Dive into a fascinating journey through history's most consequential blunders! From Kim Jong-nam's Disneyland mishap to the Trojan Horse, we'll explore how seemingly small mistakes dramatically altered the course of human events, revealing the unexpected power of human error.
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00:00300,000 souls live in the city and they've all just left.
00:05Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at the most consequential blunders throughout
00:09human history.
00:10The simultaneous collapse of four powers is unprecedented.
00:19Kim Jong-nam goes to Tokyo Disneyland.
00:21Why would the young dictator of North Korea want to kill his own brother?
00:26Well, to understand North Korea, you really have to think of it as being an absolute monarchy,
00:31the Kim dynasty.
00:32The dynasty was founded by Kim Il-sung after the Second World War.
00:37When the old man died in 1994, his son, Kim Jong-il, ascended the throne.
00:44Kim Jong-nam was once the heir to the North Korean dictatorship,
00:47until 2001 when he made an embarrassing attempt to visit Tokyo Disneyland.
00:51Traveling on a fake Dominican Republic passport bearing a Chinese name,
00:55Kim was arrested upon arrival in Japan and deported to China.
00:58The incident deeply embarrassed his father, Kim Jong-il,
01:01and caused him to be shunned by his family.
01:04Ultimately, his younger half-brother, Kim Jong-un, took over from their father.
01:07In 2017, Kim was assassinated in Malaysia,
01:11and it was later revealed that he had been a CIA informant.
01:26He also supported reform and free market policies,
01:36which apparently contributed to him being passed over.
01:38Had he never attempted that fateful trip,
01:41perhaps North Korea's trajectory might have been different.
01:56This means that his situation completely changed,
02:01be it dangerous, and then the suffering for the money.
02:04Byzantine refusal to hire Orban
02:16The Roman Empire's final two centuries were their most difficult.
02:19By 1452, the Ottoman Empire already had its eyes on Constantinople,
02:24which prompted Hungarian siege engineer Orban to offer his cannons to the Romans.
02:29Unfortunately, they couldn't afford his services
02:31or provide the materials needed to construct his weapons.
02:34So, Orban took his business to the Ottomans, who happily took him on.
02:46He crafted the basilic, one of the largest cannons in history,
02:50requiring 90 oxen and 400 men to transport it.
02:53Its cannonballs, each weighing 1,200 pounds,
02:56devastated the Theodosian walls,
02:58which were impenetrable for about 800 years prior.
03:01The Ottoman sultan also carried warships across the land,
03:04bypassing the harbor's great chain and giving them another huge advantage.
03:15Titanic sinks after iceberg warnings are ignored.
03:24The bow of the Titanic
03:32Many mistakes were made that caused the Titanic to sink,
03:35so it's difficult to pinpoint just one.
03:37Perhaps the most consequential, though,
03:39was turning hard a starboard when they spotted the iceberg,
03:41which extended the collision,
03:43creating a large gash that flooded five compartments.
03:46Had they struck the iceberg head-on,
03:48the bow would have been crushed,
03:50but only one or two compartments would have flooded.
03:54In such an event, the ship could have survived,
03:57as it was built to still float with up to four flooded compartments.
04:00Also, it only carried 20 lifeboats,
04:03enough for about half its passengers.
04:05The primary mistake that night was the sinking of the Titanic.
04:08The Titanic's lifeboats would have been destroyed
04:11if the Titanic had not sunk,
04:12and the Titanic's lifeboats would have been destroyed.
04:15The Titanic's lifeboats would have been destroyed
04:17if the Titanic had not sunk.
04:19The Titanic's lifeboats would have been destroyed
04:22The primary mistake that night was ignoring iceberg warnings
04:25and maintaining a high speed throughout.
04:27Changing just this one decision
04:29could likely have prevented the accident.
04:41Mexico attacks the Alamo.
04:43If you could oversee manning the walls, it would be a help.
04:45We should have six men to a cannon,
04:4718 tubes, which works out to...
04:48108 men.
04:50And we should have a man with a musket every four feet of walls.
04:54We're gonna need more men.
04:56In 1836, the Texas Revolution was underway,
04:59with the Anglo-American residents of Texas
05:01fighting for independence from the Mexican Republic.
05:04They were successful, winning 10 years of independence
05:06before joining the United States in 1846.
05:10During the war, Mexican forces
05:11under General Antonio López de Santa Anna
05:14laid siege to the Alamo.
