History HarsherInHindsight / RealLife

* The real "ChurchOfHappyology[='s=]" introduction film ends with "If you leave this room after seeing this film and walk out and never mention [Happyology] again, you are perfectly free to do so. It would be stupid. But you can do it. You can also dive off a bridge or blow your brains out. That is your choice." Would [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_controversies#Noah_Lottick jumping out of a building]] and [[http://www.9news.com/news/article/183072/188/Murder-trial-begins-for-office-shooting- blowing someone else's brains out]] (three times!) suffice? [[HilariousInHindsight On a lighter note]], the film's host [[http://www.tampabay.com/news/scientology/article1067720.ece has since quit the church and wants his money back]].

** "Hit the Poles so hard that they despair of their life; I have full sympathy with their condition, but if we want to survive, we can only exterminate them." During UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, Poland was one of the first victims of German aggression, and the country with the highest casualties;[[note]]in proportion to pre-war population; the highest overall casualties belong to the citizens of the Soviet Union[[/note]] half of the Jews killed during TheHolocaust were Polish.

** He wasn't alone in this prediction, either--the list of people who expected this to happen (especially at the end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI as the peace was negotiated) is sufficient and push it through this trope and into wondering how one would think it really ''was'' going to be the War to End All Wars. Among the most influential voices warning of conflict as a consequence of the peace treaties was the great economist [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Consequences_of_the_Peace John Maynard Keynes]].

* During the 1976 Olympics, American swimmer [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Babashoff Shirley Babaschoff]] made a rather bad joke about the gold-winning East German swimming team and their members's records, commenting on their almost manly voices: [[SoreLoser she was accused of baselessly saying they were taking steroids]]. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, however, it was revealed that [[http://web.archive.org/web/20010122090000/http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,37631,00.html East German female athletes of all kinds were unknowingly doped with steroids, which had among their side-effects the development of more irreversible traits that amount to "masculinization"]]. That had [[BreakTheCutie TERRIBLE physical and emotional effects]] on the ladies... and [[TheOneGuy on]] [[{{Transgender}} one]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Krieger gentleman]].

* Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini's tragic second defense of his WBA lightweight title against South Korean boxer Duk Koo Kim at Caesar's Palace in 1982: after 13 punishing rounds, the camera cuts to the little-known South Korean challenger in his corner and commentator Tim Ryan says: "This is the challenger, Duk-koo Kim. You may not have heard of him before. You will remember him today, win or lose." A few seconds later, Mancini hit Kim with a right hook, knocking Kim to the ground and, at that point unknown to anyone, causing a massive subdural hematoma. As the Kim struggled to rise, referee Richard Green declared Mancini the winner by TKO. Unaware of Kim's condition, Mancini celebrated with his corner and the cameras for several long minutes, before commending Kim's "tremendous chin" in the post-match interview. Four days later, Kim died at Desert Springs Hospital, and both Kim and Mancini became infamous.

* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jennings_Bryan#Fighting_the_theory_of_evolution:_1918.E2.80.931925 opinion of William Jennings Bryan]] (prosecutor in Scopes Trial among other things) that Social Darwinism was undermining morality in Germany. The resulting eugenics movements of course being implemented in [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_T4 varying degrees]] involuntarily on the disabled or otherwise "handicapped (mentally or physically)" in Nazi Germany until the Catholic Bishops in Germany [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_T4#Opposition let it be known]] they considered the issue was non-negotiable, and Hitler needed all his troops available for his invasion of the Soviet Union. Also, by then Germany had newly conquered territory, so his killers were sent abroad to set up death camps for the Jews (though his eugenics movements continued on a smaller scale unofficially). Somewhat funny in hindsight in that Hitler technically died a Catholic (the only Nazi to be excommunicated was Goebbels - for marrying a Protestant, while Hitler had long ago stopped actively participating he was never formerly separated from the church). Hitler promised religious education for youths in return for an endorsement from the Church. Now the Church supports the theory of evolution and the average American is woefully ignorant of it. Not to mention the US was conducting sterilization programs and the Tuskegee syphilis trials at the time.

-->'''Neville Chamberlain:''' My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. (''Not'' :[[BeamMeUpScotty Peace in our time!]])

** "Hit the Poles so hard that they despair of their life; I have full sympathy with their condition, but if we want to survive, we can only exterminate them." During UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, Poland was one of the first victims of German aggression, and the country with the highest casualties[[note]]In proportion to pre-war population. Highest overall casualties belongs to the citizens of the Soviet Union[[/note]], half of the Jews killed during TheHolocaust were Polish.

** To fully understand the speech, you must remember that Dr. King was a minister, and you need to read [[Literature/TheBible Deuteronomy.]]

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Maravich "Pistol" Pete Maravich,]] at age 25: "I don't want to play 10 years and then die of a heart attack when I'm 40." After a 10-year NBA career, Maravich collapsed and died of a heart attack on January 5, 1988 -- a little more than six months shy of his 41st birthday.

