The biggest fact about potatoes was Ireland's potato famine. When the British government induced famine in Ireland, attempting to carry out genocide through starvation. As people were starving in Ireland, their government (controlled by Britain) was exporting mass amounts of food without any concern for the people they were supposed to represent.
"Throughout the entire period of the Famine, Ireland was exporting enormous quantities of food. In the magazine History Ireland (1997, issue 5, pp. 32–36), Christine Kinealy, a Great Hunger scholar, lecturer, and Drew University professor, relates her findings: Almost 4,000 vessels carried food from Ireland to the ports of Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool, and London during 1847, when 400,000 Irish men, women, and children died of starvation and related diseases. She also writes that Irish exports of calves, livestock (except pigs), bacon, and ham actually increased during the Famine. This food was shipped from the most famine-stricken parts of Ireland: Ballina, Ballyshannon, Bantry, Dingle, Killala, Kilrush, Limerick, Sligo, Tralee, and Westport. A wide variety of commodities left Ireland during 1847, including peas, beans, onions, rabbits, salmon, oysters, herring, lard, honey, tongues, animal skins, rags, shoes, soap, glue, and seed."
yeah, i have heard references to this in a number of movies and what not. However, it isn't generally taught in schools or, i don't have any recollection of it. Perhaps because it is a terrible blemish in the history of the world.