“Obliterating Everything”: 30 Of The Most Monumental Mistakes In History (2024)

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Giving religions tax free status.

VoiceGuyNextDoor Report

Corporations are people. Money is speech.

These simple assertions have guided America toward more greed and more war than any other decision in history. It has set us on the path towards far worse ends than most other single events.

Arkmer , Giorgio Trovato / unsplash (not the actual photo) Report

In American history: Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, which made corporate bribery legal. Government no longer served the people from that point on.

someSingleDad Report

In retail history, probably Sears not realizing that they were basically Amazon before Amazon. Mail order with warehouses all over the United States. How could you improve that business model?

Oh, the Internet you say? Never heard of it.

vicki22029 , Phillip Pessar / wikipedia (not the actual photo) Report

Brexit.

LegionGold Report

Some guy introduced rabbits to Australia in 1788 so that he could hunt them for sport.

GotPC , Satyabratasm / unsplash (not the actual photo) Report

A governor of the Khwarazmian Empire killed a peaceful emissary from a neighboring empire, who had been sent to establish trade relations and political connections between the two powers. The emissary was sent by Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan replied by invading the Khwarazmian Empire, obliterating everything in his path, burning basically the entire thing to the ground, and then destroying any record of the Khwarazmian Empire that he could find. He finished all of this off by diverting the river that fed the country water, causing the land where the empire once stood to become a dry and barren wasteland. Possibly one of the biggest mess ups in history.

JackCooper_7274 , 13th century artist Report

Blockbuster not buying Netflix.

PayasoCanuto , Bidgee / wikipedia (not the actual photo) Report

"Mao's push to have farmers in China produce their own steel using backyard furnaces, which lead to a wacky chain reaction eventually leading to a famine that killed millions."

"Mao also ordered the extermination of sparrows in an attempt to protect grain crops. Millions of sparrows were killed, allowing locusts to proliferate.

"The locusts consumed so many crops that there was widespread famine and 45 million people died."

Belyea , неизвестный (unknown Report

Letting politicians trade stocks.

_redacteduser Report

Allowing a handful of people control the vast majority of media.

Lumpy-Log-5057 Report

The amazing development of chlorofluorocarbons to replace toxic, ammonia, sulphur dioxide, and chloromethane in refrigerators. It was so successful and safe that it rapidly became the refrigerant of choice. Right up until the moment we discovered that it had been reacting with sunlight to produce radical free chlorines that obliterated the ozone layer causing a massive spike in skin cancer rates (among other things).

Or what about Tetraethyllead! This amazing additive made cars massively more efficient saving huge amounts of petrol. It also significantly increased lead levels around the world and is responsible for a significant decrease in intelligence for people born during the time of its use. Although it's hard to call this a f*ckup, as GM and its inventor Thomas Midgley Jr. were aware of the dangers and played them down.

Wait a minute, the person that invented chloroflorocarbons was also Thomas Midgley Jr. Environmental Historian, J.R. McNeil once claimed that Midgley "had more adverse impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history".

Midgley had one more f*ckup to give, but fortunately for all of us, it only affected him. Later in life he became disabled after he contracted polio. To aid in his mobility he designed a system of ropes and pulleys to aid getting out of bed. He was found strangled to death by his own contraption at age 55.

So I submit Thomas Midgley Jr. himself as arguably the biggest f**k-up in history.

Somerandom1922 Report

"20th Century Fox let George Lucas keep all the merchandising r⁷ights for Star Wars because they thought it would be a giant flop and noone would watch it."

"George Lucas is now worth 5.3 billion dollars."

Tobazili , Jonathan Cooper / unsplash (not the actual photo) Report

In 1350, the Scots heard that England was having a spot of trouble with the bubonic plague, and decided to launch an invasion that would take advantage of the English, who were dropping like flies and would thus be easy pickings. The Scots invading army lost 5000 men to the plague in very short order. They decided to cut their losses and fall back to Scotland to be safe. Of course they brought the great plague with them, which devastated Scotland too.

Sauterneandbleu , Marcus Ganahl / unsplash (not the actual photo) Report

The IPCC decision to go with the more conservative climate change modeling in the 1980s. Essentially the question at the time was 'does heat accumulate at the poles, or does it dissipate into space'? They went with the dissipation models, even though they were in contradiction to geological evidence, because it had never been directly observed. And now, everything is 'sooner than expected' and 'faster than anticipated.'