* After his Gemini 3 mission in 1965, astronaut Gus Grissom said at a press conference, "If we die, we want people to accept it. We're in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life." Grissom and his crew mates Ed White and Roger Chaffee died in the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1 Apollo 1 fire]] two years later. (Somewhat mitigated by the fact that in the aftermath, NASA took him at his word and put a man on the Moon before the end of the decade, just as had been planned.)
** In August 1966, the Apollo 1 crew, concerned about the safety of their spacecraft, took [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A1prayer.jpg this photo]] of them praying to God before a model of their spacecraft, with the following message addressed to Shea:

** The team had personally confided to Joseph Shea about the apparent flammability of Apollo 1 and he reassured them by ordering the Nylon to be removed. However, Shea did not supervise the issue which proved to be fatal as someone had unknowingly/deliberately contravened his authority by having the Nylon reinstalled prior to Apollo 1's delivery to Cape Kennedy. Shea suffered a nervous breakdown in the investigation following the Apollo 1 fire, probably spurred in some small part by the guilt of believing he had betrayed the trust of the crew.

** Just for the record, defenders of Palin's map claimed that they were surveyor's symbols, a common element of maps. Compare [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Baak.svg surveyor's symbols]] with actual [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Reticles_vector.svg crosshairs]], notwithstanding that this has nothing to do with the man who shot Representative Giffords. Whatever the truth of it, a number of totally unambiguous firearms metaphors used by Republican candidates (Palin's own "Don't retreat, reload!" being the most infamous) make for ''very'' uncomfortable reading now.

* The fact that Creator/DemiLovato has been criticized for being 'larger' than the average Disney star when in reality she actually has an eating disorder. The line in "La La Land" of "I'm no supermodel, I still eat [=McDonald's=]" might count as HIH/FAM, yet in performances of the song on her 2011 comeback tour, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBNjM2q20iI she's very definitely]] both [[LampshadeHanging throwing a lampshade on it]] and using it notationally, all at the same time. [[EarnYourHappyEnding All to rapturous applause, too]].
* The real "ChurchOfHappyology[='s=]" introduction film ends with "If you leave this room after seeing this film and walk out and never mention [Happyology] again, you are perfectly free to do so. It would be stupid. But you can do it. You can also dive off a bridge or blow your brains out. That is your choice." Would [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_controversies#Noah_Lottick jumping out of a building]] and [[http://www.9news.com/news/article/183072/188/Murder-trial-begins-for-office-shooting- blowing someone else's brains out]] (three times!) suffice? [[HilariousInHindsight On a lighter note]], the film's host [[http://www.tampabay.com/news/scientology/article1067720.ece has since quit the church and wants his money back]].

* Music/AmyWinehouse [[http://www.inquisitr.com/13488/stating-the-obvious-amy-winehouse-fears-early-death/ once said]] that one of her fears was joining the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/27_Club 27 Club]] (the name that's given to singers who have died at age 27). On July 23rd, 2011, Amy's fears came true. Alicia Quarles, a report for the AssociatedPress at the time, explains that if Winehouse didn’t get her act together, she’ll die at 27. Quarles was on "Doomed to die? 13 Most Shocking Hollywood Curses" where she made that remark back in 2008 when the E! News special aired. What makes this eerier, Quarles was right.

* Jokes about former NFL bust Ryan Leaf are a lot harsher since he got cancer.

* The New Orleans Saints 2009 UsefulNotes/SuperBowl run looks a lot worse when you find out that they were running a bounty program and paying guys to deliberately hurt opposing players.
* The Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame inducted the Music/BeastieBoys in April 2012; the concert premiered on HBO a few days after Adam Yauch's death in May. Yauch had been too sick to attend.

* In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nACAlbpgsio an interview]] before the 2001 Daytona 500, Dale Earnhardt said, "You're gonna see something you've prolly hadn't never seen on Fox." These words took new meanings after Earnhardt was killed in a crash on the last lap.

* Rachel Scott, the first victim of the Colombine shootings. Her life was ''full'' of this trope. Though a lot of the stories about her have been made up, there have been many essays she wrote and entries in her journal that are just damn impossible to read after knowing the girl's fate. Just moments before she was killed she made a drawing of an eye with 13 tears falling from it. Though almost certainly a coincidence, many have theorized that she predicted the shootings and each of the tears represents a victim of the shooting.

* During the 1976 Olympics, American swimmer [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Babashoff Shirley Babaschoff]] made a rather bad joke about the gold-winning East German swimming team and their members's records, commenting on their almost manly voices: [[SoreLoser she was accused of baselessly saying they were taking steroids]]. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, however, it was revealed that [[http://web.archive.org/web/20010122090000/http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,37631,00.html East German female athletes of all kinds were unknowingly doped with steroids, which had among their side-effects the development of more irreversible traits that amount to "masculinization"]]. That had [[BreakTheCutie TERRIBLE physical and emotional effects]] on the ladies... and [[TheOneGuy on]] [[{{Transgender}} one]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Krieger gentleman]].

* In a blooper real from ''Series/HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys'', Kevin Smith ([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Smith_%28New_Zealand_actor%29 This one]]) flubs a kick and falls into some tall grass. Kevin Sorbo reacts by doing an end zone dance. Smith says (In his natural Kiwi accent) "Looks like I'm Mr. Fally Guy!" Smith would later die after falling from some rafters.
* Paul "Bear" Bryant: When asked by a reporter what he was going to do upon retiring after a fifty year career in football, Bryant responded "I'll probably croak in a week." The Bear died six weeks after coaching his last game.
* ESPN joked that Penn State coach Joe Paterno would never retire because he was afraid of suffering the same fate as "Bear" Bryant. In the end, Paterno was fired in 2011 due to his involvement in the Jerry Sandusky scandal. He died less than 60 days later.

