Poop happens.
In other words, it's inevitable that mistakes will be made in daily life. Luckily for most of us, our errors don't alter the course of human events.
These people? Weren't so fortunate.
Reddit user HumanNutrStudent asked:
"What was arguably the biggest f*ck-up in history?"
Scotland v. Black Death
"In 1350, the Scots heard that England was having a spot of trouble with the bubonic plague, and decided to launch an invasion that would take advantage of the English, who were dropping like flies and would thus be easy pickings."
"The Scots invading army lost 5000 men to the plague in very short order. They decided to cut their losses and fall back to Scotland to be safe."
"Of course they brought the great plague with them, which devastated Scotland too."
~ Sauterneandbleu
Khwarazmian Empire v. Genghis Khan
"A governor of the Khwarazmian Empire killed a peaceful emissary from a neighboring empire, who had been sent to establish trade relations and political connections between the two powers."
"The emissary was sent by Genghis Khan."
"Genghis Khan replied by invading the Khwarazmian Empire, obliterating everything in his path, burning basically the entire thing to the ground, and then destroying any record of the Khwarazmian Empire that he could find."
"He finished all of this off by diverting the river that fed the country water, causing the land where the empire once stood to become a dry and barren wasteland."
~ JackCooper_7274
"Slightly more complicated: Mongol Empire sends large caravan to Otrar to begin trade. Governor siezes caravan and executes all 450 people on charges of treason, with consent of the sultan."
"Genghis sends three ambassadors (two Mongols and a Muslim) to the sultan to demand the governor be punished. Sultan has Muslim executed and Mongols shaved (a grave insult)."
"Genghis abandons current war with China and invades, capturing many cities who hold no real loyalty to the Sultan and surrender peacefullly."
"Genghis sieges Otrar, finally fully taking it after six months and executing governor...
"Genghis bypasses 300 miles of impassable desert to invade next city from more vulnerable side.
"Genghis takes thd capital of the empire in five days. Sultan dies hiding in exile."
~ lorgskyegon
National Party Schnapps Election v. Labour Party
"I think the best political f*ck-up happened in 1984 when New Zealand's arrogant prime minister got drunk in his office late one night and called a snap election in two week's time."
"His government was voted out. It became known as the Schnapps Election."
~ Fresh-Hedgehog1895
"In 1984 in Australia, the then PM Malcolm Fraser of the National Party called a snap double dissolution election, hoping to catch out the unpopularity of the Labour Party opposition leader, Bill Hayden."
"Fraser didn't know that while he was meeting with the Governor General to call the election, Bill Hayden had resigned, and was to be replaced with the massively popular Bob Hawke."
"Labour won in a landslide."
~ infinitemonkeytyping
Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant v. Safety Test
"Chernobyl! Only a f*ck-up of epic poportions can cause a nuclear incident while doing a saftey test."
~ Ta-veren-
"Reactor 4 is still the most dangerous place on this planet. And will be for 10,000+ years."
"Without three brave souls draining cooling tanks and preventing a massive hydrogen explosion, most of Central Asia would be uninhabitable today nearly permanently."
"Gorbachev said in his 2006 bio that it was the final straw that caused the USSR to fall apart. Remember Ukraine was one of the first that voted to leave [other USSR republics left prior, but not by vote]."
~ arun_bala
Mao v. Agriculture
"Mao's push to have farmers in China produce their own steel using backyard furnaces, which lead to a wacky chain reaction eventually leading to a famine that killed millions."
"Mao also ordered the extermination of sparrows in an attempt to protect grain crops. Millions of sparrows were killed, allowing locusts to proliferate.
"The locusts consumed so many crops that there was widespread famine and 45 million people died."
~ Belyea
Invasive Species v. Nature
"Introducing rabbits to Australia."
"Some guy introduced rabbits to Australia in 1788 so that he could hunt them for sport."
~ GotPC
"Possums in New Zealand too. To make it even worse, the first time they tried to introduce them it didn’t take so they tried it again!"
"Now both animals are a MAJOR pest and tons of money (and poison) are used just to try to sort of manage the population."
~ VisibleSun4416
Nixon v. Watergate
"Nixon deciding to spy on the Democrats even though he almost certainly would have won reelection even if he didn't"
"Nixon did win re-election in 1972. He just didn’t need to spy at all."
