Hey there! I’m John Green, and welcome to my salon. Today, we’re diving into some fascinating stories about small events that had a huge impact on history. Let’s get started!
Did you know that a single Japanese word might have influenced the decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? When reporters asked Japanese Premier Kanara Suzuki about the Potsdam Declaration, he used the word “mukatu.” He probably meant “no comment,” but it was translated as “we’re ignoring the Declaration.” This misunderstanding contributed to the decision to drop the bombs.
Back in the days of the Roman Empire, Emperor Constantine claimed to have seen a cross of light in the sky before a battle. Some geologists think he might have actually seen a meteor. This event played a role in the spread of Christianity.
In 1999, NASA lost contact with a Mars Rover because one team used metric units while another used English units. This mix-up cost NASA about $125 million!
Uranus, the planet we all know, could have had a different name. It was discovered by William Herschel, and some astronomers thought it should be named after him. Eventually, it was named after the father of Saturn.
The Titanic’s crew didn’t have binoculars, which could have helped them spot the iceberg. David Blair, who was replaced as Second Officer, accidentally took the key to the locker containing the binoculars when he left the ship.
In 1961, John F. Kennedy sent American B-26s to help with the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba. They arrived an hour late and were shot down, likely due to confusion over time zones.
The American Civil War might have been shorter if not for James Wolf Ripley, a Union Army general. He delayed the purchase of modern rifles, leaving the Union soldiers at a disadvantage against the Confederates.
In 2003, California’s largest wildfire, the Cedar Fire, was started by a lost hunter trying to signal for help.
During the Revolutionary War, Johan Raw was warned about George Washington crossing the Delaware River. He received a note while playing a game and forgot about it, leading to Washington’s successful attack.
The Turks captured Constantinople easily because someone accidentally left a gate open. This event led to the rise of the Ottoman Empire and the city’s renaming to Istanbul.
In 1944, Field Marshal Irwin Rommel went on leave for his wife’s birthday, making it easier for the Allies to land in Normandy on D-Day.
In 1998, Bill Clinton had the chance to kill Osama Bin Laden but chose not to because it would have resulted in the deaths of 300 innocent civilians.
In 1816, René Laennec invented the stethoscope because he felt uncomfortable pressing his ear to a woman’s chest. He used a simple paper tube, which later evolved into the stethoscope we know today.
Napoleon might have lost the Battle of Waterloo because he was distracted by his bleeding hemorrhoids. Interestingly, he was almost not French; the island he was born on, Corsica, became French just three months before his birth.
In 1802, General Charles Leclerc’s army was devastated by yellow fever in Haiti. This led Napoleon to abandon the New World, resulting in the Louisiana Purchase, which greatly expanded the United States.
In 1972, security guard Frank Wills noticed duct tape on a door lock in the Watergate office building. He called the police, leading to the arrest of the Watergate burglars and a major political scandal.
Robert Clive, who established the East India Company in Bengal, reportedly survived a suicide attempt at 19. His survival changed the course of history in India.
In 1933, Giuseppe Zangara attempted to assassinate FDR but missed all five shots because he was standing on a wobbly chair.
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, which sparked World War I, happened because his driver took a wrong turn, bringing him right in front of Gavrilo Princip.
Safety glass, used in car windshields, was invented by accident when French chemist Édouard Benedictus dropped a glass flask containing cellulose nitrate. The glass shattered but didn’t break apart.
In 1913, Emily Davidson became a symbol of the British women’s suffrage movement when she stood in front of King George V’s horse. She likely didn’t intend to die, as she had a return train ticket home.
Joseph Stalin’s strict security policy might have contributed to his death. His guards didn’t check on him until hours after he was already dead because they weren’t allowed to disturb him.
In 1899, Percy Pilcher had designed a motorized hang glider but died in a crash before he could demonstrate it. The Wright brothers began their experiments a year later.
Nine months before Rosa Parks’ famous bus protest, Claudette Colvin, a high school student, refused to give up her seat. The NAACP chose Rosa Parks as the face of the movement because Colvin was a pregnant teenager.
Adolf Hitler applied to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna twice and was rejected both times. If he had been accepted, history might have been very different.
Thanks for joining me on this journey through history’s little-known turning points. Remember, even small actions can have big consequences. Don’t forget to be awesome!
