Like the moment when Archduke Franz Ferdinand
was taken out because his assassin stopped
for a sandwich, some small moments in history
can have absolutely incredible impact.
While most things in the world take place
because of boring and tedious work done over
decades, there are those times when things
hang in the balance, and the wrong move can
alter the course of history forever.
Below are several scenarios where the history
of the world changed in a very short span
of time – if these things had happened differently,
we could be living with a very different world
today.
10.
James Comey Releasing The Final Report About
Hillary Clinton
Certainly, there are many factors involved
in the recent election that caused it to come
out the way it did, and no one can say that
Hillary Clinton was an incredibly strong campaigner.
However, when it got close to the end, most
of the polls said that Hillary Clinton was
going to win handily, and yet somehow she
did not manage to do so.
In fact, while locking up the popular vote,
she lost the Electoral College by quite a
lot.
Some of the reason for her inability to cross
the finish line at the end is that her candidacy
was not the most exciting, but the folks at
FiveThirtyEight, who perform statistical number
crunching of elections, believe it was at
least the final straw.
They believe that the final Comey letter about
Hillary Clinton, her “October Surprise”
as it were, was essentially the straw that
broke the camel’s back.
After all the various election ads against
her, and all the various things that she was
questioned over such as Benghazi, a final
suggestion that she was once again being investigated,
after it was supposed to be over, likely tipped
the final scales in favor of Donald Trump.
While we cannot know for sure how Hillary
Clinton would have governed, it is safe to
say that she would have had a very different
presidency from Donald Trump, and left a very
different mark on the world.
9.
The Assassination Of Abraham Lincoln
Just weeks before the American Civil War came
to a close, Abraham Lincoln found himself
inside Ford’s Theater to relax and take
in a show.
Then, as we all know, the actor and southern
sympathizer John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln
in the head and ended the second term of his
presidency early.
Unfortunately, while Booth shot Lincoln in
the head, he may have also shot himself, and
the South, in the foot.
The problem is that right after the Civil
War, Lincoln’s plan was to try to get the
South rebuilt, forgiven and friendly with
the North again as soon as possible.
He wanted true reconciliation and reconstruction,
and he didn’t want to waste any time.
However, the so-called radical Republicans
in congress wanted stricter measures against
the South, for which the South didn’t want
to cooperate.
Then Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s successor,
was much more of a Southern sympathizer, which
meant that the radical Republicans did not
want to work with him on Southern reconstruction,
or really on anything.
This led to an atmosphere where, instead of
both sides working together to rebuild and
reconcile, the South tried to get away with
as much as it could, and the North tried to
punish them for past crimes.
This eventually led to Andrew Johnson’s
impeachment, and poor leadership that caused
the Jim Crow South to be an issue to this
very day.
The South is still a bit of a mess, all because
one angry Southerner’s misguided desire
for revenge caused him to take out the man
with the plan and influence to fix it.
And while some may think Lincoln couldn’t
have done it, there is evidence that Lincoln
already had support for plans similar to those
presented by Andrew Johnson, but that support
was withdrawn when Johnson was sworn in, because
many politicians did not want to work with
a Southern sympathizer.
8.
The Yalta Conference Reinforced Soviet Hegemony
In Eastern Europe
The Cold War raged up until very recently
and if you asked some, it never ended at all.
Certainly, even if it did end temporarily,
it would seem that a serious conflict with
the Russians is nearing again.
People are once again getting worried about
a violent and global domination-hungry Russia,
and tensions have not been higher since the
early days of the Cold War.
However, it is possible all of this could
have long ago been avoided, or at least been
very different from how it is now.
At the Yalta Conference, in the final discussions
between the three major allied leaders, Franklin
Roosevelt was nearing the end of his life,
and his skills as a negotiator were greatly
slipping.
It was said Winston Churchill could not convince
Stalin (and did not get along with the man),
but Roosevelt was able to get on with him
as a friend and equal, and get a lot out of
him in terms of negotiation.
Experts say that at the Yalta Conference,
Roosevelt was exhausted and gave away far
too much to Stalin, basically giving away
the Eastern European countries that went on
to be held by the Soviet Union for decades.
While Stalin already held some of the territory,
Roosevelt basically gave it up without a fight.
