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Didros ,

Okay, I listen to a fair amount of history podcasts, so let’s see what I can pull out of my head for fun:

There was Rainbow Man, who famously went to sports games across America, holding up a sign that read “John 3:16” in an attempt to convert people to Christianity. He later died in a hotel shoot out where he took a maid hostage in his hotel room full of guns.

There was the time the President of America secretly went on a trip to Panama on one of two ships. While trying to show off to the president doing drills, the other ship accidentally shot a torpedo at the presidents ship. He pulled a pistol and attempted to shoot the torpedo with it.

The settlement at Roanoke, which was one of the earliest attempts by Europeans to settle in America and by the time ships got back with supplies (I believe years after they said they would be back) the settlement was empty. Still unsolved to this day.

America has dropped at least two nuclear warheads on itself accidentally, which have all failed to detonate.

Benedict Arnold was one of the best military minds ever born in America. He paid for his own troops for years, and when he asked for repayment or even his own salary, the Republicans claimed he actually owed the government money. They gave him tje reputation of only caring about money and refused to ever pay him until he finally took money from Britan to make ends meet.

George Bush senior crashed into German electrical lines and flew the plane back to base causing an international incident. He never received punishment for this and continued to fly for the military. He also did a bunch of drug smuggling and no one cared.

Look into pretty much any time people wanted to explore an area for the first time and there was most likely a massive loss of life and money. Australia and America seem to have the funniest stories of people’s attempts to name every river and mountain they see.

That’s what I got off the top of my head. :)

Malgas ,

The settlement at Roanoke […] Still unsolved to this day.

The word “CROATOAN” was carved on one of the buildings in the colony. The colonists had had friendly interactions with the native people living on Croatoan Island, which was nearby. There were later reports of native people with fair skin and beards on Croatoan Island.

So mysterious! Where could the colonists possibly have gone?

Didros ,

They were not the only white people to have ever been there though. The colonists could have been slaughtered and those were French decendents or something though. There is no way to prove what happened.

jimrob4 ,

Historian here. Prove? No. Draw a highly likely conclusion that should accompany every telling as the most likely explanation? Yes.

Didros ,

Thank you for the professional input RimJob4.

bermuda ,

Didn’t even get it right lol

some_guy ,

A Freudian Slip or a joke? Either is funny to me.

Didros ,

It’s pretty common when people want to have an edgy name in a game with name filtering. You just swap the first letters in two words. Like datfick4, bamrutt4, that kinda thing.

jimrob4 ,

No problem Dildo.

bermuda ,

America has dropped at least two nuclear warheads on itself accidentally, which have all failed to detonate.

These are known as “Broken Arrow” incidents, and at least 32 have been officially recognized by the government. Some of them were accidental releases of the bombs, others were plane (or other vehicle) crashes that contained bombs. There’s likely more that haven’t been recognized by the government. almost all of them happened between 1950 and 1980. Now that the cold war has died down, we haven’t been moving around our nuclear warheads as often and so haven’t had a new one. At least, not an official new one.

Didros ,

Good info thanks for adding on!

CanadaPlus ,

It’s pretty hard to have an accidental detonation at this point, though. Prompt criticality is tricky to achieve and easy to deliberately not achieve. Word is the newest bombs require a specific electronic sequence of fuse activations that’s stored encrypted, and would require being a superpower to reproduce, so it’s actually impossible to set them off as designed even if one was stolen.

scubbo ,

None of these resulted in losses. In fact the nuclear bomb example is notable precisely because there were no losses. They’re amusing failures or errors, but nothing was lost.

Didros ,

A nuke costs something like $80,000,000 to produce. It takes time and effort from multiple groups of people. What is an example of losses if this doesn’t count?

some_guy ,

There was Rainbow Man, who famously went to sports games across America, holding up a sign that read “John 3:16” in an attempt to convert people to Christianity. He later died in a hotel shoot out where he took a maid hostage in his hotel room full of guns.

^ Emphasis mine. I was curious about this and did a search. Turns out he’s still alive.

Didros ,

Interesting! Thanks for the update!

fiat_lux ,

Napoleon's invasion of Russia. It led what might be the first great infographic ever though. Charles Minard’s Infographic of Napoleon’s Invasion of Russia from 1869 (Carte figurative des pertes successives en hommes de l’Armée française dans la campagne de Russie en 1812-1813)

Tan colour line from left to right is the trip from France to Moscow, 1mm line weight = 6000 soldiers, black colour line from right to left is the trip back to France. The line slowly thins and diverges like a tree branch until 422k soldiers are whittled down to 10k returning. Not quite the outcome Napoleon had intended.

