5 Biggest Mistakes Of All Time

mistakes are a fact of life we all make decisions based upon the information available to us at the time and hope that they're for the best however fee so often despite our best intentions the decisions we make lead to negative consequences yet while most of our mistakes have relatively minor impacts on the outside world every so often people in positions of power make a decision that can do millions to suffering and death drastically altering history and changing the entire world here are my choices for five of the biggest mistakes of all time number five China looks inward in the opening decades of the 15th century China constructed an enormous treasure fleet and despatched it on 7 separate expeditions which would see the Armada of incredibly advanced vessels travel as far as the middle east and East Africa on a mission to expand Chinese influence and control over international trade the impressive sight of such a visible demonstration of Chinese power and wealth arriving at ports around the world intimidating and over orink ings and Sultan's into accepting Chinese dominance without the need for war yet just as it seemed that China was poised to enter a Golden Age of trade and exploration that might have seen her discover and colonized the new world establishing a global trade empire in the process that could lead to unimaginable wealth and advancements in technology the country suddenly turned inwards abandoning his trade missions and quest for global influence leaving the grand treasure fleet to rot its lumber soared for fuel as the once mighty Armada was consigned to the scrap heap of history in a move that potentially robbed China of untold prosperity and doomed its people through a series of monumental catastrophes in the coming centuries by the early 1400s trade between China in the Middle East had resulted in an increasing awareness of the outside world along with ever more detailed maps and so motivated by a desire to cement Chinese control over the rich trade opportunities to be had throughout the Indian Ocean a vast expedition was planned with the goal of impressing and intimidating foreign nations with Chinese technology wealth and know-how bringing more and more neighboring countries under the empires tributary system announcing to the world that China was the preeminent power of the age the fleet consisted of over 300 ships and 27,000 sailors with some of the ships estimated to be as long as 600 feet in length making them far larger than anything produced by the European powers at the time perhaps even being several times larger than any other wooden ship in history between 1405 and 14:33 seven separate voyages were conducted which saw the armado traverse the open seas around Southeast Asia even reaching as far as India Arabia and East Africa bringing with them vast halls of treasure as gifts for regional leaders a lavish form of bribery intended to project Chinese power to the known world this impressive show of force made it clear that a regional ruler could either submit to Chinese dominance and to receive incredible rewards or risk being overwhelmed by unimaginable military force faced with such a choice it's no surprise that so many realms were brought under Chinese influence Ming China rapidly became the supreme naval power of the world its economy booming from the increased control over trade and potential rivals cowed by its military might cub over in 1433 the voyagers seized as suddenly as they had begun and China seemingly abandoned the outside world began to focus inward exactly why this change of policy occurred is still debated however it seems as though a mix of political intrigue changing attitudes and a growing threat from Mongols in the North were all partially responsible for the reversal the eunuch faction in the imperial court had been the primary advocates of the treasure voyages however as the bureaucratic faction began to take over with the death of the Emperor they set about opposing policies that the eunuchs had previously favored condemning the expedition's as extravagant and wasteful and demanding that no more be carried out meanwhile in the north or against the mongols was draining the treasury while vast amounts of money were invested in expanding the Great Wall of China to keep out the marauding horsemen faced with such threats extravagant spending on foreign expeditions seemed like a lesser priority other factors included a widespread belief that China was the center of the and did not need anything from foreign barbarians as she was already self-sufficient and therefor trade was unimportant merchants were also frowned upon as being leeches who made money off the backs of farmers and artisans producing nothing of value themselves why should China go to the expense of travelling to meet others when there's nothing to be gained with these attitudes prevailing the grand ships were left to rot in the harbor the lumber sought to be burnt as fuel while the skilled sailors who had crewed them were reassigned to load grain on the bodies of the Grand Canal over time the skills required to build and sail these enormous fleet was lost and China's naval expertise began to decline what the future would have held for China had a strong maritime policy been continued is of course unknown but it's reasonable to think that it might have been Chinese sailors and not Europeans who established