History's greatest fails

[Ovisterra]

You're thinking of the IRB. The IRA still exist and want NI so bad they are willing to blow people up for it.

Killing people over the issue of which set of largely indifferent politicians should rule a piece of land always struck me as a decidedly peculiar behaviour pattern.

And yet a common one.

[Samozaryadnyastan]

The Third Reich actually listening to Hitler on matters military.

[Dumb Ideologies]

Killing people over the issue of which set of largely indifferent politicians should rule a piece of land always struck me as a decidedly peculiar behaviour pattern.

And yet a common one.

This is why dolphins are cleverer than us. They never fight over land.

[Ovisterra]

And yet a common one.

This is why dolphins are cleverer than us. They never fight over land.

Possibly because they are awful bad at surviving on it.

[Dumb Ideologies]

This is why dolphins are cleverer than us. They never fight over land.

Possibly because they are awful bad at surviving on it.

That's one way of looking at it.

[Eastern European Nations]

Battle of Britain big german fail
Stalingrad another big german fail

[Bikethage]

My contention was that making civilization dependent on the Car was a major net failure in history, overall. I wasn't saying there weren't occasional times when a particular user making a particular trip by car, wasn't a positive thing.

Your daughter riding a bike is not evidence of this contention.

Do you have any real evidence? I like my ability to transport myself (and only myself, should I desire) where I want to go, when I want to go.

My daughter riding a bike is evidence of the feasibility of bicycle transportation by members of society as young as she, leaving fewer excuses for older, supposedly more physically capable citizens to claim 'It's impractical' (Knoxcrest brought up the 'even a 5-year-old can do it' meme to dismiss the skill level comparison on incompetent car drivers being a hazard to themselves and others)

Don't you think it's strange that we decry massacres of hundreds, sometimes thousands of innocent civilians, and do nothing to re-structure the transport system which predictably, reliably kills thousands annually? Driving while drunk, driving while high, driving while distracted, driving while fatigued, driving while angry, driving while uninsured, driving a non-roadworthy vehicle, driving without a license... well yes all technically against the law but *wink wink* just this once, I really need to get home or get another 6-pack or get this vehicle to the summer property to work on, or I really need to take this call. Too much temptation to stretch the rules by too many people, the risks add up and the consequences are deadly. You could say that's not the fault of the invention itself but only of the way we use it. Maybe human beings are incapable of using this invention safely. Can't we re-think this? Now that we have them, we have to keep using them, keep accepting the continuing death toll? Is this the future, Winston, an Automobile Tire stomping on a human face, forever?

Me too, and I use a bike to go where I want to go, when I want to go, at far less global cost and far more local benefit.

[Floydian Britannia]

Any event involving the invasion of Russia. I believe only the Mongols succeeded while everyone else failed epically.

[Knoxcrest]

Your daughter riding a bike is not evidence of this contention.

Do you have any real evidence? I like my ability to transport myself (and only myself, should I desire) where I want to go, when I want to go.

My daughter riding a bike is evidence of the feasibility of bicycle transportation by members of society as young as she, leaving fewer excuses for older, supposedly more physically capable citizens to claim 'It's impractical' (Knoxcrest brought up the 'even a 5-year-old can do it' meme to dismiss the skill level comparison on incompetent car drivers being a hazard to themselves and others)

Don't you think it's strange that we decry massacres of hundreds, sometimes thousands of innocent civilians, and do nothing to re-structure the transport system which predictably, reliably kills thousands annually? Driving while drunk, driving while high, driving while distracted, driving while fatigued, driving while angry, driving while uninsured, driving a non-roadworthy vehicle, driving without a license... well yes all technically against the law but *wink wink* just this once, I really need to get home or get another 6-pack or get this vehicle to the summer property to work on, or I really need to take this call. Too much temptation to stretch the rules by too many people, the risks add up and the consequences are deadly. You could say that's not the fault of the invention itself but only of the way we use it. Maybe human beings are incapable of using this invention safely. Can't we re-think this? Now that we have them, we have to keep using them, keep accepting the continuing death toll? Is this the future, Winston, an Automobile Tire stomping on a human face, forever?