Explore the impact of language and translation by researching a historical event where a mistranslation had significant consequences. Present your findings to the class and discuss how accurate communication could have changed the outcome.
Investigate the story of Emperor Constantine and the meteor. Create a short presentation or skit that explores how this event might have been perceived differently by people at the time, and how it influenced the spread of Christianity.
Work in teams to solve a series of problems that require converting between metric and English units. Reflect on how a simple error in conversion could lead to significant consequences, like the NASA Mars Rover incident.
Imagine you are part of the Titanic’s crew. Write a diary entry describing the day of the iceberg collision, focusing on how having binoculars might have changed the events. Discuss the importance of preparedness and communication.
Choose one of the small events from the article that had a big impact on history. Create a comic strip or storyboard that illustrates the event and its consequences. Share your work with the class and discuss how small actions can lead to significant changes.
Sure! Here’s a sanitized version of the transcript:
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Hi, I’m John Green. Welcome to my salon. This is Mental Floss on YouTube, and did you know that one single possibly misinterpreted Japanese word may have influenced the decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The Japanese Premier, Kanara Suzuki, used the word “mukatu” when reporters asked him about the Potsdam Declaration. He probably meant “no comment,” but the word has multiple meanings, and many translated it to mean “we’re ignoring the Declaration.” That’s how it was reported, and soon the atomic bombs were dropped.
That’s the first of many little things that changed the course of history that I’m going to share with you today in this video brought to you by Geico.
The Roman Emperor Constantine, who ruled from 306 to 337 AD, claimed to have seen a cross of light in the sky before a battle, and some geologists believe that Constantine actually saw a meteor, making that meteor responsible for the spread of Christianity.
Speaking of space, in 1999, NASA lost communication with a Mars Rover they’d launched about a year earlier because one team working on the mission used metric units and the other used English units. This cost NASA about $125 million.
Every middle schooler’s favorite planet, Uranus, might have had a different name. It was discovered by William Herschel, and some astronomers thought it should be named after him, but eventually, it was named for the father of Saturn.
The crew of the Titanic wasn’t using binoculars, which would have helped them spot the iceberg. Apparently, David Blair was given the job of Second Officer on the boat but was replaced, and when he left the ship, he took the key to his locker, which contained the binoculars. The ship’s lookout later said that with those binoculars, they would have seen the iceberg soon enough to get out of the way.
In 1961, John F. Kennedy sent six American B-26s to the Bay of Pigs to help out with the invasion of Cuba. They ended up showing up an hour late and were shot down. Most historians believe they were confused by the shift in time zones.
Many historians also believe that the American Civil War could have been a short conflict rather than a four-year-long one if it hadn’t been for one man, James Wolf Ripley. Ripley was a general in the Union Army who delayed the Army’s purchase of modern rifles, so for a long time, they were fighting against Confederates who had modern guns that they’d purchased from overseas.
In 2003, the largest wildfire in California’s history, the Cedar Fire, was caused by one person who got lost while hunting in West Covina and started the fire to be rescued.
Johan Raw fought against General George Washington in the Revolutionary War, and there’s a story that he was warned about Washington crossing the Delaware River into Trenton while he was playing chess or cards. The warning was given via note, which he put in his pocket and then forgot about because he was so distracted by his game.
Going back a little further in history, the Turks were able to easily capture Constantinople, leading to the Ottoman Empire, for a simple reason: someone accidentally left the gate open. This was historically important because it eventually led to Constantinople being renamed Istanbul, which in turn led to They Might Be Giants’ only top 40 hit.
In 1944, Field Marshal Irwin Rommel went on leave so he could return to Germany for his wife’s birthday, which made it a little bit easier for the Allies to land in Normandy on D-Day.
Bill Clinton had the option to kill Osama Bin Laden in 1998, 13 years before Bin Laden was actually killed, but Clinton opted not to because 300 innocent civilians would also have died.
In 1816, physician René Laennec invented the stethoscope on the spot because he was examining a woman and felt uncomfortable pressing his ear to her chest, so he created a simple paper tube and then later put together a real stethoscope.
Many historians believe that Napoleon lost the Battle of Waterloo because he was distracted by his bleeding hemorrhoids, which never would have even happened if Napoleon weren’t French. He almost wasn’t; the island he was from, Corsica, only became a French island three months before he was born.
