5 World Changing Decisions (Made for Ridiculous Reasons)
Rome wasn't built by accident, and Hitler didn't decide to invade Poland on the flip of a coin. Society is shaped by powerful men with a vision, for better or worse.
Well, mostly. As it turns out, some of the most important changes in pop culture and world history have turned on some guy shrugging and saying, "screw it."
#5.
The Mayflower Lands at Plymouth Rock for a Beer Run
Everyone knows the Pilgrims settled in Plymouth because they were searching for a place that would let them practice religious freedom (and that wasn't the Netherlands). What's stupid or arbitrary about that?
The Arbitrary Reason:
Actually, it was about beer. The pilgrims weren't even supposed to go to Massachusetts, they were set to settle in what is now the state of New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. That was the plan all along, and that's where they would have landed - if they hadn't run out of beer.
"It's not beer, it's just a rock!"
The more standard story is that the bad weather made navigation almost impossible and people were getting sick, so they had to stop somewhere. They began searching for a suitable place to settle. However, it was the fact that they were running out of provisions--especially beer--that finally made them realize they couldn't be picky. And as anyone who's lived in New England can tell you, the only way you can voluntarily choose to settle there is if you're not picky about climate, or really anything else.
"We could not take time for further search or consideration,
our victuals being much spent, especially our beer" -The First Goddamn Americans (1622)
Since beer was boiled, it was cleaner than what passed for regular water at the time and therefore safer to drink (especially during long trips). So, if the beer in the Mayflower hadn't been running low at the time they were passing near Plymouth, they almost definitely would have continued their trip further down south, as close to the Hudson River as they could make it.
Of course, once they had settled on land and found perfectly drinkable water there, they didn't really need beer... which didn't stop them from fighting over the beer that remained, and sending the first ship back to England with an order for plenty more.
The World-Changing Consequences:
Plymouth Colony became the oldest permanent English settlement in America, and their search for ideological freedom remained an important theme all through the history of the United States.
As did their obsession with beer.
The Pilgrims are responsible for much of American folklore, starting with Thanksgiving. Speaking of which, if the Pilgrims had run out of beer anywhere besides Plymouth, there's a good chance they would have been screwed. The Native Americans they happened to befriend (Pilgrim for "stealing their corn") at Plymouth had a guy who spoke English, and were friendly enough to teach them how to survive in that area. Without that stroke of good luck, the Colony doesn't survive that first winter.
In other words, if the murmurs of "keg's tapped" and "this party's lame" had started a few miles down the coast, none of us would be here right now.
#4.
Woody Allen Reinvents Cinema By Accident
The film Annie Hall didn't just transform Woody Allen's career: It transformed the world of cinema by reinventing the romantic comedy genre and using a widely imitated style of non-linear narrative (we're looking at you, Tarantino). It also transformed Star Wars fans into raging maniacs by getting the Best Picture Oscar instead of Episode IV.
With Annie Hall, Woody Allen made a conscious decision to leave behind the wacky genre spoofs he was known for and become a respected filmmaker...
The Arbitrary Reasons:
Well, actually, Annie Hall was supposed to be a wacky genre spoof, too. In fact, it was even shot that way. The story was conceived as a murder mystery that happened to have a romantic subplot, but upon viewing the four hours of footage, the editor thought it sucked.
That's right, it was the editor, not Woody Allen, who decided to change the whole thing. The guy convinced Allen to scrap the entire murder mystery plot and focus on the romantic aspect instead. Suddenly Diane Keaton's character went from a quirky supporting player (similar to her role in Woody's previous films) to the most important part of the film.
But hold on a second, you can't just cut the main plot out of a film, can you? Wouldn't that leave the story a little disjointed? Sure it did, which accounts for the influential non-linear narrative we were talking about earlier. The script already involved extensive flashback sequences, so all they had to do was jumble the order of the scenes set in the present and call it "experimental."
It worked surprisingly well, mainly thanks to the stream of consciousness narration Allen and the editor added to the final cut.
The World-Changing Consequences:
First of all, there's the whole "creating a new film genre" thing. Romantic comedies had been practically non-existent in Hollywood since the early 60s. Like musicals, they were deemed too silly for modern audiences. Annie Hall accidentally made them cool again. There was enough neurosis left over from the murder mystery spoof, and since Allen didn't know he was making a romantic comedy, the guy didn't get the girl in the end, which was the guaranteed outcome in romantic comedies up to that point. The basic formula of Annie Hall was ripped off by When Harry Met Sally, and then When Harry Met Sally was ripped off by every single romantic comedy made since then.
Then there's the non-linear thing. No mainstream film was so blatantly disjointed as Annie Hall, and the fact that it did so well proved that wide audiences could go for a thing like that. Modern films like Memento, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, (500) Days of Summer and Everything Tarantino Has Ever Done only exist because Woody Allen shot a film that was too terrible to edit.
#3.
A Change of Underwear Changes Music
In 1959, Rock 'n' Roll pioneer Buddy Holly boarded a plane with popular musicians Ritchie Valens and JP "The Big Bopper" Richardson. If you've heard the song "American Pie" you know what happened next: the plane climbs high into the night, Satan begins laughing with delight, nobody takes this to be a red flag because the 50s were a more innocent time, the plane crashes, music dies.
