The Dumbest Way A Huge Turning Point in History Began
March 24, 2023 11:28 PM Subscribe
What is the dumbest way a huge turning point in history began? Not a direct Twitter link, just a roundup of things said on Twitter about extremely dumb moments that twisted history. I presume y'all might be able to add your own as well?
The assassin who killed Archduke Ferdinand missed on his first attempt. It was only because Ferdinand's party ambled idly past him on the street afterwards that he got his second, and decisive, opportunity.
posted by praemunire at 12:26 AM on March 25, 2023 [14 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 12:26 AM on March 25, 2023 [14 favorites]
2016 - ?
posted by prismatic7 at 12:44 AM on March 25, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by prismatic7 at 12:44 AM on March 25, 2023 [11 favorites]
One of my favorites is Nintendo spiking their deal with Sony to create the SNES CD-ROM expansion. Everything was progressing well - unlike NEC and Sega, Nintendo was putting serious effort behind the peripheral, lining up studios like Square to build a solid launch library. Signs were that Nintendo planned to repeat their FDS playbook and would shift all first party development to the CD-ROM. But, Nintendo realized that Sony had managed to get one over on them in the negotiations, with a contract stipulation that they would get the licensing fees for CD-ROM titles. (To be fair, this was a pretty serious issue for Nintendo - Sony had basically negotiated Nintendo into being a second party developer for them.) A temperate corporate head would have either looked to renegotiate the contract, or quietly terminated it.
There are many adjectives one could use to describe then-Nintendo head Hiroshi Yamauchi. "Temperate" is not among them. His response to learning about Sony getting the upper hand was to use the upcoming trade show where Sony was going to officially announce the CD-ROM addon to announce their partnership on the CD-ROM addon...with Phillips, in a move to humiliate Sony.
So, how did this deal made out of spite go horribly wrong for Nintendo? Let's count the ways:
* First, while the Sony CD-ROM addon was in the final phases, with prototypes of both the addon and a Famicom Twin style all in one unit known as the Play Station already built, the Phillips deal was starting from scratch, and wound up just withering on the vine. The SNES would never see any sort of CD-ROM accessory during its lifespan.
* The failure of the CD-ROM unit left developers working on CD-ROM titles scrambling to rebuild them for cartridges. Probably the most famous of these was Secret of Mana, which had to have significant parts of the game excised to get it on a cartridge, and which left developer Square with a bad taste in their mouth after putting in the work to develop for the medium and realizing its potential. (This will become important later.)
* In order to get a deal with Phillips secured on short notice, Nintendo had to make some serious concessions - most notably, they had to give Phillips the right to publish games using Nintendo IP. So, those horrid CD-I games using Nintendo characters that have been a continuing source of "what were they thinking" YouTube videos - this is why they happened.
* The failure of the CD-ROM addon causes Nintendo leadership to decide on continuing with cartridge media for the Nintendo 64 - a move that was incredibly shortsighted given that developers were starting to realize the benefits of the greater capacity and dramatically lower cost of optical media. Most notably upon learning about Nintendo's decision, developers like Square (which at the time had begun doing tech demos for the N64 in preparation for shifting development to the system) chose to break ties with Nintendo in response. Nintendo would also run into limitations with the N64 cartridge format, leading to the 64DD, which would be another troubled addon (though one that did actually come out.)
Hmm...I feel like I'm missing something here. Something major. Something big.
Oh, right.
* The attempt to humiliate Sony winds up backfiring spectacularly as Sony is basically left with a mostly complete video game console and angry leadership. After an abortive attempt to work with Sega (which in hindsight was yet another bad decision by the company in an era marked by bad decisions), Sony decides that they're going to throw their hat in the ring and creates Sony Computer Entertainment. Using the Play Station prototype as a starting point, Sony begins work on developing a 32 bit CD-ROM based standalone successor system known in development as the PlayStation X (if you ever wondered where the "PSX" moniker came from, it's here), and would be called the PlayStation on launch. Sony's embrace of optical media and better support (for example, Sony funds the NA release of Final Fantasy VII, making it a major title and building support for such titles in the West) caused many developers and publishers to flock to the system - and with that Sony becomes one of the major players in console gaming - and a major competitor to Nintendo.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:54 AM on March 25, 2023 [40 favorites]
There are many adjectives one could use to describe then-Nintendo head Hiroshi Yamauchi. "Temperate" is not among them. His response to learning about Sony getting the upper hand was to use the upcoming trade show where Sony was going to officially announce the CD-ROM addon to announce their partnership on the CD-ROM addon...with Phillips, in a move to humiliate Sony.
So, how did this deal made out of spite go horribly wrong for Nintendo? Let's count the ways:
* First, while the Sony CD-ROM addon was in the final phases, with prototypes of both the addon and a Famicom Twin style all in one unit known as the Play Station already built, the Phillips deal was starting from scratch, and wound up just withering on the vine. The SNES would never see any sort of CD-ROM accessory during its lifespan.
* The failure of the CD-ROM unit left developers working on CD-ROM titles scrambling to rebuild them for cartridges. Probably the most famous of these was Secret of Mana, which had to have significant parts of the game excised to get it on a cartridge, and which left developer Square with a bad taste in their mouth after putting in the work to develop for the medium and realizing its potential. (This will become important later.)
