Split-Second Decisions That Changed History
Whether it’s oversight, instinct or good luck, here are some examples of decisions that could have gone in any direction.
Time zone confusion ruined America’s relationship with Cuba
In April 1961, Cuban exiles were trained and ready to execute the CIA’s secret plan to attack Cuba’s Bay of Pigs to overthrow Fidel Castro’s. However, after a failed air strike, President Kennedy sent in six American fighter planes to help but the pilots failed to sync their watches to Cuba time and arrived an hour late.
The key to a titanic disaster
On the night of April 14, 1912, the watchman assigned to the crow’s nest post atop the Titanic couldn’t access the binoculars he needed to keep an eye out for large obstacles because they were inside a locked locker and the key was missing. This is because the ship’s second officer David Blair forgot to hand over the keys to the locker.
The monk who almost destroyed calculus
A 13th-century monk couldn’t find any fresh paper to write his prayers, so he decided to erase the contents of an ancient text written by Archimedes, the Greek mathematician. Scientists later determined that the text was from a previously unknown book, now called the Archimedes Palimpsest, that laid out foundations of calculus long before Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, who are credited with discovering calculus.
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