this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2025
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Today I learned

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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 year ago by tetris11@lemmy.ml to c/todayilearned@lemmy.ml
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[–] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

Ah okay, IANAA - it was new to me

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

[–] GrumpyDuckling@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

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

[–] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 year 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.

[–] Kathrin@trouth.eu 2 points 1 year ago

@tetris11 Dollop about it: https://omny.fm/shows/the-dollop-with-dave-anthony-and-gareth-reynolds/396-the-donner-party

[–] ecvanalog@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

An upcoming comic book called The Goddamned Tragedy is going to do a fixtionalized version of this.

[–] temporal_spider@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

Here is an excellent video that goes into the matter. https://youtu.be/O5xMpsYdzgg