The Most Embarrassing Mistakes Ever Made In History

Rudy, Rudy, Rudy

"Low stakes, but high embarrassment: Four Seasons Total Landscaping."

~ kategoad

"You just know that SOMEONE demanded they use a high-class location like the Four Seasons Hotel, and incompetent hilarity ensued."

~ SpooSpoo42

"On November 7, 2020, four days after the United States presidential election, Rudy Giuliani hosted a press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania."

"The event was held at the company's garage door and parking lot to discuss the status of the Trump campaign. Many observed a comical aspect to its location—near a sex shop and a crematorium.

"The Trump campaign likely meant to book the upscale Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia, five city blocks from the Pennsylvania Convention Center where Philadelphia's ballots were being counted."

~ Milk_and_Cougar

"Günter Schabowski—the guy that accidentally brought down the Berlin Wall by declaring at a press conference that the right of freedom to travel was effective immediatly."

"Which was not at all what the GDRs political party had wanted, but led to thousands of people rushing to and overwhelming the borders and in the end to the reunification of Germany."

"It was a small mistake but with a great outcome."

~ GrouchyMary9132

💩 Happens

"The captain of German submarine U-1206. During WWII, it was fitted with a high pressure toilet system that was so complex flushing it required a trained technician to do it."

"So one day it was out on patrol when the captain needed to use it. Unfortunately, the number 2 he deposited was of considerable stench, so out of embarrassment, he attempted to operate the flushing mechanism himself."

"Unfortunately he botched up the sequence of valves needed to successfully operate it, and ended up causing water to leak onto the batteries used to power the ship whilst underwater which causes the ship to begin to fill up with cyanide gas and as a result they have to surface to re-circulate the air."

"To add insult to injury, this all takes place off the coast of Scotland and they are promptly spotted by RAF Coastal Command, who then proceed to send a welcoming committee and the captain is forced to order the ship scuttled.

"Four crewmen die, the rest are captured."

"All as a result of the captain not wanting to admit he did a stinky poo."

~ StarbuckTheThird

Why Guam Is A U.S. Territory

"During the Spanish-American War, the US decided to take Guam—colonized by Spain—so they showed up with a bunch of gunships and fired a warning shot to say 'This is your last chance to surrender peacefully'. There was no response."

"Then, a small Spanish boat started rowing up to the American fleet and when they got there, a representative said 'Hi! Welcome to Guam! We saw that you fired your guns to salute us and we would have saluted you back but unfortunately we ran out of gunpowder and nobody has been by to restock us'.”

"Nobody told Guam that the US and Spain were at war."

"When the Americans informed the representative that they were at war and were there to conquer this island, they asked again if Guam would like to surrender. The representative, having already given away that they had no gunpowder, agreed to surrender."

~ Not-sure-wtf-I-am

Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em

"Whoever lost Special Order 191."

"In 1862, during the American Civil War, Robert E. Lee decides to invade the Union. His outnumbered army is secretly marching in several divided columns into Maryland to attack Washington DC."

"He sends out this secret order to his top commanders, detailing where and when everyone should be during the march."

"A few days later, a Union soldier finds a couple of cigars lying in a field. With a copy of these orders wrapped around them."

"Some idiot had dropped it."

~ brainsewage

No One Will Remember...

"Hegelochus was an actor performing the play Orestes by the famous playwright Euripides. In the dramatic climax the king he was playing lay dying and is supposed to say 'after the storm I see again a calm sea' as he expires."

"He mispronounced the word galḗn as galên changing the line to 'after the storm I see again a weasel'.”

"This embarrassing mistake happened in 408 BC. It is the only thing we know about Hegelochus."

"It was so humiliating and so widely mocked that we’re still talking about it two thousand four hundred and thirty one years later."

~ aunomvo

Bye, Boy, Bye

"My personal favourite is New Zealand prime minster Robert Muldoon getting drunk in his office one night in 1984 and then calling a snap election."

"Two weeks later, his government was voted out of office."

~ Fresh-Hedgehog1895

Tale of Tails

"Hanoi Rat Massacre of 1902"

"The Vietnamese city of Hanoi had a rat problem so French colonial city officials decided to pay people for each rat tail they brought in. It seemed to be a huge success because thousands of rat tails were being turned in."

"Turns out the people just started breeding rats and bringing in rats from other areas to cut off the tails. City found out, stopped the program, and everyone released their rats since they wouldn’t get paid for them anymore."

"Rat population boomed making the initial problem worse."

~ droooo0

The Cobra Effect

"Almost the exact same thing happened in Delhi, India, while the British were in power."

"They started a reward program to get people to kill cobras."

"People just bred or imported and killed cobras and turned them in for the reward."

"The British eventually figured it out, and stopped the reward program, which lead to people releasing their breeding stock."

"It's the origin of the phrase 'the cobra effect' coined by German economist Horst Siebert. It describes how incentives designed to improve a system can lead to unintended—or sometimes perverse—consequences that can make issues worse instead of better."

~ Relevant_Change3591

Bird Brained

"Mao Zedong ordered an eradication of sparrows from China in 1959."

"Sparrows were believed to be pests that ate grain so the authorities started a campaign to eradicate them, along with some other perceived pests. The eradication worked."

"Unfortunately the sparrows, while they do eat some grain, also play a critical role in controlling the insect pests that cause crop disasters of a biblical scale."

"The next year, locusts boomed without their sparrow predator and took the crops, initiating a famine that killed 15 million people."

"China ended up having to import sparrows from the Soviet Union."

~ meganetism

There are certainly plenty of boneheaded moves from history to choose from.

What's your choice for the worst historical mistake?