valuable global trade routes dominate the despise trade and discovered and colonized the new world the world today could have been a very different place however the policy of isolationism that was pursued may have directly led to trillions in lost wealth along with stagnation and a failure to modernize which would see more advanced powers inflict humiliating defeats on China in the centuries to come as well as a catastrophic mix of war disease and famines in which millions would suffer and perish calamities that may have been avoided had Chinese exploration of the Seas continued number-four appeasement between 1935 and 1939 Britain and France engaged in a policy which has become known as appeasement in an attempt to prevent war and secure a lasting peace in Europe however their failure to halt hits as aggressive maneuvers at every turn may have actually caused the war itself or at least increased its length the number of casualties inflicted and the destruction caused by trying to avoid war at all costs appeasement allowed Germany precious time to build up its military power while in bowl burning Hitler who grew increasingly certain that the Allies would never intervene to stop him leading to his eventual invasion of Poland and the most destructive war in history a conflict that would leave 60 million dead and much of Europe a smoldering ruined after the horrors unleashed during the First World War the of Europe were understandably keen to avoid future conflicts having been left traumatized by the unprecedented slaughter seen on the battlefield across Europe as a generation was nearly wiped out the great powers were left weakened and burdened by massive levels of debt and simply maintaining control over the vast global empires was challenging enough and so with the rise of totalitarian dictators in Italy and Germany there was little appetite for taking an aggressive stance Hitler's expansionist aims became clear in 1936 when he ordered his forces into the Rhineland an area of Germany on the French border which according to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles was supposed to be demilitarized and this time Germany was in no position to fight a major war and it's widely believed that the German army had orders to retreat if they encountered any opposition however Hitler's gamble that Britain and France would not stop him paid off and no resistance was encountered lacking the available forces to fight a war themselves and with many seeing the move as the Germans merely walking into their own backyard the British refused to enforce the terms of the Treaty of Versailles the policy of appeasement had begun the next major act of aggression occurred on the 12th of March 1938 when once again the Treaty of Versailles was violated as the German army crossed the border into Austria where they were met by cheering crowds Hitler finally achieving his long-held goal of unifying the German and Austrian states under one banner other leaders voiced protests against the action however once again such opposition lack teeth and Hitler was now convinced that he could continue to aggressively expand the Third Reich without fear of armed opposition from the other European powers it was proved right with the signing of the Munich Agreement on the 30th of September 1938 in which large areas of Czechoslovakia known as the Sudetenland which contained a majority German population were handed over to Germany 750,000 German troops massed on the border convinced Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain that a refusal of Hitler's demands would lead to war a war which he felt Britain was unable and unwilling to fight especially when you consider that the geography meant that any defense of Czechoslovakia would require an invasion of Germany itself declaring that he had achieved peace for all time Chamberlain signed a peace treaty between Britain and Germany which resulted in Czechoslovakia losing 800,000 citizens most of his industry and formidable mountain defenses near the German border all assets that could have proved useful for the Allied cause had Chamberlain rejected his demands and gone to war at each stage Hitler had overreached but one time and time again gambling on allied in action and being proved right at every turn had the eyes been willing to enforce the Treaty of Versailles from the beginning as possible that Hitler could have been contained and the war itself may have been prevented but war weariness and public sympathy with Germany's harsh treatment after the first world war conspired to allow Germany to go strong enough and confident enough to keep expanding until Hitler became so convinced that democratic nations would never oppose him that on the first of September 1939 he invaded Poland forcing Britain and France to finally realize that appeasement had failed leaving them no option but to join the war against Germany beginning a struggle that would doom 60 million to death and changed the world forever number 3 the for pests campaign in 1958 the Chinese leader Mao Zedong would implement a seemingly innocent policy that was designed to increase harvest yields but had unintended and disastrous consequences his plan upsetting the delicate balance of nature and thus exhaust rating an already severe famine dooming as many as 45 million people - a long and drawn-out demise as they starve to death as a result of their simply