Throughout history, some decisions have had catastrophic consequences. Join us as we explore the most monumental blunders that dramatically altered the course of human events, from military invasions to political missteps that changed everything forever.
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00:00Hitler's decision to invade the Soviet Union was his greatest gamble of the Second World War.
00:06Welcome to WatchMojo, and today, we'll be looking at the most foolish yet deeply
00:10consequential mistakes throughout human history.
00:12I realize I must compliment you for making me commit an enormous error.
00:18Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster
00:20It was a bitter cold but sparkling clear morning at Cape Canaveral,
00:23here at the last seconds of the countdown.
00:25Space, the final frontier, is notoriously difficult to explore.
00:29While several ventures into the cosmos have achieved groundbreaking success,
00:33some have yielded the exact opposite.
00:35The most devastating and high-profile disaster was the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986.
00:40Numerous delays motivated NASA to ignore engineers' warnings about faults in the shuttle.
00:45The result was a horrendous explosion that occurred only 73 seconds after liftoff.
00:50The head of the space shuttle program had no explanations, just sorrow at the tragedy.
00:54It remains one of America's worst space disasters,
00:57as all seven crew members, including school teacher Krista McAuliffe, died on board.
01:01The catastrophe was traced to a failure in the shuttle's rubber O-rings,
01:05which became stiff in the cold weather.
01:07Engineers foresaw this issue, but all they could do was watch the horror unfold from a distance.
01:19Alexander the Great's Successor
01:20Alexander was a man who had a mission, and he knew that mission entailed risk.
01:26One of humanity's most renowned conqueror rulers, Alexander of Macedon,
01:30was the greatest king of his era.
01:31He rose to power in northern Greece and built one of history's largest empires,
01:35which encompassed regions from Greece all the way to India.
01:38However, his untimely death at 32 marked the beginning of chaos.
01:42On his deathbed, Alexander instructed that his land be given to the strongest,
01:46which led to the Wars of the Diadochi, conflicts among his successors that lasted 41 years.
01:56Russia Invades Ukraine
01:57This blunder shattered the empire's unity and its potential for longevity.
02:01A well-planned succession could have preserved Alexander's legacy and ensured stability,
02:05but the lack of precedent in managing such vast territories
02:08left little guidance for avoiding such a crisis.
02:12Russia Invades Ukraine
02:17In February 2022, Vladimir Putin made the massively unpopular decision to invade Ukraine.
02:23He and Russian leaders likely expected a swift victory,
02:26with Kiev falling in a few days and Ukraine's government collapsing.
02:29In reality, Ukraine's military was bolstered by fierce civilian resistance
02:33and substantial international aid, which allowed them to mount a formidable defense.
02:44The invasion was intended to weaken NATO's influence in Eastern Europe, but it backfired.
02:49Instead, it only served to galvanize NATO and unite the international community against
02:53territorial aggression. Russia's economy has since stagnated and the global condemnation
02:58of the invasion has only continued to grow. This was a gross miscalculation of Ukraine's
03:02resilience and a textbook example of a poorly planned strategy with disastrous consequences.
03:07The Maginot Line
03:18Here, you see the strategic and tactical location of this site.
03:23This is what would take the brunt of any German advance if ever an attack occurred in this area.
03:27France built a heavily fortified defensive line along their German border in the 1930s,
03:32known as the Maginot Line. It featured bunkers, tunnels, artillery,
03:36and overwhelming defenses to repel any invasion. There was one crucial flaw, however. It didn't
03:51extend to the French-Belgian border. France assumed Germany wouldn't attack through the low
03:55countries as that area was deemed impenetrable. But as you may know already, that is exactly what
04:00they did. German blitzkrieg tactics were extremely effective and made short work of Belgium and the
04:04Netherlands, enabling them to conquer France in just six weeks. Military minds like Charles de
04:09Gaulle had opposed the Maginot Line, arguing to invest in mobile defenses instead. But French
04:14leadership ignored the ideas, ultimately causing their downfall. Mao's Great Leap Forward
04:27His radical policies had devastated the country and triggered the deadliest famine known to
04:31human history. By the time Mao solidified control of China, the country had endured a century of
04:36humiliation. It began with the First Opium War, and things only went downhill from there. In the
04:401950s, Mao sought to repair and industrialize China, forcing workers in the countryside to
04:45farm crops on government-run communes, and millions more to manufacture crude steel in
04:51homemade blast furnaces. To do so, he launched the Great Leap Forward, a campaign to modernize
04:56the nation's economy. Unfortunately, this policy was too ambitious for its own good,
05:00and it resulted in the Great Chinese Famine, one of the largest famines in history.
05:04Mao ruled with an iron fist, which left his advisors too scared to even report the immense
05:09failure of his policies. As a result, the catastrophe went unchecked for years,
05:19and China wouldn't fully recover for decades. Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
05:26The Soviet Union frequently made misguided decisions. One of their many disastrous
05:34geopolitical blunders was the invasion of Afghanistan in late 1979. Similar to Russia's
05:40invasion of Ukraine, Soviet leaders assumed it would be a quick and easy war, but in reality,
05:44they got the opposite. The Soviet-Afghan War dragged on for nearly ten years, with intense
05:50resistance from Afghan guerrilla fighters. Dubbed the Soviet Union's Vietnam, it resulted in over a
05:55million casualties, most of which were civilians. The conflict also became a rallying point for
06:00Islamist fighters, eventually giving rise to al-Qaeda and emboldening extremists all around
06:04the world. It was a disastrous decision, and its effects continue to shape global events today.
