- 1 year ago
From tragic sacrifices to unimaginable injustices, history has seen countless devastating moments that changed lives forever. Join us as we explore some of the most gut-wrenching events from women's history that remind us of humanity's darkest chapters and the importance of never forgetting these stories.
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00:00I turned to one of the girls who was putting on her hat and said,
00:03where does that smoke come from?
00:06Welcome to Ms. Mojo.
00:08And today, we're looking at some of the most gut-wrenching moments from history,
00:11focusing specifically on women's history.
00:14Be warned, some of these topics are beyond gruesome,
00:17making this video not for the faint of heart.
00:19The women myself with two daughters,
00:22these are not the kinds of things that can continue to happen.
00:26Emily Davison's death.
00:28In the United Kingdom, women only gained the same voting rights as men in 1928.
00:33This achievement took decades of struggle, with the suffragettes spearheading the cause.
00:38There is something in this movement that no power of opposition,
00:43whether of the government or the people, can stop.
00:46One of the most famous freedom fighters was Emily Davison,
00:49who fought hard for her right to vote.
00:51This included smashing windows, burning postboxes, and even planting bombs.
00:56She was a wild card, who frequently put herself in harm's way against her superior's will.
01:01It brought the demands of the suffragettes to light,
01:05but it also showed the extent to which they were willing to make a sacrifice
01:08for what we considered to be just a very basic vote.
01:12And it shows that women at the time, British women,
01:15had to really fight to get changes to British parliamentary democracy.
01:19Her final act was walking onto the track of a horse race,
01:22where she was knocked down and killed by King George V's horse.
01:25Her sacrifice made headlines,
01:27and she'll be forever remembered for her remarkable bravery.
01:30The suffragette leadership had not been party to her plan,
01:34but they took charge of her funeral,
01:36a spectacular event watched by millions.
01:40Lady Jane Grey's execution.
01:42Edward VI was the short-lived heir of Henry VIII,
01:45and following his untimely death,
01:47his cousin Lady Jane Grey ascended to the throne.
01:49Is this a dream come true for our reluctant couple?
01:52Or a nightmare incarnate?
01:55I'm sure everything will work out just fine.
02:00This greatly upset Edward's devoutly Catholic sister Mary,
02:03whom he had removed from the line of succession.
02:06Per Edward's will, Jane was all but forced to take the crown
02:09when she was only 16 or 17,
02:11effectively becoming a Protestant puppet queen.
02:14Their assumption that Jane would bend to their bidding was mistaken.
02:21Their belief that Guilford would become king was wrong.
02:26And their certainty that Mary would simply go quietly
02:30was the biggest miscalculation of all.
02:33Mary was able to marshal support and deposed her after only nine days.
02:37Instead of sparing Jane and allowing her to become a Protestant rallying point,
02:41Mary had her executed.
02:42The most haunting part of her story is that when blindfolded on the brink of death,
02:46Jane struggled to find the execution block.
02:49Where is it?
02:51Where is it?
02:57What do I do?
02:59Sophie Scholl's Execution
03:01Nazi Germany is regarded as one of the most evil regimes in human history.
03:05As you might expect,
03:06not all its citizens were happy with the state of affairs.
03:09Many fought the good fight,
03:11no matter how overwhelming the odds.
03:13Sophie Scholl was one of these heroes.
03:15By 1942,
03:16they had grown skeptical of Nazi propaganda,
03:19and it was hard for them to understand
03:21what their generation was supposed to be fighting and dying for.
03:25And so they felt that Hitler and the Nazis
03:27were ruining the country that they loved.
03:30Sophie was a leader of the White Rose,
03:32a non-violent resistance group
03:33who called for an end to the Nazi regime.
03:35Unfortunately, a janitor turned them over to the Gestapo,
03:39and they were put on trial.
03:41It was far from fair,
03:53with Sophie and her brother being sentenced to death.
03:56They were executed by guillotine
03:57when Sophie was only 21 years old.
04:00The tragedy of Anne Frank.
04:05Our next entry is yet another victim of the Nazi regime.
04:08I can do anything.
04:09I'm very handy.
04:10No privileges for criminals of S-baraks.
04:14I ask what crime were accused.
04:17Failure to report when ordered.
04:19Anne Frank was born German and Jewish,
04:21but fled to the Netherlands after Hitler took control.
04:24In 1942, she and her family were forced into hiding,
04:28where Anne famously spent her time writing in a diary.
