Nobody was born screwup-proof. I mean, look at the times you've made a mistake, like, in the past year, and your blank page will be full by the second month of the year.
But there’s one thing about getting caught lying and entirely another when someone literally makes a regretful decision that starts the plague in their country, or when an entire business goes bankrupt.
So when someone put up the question “Which is the worst single decision in history ever made by a person?” on AskReddit, it immediately became a hit on the subreddit. 47.3k upvotes and 17k comments later, we’ve got the most illuminating replies that may, in fact, make us change our perspective of things. Welcome to the land of historical screwups, the place where any given error is worse than your very worst one times infinity.
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Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003. There was no cause or direct threat, and it led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, trillions of dollars spent, and the creation of ISIS.
You are naive if you thing ISIS would not have formed anyway, whether or not you agree with the Gulf War. The rise of terrorism has been predicted for decades, but ignored. Look at other countries such as France, if you do not believe me. What did France do? Yet it too was the victim of terrorism. That is what terrorism is, a form of intimidation.
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All US wars in the Middle East are about oil, let's not pretend otherwise, this one was no different, also let's not forget that the US installed Saddam as a puppet dictator in the first place.
Let's not forget we helped Iraq use chemical weapons against Iran as well.
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And the fact nobody was ever held accountable for this shitty decision.
USA has the highest expense on defense in the world, by far (so far from the second) so I'm guessing the thoughts are: "why increasing expense on healthcare or education, when we can keep invading countries?"...
He knew what he was doing. War is a great bussiness, oil is a great bussiness. HE KNEW. But for sake of the question, yeah, very very stupid.
But what about all those military contractors who made billions out of text-payers money?
Ya mean off of Clinton awarding them Nobid Contracts?
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Trump made every stinker look good in comparison
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The goal of this invasion was achieved. It was never about a threat, it was in almost no war in the middle east which the US started. Oh and btw, they also funded ISIS
It was funded to take out the terrorist organisation they funded to take out the terrorist organisation they funded to take out the terrorist organisation they funded to take out the terrorist organisation they funded.
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Yeah oil but there’s a lot more to it than that. They wanted to dominate the whole region, they wanted to put other non cooperative countries in check by surrounding them, to protect mother Israel 🤢
Load More Replies... ISIS was created because the Iraqi military was disbanded. Basically, putting these people who have families to support, out of work. Now, had he said, "You now work for us", and paid them, lives wouldn't have been lost and trillions would have been saved and there would have been stability. But they have too much oil for that
And, of course, our dickhead PM thought it was a good idea and went along with it!
Bush also signed the patriot act which lets police and government spy on citizens and treat suspects (people or color) as terrorists before they are proven guilty by a court of law
Simply amazing the lies told on this site and how quickly ppl hit the like button without looking up info
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It's also exactly what Al Qaeda wanted to happen. Their aim with 9/11 was to start an all out war with the West - invading Afghanistan wasn't enough to ignite that, but invading Iraq did it. It's exactly what they wanted.
The country wanted payback for 9/11 and Bush wanted to protect the Bin Laden family, so he invaded a different middle eastern country to appease the gullible population and so that Cheney could make a couple billion more from war profiteering, which he also got a cut of. It all worked out great for Bush and Cheney.
I remember seeing a news report where everyday Iraqis were in the street begging for the US not to bomb them. Broke my heart.
I'm sure arms manufacturers and suppliers/contractors for the US army loved the decision...
How about the decision to topple Syria? Twenty times more dead, and 8 million refugees, but we fought the war through proxies, and a Democrat was president, so the news media never questions it.
WE WANTED/NEEDED THE OIL. That's it. That's all there was to it. The rest were lies.
Yes, but consider this, please: 'murica need oil and bragging rights yeeha
They were all of them deceived.. to do the devils dirty work. Much like with the Vietnam war. Blame the ones who sent them.
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The Neo-Cons wanted to make Iraq play ball, and buy and sell how they wanted it done. Of course it was about the oil.
There was a reason. Oil... Now the damage aftermath and was there really an oil deposit that can be extracted, that's different story.
Al-qaeda was based in afghanistan not iraq, all the points are correct just wanted to remind you all of that fact.
ISIS wasn't created by President Bush. Their creation was in the aftermath of Obama's troop withdrawal.Lok it up.
