right.

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Pharaoh Cleopatra, she was actually a pretty good ruler with her focusing more on her nation than just abusing her position for her own benefit, there’s even some records saying that she wasn’t even all that beautiful, she was however very intelligent with stuff like how she learned around 10 different languages.

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Stella Liebeck, The McDonald’s coffee lady - the woman who sued mcDonalds after she spilled coffee on her lap received 3rd degree burns in her pelvic area. She was hospitalized for 8 days and required a couple years of rehabilitation. The media jumped on the story making it a poster case for frivolous lawsuits.

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Herbert Hoover. He was a lifelong humanitarian and had a reputation as an excellent administrator, which led him to win the Presidency of the U.S in 1928. But less than eight months after he took office, the world was rocked by one of the worst economic depressions in history.

It was also during Hoover’s Presidency that mass media like radio and newsreels started spreading wildly, and Hoover was a breathtakingly awful speaker with poor public relations skills. So Hoover got trounced in the next election by FDR’s abundant optimism and wide toothy grin, and was forever tarred in history as being the uncaring standoffish bureaucrat who ignored all the hardships of the Great Depression from his White House perch.

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Lorena Bobbitt. She became such a meme and was always blamed for attacking her husband “unprovoked” but she was defending herself from a serial rapist and abuser. He literally had raped her earlier that same day. In the same spirit, Monica Lewinsky didn’t deserve any of the hatred she received either. She was so young and she was taken advantage of by the literal most powerful man in the world, but somehow HER name ended up labeling the scandal.

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John Adams. Usually written off as a bad president for the Alien and Sedition Acts; which infringed on freedoms protected in the Bill of Rights. But if the protection of rights is the metric for a good president, then how do we interpret the systematic denying of these same rights to an entire section of society, ie the enslavement of black Americans. Something which Adams and his son never partook in, and to varying degrees opposed.

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William Thomas Green Morton died broke defending his discovery of anesthesia. He was a dentist and didn’t get much respect from the doctors at the time. IMO one of the most important medical discoveries.

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Janet Jackson deserved exactly none of the backlash she received for that Half Time Show disaster. Everyone acted like her breast being exposed was an intentional part of the act despite how obviously it fucking wasn't. Meanwhile, Justin Timberlake gave the most bare minimum "I'm sorry you got offended" bullshit ever, but he gets no punishment because he's a sexy white dude.

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In brave heart, William Wallace gets betrayed by Robert the Bruce which never happened, he was loyal to the end.

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Neville Chamberlain was widely hated in the UK after the Britain went to war with Germany because of his policy of appeasement towards the Nazi-run Germany when he was Prime Minister, even being one of the central people who allowed Germany to annex Czechoslovakia, which blew up in his face when the Germans invaded Poland and triggered the Second World War.

He was forced to resign as Prime Minister less than a year into the war due to revolt from the Labour and Liberal parties and handed the reigns over to Winston Churchill, who was himself forced out of office after the first war because of fears that Germany would re-arm. However, due to British laws about disclosing classified documents thirty years after their being sealed, it emerged that Britain couldn't risk Germany's anger during the Czech debacle as they were thoroughly unprepared for war - Chamberlain delayed the inevitable which gave the allies a significant helping hand when the war finally did happen.

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Steve Bartman was a cubs fan who just wanted to catch a foul ball. After the Steve Bartman incident, he became universally hated by his team and fan base.

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Dr. Kevorkian is history since he’s dead so ima have to go with him. People should absolutely be able to make the decision about end of life care and I think with time people will not only start thinking differently that conviction will be over turned.

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Julius Caesar. He was no angel but he wasn't executed for trying to turn Rome into a dictatorship. In fact, it was actually because he was a political reformer who wanted to tax the wealthy landowners. The senate had always been very violent to reformers, as most of it was made up of wealthy landowners. They tried to rewrite history to make reformers like Tiberius seem evil for trying to grant rights to workers and small landowners, while death squad leaders who killed anyone advocating reform such as Lucius Sulla have been paraded by historians.

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Richard Jewell. Security guard at the Atlanta Olympic who was blamed for the bombing. He had to go into hiding… made a villain by incompetent people… For YEARS… finally exonerated and dies shortly afterward. He was mocked for moving in his with mother. He and his mom did an interview on Oprah some time later. They said it was because his mom was sick and he was taking care of her. Its really not that uncommon for middle aged people to move in with aging parents.

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In the film Titanic the character Murdoch killed someone, took bribes and generally came across as a right shit. He was a real life person (William McMaster Murdoch) who was actually a hero and saved many lives. His living relatives were so disgusted that the VP of Fox travelled to Dalbeattie to personally apologise and presented a £5000 donation to Dalbeattie High School to boost the school's William Murdoch Memorial Prize.