** Of course, 2006 was ''also'' when the initial scandal involving warrantless wiretaps ([[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_(2001%E2%80%9307) bypassing even FISA in the process]]) broke in the news, so it was timely when it was written.

* There is a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rT5l4D7GxOU YouTube clip]] showing the 19 year old Hanne Kristin Fridtun, a Norwegian Labour Party youth politician, making a ''very'' touching and heartfelt speech about elderly care, with her main point being that "when I grow old, I don't just want to live, I want to live well". She was shot to death on Utøya three months later.

* On February 3, 1959, Waylon Jennings, Music/BuddyHolly, and Music/RitchieValens were supposed to fly in a plane between concerts on a tour of the Midwest. However, J.P. Richardson (Music/TheBigBopper), who was supposed to travel by bus to the next stop, had come down with the flu earlier on the tour and asked Jennings for his spot on the plane. Jennings agreed and took Richardson's spot on the bus. When Holly heard Jennings was not flying, he said in jest, "I hope your ol' bus freezes up." Jennings replied, "I hope your ol' plane crashes." It did, killing everyone on board in what is known as The Day The Music Died. That remark would haunt Jennings for many years.
* On the night of November 25, 2013, singer Arik Einstein, a pivotal figure of Israeli culture known for being very, very reclusive, was interviewed by phone for the first time in ages. The interviewer asked him about his health; Einstein said he was fine, only his eyes were growing a little bit dim. On theq night of November 26, 2013, he died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm.

* A [[http://www.monbiot.com/2009/11/23/the-knights-carbonic/ 2009 column]] by George Monbiot satirically refers to the possibility of Czech President Vaclav Klaus being the victim of an [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident engineered tragedy]]. In 2013, the plane crash that killed Klaus spawned more than a few conspiracy theories.
* Creator/DavidSedaris wrote several essays that mentioned his sister, Tiffany. At age six, her older siblings convinced her to lie in the middle of the road and get hit by a car to make their mom feel guilty, telling her death is "like sleeping, only you get a canopy bed." In another essay, her father browbeats her for stabbing David with a pencil until she couldn't hold a crayon without bursting into tears. Finally, in "Put A Lid On It," he describes how his parents put her in a reform school (the now infamous [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lan_School Elan School]], causing her to resent and separate herself from her family as much as possible. All of this presents enough of a sad portrait of his sister's life, but when you learn she committed suicide in 2013 and, in her will, banned her entire family from attending her funeral, all chronicled in David's essay, "Now We Are Five," the whole thing becomes downright heartbreaking.

* When presenting the nominees for Best Female Supporting Actress during the 2013 Oscars, Creator/SethMacfarlane [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCNvREKTnQc joked about how they no longer needed to pretend to be attracted to Harvey Weinstein.]] When news of Weinstein's ''decades'' of sexual assaults on female actresses came to light in October 2017, [[http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/seth-macfarlane-harvey-weinstein-oscars_us_59df3449e4b00abf36466ea1 MacFarlane himself revealed that "joke" was far more venomous than people realized.]]
* In 2014, the U.S. national soccer team's coach [[https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20171013140854/http://ftw.usatoday.com/2017/10/jurgen-klinsmann-2018-world-cup-usmnt-us-soccer-semifinals-bruce-arena-quotes Jurgen Klinsmann]] said that his goal was to get his team to the semifinals of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. He repeated this claim in 2016, but was fired later that year after losing two games in a row. In the end, the U.S. did not even qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup after losing their final qualifier 2-1 to Trinidad and Tobago, making it the first World Cup for which the U.S. had failed to qualify since 1986.

* “Attack will be launched as follows: Bombardment, attack to be made on Ford Island (Hawaii) at 7:30 A.M..... Attack to be made on Clark Field at 10:40 A.M.” - General Billy Mitchell in 1925, 16 years before the events of Pearl Harbour.

* On May 10, 2018 former White House official Kelly Sadler made a remark about John [=McCain=], who at the time was suffering from aggressive brain cancer that “He's dying anyway” resulting in her firing, on August 25, 2018 John [=McCain=] died after announcing that he was stopping treatment.
* In 1961, Life magazine commented that [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Brand Joel Brand]] was a man who lived in the shadows with a broken heart. Three years later, Brand passed away because of a heart attack.

* Watch pretty much any recording of a USA Women's Gymnastics meet where a gymnast is injured between about 2000 and 2015. An injury is no laughing matter to begin with, but incidents from that specific time period are made that much worse by the presence of then-team doctor Larry Nassar, who is now known to have sexually abused over 200 girls, many of them USA gymnasts, using his profession as a cover. It's particularly horrifying if the injured gymnast is known to be one of Nassar's victims, such as when [=McKayla=] Maroney[[note]]who later said that Nassar molested her "hundreds" of times, including one incident so horrific she "thought [she] was going to die",[[/note]] fell on floor exercise and sustained a concussion in the 2012 National Championships. (The incident comes up at about 18:45 in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrwiYiFGQZE this recording of the NBC broadcast]] of the competition; Nassar is mentioned as having examined Maroney, and is seen walking beside her as she's being taken out on a stretcher.)

