It wasn't until the early-to-mid-20th century that people looked around and realized that, hey, the cast of characters in your standard U.S. History text just-so-happened to be whiter than a musical comedy written by Garrison Keillor. Understandably this bias led to a bunch of legitimately impressive people of color getting totally screwed out of their rightful place in the annals of Stuff We Wrote Down. People like ...

It may be hard to tell, based on the even-keeled post-racial atmosphere that pervades our society today, but America used to have a problem with discrimination.

5 The First Guy To Reach The North Pole Got Trumped By A White Egomaniac

Library of Congress

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In 1909, Robert Peary made the front page of basically every paper in America for being the first man ever to reach the North Pole. It was an important accomplishment, both because it represented man's earnest attempt to reckon with his own inevitable mortality by dominating the Natural World as a stand-in for conquering Death itself, and because it was really cold and nobody had planted a flag there yet.

Robert Edwin Peary

"We peed on it, too."

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You want to know who didn't get top billing? Peary's black partner, Matthew Henson, who had been acting as his expedition aide since 1887. He was essentially the Murtaugh to Peary's Riggs -- that is, if Lethal Weapon featured two hours of Danny Glover doing actual detective work while Mel Gibson stood around with his dick in his hands.

Henson was an esteemed hunter and sled-driver who (unlike Peary) spoke the Inuit language and could communicate with their guides. He also did pretty much all the work, given that Peary was essentially an invalid due to losing eight toes to frostbite on a previous expedition. Henson was the de-facto leader of the expedition and pretty much the only reason they reached the North Pole at all. Meanwhile, Peary's role was best described as "cargo."

Benjamin B. Hampton

If cargo banged 14-year-old natives.

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In fact, Matthew Henson was so good that he ended up beating Peary's insatiable lust to be the first man on the North Pole by accident: It was Henson who arrived on the Pole a good 45 minutes before Peary.