Cringe-Worthy Facts About The Biggest Mistakes In History
"Some of the best lessons we ever learn are learned from past mistakes. The error of the past is the wisdom and success of the future" -- Dale Turner
History is shaped by mistakes. Some lead to monumental leaps forward in human understanding. Most do not. Of those in the second category, many are simply embarrassing, and result in a good bar story. Meanwhile, other have simply disastrous consequences. Below are 48 of the biggest mistakes that have been committed in history.
1. Didn’t Understand The Food Chain
From 1958-1962, Chairman Mao Zedong China launched the “Four Pests Campaign,” which would exterminate rats, flies, mosquitoes and sparrows. What they didn’t realize was that sparrows ate a large number of insects.
Without the sparrows to eat them, locust populations grew, and created an ecological imbalance that exacerbated the Great Chinese Famin, which resulted in 15-30 million deaths.
That's right, when Chairman Mao Zedong ordered the extermination of sparrows, he accidentally sentenced 15 million citizens to end, all because he didn't realize that sparrows were mission critical for pest control.
2. He Should Have Accepted The Offer
In 1999, the founders of Google approached Excite CEO George Bell, offering to sell him the search engine for $1 million. When Bell refused, they lowered the price to $750,000, which he also rejected. Today, Google is valued at $365 billion.
3. We’ll Pass
In 2009, Facebook turned down a pair of programmers for jobs. No big deal, right? Must happen all the time at FB HQ....
A few years later, though, the pair developed WhatsApp. Facebook subsequently purchased that venture for a cool $19 billion.
