20 Of The Most Moving, Shocking And Incredible Stories HuffPost Has Published In The Last 20 Years

HuffPost turns 20 this year. To celebrate, we’re looking back at some of our most iconic work — the pieces that shocked us, surprised us and truly made us see the world in a different way. Take a look below. And if you have an all-time favourite story we’ve published over the years, share it in the comments!I Don’t Know How To Explain To You That You Should Care About Other PeopleBy Kayla ChadwickLike many Americans, I’m having politics fatigue. Or, to be more specific, arguing-about-politics fatigue.I haven’t run out of salient points or evidence for my political perspective, but there is a particular stumbling block I keep running into when trying to reach across the proverbial aisle and have those “difficult conversations” so smugly suggested by think piece after think piece:I don’t know how to explain to someone why they should care about other people.Read the full piece here.FML: Why Millennials Are Facing The Scariest Financial Future Of Any Generation Since The Great DepressionBy Michael HobbesWe’ve all heard the statistics. More millennials live with their parents than with roommates. We are delaying partner-marrying and house-buying and kid-having for longer than any previous generation. And, according to The Olds, our problems are all our fault: We got the wrong degree. We spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need. We still haven’t learned to code. We killed cereal and department stores and golf and napkins and lunch. Mention “millennial” to anyone over 40 and the word “entitlement” will come back at you within seconds, our own intergenerational game of Marco Polo.This is what it feels like to be young now. Not only are we screwed, but we have to listen to lectures about our laziness and our participation trophies from the people who screwed us.Read the full piece here.Dying To Be Free: There’s A Treatment For Heroin Addiction That Actually Works. Why Aren’t We Using It?By Jason CherkisThe last image we have of Patrick Cagey is of his first moments as a free man. He has just walked out of a 30-day drug treatment center in Georgetown, Kentucky, dressed in gym clothes and carrying a Nike duffel bag. The moment reminds his father of Patrick’s graduation from college, and he takes a picture of his son with his cell phone. Patrick is 25. His face bright, he sticks his tongue out in embarrassment. Four days later, he will be dead from a heroin overdose. Read the full piece here.‘For The Record, I Am Not Pregnant. What I Am Is Fed Up’By Jennifer AnistonLet me start by saying that addressing gossip is something I have never done. I don’t like to give energy to the business of lies, but I wanted to participate in a larger conversation that has already begun and needs to continue. Since I’m not on social media, I decided to put my thoughts here in writing.For the record, I am not pregnant. What I am is fed up. I’m fed up with the sport-like scrutiny and body shaming that occurs daily under the guise of “journalism,” the “First Amendment” and “celebrity news.”Read the full piece here.Together Alone: The Epidemic of Gay LonelinessBy Michael Hobbes“I used to get so excited when the meth was all gone.”This is my friend Jeremy.“When you have it,” he says, “you have to keep using it. When it’s gone, it’s like, ‘Oh good, I can go back to my life now.’ I would stay up all weekend and go to these sex parties and then feel like shit until Wednesday. About two years ago I switched to cocaine because I could work the next day.”Read the full piece here.The Mom Stays In The PictureBy Allison TateLast weekend, my family traveled to attend my oldest niece’s Sweet Sixteen party. My brother and sister-in-law planned this party for many months and intended it to be a big surprise, and it included a photo booth for the guests.I showed up to the party a bit late and, as usual, slightly askew from trying to dress myself and all my little people for such a special night out. I’m still carrying a fair amount of baby weight and wearing a nursing bra, and I don’t fit into my cute clothes. I felt awkward and tired and rumpled.Read the full piece here.Beyond The Battlefield: HuffPost’s Pulitzer Prize-Winning Series On Soldiers Severely Wounded In Iraq And AfghanistanBy David WoodStarting today, The Huffington Post begins a ten-part series, Beyond the Battlefield ― an exploration of the physical and emotional challenges, victories and setbacks that catastrophically wounded soldiers encounter after returning home from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.Beyond the Battlefield is the result of several months of reporting and scores of interviews by the HuffPost’s veteran military correspondent, David Wood. It is a deeply-felt, hard-won and wide-ranging exploration of what it means for a soldier to suffer extraordinary, disabling wounds ― and how friends, families, and hometowns, as well as the military and medical communities, adjust and respond to the physical and emotional struggles these wounded warriors endure.Read the full series here.Everything You Know About Obesity Is WrongBy Michael HobbesWhich brings us to one of the largest gaps between science and practice in our own time. Years from now, we will look back in horror at the counterproductive ways we addressed the obesity epidemic and the barbaric ways we treated fat people — long after we knew there was a better path.Read the full piece here.The 21st Century Gold Rush: How The Refugee Crisis Is Changing The World EconomyBy Malia Politzer and Emily KassieThe biggest refugee crisis in recorded history has engulfed continents, swung elections and fueled the rise of nativism. It has also made a lot of people very, very rich. These are the stories of the CEOs, criminal masterminds, pencil-pushers and low-flying vultures who have figured out how to profit from global instability, also known as human suffering.Read the full piece here.What Bullets Do To BodiesBy Jason FagoneThe first thing Dr. Amy Goldberg told me is that this article would be pointless. She said