As we enter the third year of the global pandemic, with cases continuing to ebb and flow, it's hard not to look back on whether or not this could have been avoided, and what the world might be like today had Covid-19 not spread throughout the world.
With that in mind, one also can't help but wonder whether or not there will, in fact, be some good to come out of this.
Many people have pointed out how people will likely be more diligent with their hygiene, companies might re-examine the possibilities of working from home and disability, not to mention how much we value our friends and loved ones, after not being able to see them and hug them for months on end.
Begging the question, was the global pandemic one of the many necessary evils endured by the human race?
Redditor Appropriate-Cut8001 was curious to learn what horrific historical events people felt were, at the end of the day, necessary for multiple reasons, leading them to ask:
"What’s an event in history that everyone agrees was horrible but also agrees it was necessary?"
The Tylenol Murders
"The Tylenol murders."
"That sucks to say because 7, I believe without looking it up, people died."
"It caused the safety seals to be placed on every bottle containing any type of pill you can go pick up over the counter."
"Who knows how many of those seals have prevented another tragedy."- thegardensofbabylon
The Glen Cinema Disaster
"The Glen Cinema Disaster."
"Without it we would be locking fire doors on kid's movies."- pinkpringlesupremacy
The Titanic
"The sinking of the Titanic sure got people serious about ship safety and probably saved a lot of lives, especially since this was right before WWI."- Dictator4Hire
"This is a horrific thing for me to say, I have a degree in archeology with a concentration in maritime archeology, but Titanic sinking saved countless lives in future sinkings."- LadySigyn
"Sinking of the Titanic."
"Led to major changes about lifeboat capacity, as in everyone gets a spot, a dedicated iceberg watch and 24hr manned radios for starters."- jollyralph
The Plague
"The plague ironically gave poor workers the opportunity to get better wages and a few more rights than in the past where they were basically slaves to the rich."
"I don't know a lot about that time period so I don't know the details, but I always thought that was kind of a neat thing to come out of a horrific situation."- walkinghomeat3am
The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
"The triangle shirtwaist fire, for the amount of time I spent learning about this in school I think it’s pretty important."
"Kinda set off the alarm for how badly people were being treated."- 6245stampycat
Extinction
"I guess whatever wiped out the dinosaurs since it made room for even bigger a**holes."- A-dog-named-Trouble
The World Wars
" Germany loosing both world wars."
"I am german and I truly believe we wouldn't be a such a modern democracy with a relatively young code of laws if it wasn't for the damn WW."
"It is good to have a state set back to 0 sometimes."
"Some laws and some phrases in a constitution just don't belong into the 21st century."
"Also, I like the current state of national pride here."
"Yeah, Germany is a great country and I feel home here, but we don't celebrate our past and are very careful when celebrating our achievement."
"I think this might be a good thing because I travelled many countries where national pride shut down legitimate criticism of history or politics."
"No matter how much you want to believe your country is the best."
"They all suck one way or the other."
"It is important to remember these dark times and learn from them."- datbarricade
"World War 2."
"Germany didn't deserve the way it was treated after World War 1, and I personally believe World War 2 changed how the countries handle reparations after large-scale wars."- P_Solaris
The origin of the breathalyzer
"1966."
"A drunk driver ran over a class of 10 boys and their teacher."
"One boy of the class survived because he was home sick."
"One day before the funeral, the Belgian government enforced the breathalyzer."- akisomething
Sampoong Department Store Collapse.
"Sampoong Department Store collapse."
"There was a research that only 2% of buildings in South Korea were safe."- Willy0126
Russia's Invasion
"This is more of a funny event/fact, but it belongs to this as well."
"When Napoleon Bonaparte with his army were invading Russia, they absolutely destroyed Russian first line on Russian borders and little in them."
"The rest of the army started fleeing back into the inland heading to Moscow."
"Napoleon chased them."
"During this chasing the winter started and Napoleon’s army was running out of food and resources, so Napoleon said that, they will raid Moscow, loot it and continue to the Russian inland."
"But, general of Russian army has invented an idea to raid Moscow first, steal everything from their own very important city and when Napoleon arrived there, it was empty, so they remained in the middle of hostile land, without food, water, something to warm or anything similar to that."
"And that’s how the great Napoleon was defeated."- VostiiiiikCZ
Pre- testing medicines
"The issues with thalidomide cause everyone except for America could see the danger of unregulated and lack of testing in medication."- ConnorMcJesusGoat
Vipeholms Experiments
"Probably the vipeholms experiments."
"Absolutely horrible but lead to some major breakthroughs in dentistry."- MjauDuuude
Radium Girls
"The whole Radium Girls tragedy."- EnoughtoLiveBy
Slavery
"Hear me out because this starts off very rough."
"But slavery was a key factor in terms of music."
"By no means am I saying it was right."
"And I’m well aware that its pretty f*ckd up to say."
"But without it, modern music would be nothing without it."
"Slaves would sing melancholic songs which turned into blues, those blues notes inspired jazz and rock."
"Which inspired a new approach to the 70s-80s synth music."
"Which inspired 90s hip-hop."
"You get the point."- Individual-Brief-345
All of Them.
"Pretty much everything on Fascinating Horror’s channel."
"All horrific disasters that led to devastation, but ultimately resulted in better laws and regulations, preventing even worse disasters in the future."- Dragoncat99
It is important to remember that tragedies have a way of bringing people together, and possibly look at life with a brand new, far more optimistic outlook.
Even if one can't help but wish it didn't come at such a painful cost.
@jman42/Bluesky
@SecretaryBurgum/X
@Doug Ellin/X
@evanrachelwood/Instagram