05:15You said you wanted to see him.
05:17There he is.
05:20The Napoleon of the West.
05:22Which one?
05:26That's Santa Anna.
05:27Yeah.
05:28He's quite the peacock, isn't he?
05:30After 13 days, roughly 1,500 Mexican soldiers
05:34launched a decisive attack,
05:36overwhelming the garrison of about 200 Texians
05:38after three attempts.
05:40It was a Pyrrhic victory, though,
05:41as the merciless bloodshed inspired many to join the army,
05:44hoping to take revenge for the loss of their fellow Texians.
05:47Mere weeks later,
05:49a now-fortified Texian army
05:50attacked the Mexicans by surprise
05:52in the Battle of San Jacinto,
05:54decimating them in just 18 minutes.
05:56At this very moment,
05:57our soldiers are held in the Alamo
05:58against a force of thousands.
06:00They put their hopes in Colonel Fannin,
06:02who, despite his pedigree,
06:03has proven himself ill-equipped to lead
06:05much less march an army.
06:07This is from Colonel Travis.
06:10I call on you, in the name of liberty,
06:12to come to our aid with all dispatch.
06:15Trojans bring in the horse.
06:16What is this?
06:18An offering to Poseidon.
06:20The Greeks are praying for a safe return home.
06:23This is a gift.
06:25We should take it to the Temple of Poseidon.
06:29I think we should burn it.
06:30Burn it, my prince?
06:31It's a gift to the gods.
06:33This was a mistake so monumental
06:35it became a metaphor for deception
06:37that is still widely used today.
06:39The ancient city of Troy was first destroyed
06:41around 1200 BC,
06:42and again by archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann
06:45in the 19th century.
06:46According to legend,
06:47the Greeks built a giant wooden horse,
06:49hid soldiers in it,
06:50and presented it to the Trojans as a gift.
06:53Helen, we must go.
06:55Where?
06:55I'll show you.
06:56Now.
06:57Hurry.
06:57Thanks.
06:58Thanks.
06:59It's a long way.
06:59Quick.
07:00We must go now.
07:01Believing it to be a symbol of victory,
07:03the Trojans brought it into their city,
07:05only for Greek soldiers to emerge
07:07and decimate Troy.
07:08The tale's authenticity remains heavily debated,
07:11with no direct evidence.
07:12However, oral history played a central role
07:15in the ancient world,
07:16which preserved surprisingly truthful elements,
07:19suggesting that this tale
07:20may have been inspired by real-life events.
07:23Let Troy burn!
07:26Burn it!
07:28Burn it all!
07:30Burn Troy!
07:32Caesar ignores warnings.
07:34Senator Varinus,
07:36I come about your grandson, Lucius.
07:38I am the speaker of the Julii,
07:43and what I tell you now is the truth.
07:45Julius Caesar is most famous
07:46for sowing the seeds of the Roman Empire,
07:48enslaving and slaughtering millions of Gauls,
07:51and giving the month of July its name.
07:53He was eventually assassinated in 44 BC,
07:56which shouldn't have come as a surprise
07:58since he was given several warnings about it.
08:00If I may, gracious Caesar,
08:02you were going to consider revoking my brother's exile.
08:06I'm still considering it.
08:09Take your hand off me.
08:18What are you waiting for?
08:20Now!
08:20Now!
08:22Now!
08:22All of these were dismissed,
08:24leading to his death in the Senate
08:26where he was stabbed 23 times.
08:28A soothsayer warned him to beware the Ides of March,
08:31the eventual date he was killed.
08:33His wife Calpurnia had a dream of his death
08:35and insisted he stay home,
08:36but he dismissed her fears.
08:38Ultimately, his trusted friend Brutus convinced him to come in,
08:41which turned out to be the dictator's final mistake.
08:44So you see, the tyrant is dead,
08:46the Republic is restored,
08:48and you are alone.
08:53Would you like some honey water?
08:58I won't.
09:00Mao's great leap forward.
09:02I saw Russian cars which the Chinese have begun to make.
09:05There were wood-burning buses of the type I had seen in Europe during the war.
09:11Vehicles of all kinds.
09:17In most places of the city,
09:19there was a good traffic control system.
09:22Mao Zedong was the founder of Communist China,
09:24who became leader of the CCP during the Long March,
09:27a pivotal event in the Second Sino-Japanese War.
