Top 3 last minute decisions that changed history | Part 1

today i'm going to share three stories where last minute decisions changed the course of history but before we get into those stories if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious delivered in story format then you come to the right channel because that's all we do and we upload three or four times every week so if that's of interest to you please replace all of the like button socks with the kind that always slips down inside of your shoe also please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads alright let's get into today's stories [Music] on the evening of october 4th 1912 a united states political candidate was in his hotel room in milwaukee wisconsin in less than an hour he was scheduled to deliver a very important speech to local voters he hoped to sway in his favor even though he was nervous he was really excited about giving this particular speech because he and his speech writers had spent weeks putting together this 50-page script that he was now holding in his hands and so he paced around the room flipping through the first couple of pages of the script reciting lines before checking his watch and seeing that it was time to go and so he took a deep breath he took his thick 50-page document folded it in half and then tucked it inside his right inner jacket pocket and when he was ready he walked out his hotel door down the front steps and out the front door of the hotel where a huge crowd was waiting for him people were singing his praises and yelling to him and trying to get him to react to them as he walked out of the hotel towards his car and as he was walking his own personal security detail had formed up around him and were doing their best to keep the crowd at bay and when the candidate finally got to his open-air car he stepped inside and then stood up took his hat off and continued to wave to the crowd and then right before his car was about to take off there was a loud bang from somewhere out in the audience and the candidate hunched over he had been shot his security detail immediately recognized who the gunman was and they attacked him kicking his gun away and putting him in a chokehold and the rest of the crowd kind of forms up and begins beating on this gunman and amidst all this chaos the candidate who's just been shot stands up and yells to the crowd don't kill him don't kill him bring the gunman to me and the crowd is so surprised that their candidate is not on the ground because again he's just been shot that they stop they stop attacking the gunman and even the security detail they're just holding the guy in a chokehold looking up at the candidate like really you're not down you just got shot and so the candidate looks at the gunman and he says you know why'd you do it and the gunman stays silent and so the candidate says okay just take this guy away and so the security detail hand this guy off to the cops and so now the crowd's all looking at the candidate wondering how in the world he's acting like everything is totally okay because again he just got shot and so this is when the candidate reaches into his jacket and he pulls out that thick script he had tucked inside of his right pocket and he holds it up to the crowd and there's clearly a bullet hole that went through the script the script had stopped the bullet and saved the candidate's life all of his aides were urging him to go to the hospital immediately but the candidate refused and said bring me to that speech and just a couple of minutes later the famous american president theodore roosevelt delivered his 50-page speech although he did have to make some changes to it on the fly because there were holes on every page on an icy cold december night in 1776 a farmer living in new jersey looked out his window and thought he saw something move at the end of his road he put his hands to the glass and tried to get a better look but he couldn't see it it was too dark there was no illumination but he didn't need to see it to know what it was he could hear it coming panicked he stumbled backwards turned around ran into his bedroom where he told his wife to stay in the house keep the kids here do not leave for any reason and then this farmer bolted out his back door hopped on his horse and began blazing towards town he didn't know how much time he had but he knew he had to warn the german man johann rall after riding for a couple of minutes he arrived at the town of trenton he turned down a couple side roads and then he arrived at this beautiful two-story home where johan was staying and so the farmer got off his horse and walked towards the front door and right before he got there a german soldier came outside shut the door behind him and told the farmer to stop and the farmer told the soldier in english that he had to speak to johann he had a warning for him but the german soldier didn't speak any english and so there was this total miscommunication and at some point the german soldier indicated to the farmer that it was impossible for him to come inside that johann was actually playing cards and did not want to be disturbed and so the farmer needed to leave but the farmer was desperate and he pleaded with the soldier to let him speak to johan it was an emergency he had a warning for him but the soldier either again didn't understand or he just didn't care and he tried to tell the farmer to leave once again but the farmer really wasn't taking no for an answer and so he pulled out a piece of paper and he scratched this ominous warning on it and he gave it to the soldier and he said give this to johan and so the soldier reluctantly takes the note he looks at it it's in english he can't read it and so he just nods to the farmer and says okay i'll give it to johan once the farmer had got back on his horse and left the soldier turned around went through the front door and walked back to the dining room of the house where he found johann around a table with a bunch of other guys laughing and drinking and playing cards and this soldier very reluctantly walks up to johan hands him the note and apologizes for the interruption and johan looks up at him he's obviously annoyed and he scolds him for interrupting him he takes the note and he looks at it and he can see that it's in english and like the soldier who's brought it to him johan could not read english and so he's looking around the table he's got this great poker game going he's having so much fun he didn't want to step away and have to get a translator and read this note which to him was probably meaningless anyways and so he tells the soldier that you know what he'll read it later and he takes the note and he puts it in his pocket and he goes back to playing poker