JohnDClay ,

earliest info graphic of Neapolitan in Russia

Zoboomafoo ,
@Zoboomafoo@lemmy.world avatar

Saddam?

UnverifiedAPK ,

Also the temperature at the bottom showing how cold it was on the way back. It explains why everyone died in the river.

CanadaPlus ,

I’ve heard that if he hadn’t ordered the retreat, they probably would have succeeded.

fiat_lux ,

Given the Russians burnt out everything they left behind, which is one big reason the line keeps thinning, I doubt they would have survived very long on the land they occupied. But I'm no Franco-Russian war historian, I just like data.

CanadaPlus ,

I think the idea is they would have caught up with the Russians and defeated them in battle, and could have taken supplies there. By marching back through the scorched earth they actually maximized their exposure to it.

Etterra ,

When the Spanish were raping the New World in the 1500s for gold, they dumped enormous quantities of platinum into the ocean because it was the wrong kind of shiny metal. Nobody in Europe had any clue how valuable the stuff was, only that it was often used to counterfeit gold. But since it wasn’t gold, or even silver, everyone thought it was worthless. This was exasperated by the fact that nobody could melt the stuff until the 1800s. But mostly it was just not yellow enough for the idiots at the time.

Hyperi0n ,

You don’t hold onto a useless material for 400 years hoping it has some value in the future.

PitzNR ,

Ever heard of the cables drawer? Bet you feel real stupid now

Hyperi0n ,

No. I pair and clean my out monthly.

collegefurtrader ,

HODL

CeruleanRuin ,
@CeruleanRuin@lemmy.world avatar

Coming down from the trees was a pretty big blunder. Nothing but losses ever since.

bady OP ,
@bady@lemmy.ml avatar

But… but we wouldn’t be having this conversation if our ancestors hadn’t done that! 🤷‍♀️

lemmy ,

Yeah that’s part of the mistake

kilroy_was_here ,

And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.

KingJalopy ,

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

AlmightySnoo ,
@AlmightySnoo@lemmy.world avatar

Elon acquiring Twitter for $44B in the first place, not taking into account the subsequent blunders. He not only overpaid too much for a social media company without even understanding it, he also wrecked Tesla’s stock price as investors saw he was clearly spending too much time on Twitter and he had to panic sell Tesla shares to fund his Twitter adventure. He easily wiped out hundreds of billions from Tesla’s market cap during that time.

tko ,
@tko@tkohhh.social avatar

I would say he overpaid by exactly the right amount.

traveler01 ,

It’s too early to take any considerations on that purchase.

untracked4167 ,

It’s been almost a year.

Ryumast3r ,

The value of “X” has been repeatedly downgraded. It’s estimated at around $15b by fidelity. They’ve demolished their own brand by renaming themselves and how you interact.

This is before you get into the whole “twitter has been loaded with debt from the purchase of twitter and so is even more unprofitable than it was before” part of the debacle.

traveler01 ,

Twitter was never worth 44B in the first place. Probably X has more users now than before.

some_guy ,

It’s easy to check a fact before putting your foot in your mouth.

Twitter.com’s unique visitors declined 3.3 percent YOY in March 2023.

One of my favorite aspects of Lemmy is that bootlickers are very easy to spot and don’t have loads of other bootlickers to support them.

traveler01 ,

Not according to Elon Musk

Who has the more credible information, the literal owner of the company or some random website?

kamenoko ,

Elon Musk is no George Washington.

Ryumast3r ,

The owner of the website certainly has no reason to inflate their numbers…

traveler01 ,

Unlike previous administration, he doesn’t have investors to please.

traveler01 ,

Also I’d appreciate you didn’t take the discussion to insults.

Be respectful.

tvbusy ,

Russia invasion of Ukraine. They used to be number 2 army with sophisticated weapons. Now they are number 1 world laughing stock with weapons that works exceptionally well for invading Mars but not on earth.

Klame ,

As they say, from number 2 army in the world to number 2 army in Ukraine.

Now with a risk of becoming number 2 army in Russia…

PRUSSIA_x86 ,

Briefly number two in Russia even.