09:30After Japan's defeat,
09:31he sought to industrialize China
09:33and finally recover from the century of humiliation.
09:36He believed rapid industrialization would help them catch up to the West,
09:40but it turned into a catastrophic failure.
09:42Here, oil is extracted from coal.
09:44Built in 1928 by the Japanese,
09:47destroyed during the war,
09:48it was restored and enlarged.
09:50The Japanese produced 225,000 tons of petroleum in their best year.
09:551957 production was 320,000 tons.
09:581958 goal, 440,000 to catch up with Britain.
10:03The plan was overly optimistic
10:05and resulted in mass famine and an economic collapse.
10:08By 1962, Mao faced criticism for his policies
10:12and was sidelined at the 7,000 Cadres Conference.
10:15This didn't last long though,
10:16as just four years later,
10:18he kick-started the Cultural Revolution,
10:20which allowed him to reclaim full control of the nation.
10:23Coal comes from the Fushun mines.
10:27The plant also has its own department store,
10:30canteen and club.
10:32Built during the Japanese occupation,
10:34the plant has been restored and enlarged
10:37following wartime destruction.
10:40All kinds of steel products are made.
10:43NASA ignores Challenger warnings.
10:453, 2, 1, and liftoff.
10:50Liftoff of the 25th space shuttle mission,
10:53and it has cleared the tower.
10:55In 1986, NASA launched the shuttle Challenger,
10:58which tragically exploded only 73 seconds after liftoff.
11:02The event occurred during a cold morning,
11:04which caused the ship's rubber O-rings to stiffen,
11:07leading to a fuel leak that ignited the vessel.
11:09All seven crew members perished,
11:11marking one of the darkest moments
11:13in the history of space exploration.
11:15Engines at 65%, three engines running normally,
11:18three good fuel cells, three good APUs.
11:21Engines throttling up, three engines now at 104%.
11:24Challenger, go at throttle up.
11:26Months earlier, several engineers,
11:28including Roger Beaujolais,
11:29had warned of an impending failure
11:31due to the O-rings' vulnerability to cold.
11:33Beaujolais even wrote a memo outlining this issue,
11:36but his concerns were completely ignored.
11:38Although a team was formed to address the problem,
11:41they lacked adequate support,
11:42and the launch proceeded only to end disastrously,
11:45like Beaujolais predicted.
11:47America escalating tensions in Vietnam.
11:50It was a serious mistake for Kennedy
11:51to get involved, as he did,
11:54with American force in that part of the world,
11:58thinking that this great monolithic,
12:00Soviet-style communism would rule the roost,
12:04when he could have played it differently, I believe,
12:06and fought it more subtly.
12:09The United States entered the Vietnam War
12:11following the Gulf of Tonkin incident,
12:12where North Vietnamese forces allegedly attacked
12:15the U.S. Navy in international waters.
12:17The event was framed as an unprovoked attack,
12:20but later evidence showed otherwise.
12:22The great word that the Vietnam War gave us
12:26was escalation, because it starts off
12:29with Kennedy sending in just 400 military advisors
12:33who were actually special forces,
12:37organizing and controlling the action,
12:39and then more go in.
12:41While the first attack remains debated,
12:43the second one was entirely fabricated.
12:45It devolved into a brutal war,
12:47which dragged on for years,
12:49causing thousands of American and Vietnamese deaths.
12:52Along the way, the United States committed
12:54atrocious war crimes,
12:56such as the My Lai Massacre.
12:57Ultimately, the war ended in failure,
13:00all spurred on by an incident with very little evidence.
13:03He should have fought it with the limited aid
13:05he gave initially,
13:06with the development of the special forces,
13:08the Green Berets, as they're called,
13:10and other small tactical units,
13:12and not created this great surge
13:16of North Vietnamese resentment.
13:18Angering Genghis Khan.
13:20You still sing the same song, Temujin.
13:22Many voices carry it now.
13:26Not the markets.
13:28Outcast.
13:31I ask for this meeting in the hope
13:33that Mongol would not shed Mongol blood.
13:37Also that you might still join with me
13:38to spread the name of the Mongol nation.
13:40Many words can be used to describe Genghis Khan,
13:43one of history's most successful conquerors,
13:45but cool-headed isn't one of them.
13:47In less than two years,
13:49Genghis annihilated the Khwarazmian Empire.
13:52While there were a variety of factors
13:53that contributed to this invasion,
13:55the main one was an insult to his ambassadors.
