Whether we like to admit it or not, every single one of us makes mistakes. Probably daily. They are just part of life. There is not much to do but simply learn from those mistakes so they become lessons, and in the future, we can avoid the same actions. Some mistakes are minor, some are huge….like really really major screw-ups. So huge they impact the whole world, humanity, and all aspects of life. When it comes to figuring out “Which Is The Biggest Historic Screw-Up?” we will let you be the judge. In this article, we’ve collected 40 examples for you to decide who did it b...worst. Without further ado, get yourself comfortable and prepare to say "oh no" as you read this.
1. He hid.
Recently it has been 35 years since the world-changing accident that happened at a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine, then still the Soviet Union. But it’s still a fresh reminder of how bad things went and could have gone even worse.
The engineer that designed the Power Plant made crucial mistakes in the design and the Soviet government decided to ignore them, those defects contributed to the meltdown of the plant at Chernobyl. The accident almost made entire Eastern Europe uninhabitable.
2. He fired.
Otto von Bismarck was a conservative German statesman and its first Chancellor. He played the main role in unifying Germany in 1871 and making it into the German Empire. He was famously known for being strongly in favor of anti-socialists laws.
Otto had a close relationship with Kaiser Wilhelm II, the emperor. The Chancellor was a very dominant individual that always tried to influence the decision-making of the Emperor. So the Emperor decides to fire him. Historians strongly believe that if had he not fire him World War 1 would never happen.
3. He betrayed.
Alcibiades was a prominent Athenian statesman, a skilled orator, and a powerful general that lived some 2450 years ago. But one thing he was not so skilled at is PR decision-making.
Unfortunately for him, by the end of his life, he was mostly considered to be a traitor. Considered by…well, everyone. By the Athenians for leading his men to death, by Spartans for seducing their queen in the king's absence, by Persians for including them in a bloody war.
4. He ran.
William Howard Taft decided to run for the US presidency right before World War One. His participation in the presidential race caused the result to be split 3 ways and Teddy Roosevelt not standing a chance to be reelected. Had Roosevelt won, he would almost definitely push the US to enter the war quicker thus ending it quicker.
This would have led to a different scenario history could have. One where Lenin and Stalin are hopeless romantics that never get to power, Russia remains a Monarchy closely resembling that of the UK.
5. He joined.
Brutus, don't join Cassius, take it easy! There is no need to kill Caesar...He did anyway. This caused Caesar's son to be mad. Like really really mad. So mad that he became a military dictator with the powers of a king. Giving a blueprint to all of the Monarchies of Europe.
Brutus's decision to join the conspiracy to murder Caesar changed Western civilization for almost 2000 years! The political style Brutus wanted was one that resembled democracy, ironically he messed that one up, majorly.
6. He listened.
Hezarfen Ahmed Çelebi was a man that The Wright brothers would worship. He created the first glider device that he attached himself to and flew 3 kilometers over the Bosphorus, a natural strait in turkey. And all of this in 1638.
Just like many examples in history religion got in the way of science. The religious establishment of the Ottoman Empire saw a threat in Hezarfen and persuaded Sultan Murad IV to send the first flying man into exile in Algeria.
7. He just got some pizza.
On May 22, 2010, two large delicious Papa John’s pizzas were bought. The person buying them was a programmer and he paid for the delicious “pie” with 10,000 bitcoins. This is equivalent to around $30 at that time.
By 2018, one slice of that crispy yet tender juicy pizza would have cost more than $4 million. You see, the 10,000 bitcoins would have been Roughly $82 million and those pizzas had 20 slices between them.
8. He planned.
Adm. Yamamoto Isoroku, under the Japanese government, planned and executed an attack on Pearl Harbor. While the attack was a success in the short term, in the long term it was a big mistake.
After the attack, the US entered World War 2 with all of its military might and the rest is history. And as for Yamamoto, things didn’t…well, go down (literally) all too well. On April 18, 1943, his plane was gunned down by sixteen P-38 planes over Bougainville Island.
9. He disagreed.
This article is about historic screw-ups, all because one individual made a decision. Just to spice things up, let’s look at a decision that is probably the greatest one ever but could have easily been the worst.
The Cuban Missile Crisis, Vasily Arkhipov, was one among three commanding officers aboard a Soviet submarine. The submarine was loaded with nukes all directed at the US. Due to the Kennedy administration's blockade, the submarine was not able to surface causing carbon dioxide levels to increase. In desperation, two officers agreed to fire rockets aimed at the US, Arkhipov didn’t. Without the unanimous decision of all three nothing could be done.
10. He sold.
Asa Griggs Candler made two major business decisions in his life, to buy the Coca-Cola recipe for US$1,750 from chemist John Stith Pemberton. And to sell the exclusive rights to bottle the drink to Joseph Biedenharn for just $1.