Fissionami ,
@Fissionami@lemmy.ml avatar

You still believing that? Wow

SigloPseudoMundo ,

deleted_by_moderator

    •
    some_guy ,

    Tankie is sufficient. Filthy scum is a bit too far, imo. Like how I called a Musk apologist a bootlicker. But I didn’t say anything further. Let’s try to remain civil.

    SigloPseudoMundo ,

    deleted_by_moderator

    •
    yata ,

    It is not a belief, it is fact.

    neptune ,

    I don’t think they used to be the number two military. I think people THOUGHT they were a world class military. Apparently hadn’t been for decades.

    some_guy ,

    Similar to the misperception of the USSR from outside before the collapse.

    floofloof ,

    Brexit. As historical blunders go, this has a beautiful unambiguous purity.

    bady OP ,
    @bady@lemmy.ml avatar

    I agree, but unlike usual blunders this was very much planned!

    floofloof ,

    Once the campaigns were underway, yes. But the opportunity came from a huge blunder by David Cameron. He called the referendum expecting an easy win for the remain side that would silence the anti-EU faction in his party and shore up his position as PM. Instead, the anti-EU faction won, prompting his own resignation and causing damage to the UK’s economy, a loss of global influence, the loss of British people’s right to live and work in the EU, and reopening difficult issues in Northern Ireland that had been laid to rest for years. It also arguably sped up the Conservative Party’s lurch to the right and its embrace of UKIP-like policies, disempowering Conservative moderates and leading to the spiral of ever less competent governments we have seen since then. In particular, Boris Johnson’s rise was a direct result of post-referendum power games among Conservative politicians.

    CanadaPlus ,

    So what’s David Cameron up to these days? I’m sure such a massive and unnecessary screw-up has landed him in dire personal straights. /s

    floofloof ,

    Using his position to make tens of millions through corruption, as is traditional for former PMs.

    CanadaPlus ,

    Mmm-hmm. Aristos go brrrr.

    It’s less that I think we should be tougher on former politicians, and more that I’d like to see anybody ordinary fail that upwardly.

    new_acct_who_dis ,

    I didn’t keep up with this at all (I’m from across the pond) and I wondered why Brexit was even thought up in the first place.

    It’s so sad to see conservatives fucking things up over there too.

    floofloof ,

    Well, I’m in Canada and our Conservatives are pretty active in making this a worse place to live too. Currently they run almost all of the provincial governments, but they may take the federal government after the next election. Not something to look forward to.

    new_acct_who_dis ,

    It’s heartbreaking to see happen with y’all. We’re a mess, PLEASE LEARN FROM US!

    religious right wingers are dangerous AF. Don’t let religious folk skate by on some “we’re persecuted” shit.

    They know what they’re doing, don’t treat them with kid gloves like we did in the US

    Hyperi0n ,

    As long as Truedu isn’t running the party has a chance. Conservatives are split 4 ways and liberals only 2.

    mintiefresh ,

    Buying Twitter for 44B and renaming it to X.

    Hyperi0n ,

    Recent or ancient, not future.

    mild_deviation ,

    They lost almost half their ad revenue. I’d call that recent. Of course, it hasn’t actually killed the platform…

    RGB3x3 ,

    Would be even more of a blunder if people just absolutely refuse to stop calling it Twitter.

    UdeRecife ,
    @UdeRecife@literature.cafe avatar

    Any history book will be filled with such stories. Depending on the outlook, I’d say all history is like that.

    Take any one event. Let’s pick any decisive moment in history. Say, the battle of Salamis. Now flip it to the side of the Persians and you have the kind of blunder you’re looking for.

    rjthyen ,

    Very true when talking historical events. Say the USA lost the American Revolution and it’s now a land mass of Brits that can’t believe how foolish the revolutionaries were. (Although if other colonies are any indication independence may have eventually happened anyways)

    WtfEvenIsExistence ,

    Difference being canada still sings “God save the Queen/King” and it would be a parliamentary government instead of the 3 branches. Maybe things would be less deadlocked and more democratic if the American Revolution failed. (Ironic, I know)

    Vlaxtocia ,

    Although ww1 would have looked very different if the UK had America’s resources from day 1

    some_guy ,

    Say the USA lost the American Revolution and it’s now a land mass of Brits that can’t believe how foolish the revolutionaries were.