* In order to get a deal with Phillips secured on short notice, Nintendo had to make some serious concessions - most notably, they had to give Phillips the right to publish games using Nintendo IP. So, those horrid CD-I games using Nintendo characters that have been a continuing source of "what were they thinking" YouTube videos - this is why they happened.
* The failure of the CD-ROM addon causes Nintendo leadership to decide on continuing with cartridge media for the Nintendo 64 - a move that was incredibly shortsighted given that developers were starting to realize the benefits of the greater capacity and dramatically lower cost of optical media. Most notably upon learning about Nintendo's decision, developers like Square (which at the time had begun doing tech demos for the N64 in preparation for shifting development to the system) chose to break ties with Nintendo in response. Nintendo would also run into limitations with the N64 cartridge format, leading to the 64DD, which would be another troubled addon (though one that did actually come out.)
Hmm...I feel like I'm missing something here. Something major. Something big.
Oh, right.
* The attempt to humiliate Sony winds up backfiring spectacularly as Sony is basically left with a mostly complete video game console and angry leadership. After an abortive attempt to work with Sega (which in hindsight was yet another bad decision by the company in an era marked by bad decisions), Sony decides that they're going to throw their hat in the ring and creates Sony Computer Entertainment. Using the Play Station prototype as a starting point, Sony begins work on developing a 32 bit CD-ROM based standalone successor system known in development as the PlayStation X (if you ever wondered where the "PSX" moniker came from, it's here), and would be called the PlayStation on launch. Sony's embrace of optical media and better support (for example, Sony funds the NA release of Final Fantasy VII, making it a major title and building support for such titles in the West) caused many developers and publishers to flock to the system - and with that Sony becomes one of the major players in console gaming - and a major competitor to Nintendo.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:54 AM on March 25, 2023 [40 favorites]
"We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America." - April Glaspie, U.S. ambassador to Iraq, in a meeting with Saddam Hussein. The meeting was triggered by concerns about Iraq massing troops on the border of Kuwait.
posted by swr at 1:33 AM on March 25, 2023 [15 favorites]
posted by swr at 1:33 AM on March 25, 2023 [15 favorites]
How Chance and Stupidity Have Changed History: The Hinge Factor by Erik Durschmied has many examples.
posted by blue shadows at 1:35 AM on March 25, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by blue shadows at 1:35 AM on March 25, 2023 [9 favorites]
I liked “Saul of Tarsus fell off his horse.”
posted by MtDewd at 2:21 AM on March 25, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by MtDewd at 2:21 AM on March 25, 2023 [12 favorites]
These were really fun-- I especially liked the one about the Berlin Wall.
I'm pedantic enough to doubt a few of them, though. E.g. bread was made 12,000 years ago in Jordan, before sedentism and before agriculture-- also before pots (in that region). I don't think Ho was a nationalist merely because of a snub from President Wilson. And I don't think Caesar's legs, fetching as they undoubtedly were, were what ended the Roman republic.
posted by zompist at 2:30 AM on March 25, 2023 [4 favorites]
I'm pedantic enough to doubt a few of them, though. E.g. bread was made 12,000 years ago in Jordan, before sedentism and before agriculture-- also before pots (in that region). I don't think Ho was a nationalist merely because of a snub from President Wilson. And I don't think Caesar's legs, fetching as they undoubtedly were, were what ended the Roman republic.
posted by zompist at 2:30 AM on March 25, 2023 [4 favorites]
I don't think Ho was a nationalist merely because of a snub from President Wilson.
Wilson's snub didn't make him a nationalist - what it did was illustrate that he couldn't expect support from the West for Vietnamese independence, as the purpose for seeking a meeting with Wilson was to push him to add colonial independence to the Treaty of Versailles. This would in turn have him orient to the Sino-Soviet sphere of influence.
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:42 AM on March 25, 2023 [8 favorites]
Wilson's snub didn't make him a nationalist - what it did was illustrate that he couldn't expect support from the West for Vietnamese independence, as the purpose for seeking a meeting with Wilson was to push him to add colonial independence to the Treaty of Versailles. This would in turn have him orient to the Sino-Soviet sphere of influence.
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:42 AM on March 25, 2023 [8 favorites]
In 550ad a handful of monks working for Justinian I smuggled silkworm eggs hidden in wooden canes all the way from China to Constantinople. These tiny eggs, the size of pinheads, disrupted global trade for a thousand years as the silk road network became less profitable.
posted by adept256 at 2:55 AM on March 25, 2023 [29 favorites]
posted by adept256 at 2:55 AM on March 25, 2023 [29 favorites]
In mid-March 2004, investment banker John Clemens “Jack” Ryan won the Republican primary for Senate in Illinois. He was heavily favoured to win the general election. Several news outlets had called for the sealed custody records to be released from Ryan’s divorce five years earlier from Star Trek actress Jeri Ryan, records which both parties had agreed would be sealed. At the end of March, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Schnider ruled that several of the Ryans' custody records should be opened to the public. The media seized on the revelations that Jack Ryan had asked his then-wife to perform sex acts in clubs in several cities. Opinion polls shifted and Ryan was soon trailing his Democratic opponent, and so withdrew from the race. The GOP slotted in Alan Keyes as a replacement, but Keyes lost the general election to the neophyte Democratic challenger, Barack Obama.
And of course, Stanislav Petrov could have followed procedures forty years ago and initiated a nuclear counterstrike to reports of six incoming American ICBMs rather than hesitating and taking the time to reason that just six missiles was unlikely; his second thought prevented a nuclear war.