this on a phone call last summer, well before the election, before a tangible sensation that facts were futile became a broader American phenomenon. I was interested in Goldberg because she has spent 30 years as a trauma surgeon, almost all of that at the same hospital, Temple University Hospital in North Philadelphia, which treats more gunshot victims than any other in the state and is located in what was, according to one analysis, the deadliest of the 10 largest cities in the country until last year, with a homicide rate of 17.8 murders per 100,000 residents in 2015.Over my years of reporting here, I had heard stories about Temple’s trauma team. A city prosecutor who handled shooting investigations once told me that the surgeons were able to piece people back together after the most horrific acts of violence. People went into the hospital damaged beyond belief and came walking out.Read the full piece here.Existing While Black: What Does It Feel Like When Every Move You Make Is Policed?Edited by Taryn FinleyJo Etta M. Harris was nursing her child in her car before a family outing. Gil Perkins was talking on the phone outside of his home. Kelly Shepard’s boys were shopping for video games. And in each instance, someone saw them as suspicious or a threat and called the police.This isn’t new. It happens every day. The experiences of Harris, Perkins, Shepard – and so many others – are reminders that black people don’t have the privilege to simply exist in peace.Read the series here.The PersuadersBy Dave JamiesonEvery week, American employers hire labor consultants to prevent their workers from organizing. Known legally as “persuaders,” these consultants play a crucial role in keeping U.S. union membership near a historic low — and they are well rewarded for their efforts. Many now earn more than $2,000 per day.HuffPost has produced a series of stories revealing who these consultants are, where they come from and what they do. The reporting is based primarily on documents obtained through dozens of public record requests. We hope these stories shed light on a trade that’s plied primarily in the shadows but impacts workplaces around the country.Read the series here.This Is Why Poor People’s Bad Decisions Make Perfect SenseBy Linda TiradoThere’s no way to structure this coherently. They are random observations that might help explain the mental processes. But often, I think that we look at the academic problems of poverty and have no idea of the why. We know the what and the how, and we can see systemic problems, but it’s rare to have a poor person actually explain it on their own behalf. So this is me doing that, sort of.Read the full piece here.What Is Hamas Thinking Now?By Akbar Shahid AhmedDOHA, Qatar ― Six months into a war Hamas started ― with more than 33,000 Palestinians dead, more succumbing to famine daily and Israel determined to continue its aggressive campaign against the organization with robust American military support ― the militant group says it is confident it will wield significant influence in the future, come what may in Gaza.Read the full piece here.Sandra Bland Died One Year Ago: And Since Then, At Least 810 People Have Lost Their Lives In JailBy Dana Liebelson & Ryan J. ReillyWhat made Bland’s death so shocking — the reason that millions of people watched the dash-cam footage of her arrest or closely examined her mugshot—was the mystery at its heart. What had really happened inside the Waller County jail? If Bland had taken her own life, how could she have reached a state of irreversible despair so suddenly?Read the full piece here.Kip Kinkel Is Ready To SpeakBy Jessica SchulbergThat image of Kinkel has remained frozen in time: the dangerous child people point to as the reason some kids need to be locked up for life. For decades, Kinkel never tried to correct it. He refused every interview request and even avoided being photographed in group activities inside the prison. He worried that reemerging publicly would only further traumatize his victims. But last year he agreed to speak to HuffPost.Read the full piece here.The Super Predators: When The Man Who Abuses You Is Also A CopBy Melissa Jeltsen and Dana LiebelsonAll Sarah Loiselle wanted was a carefree summer. There was no particular reason she was feeling restless, but she’d been single for about a year and her job working with cardiac patients in upstate New York could be intense. So when she learned that a Delaware hospital needed temporary nurses, she leapt at the chance to spend a summer by the beach. In June 2011, the tall, bubbly 32-year-old drove her Jeep into the sleepy coastal town of Lewes. She and her poodle, Aries, moved into a rustic apartment above a curiosity shop that once housed the town jail. The place was so close to the bay that she could go sunbathing on her days off. It didn’t bother Loiselle that she’d be away from her friends and family for a while: She felt like she’d put her real life on hold, that she was blissfully free of all her responsibilities.Read the full piece here.Lorena Bobbitt Is Done Being Your PunchlineBy Melissa JeltsenOn a recent trip to Target, Lorena Bobbitt struggled to use the computer at the digital photo center. She was trying, unsuccessfully, to put her 11-year-old daughter’s picture on a Christmas card. A young male employee came over to help. When they were done and she was typing in her first name for payment, he audibly gasped.“I thought the machine must be broken,” she recalled. “But he said, ‘I know who you are!’”Read the full piece here.Jerry And Marge Go LargeBy Jason FagoneGerald Selbee broke the code of the American breakfast cereal industry because he was bored at work one day, because it was a fun mental challenge, because most things at his job were not fun and because he could—because he happened to be the kind of person who saw puzzles all around him, puzzles that other people don’t realise are puzzles: the little ciphers and patterns that float through the world and stick to the surfaces of everyday things.Read the full piece here.

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