TIL of the Donner Party who were a group of pioneers including women and children who had to resort to cannibalism after an early snowfall cut off their destination, just one mountain pass over. (en.wikipedia.org)

submitted 1 week ago by tetris11@lemmy.ml to c/todayilearned@lemmy.ml

8 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 4 points 6 days ago

AFAIK everyone in the US learns about this as part of their middle school curriculum.

[-] tetris11@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 days ago

How is it taught out of interest? I feel like there are many lessons to learn from it, though mostly that none of us are above our baser nature when the situation is dire

[-] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 2 points 5 days ago

We're talking about maybe a day of my life over 20 years ago lol. I remember it being taught that it happened, but I honestly don't remember if they emphasized how desperate for survival they were. I think it's easy for some Americans to associate "Donner Party" with "crazy man-eating lunatic cult of the wild west" due to only retaining surface-level information on the topic.

[-] GrumpyDuckling@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 days ago

Usually when they cover western expansion. However, U.S. history taught in school is mostly propoganda.

load more comments (1 replies)

this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2025

40 points (95.5% liked)

Today I learned

7585 readers

1 users here now

founded 4 years ago

MODERATORS

sonder@lemmy.ml