5 Mundane Objects That Saved Important Lives
Sure, it's easy to look back and play "What if?" "What would have happened if JFK had screwed himself into a sex coma minutes before he was scheduled to get in that convertible in Dallas? Or if John Wilkes Booth had been accosted by an overzealous opium salesman on his way to Ford's Theatre? Or if Amelia Earhart had been a good cook?" We could play history games all day.
But you don't need a killer imagination to see how little, insignificant details have changed everything ...
#5. The Felt-Tip Pen That Won the Moon
The moon landing story we know is already pretty kickass: Apollo 11 rode a trail of fire to the moon, stabbed it in the heart with an American flag, won the universe for the USA and sailed home on rockets fueled by eagle blood. Every kindergartener knows that. But behind the scenes, things weren't quite so perfect. For example, did you know Buzz Aldrin nearly murdered all three of the astronauts with one misstep?
Sometimes trust is the same as insanity.
While bumbling around the Eagle, Aldrin stepped on a switch. Which switch? The circuit breaker that would power the ship off the moon in order to rendezvous with Michael Collins in the Columbia. That switch. In fact, we have the transcript documenting how the whole thing went down:
Aldrin: Houston, Tranquility. Do you have a way of showing the configuration of the engine arm circuit breaker? Over. (Pause) The reason I'm asking is because the end of it appears to be broken off. I think we can push it back in again. I'm not sure we could pull it out if we pushed it in, though. Over.
Don't let the tone fool you -- the conversation was the equivalent of the Titanic calmly asking if there was a way to repair an iceberg stab wound. Since the breaker for the engine was the only thing that could fire the engine to get them off the moon, Aldrin inadvertently Apollo Thirteened the whole mission. After telling mission control, they were advised to sleep a few hours while Houston came up with a plan to fire Eagle back up. As if pondering the implications of getting Gilligan's Islanded on the moon was good nap fuel.
The Tiny Thing That Saved the Day:
Instead of catching some shut eye, Aldrin weighed their options. He couldn't use his finger or anything with a metal tip because the circuit was electrical; he'd fry the ship. Ultimately, Aldrin MacGyvered the situation with a simple solution: a felt-tip pen. He found that an ordinary pen could fit in nicely where the breaker once was. And it was a good thing, because if it hadn't, the triumph of the American space program could have ended in a crippling tragedy. And we'd probably all be Soviets by now.
Speaking of ...
#4. The Forgettable B Movie That Saved President Reagan
Before Ronald Reagan got good at the '80s and forgetting things, he was really just good at one thing and one thing only: making shitty movies. Between 1937 and 1964, Ronald Reagan starred in millions of mostly forgettable movies, some of them about Gippers, and others about chimps.
In most cases, the movies were so bad that Hollywood struggled to find him something else to do: managing the Screen Actor's Guild. Little did they know that presiding over "the Guild" would be the perfect springboard for Reagan's political career. Little did he know that one of those crappy little movies he made years before would just about save his life.
Getty
Above: President Reagan confers with Henry Kissinger during a vacation to Camp David.
The Tiny Thing That Saved the Day:
In 1939 Ronald Reagan starred in a movie called Code of the Secret Service. Never heard of it? Probably because it was released the same year as Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Of Mice and Men and Stagecoach. Not to mention a new Betty Boop flick. The movie was so bad that Reagan himself called it the worst movie he ever made, which is really saying something, all things considered.
It was just them reading the actual code verbatim for 90 minutes.
But one 9-year-old with the film taste of a, well, 9-year-old disagreed with the critics, the audiences, the studio and Reagan himself over the value of Code of the Secret Service. This kid loved the movie so much that he made his parents take him to see it over and over again. And in the same way that Elvis influenced the Beatles and the Beatles influenced boy hair, Code of the Secret Service inspired 9-year-old Jerry Parr to eventually become a Secret Service agent himself. The end.
Except, not really. Jerry Parr, the kid who was influenced by a Ronald Reagan movie to become a Secret Service agent, later became a Secret Service agent protecting President Ronald Reagan. And he was right there by Reagan's side on March 30, 1981 when a Jodie Foster-obsessed nutcase took at shot at the president. It was Parr who shoved Reagan into a limo, getting him away from the shooter and out of danger.
