Shameful History of the US

September 1, 2025

Operation Southern Spear Strikes

Image by Unknown (Wikimedia Commons)

On September 1, 2025, the United States conducted airstrikes on an alleged drug smuggling speedboat off the coast of Venezuela as part of Operation Southern Spear. The operation was aimed at disrupting narcotics trafficking in the Caribbean. The strikes resulted in the destruction of the vessel and the deaths of its occupants, drawing international criticism and escalating tensions in the region.

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February 7, 2025

Gutting of USAID Budget

Image by Unknown (Wikimedia Commons)

In early 2025, the United States government enacted drastic budget cuts to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), signaling a significant shift in foreign policy. The reductions aimed to redirect funds towards domestic initiatives but drew criticism for potentially undermining global humanitarian efforts and diminishing U.S. influence abroad.

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January 23, 2025

Mass Deportations (Second Trump Administration)

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In the second term of the Trump administration, the U.S. government launched a large-scale deportation campaign. On January 23, 2025, ICE conducted its first major raids on sanctuary cities, marking the beginning of this policy.

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April 28, 2004

Abu Ghraib Torture and Prisoner Abuse

Image by U.S. Army (Wikimedia Commons)

Beginning in 2003, personnel of the United States Army and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) committed a series of human rights violations against detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. These violations included physical and sexual abuse, torture, rape, sodomy, and murder. The abuses came to widespread public attention following the publication of graphic photographs in April 2004, causing shock and outrage across the world and damaging the U.S.'s reputation.

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March 20, 2003

Invasion of Iraq

Image by U.S. State Department

A United States-led invasion that toppled the government of Saddam Hussein. The invasion was based on flawed intelligence claiming Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and posed an immediate threat. No stockpiles of WMDs were ever found.

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January 11, 2002

Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp

Image by U.S. Navy (Wikimedia Commons)

The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a United States military prison located within the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base on the coast of Cuba. Established in 2002, it has been widely criticized for indefinite detention without trial, the use of torture, and the denial of legal due process to detainees (many of whom were held for years without sufficient evidence). The camp has become a symbol of U.S. government overreach and human rights abuses in the War on Terror.

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1985 - 1987

Iran-Contra Affair

Image by White House / Reagan Library

A political scandal in the United States that occurred during the second term of the Reagan Administration. Senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to the Khomeini government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was the subject of an arms embargo, hoping to use the proceeds to fund the Contras in Nicaragua.

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1972 - 1974

Watergate Scandal

Image by By U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

A major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon that led to his resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's continuous attempts to cover up its involvement in the June 17, 1972, break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Washington, D.C. Watergate Office Building.

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June 17, 1971

War on Drugs

Image by Wikimedia Commons

A global campaign, led by the U.S. federal government, of drug prohibition, military aid, and military intervention, with the aim of reducing the illegal drug trade in the United States. It was famously declared by President Richard Nixon. The campaign has been widely criticized for its racist application, disproportionately targeting Black and Hispanic communities, and leading to the era of mass incarceration in the United States.

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May 4, 1970

Kent State Shootings

Image by John Filo (Wikimedia Commons)

The Kent State shootings, also known as the May 4 massacre, were the killings of four and wounding of nine other unarmed Kent State University students by the Ohio National Guard on May 4, 1970, in Kent, Ohio, 40 mi (64 km) south of Cleveland. The killings took place during a peace rally against the expanding involvement of the Vietnam War into neutral Cambodia by United States military forces as well as the National Guard presence on campus.

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December 4, 1969

Assassination of Fred Hampton

Image by Wikimedia Commons

Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, was assassinated in his sleep during a raid by the Chicago Police Department and the FBI.

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March 16, 1968

My Lai Massacre

Image by Ronald L. Haeberle

U.S. Army soldiers from the Americal Division murdered between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians in Sơn Mỹ village, South Vietnam. The massacre, which included women, children, and the elderly, was initially covered up by the military but later exposed by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, sparking global outrage and intensifying opposition to the Vietnam War.

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April 17, 1961

Bay of Pigs Invasion

Image by Panoramio (Wikimedia Commons)

The Bay of Pigs Invasion was a failed military invasion of Cuba undertaken by the CIA-sponsored paramilitary group Brigade 2506 on 17 April 1961. A counter-revolutionary military group (made up of mostly Cuban exiles who traveled to the United States after Castro's takeover, but also of some US military personnel), trained and funded by the CIA, Brigade 2506 fronted the armed wing of the Democratic Revolutionary Front (DRF) and intended to overthrow the increasingly communist government of Fidel Castro. Launched from Guatemala and Nicaragua, the invasion was defeated within three days by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, under the direct command of Castro.

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1956 - 1971

COINTELPRO

Image by Wikimedia Commons

COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) was a series of covert and illegal projects conducted by the FBI aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic American political organizations.

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February 9, 1950

McCarthyism

Image by United Press (Wikimedia Commons)

McCarthyism, also known as the Second Red Scare, was a political repression and persecution of left-wing individuals and a campaign spreading fear of alleged communist and Soviet influence on American institutions and of Soviet espionage in the United States during the late 1940s and 1950s. The term is named after U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, who led the campaign.