ISIS already existed. Just under a different name. Those who think otherwise are sadly deluded.
Bush had a real reason for it though. He and his friends needed access to the oil so they could have more money and further secure their place in hell.
I still remember the puzzled confusion emanating from US citizens when they slowly realized that this war was about oil, not fighting terrorism or even revenge. And every Europena was like: 'Doh!'
Nah. We invaded Iraq because of Madman Insane. Saddam Hussein. Well we didn't find any weapons of mass destruction in 2003, we did eventually find them in 2011. Just as Colin Powell said, the biological weapons were on train cars. Unfortunately we did not find the train cars until after the biological weapons had been released in Syria. As for the war, Iraq now has a democratic government instead of a dictatorship. Isis came to power because Obama withdrew our troops early. That happened on his watch.
Destabilized the Middle East for generations, created Daesch, PTSD related suicides, and the world wide view of the USA has darkened since.
i guess the people in the towers meant nothing to anyone BECAUSE YOU DIDNT KNOW THEM OR THE FEAR THEY FELT BEFORE THEIR DEATH DIDNT AFFECT YOU. while the brave men and women where storming the buildings to help the INNOCENT, people in the middle east were celebrating as if their muslim god came back.
And not to forget, if any other smaller country did the same thing, USA would bomb the crap out of them.
I agree ..the history of USA forcing themselves into other countries wars is abysmal?No credits for the brave who returned so wounded in many aspects for life then dumped by the same people who sent them to war The needless deaths.
But you don't get it. Bush is fine doing his paintings at his home, so I don't get your point.
It was completely successful at it's single purpose. Getting Bush reelected.
but, but...but, it created jobs with external contractors and that's good for the economy.
I thought it was in response to the Twin Towers and Pentagon? But I was in high school at the time and didn't watch the news what do I know?
Yeah, that was the original lie they told us.. There's a huge amount of info about this on the web. If you sincerely wish to know, it's not hard to educate yourself on this. I hope you will, it's an important lesson to learn.
Load More Replies... Leaving it all as s**t was the worst. So many people were actually happy to have the power shift. But then we royally f'd those people and left them in shambles. Cities no longer had water, electricity, schools were not open. We just left it and never helped. We said no one that worked for the regime shall hold their job. Problem is, when their is a dictatorship everyone works for the regime! And we just left them in a post apocalyptic nightmare. Truely horrid, vial and discussing.
Since WW2, no "war " has really been for anything other than rich people getting richer.
Heres how boredpanda works kiddies. Make a website that looks fun and interesting, random articles. Then put in One sided politics, create accounts from abroad, names youll never see again after 1 day and bash America and its history. The American youth are pretty ignorant and uneducated so they fall in line. Many sites like this and in a matter of years they hate their own. Most kiddies on here are too young to understand what happened in 2003. 9/11, the war wasnt one sided. Convenient they left those parts out.
Very bad decision, not involuntary at all though. Some people actually found enormous benefits in it, whatever the consequences for millions of others. See Naomi Klein's works and this excellent movie by Adam McKay about D**k Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_(2018_film)
Actually, Sadam was amassing Yellowcake Uranium, Only one use for that, Funding Terrorism, and had invaded another country. You're supposed to Like Bush and Hate Trump now, or didn't you get the Memo?
Actully, Bush’s invasion of Iraq led to the resurrection of Al-Qaeda. It was OBAMAs regime change in Libya that led to the creation of ISIS. Important to get the facts right here.
Allan Savory the ecologist who killed 40000 elephants because it was believed that grazing was causing the desertification of Africa, only to find out later that elephants were essential to prevent desertification.
Burning of the Library of Alexandria
“Hey, let’s create a coffee machine that uses a single use plastic cup for every cup of coffee or tea. How bad can the trash from that really be?”
I actually read that the creator of the K-Cup, John Sylvan, regrets inventing the pod system.
since he sold out his share for only $50,000 I expect he's not a big fan.
My great great grandfather, a carpenter, did some work for a poor painter in the neighbourhood. The painter had no money, so he offered either a bottle of wine or a painting. My great great granfather chose the wine.
The painter was Edvard Munch, and the painting would have been worth millions upon millions today, or even just a few decades later (if translated to todays money).