So what would have happened had Reagan used his better artistic judgment and not made Code of the Secret Service? Jerry Parr would never have seen the movie, and someone else would have been standing at Reagan's side. Maybe someone with duller instincts or a club foot. And imagine the 1980s without Ronald Reagan running the show. Imagine it!
#3. The Pocket Change That Saved a Senator from a Bullet
Via Dailycaller.com
Do you remember how in Forrest Gump, Tom Hanks shows up at momentous spots in history: meeting JFK, teaching Elvis how to dance, busting the Watergate burglary and showing the world how good the Chinese are at Ping-Pong? It was a triumph in cinema. In some ways, Hawaiian senator Daniel Inouye has lived that kind of life.
Getty
"Life is like a box of chocolates, only all of the chocolates are for me."
After all, not many people can claim that they've been a part of so many important moments in history, like the ratification of the statehood of Hawaii, delivering the keynote at the riotous 1968 Democratic Convention and serving on the committee that investigated the Watergate scandal. Even today, Inouye is the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee -- so he helps decide who gets what, tax-money-wise. He's also third in line to succeed the president, should something terrible happen to Biden and Boehner.
Not bad for a guy who should have died almost 70 years ago.
The Tiny Thing That Saved the Day:
While fighting during World War II in France, Inouye led a charge against a group of Germans and was shot in the heart for his trouble. Luckily, it didn't go through, because it hit two silver dollars he carried in his shirt pocket. Two little coins that he was probably saving to buy a steak when he got back to the States were all that stood between him and a shot to the heart.
Photos.com
Back then, two dollars was half of all the money on the entire planet.
Not that the senator made it through the war unscathed. He later lost his arm in a devastating attack in Italy, and he was eventually awarded the Purple Heart for his service. But it was those two little silver coins that allowed him to put his mark on the next 70 years of history.
Can someone please explain to me how Ebert is "important"?
ReplyFilm critic; important. 10/10 comedy, would laugh again.
ReplyRoger Ebert in the pic of him giving a thumbs up looks like the ventriloquist doll from the Anthony Hopkins movie " Magic", he's seriously fucked up looking!
ReplyHE HAS NO JAW.
If the Catholics had won, they would have slowed down technology, not allowed the world to develop a bad-ass artillery blimp!
Reply>Implying my life might not be as important as these guy's lives.
Reply>Implying Ebert is important at all.
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I'm proud that I already knew #1! That incident was called the Defenestration of Prague, which is hilarious in and of itself, but equally hilarious was the fact that while Protestants declared that the pile of s**t saved the men, Catholics maintained that it was not s**t but angels.
ReplySee, this is why the ecumenical movement will never get anywhere. Nobody likes the compromise position of saying it was angel shit.
Wait, the guys survived the defenestration... man, i missed that part in history class.
Houston: Uhhh go ahead and sleep on it guys, we've got this.
ReplyAldrin: Sleep on it? Muther f****r, I've got SPACE s**t to do! You can sleep on it, I'VE got this. Hey Neil! Throw me that pen!
The Forrest Gump comparison for Inouye is more apt than you think. He was a medical volunteer during the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941. And in 1943, when the ban on Japanese soldiers was dropped, he immediately joined the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the legendary unit composed mostly of Japanese soldiers, which is currently the most decorated unit in the history of the US Army.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesAnd Inouye was with them throughout the war, including the famed rescue of the Lost Battalion in 1944 - a battalion got trapped and surrounded by Germans. After two failed rescue attempts, they sent in the 442nd. It took them five days, but they punched through and rescued 230 men. They lost over 800 in the process.
Inouye also received a Distinguished Service Cross, the second highest medal in the US, for the incident when he lost his arm. He was leading an attack on three bunkers when he got shot in the stomach. Ignoring the wound, he and his team took out two bunkers, when he finally collapsed. He then crawled to the last bunker and raised his arm to throw a grenade, when a rifle grenade impacted it, blowing his arm off. But then he used his other hand to grab the primed grenade from the arm on the ground and attacked and destroyed the last bunker by himself. Then he got shot in the leg and rolled down a hill. Of course, he was too ballsy to die, and instead had to get the remaining chunk of arm amputated without any anesthetic.