* Billionaire Jeffery Epstein, who was indicted of sexual assault and trafficking of girls as young as age 14, was praised by now-President UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump as "I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy, he's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side." At the time, Trump, like so many, had no idea Epstein was sexually abusing underage girls.

-->'''Neville Chamberlain:''' Peace in our time!

* Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech, in which he relates being stabbed in the heart years before, when if he had even sneezed he would have died. He goes on to list all the remarkable things he had done since then, from sit-ins to freedom rides, to telling the USA about a dream he had, all of which he could not have done or seen had he died. He then goes on to acknowledge the threats that have been made against him, and states that "like anybody, I would like to live a long life", but concludes by telling his audience, "I have seen the promised land! I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything! I'm not fearing any man!" King gave this speech on the night of April 3, 1968. His assassination was on April ''fourth.'' In effect, King was reciting his own eulogy. To a point, he may have been expecting it or at least anticipated that someone might try to kill him, since he often gave versions of the "Promised Land" speech when violent events were happening, like the riots that had just broken out in Memphis.

** On top of that, he denied the opportunity to drive in the UsefulNotes/IndyCar-Series in 1992, because he was too scared of crashing into the wall with more than 220 miles per hour.
** During the Eurosport coverage of the second qualifying session of the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, the commentators spoke at great length on how safe F1 cars were these days and how driver safety was at the best it's ever been. This was interrupted by the sight of a wrecked Simtek spinning to a halt with Roland Ratzenberger at the wheel, dead.

* During the 1976 Olympics, American swimmer [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Babashoff Shirley Babaschoff]] made a rather bad joke about the gold-winning East German swimming team and their members's records, commenting on their almost manly voices: [[SoreLoser she was accused of baselessly saying they were taking steroids]]. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, however, it was revealed that [[http://web.archive.org/web/20010122090000/http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,37631,00.html East German female athletes of all kinds were unknowingly doped with steroids, which had among their side-effects the development of more irreversible traits that amount to "masculinization"]]. That had [[BreakTheCutie TERRIBLE physical and emotional effects]] [[TheWoobie on the ladies]]... and [[TheOneGuy on]] [[{{Transgender}} one]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Krieger gentleman]].

* When you learn Johnnys & Associates founder Johnny Kitagawa and his family had been among those Japanese-Americans put in concentration camps during World War II, several of the anime and manga entries on NoExportForYou become a whole lot more understandable. It's entirely possible Kitagawa held a grudge against the United States for the rest of his life over the internments and was using his well-known xenophobia to lash out against the nation specifically.

* Watch pretty much any recording of a USA Women's Gymnastics meet where a gymnast is injured between about 2000 and 2015. An injury is no laughing matter to begin with, but incidents from that specific time period are made that much worse by the presence of then-team doctor Larry Nassar, who is now known to have sexually abused over 200 girls, many of them USA gymnasts, using his profession as a cover. It's particularly horrifying if the injured gymnast is known to be one of Nassar's victims, such as when [=McKayla=] Maroney[[note]], who later said that Nassar molested her "hundreds" of times, including one incident so horrific she "thought [she] was going to die",[[/note]] fell on floor exercise and sustained a concussion in the 2012 National Championships. (The incident comes up at about 18:45 in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrwiYiFGQZE this recording of the NBC broadcast]] of the competition; Nassar is mentioned as having examined Maroney, and is seen walking beside her as she's being taken out on a stretcher.)

* Watch pretty much any recording of a USA Women's Gymnastics meet where a gymnast is injured between about 2000 and 2015. An injury is no laughing matter to begin with, but incidents from that specific time period are made that much worse by the presence of then-team doctor Larry Nassar, who is now known to have sexually abused over 200 girls, many of them USA gymnasts, using his profession as a cover. It's particularly horrifying if the injured gymnast is known to be one of Nassar's victims, such as when [=McKayla=] Maroney[[note]], who, by several accounts, Nassar frequently singled out and was "obsessed" with,[[/note]] fell on floor exercise and sustained a concussion in the 2012 National Championships. (The incident comes up at about 18:45 in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrwiYiFGQZE this recording of the NBC broadcast]] of the competition; Nassar is mentioned as having examined Maroney, and is seen walking beside her as she's being taken out on a stretcher.)

* Watch pretty much any recording of a USA Women's Gymnastics meet where a gymnast is injured between about 2000 and 2015. An injury is no laughing matter to begin with, but incidents from that specific time period are made that much worse by the presence of then-team doctor Larry Nassar, who is now known to have sexually abused over 200 girls, many of them USA gymnasts, using his profession as a cover. It's particularly horrifying if the injured gymnast is known to be one of Nassar's victims, such as when [=McKayla=] Maroney[[note]]who would later reveal that Nassar molested her "hundreds" of times over the course of five years, including one incident so horrific that she "thought [she] was going to die"[[/note]] fell on floor exercise and sustained a concussion in the 2012 National Championships. (The incident comes up at about 18:45 in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrwiYiFGQZE this recording of the NBC broadcast]] of the competition; Nassar is mentioned as having examined Maroney, and is seen walking beside her as she's being taken out on a stretcher.)