My grandfather refused a painting as payment from Picasso: it was just a Spanish refugee helping another Spanish refugee, no need for payment.
“Alright gentlemen we’ve successfully fended off the Greeks for 10 years, our great city of Troy still stands. If we keep this up surely they will realize the siege is fruitless and return home before long.”
“Yo captain there’s this big ass wooden horse outside”
“Oh rad bring it in”
and nobody, except a crazy old woman, thought it was even remotely suspicious
Mao Zedong
Pest capaign: He basically told his nation to take pots and pans to kill all the sparrows. However, the ecosystem was disturbed and the locust population skyrocketed.
Seeds: he thought that planting seeds 1 meter in the ground would result in greater roots and better harvest. He also thought that putting tons of seeds in one compact area would cause a better harvest. All the seeds died however. Around 30 million or so died from Famine under his rule.
"Hey! Look at the other nations industrializing! Lets smelt all our metal to build better infrastructure. What? It creates pig iron which is super unstable and impure therefore being ultimately useless? Oops!" -Mao
He was also the one behind Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Bloody tyrant.
Well, the decision of Inalchuq, the governor of the Khwarazmian city of Otrar, to attack Genghis Khan’s trade caravan was pretty bad. Khan was famous as a ruthless warlord, not the sort of guy you want to piss off.
But maybe they could have got away with it. Genghis sent three ambassadors to negotiate a settlement.
Which is when Muhammad II, the Shah of of Khwarzem, made the really bad decision to kill one of these ambassadors and send the other two back without their beards as a sign of humiliation.
Genghis Kahn was so enraged he assembled an army and destroyed the Khwarazmian Empire. Wiped out every town they had. He even re-routed a river to wipe out the village where the Shah was born, wiping it off the map. By 1120 there wasn’t much of anything left.
Eastman Kodak deciding not to go forward with their own newly invented digital cameras and instead sticking with film because it made them so much money at the time.
How about the guy who bought 20,000 Albanian slaves, brought them to Cairo, trained them to be the greatest warriors of their time, and then got overthrown by said slave warriors because they were so well trained.
Invading Russia. Always invading Russia.
People always seem to think "surely it's not that cold".....Well yeah
Thomas Midgley Jr can lay claim to three:
First, he discovered and helped popularize the use of lead in petrol/gasoline, causing unimaginable harm to the atmosphere and our brains. He contracted lead poisoning when working on the project, but apparently neglected to draw any conclusions from this.
Second, he lead the team that discovered freon, the first chlorofluorocarbon, and helped popularize the use of CFCs in refrigeration and industrial applications, causing further unimaginable harm to the atmosphere
It’s suggested that he had a greater impact on the atmosphere than any other single person in history.
As for the third, well:
In 1940, at the age of 51, Midgley contracted poliomyelitis, which left him severely disabled. He devised an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys to lift himself out of bed. In 1944, he became entangled in the device and died of strangulation.
To be fair though freon is better than what they were using, and no one was to know of the consequences
Here’s a recent one...
After successfully invading Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein, the US decided that all members of the ruling Baath party should be banned from government and military positions in the new government.
The result was a crop of knowledgeable bureaucrats and military leaders available to join a group of terrorists under Zarqawi to form a little group that would go on to become ISIS.
Maybe the worst business decision ever made was by Xerox with their Alto computer.
Xerox invented the graphical interface modern computers use. Desktop, folders, copy/paste etc. They basically invented the modern computer in the '70s. But the problem was, the people in charge at the time were businessman without any technical knowledge so they didn't realize what they had. They did nothing with it and gave it away to universities and showed other companies. The famous story is that Steve Jobs saw this and within 5 minutes realized this was the way computers would work in the future. He copied it, because Xerox didn't patent their invention and didn't do anything with it and the rest is history.
The guy who rejected Hitler's art academy application?
I sometimes fear what would have happened had a more stable yet amoral leader been in control of the nazis: a lot of mistakes were made that could have spelled disaster for the allies had the axis not screwed up, and that was down to a tyrant ruling through fear and instability and shooting the messenger. Mistakes got covered up. Its awful enough as it is, and with a more able person at the helm? I dont want to even imagine that.