If he had managed to get Stalin to back off
from much of Eastern Europe to begin with,
Churchill may never have given his Iron Curtain
speech, and we may not have a man like Vladimir
Putin today who thinks half of Europe belongs
to his country by birthright.
7.
The Challenger Disaster Was Caused By A Dangerous
Few Moments Of Groupthink In A Single Meeting
The Challenger was set to launch, and people
were incredibly excited to see it, with NASA
promoting it as much as possible.
Then, disaster struck.
After watching the shuttle explode on national
TV, with school children watching around the
country, it turned out that the issue was
a faulty o-ring that messed up the heat seal
and caused the whole thing to be consumed.
Immediately many people wondered how the shuttle
could go up like that at all.
After all, there were procedures in place
to test every last part down to the last decimal
to make sure there were no issues.
However, it quickly turned it that it did
indeed come down to human error.
At a meeting the issue of the o-ring had been
brought up, but those who were in charge of
the meeting seemed uninterested in seriously
discussing it, and even though many in the
meeting knew it needed to be discussed more
for safety, they did not want to upset their
superiors.
In the end, the meeting became such a perfect
example of the psychological phenomenon of
groupthink – where people make bad decisions
to not rock the boat in a group, even when
they know the decision is catastrophically
terrible – that mock ups of the meeting
have been made using professional actors,
in order to help teach the concept to psychology
students.
6.
The Hessian Commander Neglected A Note Saying
George Washington Was Crossing The Delaware
The Crossing of the Delaware is one of the
most famous moments in the American Revolution,
and has been immortalized with an incredibly
famous painting, which stirs the imagination
of the bold deed performed by George Washington
and his men, in order to take the enemy off
guard when they were at their most vulnerable.
It was a crucial point in the war that we
all know very well, and it could have turned
out very differently if the Hessian Commander
had taken the warnings he got more seriously.
The Hessian Commander was found much later
with a note that told of Washington planning
an imminent attack, something a spy had slipped
the commander days before.
However, he did not take the warnings particularly
seriously, and was caught up not properly
prepared when Washington came for him and
his men.
Part of the issue was that they were constantly
being harassed by local militias, which made
things more chaotic when the full attack from
the Colonials arrived.
However, the simple fact of the matter is
that if the commander had prepared himself
for a full blown attack (not just from the
local militias, but from Washington) and stayed
alert, the entire plan may have been foiled.
5.
Andrew Wakefield’s Fake Anti-MMR Study Is
Causing Deaths To This Day
Andrew Wakefield is a man who has more blood
on his hands than most people who have ever
been called a doctor – which he isn’t
anymore, because he was kicked off the medical
register in the UK for his fraudulent nonsense.
Back in the late 1990s Wakefield published
a fraudulent medical paper that he was later
forced to retract, claiming that vaccines
caused autism in children.
Despite the fact that the study was swiftly
disproven, and Wakefield shown as the scam
artist he is, this is still causing horrible
problems to this day.
His paper was a catalyst that started a movement,
now endorsed by multiple celebrities, to not
vaccinate your children.
This nonsense has already led to outbreaks
of measles in the United States, and has led
to more bouts of whooping cough and other
potentially deadly diseases that we had previously
had under control.
Just one fraudulent scientific paper is causing
increased deaths decades later, due to so
many people that listened to bad medical advice,
and decided to embrace conspiracy theories.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to convince these
anti-vaxxers to protect their children and
everyone else’s, because anti-vaccine believers
tend to have a cult-like mindset.
If you believe that vaccines don’t cause
autism, in their mind, you are a part of the
big cover-up, or a sheep unwilling to see
the truth.
4.
President Truman’s Controversial Decision
To Launch Two Atomic Bombs On Populated Cities
The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a
moment in history that will remain in infamy
forever.
Some people defend it saying that at that
point, nothing less had any chance of convincing
the Japanese to surrender peacefully, and
that otherwise we would have had total war
that led to way more deaths on both sides
overall.
Others would argue that the Japanese were
already low on resources and morale, and we
could have possibly worked out a peaceful
surrender from them without dropping two giant
bombs on populated cities.
However, whether you agree with the decision
or not, it was an historic moment that forever
shaped the globe.
Since then nuclear paranoia set in, and countries
immediately started racing to build as many
of their own and test them all over the world,
releasing untold amounts of radiation.
This global arms race persists today, where
many people still face the possibility of
nuclear annihilation daily, and are only comforted
by the fact that nuclear war would be unlikely
to happen because it would be a no win scenario.