johan would never read that note and in a couple of hours johan would be dead johan rawl was a colonel fighting for great britain during the american revolution and he and his hessian brigade that had taken up residence in this home inside of trenton new jersey believed the american rebels were on the verge of defeat and certainly they were not about to launch an attack now not on a freezing cold december night but they were wrong that farmer was a british loyalist and what he saw when he looked out the window at the end of his road was the famous american military general george washington and his ragtag army after they had just completed their famous secret crossing of the delaware river that note johann was handed was a warning that they were on the way had he bothered to read it he and his well-trained hessians could have very easily crushed washington and his men and that would have been the end of the american revolution and america would still be a british colony today instead johan and his men were caught off guard and wiped out and the americans would go on to win the war and their independence from great britain [Music] in 1912 37 year old david blair was a senior merchant seaman working for the british shipping company called white starline in february of that year he was informed by his company that he would be the second officer of this massive luxury cruise liner that was still being built in northern ireland as the second officer david's primary responsibility was the ship's navigational operations amongst other things now david had handled these responsibilities on other ships but he'd never done it on a ship of this size this would easily be the most challenging thing david had done in his career to date but he told his family he was really excited about it david immediately moved to belfast where the ship was being built and he lived there for three months until construction was done on april 2nd the final rivet was put into the ship and it was launched successfully into the water and then after that david and the rest of the crew and staff got on board and they set sail their first stop was southampton in the uk and for this leg of the journey it was just going to be the crew and the staff two days later they arrived without incident and for the next several days the ship remained in port as the crew prepped it for its first true maiden voyage which was going to be to new york city on april 10th all preparations had been made and finally it was time to allow the paying customers to come on board and in just a couple of hours thousands of people were on board this huge ship and just hours before they were set to depart david was given some bad news his bosses at white star line had decided that this journey was too high profile and while david certainly had experience he didn't have a lot of experience with huge ships and so he was being replaced with someone who did understandably he was crushed but more than this being a disappointment this 11th hour change was a huge hassle with literally thousands of passengers getting in the way all over the ship david needed to scramble and run all over the place and collect all of his things in the cabin up on the bridge in various closets he had put things he had to do that as fast as he could before the ship took off and so finally after doing that with his last arm full of luggage in hand he said goodbye to the crew and to the staff he said best of luck to his replacement and he walked off the ship for good david with all of his luggage made his way to a hotel where immediately that night he wrote a letter to his family saying how disappointed he was and then after that he went to bed the next morning when he was going through all of his luggage he discovered that he had taken a key by accident from the ship and this key was to a special closet that he was in charge of as the second officer that contained all of the ship's binoculars and so he felt terrible but there was nothing he could do the ship had already left and was on its way to new york and so the best he could do was he would mail the key back to them in new york when they got there back on board the ship when they discovered this key was missing they did figure out that david must have it because he was the only one who would have had the key and it's a brand new ship so nobody else would have had it but they decided that it wasn't worth turning around to go get this key they figured their lookouts were skilled enough they could spot any obstructions with their naked eye well five days later that ship the titanic struck an iceberg and sunk killing 1500 people one of the very few survivors was a guy named fred fleet he was one of the lookouts who actually saw the iceberg first and he would testify at a senate inquiry that if he had had binoculars he would have been able to see the iceberg far enough in advance that they could have avoided it so that's gonna do it guys if you found the secret in today's episode let us know in the comments what it is and where you found it so give us the time stamp and if you're the first to do that we will pin you at the top of the comment section if you enjoyed today's video and you haven't done this already please replace the like button socks with the kind that always slips down underneath your heel inside of your shoe also please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly three or four video uploads if you want to get in touch with me you can direct message me on instagram or on twitter my username for both platforms is the same it's john ballen416 i also have a ton of content over on tiktok where my username is mr ballen i also have a second youtube channel called mr ball and shorts where i post random short videos if you have a story suggestion please submit it to our subreddit just called mr ballin it's linked in the description below so whether i see you on instagram twitter tick tock reddit youtube or some combination just know that i really appreciate your support and until next time that's gonna do it see ya

Channel: MrBallen

Views: 1,095,167

Rating: 4.9682093 out of 5

Keywords: strange, dark, mysterious, true, story, scary, scary story, horror story, disturbing, narration, narrator, storyteller, storytime, storytelling, unsolved mystery, solved mystery, true crime, oof, nope, history 101, the titanic, titanic, George Washington, American revolution, Johann rall, German, American rebels, continental army, Delaware river, christmas, teddy roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, assassination, assassination attempt, near death, close call, politician, true story, binoculars, key

Id: Ua0HMlqo-hI

Length: 11min 14sec (674 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 26 2021