List of incidents famously considered great blunders

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article has been nominated to be checked for its neutrality.
Discussion of this nomination can be found on the talk page.

A blunder is a spectacularly bad or embarrassing mistake—a bad decision with a disastrous result. This is a list of what are widely considered to be major, historically significant blunders.

To be included in this list an incident must meet two criteria: (1) It must be an extremely bad or otherwise significant failure. (2) It must be a notable blunder--that is, it must be widely considered to be a disaster which was the result of bad decision making. To be objectively considered famous, it must appear in a list of blunders compiled by a respectable authority or be noted as a blunder by multiple, unbiased sources. If there is disagreement as to the nature of the blunder, or whether it is even a blunder at all, then the opinions of both sides should be summarized in the listing.

The majority of famous blunders are of a military nature. However, there are also a number of famous and significant blunders in business, politics, and other disciplines.

Contents

[edit] The List

[edit] Military

Military disasters commonly believed to be the result of a major mistake or extremely bad decision making.

  • 1854 — The suicidal and ill-advised Charge of the Light Brigade in the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War. It was based on Cardigan's misunderstanding of, and failure to ask for clarification of Lord Raglan's orders. Tennyson, in his famous poem praising the valor of the cavalrymen, wrote: "'Forward the Light Brigade!'/Was there a man dismay'd?/Not tho' the soldier knew/Some one had blunder'd." Of the action, French marshal Pierre Bosquet said C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre ("It is magnificent, but it is not war.") (Saul David, 1998, p. 13-24)
  • 1876 - The Battle of the Little Bighorn (also called Custer's last stand), the subject of a number of books and several films, was a catastrophic failure for George Armstrong Custer, leading to the death of Custer himself and all 210 men who were with him at the time. Many feel that this failure was a result of a series of blunders on the part of Custer, including poor communication, failure to wait for reinforcements, excessive cruelty in his treatment of the Indians, and general overconfidence. Others have argued that Custer was largely the victim of bad circumstance, and that his actions and decisions during the battle differed little from standard military strategy of the time. (Saul David, 1998, p. 236-251)
  • 1930 to 1940 - The Maginot Line in France. The Maginot Line is widely considered to be a great blunder because the German armies went around it. However, the German forces did not dare attack the Maginot Line directly; Germany had to invade Belgium and the Netherlands in order to circumvent it, and in the few incidents during World War II where the line was involved it proved a highly effective defensive fortification. So it can be argued that the Maginot Line was effective for what it was, and that it was the overall defensive strategy of France that was at fault. Thus, many historians feel that France's blunder was not in building the Maginot Line; it was in relying on the line as its only major means of defense.[1] (GBIH)
  • 1941 - The Attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, (December 8 in Japan standard time). Although the attack apparently was successful with numerous US Navy capital ships sunk and crippled, many military historians see the attack was a long term strategic blunder. For instance, the American aircraft carriers, which were a priority target, were absent and the oil storage facilities, whose destruction could have crippled the Pacific Fleet's operating capacity were untouched. Worst of all, the intended psychological impact to discourage the USA backfired into enraging the American population into waging relentless war against Japan in revenge.
  • Adolf Hitler declaring war on the USA immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack. In doing so, Hitler played directly into President Franklin Roosevelt's desire to openly join the war against the Führer with full force by giving him a compelling self defense rationale to do so. This led to a grand alliance of the USA, UK and the USSR that would defeat Nazi Germany.
  • 1954 Battle of Dien Bien Phu - Prior to the battle, the French forces established a military base in the bowl of a valley and left the heights surrounding the base unguarded since they were considered inaccessible for any military advantage. However, the Vietnamese under Vo Nguyen Giap used those heights to position heavy artillery and anti-aircraft weapons to bombard the base from an unassaible position and ward off air support respectively.
  • 1999 - The Kargil War where Pakistan tried to wrest Kargil in Kashmir from India by sending in "infiltrators" and ultimately faced world condemnation. Hailing from the Pakistani paramilitary (NLI & SSG), it was a well planned military operative. However, politically it proved to be counter-productive since no nation believed in Pakistan's version that they were Kashmiri militants fighting against the Indian Army. The result was an immediate withdrawal of Pakistan troops and the toppling of the elected government by a military coup, months later. Pakistani columnist Ayaz Amir remarked Kargil was "a piece of folly which only a Homer writing of another Trojan War can do full justice to."[2]

[edit] Naval

Naval disasters commonly believed to be the result of a major mistake or extremely bad decision making.