I tend to think that everything is the result of a lot of low-probability events coming together. I had to get special dispensation to go to the high school I did as the one I was scheduled for was a horrid early sixties brutalist block (now long torn down), and the next catchment area was for a beautiful 1920s neo-Gothic place where my dad and his siblings had gone — I opted for this one. At that high school where I spent the next several years, I became involved with a fellow student who was editor of the school paper. I subsequently made my choice of university at least partly due to her going there as well, where we both worked on the campus paper.
I did make the acquaintance of the assistant entertainment editor at the campus paper; some twenty years later (after I had been married and split up with my wife, and the erstwhile assistant entertainment editor had been married and widowed), I spotted her name on Facebook; we met to catch up and I ultimately ended up marrying her. (My second wife, by the way, had initially gone to a different university, but found it charmless, so transferred after one year).
So: any number of things could have been different here — my wife could have liked her first university better, she could have changed her surname (the name I knew her by) when she got married the first time, my high school crush could have picked yearbook over the paper, some nameless functionary at the board of education decades ago could have denied my request to go to a different school. Any one of those things changes and I am not next to the sleeping woman I am right now.
For that matter, if my grandparents had bought a house in a different part of the city in 1952, my dad would have gone to a different school and I might have as well; for that matter, he would have gone to different dentist and would not have met the dental assistant whom he would subsequently have a child with. Ahem. So here I am!
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:14 AM on March 25, 2023 [21 favorites]
And of course, Stanislav Petrov could have followed procedures forty years ago and initiated a nuclear counterstrike to reports of six incoming American ICBMs rather than hesitating and taking the time to reason that just six missiles was unlikely; his second thought prevented a nuclear war.
I tend to think that everything is the result of a lot of low-probability events coming together. I had to get special dispensation to go to the high school I did as the one I was scheduled for was a horrid early sixties brutalist block (now long torn down), and the next catchment area was for a beautiful 1920s neo-Gothic place where my dad and his siblings had gone — I opted for this one. At that high school where I spent the next several years, I became involved with a fellow student who was editor of the school paper. I subsequently made my choice of university at least partly due to her going there as well, where we both worked on the campus paper.
I did make the acquaintance of the assistant entertainment editor at the campus paper; some twenty years later (after I had been married and split up with my wife, and the erstwhile assistant entertainment editor had been married and widowed), I spotted her name on Facebook; we met to catch up and I ultimately ended up marrying her. (My second wife, by the way, had initially gone to a different university, but found it charmless, so transferred after one year).
So: any number of things could have been different here — my wife could have liked her first university better, she could have changed her surname (the name I knew her by) when she got married the first time, my high school crush could have picked yearbook over the paper, some nameless functionary at the board of education decades ago could have denied my request to go to a different school. Any one of those things changes and I am not next to the sleeping woman I am right now.
For that matter, if my grandparents had bought a house in a different part of the city in 1952, my dad would have gone to a different school and I might have as well; for that matter, he would have gone to different dentist and would not have met the dental assistant whom he would subsequently have a child with. Ahem. So here I am!
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:14 AM on March 25, 2023 [21 favorites]
Note that the sidebar to Nox Aeternum’s Sony/Nintendo tale above was that Sony was still smarting from Betamax having lost to VHS a decade earlier, so Sony had ensured that they’d never again be left with a format that got the fuzzy end of the lollipop; to this end they had acquired Columbia Pictures principally so they’d have content which they could make exclusive to their own platform. (At least, I was working for Sony around the time of the acquisition and this was the general understanding within the company.)
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:34 AM on March 25, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:34 AM on March 25, 2023 [9 favorites]
Helen has a whole bunch of suitors vying for her hand, and her father Tyndareus doesn't want a big argument to start when one of them gets chosen.
Odysseus is there but knows he has no chance with Helen, so he says he'll help out if Tyndareus helps him get with Penelope. Tyndareus says sure.
Odysseus tells Tyndareus the solution is easy -- just make all the suitors promise to defend the fiance if anyone ever messes with him. Then no one will dare do anything stupid, obviously.
Menelaus, who didn't even bother to show up, somehow gets picked.
Consequences -- a ten-year war, the eventual deaths of almost everyone in the ruling class in Greece and Asia minor, and quite possibly the Bronze Age Collapse.
posted by kyrademon at 3:44 AM on March 25, 2023 [10 favorites]
Odysseus is there but knows he has no chance with Helen, so he says he'll help out if Tyndareus helps him get with Penelope. Tyndareus says sure.
Odysseus tells Tyndareus the solution is easy -- just make all the suitors promise to defend the fiance if anyone ever messes with him. Then no one will dare do anything stupid, obviously.
Menelaus, who didn't even bother to show up, somehow gets picked.
Consequences -- a ten-year war, the eventual deaths of almost everyone in the ruling class in Greece and Asia minor, and quite possibly the Bronze Age Collapse.
posted by kyrademon at 3:44 AM on March 25, 2023 [10 favorites]
10th Century China, Southern Tang Dynasty. The emperor Li Yu commissioned a 6ft golden lotus statue. He then asked his concubine Nao Yiang to bind her feet in silk (similar to some modern ballet work) and perform a dance on the tips of her toes. It apparently was a good dance, and others sought to replicate/iterate off it. Thus started the 800 year practice of mutilating women's feet in pre-modern China.
posted by Philipschall at 5:04 AM on March 25, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by Philipschall at 5:04 AM on March 25, 2023 [6 favorites]
Maybe not the stupidest ways history changed, but James Burke’s work is a great jumping-off point for the chance threads that bind historical events together. They’re a bit dated now, but his shows helped move my thinking about history away from a litany of famous names as taught in high school memorization, to understanding the idea of a cascading series of seemingly chance occurrences actually being a continuity that builds on itself.