not being enough food to feed China's massive population when Mao and the Communists rose to power after victory in the Civil War China was a largely agrarian economy with little heavy industry to speak of if the fledgling communist revolution was to survive against its many external and internal threats the country would need to rapidly modernize and strengthen its economy and military to ensure its place in a hostile world what became known as the Great Leap Forward was a series of social and economic reforms that impacted every aspect of Chinese life as private farms were seized and combined into giant collectivized operations under the Communist Party's director and large numbers of skilled farmers were diverted away from growing food to instead work in construction and heavy industry despite intending to boost agricultural and industrial output these policies had the opposite effect and by 1958 China was a nation plagued by infectious diseases such as tuberculosis malaria and smallpox which found easy prey in the country's malnourished people yet instead of recognizing that his policies were leading the country towards catastrophe Mao instead doubled down on his vision and implemented a new campaign would prove to be one of the biggest mistakes of his career and would seal the fate of millions what became known as the for pests campaign was designed to mobilize the population to destroy four species which Mao had personally identified as being pests which were hampering his goals despite knowing nothing about animals and the ecosystems fragile balance and disregarding advice from experts Mao made the fateful decision to innermark four species of pests for immediate destruction the for pests chosen were mosquitoes which were responsible for the spread of malaria rats which spread the plague flies which were an eternal nuisance and finally sparrows which ate grain seeds in fields and food supplies in warehouses with official estimates placing their consumption that a massive four pounds of grain per sparrow per year effectively robbing the Chinese people of vast amounts of desperately needed food in fact it was widely believed that for every million sparrows killed enough food would be saved to feed 60,000 people riled up by propaganda which especially demonized the ravenous sparrows the Chinese people were mobilized to destroy these four new enemies with an incredible level of efficiency organization and dedication as a wide scale slaughter of wildlife was unleashed across the country divisions of soldiers were deployed in the streets of China cities alongside groups of schoolchildren and civil servants armed with plots and pans which they would bang to create an unending wave of noise which would prevent the terrified birds from landing to rest resulting in the sparrow simply continuing to fly until they fell from the sky after succumbing to death by exhaustion schoolchildren would climb trees to hunt down sparrow nests which were systematically destroyed their eggs smashed and any chicks found in the nest killed those armed with slings or guns simply shot the birds out of the sky the sparrows providing target practice both fulfilling a patriotic duty and contests were routinely held where rewards were handed out to those individuals who presented the largest number of dead sparrows or rat tails in many ways the campaign was a remarkable success in its immediate goals it's estimated that as many as one point five billion rats 220 million pounds of flies 24 million pounds of mosquitoes and 1 billion sparrows were wiped out the mess attacks nearly pushing the sparrow population to extinction in China yet such poorly planned interference in nature would prove to have fatal consequences it quickly became clear that sparrows were in fact anything other than a pest as the majority of their diet had actually consisted of insects most notably locusts they're feeding upon which had kept devastating locust swarms in check yet but the sparrows now all but gone there was no natural predator keeping the number of locusts down the insects now free to swarm across the country's fields eating precious crops which were intended for human consumption hundreds of thousands of pounds of grain was lost and in combination with droughts floods and mismanagement by the Communist Party harvest yields plummeted across China resulting in a devastating famine which killed as many as 45 million people an embarrassed Mao ordered the campaign against sparrows to end instead replacing them with bedbugs but the damage had already been done his monumental mistake contributing to the suffering and deaths of an unimaginable number of people and serving as a stark reminder of the dangers that can be unleashed when man tampers with forces he does not understand number two the Berlin Conference of 1884 across much of the world the borders of nation states have evolved slowly over many centuries to reflect ethnic tribal and religious differences between people however even just a quick glance of the long straight lines dividing the modern map of Africa reveal the presence of foreign hands unfamiliar with the complicated mix of different cultures which populate massive continent such hastily constructed borders partitioning entire tribes and ethnicities and often mixing hostile groups together into one nation the sowing the seeds for a century of war death and famine in which countless