As they say those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. What you’re going to see below are the 25 biggest and most embarrassing mistakes ever committed in the history of mankind.
We all don’t want to repeat them, of course. To ensure that, it’s our responsibility to know them and learn from them. Let’s start with…
1. In 1788, the Austrian army accidentally attacked itself and killed 10,000 men of its own men.
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2. No one knows who was responsible for burning the great library of Alexandria. But it was arguably the single greatest loss of knowledge in the world ever.
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3. Lack of commitment from Carthage to provide Hannibal with siege equipment led him to basically ignore Rome, which basically resulted to Hannibal’s downfall.
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4. They thought that assassinating Caesar would save the Republic. Unfortunately, it only led to its demise.
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5. Thinking that the West Indies was Southeast Asia.
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6. Alexander the Great did not name an heir to his throne leading directly to the downfall of his empire.
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7. Napoleon thought he could invade Russia in winter.
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8. Persia tried to scare off Genghis Khan by sending back his ambassador without a head. Wrong move. It only brought the wrath of Mongolia down on themselves.
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9. The Dutch first discovered Australia 100 years before the British did. But they just ignored it thinking it was only a useless desert.
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10. Atahualpa, the Inca ruler, agreed to meet Conquistador Francisco Pizarro during which 200 Spanish horsemen ambushed and defeated 80,000 of his warriors.
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11. Russia sold Alaska to the US for only 2 cents an acre. They thought it was just a useless tundra.
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12. Historians aren’t sure if the Trojan Horse actually ever existed. But if it did, accepting it was one of the biggest and most embarrassing mistakes ever made in history.
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13. They thought that filling the Hindenburg with hydrogen was a good idea.
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14. It took them 177 years to build the Tower of Pisa. It only took 10 years for it to start leaning.
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15. Hitler really thought he could do a lot better than Napoleon.
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16. Decca Records turned down the Beatles because they thought they weren’t good enough.
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17. It only took one random fool who forgot to close the gate that allowed the Turks to conquer Constantinople easily in 1453.
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18. NASA accidentally taping over the moonlanding. In fact, there are no known original recordings of the event. Conspiracy theories ensue.
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19. In 14th century, China abandoned its navy and decided that a policy of isolationism was better for them. History suggests that the country could have been much more influential than any powerful country in history.
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20. NASA lost a Mars orbiter because half of the team used metric units and the other used English units.
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21. The Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s driver made a wrong turn that led them right to the feet of the assassin, Gavrilo Princip. The First World War would have been avoided, or at least postponed.
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22. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor when not a single US aircraft carrier was even in port.
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23. Faulty construction led to the catastrophic meltdown of the Chernobyl Reactor.
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24. They decided not to bring enough life boats for all passengers on the Titanic because they thought it was “unsinkable.”
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25. 12 book publishers rejected Harry Potter because the story wasn’t good enough for them.
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(Source: List25)