John H. Sununu might count. He was an MIT educated engineer, brilliant guy, PhD in mechanical engineering. He even served on MIT's Advisory Board of the Technology and Policy. He remains a member of the National Academy of Engineering. More importantly, he was a governor of NH and later the White House Chief of Staff under George H.W. Bush.
As Bush's adviser, he was the first one with a STEM background to doubt climate change. He publicly questioned the validity of James Hansen / NASA's modeling efforts. In fact, the US was on the verge of signing a binding climate treaty with 65 other nations (in 1989!)
Prior to this point, the argument was "how do we balance emission reductions versus economic losses", with conservative forces recognizing the danger but insisting we protect businesses from overreaching regulation. After Sununu's public doubts, the entire debate shifted to "is climate change even real?". It inspired the "everything's fine" PR campaign that has been ongoing ever since. I honestly suspect treaty opponents didn't even realize that pure denial would be a realistic strategy until Sununu called James Hansen a liar.
I guess in another 50 years we'll see the true extent of the damage he did. Ironically all this falls not on some moron, but on a brilliant guy who decided to speak on something outside his expertise.
The decision by the Scottish to invade England during Black Death must be up there.
That on its own doesn't sound like a screw-up - they (more or less correctly) assumed the English would be weakened by the disease and invasion would be easy. The screw-up takes effect when the Scots started catching it and dying, and the remaining Scots fled... Back to Scotland, taking the disease with them.
Gavrillo Princip shooting Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
On that day, a man acted upon his self-constructed vendetta against a non-tyrranical monarch, thinking the world would remember him as a symbol against foreign tyranny. A symbol of national sovereignty.
A year later, 10 million men were dead.
The War politically destabilized Central Europe and thus opened door to Hitler. This must be one of the biggest fails in history.
Game of Thrones Season 8
That one time nintendo had a partnership with sony to develop a CD based console but in the end changed their mind and kicked Sony out cuz they decided to stick with cartridges.
Sony then thought "screw this, We'll make our own console, with blackjack & hookers" and created the playstation as a f**k you towards nintendo...
Sega actually made a similar mistake. So after Nintendo humiliated Sony, they actually went to Sega and asked about a collaboration. The US Division were actually on board and loved the collaboration. The Japanese Division, however, hated it and shot it down so the deal never came through. Then there's the infamous Saturn early launch, which basically screwed the company forever.
Two terrible decisions for the price of one:
The British gave Native American's blankets diseased with smallpox to "thin" out their ranks during The French and Indian War. They didn't anticipate just how deadly this would be; some tribes losing as much as 90% of their number due to the epidemic.
When Edward Jenner invented the smallpox vaccine, Britain made fast allies by exporting it out to the world. Some of those shipments were to be sent to the United States, with the intention of helping both the Colonial American populace and the Native American Populace.
Only problem was that the Colonials and the Natives were having a bit of a war for the west at the time. The US Army took the vaccines hostage, with the intention of letting more Natives die, until they gave up and moved into the reservations the US Army had built for them.
Native Americans just can't catch a break at all.
Radcliff Line - The process to divide India and Pakistan boundary in 1947 was done hastily and without major considerations to local populace religion. Radcliff was not a geography guy and majorly messed up the process. Millions died.
Anatoly Dyatlov making sure with every step, that reactor 4 at Chernobyl exploded in 1986.
Countries that fear looking weak during a crisis seem to almost always do the absolute opposite of what's needed. If there are any cases where this stance hasn't backfired, I'm not aware of it anyway, or not considering it for some reason (I'm a tad forgetful)
Yahoo refused to buy Google for 1 million and later for 40 billion again.
Edit: They refused 1 million, later offered 3B, and Google wanted 5B so no deal. And Yahoo was offered 40B by Microsoft and they didn't want to sell. And later they sold for 4.6B.
David Cameron's decision to call a referendum on Brexit, closely followed by Teresa May caking a snap General Election and losing her party's majority.
Robert Ballard, one of the guys who discovered Titanic, says that his biggest regret is that he and Jean-Lous Michel didn’t bring a piece of the Titanic up with him when he first discovered it in 1985. At the time, they didn’t want to disturb the wreck, and leave it pristine. But if they had done so, then they would’ve been able to claim legal ownership of the wreck under international maritime law, and therefore more control over it. Because they chose not to do that, everyone and their grandma is free to take artifacts and pieces of the wreck, and this makes preservation impossible.