Asa Griggs looked at it as an opportunity to further distribute his newly acquired drink. What he didn’t foresee is the huge role a bottle will have in the drinks popularity. Five years later Mr. Biedenharns' company manufactured a mass-bottling mechanism with the famous bottle. This forced Coca-Cola to depend and buy bottles from one company.
11. Don't take shortcuts.
George Donner was a leader of 90 pioneers known as The Donner Party. A group of simple folk from the Midwest who in search of better life decided to migrate to California.
The migration took place in 1846, with no proper navigation equipment and only the American Dream for a better life. Unfortunately for the Donner Party, George decided to take a shortcut to that dream. This shortcut trapped them in the Sierra Nevada mountains for the entire winter and forced the group to become...cannibals.
12. Don't sell your shares.
In 1976, in a garage, set hippy-looking Steve Jobs, super nerdy-looking Steve Wozniak, and simple Ronald. Ronald Wayne helped out the two settings up the company and did a bunch of administrative tasks that had a lot of paperwork involved.
Twelve days later, the garage was not the most comfortable place, the paperwork was becoming a nicely sized pile so Ronald sold his Apple shares for just $800! He sold his 10% of the company to Steve Jobs and Wozniak. Today those 800 bucks would roughly be 80 billion.
13. Don't call for a referendum.
In 2016, then UK Prime Minister David Cameron decided to call for a referendum. His decision to do so resulted in Britain pulling out of European Union, simply known as Brexit.
But that wasn’t just that, it cost him his job and for half the kingdom to hate him. His reputation was already damaged at that point by the Piggate fiasco. If you are wondering what that is, it’s best you just Google it.
14. Don't forget to take a piece.
Back in 1985, a retired American Navy officer and a professor of oceanography, Robert Ballard was one of the main guys who discovered Titanic. This discovery made headlines across the globe but one thing it didn’t do is preserve the site.
Robert refused to remove any artifacts from the shipwreck as he considered it a cemetery. Had he brought a piece of it up, under international maritime law, he could claim legal ownership of the wreck. Since he didn’t do so the wreck belongs to nobody and anyone is free to take artifacts, thus making preservation very difficult.
15. Don’t ignore safety.
We spoke about the engineer that designed the Chernobyl Power Plant but we did not mention Anatoly Dyatlov, the guy who ran it. The design of the plant had flaws but the guy running the place had bigger flaws.
Dyatlov oversaw a test conducted at Reactor 4 on the day it blew up. Actually quite opposite, he didn’t oversee it and ignored all the safety regulations. His negligence had a big role in the accident and resulted in his own death due to exposure to radiation.
16. Don’t say no.
Remember Yahoo? You know that website everyone's elderly aunt uses to send emails. Or they refer to them, electronic mail. Well if history could have been a bit different and all of ending up with a yahoo domain on our emails.
Yahoo decided not to buy Google for a million dollars when they offered. Few years down the road Google made the same offer but for 40 million, Yahoo declined. Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo for 40 billion, they declined. A few years later, Yahoo’s market share dropped so low it was acquired by Verizon for just 4.6 billion.
17. Don't go to war.
In 2003, President George W. Bush makes a decision to go to war and invade Iraq. At the time this seemed like the right thing to do. Only there was no direct threat from Iraq and later on, we all found out that there are no “weapons of mass destruction”.
The war in Iraq caused hundreds of thousands of deaths. But the worst part is that nothing was really won. The country was thrown into chaos that it is still in and not getting out of time any time soon.
18. Don't kill.
A Zimbabwean ecologist, Allan Savory, wanted to prevent and stop the desertification of Africa. Back in the early 1960s, it was widely believed that grazing was what caused desertification. And no other animal like an elephant loves grazing.
In those days, unfortunately, you could kill elephants and Savory did just that. He strongly advocated for killing the animals and roughly 40,000 of them were killed during that time. It was soon that he was able to realize that herds that roamed the land kept the natural balance by defecating and pushing down the vegetation causing it to decay and regrow.
19. Don't create.
Here is a great idea, let's create a machine that makes coffee by using a single-use plastic cup. Every single time you want a cup of tea or coffee. It’s not gonna pollute
The earth that much, right? Wrong!
The earth that much, right? Wrong!
Unfortunately, that is what John Sylvan did. He created the K-Cup. A product that was widely used in offices across the world and contributed to a lot of the plastic waste globally. Fortunately, the company got a hold of their senses and discontinued the product.
20. Don’t start a civil war.
Julius Caesar left a big impact on the world and as mentioned earlier his death gave the western world a blueprint for the monarchy rule. But something that he also did is cause civil war in his empire.