The Arbitrary Reasons:
The events leading up to the accident that killed three of the earliest pioneers in rock stardom are full of coincidences, misfortunes and last minute changes; but everything can be traced back to Buddy Holly's hard-on for clean underwear.
After the organizers added a last minute date on February 2 (which meant a lot more traveling and a lot more freezing their asses off--maybe literally), Holly began feeling frustrated. He'd been wearing the same outfit since the beginning of the tour and had run out of clean underpants. And as many rock musicians would go on to prove, it is impossible to play a decent Rock 'n' Roll show if you don't have clean undies.
White as snow and soft like mother's love.
The local laundromat happened to be closed that day, so Holly suggested he and his band charter a plane to get to the next city early and wash everyone's clothes there. Deciding it wasn't happy with murdering just one headliner, fate intervened and Buddy's bassist kindly ceded his seat to Big Bopper Richardson, who had the flu. Meanwhile, Ritchie Valens realized he'd never seen the inside of a small plane and asked Buddy's guitarist to give up his seat too. The guitarist agreed to flip a coin for it and Valens won.
"Wow, it's like a normal plane, only smaller. Well this was worth it."
When Buddy found out his bassist Waylon Jennings wasn't going to be on the plane, he said to him: "Well, I hope your ol' bus freezes up." Jennings ominously replied: "Well, I hope your ol' plane crashes." A clap of thunder was heard in the background.
The World-Changing Consequences:
Due to a combination of adverse weather conditions, inadequate forecast reports and the pilot's inexperience with certain flying instruments, the plane crashed a few minutes after taking off, abruptly ending three promising careers in rock music and one in charter plane aviation. Buddy Holly had been recording for only 16 months and Ritchie Valens for 10, while Richardson had made the jump from DJ to performer around six months prior and already had two hits.
Buddy Holly in particular was considered an innovative genius whose ambition was only growing. Many argue that his death prevented him from taking rock music places that it wouldn't go for years. For instance, much of modern Rock 'n' Roll music is derived from his (at the time) experimental use of the recording studio.
Of course there are those who believe he would have been forgotten within two years if he hadn't died. After all, who knows what artists would be remembered as visionaries today if they had died after their biggest hit?
November 4, 1990. Vanilla Ice chokes on a potato chip. Never forget.
But that hypothetical scenario might have changed the face of modern music even more. Buddy Holly's death had a deep impact on the entire generation of musicians that replaced him: Bob Dylan saw Holly perform two days before the accident and would always claim to be personally affected by his death, The Rolling Stones were big fans and The Beatles named themselves after his band The Crickets and recorded several of his songs.
Whether you believe Holly was a genius or just another rock star overrated because he died young, the music world would look completely different today had Holly brought an extra change of underwear on tour.
"Since beer was boiled, it was cleaner than what passed for regular water at the time and therefore safer to drink (especially during long trips). "
ReplyEr, no. First, beer is not "boiled" (in fact, that would make fermentation impossible). Beer contains both alcohol and hops, which are preservatives- that is, they prevent bacteria etc from growing. Fresh water, by contrast, will become stale and then bug-ridden in a few weeks.
Actually boiling is part of the process before fermentation. And bacteria is what makes fermentation possible.
Woody Allen did NOT invent nonlinear narratives in film as you seem to be implying. So you can quit taking lame, cheap shots at Tarantino.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesIn fact, Annie Hall was so influential that it, in 1975 inspired Catch-22 to be nonlinear before it was even made, back in 1970, and even the book it was based on in 1966.
Seriously, Catch-22 didn't invent the idea either, but if you watch or read Hellerman, with it's dark humor and surprising death scenes, it's a lot more reasonable to say it inspired Memento and Tarantino.
Heller. Joseph Heller.
I love tarantinos work but he didn't invent the non-linear plot. He's also a crazy asshole.
Do horses fly or not, goddammit?!
ReplyTurns out, they do in gallop. So apparently Mr. Governor won.
It's a bit misleading to say that the Pilgrims went to America for religious freedoms - they went so that they could enforce puritanism, because they believed that the European countries did not enforce Christianity in the right way. They went not to create a land that enjoyed freedom of religion but to create a country ruled strictly by one particular brand of Christianity.
ReplyBut by the time the country was founded religious freedom was part of the deal. The founding fathers even had different brands of Christianity and some even had wackier beliefs.
You seem to have neglected a bigger reason that the U.S. didn't bomb Kyoto. They did it mostly because if the government buildings had been destroyed and the most important officials were killed because of the atom bomb there would be no one left to surrender to the U.S. But I'm sure the Secretary of War played a big part preventing the atom bomb from being dropped on Kyoto too.
ReplyIt's been 21 years since Vanilla Ice choked on that potato chip, never forget.
ReplyPoor Suge Knight was there, trying to help him, but just couldn't save him in time.
Regarding #5, the real reason the Pilgrims turned back and settled in Massachussetts instead of New York is that there is a patch of rough water between Nantucket and Cape Cod that the ship's crew wouldn't try.