Me too, and I use a bike to go where I want to go, when I want to go, at far less global cost and far more local benefit.

Automobiles aren't war crimes, we don't need the terms "Massacre" and "Innocent" to be used. And this is why we have driver's ed. If you are caught driving recklessly, you are sent to drivers ed in some places. And if you take your own life because you felt the need to perform another task while driving, that is your own stupidity. It cannot be prevented, and most everyone in the modern world will refuse to ride a bike everywhere. Unless they are greens.

That is also why we're developing electric cars and fuel-effecient vehicles. And no one is choking on fumes from cars, so...

[Knoxcrest]

Any event involving the invasion of Russia. I believe only the Mongols succeeded while everyone else failed epically.

Yes, the only people to succeed have been the Mongols.

[Pittsborough]

The rise of Christianity and monotheistic religions.

[Galla-]

Your daughter riding a bike is not evidence of this contention.

Do you have any real evidence? I like my ability to transport myself (and only myself, should I desire) where I want to go, when I want to go.

My daughter riding a bike is evidence of the feasibility of bicycle transportation by members of society as young as she, leaving fewer excuses for older, supposedly more physically capable citizens to claim 'It's impractical' (Knoxcrest brought up the 'even a 5-year-old can do it' meme to dismiss the skill level comparison on incompetent car drivers being a hazard to themselves and others)

Don't you think it's strange that we decry massacres of hundreds, sometimes thousands of innocent civilians, and do nothing to re-structure the transport system which predictably, reliably kills thousands annually? Driving while drunk, driving while high, driving while distracted, driving while fatigued, driving while angry, driving while uninsured, driving a non-roadworthy vehicle, driving without a license... well yes all technically against the law but *wink wink* just this once, I really need to get home or get another 6-pack or get this vehicle to the summer property to work on, or I really need to take this call. Too much temptation to stretch the rules by too many people, the risks add up and the consequences are deadly. You could say that's not the fault of the invention itself but only of the way we use it. Maybe human beings are incapable of using this invention safely. Can't we re-think this? Now that we have them, we have to keep using them, keep accepting the continuing death toll? Is this the future, Winston, an Automobile Tire stomping on a human face, forever?

Me too, and I use a bike to go where I want to go, when I want to go, at far less global cost and far more local benefit.

this has got to be a joke

otherwise this is natapoc-level troll post

[Angleter]

Everything David Irving has spewed out, if we're referring to history as the work of historians. If referring to it simply as the past, then Abercrombie's attack on Ft. Carillon in 1758 springs to mind.

[An Intelligent Man]

The 2000 election. Someone had to say it.

[Astholm]

New Coke - wasn't that an epic fail for the drinks industry?

[Ovisterra]

New Coke - wasn't that an epic fail for the drinks industry?

What about C2? Or Coke Blak (still popular in parts of continental Europe)? Or Pepsi Crystal?

So many drinks have failed.

[Cameroi]

for the quality of sentient life, and the well being of all life, history's greatest fail was the invention of armed combat and the rise of the very first and earliest empires.

[The House of Petain]

2008, we elected a guy hoping he'd bring change. Actually that makes me kind of sad :/

Kgalema Motlanthe?

Close, but no. Don't be a racist bro. Not kool.

[Vestr-Norig]

When knud knudsen from oslo created the bokmål language (danish/oslo dialect). The language really sounds stupid and... gay. And yet, almost 80 percent of the Norwegian population are using it today... WHY?

And the multiculuralism... and the EU.

[Set the Unbound]

Well, you can spin it that way.

If America has an Afghan president in 2404, Osama Bin Laden will have won too... Not in the way he wanted, either!

Oh, you simply don't understand the situation at all, gotcha.

LOL so patriotic.