13:58I promise you this, Jamuga.
14:01The Merkits will ride as part of the Mongol nation,
14:06or their land will be razed to the ground.
14:09Razed so that not even a lame horse
14:12would stumble walking across it.
14:13In 1218, the Khan sent a caravan to the empire,
14:17who were arrested and executed
14:19on suspicion of being spies.
14:20When Genghis sent diplomats
14:22to deal with the situation,
14:23the Khwarazmians refused to comply
14:25and beheaded the chief envoy.
14:27By 1221, their empire was shattered
14:30and they had suffered somewhere
14:31between two and 15 million casualties.
14:34Maybe think twice before you insult
14:36one of history's most ambitious conquerors.
14:38I have lived to see it.
14:42That the tribes come together as one people.
14:50But it is my sons who will make our nation great.
14:58Forgetting about time zones
14:59hamstrung the Bay of Pigs invasion.
15:01During the Cold War,
15:02the U.S. backed numerous coup d'etats around the world.
15:05While several of these succeeded
15:06in installing new regimes,
15:08attempts in Cuba failed spectacularly.
15:10Worried about Prime Minister Fidel Castro's
15:12communist policies,
15:13in 1961, the CIA orchestrated
15:16the infamous Bay of Pigs invasion,
15:18landing Cuban counter-revolutionaries
15:20on the country's southwestern coast.
15:21However, an obvious paint job
15:23on a B-26 bomber,
15:25disguised to look Cuban,
15:26gave away U.S. involvement to the world,
15:28leading President Kennedy
15:30to pull back air support.
15:31A few days later,
15:32a last-ditch bombing raid
15:34flying out of Nicaragua was botched
15:36when bombers were caught
15:37without their escort of fighter jets.
15:39Embarrassingly,
15:40someone had forgotten the one-hour difference
15:42between Nicaragua and Cuba.
15:44Fleming left bacteria out on his bench.
15:46Scottish physician Alexander Fleming
15:48was a brilliant researcher,
15:50most famous for his work on bacteria,
15:52as well as this accidental discovery.
15:54While researching the bacteria
15:56Staphylococcus in 1928,
15:58Fleming left out culture's plates
15:59on a bench in his workshop
16:00over the weekend.
16:01When he returned,
16:02he observed that fungus
16:03had grown on the dish.
16:05In the areas close to the fungus,
16:06the bacteria had been eradicated.
16:09The mold led to the creation
16:10of the first antibiotic, penicillin.
16:13Without Fleming's mistake,
16:14the history of medicine
16:15in the last century
16:16would look very different,
16:18and many who lived
16:19may have died instead.
16:20The Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster.
16:22There has been a nuclear accident
16:23in the Soviet Union,
16:24and the Soviets have admitted
16:25that it happened.
16:26The Soviet version is this.
16:28One of the atomic reactors
16:29at the Chernobyl atomic power plant
16:31near the city of Kiev was damaged,
16:33and there is speculation in Moscow
16:35that people were injured
16:36and may have died.
16:37Chernobyl's meltdown
16:39was the most destructive
16:40nuclear disaster in history
16:42and could have been completely avoided
16:44if the proper procedures were followed.
16:46The disaster was immediately caused
16:48by a safety test,
16:49which was meant to be carried out
16:50during the day with a trained crew.
16:52Instead, the untrained night crew
16:54did the test,
16:55with very little time to prepare
16:57and properly carry it out.
16:58The TMI accident was nothing
17:00compared with this.
17:01I would speculate
17:02that it was very serious,
17:04and the reason for that
17:05is that they've observed
17:07radiation levels 10 times normal
17:09from Finland all the way down
17:11to Stockholm.
17:12The Soviets were also secret
17:14about their nuclear technology,
17:15withholding important information
17:17from operators and engineers
17:19who should have understood them.
17:20After the explosion,
17:21further mistakes were made,
17:23like the nearby town of Pripyat
17:24not being evacuated
17:25until over a full day later.
17:27It was the perfect storm of mistakes,
17:30leading to one of humanity's
17:31worst disasters.
17:32You can be sure
17:33that the decision to disclose
17:35was made at the very highest level,
17:38undoubtedly by Gorbachev himself,
17:40and probably it took several days
17:42for the Soviet leaders
17:43to decide how to handle it.
17:44A B-Day helped lose D-Day.
17:46On June 6th, 1944,
17:48the Allies launched
17:49an ambitious operation
17:50to retake Western Europe.