* Watch pretty much any recording of a USA Women's Gymnastics meet where a gymnast is injured between about 2000 and 2015. An injury is no laughing matter to begin with, but incidents from that specific time period are made that much worse by the presence of then-team doctor Larry Nassar, who is now known to have sexually abused over 200 girls, many of them USA gymnasts, using his profession as a cover. It's particularly horrifying if the injured gymnast is known to be one of Nassar's victims, such as when [=McKayla=] Maroney[[note]]whose experience was particularly horrific even compared to other Nassar victims[[/note]] fell on floor exercise and sustained a concussion in the 2012 National Championships. (The incident comes up at about 18:45 in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrwiYiFGQZE this recording of the NBC broadcast]] of the competition; Nassar is mentioned as having examined Maroney, and is seen walking beside her as she's being taken out on a stretcher.)

* Watch pretty much any recording of a USA Women's Gymnastics meet where a gymnast is injured between about 2000 and 2015. An injury is no laughing matter to begin with, but it's made much worse by the presence of then-team doctor Larry Nassar, who is now known to have sexually abused over 200 girls, many of them USA gymnasts, using his profession as a cover. It's particularly horrifying if the injured gymnast is known to be one of Nassar's victims, such as when [=McKayla=] Maroney[[note]]whose experience was particularly horrific even compared to other Nassar victims[[/note]] fell on floor exercise and sustained a concussion in the 2012 National Championships. (The incident comes up at about 18:45 in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrwiYiFGQZE this recording of the NBC broadcast]] of the competition; Nassar is mentioned as having examined Maroney, and is seen walking beside her as she's being taken out on a stretcher.)

* As you may have seen on other HarsherInHindsight subpages, the tragedies of September 11th, 2001 in New York, New York, Arlington, Virginia, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania left a lot of ill tastes in a lot of media. Even the date September 11th was considered a downer for people who were born upon it (cf. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludacris Christopher "Ludacris" Bridges]]).

* Watch pretty much any recording of a USA Women's Gymnastics meet where a gymnast is injured between about 2000 and 2015. An injury is no laughing matter to begin with, but it's made much worse by the presence of then-team doctor Larry Nassar, who is now known to have sexually abused over 200 girls, many of them USA gymnasts, using his profession as a cover. It's particularly horrifying if the injured gymnast is known to be one of Nassar's victims, such as when [=McKayla=] Maroney[[labelnote:*]]whose experience was particularly horrific even compared to other Nassar victims[[/labelnote]] fell on floor exercise and sustained a concussion in the 2012 National Championships. (The incident comes up at about 18:45 in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrwiYiFGQZE this recording of the NBC broadcast]] of the competition; Nassar is mentioned as having examined Maroney, and is seen walking beside her as she's being taken out on a stretcher.)

* Watch pretty much any recording of a USA Women's Gymnastics meet where a gymnast is injured between about 2000 and 2015. An injury is no laughing matter to begin with, but it's made much worse by the presence of then-team doctor Larry Nassar, who is now known to have sexually abused over 200 girls, many of them USA gymnasts, using his profession as a cover. It's particularly horrifying if the injured gymnast is known to be one of Nassar's victims, such as when [=McKayla=] Maroney [[labelnote:*]]whose experience was particularly horrific even compared to other Nassar victims[[/labelnote]] fell on floor exercise and sustained a concussion in the 2012 National Championships. (The incident comes up at about 18:45 in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrwiYiFGQZE this recording of the NBC broadcast]] of the competition; Nassar is mentioned as having examined Maroney, and is seen walking beside her as she's being taken out on a stretcher.)

* On the night of November 25, 2013, singer Arik Einstein, a pivotal figure of Israeli culture known for being very, very reclusive, was interviewed by phone for the first time in ages. The interviewer asked him about his health; Einstein said he was fine, only his eyes were growing a little bit dim. On the night of November 26, 2013, he died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm.

** This is true of any personality who works closely with children or on children's shows who is later accused or convicted of sexual molestation, especially of children. Take Jimmy Savile, for instance.

* On the February 11, 2016 episode of Series/TheDailyShow, after the Supreme Court blocked a climate change plan from going into effect, Trevor Noah joked about how global warming might not affect the Justices because they might not be around long enough. Antonin Scalia died two days later.

* Sexual assault allegations against Bill Cosby became a meme almost overnight. Cut to 2018, where he has been found guilty of at least some of those allegations.

** Even more terrifyingly: The DA investigating the case '''a decade previously''' disappeared under '''extremely''' mysterious circumstances.

* In the 2007 season, the New York Giants played the seemingly invincible New England Patriots in the UsefulNotes/SuperBowl. Before the game, Giants player, Plaxico Burress, said they would win and hold the Patriots to 17 points. Patriots quarterback, Tom Brady, laughed when he heard this. The Giants would beat the Patriots and actually hold them to 14 points - stopping their undefeated season. But that's not what's harsher, or hilarious, (depending on if you're a fan of the Patriots or not) in hindsight. In the 2011 season, The New England Patriots would play the New York Giants again in the UsefulNotes/SuperBowl. The Giants would beat them again - this time holding them to 17 points. Even more interesting, Plaxico Burress wasn't on the team this time.
* The once seemingly unstoppable tandem of New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady has fallen short in the postseason every year since [[{{Scandalgate}} Spygate]]. And then in 2014 they finally won it all again... only to be accused of illegally deflating footballs.

