Have you ever wondered what the biggest mistake in the world is? Whatever it is, we believe to err is human. In this regard, an interesting story goes about Mr.Marco Marsala, a hosting provider company owner. The poor man deleted the entire records of his company by running the wrong code ”rm-rf”, a destructive piece of code that ate everything on his computer, including all of the files in his storage and his customers’ website, his entire company in other words. You are probably thinking of it as the biggest mistake in the World, but the truth is that human foolishness knows no bounds, and it can go as far as your imagination. The honor of the biggest blunder of all the times should go to any one of the examples discussed below:
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1-Infuriating Genghis Khan
This example comes at number one concerning its intensity, degree, and chronology. The most famous and well-known emperor of the 13th century Mongol Empire, Genghis Khan, once sought to open diplomatic ties with the neighboring Khwarezmid Empire(modern-day states of Iran and Iraq).
However, the erstwhile emperor of the Khwarezmid Empire, Ala-ad-Din Muhammad, not only turned his request down but also beheaded one of the Mongolian diplomats.
Khan’s reaction was what was expected_ He sent some 200,000 troops and smashed the Khwarezmids to the ground.
2- Letting Stay Hitler Alive
In 1914, the British soldier Henry Tandey, who went on to become the most celebrated soldier in World War One, once came across a brutally injured and unarmed Adolf Hitler in a ditch(He was just a Lance Corporal back then). Still, he decided not to shoot him in cold blood anyway and left. However, the accuracy of this story is disputed.
3- Rejecting JK Rowling
We can safely say that everyone on this planet knows that twelve publishing houses rejected the legendary JK Rowling’s Harry Potter manuscript before Bloomsbury finally published this masterpiece when the company’s chairman’s eight-year-old daughter Alice. Harry Potter novel was subsequently translated into more than 60 languages, and the ‘rejected author’ has reportedly earned $1bn.
4- Throwing away the hard drive storing the bitcoins treasure
In 2009, a hard-lucked Welsh guy James Howells bought 7,500 bitcoins when their value was next to nothing. The tables turned in 2013, and each bitcoin worthed £613, which means that the Welsh guy’s portfolio worthed £4.5m.
The only trouble was that technology was not super-fast like today, and these bitcoins were in a hard drive, and guess where the hard drive was? After being tucked away in a drawer for ages, it was in the garbage!
After realizing his mistake, he went to his local landfill site to find the local drive after some people gave him the hope of finding it at any spot under around 5ft of rubbish. However, no one knows whether he successfully found it or not!
5- They should have bought Google for $1m!
In 1999, Google’s founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page approached Excite’s chairman George Bell in the hope of selling the newly-found search engine for $1m. With Bell showing half-heartedness, the pair lowered their offer to $750,000 to tempt him. He still showed no interest. Today, Google is worth around $365b. Better play next time!
6- Brian Acton and Jan Koum, a job
This tale goes back to 2009 when programmers Brian Acton and Jan Koum applied for a job on Facebook. They both got rejected, and guess what? Those ambitious boys developed WhatsApp a few years later, for which Facebook had to pay $19bn.
7- Trading for 610,000 shares instead of one
This mistake is one of the biggest in the world and the most interesting one. A Japanese trader priced 610,000 shares at 1 yen instead of selling one share for 610,000. Thus, giving his company a total worth of £190m (this phenomenon is called the fat finger trade). He made a lot of requests to Tokyo Stock Exchange to cancel the deal, but the stock market refused to comply, forcing the company to buy its own shares at this ‘extremely super inflated cost.
8- Oops! You spelled it wrong.
This blunder even put Great Britain’s government in trouble. A company sued the British government for £9m after a clerical error, inserted a wrong ”s” and recorded the wrong company as being liquidated. Government-run Companies House made more than 250 people lose their jobs for mistaking 124-year-old Welsh family business Taylor and Sons for Taylor and Son-the firm that went bankrupt in 2009.
9- An Alexandria library burnt to ashes by mistake
The library in question is still remembered as one of the most significant libraries of the ancient world and as a symbol of cultural knowledge and prestige loss after it was burned down. However, no one knows for sure who performed that heinous act_ Some people attributed this act to Julius Ceaser, while others think that Aurelian is responsible. It did not transport us back to the stone age, but nothing can be more short-sighted than burning a library down.
10- An old lady discarded a Euromillions lottery ticket
In 2010, a person unintentionally threw away a Euromillions lottery ticket in the garbage, thinking it was a waste piece of paper. Ironically, his wife picked the correct numbers to win the ticket after trying her fate in the lottery every week. The elderly woman was sure that she played the right numbers because she used to note them down on paper every week before turning the ticket over to her husband.
11- Building Edsel was a wrong decision
Ford launched the Edsel in 1957 but stopped production by 1959. The car was classic indeed. But, it was the wrong model at the wrong time, as retail sales were much lower than expected, and the company put a full stop to its production, despite the high aspirations associated with it.
Also Read: The Witch Queen
Final Words
We can’t label a single foolish act as the biggest mistake in the world because each new mistake amazes us more than ever before. The list above makes it clear!
