Top 10 Real-Life Events That Caused Massive Domino Effects
History was forever changed when these events took place. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the earth-shattering moments whose ripples could be felt across time.
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00:00Well, in about a year and a half's time, we had 65 million users.
00:03Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the earth-shattering moments
00:08whose ripples could be felt across time.
00:10Places in the world where the nomadic lifestyle still reigns and, you know,
00:14nearly 30% of Mongolians live pastoral livelihoods.
00:20Number 10. The Super Bowl XXXVIII Halftime Show.
00:30If you had access to the internet at any point in 2004, chances are you're probably
00:39more than familiar with this particular controversy.
00:42If not, we'll just sum it up by saying that this infamous incident
00:45is the origin of the term wardrobe malfunction.
01:00While debate still rages on as to how much of the performance was pre-planned,
01:06Justin Timberlake's unveiling of Janet Jackson's breast
01:09made Jackson the most searched person of that year and the next.
01:13However, according to Javed Karim, clips were difficult to find online.
01:18This led to Karim, Steve Chen, and Chad Hurley overhauling their video dating service to accept
01:24any kind of video on the website they proceeded to call YouTube.
01:28We imagine you've heard of it.
01:30The community is really the key behind the success of the site,
01:34and I think they will do everything to maintain that, to maintain people coming to the site
01:38and posting their own personal content, which, to a large degree,
01:41has really driven the popularity of the site. So I think that will remain.
01:44Number 9. The Year 2000 Problem.
01:47Todd and his family are preparing for the downside of Y2K, should it come to pass.
01:53You know, there's people out there that I've talked to that said,
01:55there's nothing going to happen.
01:57It's all too common to think that the Y2K panic was totally unfounded,
02:01and that any concern about its consequences was leaning into conspiracy theory territory.
02:05In reality, the bug was only prevented by the hard work of computer programmers
02:10correcting a lack of foresight decades earlier.
02:13For convenience, all these computer programs, when it came to do dates,
02:16you only needed two numbers. Why use four numbers when you only need two?
02:19And then they recognize, what date is a computer going to think it is when we get to 2000?
02:23After Canadian engineer Peter de Jager drew attention to the problem in the early 90s,
02:28software companies and IT experts went into overdrive to prevent potential disaster.
02:33When it was realized that more hands on deck were needed,
02:36American companies hired offshore in places like India,
02:39where there was already an abundance of English-speaking computer experts.
02:42This move, intended as a temporary fix, ushered in the era of outsourcing labor to other countries.
02:48There was a fear, everything's in the internet, everything's in computers,
02:52and we're going to lose it all, and Jesus is coming back.
02:55Number 8. The sinking of the RMS Titanic.
02:58I love you, Jack.
03:07Don't you do that.
03:08Don't worry, Jack, you didn't die for nothing.
03:11After the legendary ocean liner was destroyed following a collision with an iceberg,
03:15the argument was made at the time that certain disaster might have been avoided
03:19if the Titanic's crew had been alerted to the iceberg's presence.
03:22Is there anyone there?
03:24Yes, what do you see?
03:25Iceberg, right ahead!
03:27The disaster led to President Taft signing the Radio Act of 1912 into law,
03:32which required radio stations to be licensed so that the airwaves would remain uncluttered
03:37and clear of as much potential interference as possible.
03:40The Radio Act was amended and replaced numerous times,
03:43with the Telecommunications Act of 1996 now in its place.
03:47As such, it can be argued that the Titanic is almost directly responsible
03:51for innovations in wireless communication.
03:53A woman's heart is a deep ocean of secrets.
03:58But now you know there was a man named Jack Dawson, and that he saved me.
04:04Number 7. The Indian Independence Movement.
04:07But the people of India are untouched.
04:13Their politics are confined to bread.
04:16British colonial rule of India began in 1858 and lasted nearly a hundred years,
04:21until the efforts of activists and revolutionists, chiefly among them Mahatma Gandhi,
04:26dismantled the oppressive system.
04:28Beginning formally with the establishment of the Indian National Congress in 1885,
04:33Gandhi's emphasis on peaceful protest proved highly effective in the aftermath of World War I,
04:38and he became the leader of Congress in 1921.
04:42Shades of South Africa?
04:44Not quite.
04:45They're only holding me until the magistrate's hearing.
04:49Then it will be prison.
04:50What began as a series of small-scale demonstrations protesting British rule
04:55eventually ended up as a sweeping nationwide movement led by Gandhi,
04:59whose goal was accomplished in 1947 when the United Kingdom
05:03acquiesced to India's demands and granted the country its independence.
05:07All that has happened is that I've grown a little thinner.
05:11Number six.
05:12The 1968 Buffalo Bills season.
05:14You might say this is what I'm trying to do now.
05:16You know, right now I'm trying to make it.
05:18I came from a pretty rough neighborhood around here and on this point around at this point,
05:22and I feel if I make it, that would be a good example for other kids up there.
05:26The NFL icons sorely needed a win following their 1968 season.
05:31It was the second worst in the team's history,
05:33becoming one of only two teams ever to close out the season with just a single victory.
05:38Enter OJ Simpson.
05:40Granted the first draft pick the following year,
05:43the Bills recruited the immensely promising Heisman Trophy winner,
05:46who became a superstar and media darling.
05:48Tom OJ Simpson walked into Judge Lanceito's courtroom this morning,
05:53uncertain as to whether he would spend much of the rest of his life in prison or go free.
05:57Until he was accused of murdering his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman.
06:02Simpson opted to hire a friend as his defense attorney.
06:05That friend? Robert Kardashian,
06:08whose daughters Kim, Kourtney, and Khloe rose to fame as reality television stars during the 2000s.