  • 1893 – HMS Victoria collided with HMS Camperdown near Tripoli, Lebanon during manoeuvres and quickly sank taking 358 crew with her, including the commander of the British Mediterranean Fleet, Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon. At a subsequent court-martial the collision was found to be due to Admiral Tryon's explicit order. It has been hypothesised that he had confused turning his ships through 90 degrees with turning them through 180 degrees when he considered how much sea room was needed. The former manoeuvre was much more common and required considerably less room.
  • 1905 – The Battle of Tsushima – the Russian Baltic Fleet, under Admiral Zinovi Petrovich Rozhdestvenski, was intercepted by the Japanese Combined Fleet while sailing from Europe to the Russian port of Vladivostok and had two-thirds of its ships destroyed while inflicting minimal damage on the Japanese. The Japanese fleet, under Admiral Heihachiro Togo, managed to "cross the T" twice on the Russian fleet, easily outmaneuvering the older, poorly maintained Russian ships, which were slowed even more by the wear-and-tear of their long journey from Europe. Only three ships made it to Vladivostok, with three more ships fleeing to the American port of Manila. Russia lost nearly its entire Baltic Fleet, including all eight of its battleships, while destroying just three Japanese torpedo boats. The decisive Japanese victory also marked the decline of Russian influence in East Asia and the rise of Japanese dominance in the region.

[edit] Political

Mistakes and missteps that caused a resignation or significantly contributed to the loss of an election or severe public condemnation.

  • 1963 – John Profumo, the United Kingdom Secretary of State for War, lied to Parliament about his affair with Christine Keeler, a showgirl who was simultaneously involved with an attaché at the Soviet Embassy. When the truth came out, he was forced to resign and the ensuing scandal contributed to the defeat of the government in the 1964 election. (Coates)
  • 1972 – Five men working for Richard Nixon's Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP) burgled the Democratic National Committee Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C. to sabotage Democratic candidate George McGovern's chances against Nixon in the 1972 presidential election. The burglary, and Nixon's participation in the extensive cover-up attempt, led to jail terms for several of Nixon's associates, and eventually caused Nixon to resign rather than face impeachment proceedings. The Watergate Scandal was especially bizarre, as Nixon was far ahead of McGovern in the polls at the time of the break-in, and ended up winning the election in a landslide.
  • 1978 – British Prime Minister James Callaghan decided not to call an election that year despite leading in the polls, but to wait until the next year. The government was blamed for the multiple strikes of the Winter of Discontent, and was defeated in Parliament soon after, leading to an election in which Callaghan was defeated by Margaret Thatcher.
  • 1983 – In the 1983 UK General Election the UK Labour Party suffered its worst performance since 1918; this was mostly credited to their election manifesto, which was later dubbed by Gerald Kaufman "the longest suicide note in history". It included such electorally disastrous policies as the abolition of the House of Lords and unilateral nuclear disarmament.
  • 1988 – Outspoken junior British health minister Edwina Currie told Independent Television News that "most egg production in this country is infected" with salmonella, a statement that greatly exaggerated the problem. Egg sales plummeted and she was forced to resign.
  • 1990 – Despite a highly publicized promise in the 1988 election not to raise taxes, U.S. President George H. W. Bush agrees to a tax increase.
  • 1992 – The Sheffield Rally by the UK Labour Party, held a week before the UK General Election (1992), was meant to top off a successful campaign for the Labour party and to convince the electorate that Labour, ahead in the polls, was ready for government. Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect. People saw it as pretentious, triumphant when the election had not yet been won, and "too American". Labour lost the 1992 election.
  • 1993 – During the 1993 Canadian Federal Election, the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, desperate to reverse a losing campaign, commissioned an anti-Jean Chrétien campaign TV ad that appeared to ridicule the Liberal Party of Canada leader, Jean Chrétien, for his facial paralysis. That offended many Canadians as a vile insult, and the blunder was considered by many the last straw in a disastrous election that saw the PCs reduced from 151 seats in Parliament to 2, a defeat from which the party never recovered.
  • 2003 – During the 2003 Ontario Provincial Election, the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party issued a press release that called the Ontario Liberal Party leader, Dalton McGuinty, an "evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet." Although defended by some as a tongue-in-cheek statement, the name was condemned as a petty insult by many. It damaged the credibility of the Ontario PC Party, while the Liberals took maximum advantage of the incident to ridicule their opponent and increase support for McGuinty.
  • 2004 – After his defeat at the 2004 Iowa Democratic caucuses, Howard Dean made a concession speech ending with a yell characterized as the "Dean Scream". This outburst of passion was considered poor form, and particularly unpresidential. Dean, who before the Iowa caucuses had been the front-runner in the race to become the Democratic candidate for the 2004 U.S. presidential election, quickly lost credibility, and within a few weeks he was effectively out of the race.
  • 2004 – The ruling BJP-led NDA (National Democratic Alliance) was leading in all the polls during the general elections of 2004 in India. On the basis of a buoyant economy, largely stable macroeconomic factors, and the Indian Stock Markets reaching an all-time high, the BJP launched an "India Shining" campaign which tried to portray India as a well-developed economy. The campaign backfired as inflation in the prices of essential commodities, uneven development, and rising unemployment caused the majority rural population — disillusioned by the campaign promises — to vote against the NDA. NDA lost the election, and Congress-led UPA came into the power despite all exit polls showing an NDA majority. Today, all major Indian political leaders consider it a major political blunder.
  • 2005 – In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the FEMA becomes notorious for its slow and ineffective emergency response, especially in New Orleans. With over 1300 deaths (and 1900 still missing as of February, 2006), FEMA's incompetence was accused of contributing to dehydration, starvation, disease, and violence that, accusers allege, might have been prevented by swifter and better-organized relief action. The director of FEMA, Michael Brown, resigned following his removal from leadership by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. On the Friday following the Monday storm, President Bush had claimed Brown was doing "a heck of a job".