His mistake was not failing to bring up a piece. He erred in his faith in humankind. He trusted that everyone else would feel the same about keeping the wreck intact as a memorial to those who lost their lives. Unfortunately that faith was unrewarded.
The Donner Party of 90 pioneers choosing to take a shortcut when heading West from Illinois to California in 1846. Said shortcut led to them getting trapped in the Sierra Nevada mountains and resorting to cannibalism.
Maybe not the *worst*, but maybe Ronald Wayne, he was a co-founder of apple along with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976. Just 12 days after forming the company, he sold his shares for $800. He owned 10% of the company, which would be worth ~$80,000,000,000 (80 billion) today.
How about the greatest single decision that could have ended up as the worst single decision in history ever made by a person?
Vasily Arkhipov. The man who was solely responsible for preventing nuclear war in 1962. The three officers on board the diesel-powered and nuclear armed B-59 sub had to agree unanimously to launch the nuclear torpedo. Conditions due to the Kennedy administration's blockade began to take a toll upon the crew members. Diesel subs can get incredibly hot over extended periods of time, the batteries failed and the air conditioning stopped, and the lack of fresh air from increased carbon dioxide levels means delirious crew members. Eventually two officers, Captain Savitsky, and the political officer Ivan Semonovich Maslennikov got sick of waiting due to thinking WWIII had already begun and decided to go through with the launch. But Arkhipov was second in command and his position as flotilla commander meant they also needed his approval to launch it. If he wasn't a flotilla commander it wouldn't have been needed gain his approval even as second in command. Vasily disagreed and all three actually got into a physical confrontation, fighting over command of the torpedo. Eventually they agreed with Vasily and had brought the sub to surface. Needless to say, they faced criticism and were disgraceful to their superiors who would have rather saw them go down with their ship than be captured by the enemy.
According to Wikipedia: ''Each captain was required to present a report of events during the mission to the Soviet defense minister, Andrei Grechko. Grechko was infuriated with the crew's failure to follow the strict orders of secrecy after finding out they had been discovered by the Americans. One officer even noted Grechko's reaction, stating "upon learning that it was the diesel submarines that went to Cuba, removed his glasses and hit them against the table in fury, breaking them into small pieces and abruptly leaving the room after that."
It's safe to say that there's an almost unanimous amount of agreement over the importance of Arkhipov's decision. Everyone from Chomsky, to McNamara have agreed that this was the defining moment of whether or not we would prevail as a species. This was it. The test. The launch of the torpedo would have meant the nuclear destruction of the blockade above, and thus the invasion of Cuba and the launching of the NATO nukes in Turkey and other European countries. Meaning the missiles in Cuba which were operational at this point, would have decimated all the major cities on the Eastern seaboard, and the major cities in the Midwest.
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., an advisor for the John F. Kennedy administration and a historian, has stated, "This was not only the most dangerous moment of the Cold War. It was the most dangerous moment in human history."
The guy that sold the bottling rights for Coca Cola, for $1, and never even made the guy pay the $1.
Hmm, here are a few candidates:
Hitler/Napoleon (for attacking Russia)
Dyatlov for various things he decided at Chernobyl (but there are so many Versions of that it's hard to say who was most responsible)
Whoever ordered Pearl Harbor (for ordering the attack)
Licencing Thalidomide for use against morning sickness (killed about 40% of the unborn babies and had horrendous effects on many of the rest)
Using Hydrogen to fly the Hindenburg
The hydrogen thing was the US's fault. The US had a monopoly on the production of Helium.
Eight years ago when that guy bought two large pizzas for 10,000 bitcoin.
Brutus decided to join Cassius in murdering the dictatorial tyrant, Caesar. The reason? They suspected his intent to become a king.
Which then started a chain of events leading to his adopted son Caesar becoming a military dictator without equal, having all the powers of a king without being called one.
When this Caesar Augustus dies, his name and title is passed on for the next four hundred years almost like you would a crown. Monarchies then returned all over Europe, in the style of Augustus Caesar.
And so, the decision of Brutus to join the conspiracy in effect changed all of Western civilization for the next 1900 years to adopt the very political style he wanted to avoid.
It would not be until the 1770s when America and later France would begin revolting and experimenting with Democracies and Republics.
