History hasn’t always been kind, and there have been plenty of people who we laughed at or completely ignored during their day. Much later, though, we realized they were actually onto something big. Today, we’re looking at 18 underdogs who turned out to be right and deserve an apology.
Ignaz Semmelweis
Ignaz Semmelweis was a doctor from the 1840s who realized that washing your hands could actually save lives. He tried telling other doctors about it, but sadly, they just laughed him off. He knew the importance of keeping clean before we even fully understood germs, and for that, he deserves an apology.
Alan Turing
Alan Turing managed to turn the tide for the Allies in WWII by cracking the Enigma code, which should’ve been enough for us to remember him. Sadly, instead of cheers, he was punished for being gay and was eventually forcibly castrated by the British government. Alan did a lot for us and history as a whole, yet he was treated extremely unfairly by everyone else at the time.
Rosalind Franklin
Rosalind Franklin took the photo that ultimately led to the discovery of DNA’s double helix structure. It was just called “photo 51,” but did she get any recognition for it? Absolutely not. While she was alive, it was her colleagues James Watson and Francis Crick who got recognition like a Noble Prize, but Franklin was completely ignored.
Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla was someone who was completely ahead of his time. He dreamt of wireless communication and alternating currents while most people around him were still using horses to get around. At the time, people saw him as just a “mad scientist,” and he died almost entirely penniless.
Alfred Wegener
Most of us know that the continents move around the Earth’s surface, but that wasn’t always the case. When Alfred Wegener first suggested this idea, many scientists ridiculed him, and they didn’t accept his theory until decades after his death. It took decades for people to finally realize that he was right.
Hedy Lamarr
Hedy Lamarr may have been a stunning actress, but she was also quite the inventor. Her work laid the foundations for WiFi and Bluetooth, although most people didn’t take her seriously when she was alive. They didn’t recognize how smart Lamarr was, and she deserves a huge apology for this.
Henry Cavendish
Even though he was a brilliant scientist, Henry Cavendish avoided most of his colleagues because he was so shy, and he hardly published his discoveries. Perhaps he should’ve, though, as he worked out the composition of water and Earth’s density all by himself. We owe him a huge thanks for his work and an apology for overlooking him.
Emily Dickinson
We might praise Emily Dickinson now as a poetic genius, but in her own time, her work barely saw the light of day. Anything that did get published got heavily edited because people wanted her poetry to fit the standards of the time. She wrote her heart out almost completely by herself, and she deserves an apology for this.
Galileo Galilei
Everyone’s heard of Galileo Galilei and all of his inventions. But in his own day, saying the Earth revolved around the sun got him in a lot of trouble, and the police even put him under house arrest. They even called him a heretic for something that we now know is a scientific fact. Sorry for that, Galileo.
John Snow
Back in the 1850s, John Snow figured out that cholera spread through water instead of bad air, which could’ve saved a ton of lives. Sadly, scientists ignored most of his ideas or, at worst, laughed him off. Had they listened to him, many more people could’ve survived the cholera epidemics that were pretty common back then.
Ada Lovelace
Ada Lovelace was another person who was way ahead of her time as she dreamt up the first algorithm for early computing machines. Most people remember her today as Lord Byron’s daughter, but her understanding of computing potential was incredible. We’ve ignored her brilliance for too long now.
Giordano Bruno
Giadano Burno imagined that the universe was infinite, and he paid a heavy price for this. He was burned at the stake because people at that time were pretty narrow-minded, even though his idea of an endless universe with countless stars was actually correct. People really should’ve recognized his ideas a lot sooner.
Mary Anning
Mary Anning was one of the most important figures in paleontology, thanks to her work unearthing dinosaurs and prehistoric life along the coasts of Lyme Regis. Unfortunately, as this was a field that men dominated, they didn’t care about her contributions and often just ignored them. Today, her work is finally getting the recognition it deserves.
Joe Hill
In the early 20th century, Joe Hill sang his heart out for the working class, but this actually led to him being framed and executed. People wanted to silence his voice and, as a result, the spirits and rights of the working class. We owe an apology to him for his hard work fighting for people’s rights.
Zora Neale Hurston
With her amazing novels and scientific research, it’s no wonder that Zora Neale Hurston was such an important person during the Harlem Renaissance. But at the time, people didn’t really think so. Even with all that talent, she died without any money or people recognizing how important she truly was.
Barbara McClintock
When she discovered genetic transposition, or “jumping genes,” in the mid-20th century, Barbara McClintock completely changed our understanding of genetics. Sadly, most people dismissed her work at the time because they thought it was too out there or, in some cases, just plain wrong. It wasn’t until much later that people realized just how right she was.
Alan L. Hart
Alan L. Hart was one of the first transgender men to have gender confirmation surgery in America, but his work with X-rays also helped doctors detect tuberculosis pretty early. But during his lifetime, many scientists didn’t recognize his achievements. You would’ve thought that reducing the spread of this deadly disease would’ve been good enough, but it wasn’t.
Vincent van Gogh
Although he made some of the most beautiful and famous paintings in history, Vincent van Gogh was completely misunderstood at the time. People saw him as a mad failure, and he barely made enough money from his paintings to get by. If only he could see how much people adore his work today.
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