“Who Was Crazy Until They Were Right All Along?“—24 Stories

11.

“When the Civil War broke out, everyone on both sides thought it would be a quick victory. However Sherman kept saying it would be a bloodbath that would drag on for years. His superiors decided he was insane and sent him out west to fight Indians (Native Americans) just to get rid of him.

After it all came true and they needed some better generals, they said “Maybe we should bring back that Sherman guy” –RealisticDelusions77

12.

“Martha Mitchell, she was the wife of Nixon’s AG, John Mitchell. She was outspoken in the extreme and was one of the first to talk openly about what really happened re:Watergate. Since she was also known to love her martinis, she was widely written off as a drunk, crazy woman. Behind the scenes, a White House doctor began heavily sedating her and her husband locked her away from the press. No one believed her until Nixon resigned and the story came out. To this day, most people only remember her as that loud-mouth, Martha Mitchell.” –feliciates

13.

“The Radium Girls. When Radium had just come to the US and was being marketed on dials for war and watches, girls used their lips to fix the paintbrushes to make their numbers and dials perfect. Eventually they started suffering horrible, painful experiences due to the radium. These girls fought for YEARS to figure out A) what was wrong with them, B) who was responsible, and C) how they were going to pay their bills/support their families.

It’s a horrible injustice. These girls needed support and validation that they weren’t crazy, that it WAS radium; and it took far too long and too many deaths for it to happen.” –Thr0wAway4M3sh3ll

14.

“John Snow (yes, that’s his name) was laughed at for believing that the multiple cholera outbreaks could be traced back to a specific source and that it was due to contaminated water. Essentially, making him one of the fathers of epidemiology. He has a fascinating life that went beyond that as well!” –CaptainHedgehog

15.

“When I was in Boy Scout camp we had this counselor named Don. He was kind of odd, he knew everything about trees and only really talked about trees.

We had just gotten back from a hike that Don was on with us and we were just sitting around talking and he suddenly goes “You know, they’re gonna let girls into Boy Scouts soon”. We were all like, “yeah okay Don.” But sure enough less than 3 years later, they did it.” –Trainkid9

16.

“Michael Burry. The first guy to predict the 2008 housing market crash. He was a hedge fund manager for Scion Capital at the time and basically bet his entire funds liquidity (all the money the fund had) that there would be a crash.

No one believed him except a few other people who also bet against the market. Several of his clients sued him for tying their money up in what they considered to be a foolish bet all to have him be right in the end. He made his fund something like $1.3 billion and the value increased about 489%.

The movie the Big Short is about him and the few other people who were wise enough to bet against the market at the time. I’ve watched the movie like 5 times in order to try to understand exactly what happened but still don’t fully get it. I recommend it to anyone who’s interested.” –SirGrayHat

17.

“The people who discovered prions. All the other biologists thought they were crazy to suggest one protein could be an infectious agent. Nope those biologists were wrong and Nobel prizes were awarded.” –thatonewhitejamaican

18.

“Sinead O’Connor
She was a singer/songwriter from Ireland who was a staple in the Alternative Music scene during the late 80s and early to mid 90s who had some cross-over hits. Anyway, at the height of her popularity she was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live after canceling an earlier scheduled spot in protest against the guest host which was some dumbass standup comic from the 80s called Andrew Dice Clay (As Scott Thompson described him: “it’s as if someone took your grandmother, the one who can’t speak English, and taught her to swear phonetically, gave her a special on HBO and made her a star”). During her performance she sang an acapella version of Bob Marley’s “War” changing the lyrics to make it about child sexual abuse instead of racism. At the end of the performance she shouted something like “Fight the real enemy” and ripped up a picture of the pope.

In the following weeks people lost their shit and on the next episode of Saturday Night Live they had at least 3 sketches that tore her apart. A few years later the Catholics Sex Abuse Scandal broke internationally.” –PunchBeard

19.

“About ten years ago there was this stoner who always hung around the shop that I played Magic at. One day, he told me that he didn’t trust Jared from Subway. I said that there was nothing to worry about and that the only thing that Jared did was eat sandwiches. He said that there was something really sinister about Jared, and that he could tell just by looking at him.” –PurpleInkBandit

20.

“Jose Canseco. He revealed that a bunch of baseball players (Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, etc) were doing steroids. No one believed him for years, until everyone else got caught doing steroids.” –frazwood