25 of the Biggest Mistakes Throughout History

‘Pretty much every attempt to invade Russia’
25 of the Biggest Mistakes Throughout History
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Nobody, no matter how smart, has a 100-percent hit rate. Individuals are bound to screw up now and then, and collective groups of individuals? Even more so. It makes sense, then, that the largest group of people of all, the entirety of humanity past and present, has beefed some things up pretty bad.

Historians, both pro and amateur, volunteered some of the biggest mistakes in history, over on AskReddit. It’s a deep catalogue of blown opportunities from the past, with consequences ranging from lost money to lost kingdoms. 

Read below to feel a whole lot better about your parlay not hitting.

SparePay . 7y ago The Spanish armada. They failed against a tiny rival navy headed by a pirate and that wrecked their entire empire
Pissingintherain . 7y ago The rivalry between Genghis's heirs. If they had just kept their mouths shut they could have had all of Asia and Europe. They should have taken the Chinese boat technology as well as they were literally floating fortresses.
7y ago The League of Nations was created specifically to prevent WW2 and just allowed it to happen.
. 7y ago Chemically castrating Alan Turing for being gay, such a great mind died so young.
Darkside1228 . 7y ago Pretty much every attempt to invade Russia.
Ataturk20 .7y ago The emu war
Erectodus . 7y ago The French Revolution, for the first time in history people rallied around awesome ideas like life, liberty, and property, destroying the old feudalistic status quo. In the end it resulted in bloodshed and dictatorship.
PM ME YOUR FEARS . 7y ago The Crusades. During the fourth crusade, they never even made it to the holy land, and instead looted the (Christian) city of Constantinople to repay debts.
Euphorix126 e 7y ago Burning the library of alexandria
Passing4human . 7y ago The U.S. neutrality movement after 7 Dec 1941.
gounter . 7y ago Sometime in the not so distant future, the answer will be ,,not realising the extent of climate change and reacting to it too slowly and not forcefully enough.
Wajirock 7y ago The Mongols failed to invade Japan twice. It wasn't entirely their fault, the Mongols fleet got wiped out by massive storms both times.
lapandemonium 7y ago The war on drugs (worldwide).
GeneralLemarc de 7y ago James Buchanan singlehandedly caused the Civil War. Oh, the conflict itself wasn't his fault, but he gave the south 6 months to prepare because he thought it would be illegal to send federal troops to put down an armed rebellion. The civil war is the bloodiest war in history solely because of him.
Fjeuber .7y ago The Great Leap Forward
1 7y ago The Scottish attempts at forging an empire in the Americas. Specifically the ill-fated Darien scheme - on the Isthmus of Panama. Turns out the Scots were much better at integrating into already established English- speaking countries like Australia and the USA. Industrious Scotsmen like Andrew Carnegie practically built 19th С American industry
breentee . 7y ago When yahoo refused to purchase google when it was still a lesser known search engine.
walt02cl 7y ago The Michelson-Morely Experiment. They set out to prove the existence of the aether, a theoretical substance that filled all known space. They used an interferemoter in a setup similar to the LIGO experiment from today, but found nothing. The reasoning behind the aether was that, just as sound waves cannot travel without air, or ocean waves cannot travel without water, then light itself would need a medium to travel through as well, and this would have to be everywhere. Their experiment failed to detect any existence of the aether, and as such, it led to a radical
Dr-Figgleton 7y ago Hitler turning on Russia. | may be wrong but I heard German soldiers had trouble adapting to the terrain that they had to cut off the feet of Soviet soldiers to get their boots. Also, if he hadn't diverted more soldiers toward them, the Allies would have had more resistance moving further toward Germany after D-Day.
Faith-Hope-TacoBell . 7y ago Napoleon invading Russia. In WINTER.
TruthGetsBanned . 7y ago In the past 70 years, how many Einsteins and Curies and Frosts and Beethovens and Newtons have died in some fuckin' field or mine or of preventable infections or diseases or of thirst or starvation needlessly? We shall never know their gifts. I weep.
Not-Neuro 7y ago Among many others, the death of Hypatia. An influential polymath at the time, she was tortured and murdered by a mob after mistakenly getting caught up in a conflict between Cyril of Alexandria and (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orestes_(prefect) ). I picked this particular one not because it had far-reaching consequences or served as a major defining moment in human history, but rather because it serves as a clear example of our primitive weaknesses hindering our more virtuous and progressive ideals by way of senseless, preventable tragedy.
Tall_Mickey 7y ago Roman Empire, at least the western half. Nice try, but all the assets ended up in a few hands and were, basically, not liquid. The economy fell apart. The army followed, over decades, and the mercenaries. The barbarians drifted in, and nobody much cared to die for what was left of the Roman Empire. The eastern empire took a lot longer to die but again, most of the money ended up in a few hands, and there were no hordes patriotic, trained citizens left to save it. Screw it. It's kind of a pattern.
Jtsfour . 7y ago CFCS
. 7y ago Blockbuster not buying Netflix in 2000. If | recall correctly, Blockbuster thought Netflix was some dreamy joke and not worth practically considering.

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