* A bumper sticker often found on the cars of marathon runners reads, "26.2 miles: What could possibly go wrong?" This obviously takes on a whole new and darker meaning in light of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

*** This is a bit of an unusual example, however, if only because unlike most modern commentators, Ferdinand Foch's argument was not that the Treaty was too harsh but rather that ''it wasn't harsh enough''. Foch was among many French statesmen and military figures who believed that Germany after WWI should have been partitioned and forcibly disarmed. Incidentally, this is EXACTLY what Machiavelli proposed (roughly paraphrased): either destroy your enemies so utterly that they cannot seek revenge, or be lenient, so that any desire for revenge would be outweighed by fear of another defeat. After [=WW2=] both happened: West Germany was treated leniently, and became a staunch NATO ally throughout the worst of the Cold War. East Germany was totally stripped of anything useful and lost almost all of its autonomy to the USSR. In other words, the Treaty managed to be EXACTLY wrong, proving practically all of its critics right. Of course, that treatment also resulted in [[UsefulNotes/ColdWar a bad side-effect...]]

* Before World War I, Norman Angell published a book titled ''The Great Illusion'', arguing that economic dependence between great powers made an all out war between them difficult, if at all possible. (Not necessarily illogical--For example, German steel industry before World War I was dependent on British coal, while the British armaments industry was, in turn, dependent on German steel, produced with British coal. Having to readjust sources of industrial inputs during World War I was extremely painful for all involved.) Within a few years of its publication, World War I broke out. Undaunted, a second and revised edition was published in 1933. Not long afterwards, World War II broke out.
** Something of a subversion: ''The Great Illusion'' argued that any war would be too costly to be considered logical, making peace between all the major nations the best possible choice...and that proved right: after both world wars, the European powers (and Japan) went on to lose ALL of their colonies, gained no territory, accrued debt that took DECADES to pay off, and ended up trapped in a Cold War that terrified EVERYONE who lived through it with the possibility of nuclear extinction and forced military spending up so high for the US/NATO and the USSR/PACT countries that both ended up in a massive number of proxy wars in an attempt to justify the cost of their militarism, for fear that the civilians would undermine the military budget and lead either power unable to face the other. If neither war had occurred, the 20th century could very well have been the most prosperous in history; instead, it became the most terrifying. Specifically, if World War I hadn't occurred, the Great Depression and the later wars would never had occurred either.

* On July 20, 2012 at midnight, Jessica Gawhi, one of the victims at the Aurora theater shooting in Colorado, had this to say on [[http://twitpic.com/a9vfbk her twitter post]] with her mom: "Get some sleep, mom. I'm really excited for you to come visit. I need my mama" This was posted at 1:04 AM, just moments before she was killed in the theater. The [[http://jessicaredfield.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/late-night-thoughts-on-the-eaton-center-shooting/ last post on her blog]] is about having missed being at the June 2, 2012 Toronto mass shooting by minutes, including "After Saturday evening, I know I truly understand how blessed I am for each second I am given." Relatedly, in 2008 Forbes published a list titled [[http://www.forbes.com/2008/12/10/media-newspapers-news-biz-media-cx_jz_1210boringcities.html "America's 10 Most Boring Cities"]]. Aurora is on that list.

* German romantic-nationalist poet and liberal thinker Heinrich Heine is most famous today for his observation that "Where they burn books, in the end they will burn people too", made in 1821 in a play about the Spanish Inquisition. Heine's works were censored in his own time and later literally burned by the Nazis. Heine was a Jew.
** This is the concluding passage of Heine's ''Religion and Philosophy in Germany'', written in 1832: "Christianity -- and that is its greatest merit -- has somewhat mitigated that brutal German love of war, but it could not destroy it. Should that subduing talisman, the cross, be shattered, the frenzied madness of the ancient warriors, that insane Berserk rage of which Nordic bards have spoken and sung so often, will once more burst into flame...The old stone gods will then rise from long ruins and rub the dust of a thousand years from their eyes, and Thor will leap to life with his giant hammer and smash the Gothic cathedrals....Thought precedes action as lightning precedes thunder. German thunder...comes rolling somewhat slowly, but...its crash...will be unlike anything before in the history of the world. ...At that uproar the eagles of the air will drop dead, and lions in farthest Africa will draw in their tails and slink away. ...A play will be performed in Germany which will make the French Revolution look like an innocent idyll." The irony of all of this is that Hitler didn't even need to get rid of Christianity, just utilize centuries-old biases in the Christian population and twist the religion to his own whims, forming what was called [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Christianity "Positive Christianity"]].