Locally, Santa Ana deciding to take a nap almost within firing range of the Texians has to be #1 dumbest move. ( Fanin’s moronic indecision at Goliad is right up there with it- how is there a monument to that coward?) Texas becomes part of the US as a result. I often ponder the alternate timelines if Houston had lost and Tejas y Coahuila had remained part of Mexico.
posted by Devils Rancher at 5:07 AM on March 25, 2023 [13 favorites]
Locally, Santa Ana deciding to take a nap almost within firing range of the Texians has to be #1 dumbest move. ( Fanin’s moronic indecision at Goliad is right up there with it- how is there a monument to that coward?) Texas becomes part of the US as a result. I often ponder the alternate timelines if Houston had lost and Tejas y Coahuila had remained part of Mexico.
posted by Devils Rancher at 5:07 AM on March 25, 2023 [13 favorites]
I know I sound like a conspiracy nut about this, but I am 100% convinced in the future one of these will be:
"US energy company Enron collapses due to financial malfeasance. Congress spends the next several years pursuing the causes of the collapse, and discovers evidence US Vice President Dick Cheney might be involved. Throughout the next two years, Cheney makes several appeals to block the investigation and avoid having to turn over documents, finally claiming executive privilege in late 2002. In January 2003, Congress rules that executive privilege does not apply, and threatens to sue Cheney late in the month. The following week, Colin Powell is sent to the UN to give an address on Iraq having 'weapons of mass destruction' and the Enron investigation is tabled, so Congress can decide whether to go to war in Iraq."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:18 AM on March 25, 2023 [34 favorites]
"US energy company Enron collapses due to financial malfeasance. Congress spends the next several years pursuing the causes of the collapse, and discovers evidence US Vice President Dick Cheney might be involved. Throughout the next two years, Cheney makes several appeals to block the investigation and avoid having to turn over documents, finally claiming executive privilege in late 2002. In January 2003, Congress rules that executive privilege does not apply, and threatens to sue Cheney late in the month. The following week, Colin Powell is sent to the UN to give an address on Iraq having 'weapons of mass destruction' and the Enron investigation is tabled, so Congress can decide whether to go to war in Iraq."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:18 AM on March 25, 2023 [34 favorites]
The assassin who killed Archduke Ferdinand missed on his first attempt. It was only because Ferdinand's party ambled idly past him on the street afterwards that he got his second, and decisive, opportunity.
It goes beyond that. The only reason that Franz Ferdinand was in Sarajevo at all was because he wanted to spend his anniversary with his wife. His wife was lower class (she was only a duchess) so the only time he was allowed to sit beside her in public is when he was acting in a military capacity. So he decided to inspect the army in Bosnia. Their anniversary, June 28, was the same date as the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, which was a vital date for Serbian nationalists.
Further, the Archduke brought his own driver who was Czech and had never been in Sarajevo before, so he took a wrong turn and it was the driver's attempt to back up and turn around that gave Princip the opportunity to shoot the Archduke.
As Tom Stoppard says in Travesties "The moral of the story is "We're here because we're here because we're here."
posted by dannyboybell at 5:36 AM on March 25, 2023 [18 favorites]
It goes beyond that. The only reason that Franz Ferdinand was in Sarajevo at all was because he wanted to spend his anniversary with his wife. His wife was lower class (she was only a duchess) so the only time he was allowed to sit beside her in public is when he was acting in a military capacity. So he decided to inspect the army in Bosnia. Their anniversary, June 28, was the same date as the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, which was a vital date for Serbian nationalists.
Further, the Archduke brought his own driver who was Czech and had never been in Sarajevo before, so he took a wrong turn and it was the driver's attempt to back up and turn around that gave Princip the opportunity to shoot the Archduke.
As Tom Stoppard says in Travesties "The moral of the story is "We're here because we're here because we're here."
posted by dannyboybell at 5:36 AM on March 25, 2023 [18 favorites]
Basically every time in history :
someone remembered to look both ways when crossing the road/merging in traffic/riding their horse or washing their hands after eating or not going to pet that cute but slightly drool-y dog, or not eating that slightly funky lunch meat, or remembering to finish your breathy sentence before eating those throat-blocky peanuts/lentils or staying alert while walking on a mountain path or tending the cattle or laboring at work with the heavy objects around them......
and these are the obvious 1-causal "no they didn't die by their actions" events. for every one of these there are 10,000 of these which require no action on the part of the person for them to pop their clogs (or not!).
History is a contingent quivering million-dimensioned-web of interlocked events, with the slightest of threads being snipped causing very different outcome for nexi local and distant.
posted by lalochezia at 6:03 AM on March 25, 2023 [7 favorites]
someone remembered to look both ways when crossing the road/merging in traffic/riding their horse or washing their hands after eating or not going to pet that cute but slightly drool-y dog, or not eating that slightly funky lunch meat, or remembering to finish your breathy sentence before eating those throat-blocky peanuts/lentils or staying alert while walking on a mountain path or tending the cattle or laboring at work with the heavy objects around them......
and these are the obvious 1-causal "no they didn't die by their actions" events. for every one of these there are 10,000 of these which require no action on the part of the person for them to pop their clogs (or not!).