Yeah because you guys f****d up. The biggest f**k up in history, by orders of degrees. Haha.

Solomon-Drowne , Chris LeBoutillier / unsplash (not the actual photo) Report

So that one fish decided to try what happens when you leave the water.. That's when it really started to go downhill!

WindpowerGuy , Johannes Plenio / unsplash (not the actual photo) Report

The wrong turn that driver made in 1914.

MarcusQuintus Report

Chernobyl! Only a f**k-up of epic poportions can cause a nuclear incident while doing a saftey test!

April 26th! Annivarsay of the accident is today.

Ta-veren- , Vladyslav Cherkasenko / unsplash (not the actual photo) Report

Yahoo not buying Google.

FatBirdsMakeEasyPrey , Beraldo Leal / wikipedia (not the actual photo) Report

If Parliment had just given the colonies their own representation in the House of Commons they could have likely avoided the entire revolutionary war and the US would not have formed. We’d likely have like 9 smaller versions of Canada on the east coast with a large Mexico and several interior Native American nations today.

Shepher27 Report

I think the best political f**k-up happened in 1984 when New Zealand's arrogant prime minister got drunk in his office late one night and called a snap election in two week's time.

His government was voted out. It became known as the Schnapps Election.

Fresh-Hedgehog1895 , Element5 Digital / unsplash (not the actual photo) Report

Vitruvius not see the potential of steam to Move things with the Heron Engine. Only saw it as a amusing toy.

The Steam Age and Industrial Revolution could of happened in 1st Century Greece.

ATA_VATAV , wikipedia Report

Not the worst, but that incident where they sent out an emergency alert saying “inbound ballistic missile threat to Hawaii. This is not a drill” always sticks out in my mind. People were seeking shelter in manholes, and it took them 45 minutes to send out a follow up alert saying “just kidding. Everything is ok”. I can’t even imagine.

jhumph88 , Apple Inc. Report

Norway wanted to give sweden 50% of our oil profits in exchange for 50% of Volvo. Swedens government said no as one of their minister meant that "there is no future in oil". Norway's sovereign fund (the oil fund) can now purchase every single stock on the swedish stock exchange and still have money leftover.

smolymartin , Adam Cai / unsplash (not the actual photo) Report

The invention of plastic.

BumblebeesAreCute83 Report

"Genghis sends three ambassadors (two Mongols and a Muslim) to the sultan to demand the governor be punished. Sultan has Muslim executed and Mongols shaved (a grave insult)."

"Genghis abandons current war with China and invades, capturing many cities who hold no real loyalty to the Sultan and surrender peacefullly."

"Genghis sieges Otrar, finally fully taking it after six months and executing governor...

"Genghis bypasses 300 miles of impassable desert to invade next city from more vulnerable side.

"Genghis takes thd capital of the empire in five days. Sultan dies hiding in exile."

lorgskyegon , Unknown author Report

"You can't be a part of our art school".

Careful-Rain-9985 Report

In 1912 China was a functioning and promising democracy (for the first time ever) and it was ruined by one general (Yuan Shikai) who couped the government and declared himself emperor.

_Kian_7567 Report

"Netflix offered themselves to Yahoo. Yahoo instead bought Tumblr.

"Heads rolled at Yahoo."

Broad_Bodybuilder_94 Report

The Fourth Crusade.

It started as a crusade for Jerusalem from an invasion through Egypt and the crusaders ended up invading Croatia and Constantinople. This also led to the weakening of the Byzantine Empire and eventually its downfall.

EmilyBelBaby Report

Note: this post originally had 40 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.

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I am a writer at Bored Panda. Despite being born in the US, I ended up spending most of my life in Europe, from Latvia, Austria, and Georgia to finally settling in Lithuania. At Bored Panda, you’ll find me covering topics ranging from the cat meme of the day to red flags in the workplace and really anything else. In my free time, I enjoy hiking, beating other people at board games, cooking, good books, and bad films.

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As a Visual Editor at Bored Panda, I indulge in the joy of curating delightful content, from adorable pet photos to hilarious memes, all while nurturing my wanderlust and continuously seeking new adventures and interests—sometimes thrilling, sometimes daunting, but always exciting!