17:52Known as D-Day,
17:53the first landings occurred
17:54on the beaches of Normandy, France.
17:56The casualties were high,
17:58but the operation granted
17:59the Allies a foothold
18:00that would eventually lead to victory
18:01on the Western Front.
18:02However,
18:03things could have gone very differently.
18:05The Germans' most accomplished general,
18:07Erwin Rommel,
18:08was in charge of defending
18:09the Atlantic Wall against an invasion.
18:11However,
18:12he had decided to take leave,
18:14as the 6th was his wife's birthday,
18:16and German meteorologists
18:17had mistakenly predicted storms
18:19for another few weeks,
18:20making a seaborne invasion unlikely.
18:22Had Rommel been in command,
18:24the Allies may never have gotten
18:26a beachhead to retake France.
18:28Russia Sold Alaska
18:29During the 19th century,
18:31the Crimean War
18:32caused several countries
18:33to begin exerting pressure on Russia
18:35through blockades of their sea routes.
18:36Because of this,
18:37they were unable to properly supply
18:39their largest overseas territory,
18:41Alaska.
18:42To offset this,
18:43in 1867,
18:45Russia sold the territory
18:46to the United States
18:47for $7.2 million.
18:50While it may have been a smart move
18:51at the time for Russia,
18:52in retrospect,
18:53it's often seen as a mistake,
18:55as the gold and oil discovered in Alaska
18:58far exceeds the value it sold for.
19:00Not only that,
19:01but Russia having a foothold
19:02in the North American continent
19:04would have caused the Cold War
19:05to play out very differently.
19:07A rushed public announcement
19:08brought the Berlin Wall down.
19:10The Berlin Wall
19:11was not only a grim symbol
19:13of the divide between East and West Germany,
19:15but also of the Iron Curtain,
19:17erected to stem the massive exodus
19:19from the communist-controlled East
19:20to the democratic West.
19:22However,
19:22it all came crumbling down
19:24much faster than expected
19:25thanks to an unprepared East German official.
19:28On November 9th, 1989,
19:30Günter Schapovsky was handed a text
19:32about new travel allowances,
19:33but didn't have time to review it
19:35before his press conference.
19:36Instead of telling people
19:37that East German citizens
19:38could apply to cross the border
19:40the following day,
19:41he said that people could cross immediately.
19:44This quickly led to thousands
19:46crowding the wall,
19:47unwilling to open fire.
19:48Border guards let them through,
19:50and the rest is history.
19:52Hitler's Invasion of Russia
19:54A British soldier's choice
19:55to spare the future Fuhrer's life
19:56during World War I
19:57turned out to be a huge blunder.
20:00But we'd argue
20:01that the most dramatic mistake
20:02involving Adolf Hitler
20:03was one he made himself.
20:04Despite signing a non-aggression pact
20:06with Russia,
20:07Hitler still considered
20:08Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union
20:10his enemies.
20:11In June of 1941,
20:13the Germans invaded Russia.
20:15Despite committing
20:16the largest invasion force in history,
20:18the Germans were unprepared
20:19for the Soviet's scorched earth tactics
20:21or the bleak Russian winter,
20:23and they experienced
20:24over a half a million casualties.
20:27The offensive split
20:28and depleted the German forces,
20:29and put Russia
20:30on the side of the Allies,
20:32which likely lost Hitler the war.
20:34A wrong turn started World War I.
20:36One of the most famous killings
20:38of all time,
20:39the assassination
20:40of Austro-Hungarian
20:41Archduke Franz Ferdinand
20:42is usually credited
20:43with being the catalyst
20:44for World War I.
20:46But what some may not know
20:47is that it could have been avoided,
20:49if not for a wrong turn.
20:51The Archduke had already survived
20:53one assassination attempt
20:54with a bomb by the same group
20:55while visiting Sarajevo.
20:57On the return journey,
20:58the Archduke's drivers,
20:59who spoke Czech,
21:00couldn't understand their directions
21:01for a new route,
21:02and took a wrong turn.
21:04When they stopped to reorient,
21:06it was right next
21:07to one of the assassins,
21:08who promptly pulled out a gun
21:10and shot both Ferdinand
21:11and his wife.