History is a contingent quivering million-dimensioned-web of interlocked events, with the slightest of threads being snipped causing very different outcome for nexi local and distant.
posted by lalochezia at 6:03 AM on March 25, 2023 [7 favorites]
At least partly tongue-in-cheek, one can argue that Lowtax banning loli porn enthusiasts from Something Awful helped lead to the 1/6 insurrection.
It's a twisted and stretched line, but it's a line nonetheless.
posted by delfin at 6:18 AM on March 25, 2023 [9 favorites]
It's a twisted and stretched line, but it's a line nonetheless.
posted by delfin at 6:18 AM on March 25, 2023 [9 favorites]
John Podesta uses two-factor authentication to secure his gmail in early 2016, maybe Clinton gets elected.
posted by joannemerriam at 6:51 AM on March 25, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by joannemerriam at 6:51 AM on March 25, 2023 [8 favorites]
Not really “dumb” but: in 1832 Lincoln is running a general store in Illinois. A guy moving out west asks him if he’ll buy a barrel full of junk off him for 50 cents, and Lincoln thinks hey, at least I get a barrel out of the deal. At the bottom of the barrel is a book: Blackstone’s Commentaries. And thus Lincoln becomes interested in law. Futility Closet has the story.
posted by Ishbadiddle at 6:55 AM on March 25, 2023 [15 favorites]
posted by Ishbadiddle at 6:55 AM on March 25, 2023 [15 favorites]
The people who called themselves مؤمنون or "Believers" were fracturing in the year 632, after their prophet, about whom we actually know next to nothing, died rather suddenly. Many tribes said their allegiance was to him personally and ended with his death; his successor, wanting them to stay united, suggested that they go raid the frontiers of the Persian and Roman Empires.
This happened at the exact moment that the Romans had just finished wrecking the Persians and driving them out of Syria, Palestine and Egypt, which the Persians had conquered ten years before. The Romans imposed heavy taxes on the newly-reconquered people to pay for their "liberation", and also imposed their own particular, widely-disliked version of Christianity upon the locals, who preferred their own proliferation of sects.
So instead of banding together and driving off the raiders, as had happened every single time a rag-tag band of badly-equipped tough guys came out of the deep desert, the people of those regions collectively shrugged, let the Romans fight alone and lose, and then accepted Believer overlordship because the Believers promised them religious freedom and lower taxes—and delivered. The people of present-day Iraq did the exact same thing with respect to their Persian overlords, and eventually the whole Middle East became Muslim.
Pick a year three or four years different, and the Believers would be another raid largely lost to history.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 7:47 AM on March 25, 2023 [15 favorites]
This happened at the exact moment that the Romans had just finished wrecking the Persians and driving them out of Syria, Palestine and Egypt, which the Persians had conquered ten years before. The Romans imposed heavy taxes on the newly-reconquered people to pay for their "liberation", and also imposed their own particular, widely-disliked version of Christianity upon the locals, who preferred their own proliferation of sects.
So instead of banding together and driving off the raiders, as had happened every single time a rag-tag band of badly-equipped tough guys came out of the deep desert, the people of those regions collectively shrugged, let the Romans fight alone and lose, and then accepted Believer overlordship because the Believers promised them religious freedom and lower taxes—and delivered. The people of present-day Iraq did the exact same thing with respect to their Persian overlords, and eventually the whole Middle East became Muslim.
Pick a year three or four years different, and the Believers would be another raid largely lost to history.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 7:47 AM on March 25, 2023 [15 favorites]
Also: Franz Ferdinand's wife Sophie was but a mere countess, and only later after she married him was given the title of duchess. That wasn't the reason he had to marry her "morganatically", i.e., she didn't share his titles and their children couldn't inherit the imperial throne. The reason was that only women from the Hapsburg dynasty itself, one of the other ruling dynasties of Europe (they were all interrelated like [insert Alabama stereotype] anyway), or a former ruling dynasty were permitted to marry a member of the imperial family. It wasn't Sophie's title that was insufficient, but rather her bloodline. [/historynerd]
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 7:54 AM on March 25, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 7:54 AM on March 25, 2023 [7 favorites]
The only reason that Franz Ferdinand was in Sarajevo at all was because he wanted to spend his anniversary with his wife. His wife was lower class (she was only a duchess) so the only time he was allowed to sit beside her in public is when he was acting in a military capacity.
But that's sweet, rather than dumb!
posted by praemunire at 8:42 AM on March 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
But that's sweet, rather than dumb!
posted by praemunire at 8:42 AM on March 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
There were lots of assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler, but these stand out:
November 8, 1939: Georg Elser spends months constructing and planting a bomb at the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich where Hitler gives an annual speech commemorating the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. Hitler cuts the speech short due to bad weather for his return trip to Berlin and leaves 13 minutes before the bomb explodes.
March 13, 1943: Oberstleutnant Fabian von Schlabrendorff smuggles a time bomb, disguised as bottles of Cointreau, onto Hitler's plane back to Germany. The detonator fails because of cold weather due to altitude. Schlabrendorff makes a panicked trip to Berlin to retrieve the Cointreau.