It is worth noting that democracy was mostly collapsing in Rome that time because of corruption and military reforms that shifted loyalty of legions to their commanders. There had been other attempts to seize the ultimate power before and Octavianus Augustus was merely the first one who fully succeeded. That said, even without the Brutus's decision, it would likely happen anyway at some point later and given that Augustus was actually an extremely effective leader, it could have been much worse.
Sultan Murad IV sending the first flying man in history (Hezarfen Ahmed Çelebi flying three kilometers over the Bospurus in 1638) , into exile instead of putting all efforts into aviation.
Never heard of this guy before. I would be interested to know if there were more than one account of his life/work. Wikipedia says the account of the flight across the Bospurus is doubted. It puts me in mind of the chinses legend of Yuan Huangtou, who did something similar (against his will) in AD559.
Alcibiades was considered a traitor in Athens for leading his men to death. A traitor in Sparta because he got the queen to cheat on the king with him and a traitor in Persia after including them in a war
William Howard Taft running for US president:
Prior to ww1, the US elections took place with Woodrow Wilson winning with a 36% (give or take) majority, how could this happen? Taft. The election was split 3 ways, Wilson for the democrats, and Taft and Teddy Roosevelt for the Republicans, they split the vote and Wilson Won. Had Taft not split the vote Roosevelt would have won and serve a third presidential term. As president, Roosevelt would have almost definitely pushed the US one WW1 much earlier than Wilson did, possibly shortening the war by up to a year. The main impact of this would have been on Russia, while it wouldn’t have saved the Tsar, it would have put down Lenin and prevented the rise of Communism, as it would have denied Lenin the public backing he needed, given that the current govt. didn’t look quite so incompetent. With no Lenin, no Stalin, no mass genocides, speaking of genocides, the fear of communist take-over largely fuelled support for the Nazi party and without them, Hitler would have lived and died a fringe extremist with very few people even noticing him.
TLDR; Taft ran for president, split the vote, denied Roosevelt a third term, which lead to a prolonged WW1, the Russian Communist take over, WW2, Cold War, etc.
The Soviet government not informing their nuclear power plants of the defect which caused Chernobyl to melt down and almost destroy all of eastern Europe.
Kaiser Wilhelm II firing Otto von Bismarck. Bismarck had a plan. He always has a plan. But not when an incompetent Kaiser boots him out of his means of putting his plans into action. Bismarck had everything set up perfectly, but Wilhelm II decided to f*ck up everything he had set up, and got into WWI for it.
No. Bismark wanted a new war with France even in 1875! Wilhelm was a kind of a pacifist, as a cousin of the British King and the Russian Tsar, he didn't wanted war. The German Empire entered WWI because of the treaties signed with the Austro-Hungarian Empire... And von Bismark died in 1890, 24 years before WWI.
Note: this post originally had 46 images. It’s been shortened to the top 40 images based on user votes.
The dumbest decision are being made be people now, not social distancing, not using hand sanitizer and not wearing a mask when required. We have access to so much information and research that is factual and scientific , yet people are still dumb.
Isn't it funny though? We literally live in a time where we can research every little thing known to man in the most convenient of ways even (small handheld computers at the palm of our hands!) - and yet, people still willingly choose to be ignorant. So much for the information age! :/
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Trump saying COVID will be over in 2 weeks. Trump saying climate change isn't real. Trump having that speech on Jan 6, 2021. Trump blowing off science.
1914. when Gavrilo Princip kill the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. this led to WW1 which led to WW2, wich led to the jewish extermination wich led to the creation of a jewish territory and let the palestinian away from these territories wich led to the raise of the islamist extremists in that region wich led to the trouble we have today.
At least he didn't get re-elected. That would've been even more of a screw-up!
Load More Replies... Andrew Wakefield being a greedy guts and publishing that paper which did nothing but point out a correlation between the use of a rival MMR vaccine and cases of autism. Bred a whole new breed of morons.
Russian decision to decline international help for nuclear submarine Kursk and letting 118 soliders dying slowly during several days after explotion.
What about that time when Bonaparte sold 25% of the US's territory for $15m? (yes, the same guy who decided to invade Russia, revoke women's rights and reintroduce slavery)
And Russia selling Alaska to the US. That was pretty dumb.