Yes, Hermann squandered any political clout/power he had gained by successfully engineering the Battle in the Teutobergerwald. That is irrelevant to the rest of the issue. His goal was to defeat the Romans, and stop their encroachment into Germanic tribal lands. He was ridiculously successful. Though the Romans led another army through, and forced pitched battles - they never expanded farther than their borders on the Rhein. Without their defeat in the Teutobergerwald, it's seems pretty likely that they would have kept doing what they always did - expand. Yes, the battle of the Weser River was an astounding defeat for the Germanic tribes, but realistically, no pitched battle could have worked out differently, it would be like saying a Napoleonic battalion could defeat a modern US battalion.

Meh, the Romans continued to expand their influence and culture in Germany, they just used proxies and client kings rather than direct occupation. Like the US will eventually

And lol whats all this about the Germans being like a Napoleonic battalion vs modern US?
The technology gap wasn't that wide.

More like an Iraqi battalion vs a US one.

The battle of the Teutobergerwald was, in and of itself, an astounding success (and a ridiculously failure on Varus' part, who was warned ahead of time of Hermann's plans.)

True enough. Varus was a failure too.

Additionally, it had far reaching effects that could be felt for the next four hundred years. Osama bin Laden is already not similar to this story. Had the attacks on the WTC halted all American "cultural imperialist" expansion, you might have a valid point - but nothing like that has even remotely happened.

I'd say you should learn a little bit more about the battle in the Teutobergerwald, perhaps. At the very, very least, it was an amazing failure on Varus' part.

Hermann ("Arminius") wanted to be King of Germany and unite the tribes, just like Bin Laden wanted to with Muslims. He achieved a stunning tactical success via treachery, got his country flattened by the backlash, and a gang of exploitative Roman client-kings installed (Northern Alliance style) for four centuries. When Germans finally gained their place in the sun, his tribe was long vanished.

And (unlike Bin Laden), Hermann was killed by his own people for causing all this trouble.

But he still has fans

[Cameroi]

the idea that a market economy will automatically solve everything.

[The House of Petain]

the idea that a market economy will automatically solve everything.

The idea that centralized "solutions" can react to/predict the volatile nature of markets, people, and money.

[Polinikia]

April 1204, when the Byzantine Empire and the Fourth Crusade, and allowed them in Constantinople. Byzantium was never the same after that, and eventually led to its utlimate fall to those Ottoman Turks.

[Delator]

Why the bloody hell do you guys have to Bag on Nazis so much.

The same reason we bag on those who long for Dixie...you chose to nostalgically glorify the losers.

If you're going to love losers...don't be surprised when you're called a loser yourself. Just ask a Cubs fan.

just stop the Nazi bashing

I'm done...but I'll never stop.

---

History's Greatest Fail was the Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1762)

After six years of the Seven Years' War, the Prussian army was greatly weakened and had just lost the vital Baltic Sea port of Kolberg to the Russians. Frederick II of Prussia considered himself lost and was on the verge of suicide. On January 5, Empress Elizabeth died, and her nephew came to the throne as Peter III. Peter was notoriously pro-Prussian; on his accession, he withdrew his troops and ended the war to no Russian advantage.

As one can see, the Russians were doing quite well for themselves until Peter III threw every single gain away.

This pissed off...

1. The Nobility: Which had ceded both finances and political power to the Tsar over the course of the war.
2. The Peasantry: Which had been taxed near to death to finance the war effort, and was of course the principle pool for new recruits after the early stages of the war.
3. The Clergy: Which felt the war was extending the reach of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
4. The Military: Which had spent six years fighting and dying to extend Russian power only to have it all thrown away by a Prussophile.

For those keeping score at home, that's every group that mattered politically in Tsarist Russia.

Peter III reigned for less than six months before he was overthrown and (likely) assassinated. His political ignorance cost him his reign, and his life.

Fortunately for Russia, their next ruler was a bit more capable.

[Corporations and Companies]

I know a lot of folks feel that 'New Coke' was history's biggest failure but I believe that it was the Battle of Watling Street myself.

10,000 Romans defeated 230,000 Britons. The Romans lost less than 500 men while the Brits lost about 80,000.

That's failure on a New Coke level!