July 20, 1944: Claus von Stauffenberg leaves a briefcase with a bomb under a table in a conference room where Hitler is attending a briefing. The briefcase is in the way of Colonel Heinz Brandt, who moves it to the other side of a heavy oak table leg. The table leg shields Hitler, who escapes with minor injuries.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:29 AM on March 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
November 8, 1939: Georg Elser spends months constructing and planting a bomb at the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich where Hitler gives an annual speech commemorating the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. Hitler cuts the speech short due to bad weather for his return trip to Berlin and leaves 13 minutes before the bomb explodes.
March 13, 1943: Oberstleutnant Fabian von Schlabrendorff smuggles a time bomb, disguised as bottles of Cointreau, onto Hitler's plane back to Germany. The detonator fails because of cold weather due to altitude. Schlabrendorff makes a panicked trip to Berlin to retrieve the Cointreau.
July 20, 1944: Claus von Stauffenberg leaves a briefcase with a bomb under a table in a conference room where Hitler is attending a briefing. The briefcase is in the way of Colonel Heinz Brandt, who moves it to the other side of a heavy oak table leg. The table leg shields Hitler, who escapes with minor injuries.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:29 AM on March 25, 2023 [2 favorites]
In mid-March 2004, investment banker John Clemens “Jack” Ryan won the Republican primary for Senate in Illinois. He was heavily favoured to win the general election.
He may have been heavily favored by people who didn't believe that anyone in Illinois--or enough people in Illinois--would vote for a black man with an unusual name, but Obama had political gifts that Ryan could only dream of. And the best replacement that they could come up with after Ryan's fall from grace was Alan Keyes, about which 'nuff said. I mean, as a veteran and hardcore Trekkie, I'd love to believe the myth, but Obama's speech at the 2004 DNC had much, much, much more to do with his success than some random banker douchebro being mean to his amazingly beautiful and talented wife for not being kinky enough.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:40 AM on March 25, 2023 [6 favorites]
He may have been heavily favored by people who didn't believe that anyone in Illinois--or enough people in Illinois--would vote for a black man with an unusual name, but Obama had political gifts that Ryan could only dream of. And the best replacement that they could come up with after Ryan's fall from grace was Alan Keyes, about which 'nuff said. I mean, as a veteran and hardcore Trekkie, I'd love to believe the myth, but Obama's speech at the 2004 DNC had much, much, much more to do with his success than some random banker douchebro being mean to his amazingly beautiful and talented wife for not being kinky enough.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:40 AM on March 25, 2023 [6 favorites]
But that's sweet, rather than dumb!
The dumb part was assuming that June 28 was not a significant date for anyone else in the world for any reason.
posted by dannyboybell at 9:40 AM on March 25, 2023
The dumb part was assuming that June 28 was not a significant date for anyone else in the world for any reason.
posted by dannyboybell at 9:40 AM on March 25, 2023
(Oh, and WRT the Obama-Ryan myth, this tweet notes that, a month before the divorce records became public, Ryan was already behind in the polls.)
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:47 AM on March 25, 2023
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:47 AM on March 25, 2023
I'd love to believe the myth, but Obama's speech at the 2004 DNC had much, much, much more to do with his success than some random banker douchebro being mean to his amazingly beautiful and talented wife for not being kinky enough.
But Obama only got to give that speech because he'd been running around the country giving stump speeches for every Democrat on the ballot, and the party owed him. And he was able to do that (vs staying in Illinois focused on his own campaign) because he was thumping Alan Keyes so badly in the polls. And that 2004 speech catapulted him into the broader national consciousness. I remember asking a friend "wait, why are we nominating John Kerry and not this guy?!"
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 10:13 AM on March 25, 2023
But Obama only got to give that speech because he'd been running around the country giving stump speeches for every Democrat on the ballot, and the party owed him. And he was able to do that (vs staying in Illinois focused on his own campaign) because he was thumping Alan Keyes so badly in the polls. And that 2004 speech catapulted him into the broader national consciousness. I remember asking a friend "wait, why are we nominating John Kerry and not this guy?!"
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 10:13 AM on March 25, 2023
Stanislav Petrov.
The dumbness is the system we built for self-destruction.
Also Seth Myers teasing Trump at the Correspondents dinner.
Also Columbus nearly got mutinied in the mid atlantic.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 10:19 AM on March 25, 2023 [5 favorites]
The dumbness is the system we built for self-destruction.
Also Seth Myers teasing Trump at the Correspondents dinner.
Also Columbus nearly got mutinied in the mid atlantic.
posted by anecdotal_grand_theory at 10:19 AM on March 25, 2023 [5 favorites]
PC stuff...
#0: Gary Kildall decides to blow off a meeting with IBM, who were looking for someone to write an operating system for their new PC. Bill Gates, who pointed IBM to Kildall, decides to take the job instead and puts MS-DOS together. Windows, etc. follow from that.
#1: George Lucas buys a Howard the Duck comic book and thinks this would make a great movie. After a long development hell the movie comes out and bombs instantly. Lucas is so strapped for cash that he sells his computer graphics division to Steve Jobs. Later on Jobs returns to Apple after Pixar completes a wildly successful IPO.
#2: Steve Jobs is strongfast in his belief that Apple's brand-new iPod music player will make PC users want to ditch their machines for Macs. It doesn't happen as planned. Jobs' staff plead with him to allow a Windows version of iTunes to be produced. Eventually Jobs gets irritated:
posted by JoeZydeco at 10:26 AM on March 25, 2023 [7 favorites]
#0: Gary Kildall decides to blow off a meeting with IBM, who were looking for someone to write an operating system for their new PC. Bill Gates, who pointed IBM to Kildall, decides to take the job instead and puts MS-DOS together. Windows, etc. follow from that.