** Even though there wasn't an revival of Germanic Paganism in the Third Reich, there was certainly a revival of the culture of Germanic Paganism. The Nazis promoted a form of German Romanticism that centered on ancient Pagan traditions, blood and soil, and Wagnerian theatrics. The infamous Nuremberg Rallies are a good example of this. The SS were also, what you can call, "culturally Pagan." The rituals and ceremonies that were a part of SS life were based on ancient Heathen practices. And in addition to Himmler and Wiligut, a few SS members were worshiping the old gods.
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jennings_Bryan#Fighting_the_theory_of_evolution:_1918.E2.80.931925 opinion of William Jennings Bryan]] (prosecutor in Scopes Trial among other things) that Social Darwinism was undermining morality in Germany. The resulting eugenics movements of course being implemented in [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_T4 varying degrees]] involuntarily on the disabled or otherwise "handicapped (mentally or physically)" in Nazi Germany until the Catholic Bishops in Germany [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_T4#Opposition let it be known]] they considered the issue was non-negotiable, and Hitler needed all his troops available for his invasion of the Soviet Union. Also, by then Germany had newly conquered territory, so his killers were sent abroad to set up death camps for the Jews (though his eugenics movements continued on a smaller scale unofficially). Somewhat funny in hindsight in that Hitler technically died a Catholic (the only Nazi to be excommunicated was Goebbels - for marrying a Protestant, while Hitler had long ago stopped actively participating he was never formerly separated from the church). Hitler promised religious education for youths in return for endorsement from the Church. Now the Church supports the theory of evolution and the average American is woefully ignorant of it. Not to mention the US was conducting sterilisation programs and the Tuskegee syphilis trials at the time.

* A lot of quotes from Bismarck ( who helped founding the Second German Empire and was its chancellor until 1890) fall under that:

** "Not by speeches and votes of the majority, are the great questions of the time decided — that was the error of 1848 and 1849 — but by iron and blood." The foundation of the Second German Empire happened after three "uniting wars" and that was a reason said empire was very militaristic. Said empire being militaristic was a reason UsefulNotes/WorldWarI broke out, and something Nazi propaganda made use of when starting UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.

** Bismarck also disturbingly predicted the end of the [[{{Kaiserreich}} German Empire]]: "The crash will come twenty years after my departure if things go on like this". He was right on both the Kaiser's way of running things and the final. Bismarck died on July 30, 1898. The Empire collapsed when the Kaiser crossed the border on November 10, 1918 - 20 years, 3 months and 11 days afterwards.

* "Anyone who has to fight, even with the most modern weapons, against an enemy in complete command of the air, fights like a savage [[EvilColonialist against modern European troops]], under the same handicaps and with the same chances of success" - said [[{{UsefulNotes/ErwinRommel}} Field Marshal Erwin Rommel]]. This is just what happened on the [[{{UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo}} Western Front]] after the summer of 1944 and the reason for which Rommel himself got strafed by fighter plane and grievously wounded.

* Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech, in which he relates being stabbed in the heart years before, when if he had even sneezed he would have died. He goes on to list all the remarkable things he had done since then, from sit-ins, to freedom rides, to telling the USA about a dream he had, all of which he could not have done or seen had he died. He then goes on to acknowledge the threats that have been made against him, and states that "like anybody, I would like to live a long life", but concludes by telling his audience, "I have seen the promised land! I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything! I'm not fearing any man!" King gave this speech on the night of April 3, 1968. His assassination was on April ''fourth.'' In effect, King was reciting his own eulogy. To a point he may have been expecting it or at least anticipated that someone might try to kill him, since he often gave versions of the "Promised Land" speech when violent events were happening, like the riots that had just broken out in Memphis.

* Three time UsefulNotes/FormulaOne champion Ayrton Senna once said "I want to live fully, very intensely. I would never want to live partially, suffering from illness or injury. If I ever happen to have an accident that eventually costs my life, I hope it happens in one instant." That's ''exactly'' what happened when he crashed and died at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix.
** On top of that, he denied the opportunity to drive in the UsefulNotes/IndyCar-Series in 1992, because he was too scared of crashing into wall with more than 220 miles per hour.

** In an interview in the sixties, John was asked how he expected to die. He replied "I'll probably be popped off by some loony."

* During an interview, [[Music/TheDoors Jim Morrison]] heard about the deaths of Music/JimiHendrix and Music/JanisJoplin. Turning to the interviewer, he held up his glass and said "You're drinking with number three." Not too long afterwards, he was gone.

** At [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnBmueLDu2I Eleanor Roosevelt's funeral]], Adlai Stevenson said to President Kennedy, "It may be some comfort to you, sir, to know that the White House is not the end and that you may find something to do when you leave here, whenever that may be." Obviously, Kennedy never got to retire from the White House, being that he was then assassinated that following year.

* Robert Kennedy, during his own presidential campaign trail in 1968, had apparently earned the ire some of the people he used to work with during his time as Attorney General, in particular Clyde Tolson, J. Edgar Hoover's deputy, reportedly saying "I hope someone shoots and kills that son of a bitch." On June 5, 1968 in a kitchen at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, he was shot by a Palestinian activist, and died the following morning. Even eerier, precisely two months prior, he announced Martin Luther King's death to a horrified crowd, then proceeded to give one of his best speeches, little knowing that he himself would soon meet the same fate.
** One related to both Kennedy assassinations: During Creator/{{CBS}} coverage shortly after UsefulNotes/RobertFKennedy was shot, CBS Evening News anchor Creator/WalterCronkite (having anchored California primary coverage earlier that evening) noticed a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUCnzxj68Hg quote in a book]] on the Kennedys by former Wisconsin Republican Senator UsefulNotes/JosephMcCarthy[[note]]despite the different political affiliations and philosophies, [=McCarthy=] was in fact a close [[OddFriendship family friend]] of the Kennedys, with Bobby having started his career working for [=McCarthy=] during the height of his career during what's known as the RedScare[[/note]] where [=McCarthy=] quotes JFK as mentioning his entry into politics because of the death of eldest brother Joseph Jr. (killed in action during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII); with Kennedy adding that if something were to happen to him, Bobby would take over that Senate seat and if something happened to Bobby; youngest brother Ted would step in.[[note]]Things worked out slightly differently, as Ted (upon reaching 30; the minimum age for a Senator) ran in a special election to finish the term John gave up upon becoming President - with Benjamin Smith having appointed effectively to keep the seat warm for Ted - stepping aside. Bobby would eventually run for and be elected to the U.S. Senate in 1964; but from the state of New York.[[/note]]