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August 6, 1945

Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Image by George R. Caron (Wikimedia Commons)

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the detonation of two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945 by the United States. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in armed conflict.

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1942 - 1946

Internment of Japanese Americans

Image by NARA

The forced relocation and incarceration in concentration camps of about 120,000 residents of Japanese ancestry by the US government following the attack on Pearl Harbor. The internment is considered one of the most atrocious violations of American civil rights in the 20th century.

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1934 - 1968

Redlining

Image by Home Owners' Loan Corporation

A discriminatory practice in which services (financial and otherwise) were withheld from potential customers who resided in neighborhoods classified as 'hazardous' to investment; these neighborhoods had significant numbers of racial and ethnic minorities and low-income residents.

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1932 - 1972

Tuskegee Syphilis Study

Image by National Archives

The U.S. Public Health Service study that observed the natural progression of untreated syphilis in African American men in Alabama for 40 years. Participants were not told they had syphilis and were denied treatment even after penicillin became the standard of care.

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May 31, 1921

Tulsa Race Massacre

Image by Unknown (Wikimedia Commons)

The Tulsa Race Massacre took place on May 31 and June 1, 1921, when mobs of white residents, some of whom were deputized and given weapons by city officials, attacked black residents and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It resulted in the destruction of more than 35 square blocks of the wealthiest black community in the United States, known as "Black Wall Street".

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November 10, 1898

Wilmington Massacre

Image by Unknown (Wikimedia Commons)

The Wilmington Massacre was a coup d'état and white supremacist massacre that occurred in Wilmington, North Carolina. A mob of 2,000 white men attacked the only black newspaper in the state, and murdered an estimated 60 to 300 people, overthrowing the legitimately elected local fusionist government. It is considered the only successful coup d'état in the history of the United States.

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May 18, 1896

Plessy v. Ferguson

Image by Russell Lee (Wikimedia Commons)

Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation laws for public facilities as long as the segregated facilities were equal in quality, a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal". The decision legitimized the many state laws re-establishing racial segregation that had been passed in the American South after the end of the Reconstruction era.

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January 17, 1893

Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom

Image by Unknown (Wikimedia Commons)

The overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom began on January 17, 1893, with a coup d'état against Queen Liliʻuokalani on the island of Oahu by subjects of the Hawaiian Kingdom, United States citizens, and foreign residents residing in Honolulu. The coup led to the end of the indigenous monarchy and the eventual annexation of Hawaii by the United States in 1898, despite protests from Native Hawaiians.

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December 29, 1890

Wounded Knee Massacre

Image by Trager & Kuhn (Wikimedia Commons)

The Wounded Knee Massacre was a domestic massacre of nearly three hundred Lakota people by soldiers of the United States Army. It occurred on December 29, 1890, near Wounded Knee Creek on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the U.S. state of South Dakota, following a botched attempt to disarm the Lakota camp.

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1882 - 1943

Chinese Exclusion Act

Image by Wikimedia Commons (The Chinese Must Go - Magic Washer)

The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers. It was the first law implemented to prevent all members of a specific ethnic or national group from immigrating. The act was initially intended to last for 10 years, but was renewed in 1892 and made permanent in 1902. It was not repealed until 1943 with the Magnuson Act.

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March 6, 1857

Dred Scott v. Sandford

Image by Wikimedia Commons (Portrait of Dred Scott)

Dred Scott v. Sandford was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court in which the Court held that the United States Constitution was not meant to include American citizenship for people of African descent, whether enslaved or free, and therefore they could not sue in federal court. The decision also argued that the ban on slavery in the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. The ruling is widely considered one of the worst in Supreme Court history and played a significant role in precipitating the American Civil War.

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September 18, 1850

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

Image by Unknown (Wikimedia Commons)

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern interests in slavery and Northern Free-Soilers. The Act required that all escaped enslaved people, upon capture, be returned to the enslaver and that officials and citizens of free states had to cooperate. Abolitionists nicknamed it the "Bloodhound Law" for the dogs that were used to track down people fleeing from slavery.

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1848 - 1920

Women's Suffrage

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For over a century after the nation's founding, women were legally denied the right to vote in the United States, rendering them without a political voice. The legal right of women to vote was established only after decades of struggle, first in various states and localities, sometimes on a limited basis, and then nationally in 1920 with the passing of the 19th Amendment.

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1838 - 1850

The Trail of Tears

Image by Nikater

The forced displacements of approximately 60,000 people of the "Five Civilized Tribes" between 1830 and 1850 by the United States government. The migration was marked by significant suffering, hunger, disease, and death.

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May 28, 1830

Indian Removal Act

Image by Unknown (Wikimedia Commons)

The Indian Removal Act was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830, authorizing the president to grant unsettled lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for Indian lands within existing state borders. A few tribes went peacefully, but many resisted the relocation policy. During the fall and winter of 1838 and 1839, the Cherokees were forcibly moved west by the United States government. Approximately 4,000 Cherokees died on this forced march, which became known as the "Trail of Tears".

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1619 - 1865

Slavery in the United States

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The legal institution of human chattel enslavement, primarily of Africans and African Americans, that existed in the United States of America from the country's founding in 1776 (and in the colonies that became the U.S. starting in 1619) until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1865.

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