#1: George Lucas buys a Howard the Duck comic book and thinks this would make a great movie. After a long development hell the movie comes out and bombs instantly. Lucas is so strapped for cash that he sells his computer graphics division to Steve Jobs. Later on Jobs returns to Apple after Pixar completes a wildly successful IPO.
#2: Steve Jobs is strongfast in his belief that Apple's brand-new iPod music player will make PC users want to ditch their machines for Macs. It doesn't happen as planned. Jobs' staff plead with him to allow a Windows version of iTunes to be produced. Eventually Jobs gets irritated:
We argued with Steve a bunch [about putting iTunes on Windows], and he said no. Finally, Phil Schiller and I said ‘we’re going to do it.’ And Steve said, ‘Fuck you guys, do whatever you want. You’re responsible.’iPod sales skyrocket and the money+momentum funds the development of the iPhone.
posted by JoeZydeco at 10:26 AM on March 25, 2023 [7 favorites]
But Obama only got to give that speech because he'd been running around the country giving stump speeches for every Democrat on the ballot, and the party owed him. And he was able to do that (vs staying in Illinois focused on his own campaign) because he was thumping Alan Keyes so badly in the polls.
I remember him stumping for other candidates, but I thought that that was later in the campaign. The Wikipedia article on the speech gives other reasons for his selection. And, unless Ryan was a much better speaker and debate performer than Obama (which I doubt, simply because most politicians aren't), I don't think that he would have caught up to him in the polls.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:54 AM on March 25, 2023
I remember him stumping for other candidates, but I thought that that was later in the campaign. The Wikipedia article on the speech gives other reasons for his selection. And, unless Ryan was a much better speaker and debate performer than Obama (which I doubt, simply because most politicians aren't), I don't think that he would have caught up to him in the polls.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:54 AM on March 25, 2023
Keyes actually wasn’t named to the Republican ticket until August 8, while the DNC was held in the last week of July. (I also remember going to the Illinois State Fair later in August and getting my first Obama sticker, and there was basically no Republican presence there.)
posted by thecaddy at 12:29 PM on March 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by thecaddy at 12:29 PM on March 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
I keep thinking about how Beethoven died from people ripping hair off his head.
posted by srboisvert at 12:51 PM on March 25, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by srboisvert at 12:51 PM on March 25, 2023 [6 favorites]
(I also remember going to the Illinois State Fair later in August and getting my first Obama sticker, and there was basically no Republican presence there.)
Yeah, there's a whole lot that can be said about the GOP efforts to win statewide office in the last twenty years, not a lot of it good. I mean, they have had some successes--Mark Kirk (for Obama's Senate seat, for one term) and Bruce Rauner (for a single term as governor), against fairly weak candidates, as well as some lower-profile executive offices--but they were completely shut out of statewide offices in the last election.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:11 PM on March 25, 2023
Yeah, there's a whole lot that can be said about the GOP efforts to win statewide office in the last twenty years, not a lot of it good. I mean, they have had some successes--Mark Kirk (for Obama's Senate seat, for one term) and Bruce Rauner (for a single term as governor), against fairly weak candidates, as well as some lower-profile executive offices--but they were completely shut out of statewide offices in the last election.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:11 PM on March 25, 2023
Someone does mention Henry VIII's attempt to divorce Catherine of Aragon, leading to the split with the Catholic Church (and four more wives), but if Catherine had produced a male child who lived, none of this would have happened, and England would quite possibly still be Catholic, and have a completely different attitude to Europe.
Come to think of it, if Henry's older brother Arthur hadn't died of possibly typhoid at 15 Henry would have remained the spare and never have been king
posted by Fuchsoid at 6:08 PM on March 25, 2023 [6 favorites]
Come to think of it, if Henry's older brother Arthur hadn't died of possibly typhoid at 15 Henry would have remained the spare and never have been king
posted by Fuchsoid at 6:08 PM on March 25, 2023 [6 favorites]
I think the shambolic Franz Ferdinand assassination is still my favourite dumb inflection point in history. I do think sometimes about how, if that had never happened, what would have brought down the web of alliances that stopped Europe prosecuting pointless wars in favour of one catastrophic accident bringing down the whole system. (I also wonder: how long would it have taken the ruling class of Europe to realise that modern guns and cannons had made war into a slaughterhouse? How different would our politics be without two generations of deeply traumatised people?)
posted by Merus at 6:36 PM on March 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Merus at 6:36 PM on March 25, 2023 [3 favorites]
re: ye olde English histories, The White Ship sinking around 900 years ago was a big deal-changer at the time. Details include "excessive binge drinking before the ship sailed...".
posted by ovvl at 7:45 PM on March 25, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by ovvl at 7:45 PM on March 25, 2023 [7 favorites]
I also wonder: how long would it have taken the ruling class of Europe to realise that modern guns and cannons had made war into a slaughterhouse? How different would our politics be without two generations of deeply traumatised people?