** During his first space flight on ''Liberty Bell 7'', Grissom nearly drowned when the explosive bolts holding the capsule hatch in place accidentally blew, opening the capsule to seawater. The hatch design was modified to an inward-opening design, so that atmospheric pressure inside the cabin would keep the hatch closed if a similar incident ever happened again. Unfortunately, it also kept the astronauts from being able to open their hatch when the fire occurred.

* This also happens when [[http://s3.amazonaws.com/akamai.netstorage/anon.nasa-global/CAIB/CAIB_lowres_chapter6.pdf reading the report]] about the ''Columbia'' accident. Some engineers raised concerns about potential heat shield damage, and wanted to use military satellites to photograph the shuttle, but managers repeatedly turned them down. It becomes a TearJerker when you read statements like, "I consider it to be a dead issue" and "[[BlatantLies there is no concern for RCC or tile damage]]." Given that you're reading the [[ForegoneConclusion Columbia Accident Investigation Report]]...
* Music/MichaelJackson publicly announced to his fans & the world in early 2009 that he would launching his final concert tour (though it was only at one arena in London, England) called "This Is It". He died June 25, 2009, just weeks before the series was to start.

* The fact that Creator/DemiLovato has been criticized for being 'larger' than the average Disney star, when in reality she actually has an eating disorder. The line in "La La Land" of "I'm no supermodel, I still eat [=McDonald's=]" might count as HIH/FAM, yet in performances of the song on her 2011 comeback tour, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBNjM2q20iI she's very definitely]] both [[LampshadeHanging throwing a lampshade on it]] and using it notationally, all at the same time. [[EarnYourHappyEnding All to rapturous applause, too]].

* Music/AmyWinehouse [[http://www.inquisitr.com/13488/stating-the-obvious-amy-winehouse-fears-early-death/ once said]] that one of her fears was joining the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/27_Club 27 Club]] (the name given to singers who have died at age 27). On July 23rd, 2011, Amy's fears came true. Alicia Quarles, a report for the AssociatedPress at the time, explains that if Winehouse didn’t get her act together, she’ll die at 27. Quarles was on "Doomed to die? 13 Most Shocking Hollywood Curses" where she made that remark back in 2008, when the E! News special aired. What makes this more eerie, Quarles was right.

* The 1928 Republican Party platform stated, "Under this Administration the country has been lifted from the depths of a Great Depression to a level of prosperity." The very next year, the stock market would crash, plunging the US into '''[[TheGreatDepression the]]''' [[TheGreatDepression Great Depression]].

* Before October of 2017, Creator/KevinSpacey was acclaimed as one of the finest and most popular actors on the planet. But after allegations grew of Spacey making unwanted moves and molestation of various actors over the years, his entire filmography is now much harder to watch (especially ''Film/AmericanBeauty'', ''Film/TheUsualSuspects'' and ''Film/LAConfidential''). Also, Spacey was fired from ''Series/HouseOfCardsUS'' which mars that entire show and his legacy now tarnished.

* In November 2007, Creator/HeathLedger spoke about his sleeping problems, saying: "Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night. I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going.". Two months later, Ledger was found dead in his apartment, and his death was determined to be caused by an accidental overdose of sleeping pills. Due to various accounts from the set and his own room, it's been theorized that the addiction was caused by nightmares caused by trying to get into the Joker's head. Jack Nicholson, who played The Joker in the Burton film, when told of Heath's dead, even said, "Well, [[IWarnedYou I warned him]]."

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* After his Gemini 3 mission in 1965, astronaut Gus Grissom said at a press conference, "If we die, we want people to accept it. We're in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life." Grissom and his crew mates Ed White and Roger Chaffee died in the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1 Apollo 1 fire]] two years later. (Somewhat mitigated by the fact that in the aftermath, NASA took him at his word and [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome put a man on the Moon before the end of the decade, just as had been planned]].)

* The fact that Creator/DemiLovato has been criticized for being 'larger' than the average Disney star, when in reality she actually has an eating disorder. The line in "La La Land" of "I'm no supermodel, I still eat [=McDonald's=]" might count as HIH/FAM, yet in performances of the song on her 2011 comeback tour, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBNjM2q20iI she's very definitely]] both [[LampshadeHanging throwing a lampshade on it]] and using it notationally, [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome all at the same time]]. [[EarnYourHappyEnding All to rapturous applause, too]].

* Rape allegations against Bill Cosby became a meme almost overnight. Cut to 2018, where he has been found guilty of at least some of those allegations. So it's a rare real life example of EvilAllAlong. And as strange as it sounds, it is also a meme about something horrible that came true.

* In 1961, Life magazine commented that [[Joel Brand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Brand]] was a man who lived in the shadows with a broken heart. Three years later, Brand passed away because of a heart attack.