millions of people would suffer in the early 19th century the immense interior of Africa was all but unexplored by Europeans the huge number of tribes and valuable resources it held unknown and apart from a few coastal colonies and trading agreements with local chiefs the continent was largely ignored in favor of other areas of the world deemed to be far more valuable however by the second half of the century this attitude quickly shifted in a dramatic fashion as advances in technology and medicine made exploration of the interior viable and with exploration came the discovery of valuable resources in abundance European powers hungry for territorial conquest soon set their sights upon a rich land ripe for exploration and colonization what became known as the Scramble for Africa had begun as the major powers vied with each other to lay claim to as much of the continent as possible with the often conflicting claims threatening to escalate into all-out war keen to avoid such a calamity the nations involved agreed to meet in Berlin in 1884 to attend a conference designed to settle the claims once and for all and in doing so divided Africa along artificial boundaries agreed by men who had never even set foot on African soil let alone understood the complex mesh of cultures ethnic groups languages and tribes which were already separated by established galleries just like anywhere else in the world the primary goal of the men present at this conference was to ensure that the major powers left a meeting table satisfied thus ensuring that a destructive European Wars prevented little thought was given to the tribal and ethnic lines along which much of the population of Africa had been divided for centuries with colonial areas instead divided along natural boundaries such as rivers and mountains or simply by drawing a straight line between two points' tribes and religious groups would often find themselves split across several different countries while one country might now incorporate several groups of rival and usually hostile tribes by the end of the conference the hundreds of cultures that made up Africa were arbitrarily divided into 50 countries and regions the borders of which were created at a time when much of the continent was still unexplored with the absurd situation perfectly summed up by the then British Prime Minister who stated we have been engaged in drawing lines upon maps where no white man's feet have ever trod by 1914 as much as 90% of Africa would be under European control however despite the new colonial masters quickly realizing their mistake the existing treaties could not be undone without risking war and so the boundaries remained even with the collapse of colonialism in Africa Africans resuming control over their continent stuck to the old illogical colonial borders fearing that attempting to redefine boundaries might lead to endless war yet conflict would prove to be unavoidable with around half of all Africans belonging to an ethnic group that's divided by these colonial borders and with most African countries containing multiple ethnic groups religions and tribes unrest persecution and civil war have ravaged the continent for decades resulting in destruction and death that created a level of human misery that's impossible to quantify as warring groups fight to obtain autonomy and independence from countries they view as illegitimate often exasperating the spread of disease and famine which has claimed millions of lives while the obvious answer might seem to be to simply redraw the map when you consider the sheer number of different cultures in Africa doing so would result in as many as 2,000 new countries highlighting just how complex the issue is the decisions made at the Berlin conference all those years ago likely to continue to cause unrest and suffering for many more years to come number one the Tangut Emperor's portrayal of Genghis Khan with the luxury of hindsight betraying Genghis Khan might seem like a decision no sane ruler would even bear to contemplate however sensing an opportunity to finally break free from his Mongol overlords who had already subjugated his people the once mighty emperor of the prowled Tancred people broke his promise to the Great Khan refusing to send aid when called upon while the Mongols were engaged in a life-and-death straw with the chorus mid Empire in modern-day persia believing that that now weakened mongols would no longer be able to exert control over lands that were rightfully his and his alone yet he couldn't have been more wrong and this fateful betrayal would later incur the merciless wrath of the Carn resulting in the complete annihilation of this state along with the deaths of millions of people as the mongols methodically moved from city to city wiping out everyone and everything in their path fighting the announcing to the world the hefty pricetag that would accompany any future betrayals from the many other nations and peoples still to be absorbed into the rapidly growing Mongol Empire at the time of Genghis Khan's rise to power in the early 1200 s the Tang had controlled a large expanse of territory in modern-day northwestern China burl and strategically placed upon a large stretch of the Silk Road which gave them huge tax revenues and although smaller than the other Chinese states the Taggart had managed to create an influential culture which has since been described as