The world could possibly have been a very
different place.
Even if nuclear testing had continued in various
countries, without the historic example of
heavily populated cities being leveled in
a moment, the true paranoia we see today would
likely not exist – we might have had a world
where people knew a nuclear weapon existed,
but didn’t particularly fear them and feel
so paranoid, because they had no proper context
in which to put a real life nuclear attack.
3.
Teddy Kennedy’s Actions Immediately Following
Chappaquiddick Ruined His Presidential Dreams
Most people have heard of Teddy Kennedy, one
of the three original Kennedy brothers and
often called the lion of the senate.
Some wondered, as he got on in years, why
he never sought the presidency, and the answer
is that he once did, and ended up being sunk
by his own actions.
Back when he was younger, he was a very powerful
up and coming politician, and was indeed running
for president.
He was charismatic, had a lot of support,
and likely would have won the Democratic primary,
with a good chance at the general election.
And while we cannot know exactly what kind
of policies he would have had, the Kennedys
never did anything small, so it is certainly
likely he would have had a strong historical
impact as president.
However, just as his star was as bright as
it could be, he got himself into big trouble.
He was out with a woman in his car on Martha’s
Vineyard in Massachusetts, when the car crashed
over a bridge into the water.
He managed to make it out of the car, but
not with the woman – Mary Jo Kopechne.
He did not notify the police until many hours
later, and not until after he had had a good
talk with his lawyers about how he could get
out of trouble.
Many speculated that he did not go to the
police immediately or report it because he
was drunk and wanted to sober up – he suspected
he would be arrested for things like manslaughter
and drunk driving if he went to the police
right away.
Still, he was a Kennedy and they were known
for being playboys, he could have potentially
managed to avoid it sinking his political
career if he had went straight to the police,
but the way he handled the incident sunk him.
Most people were rather disturbed how callously
he left the woman to die.
2.
Reagan’s Firing Of Over 1000 Air Traffic
Controllers Has Had Lasting Repercussions
For All Unions
Many people do not remember the firing of
the air traffic controllers under President
Reagan, but it still has vast ramifications
to this day.
The short version of the story is that the
then-union for the air traffic controllers
was on strike for better pay, and the negotiations
were simply not going very well at all.
Both sides kept going back and forth, and
an agreement was not being put in place quickly
enough.
Fed up with the entire thing, President Reagan
declared it an illegal strike and threatened
to fire each and every single one of them
if they didn’t stop striking.
Unfortunately for them, they called what they
thought was a bluff.
It wasn’t, and they were all fired.
At first people thought this would be a huge
disaster, because air traffic controllers
are really important, but he put in military
controllers until others could be trained
and everything worked out okay.
This was a huge blow to unions in general
and greatly set them back over the years.
However, this wasn’t necessarily something
Reagan would have wanted.
He didn’t think unions in general were bad
or that workers shouldn’t have rights, but
he saw a situation where these were vital
jobs that absolutely must be filled, and the
terms could not be agreed upon.
He saw it as an extreme act in an emergency
– he did not plan to break the backs of
labor unions.
1.
Colin Powell’s False Presentation About
Iraq Got Us Into War With A Potential Ally
Colin Powell’s presentation about WMDs before
congress will go down as one of the most pivotal
moments in history.
Now, there is some debate and confusion as
to whether Powell was simply being used, or
was complicit in what was happening.
Either way, an incredibly false and misleading
presentation made it look like there were
WMDs in Iraq when there actually were none
at all.
This led the United States into a full blown
war in Iraq that has had lasting ramifications
to this very day.
And to make matters worse, there is reason
believe that if we hadn’t taken out Saddam,
we may have had a stable ally in the region
who could have been of great help.
When Saddam Hussein was captured, he explained
that he was actually shocked and confused
that Iraq was attacked.
He thought that the United States would want
to ally with him to help find terrorists after
what happened on 9/11, and didn’t understand
why he was a target when none of the terrorists
were from Iraq.
He had thought he could help us and that what
happened would bring Iraq and the United States
closer together.
While some may believe Saddam to be brutal,
he kept the region stable, something we have
been unable to accomplish.
If Saddam had remained in power and his words
are to be believed, we may have had both a
stable Iraq and a solid and stalwart ally
in 
the region.
