“Obliterating Everything”: 30 Of The Most Monumental Mistakes In History

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.

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Giving religions tax free status.

VoiceGuyNextDoor Report

Final score:

191points

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Don Flynn 5 months ago

We need to tax the hell out of religion

77points

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“Obliterating Everything”: 30 Of The Most Monumental Mistakes In History 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.

Arkmer , Giorgio Trovato / unsplash (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

156points

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Tamra 5 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.

66points

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In American history: Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, which made corporate bribery legal. Government no longer served the people from that point on.

someSingleDad Report

Final score:

143points

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Tamra 5 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.

65points

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“Obliterating Everything”: 30 Of The Most Monumental Mistakes In History 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.

vicki22029 , Phillip Pessar / wikipedia (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

129points

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David 5 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.

57points

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Brexit.

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Final score:

122points

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Robert T 5 months ago

The gift that keeps on giving!

38points

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“Obliterating Everything”: 30 Of The Most Monumental Mistakes In History Some guy introduced rabbits to Australia in 1788 so that he could hunt them for sport.

GotPC , Satyabratasm / unsplash (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

111points

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james stevenson 5 months ago (edited)

Well, you bloodthirsty bun murderer, now look what you've done.

44points

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“Obliterating Everything”: 30 Of The Most Monumental Mistakes In History 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.

JackCooper_7274 , 13th century artist Report

Final score:

106points

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Mark 5 months ago

Don’t mess with the horse people

36points

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“Obliterating Everything”: 30 Of The Most Monumental Mistakes In History Blockbuster not buying Netflix.

PayasoCanuto , Bidgee / wikipedia (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

103points

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james stevenson 5 months ago

There aren't any comments here so I decided to add one so this post doesn't feel left out.

55points

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“Obliterating Everything”: 30 Of The Most Monumental Mistakes In History "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."

Belyea , неизвестный (unknown Report

Final score:

102points

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TotallyNOTAFox 5 months ago

He saw a sparrow eat a grain and came up with the brilliant idea to declare war on them...

33points

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#10

Letting politicians trade stocks.

_redacteduser Report

Final score:

96points

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keyboardtek 5 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.

20points

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#11

Allowing a handful of people control the vast majority of media.

Lumpy-Log-5057 Report

Final score:

90points

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keyboardtek 5 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.

39points

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#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.

Somerandom1922 Report

Final score:

89points

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Multa Nocte 5 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!!!!!!!!

32points

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#13

“Obliterating Everything”: 30 Of The Most Monumental Mistakes In History "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."

Tobazili , Jonathan Cooper / unsplash (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

89points

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Penguin Panda Pop 5 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.

35points

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#14

“Obliterating Everything”: 30 Of The Most Monumental Mistakes In History 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.

Sauterneandbleu , Marcus Ganahl / unsplash (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

86points

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Timbob 5 months ago

Joe, it’s much harder to know when a plague is “ over”, than when it’s “on” !

16points

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#15

“Obliterating Everything”: 30 Of The Most Monumental Mistakes In History 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.

Solomon-Drowne , Chris LeBoutillier / unsplash (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

86points

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Anonymouse 5 months ago

"BY ORDERS OF DEGREES" I see what you did there

33points

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#16

“Obliterating Everything”: 30 Of The Most Monumental Mistakes In History So that one fish decided to try what happens when you leave the water.. That's when it really started to go downhill!

WindpowerGuy , Johannes Plenio / unsplash (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

80points

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Surenu 5 months ago

Tiktaalik was the first introvert, going on land to be alone, but the extroverts followed it. That's the real tragedy.

38points

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#17

“Obliterating Everything”: 30 Of The Most Monumental Mistakes In History The wrong turn that driver made in 1914.

MarcusQuintus Report

Final score:

78points

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Auntriarch 5 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

47points

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#18

“Obliterating Everything”: 30 Of The Most Monumental Mistakes In History 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.

Ta-veren- , Vladyslav Cherkasenko / unsplash (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

77points

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David Paterson 5 months ago

Chernobyl was negligible compared to Bhopal. Or Beruit. Let's store all this explosive beside a fireworks factory.

25points

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#19

“Obliterating Everything”: 30 Of The Most Monumental Mistakes In History Yahoo not buying Google.

FatBirdsMakeEasyPrey , Beraldo Leal / wikipedia (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

66points

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Ozymandias73 5 months ago (edited)

Yah'oops

30points

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#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.

Shepher27 Report

Final score:

57points

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François Bouzigues 5 months ago

I am not sure about this. British colonies had a knack for genocides

53points

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#21

“Obliterating Everything”: 30 Of The Most Monumental Mistakes In History 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.

Fresh-Hedgehog1895 , Element5 Digital / unsplash (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

56points

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Timbob 5 months ago

You are so obviously wrong ! Doesn’t even come close to us stupid, stupid, stupid Americans electing trump as president. I pray to God we don’t make that terrible mistake again. Please Lord.

64points

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#22

“Obliterating Everything”: 30 Of The Most Monumental Mistakes In History 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.

ATA_VATAV , wikipedia Report

Final score:

56points

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james stevenson 5 months ago

*could have

69points

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#23

“Obliterating Everything”: 30 Of The Most Monumental Mistakes In History 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.

jhumph88 , Apple Inc. Report

Final score:

55points

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Robert Larson, LPN, JD 5 months ago

I was there and everyone went about their business like usual. Really freaky.

17points

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#24

“Obliterating Everything”: 30 Of The Most Monumental Mistakes In History 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.

smolymartin , Adam Cai / unsplash (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

47points

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Anna Ekberg 5 months ago

Did we not sell Volvo to China?

7points

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#25

The invention of plastic.