04:31Since you've never had to disappear,
04:33I'll try to give you an idea of our life.
04:36I call our hiding place the Secret Annex.
04:39After two years,
04:40they were discovered by the Gestapo and arrested.
04:43Frank was sent to a concentration camp,
04:45where she died of typhus only months short of liberation.
04:48Her father, Otto,
04:49the only surviving member of their group in hiding,
04:51would go on to publish her diary,
04:53allowing millions to understand the tragedy of the Holocaust
04:56through Anne's personal experience.
04:58Anne Frank's diary remains one of the most widely read books across the globe.
05:02It's been translated into over 60 languages,
05:05and over 30 million copies are in print.
05:07The world will never forget the story of Anne Frank and her family.
05:11Salem Witch Trials.
05:13Between 1692 and 1693 in Colonial Massachusetts,
05:17more than 200 people were accused of witchcraft.
05:2030 of them were found guilty,
05:21with 19 of them punished by hanging.
05:24Witch Trials weren't unique to the region.
05:26They were rampant in Europe,
05:28taking the lives of between 40,000 and 60,000 people.
05:31While some men were persecuted,
05:33most were older women.
05:35I saw Sarah Good with the devil.
05:37I saw Goody House born with the devil.
05:39I saw Bridget Bishop with the devil.
05:41I saw Goody House with the devil.
05:43I saw Goody Barrow with the devil.
05:45I saw Goody Good with the devil.
05:46I saw Goody House born with the devil.
05:48The trials reflected the period's extreme misogyny.
05:51When women were independent,
05:52outspoken,
05:53and just generally didn't fit with societal norms,
05:56they were viewed as threats.
05:57The porters come out and try to start mobilizing the villagers of Salem
06:01to try to put a stop to these witch trials.
06:04As they're trying to mobilize these villagers,
06:06subsequently,
06:0719 of their friends
06:09end up being accused of witchcraft.
06:11It was a hysteria-fueled nightmare,
06:13where anyone could have their life ruined in an instant.
06:16Afterward,
06:17participants admitted to fabricating evidence,
06:19but the damage had already been done,
06:21and innocent lives can't be brought back.
06:23I petition to your honors,
06:25not for my own life,
06:26for I know I must die,
06:28and my appointed time is set,
06:29but
06:29if it be possible,
06:32no more innocent blood may be shed.
06:34The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.
06:36The Industrial Revolution saw the rise of giant factories and mass production,
06:41but health and safety were rarely a priority.
06:43One tragic example was the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.
06:46Sewing machine operators faced a 14-hour workday,
06:50for $2 a day at most.
06:53And that was before bosses docked their pay
06:55for the needles,
06:56the thread,
06:57the electricity they used.
06:58In 1911,
07:00a garment factory in Manhattan caught fire.
07:02Amazingly,
07:03it was common practice to lock the building exits,
07:06along with stairwell doors,
07:07to prevent work breaks.
07:09Unfortunately,
07:09when the fire broke out,
07:11many of the workers were unable to escape.
07:13The fire was spreading faster now,
07:15feeding itself on piles of shirtwaists,
07:17wooden tables,
07:19even the fabric dust that hung in the air.
07:23The only precaution the Triangle owners had taken against this sort of disaster,
07:28a dozen red pails of water,
07:30sat impotent in the corners.
07:32123 women and 23 men died,
07:35not just from the fire,
07:37but also from jumping to their deaths.
07:39It was New York's deadliest industrial disaster.
07:41The tragedy at least helped to make fire safety a priority,
07:45but that came at a terrible cost.
07:47Rarely do you get an opportunity for such legislative reform,
07:51but women had to burn first in order for this to happen.
07:55The radium girls.
07:57Our next entry comes from a similar time period,
08:00when safety standards were non-existent,
08:02and workers were treated with little humanity.
08:04In the 1920s,
08:05female factory workers were paid to paint watches with radium.
08:09They were all told it was harmless,
08:10a despicable lie since radium is extremely radioactive.
08:14Stuff cures everything.
08:15Nausea,
08:16melancholy,
08:16impotence,
08:17ennui.
08:18Their bosses told them to use their lips to point their brushes,
08:21causing them to ingest lethal levels of the substance.
08:24It was a disgusting act of worker exploitation,
08:27especially since the owners and scientists avoided radium exposure.
08:31Everyone put down your brushes.
08:33Miss Cavallo.
08:34Oh my god, Bessie.
08:36An autopsy of Mary showed that there was radium in her bones.