In 1802, General Charles Leclerc was working for Napoleon to suppress the rebellion in Haiti, but the majority of the army, including Leclerc, got yellow fever, a mosquito-borne illness, and only a few thousand of the 50,000 French soldiers survived. This is a major reason why Napoleon abandoned the New World, which is significant for Haiti but also for the United States because he sold us the Louisiana Purchase.
In 1972, security guard Frank Wills noticed that someone in the Watergate office building had put duct tape over a door lock to keep it open. He removed it, but it reappeared within 30 minutes, so he called the police, and thus the Watergate burglars were caught. By the way, Wills received a raise of $2.50 per week, but he got to decide who the next president was.
Now, this isn’t confirmed, but many historians believe that Robert Clive tried to commit suicide when he was 19 years old, but he lived and went on to establish the East India Company in Bengal.
In 1933, Giuseppe Zangara attempted to assassinate FDR while he was giving a speech. Zangara was a shorter man, so he had to stand on a chair, which started to wobble. He shot five times and missed FDR all five times.
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, of course, sparked World War I, and it was only made possible when Ferdinand’s driver took a wrong turn right in front of Gavrilo Princip, who then shot at the car.
Modern life wouldn’t be as good without safety glass, you know, the kind on your car windshield. It was actually invented by accident when French chemist Édouard Benedictus dropped a glass flask containing cellulose nitrate. The glass shattered, but it didn’t break.
In 1913, Emily Davidson became a symbol of the British women’s suffragette movement when she stood in front of King George V’s horse at the Epsom Derby. It was viewed as a powerful act that led to thousands of suffragettes attending her funeral, but she probably didn’t intend to die; she’d bought a return train ticket home.
If Joseph Stalin hadn’t had such a strict security policy, he might not have died when he did. His security guards were not allowed to bother him unless he called for them, and on the day he died, they noticed that he was sleeping much later than usual, but they didn’t enter his room until 10:00 AM. By then, Stalin had been dead for around four hours.
In 1899, British inventor Percy Pilcher had designed and built a motorized hang glider, but before he was able to show it off, he decided to fly another one for a demonstration. He crashed and died. One year later, the Wright brothers started experimenting in Kitty Hawk.
Nine months before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus, high school student Claudette Colvin did the exact same thing. The NAACP knew about it, but they ended up using Rosa Parks as the face of their bus boycott because Colvin was a teenager who had gotten pregnant by a married man.
Finally, I returned to my salon to tell you that the world might be very different today if Adolf Hitler hadn’t been rejected from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. He applied to a drawing class in 1907 when he was 18 and then again in 1908 and still didn’t get in, and so he didn’t become an artist.
Thanks for watching this episode of Mental Floss on YouTube, which was brought to you by Geico and made with the help of all of these nice people. Don’t forget to check out our other shows. Thanks again for watching, and as we say in my hometown, don’t forget to be awesome!
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History – The study of past events, particularly in human affairs. – History helps us understand how ancient civilizations like the Egyptians built the pyramids.
Science – The systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. – Science allows us to explore the mysteries of the universe, from the smallest atoms to the largest galaxies.
War – A state of armed conflict between different countries or different groups within a country. – The war between the North and South in the United States, known as the Civil War, was a pivotal moment in American history.
Christianity – A religion based on the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Bible. – Christianity spread throughout the Roman Empire, significantly influencing its culture and laws.
Invention – The creation of something new, typically a device or process, resulting from study and experimentation. – The invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg revolutionized the way information was shared in Europe.
Yellow Fever – A viral disease transmitted by mosquitoes, causing fever and jaundice, and often occurring in tropical regions. – During the 19th century, yellow fever outbreaks in the United States led to significant public health challenges.
Scandal – An action or event regarded as morally or legally wrong, causing public outrage. – The Watergate scandal led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974.
Empire – An extensive group of states or countries under a single supreme authority, formerly especially an emperor or empress. – The British Empire was once the largest empire in history, with colonies on every continent.
Meteor – A small body of matter from outer space that enters the earth’s atmosphere, becoming incandescent as a result of friction and appearing as a streak of light. – The meteor shower lit up the night sky, captivating everyone who watched the celestial event.
Opportunity – A set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something. – The discovery of penicillin was an opportunity that led to the development of antibiotics, saving countless lives.