BumblebeesAreCute83 Report

Final score:

47points

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Michael None 5 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.

27points

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#26

“Obliterating Everything”: 30 Of The Most Monumental Mistakes In History "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."

lorgskyegon , Unknown author Report

Final score:

47points

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Penny Hernandez 5 months ago

Be careful who you irritate.

30points

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#27

"You can't be a part of our art school".

Careful-Rain-9985 Report

Final score:

46points

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anaisbananas 5 months ago

Hiltler. Besides being a horrible human being, He was a mediocre artist, at best.

31points

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#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.

_Kian_7567 Report

Final score:

45points

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Terran 5 months ago

China 1912 was a hot mess with a democratic system and definitely not a "functioning and promising democracy". As a rule of thumb: in a functioning democracy, generals don't declare themselves emperors.

7points

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#29

"Netflix offered themselves to Yahoo. Yahoo instead bought Tumblr.

"Heads rolled at Yahoo."

Broad_Bodybuilder_94 Report

Final score:

39points

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TotallyNOTAFox 5 months ago (edited)

And probably again after Tumblr banned all NSFW content and lost about 98% of their traffic a few years ago

18points

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#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.

EmilyBelBaby Report

Final score:

37points

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R Webb 5 months ago

The first Crusade. European terrorists slaughtered the innocents in Jerusalem.

1point

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#31

The Germans smuggling Lenin into Russia during World War I to create a revolution.

AnybodySeeMyKeys Report

Final score:

14points

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TotallyNOTAFox 5 months ago (edited)

Paid off in 1917 as Russia withdraw from the war, though too late to get the eastern armies to the western front before the Treaty of Versailles was signed - The real problem was that Stalin got to power despite Lenin not wanting him even near any governmental power

2points

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#32

PPP “loans” in the US. The fraud is off the charts.

Inevitable-Cell-1227 Report

Final score:

12points

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keyboardtek 5 months ago

And that fraud is by politicians, leaders of industry who had the wealth to survive COVID and they really did not need those PPP loans.

5points

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#33

“Obliterating Everything”: 30 Of The Most Monumental Mistakes In History "In 1984 in Australia, the then PM Malcolm Fraser of the National Party called a snap double dissolution election, hoping to catch out the unpopularity of the Labour Party opposition leader, Bill Hayden."

"Fraser didn't know that while he was meeting with the Governor General to call the election, Bill Hayden had resigned, and was to be replaced with the massively popular Bob Hawke."

"Labour won in a landslide."

infinitemonkeytyping , National Archives of Australia Report

Final score:

11points

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Auntriarch 5 months ago

Can we just stop talking about snap elections *whimpers in British*

26points

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#34

Leaded gasoline.

RichardEpsilonHughes Report

Final score:

10points

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#35

“Obliterating Everything”: 30 Of The Most Monumental Mistakes In History 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

Also Nixon deciding to spy on the Democrats even though he almost certainly would have won re-election if he didnt.

anon Report

Final score:

9points

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Ace 5 months ago

Twice?

1point

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#36

“Obliterating Everything”: 30 Of The Most Monumental Mistakes In History "As much as 1972 was Nixon’s political peak, it was also the beginning of the end. Watergate moved slow and it would take two years of leaks and stories to finally end in his resignation."

"Nixon’s legacy would have been top-tier had Watergate never tainted it (theoretically)."

Poolofcheddar , Department of Defense / wikipedia (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

8points

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Michael Largey 5 months ago (edited)

For his war in Vietnam and his illegal invasions of Cambodia and Laos, Nixon would be remembered as a war criminal. For his attempts to roll back civil rights progress, and devising the GOP's Southern strategy, he would be remembered as a vile unscrupulous racist. For his suppression of dissent and his contempt for the Constitution, he would be remembered as the cheap would-be tyrant he was. Nixon is very lucky to be remembered chiefly for a small time dodge like the Watergate break-in.

12points

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#37

From an objective point of view, probably the Khwarazmian Empire pissing off the Mongols.

Hitler invading the Soviet Union was bad but at least after that f**k-up Germany continued to exist while the Khwarazmian Empire got absolutely destroyed and much of its population was massacred.

Alice__L Report

Final score:

6points

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#38

The Atlanta falcons drafting Michael Penix Jr. #8 overall after giving an enormous contract to 35-year-old Kirk Cousins.

smala017 Report

Final score:

-12points

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Kristal 5 months ago (edited)

I don't play or know much about sports but I know 35 is old for professional athletes of any sport. So, this just sounds like a stupid business deal to me, not so much a world-changing mistake

6points

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#39

"Then they try to blame it on a combination of 'improper training' and their computer software."

"Why is it so easy to make that huge of a mistake‽ Why aren't there multiple safeguards and higher-ups involved‽‽"

"The conspiracy theorist in me almost thinks they did it on purpose to test how people would rea

MrEndlessness Report

Final score:

-16points

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kissmychakram 5 months ago

The who with the what now?

17points

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#40

I think we can all agree the biggest f**k up in history is the PlayStation 2 only having 2 controller ports instead of 4.

If they had made it 4 controller ports at the start, there wouldn't be an Xbox or a Nintendo anymore.

dfnamehere Report

Final score:

-27points

POST

Spidercat 5 months ago

Really... The biggest fùck up in history? Whoever said this needs a little lie down in a nice padded room and to seriously consider the importance of anything related gaming... I mean, reactor meltdowns? War? Famine? Disease?... And this is their take on the worst fùck up in history... Please may we begin to cull the human race.

9points

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What do you think ?

Austin L 5 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

Miki 5 months ago

Iran 1979.. :(

5 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.

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“Obliterating Everything”: 30 Of The Most Monumental Mistakes In History

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