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| Amundsen in the South Pole |
1. HORSES FOR COURSES
SCOTT REJECTS DOGS AND CAUSES ANTARCTIC ANNIHILATION
Explorer Robert Falcon Scott was determined to be first to the South Pole. He made it on 17 January 1912 – but 33 days after Roald Amundsen – and none of his team made it back alive. Scott’s most devastating mistake was to pick ponies over dogs, believing they would be best for transporting supplies and as a fresh source of meat. Unfortunately, many of the ponies died of exhaustion or sank in the deep snow. Some drifted off on an ice flow where they were circled by killer whales, spooking them until they toppled into the water. Amundsen and his sledge dogs won the race.
2. MESSAGE MISUNDERSTOOD
SUICIDAL CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE
On 25 October 1854, in the midst of the Crimean War, the British commander-in-chief ordered his light cavalry commander Lord Cardigan to attack Russian troops he believed were raiding a fort. From his position, Cardigan couldn’t see the fort, but he could see Russian artillery in the valley ahead. What he didn’t realise was that the area was surrounded on three sides by the enemy. The British cavalry galloped unwittingly into a valley of death.
3. WRONG CALL
THE TELEPHONE HAS NO FUTURE
What would the investors on Dragon’s Den have made of the newfangled invention, the telephone, which was being touted around by inventor Alexander Graham Bell in 1876? The Western Union – at the time a world-leading communications company with an extensive telegraph network – to whom Bell offered the patent, decided they were out of the deal, stating in an internal memo that: “This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a meansof communication.”
4. TROUBLE AHEAD
EARLY WARNING OF 1066 NORMAN INVASION IGNORED
In the late summer of 1066, English ships patrolling the English Channel came across an unknown fleet. You’d think they would have been suspicious of a crew of strange sailors, but the weather was bad and the English, who were probably eager to get back home, simply noted that the sea-goers had very short, cropped hair and assumed they must be priests. They weren’t. They were William the Conqueror’s Normans, waiting for the go ahead to launch their invasion.
5. TIME LAPSE
BAY OF PIGS DOOMED BY TIME ZONE OVERSIGHT
As far as the CIA were concerned, they had dreamt up the perfect plan to topple irritating revolutionary Fidel Castro from power. They recruited 1,400 exiled Cubans with insider knowledge and a desire for revenge, trained them up, named them Brigade 2506, and sent them off to secure a full-scale invasion of Cuba. However, last-minute changes meant that their aircraft flew an hour ahead of schedule, leaving backup jets waiting for their scheduled departure time on the aircraft carrier USS Essex. By the time the jets took off and reached the invasion site, they were too late. A report by the CIA states: “To this day, there has been no resolution as to what caused this discrepancy in timing.” The invasion was crushed.
6. EXPLORER ERROR
COLUMBUS THOUGHT HE LANDED IN ASIA
Good old Christopher Columbus firmly stamped his place in history as the man who discovered America, but the legendary seafarer wasn’t having any of it. He set sail across the Atlantic in the hope of navigating his way to China and India. When he finally reached land, he believed he had achieved his goal – something he stood by until his dying day. In fact, he’d actually docked in the Bahamas and never made it as far
as mainland North America.
7. BYZANTINE BUNGLE
UNLOCKED GATE SEALS CONSTANTINOPLE’S FATE
The fall of Constantinople, the gittering capital of the Byzantine Empire, was a really big thing. It marked the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of Ottoman Islamic domination in south-eastern Europe. When the Ottomans began to attack the city in 1453, the inhabitants weren’t fazed. After all, its complicated defences and high, thick walls were famous for keeping out troublemakers. However, all was lost thanks to human error. According to the historian Doukas, some careless Byzantine soldiers forgot to shut a small gate. A determined crowd of Ottomans swiftly gained entry and raised their banner atop the inner wall.
8. WHAT A SLIPUP
AGINCOURT SHOULD HAVE BEEN A WALKOVER
The 1415 Battle of Agincourt should have been in the bag for the French. The stats, in terms of numbers and kit, were completely in their favour. What saved the day for Henry V of England was mud. When the two sides met, the bloody conflict took place in quagmire conditions. Henry took a chance and advanced his men, taking the enemy by surprise. As the French knights piled in, they were dragged down by their flashy, weighty armour, and those that dodged arrows were drowned in a sea of mud and the bodies of their comrades. Game over.
9. MISPLACED CASE
SPY LOSES HIS PAPERS
When Heinrich Albert, a diplomat at the German embassy in the US, alighted a train in July 1915, he left behind an important possession: his briefcase. This would have been unfortunate in any circumstance, but it was especially so for Heinrich, who was in fact a spy. Realising his mistake, he jumped back on the train, but the briefcase had already been nabbed by Frank Burke, a Secret Service agent who’d been hot on his tail. The documents were surreptitiously leaked to the press by the US government, resulting in several German ‘diplomats’ being given their marching orders and whipping up public support for the war.
10. BLUNDER DOWN UNDER
DUTCH DECIDE AUSTRALIA IS A USELESS DESERT
In 1770, Captain James Cook landed on the east coast of an unknown southern land, claiming it for the British. In fact, the Dutch had got there first. In 1606, e Duyfken, captained by Willem Janszoon, encountered a swampy land with unfriendly people and quickly left. Dutch sailors continued to sail along the coastline but didn’t bother to visit what they considered to be a useless desert with no commercial benefit.
In "History Revealed", UK, issue 45, August 2017, excerpts pp. 46-47. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.
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