"The Democrats were still divided post-LBJ. Ted Kennedy was still political poison because of Chappaquiddick so the next Crown Prince of the dynasty chose not to run in 1972."
"McGovern had to replace his VP nominee just three weeks after selecting him because it was found that Thomas Eagleton had mental health issues. The 'solid south' was in the midst of its conversion to the Republican Party over Civil Rights and integrated busing."
"As much as 1972 was Nixon’s political peak, it was also the beginning of the end. Watergate moved slow and it would take two years of leaks and stories to finally end in his resignation."
"Nixon’s legacy would have been top-tier had Watergate never tainted it (theoretically)."
~ Poolofcheddar
Old v. New
"Blockbuster not buying Netflix."
~ PayasoCanuto
"Yahoo not buying Google."
~ FatBirdsMakeEasyPrey
"Netflix offered themselves to Yahoo. Yahoo instead bought Tumblr.
"Heads rolled at Yahoo."
~ Broad_Bodybuilder_94
Citizens United v. Democracy
"Corporations are people. Money is speech."
"These simple assertions have guided America toward more greed and more war than any other decision in history. It has set us on the path towards far worse ends than most other single events."
~ Arkmer
Emergency Alert System v. Public Panic
"Not the worst, but that 2018 incident where they sent out an emergency alert saying 'inbound ballistic missile threat to Hawaii. This is not a drill' always sticks out in my mind."
"People were seeking shelter in manholes, and it took them 45 minutes to send out a follow up alert saying 'just kidding. Everything is OK'."
"I can’t even imagine."
~ jhumph88
"Then they try to blame it on a combination of 'improper training' and their computer software."
"Why is it so easy to make that huge of a mistake‽ Why aren't there multiple safeguards and higher-ups involved‽‽"
"The conspiracy theorist in me almost thinks they did it on purpose to test how people would react."
~ MrEndlessness
Climate Change v. Politicians
"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) decision to go with the more conservative climate change modeling in the 1980s."
"Essentially the question at the time was 'does heat accumulate at the poles, or does it dissipate into space'? They went with the dissipation models, even though they were in contradiction to geological evidence, because it had never been directly observed."
"And now, everything is 'sooner than expected' and 'faster than anticipated'."
~ Solomon-Drowne
Retail Stores v. The Internet
"In retail history, probably Sears not realizing that they were basically Amazon before Amazon."
"Mail order with warehouses all over the United States. How could you improve that business model?"
"Oh, the Internet you say? Never heard of it."
~ vicki22029
20th Century Fox v. Star Wars Merch
"20th Century Fox let George Lucas keep all the merchandising r⁷ights for Star Wars because they thought it would be a giant flop and noone would watch it."
"George Lucas is now worth 5.3 billion dollars."
~ Tobazili
Thomas Midgley Jr. v. Life On Earth
"The amazing development of chlorofluorocarbons to replace toxic, ammonia, sulphur dioxide, and chloromethane in refrigerators. It was so successful and safe that it rapidly became the refrigerant of choice."
"Right up until the moment we discovered that it had been reacting with sunlight to produce radical free chlorines that obliterated the ozone layer causing a massive spike in skin cancer rates (among other things)."
"Or what about Tetraethyllead! This amazing additive made cars massively more efficient saving huge amounts of petrol."
"It also significantly increased lead levels around the world and is responsible for a significant decrease in intelligence for people born during the time of its use. Although it's hard to call this a f**kup, as GM and its inventor Thomas Midgley Jr. were aware of the dangers and played them down."
"Wait a minute, the person that invented chloroflorocarbons was also Thomas Midgley Jr. Environmental Historian, J.R. McNeil once claimed that Midgley "had more adverse impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history".
"Midgley had one more f*ckup to give, but fortunately for all of us, it only affected him. Later in life he became disabled after he contracted polio."
"To aid in his mobility he designed a system of ropes and pulleys to aid getting out of bed. He was strangled by his own contraption at age 55."
"So I submit Thomas Midgley Jr. himself as arguably the biggest f*ck-up in history."
~ Somerandom1922
Tiktaalik v. Dry Land
"So that one fish decided to try what happens when you leave the water."
"That's when it really started to go downhill!"
~ WindpowerGuy
So what would you add to the list?