And he only got the second-highest medal for that. It was later upgraded to a Medal of Honor in the 90's, because they figured discrimination was what kept Inouye and the rest of the 442nd from getting the medal.
And of course, when he got back to the US, he went into government and became the first Japanese-American senator and now the longest-serving current senator and will be the longest-serving in history if he survives until 2014.
So he's like Forrest Gump, but with more war hero and civil service and less mentally challenged shrimping franchise millionaire.
I was totally going to post something similar, but you hit the nail on the head. That man is amazing, I was lucky enough to have him speak at my school when I was in Hawaii.
You left out my favourite bit. When Inouye had taken out the third bunker (during which attack he had actually ordered him men BACK when his arm was shot off because he was afraid the severed fist would unclench and set off the grenade), he rolled unconscious down the hill. When he awoke and saw his men gathered over him, he noted the bullet wounds in his gut and leg and his distinct lack of arm and *ordered them back to their positions*, because, as he put it, "nobody called off the war".
Jesus Christ.
how was Inouye NOT on either list of badass warriors who survived serious injuries and still continued kicking ass? they just passed right over the most amazing part of his story in this article. if that was in a movie, i'd call bulls**t and walk out! the man is so hardcore even reality can't believe he survived!
in the wise words of Ron Simmons DAMN!
The history hobbyist inside me feels the need to mention the fact that Inouye was serving in WWII as a Japanese American, when most other Japanese Americans were being put in internment camps.
ReplyWarning: listening to Leonard Cohen songs may cause your face to explode.
ReplyIt's okay, though. The Leonard Cohen songs will also tape it back together.
You guys are late to the hating-Ebert party. He was an idiot about politics way before he was an idiot about video games. That said, he's good at his actual job; he's sharp and quotable, and while I don't always agree with his reviews, I enjoy reading them. And I sure as hell respect a guy who can take cancer and disfigurement and keep on doing his thing.
ReplyDoes Leonard Cohen look like Leonard Nimoy in that second pic or am I imagining things?
Replyyou are not imagining things.
I had to say the last names out loud to realize it wasn't the same person.
i wanna f**k until i end up in a sex coma..so i can have a cool story to tell at the bar..
ReplyIf you're in a coma you're not going to go to a bar you d******d
I detest Ebert. His is not an important life by any stretch. I will never listen to another Leonard Cohen song for as long as I live.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesThat's a great story. You should include that in your book.
When he decided to completely generalize an entire genre of entertainment as being devoid of art (video games), after admitting never having researched or experienced them, I felt the same way. Guy's a hack.
Just because you think he's a hack or even wrong about everything doesn't change the fact that he can be "important." Dick Cheney is important due to his influence, in spite of (or maybe because of) being the world's #1 asshole.
i detest his opinions, but i respect him. the fact that he's survived cancer and continues to work is impressive as all hell.
"Every life is important"?
ReplySilliness like that is why I don't deal in moral absolutes
Good news, you're not a Sith
Important Lives? Really?
ReplyAlso, I like that your link in the first item leads to the Wiki article on the SECOND Defenestration of Prague. Maybe they should try installing safety rails or something.
Reply#5 should have been higher on the list, IMO.
ReplyPURPLE HEART????
ReplyThe fuck'jou talkin 'bout Willis???
Inouye got the MEDAL OF HONOR in Italy.
Among other things he attacked the Germans with a grenade that he pried out of his own hand AFTER they blew it off.
LOOK IT UP!
he didn't get the medal of honor until f**king 50 years later. they gave him a purple heart and distinguished service cross.
Man, would the US be a very different place if all the Republicans didn't have Reagan's dick to suck all the time.
Replyyeah, we'd all be speaking russian and glowing in the dark......
You don't glow in the dark already? Wait, is that typical?
...Maybe I should see a doctor.