ReplyExcept for that one inaccuracy, good article.
Seriously, the U.S. had the nuke, and they were just itching to try it out. It had been developed in the insistence that it be created before the Nazis could, and when the Nazis surrendered they felt that they had lost the opportunity to bomb someone back to the stone age. Hence the constant excuse that "The Japanese would never have surrendered otherwise". The Red Army had all but obliterated their main army in Manchuria at this stage, Australia had stopped them at Borneo; and Britain, America and China had ended the invasion of Burma. The Japanese arms manufacture was down the tubes, due to U.S. subs preventing import. Many of the Japanese cities had been taken out by incendiaries (wood and rice paper houses, remember? Not exactly requiring nukes to set them off). I liked the article though
ReplyNonsense, which I'm not going to bother to debunk since this sort of claptrap is thoroughly fisked elsewhere.
'since beer was boiled, it was cleaner than what passed for regular water at the time'.. sorry, but no.. it isn't the boiling which sterilizes beer, but the alcohol produced during the fermentation process
ReplySo you're saying boiled water is not safer than non-boiled water? And non-boiled fermented liquids are as safe as boiled fermented liquids? Forgive my doubts but write them here I must.
There is not enough alcohol in beer to make it antibacterial. You need concentrations much much higher than 5 or 6 percent.
except not every american reading this came over on the mayflower,so yeah a lot of us wouls still be here.
ReplyNot if the colony that started it all was turned into a ghost town.
He didn't mean 'us, Americans', he meant 'us, wouls' - a different tribe.
"Wow, it's like a normal plane, only smaller. Well, this was worth it."
ReplyFunny as s**t in the darkest way possible!
Madison, Ga was going to be the home of UGA but it had a tavern so they put it in Athens, GA."
ReplyMadison was also skipped over during Sherman's March to the Sea because it "was home to pro-Union Senator Joshua Hill. Hill had ties with General Sherman's brother at West Point, so his sparing the town was more political than appreciation of its beauty.
Having just recently seen Annie Hall, I find the story of its production absolutely fascinating. I can't conceive of how the film could have been anything other than what it was. Is there any way to see the original footage?
ReplyYou could be Woody Allen.
The pilgrims were so f*****g lucky. They'd gotten the whole trip financed as a cod expedition (cod was the protein with the longest shelf life). Not only did they not know how to fish for cod (they have very fragile mouths, making the whole thing very tricky) and forgot to pack line and tackle, but New York has terrible cod stocks while Massachusetts has Cape Cod.
ReplyHAH! I choose to count #5 as another slap in the face to any teetotalers: 'This country was founded by people who so very dearly loved their beer that they changed their place of settlement by X number of hundreds of miles, largely so they could get started on the beer harvest a bit sooner.'
ReplyYeah, I'm really going to regret not drinking myself to death sooner or later, I just know it...
Does the cover of Good Luck Chuck remind anyone else of a picture of John Lennon and Yoko Ono?
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesI'm sure it was a deliberate homage.
And all those stolen jokes were "homages" to good comedians.
You, my friend, are pure genius!
It's supposed to be making fun of it, Captain Obvious
Another thing about the bombs on j*pan is that when they were about to be dropped, the US issued a warning that there would be immense destruction if j*pan didn't surrender.
ReplyThe person who answered to the warning told the US that j*pan would "sit on it," essentially meaning they'd consider the options in the face of such a threat.
Unfortunately, the word he used to describe j*pan's course of action could also be very easily translated as "we're not gonna do a damn thing about your stupid threat." And it was.
Yeah, I've heard this before (it might have even been on Cracked). The translator messed up because of an idiom. The US took offense and -BOOM-
The only problem with the "mistranslation" theory is that none of its adherents know Japanese, it seems. "Your proposal has merit and we will give it careful consideration" is how Japanese says "Go stuff yourself."
The moral of the story?
ReplyDon't f**k with Waylon Jennings.
Another moral of the story could be always make sure the US secdef likes your city.
The heater on the bus used to shuttle around the Winter Party Dance Tour's performers had stopped working; this was the main reason the plane was chartered. It is true that Buddy thought it would be an added bonus to be able to get his laundry done before the next performance, but it's a bit unfair to infer that the Music Died because Buddy Holly wanted to have a clean pair of 'drahs rather than not freezing his ass off in a p.o.s. tour bus through the suck that is known as an Iowa winter.
ReplyYes to all those who've already pointed this out:
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesJamestown.
1607.
I live right down the road form Jamestown and the fact he called Plymouth the first permanent English settlement pissed me off, as we Virginians are quite proud of the fact that America was born here!
I grew up in Virginia too but while Jamestown was the first English settlement in the Americas it was anything but permanent. The tourist-trap Jamestown fort that is there today is not only not actually inhabited but isn't even the original fort which was swallowed by the river by the time this country was even known as the US of A.
Jaalyn- wrong. The original fort was *thought* to have been on a portion of the island which had since eroded away- until it was found by Dr William Kelso in excavations 1996-2000. And, yes, Jamestown certainly was 'permanent'; it remained the capital of Virginia for 92 years until the House of Burgesses moved to Williamsburg a few miles away.