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I woukd have thought Decca records deciding not to sign the beatles after an audition would have been in there!
Whoever invented god and religion. We still face the consequences of their lsd fueled trip.
Could've been someone who tested a new shroom 200K years ago. Hard to know. Humans are good at these things even if sober, alas.
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I was gonna say the guy who forgot the binoculars for the RMS Titanic, but there was the days-long fire in the hull before the maiden voyage that weakened the structure, and all the well-heeled types sending their greetings via radio from the ship (preventing the radio operators from hearing the warnings)... overall, everybody gets a participation ribbon for this one.
Nickelodeon rejected Adventure time which saved Cartoon Network and defined the modern animation. Instead, they picked up Fanboy and Chum Chum. One of the worst mistakes in Animation.
Nokia wasn't in the list? That was still a major loss when they finally give up
Ferdinand and Isabella deciding it was cool to fund this dude, Christopher Columbus' expedition to further Catholicism.
I’d say, the great molasses flood, people saw the tank leaking molasses, guess what the government did? Painted the tank brown! They also didn’t correctly test the tank. Resulting in millions of dollars of damage.
Oh! I know, how about Home Children, when the British Government decided to take children and send them to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa (1869-1970) . Many were orphans, but a lot of them were taken from their parent(s) if the government decided their parent(s) were not caring for them properly. Many of the children were abused as they were sent to those places to fix the labor shortage.
French Emperor Napoleon II declaring war to Prussia in 1870 after the diplomatic incident caused by the Ems telegram. Chancelor Bismarck had planned it all, he lured Napoleon into this trap by giving him a casus belli. He wanted that war against France that he was sure to win - which he did eventually, uniting Germany for good and annexing the two provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. World War I had a slight chance to be avoided if not for that humiliating defeat the French waited for 45 years to take revenge from.
Everyone got it wrong. The real worst misake evef was made by Umphd Reymokoo when he swatted that butterfly around 375,000 B.C. Nothing has gone right since then.
Not sending blacks back to Africa after the Civil War and bringing them here in the first place!
Please! The ULTIMATE stupid decision was definitely voting for trump, & millions were stupid enough to do it TWICE!
The west creating the state of Israel in 1948 should be on this list.
I'm really getting sick of the uneducated and unwilling to learn libtards on boredpanda
The introduction of social media. Too many ignorant, uninformed people retweeting unresearched bullshit, and calling it fact. Also, people assume Twitter/FB opinion is the majority opinion; it is not.
What about Pope Gregory IX decision to decree all cats to be Satan's vessels and having them massively exterminated in the 1200's? The result was a surge in rats' population and the Black Death pandemic killing two thirds or Europe...
Japan attacking Pearl Harbor. The USA not continuing Moon missions. Hitler attacking Russia. CSA traitors allowed to carry on as usual after the Civil War. Western Europe not aiding the Byzantines.
The single worst decision in history was made by a couple who decided to stay in the same household for 25 years in a toxic interracial love&hate relationship. The amount of pain they caused to each other was immense, and when their romantic attraction finally surfaced, they couldn't cope with it and committed a mutual suicide. tom-and-je...e227cf.jpg 
Oh FFS. There was no voter fraud! You guys can criticize the president all you want, but when you make comments like that you're willfully pushing democracy farther and farther away. Just look at what's happening in Myanmar. Do you want that here? A coup leading to a dictator that steals away our voting rights? The general staging the coup also lies and says that it was a "fraudulent election." Sounds familiar, eh?
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“I hate freedom and women. And women with freedom.” - Steve Ramaekers
Load More Replies... The dumbest decision are being made be people now, not social distancing, not using hand sanitizer and not wearing a mask when required. We have access to so much information and research that is factual and scientific , yet people are still dumb.
Isn't it funny though? We literally live in a time where we can research every little thing known to man in the most convenient of ways even (small handheld computers at the palm of our hands!) - and yet, people still willingly choose to be ignorant. So much for the information age! :/
Load More Replies... Trump saying COVID will be over in 2 weeks. Trump saying climate change isn't real. Trump having that speech on Jan 6, 2021. Trump blowing off science.
1914. when Gavrilo Princip kill the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. this led to WW1 which led to WW2, wich led to the jewish extermination wich led to the creation of a jewish territory and let the palestinian away from these territories wich led to the raise of the islamist extremists in that region wich led to the trouble we have today.
