20 Real-Life 'Villains' Who Were Actually the Heroes
History is written by the victors, and sometimes those victors can keep their narrative going for a long time. Authority changes, societal values change, and people change, so we need to make sure our "hero" and "villain" labels are up to date. Here are 20 real-life villains who are actually heroes.
Charles Littlejohn is a former IRS contractor who was sentenced to serve five years in prison for stealing confidential tax return information for many high-ranking government officials. Stealing is obviously a crime, but in this case, it feels like a victimless one. Unless of course, some of those government officials have some stuff to hide?
But no government has ever taken kindly to citizens leaking tarnishing information. Even our own. Just ask Edward Snowden. You can read about him, Littlejohn, and 18 other good guys who have been made to look like the villain.
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William Bligh has been treated rather shabbily by history, but in reality was a pretty remarkable man. He rose to admiral in the Royal Navy as a commoner with very few family connections and was hand-picked by Captain James Cook for his third Pacific voyage. After the mutiny on HMS Bounty many of Bligh's men remained loyal to him and they were set adrift in a life boat in the middle of the Pacific by Fletcher Christian and the rest of the mutineers. Essentially stranded in a large row boat, Bligh navigated over 2600 nautical miles of open ocean to Timor, having saved the lives of all but one of his men. -
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Gary Webb. Life and career destroyed for exposing the CIA. Not by the gov, weirdly, but by fellow journalists. -
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Larry Linville was spat on and had things thrown at him just for walking around living his daily life. He played Frank Burns, the main antagonist on MASH, but he was nothing like the man. His politics aligned with Alan Alda and Mike Farrell's (other MASH stars) far more - very very left leaning. One of the main reasons he left the show was that it felt like they were all bullying a genuinely mentally unwell person by the end of his run. -
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Iris Shun-Ru Chang, the woman who wrote the book on the Japanese atrocities in Nanjing during WWII. -
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Richard Jewell was a security guard who alerted police of a pipe bomb in a backpack during the Centennial Olympic Park bombing at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. He was then accused by the media and public opinion of planting the bomb, and put under intense scrutiny. He was innocent, and was never actually charged with anything. -
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George Michael was vilified in the press for his lifestyle and for his drug addictions. After he died, it was revealed he was an incredible philanthropist in private - he never sought recognition for the good he did. One of the absolute worst cases of the press demonizing a public figure for zero reason. -
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J. Bruce Ismay, the director of the White Star Line, was labeled a coward after surviving the sinking of the Titanic while so many other high ranking members went down with the ship. In reality, he helped several passengers get into life boats before finally boarding one himself. -
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- REPLAY GALLERY
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- 20 Real-Life 'Villains' Who Were Actually the Heroes
William Bligh has been treated rather shabbily by history, but in reality was a pretty remarkable man. He rose to admiral in the Royal Navy as a commoner with very few family connections and was hand-picked by Captain James Cook for his third Pacific voyage. After the mutiny on HMS Bounty many of Bligh's men remained loyal to him and they were set adrift in a life boat in the middle of the Pacific by Fletcher Christian and the rest of the mutineers. Essentially stranded in a large row boat, Bligh navigated over 2600 nautical miles of open ocean to Timor, having saved the lives of all but one of his men.
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