Get Premium
Dark mode theme is available exclusively for premium users. Learn more about the benefits of subscribing.
No fees, cancel anytime.
Dark Mode 
No fees, cancel anytime 
Everyone makes mistakes, but the scale and impact of one blunder or another is rarely similar. But some mistakes are so monumentally big that they can end large companies, devastated whole countries and even upset continent-wide ecosystems. So perhaps you tripping in public is not that bad, is it?
Someone asked “What was arguably the biggest f***-up in history?” and netizens shared their best examples. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and be sure to share your own thoughts, ideas and experiences in the comments section below.
This post may include affiliate links.
RELATED:
#2
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.
Tamra 6 months ago
Our politicians are for sale - everyone knows this. Any wealthy person can purchase the favors of a member of Congress, Senate, or president for that matter, and no democracy can thrive or work effectively within those circumstances. When elected officials are enacting the will of the wealthy few rather than the will of the voters, then that country is f****d.
#3
In American history: Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, which made corporate bribery legal. Government no longer served the people from that point on.
Tamra 6 months ago
The uneasy part for me is that I really don't see a way out of this. The people capable of and responsible for redressing this horrible decision are the same people who are directly benefitting from it. I think this is going to require a French-level type of revolution, and I just don't think a highly divided nation of 330 million people are willing to do that. Yet.
#4
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.
David 6 months ago
in 1994 a VP at Sears wanted to make their website more than just a PDF of their catalog, and create a online credit card purchase system, and full online shopping. He was fired for his suggestion because it would have been expensive and the other execs thought the internet would be more just the basic primitive it was then and that people wouldnt want to shop that way.
#6
Some guy introduced rabbits to Australia in 1788 so that he could hunt them for sport.
james stevenson 6 months ago (edited)
Well, you bloodthirsty bun murderer, now look what you've done.
#7
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. Possibly one of the biggest mess ups in history.
#8
Blockbuster not buying Netflix.
james stevenson 6 months ago
There aren't any comments here so I decided to add one so this post doesn't feel left out.
#9
"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."
TotallyNOTAFox 6 months ago
He saw a sparrow eat a grain and came up with the brilliant idea to declare war on them...
#10
Letting politicians trade stocks.
keyboardtek 6 months ago
Most people get into politics these days for the power and attention and access to money making. The ones who do it for public service, usually lifelong Liberals like Biden, get mocked.
#11
Allowing a handful of people control the vast majority of media.
keyboardtek 6 months ago
Noam Chomski pointed out many years ago how mainstream media, being owned by wealthy media magnates, avoided reported any news that might go against their power and wealth. And rarely criticized the info fed to them by the government. Thus mainstream media became the mouthpiece of repressive presidents.
#12
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 fuckup, 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 fuckup 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 found strangled to death by his own contraption at age 55.
So I submit Thomas Midgley Jr. himself as arguably the biggest f**k-up in history.
Multa Nocte 6 months ago
Tee hee hee! There is a dirty word in here that the censors missed! And twice! What shall we do? What shall we do? People of BP, cover your eyes!!!!!!!!
#13
"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."
Penguin Panda Pop 6 months ago
I'm not sure that they thought the film would be a flop, more that they didn't realise how much money could be made from movie merch.
#14
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.
#15
The 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.'
Yeah because you guys f****d up. The biggest f**k up in history, by orders of degrees. Haha.
#16
So that one fish decided to try what happens when you leave the water.. That's when it really started to go downhill!
#17
The wrong turn that driver made in 1914.
Auntriarch 6 months ago (edited)
It probably would have happened anyway. By the way, if you are of a macabre turn of mind, the car and the archduke's jacket are in the Arsenal Museum in Vienna
#18
Chernobyl! Only a f**k-up of epic poportions can cause a nuclear incident while doing a saftey test!
April 26th! Annivarsay of the accident is today.
David Paterson 6 months ago
Chernobyl was negligible compared to Bhopal. Or Beruit. Let's store all this explosive beside a fireworks factory.
#20
If Parliment had just given the colonies their own representation in the House of Commons they could have likely avoided the entire revolutionary war and the US would not have formed. We’d likely have like 9 smaller versions of Canada on the east coast with a large Mexico and several interior Native American nations today.
François Bouzigues 6 months ago
I am not sure about this. British colonies had a knack for genocides
#21
I think the best political f**k-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.
#22
Vitruvius not see the potential of steam to Move things with the Heron Engine. Only saw it as a amusing toy.
The Steam Age and Industrial Revolution could of happened in 1st Century Greece.
#23
Not the worst, but that 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.
Robert Larson, LPN, JD 6 months ago
I was there and everyone went about their business like usual. Really freaky.
#24
Norway wanted to give sweden 50% of our oil profits in exchange for 50% of Volvo. Swedens government said no as one of their minister meant that "there is no future in oil". Norway's sovereign fund (the oil fund) can now purchase every single stock on the swedish stock exchange and still have money leftover.
#25
The invention of plastic.
Michael None 6 months ago
Plastic using natural materials (Bug shells) have been produced in small quantities since the 19th century. I think you mean synthetic plastic using petroleum byproducts.
#26
"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."
#27
"You can't be a part of our art school".
anaisbananas 6 months ago
Hiltler. Besides being a horrible human being, He was a mediocre artist, at best.
#28
In 1912 China was a functioning and promising democracy (for the first time ever) and it was ruined by one general (Yuan Shikai) who couped the government and declared himself emperor.
#29
"Netflix offered themselves to Yahoo. Yahoo instead bought Tumblr.
"Heads rolled at Yahoo."
TotallyNOTAFox 6 months ago (edited)
And probably again after Tumblr banned all NSFW content and lost about 98% of their traffic a few years ago
#30
The Fourth Crusade.
It started as a crusade for Jerusalem from an invasion through Egypt and the crusaders ended up invading Croatia and Constantinople. This also led to the weakening of the Byzantine Empire and eventually its downfall.
What do you think ?
Austin L 6 months ago
I can't believe the Xerox computer thing wasn't on here. They had a development team basically invent all of the elements of modern computing in the 70's: ethernet, GUI's, email, network servers, various human input devices, some printer, etc. The exec's didn't see a value in it and didn't bother patenting it. People like Steve Jobs visited and saw what they were doing and copied it for their own companies. The people at Xerox left, patented what they had worked on there, and started their own companies! That's gotta be high on the mess-up list. haha
6 months ago
There sure are a lot of duplicate events in this post; a few minutes of editing would have done wonders, especially now that BP gets increasingly buggy when scrolling past the first few pages.
Austin L 6 months ago
I can't believe the Xerox computer thing wasn't on here. They had a development team basically invent all of the elements of modern computing in the 70's: ethernet, GUI's, email, network servers, various human input devices, some printer, etc. The exec's didn't see a value in it and didn't bother patenting it. People like Steve Jobs visited and saw what they were doing and copied it for their own companies. The people at Xerox left, patented what they had worked on there, and started their own companies! That's gotta be high on the mess-up list. haha
6 months ago
There sure are a lot of duplicate events in this post; a few minutes of editing would have done wonders, especially now that BP gets increasingly buggy when scrolling past the first few pages.
You May Like “Stood In The Wrong Place”: 30 Ways People Wrecked Their Lives With Just One Awful Choice “To This Day It Still Gives Me Chills”: 30 Bizarre Experiences People Still Can’t Make Sense Of 54 True Horror Stories That Will Give You Nightmares
Ieva Pečiulytė
Ieva Pečiulytė
Aivaras Kaziukonis
Related on Bored Panda