Honestly? It’s an argument in favor of the Anthropomorphic Nuclear Many Worlds theory.
posted by thecaddy at 9:39 PM on March 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
Honestly? It’s an argument in favor of the Anthropomorphic Nuclear Many Worlds theory.
posted by thecaddy at 9:39 PM on March 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
TIRED: Great Man History
WIRED: The People's History
INSPIRED: Random Shit
posted by AlSweigart at 11:03 PM on March 25, 2023 [11 favorites]
WIRED: The People's History
INSPIRED: Random Shit
posted by AlSweigart at 11:03 PM on March 25, 2023 [11 favorites]
I believe Zed informed me that Woodrow Wilson, while in grad school, was friends with the dude who wrote The Clansman (the book that the film Birth of a Nation was based on). There's probably something tiny along the way to that coincidence that could easily have been different.
posted by brainwane at 8:47 AM on March 26, 2023
posted by brainwane at 8:47 AM on March 26, 2023
When I was younger I used to think that if I had a time machine, I could go back and change history for the better. The whole "Give Richard III a horse, turn Hendrix on his side, kill Hitler, drain Keith Moon's pool, give Franz Ferdinand's driver better directions, etc." stuff that when you're stoned and 23 sound like good ideas.
While aging, I slowly warmed to the idea that maybe someone already changed some of those things and what we ended up with is somehow someone's idea of our current timeline being somehow "optimized" already. Which on one level makes me shudder, but on another level makes me wonder just how bad that "unoptimized" timeline could have been.
posted by Sphinx at 11:18 AM on March 26, 2023 [9 favorites]
While aging, I slowly warmed to the idea that maybe someone already changed some of those things and what we ended up with is somehow someone's idea of our current timeline being somehow "optimized" already. Which on one level makes me shudder, but on another level makes me wonder just how bad that "unoptimized" timeline could have been.
posted by Sphinx at 11:18 AM on March 26, 2023 [9 favorites]
MetaFilter: a contingent quivering million-dimensioned-web of interlocked events
posted by brundlefly at 11:52 AM on March 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by brundlefly at 11:52 AM on March 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
While aging, I slowly warmed to the idea that maybe someone already changed some of those things and what we ended up with is somehow someone's idea of our current timeline being somehow "optimized" already. Which on one level makes me shudder, but on another level makes me wonder just how bad that "unoptimized" timeline could have been.
Orson Scott Card's book Pastwatch plays with that exact concept; future historians have discovered a way to observe the past, and start to experiment with a way to actually send objects or people to the past. They then discover that it looks like someone already did do that - they see evidence that Christopher Columbus made his voyage to the New World after getting an "angelic visitor". Some further speculation about "what would have happened if Columbus didn't do that" suggests that in the original unaltered timeline, if Columbus hadn't made his voyage, he would have gone on an anti-Muslim crusade and drummed up European sentiment that way - leaving Europe to exhausted to resist when the Mayans finally made their own transatlantic voyage and invaded Europe. So someone in the other timeline then tweaked things to send Columbus west to the "New World". But that caused its own problems, so this current timeline's historians then try to come up with a plan to course-correct history.
Card is a bit of a problematic figure, but it's a decent story.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:25 PM on March 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
Orson Scott Card's book Pastwatch plays with that exact concept; future historians have discovered a way to observe the past, and start to experiment with a way to actually send objects or people to the past. They then discover that it looks like someone already did do that - they see evidence that Christopher Columbus made his voyage to the New World after getting an "angelic visitor". Some further speculation about "what would have happened if Columbus didn't do that" suggests that in the original unaltered timeline, if Columbus hadn't made his voyage, he would have gone on an anti-Muslim crusade and drummed up European sentiment that way - leaving Europe to exhausted to resist when the Mayans finally made their own transatlantic voyage and invaded Europe. So someone in the other timeline then tweaked things to send Columbus west to the "New World". But that caused its own problems, so this current timeline's historians then try to come up with a plan to course-correct history.
Card is a bit of a problematic figure, but it's a decent story.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:25 PM on March 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
Give Richard III a horse, turn Hendrix on his side, kill Hitler, drain Keith Moon's pool, give Franz Ferdinand's driver better directions
Please tell me this all part of one story. You can't go wrong sending Richard III and Jimi Hendrix to kill Hitler, drowning him in the water from Moon's pool.
posted by zompist at 3:29 PM on March 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
Please tell me this all part of one story. You can't go wrong sending Richard III and Jimi Hendrix to kill Hitler, drowning him in the water from Moon's pool.
posted by zompist at 3:29 PM on March 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
as a friend puts it, and I find I'm saying it a lot myself now, "It was bound to happen eventually." Works for pretty much all occasions, big or small, significant or otherwise.
and Keith Moon didn't die in his pool. That was Brian Jones. Keith Moon died in Harry Nilsson's flat. And so did Mama Cass.
posted by philip-random at 4:43 PM on March 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
and Keith Moon didn't die in his pool. That was Brian Jones. Keith Moon died in Harry Nilsson's flat. And so did Mama Cass.
posted by philip-random at 4:43 PM on March 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
The lack of female characters in Supernatural led to Biden winning the election.
posted by creatrixtiara at 9:00 PM on March 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by creatrixtiara at 9:00 PM on March 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
(I think I tracked down the interview mentioned in the previous comment.)
posted by brainwane at 2:48 AM on March 28, 2023
posted by brainwane at 2:48 AM on March 28, 2023
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It was entirely chance who lived and died and the timeline splits into millions of paths in those years.
posted by adept256 at 11:57 PM on March 24, 2023 [28 favorites]