21:12Treaty of Versailles Harsh Terms
21:14If you think of September the 11th,
21:16but then you think of
21:16September the 11th-style casualties
21:18every day for four years,
21:20then you begin to get
21:21some kind of feeling
21:22of what the sort of trauma was
21:23that existed in the Western countries
21:25and the Allied countries at the time,
21:26particularly in Britain and in France,
21:28which had never known
21:29levels of casualties
21:30of the kind that they'd experienced
21:31between 1914 and 1918.
21:34The Treaty of Versailles
21:35was a deal signed in 1919
21:36at the end of World War I,
21:38which mainly focused
21:39on weakening the German Empire.
21:41Despite the Austrian-Hungarian Empire
21:43being the main instigators,
21:45sending a harsh ultimatum to Siberia,
21:47the victorious powers
21:48primarily blamed Germany.
21:49We were journeying to Paris,
21:51not merely to liquidate the war,
21:53but to found a new order in Europe.
21:55We were preparing not peace only,
21:57but eternal peace.
21:59There was about us
22:00the halo of some divine mission.
22:02We must be alert, stern,
22:04righteous, and ascetic,
22:06for we were bent on doing great,
22:08permanent, and noble things.
22:10They had to accept full responsibility
22:12for starting the war
22:13and were made to pay
22:14enormous reparations.
22:15This crippled their economy
22:17and fostered resentment
22:18towards the victorious powers,
22:20which eventually led to
22:21Hitler's rise to power
22:22and World War II.
22:23If the Allies had adopted
22:25a less punitive approach,
22:26like the U.S. did to Japan
22:28after World War II,
22:29the devastating Second War
22:30and the rise of Nazi Germany
22:32might have been alternate history.
22:34For six months,
22:35it was the closest we have ever had
22:36to a world government,
22:37and I don't suspect
22:38we'll ever have anything like it again.
22:39If you can imagine,
22:40all the most powerful people
22:41in the world here,
22:42prime ministers, kings, presidents,
22:45foreign secretaries,
22:46plus all the people who came
22:47because they were here.
22:48Napoleon invades Russia.
22:50I must wipe away my melancholy
22:52and begin the march to Moscow.
22:55I've convinced the heads of Europe
22:56of this resolution,
22:58and so I command
22:59the combined forces of France,
23:01Austria, Italy, Germany, and Poland.
23:05I see nothing but success in my future.
23:07In 1812, Napoleon famously
23:10declared war on Russia,
23:11citing their refusal to comply
23:13with the continental system.
23:14He brought around half a million soldiers
23:16from all across Europe to the border
23:18and proceeded to march them to Moscow.
23:20The Russian defense was confused
23:22with no planned resistance,
23:23with their eventual scorched earth tactic
23:25being largely improvised.
23:27I'm writing to you
23:28because I've just won
23:29a great battle today.
23:32Tomorrow we will resume our advance.
23:35Moscow is now only 200 miles away.
23:38And I think of you all the while.
23:40All yours.
23:41At the Battle of Bordeaux,
23:42Napoleon abandoned
23:43his usual cunning tactics
23:45and ordered a direct assault instead.
23:47The French won and Moscow was taken,
23:49but little Boney never received
23:50the peace deal he expected.
23:52Eventually, winter took hold,
23:53and Napoleon embarked upon
23:54one of history's most disastrous retreats,
23:57costing him his army
23:58and ultimately his empire.
24:00Fortune has abandoned me.
24:03I know that it is what fate has for me.
24:05Your words rattle in my head.
24:09I am nothing without you.
24:11Before we continue,
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24:27Christopher Columbus was bad at math.
24:29This Italian explorer
24:31was long portrayed as a hero,
24:33and the discoverer of the Americas.
24:36Nowadays, a lot more attention
24:38has been paid to his brutal treatment
24:39of indigenous peoples.
24:40But his most celebrated feat,
24:42sailing across the Atlantic Ocean
24:43in search of Asia,
24:44actually came about
24:45due to his mistaken belief
24:46that the Earth is a lot smaller
24:48than it really is.
24:49He arrived at this conclusion
24:50by using a mishmash of different estimates,
24:52as well as his own erroneous beliefs.
24:55If not for Spain's dire need for spices,
24:58he probably never would have gotten
24:59a single ship,
25:00much less three.
25:01What do you think
25:02was the most impactful mistake
25:03a human ever made?
25:04Let us know in the comments below.
25:06He'd rather burn his own city
25:08than negotiate with me.
25:10I didn't think he had the courage.
25:13Did you enjoy this video?
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