06:21Guadalupe Conference, Fall of Shah
06:25In 1979, Western leaders met in French Guadalupe, where they decided to withdraw
06:33their support for Iran Shah, a pro-Western monarch and longtime ally. This lack of support
06:38emboldened opposition forces, and the Western leaders failed to foresee the ramifications of
06:42their decision. Instead of a democratic replacement, the power vacuum was filled
06:46with Ayatollah, Rahola Khomeini, and revolutionary Islamist forces.
06:55Ironically, the U.S. played a key role in installing the Shah back in 1953 through a coup
07:02that overthrew Iran's democratically elected leader, Mohammad Mossadegh. With such a history
07:06of destabilizing Middle Eastern nations, one can't help but wonder, would the region be
07:10more peaceful today had the U.S. never interfered?
07:14Bush invading Iraq
07:26In the wake of the September 11th terror attacks, tensions in America were high,
07:32with President George W. Bush declaring a war on terror. In 2003, this turned into an American
07:37invasion of Iraq, justified by claims that the nation possessed weapons of mass destruction.
07:48These claims were later found to be false, severely damaging U.S. credibility.
07:52Saddam Hussein's regime was successfully toppled, but unfortunately, there was no
07:56coherent plan for reconstructing Iraq, which plunged the nation into chaos. The resulting
08:01power vacuum led directly to the rise of ISIS, furthering turmoil in the Middle East. Thousands
08:06of military personnel lost their lives in this senseless war, as did over 100,000 civilians.
08:17Spanish Armada's failed invasion
08:22The Spanish Armada of 1588 was King Philip II's ambitious attempt to invade England
08:27and overthrow Queen Elizabeth I. He assembled a massive fleet of 55,000 men and large warships,
08:33believing this would ensure his victory. However, he failed to foresee the innovative tactics the
08:37English would mount. English commander Francis Duke relied on smaller, faster ships and employed
08:42hit-and-run strategies to harass the Spanish fleet before they could even get to England.
08:46But their defeat came not from combat alone, but also from bad weather.
08:53Severe storms scattered the Spanish fleet as it attempted to regroup,
08:59and many ships were wrecked as they attempted to flee through Scotland and Ireland. In the end,
09:03only a fraction of the Armada made it back home. Napoleon's invasion of Russia
09:16By 1812, Napoleon had much of Europe under his thumb. He imposed the Continental System,
09:21a trade embargo against Britain, which he compelled European states to enforce.
09:24However, when Russia defied this, the little corporal ascended the Grande Armée, a force of
09:29roughly 600,000 men to invade. At the time, armies typically sustained themselves through foraging and
09:34received payment only at the end of campaigns. But the Grande Armée was far too large to survive
09:39this way, especially as the Russians began burning their countrysides to deny them resources.
09:44Napoleon's biggest mistake was advancing on Moscow with winter approaching. When he arrived,
09:48the city had been burned, forcing him to begin one of history's most catastrophic retreats.
09:52Ultimately, only about 100,000 men survived.
09:59Harsh Terms on Germany after World War I
10:06The primary cause of the First World War was a complicated web of alliances between European
10:11empires. While these alliances were intended to deter aggression, they had the opposite effect,
10:15escalating tensions between the countries and contributing to the outbreak of war.
10:19Once the conflict ended, the victors were eager to point the finger at someone,
10:22and they zeroed in on Germany. They forced Germany to accept full responsibility for
10:27starting the war, which was a major oversimplification of its causes.
10:39This not only humiliated and weakened Germany, but also fostered resentment among its people.
10:43Ironically, the treaties seeking to prevent a future war did the opposite,
10:47laying the foundations for the outbreak of World War II just two decades later.
11:03Angering Genghis Khan
11:13The Mongolian Empire was the second-largest empire to ever exist. As you might expect,
11:22they didn't achieve this peacefully. In 1218, the founder of this kingdom, Genghis Khan,
11:26sent a merchant caravan to the Khwarazmian Empire in Central Asia. The two were on amicable terms,
11:31but once the group arrived in the city of Otrar, the local governor made a disastrous move. He had
11:36the traitors executed and confiscated their goods in action as insulting as spitting in the Khan's
11:41face. Enraged, Genghis temporarily halted his war against the Jin Dynasty in China,
11:45and within just two years, wiped the Khwarazmian Empire off the face of the earth.
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12:10notifications. Hitler Invading Russia
12:14Hitler's decision to invade the Soviet Union was his greatest gamble of the Second World War.
12:20The majority of Hitler's ideology was fundamentally misguided. One of his major
12:24beliefs was that he and his people were superior to all other races, a seriously
12:28flawed and harmful concept. He despised both communism and the Slavic people,
12:32hence he was confident he could easily subdue the Soviet Union, and launched a full-scale
12:36invasion in June 1941. As many could have predicted, his ideology was proven wrong,
12:47with the invasion backfiring spectacularly. The Soviets were remarkably resilient,
12:52and it turned into the costliest mistake in German military history. Around 30 million
12:56died on the Eastern Front, approximately half of all the casualties in the entire conflict.
13:01What do you think was the most impactful historical mistake, with the least amount
13:05of thought put into it? Let us know in the comments!