06:13We are Kardashians, and in this family,
06:16being a good person and a loyal friend is more important than being famous.
06:21Fame is fleeting. It's hollow.
06:23Number 5. The development of the Nintendo 64.
06:27Something's gone wrong in the happy-go-lucky world of Nintendo.
06:31Introducing Super Smash Brothers, where all your favorite characters go toe-to-toe
06:35in one four-player star-studded slam fest, only on Nintendo 64.
06:40It's okay, we can admit it.
06:42It's disappointing to learn that Nintendo was, at one point,
06:45actively developing an online multiplayer functionality for the N64.
06:50Having said that, it's somewhat comforting then that we got the internet as we know it instead.
06:56Following the collapse of his business relationship with Sega,
06:59computer scientist James H. Clarke pitched Nintendo the aforementioned multiplayer feature.
07:04I said, look, if you can recruit all the guys,
07:08every single guy who helps you write that program,
07:11then I'll put my own money in it,
07:12and we'll just start a company and figure out some way to make a business out of it.
07:16The deal didn't work out, and Clarke, along with engineer Mark Andreessen,
07:20turned his energy to Netscape,
07:22commonly credited as inventing the first major web browser in Netscape Navigator.
07:27If Nintendo had accepted Clarke's proposal,
07:29today's digital landscape might have looked remarkably different.
07:32Don't miss it.
07:33Number four, World War I.
07:35Opposite of it not having the right to vote, in some political sense, leaves you helpless.
07:41The onset of the Great War led to immediate societal repercussions.
07:45With men drafted to fight the war overseas,
07:48women went to work to fill the gap that had been left.
07:51This dramatically altered the fabric of the United States.
07:54Public perceptions of women's roles in society had begun to change,
07:58and the National American Woman Suffrage Association supported the war effort
08:02as a means of granting women further agency as U.S. citizens.
08:06Demonstrations of 10, 20, 30,000 people demanding the right to vote.
08:11Along with the National Woman's Party,
08:13they were successful in convincing President Woodrow Wilson
08:16to adopt the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.
08:21The amendment only enfranchised certain groups of white women at the time,
08:25but was an important first step nonetheless.
08:27Don't blame them. Remember, you gave them the vote 50 years ago.
08:31Number three, the Cold War.
08:33We got all kinds of personality data,
08:38operational data on the operations of Soviet military counterintelligence.
08:43Following the end of World War II,
08:45the West briefly enjoyed a period of peaceful progress and prosperity.
08:49That is, until 1947, when the Cold War began simmering,
08:53as the result of escalating geopolitical tensions between the United States,
08:57the Soviet Union, and their respective allies.
09:00Obviously, there was a feeling of great unhappiness.
09:08On the other hand, you just sort of shrugged your shoulders and said,
09:11well, we were lucky it lasted that long.
09:13The Soviet Union eventually fell in 1991,
09:17planting the seeds that would end apartheid in South Africa.
09:20Since it was allied with the United States during the Cold War,
09:24U.S. President Ronald Reagan defended it from anti-apartheid tariffs and sanctions.
09:28The end of Reagan's presidency and mounting international pressure
09:32influenced South African President F.W. de Klerk to terminate apartheid once and for all.
09:38I, without qualification, apologize for the pain and the hurt and the indignity
09:48and the damage that apartheid has done.
09:51Number two, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria.
09:56I am the son of peasants, and I know what is happening in the villages.
10:02That is why I wanted to take revenge.
10:05If Ferdinand had survived Gavrilo Princip's attack on him and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg,
10:11it's possible that World War I might never have occurred at all.
10:14The June 1914 shooting was intended as retaliation by Young Bosnia,
10:19a group of revolutionaries who intended to establish an independent Slavic state
10:24against the presumptive heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne.
10:27I'm a Serb hero.
10:29The Archduke's death kicked off what is now known as the July Crisis,
10:32in which Austria-Hungary eventually declared war on Serbia.
10:36The declaration sent off shockwaves across Europe,
10:39and the tangled web of loyalties eventually escalated into the Great War.
10:43I suggest that you nail me to a cross and burn me alive.
10:48My flaming body will be a torch to light my people on their path to freedom.
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11:09Number 1. The Death of Ogedei Khan
11:11But just below the surface, there is a feeling of great antiquity
11:18and a tremendous respect for the history and the traditional culture.
11:25Genghis Khan is considered today to be the founding father of Mongolia,
11:29owing to his establishment of the Mongol Empire, history's largest ever contiguous empire.
11:34The speed and brutality with which Khan conquered foreign territory and claimed it as Mongolia's
11:40established important trade routes that rapidly accelerated the flow of commerce worldwide.
11:45The name of Mongols came in the 13th century with Genghis Khan.
11:49But after that time, it has been 800 years and we have been up and down
11:53and we were part of Manchu Chen dynasty and then we have been 70 years of communism.
11:59In fact, at one point, the Mongol Empire covered over 9 million square miles,
12:04stretching from Hungary to China.
12:06Considering this dominance, it's surprising then that the death of Ogedei Khan,
12:10Genghis's successor, sent it spiraling.
12:13Unable to determine who was worthiest of the throne,
12:16the surviving members of the Khan's succession initiated a period of bloody infighting
12:21that essentially broke up the empire.
12:24Our history, we are portrayed as warriors.
12:26We are portrayed as people who conquered vast lands.
12:30We were the exception to the norms.
12:32What's your favorite historical domino effect?
12:34Be sure to let us know in the comments below.
12:37You know Uncle Juice, you know he would never hurt anyone.
12:39Well, mom says he did.
12:40Did you enjoy this video?
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