08:40Joe and I were just examined.
08:42Miss Cavallo.
08:43You are sorely mistaken if you think you can continue working here.
08:47I quit.
08:48Everyone,
08:49you have to come to the doctor.
08:50Women had long been subject to this kind of treatment,
08:53as proven by the Match Girl strike in 1888.
08:55Workers protested unethical treatment and conditions,
08:59including the exposure to white phosphorus,
09:01which caused many to suffer from a painful ailment called Fosse Jaw.
09:04And they knew it.
09:06But they decided that profit mattered more than we did.
09:10You're coming with me.
09:12Shh.
09:13It ain't typhus that's killing us.
09:15It's the phosphorus.
09:16What we work with every day.
09:19Magdalene Laundries in Ireland.
09:21This isn't a prison.
09:22You can leave any time you want.
09:29But where would you go?
09:33Who would have you?
09:35In 19th century Britain,
09:36a quote,
09:37fallen woman was a woman thought to have fallen from grace.
09:40This originally meant sex workers,
09:42but extended to victims of sexual assault,
09:44orphans,
09:45or just anyone they didn't consider normal.
09:47In 18th century Ireland,
09:49Magdalene Asylums for these women,
09:51operated largely by the Catholic Church,
09:53were opened.
09:54Historians estimate they held about 30,000 women
09:57before they finally shut down in the 20th century.
10:00These are the earthly means to cleanse your very soul,
10:03to remove the stains of the sins you have committed.
10:06Here you may redeem yourself,
10:10and God willing,
10:11save yourself from eternal damnation.
10:13Women were placed there against their will,
10:15and forced to work unpaid,
10:17grueling hours in laundries.
10:19Some were trapped there for decades,
10:21essentially treated as prisoners.
10:23Ireland only closed its last Magdalene Laundry in 1996,
10:27marking a long overdue end to this abhorrent form of slavery.
10:31My life started to get a little bit better,
10:33and still the nightmares will always be there.
10:36What else will happen to us,
10:38hidden tunnels when the inspectors will come,
10:42and still haven't got justice,
10:44proper justice to this day.
10:45Forced sterilization of Indigenous women.
10:47I'm confident,
10:50based on what I've heard,
10:52and the discussions that I've had,
10:54that there are thousands throughout Canada.
10:57The U.S. and Canada's governments have had a long history
11:00of committing extreme injustices against Indigenous inhabitants.
11:04Some experts currently consider the colonization of America
11:07to have been a continental genocide.
11:09Around 90 to 95% of all Native Americans died
11:12between the 15th and 17th centuries.
11:15Many assume flagrant mistreatment stopped in the distant past,
11:18but governments were forcibly sterilizing Indigenous women
11:21well into the 1970s.
11:23We need to find out to what level,
11:25to how many, what are the numbers.
11:27The stats need to be exposed,
11:31because it's only then
11:32that the Canadian population will understand.
11:35Many of the procedures were done forcibly, without consent.
11:38Some studies found that between 1970 and 1976,
11:4225 to 50% of Native American women were sterilized.
11:46This form of eugenics was also extended
11:48to both Black and poor women.
11:50North Carolina sterilized over 7,600 people
11:54between the 1930s and 1970s,
11:5665% of whom were Black women.
11:59It's easy to assume all the horrors of colonialism
12:01happened centuries ago,
12:03but this is far from the truth.
12:05Before we continue,
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12:21Comfort Women of World War II
12:23During World War II,
12:24the Imperial Japanese Army
12:26enslaved hundreds of thousands of women
12:27to act as sex workers against their will.
12:30They came from both their conquered territories
12:43and Japan,
12:44with the majority from Korea.
12:46It was intended to reduce the spread of diseases
12:48and minimize sexual assault,
12:50but it had the opposite effect.
12:52Victims were called Comfort Women,
12:54although their lives were anything but comfortable.
12:56Following the war,
13:12the Japanese government
13:13tried to destroy all evidence,
13:15denied their existence,
13:16and refused to apologize.
13:18Eventually, they apologized in 1993,
13:21but many South Koreans
13:22found the apology lacking.
13:23Some government officials
13:24even deny they were inhumane, with Osaka's mayor calling for the destruction of comfort women
13:29statues. I want the emperor of Japan to come to us and get down on his knees in front of us
13:35and then reflect on what they've done and explain what actually happened. Let's lighten things up.
13:42What do you think is the most heartwarming moment from human history? Let us know in the comments
13:46below.
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