    Futurama imagined this: All the Presidents’ Heads

    cedeho ,

    King Mansu Musa was incredibly rich and when he went on hajj to mecca he spent much of his gold in Egypt causing a massive inflation. On his way back to Mali this has caused him needing to spend much more this time on his route through Egypt which is why he needed loans from merchants.

    Dunno if this could be considered a big loss?

    bady OP ,
    @bady@lemmy.ml avatar

    Whether many of the answers here count as a blunder or not, I’d like to say that I got way more replies than I expected and came to know about a lot of stuff I would have never heard otherwise. Thanks for sharing.

    idle ,
    @idle@158436977.xyz avatar

    Chernobyl comes to mind as the biggest fuck up ever. Whenever I think I fucked up I try to remember, it can never be as bad as Chernobyl.

    Ejh3k ,

    Ended up taking down the soviet union. The whole meltdown is fascinating. I read a book about it. I think it was called midnight at chernobyl, so something like it.

    some_guy ,

    What I know of it is mostly from the HBO mini-series that aired a few years ago. Did it really have that much impact on the fall of the USSR? My understanding was that the gradual attrition of competing with the West was the ultimate cause. I’m interested to learn more. Gonna go read some wikipedia on it.

    raubarno ,

    It was one of the reasons, as it required huge spending on extinguishing the reactor, draft up to a million personnel, dosimetry equipment, helicopters, thousands of trucks, then cleaning the zone around the reactor, building the sarcophagus on rush, evacuating people from the exclusion zone, digging up upper layer of dirt in a radius of several kilometers, patient treatment, and keeping everything in secret.

    It wouldn’t be an exaggeration that the costs of the liquidation compare to costs of a small war. Besides, the Soviets were involved in a harsh Afghanistan war.

    portside ,

    Yeah it struck fear, we could never fully utilize nuclear energy because people are scared.

    MystikIncarnate ,

    I was going to say something like the Hindenburg, but I think you have me beat.

    lazylion_ca , (edited )

    Cambium stock recently dropped to $10 after the CEO stepped down during their call. A large part of their problems are likely due to the pandemic shortages catching up.

    But a high failure rate on their new line of switches, and high prices while starlink eats their lunch isn’t helping.

    Edit: Used to be over $50.

    expatriado ,

    you may want mention the before stock price, that $10 needs something to compare with

    Cabeza2000 ,

    It was around $15.

    Hyperi0n ,

    It was around 50.

    Cabeza2000 ,

    It was $50 in 2021.

    The CEO stepped down 4 days ago when the stock was at $15, as a consequence it lost one third of its value and is now at $10.

    traveler01 ,

    Pretty much anything the government in my country does results in a huge loss of state funds lol

    apostasie ,

    Oh, a fellow German

    traveler01 ,

    Not German, but I’m sorry you feel that way about your government.

    apostasie ,

    Was supposed to be a little joke. I bet a lot of people feel this way about their country, unfortunately.

    traveler01 ,

    Astonishing how such pricks keep getting to government. Our democracy is a joke.

    zitronen ,
    @zitronen@feddit.de avatar

    See what happens,when this attitude makes it go away!

    andthenthreemore ,
    @andthenthreemore@startrek.website avatar

    Ah fellow Brit.

    Cleverdawny ,

    The Battle of Manzikert led directly to the end of the Roman Empire, all because of mismanagement.

    panggul_mas ,

    Battle of Manzikert

    If I saved one person the 4 calories worth of finger movements required to open a new tab and Google this themselves then I’ll go to sleep happy.

    SaakoPaahtaa ,

    Thank you, my bulk is saved

    some_guy ,

    Bah! I’m in the habit of spending those calories (history nerd) and did so before reading your comment. Still, your comment is appreciated. Also, thanks to @Cleverdawny for clueing my into something I hadn’t known.

    RealAccountNameHere ,
    @RealAccountNameHere@beehaw.org avatar

    The first thing that came to mind, oddly enough, was Blockbuster refusing to buy Netflix for the equivalent of a rat and a string to swing it with.

    Jourei ,

    I really doubt that Netflix would be what it is today if they had gotten bought. Too much would change too soon.

    mustardman ,

    In that case it may have prolonged the movie-rental paradigm by a few years allowing Blockbuster to dominate a bit longer.

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