At least he didn't get re-elected. That would've been even more of a screw-up!
Load More Replies... Andrew Wakefield being a greedy guts and publishing that paper which did nothing but point out a correlation between the use of a rival MMR vaccine and cases of autism. Bred a whole new breed of morons.
Russian decision to decline international help for nuclear submarine Kursk and letting 118 soliders dying slowly during several days after explotion.
What about that time when Bonaparte sold 25% of the US's territory for $15m? (yes, the same guy who decided to invade Russia, revoke women's rights and reintroduce slavery)
And Russia selling Alaska to the US. That was pretty dumb.
Load More Replies... I woukd have thought Decca records deciding not to sign the beatles after an audition would have been in there!
Whoever invented god and religion. We still face the consequences of their lsd fueled trip.
Could've been someone who tested a new shroom 200K years ago. Hard to know. Humans are good at these things even if sober, alas.
Load More Replies... I was gonna say the guy who forgot the binoculars for the RMS Titanic, but there was the days-long fire in the hull before the maiden voyage that weakened the structure, and all the well-heeled types sending their greetings via radio from the ship (preventing the radio operators from hearing the warnings)... overall, everybody gets a participation ribbon for this one.
Nickelodeon rejected Adventure time which saved Cartoon Network and defined the modern animation. Instead, they picked up Fanboy and Chum Chum. One of the worst mistakes in Animation.
Nokia wasn't in the list? That was still a major loss when they finally give up
Ferdinand and Isabella deciding it was cool to fund this dude, Christopher Columbus' expedition to further Catholicism.
I’d say, the great molasses flood, people saw the tank leaking molasses, guess what the government did? Painted the tank brown! They also didn’t correctly test the tank. Resulting in millions of dollars of damage.
Oh! I know, how about Home Children, when the British Government decided to take children and send them to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa (1869-1970) . Many were orphans, but a lot of them were taken from their parent(s) if the government decided their parent(s) were not caring for them properly. Many of the children were abused as they were sent to those places to fix the labor shortage.
French Emperor Napoleon II declaring war to Prussia in 1870 after the diplomatic incident caused by the Ems telegram. Chancelor Bismarck had planned it all, he lured Napoleon into this trap by giving him a casus belli. He wanted that war against France that he was sure to win - which he did eventually, uniting Germany for good and annexing the two provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. World War I had a slight chance to be avoided if not for that humiliating defeat the French waited for 45 years to take revenge from.
Everyone got it wrong. The real worst misake evef was made by Umphd Reymokoo when he swatted that butterfly around 375,000 B.C. Nothing has gone right since then.
Not sending blacks back to Africa after the Civil War and bringing them here in the first place!
Please! The ULTIMATE stupid decision was definitely voting for trump, & millions were stupid enough to do it TWICE!
The west creating the state of Israel in 1948 should be on this list.
I'm really getting sick of the uneducated and unwilling to learn libtards on boredpanda
The introduction of social media. Too many ignorant, uninformed people retweeting unresearched bullshit, and calling it fact. Also, people assume Twitter/FB opinion is the majority opinion; it is not.
What about Pope Gregory IX decision to decree all cats to be Satan's vessels and having them massively exterminated in the 1200's? The result was a surge in rats' population and the Black Death pandemic killing two thirds or Europe...
Japan attacking Pearl Harbor. The USA not continuing Moon missions. Hitler attacking Russia. CSA traitors allowed to carry on as usual after the Civil War. Western Europe not aiding the Byzantines.
The single worst decision in history was made by a couple who decided to stay in the same household for 25 years in a toxic interracial love&hate relationship. The amount of pain they caused to each other was immense, and when their romantic attraction finally surfaced, they couldn't cope with it and committed a mutual suicide. tom-and-je...e227cf.jpg
Oh FFS. There was no voter fraud! You guys can criticize the president all you want, but when you make comments like that you're willfully pushing democracy farther and farther away. Just look at what's happening in Myanmar. Do you want that here? A coup leading to a dictator that steals away our voting rights? The general staging the coup also lies and says that it was a "fraudulent election." Sounds familiar, eh?
Load More Replies... “I hate freedom and women. And women with freedom.” - Steve Ramaekers
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