Because of the civil war, the Library of Alexandria was burned down. And just like that in one fire humanity lost a ton of knowledge that to this historians are not able to restore. For a few centuries humanity lost knowledge about astronomy, trigonometry, geography and mathematics.
21. Carpenter was an alcoholic.
A carpenter received a message that a poor painter in his neighborhood needs some help with his furniture. After the carpenter did the work, the poor painter didn’t have a dime to pay. Instead, he offered a painting or a bottle of fine red wine.
Having good taste in wine it didn’t take much time for the carpenter to take the fine wine. Edvard Munch, the poor painter, didn’t mind giving the bottle and kept the painting that today is worth millions.
22. Priam was superstitious.
The legendary king of Troy, Priam, stood on the beach of the Aegean Sea and looked at this huge wooden horse the Greek army had left. “This is an offering to goddess Athena”, he mumbled to himself.
His son Paris, standing next to him said “you sure pops?”, “Yeah, pretty sure” Priam replied. That same evening, after the horse was dragged into the city's walls, some 40 soldiers climbed out of the horse. They opened the gates to the city for the rest of the Greek army and burned it to the ground. The End.
23. Khan had anger issues.
One day, the Khwarezm governor Inalchuq decided to rob Genghis Khan’s trade caravan. Genghis, really working on his inner peace, decided to send three ambassadors to negotiate a settlement and not reply in anger.
Sultan Muhammad II of Khwarezmia killed one of the ambassadors and shaved the beards of the other two, showing great disrespect to Khan. And this is where Khan lost it. He destroyed the Khwarazmian Empire and all the towns in it. He went as far as damming a river to the village where the Shah was born.
24. Mao was a sucky agronomist.
When it came to agronomy, Captain China Mao Zedong was quite an enthusiast. He instructed his people (they listed cause they really had no choice) to eat all the sparrows.
In his logic, the people get to have dinner and not starve. He went on to tell his people that this will help with the crops to grow since sparrows will not eat them. Well, sparrows eat locust, the ecosystem got all messed up and locust ate all the crops.
25. George was greedy.
It was the 1990’s, digital technology was the thing and the internet was the future. Kodak invented the digital camera and the world was shocked by the new sci-fi-like invention.
The thing is, Kodak really made most of their money from the film. Then CEO George M. C. Fisher made a decision to keep the revenue rolling and stick to the film. The rival companies said thank you and used the digital camera technology to almost bankrupt Kodak.
26. Aibak was clever.
Some 900 hundred years ago, a slave trader bought a kid in Nishapur in Persia, the kid was Qutb al-Din Aibak. The same slave trader bought 20,000 Albanian slaves. All the slaves were trained to become badass warriors called Mamluks.
Remember The Unsullied from Game of Thrones? These guys closely resemble them. And one day, they decided to uprise, kill the slave trader, form a Mamluk Sultanate and conquer all known world to them. And who was their leader? The kid Nishapur, Persia.
27. Tom was reckless.
Mechanical and chemical engineer, Thomas Midgley Jr, gave a lot to humanity. The use of lead in petrol/gasoline, freon, and its use in refrigeration and air conditioning are all of his inventions. But he kind of didn’t care about the environment or health.
He neglected the harm to the atmosphere, human brains, lead poisoning from his inventions. At 51 he contracted polio and became disabled. To get out of bed he had to develop and build a device from ropes and pulleys. Four years later he entangled himself in the device and died from strangulation.
28. Adolf was just stupid.
When we think of evil, Hitler is at the top of the list of people that come to mind. In addition to a staggering list of horrible things he was, the guy was just stupid. After successfully capturing half of Europe he told himself “Why not Russia?”.
He forgot a few things, for example, that Russia is cold. German winter is fall in Russia. The population is twice the size of Germany at that time. Proper winter uniform was not given to the soldiers, German logistics sucked and he forgot to think that the USA can join arms with the Soviets.
29. John was a snob.
Cyril John Radcliffe was a British lawyer, Law Lord, and a snob. The boundary demarcation line between the Indian and Pakistani portions of the Punjab and Bengal provinces holds his name “Radcliff Line”. He is the legal author of the bill that oversaw the division.
When the Brits understood that they were misbehaving and decided to stop the whole colonizing deal, they had one last mess up to do. India and Pakistan were divided with urgency and no consideration for the local population and their religion. This resulted in wars and millions of deaths.
30. Anthony was an a......
The Brits misbehaving again, this time with the Native Americans. They gave them blankets diseased with smallpox. They thought it would be a great idea and it will force them to back off from their colonies. The problem is they didn’t think it would kill as much as 90% of some tribes.
