23 ‘Whoa, That Was Close’ Moments From History

‘Cuban missile crisis’
23 ‘Whoa, That Was Close’ Moments From History

History, as the saying goes, is written by the victors. So it’s no surprise that said victors don’t love dwelling on the fact that they often came perilously close to getting their own asses kicked. We’d like to think that the path of human history is made up of decisive, clear moves, but we came close to driving right off a cliff more often than you’d think.

Redditors with historical knowledge volunteered moments in time when we almost ended up with a very different world. It turns out plenty of wars were closer than kings and rulers would like to admit, and the buckles on the nuclear football have been unbuckled a fair few times. Below, find out the coin flips that brought us to this exact moment.

fixitmonkey 1y ago Edited 1y ago In 1957 a fire in the Sellafield nuclear power station (UK) burned through the HEPA filters and should have contaminated the whole North of England, this is known as the UKs biggest nuclear disaster. The UK was saved by a man named John Cockcroft who during design insisted that a second set of filters be installed on the top of the exhaust towers. All others ridiculed this idea as expensive and redundant and the towers became known as Cockcroft's Follies (Folly = lack of good sense; foolishness). These towers saved the UK so we're
flatstacy y y y ago Cuban missile crisis
Puzzleheaded_Tip6967 • 1y ago Have you heard about the 1967 solar storm? It's not as famous as some others, but it had the potential to kick off a nuclear war. The storm messed with the US air force's radar systems, making them think they were under attack.
Blackmore_Vale 1y ago After WW1 the RMS Olympic was brought back to H&W for a refit and modernisation program. During this time they found a massive dent in the plates below the waterline that was determined to be a torpedo hit that had failed to detonate. If the torpedo had detonated the ensuing disaster would've been on par with the RMS Lusitania or her sister ship RMS Titanic.
edingerc . 1y ago The oil well fires in Kuwait almost gave us a taste of what a nuclear winter would be like. Blowing the fires out with a MIG engine and dousing them with a gas turbine turned out to be the heavy hitters in fixing the issue.
Tamika_Morris . 1y ago Chernobyl disaster in 1986, narrowly avoiding a catastrophic meltdown with global consequences.
mysticdragonwolf89 1y ago The Black Death - The plague caused an epidemic in China in the 1330s, and again in the 1350s, causing tens of millions of deaths. The 1330s outbreak also spread west across Central Asia via traders using the Silk Road. Occurring in Europe from 1346 to 1353. One of the most fatal pandemics in human history, as many as 50 million people perished, perhaps 50% of Europe's 14th century population. Bubonic plague is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis and spread by fleas. The plague did not stop entirely until the early eighteenth century (1700-1799).
Kiyohara a 1y ago Pyrrhus of Epirus famously won a battle that was so close and cost so many men on both sides that he opined: one more victory like that, and I am lost! It may be apocryphal, but it is where we get the phrase Pyrrhic Victory.
jamesthornton06 . 1y ago Hitler diverting much of the Nazi forces assaulting Moscow to the south to help the siege of Stalingrad. Might have broken Soviet morale and changed the entire Eastern front if they took Moscow. Then the Nazi's might have focused more on building fortress Europe defenses and gotten access to more oil / raw materials they might never have lost the war. Frightening thought....
Nadaph . 1y ago The more I learn about World War 2, the more I realize the whole situation was way too close to the Axis succeeding.
SomeGuyInSanJoseCa 1y ago Edited 1y ago In 1983, Stanislav Petrov received a nuclear early warning missile warning that missiles from the US were heading towards the USSR. Не decided it was a false alarm and didn't start the process for retaliation. It was later revealed that, most likely, there would not have been a retaliatory attack by the Soviets as they would have wanted further confirmation, but some people believe he saved world from all out nuclear war.
FrostyFuchsia 1y ago The British almost colonized the Philippines, as part of the seven year's war from 1756-1763, a British expeditionary force led by Admiral Samuel Cornish and General William Draper attacked Manila in 1762 hoping to gain a strategic foothold in the region and establish their dominance over the Pacific trade. The Spanish forces offered little resistance, and after a fierce battle, the British took control of Manila for 2 years. During this period, the British attempted to establish a colonial government and negotiate a permanent settlement with Spain However, the Treaty of Paris in 1763 ended the Seven
blaspheminCapn a 1y ago Edited 1y ago Three Mile Island was way way worse than what the government revealed. Then there was a plan to lift the melted core out with the lift which hadn't been used or tested since the accident. Had that failed, and dropped the core - which it probably would have - could have made most of the East Coast uninhabitable. There's a very scary documentary on Netflix that reviews everything.
A_5phnX. 1y ago When they thought that it might theoretically be possible that testing the atomic bomb would start a reaction that would ignite and burn the entire atmosphere of our planet and tested it anyway. | would say that was a big PHEW moment when it was over.
. 1y ago Our human ancestors nearly went extinct 930,000 years ago. There were 1280 breeding humans at one point and we all come from them.
jar1967 1y ago 1973 the Yom Kippur War. Israel had their backs against the wall and they were ready to go nuclear. The US had to resupply them or else they would have gone nuclear. In retaliation for the US resupplying Israel, the Soviet Union deployed tactical nuclear weapons to Egypt. In retaliation the US deployed tactical nuclear weapons in Vietnam. With the intention of marching on Hanoi with full tactical nuclear support if Nuclear weapons were fired in the middle east.
F1Fan43 a 1y ago In 1797, HMS Minerve, a lone British frigate in the Mediterranean, blundered into an entire hostile Spanish fleet including 25 ships of the line in foggy weather. Fortunately, none of the Spaniards noticed her and she was able to escape, link up with the main British fleet and report the Spanish movements leading to a battle shortly afterwards. Minerve's Captain was one Horatio Nelson.
A bravenc65 . 1y ago The American Revolution. Some years ago I read a book called Almost a Miracle which was a narrative about the American Revolution and the whole thing was hanging by a string the entire time. Troops coming and going, the struggles to pay them and afford supplies and munitions, losses in the field, bickering by a divided congress and many other factors kept the struggle for independence on the razor's edge of collapse from beginning to end. I recommend the book wholeheartedly.
vtssge1968 . . 1y ago Drunk Nixon wanting to launch nukes is definitely up there, the Russian sub that denied orders to use a nuke, and the false alarm in Russia that the us had launched nukes on them.
Kflynn1337 1y ago Edited 1y ago We nearly destroyed all plant life on earth bacterium TI;dr version. A german company wanted to turn wood pulp into ethanol using a common soil bacterium. It work really well in the lab, it was all set to be used in field trials, until someone thought to try it in a soil with living plants. The ethanol killed the plants, the bacterium ate the plants and made more ethanol. If released it would have spread uncontrollably and end all plant life (and thus all life). Crisis averted by one researcher carrying out a test
GundamMaker . 1y ago The Toba Catastrophe reduced the human population to somewhere between 3,000- 10,000 in number.
FishWeldHunt 1y ago The one that comes to mind, is knowing that the atomic bomb was originally meant for Nazi Germany. What would Europe be like if that was how the war in Europe concluded? How much more bloody would have Japans war ending would've been? The outcomes could have been so wild, involving not just politics and war. Could have also changed the race to space, the Cold War Era overall, modern medicine and technology overall around the globe.
Maleficent_Nobody_75 . 1y ago 2012 Coronal Mass Ejection The most powerful solar storm in 150 years occurred on July 23rd 2012. Scientists claim that the storm could have knocked out the entire modern world if it had arrived nine days earlier. Luckily for us, it didn't hit as the earth was in a different position along its orbit

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