shining and sparkling yet a storm was brewing on the horizon as a man named Temujin was rapidly uniting the tribes of the Mongolian steppes angered by what he saw as Chinese meddling in the affairs of the Mongolian people Temujin launched raids into angered territory hoping to gain plunder for his warriors and cement his role over the tribes before finally launching a full-scale invasion in 1209 with the intention of making the wealthy state a profitable vassal and regular source of tribute giving him control over the much-coveted caravan routes along the Silk Road well that was badly needed to fund his war machine as one is opening a path to the other Chinese states which held unbelievable riches with the Mongols rampaging through his lands the tangler tempura requested aid from the Jin dynasty to his south hoping that together they might finally be able to crush this Mongolian upstart however the Jin Emperor flatly refused sending back the reply it's to our advantage when our enemies attack each other wherein lies the danger to us a short-sighted decision which in itself could be ranked as one of the worst mistakes of all time when you considered the terrible fate that would later before the Jin at the hands of the victorious Mongols standing alone against the Mongols the formidable Tangut army was quickly taken apart and with much of the Empire's crops destroyed and famine looming the beaten Emperor agreed to become a vassal of the Mongols giving his daughter's hand in marriage to the Khan along with a hefty tribute for the next nine years the tankard would serve their new Mongol overlords faithfully however when the Carn invaded the mighty core esmad empire in 1219 in retaliation for his rulers beheading of his emissaries the tank at Emperor saw an opportunity to exploit this turn of events and regain his independence attempting to break away from the Mongol Empire and form a new alliance with the other Chinese states in the south facing the formidable enemy in the Korres mid Empire the column called upon the Tonga to honor their obligations as his vassals and send military aid to assist in the invasion the tanga temper refused the call rolling the dice in a gamble that would visit unimaginable death and destruction on his people a betrayal that would see their name and achievements all but erased from history believing that his time had come he wrote to the Khan stating that if genghis had too few troops to attack the core esmad empire then he could have no claim to supreme power enraged by this betrayal genghis swore vengeance on the taggert however first he had to deal with another man who had foolishly incurred his wrath and rode west with his armies to commence what would become the conquest of the korres bed empire an invasion which in itself saw millions perish cities destroyed and a culture all better raised a terrifying demonstration of the fate that awaited that angered by 1225 the cores mid Empire had been reduced to a depopulated ruin and the Mongol armies turned back East determined make good the earlier promise of vengeance on the taggert this new invasion would not simply be a war of conquest but instead a war of annihilation intended to erase the Tangut and the culture from existence as the seemingly invincible Montville armies advanced they laid waste to great swathe of the countryside capturing city after city burning them to the ground and slaughtering everyone inside with the Mongols just 30 kilometers from the capital the Taglit made their last stand Battle of Yellow River where some 300 thousand troops attack to the Mongol army on the banks of the frozen river yet this final act of defiance proved to be hopeless and the army was soundly defeated the tankard soldiers slaughtered on the field down to the last man with the capital now isolated the Mongols laid siege to the city however the Kahlan would not see his plan for vengeance completed dying from an uncertain cause in August 12 27 yet his law generals continued to carry out his wishes eventually capturing the capital wiping out his inhabitants executing the Emperor and plundering anything of value the annihilation of the Taggert was now complete in what has since been described as one of the world's earliest examples of intentional genocide the written records and architecture of her people were raised from history and the destruction so totaled that few even remember that the Tangut ever existed the path to further bloody conquests in China now lay open for the Mongol armies the bones and ashes of the ones powerful Tancred people serving as an eternal reminder of the destruction that can be unleashed as the result of one bad decision so those are my choices for five of the biggest mistakes of all time let me know which other mistakes you would have included in the list in the comments below and I hope to see you again next time

Channel: Unknown5

Views: 1,567,605

Rating: 4.6963286 out of 5

Keywords: history, documentary, documentaries, education, mistakes, biggest mistakes, worst decisions, unknown5, top 5, top 10, top 15, top 20, China, zheng he, Appeasement, Four Pests Campaign, Berlin Conference, africa, Xi Xia, tangut, mongols, african borders, historical, educational, alternate history

Id: ZGwikhCts2o

Length: 25min 38sec (1538 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 28 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/bmwboy01]

Factual video!