In 1972, back in the UK, the smallpox vaccine was invented. The vaccine was sent to the United States to help both the Colonial and Native Americans. But the US Army General Anthony Wayne thought it would be best if the Native Americans get nothing.
31. Think of the power vacuum.
Let's discuss the war in Iraq again. So President George W. Bush messed up going there in the first place but Lieutenant General Jay Garner messed up managing the Coalition Provisional Authority.
After Saddam Hussein was out of the picture a power vacuum happened. The mismanagement of the Coalition Provisional Authority caused a civil war to erupt between Shias and Sunnis. Top Iraqi officials of the Sadam Hussein government fled and created ISIS…
32. Think of the possibilities.
Back in the cool year of 2000, Blockbuster's CEO John Antioco laughed as he was being pitched an idea of a DVD-by-mail subscription service. The 2 guys who were presenting had a small but fast-growing company called Netflix.
At that point they already had a vision of streaming as well, the technology just wasn’t there yet. As they did the pitch they offered to sell the company for $50 million. Antioco laughed and said, “no, this is just not possible”. Blockbuster doesn't exist anymore and everyone loves Netflix.
33. Think of the potential.
Peter McColough, CEO of Xerox in the ’70s didn’t think computers have any potential when it came to bringing in money for the company. The company developed the first computer that had a graphical interface and can be operated by one person.
It was called Xerox Alto. The leaders of the company were slow to realize the value of the technology developed by their engineers. The computers were not marketed the right way and the company eventually gave them away to universities and libraries. Steve Jobs loved those computers.
34. Think of the tyranny.
We said that Hitler was stupid but he did know how to paint. But he was rejected by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. So maybe he wasn’t that good at that either. Christian Griepenkerl definitely thought so.
At that time he was a professor at the academy and rejected Hitler's application with a "Sample drawing unsatisfactory. Too few heads." explanation. He didn’t think this would drive the applicant so mad he would go and become a tyrant.
35. Think of the 1990’s.
It’s the 1980’s, the video game scene is booming. Nentendo products are every kid’s dream and Supper Mario is the new Superman. Under the leadership of Hiroshi Yamauchi, Nintendo decided to partner up with Sony.
The partnership was to create a new generation of consoles that would use a CD instead of a cartridge. At one point Nintendo decided to tell Sony “Adios Amigos” and pulled out from the partnership, sticking with the money-making cartridge technology. They didn’t think that the CD technology would explode in the ’90s and Sony will release the PlayStation.
36. Think of the planet.
Emagine a brilliant guy with a Ph.D. in mechanical from MIT. He builds an amazing career in academia and serves on MIT's Advisory Board of Technology and Policy. Goes into politics and becomes Governor of New Hampshire and later White House Chief of Staff under President George H. W. Bush.
Later on, the brilliant guy starts publicly criticizing and questioning researcher James Hansen on his report regarding climate change. His actions start a PR campaign that there is no global warming and the debate is still here 30 years later while the damage is being done.
37. Think of the war.
Imagine a scrawny 19-year-old Bosnian Serb kid. That is who Gavrilo Princip was. He also was a naive assassin with an ideology he strongly believed in. So one day he took it upon himself to end the Austro-Hungarian empire.
Gavrilo killed the heir to the throne of the empire and his wife. He, together with his accomplices, was quickly arrested and tried. The court ruled them as a nationalist secret society. Their trial initiated the July Crisis of 1914 and led to the outbreak of World War I.
38. Think of Black Death.
David II of Scotland was sitting in his castle and with that Scottish accent telling himself “God is punishing the English”. It was 1348 and England was in the midst of a pandemic with everyone dying.
And just like that Scotland decided to invade northern England thinking this was the best opportunity to conquer the kingdom. What they didn’t know is that it wasn't god punishing the English, it was bubonic plague. The Scottish army got infected as well and now evryone in Scotland was dying too.
39. Think of the Mafia.
Wayne Wheeler was an American attorney who really loved his boss. So much so he even drafted one legislation and named it after him. Volstead Act, named after Andrew Volstead, was the bill that introduced alcohol prohibition.
And just like that, the US entered a strange era of bootleggers and organized crime. This gave rise to the Italian Mafia in the US that molded the country's history. Some 13 years later when the amount of crime, spousal abuse didn’t drop and the overall amount of piety in America didn’t grow the government stopped the prohibition.
40. Think of the fans.
So the writers of Game of Thrones season 8 decided to end the TV Show with a bang. Killing off most of the main characters and staging a bloody battle. The season was long-awaited by the fans.
This was supposed to be the best thing since sliced bread. But it went the other way. The fans of the show hated each episode more and more as they came out. Even the cast, later on, spoke about the season and how much they disapproved of their characters' faith.