[edit] Business

Misjudgments causing a severe loss of profit, often associated with the failure of an individual product.

  • 1958 model year – Ford Motor Company introduces the Edsel, a new car model remembered as a spectacular blunder because of its association with the Ford family. The Edsel was named after Edsel Ford, former company president and son of Henry Ford. The vehicle sported a front grille described as looking like a horse collar, and was priced higher than competing companies' models. The Edsel was discontinued early in the 1960 model year. The model failure was responsible for Ford's losing nearly half of the $650 million raised by the company in its 1956 initial public stock offering (IPO). The Ford Edsel is such a famous failure that the name "Edsel" itself has become an appellation for something that's irredeemably flawed and thus doomed to failure. [3] [4]
  • 1985 – Coca-Cola releases New Coke. The New Coke formula actually beat the old Coke in taste tests, but Coca-Cola's blunder was in failing to realize the immensity of the Coke legacy that they had built up over nearly a century. This legacy was so strong that the mere idea of changing Coke, by this time considered an American icon — even "for the better" — met with intense, passionate resistance. People felt as if Coke was turning its back on their drinking preferences, their childhood, and even their way of life. "Coke is as basic as the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence." "Next week, they'll be chiseling Teddy Roosevelt off the side of Mount Rushmore." Coca-Cola eventually re-released the original Coke formula as "Coca-Cola Classic". [5]
  • 1991 – Gerald Ratner made a speech in which he rubbished one of his own company's products and, by implication, their entire range. As a result he lost his job, and the company lost market share and had to rebrand. See Doing a Ratner.
  • 1992 – Hoover ran a promotion campaign in the UK, offering free flights to Europe and New York when customers spent more than £100 on Hoover products — significantly less than the cost of the flights. The company had been relying on customers being unwilling to go through the complex application process, but they severely underestimated how popular the offer would be, leading to the company denying customers their flights, and years of bad publicity. Eventually, Hoover was forced to honour many of these deals, at a cost of £48m. Parent company Maytag sold the British division to Italian electrical appliance firm Candy, and all senior staff involved in the promotion lost their jobs.
  • 1993 – PepsiCo introduced Crystal Pepsi, a clear version of its popular cola. After an initial boom, sales fell miserably as a result of consumer confusion about the taste and a lack of necessity for a clear cola that tasted like the original. The product was parodied in a memorable skit on Saturday Night Live featuring a product called Crystal Gravy.
  • 2001 – Shares in Exodus, a bankrupt internet firm, jumped by 59,000% when a rogue trader accidentally bid $100 for its shares, at a time when its value was 17 cents.[1]
  • 2002 – In October, the US investment bank Bear Stearns entered an order to sell $4bn (£2.6bn) worth of stocks by accident in a late trade. The exchange said the order was the result of a "clerical error" and should have been for $4m. They managed to cancel all but $622m of the order before execution.[2]
  • 2005 – A trader working for Mizuho Securities Co., part of the Mizuho Financial Group, mistyped and sold 610,000 shares for 1 yen — instead of the intended 1 share for 610,000 yen — of the stock J-Com Co. This represented a sell order for more than 42 times the number of shares on issue. Mizuho Securities managed to buy back about 480,000 shares, during which time the price rose to 700,000 yen. The eventual losses are expected to be around 100 billion yen. [6]
  • 2005 – Sony BMG introduced XCP (Extended Copy Protection) software on music CDs in order to combat piracy. In October 2005, security researcher Mark Russinovich published an online analysis of the software showing that it functioned as a rootkit, installing itself on users' computers without notification and cloaking itself to run without detection. The software also was very difficult to uninstall, caused crashes in many systems, and presented a significant security threat by allowing piggybacking by other malware. Russinovich's article led to a public uproar. Sony initially denied the software posed a threat, but later released an uninstaller. This only exacerbated the problem, as it was revealed that the uninstaller used an ActiveX component that caused a larger security threat than the XCP software itself. In the wake of the Copy Protection Scandal, Sony BMG's market share fell from 28.46% to 25.61% in 2005, likely as a result of Sony's having to recall and replace several million CDs in the middle of the holiday season. It also resulted in several class action lawsuits, many of which are still in litigation, and caused significant damage to the company's image.

[edit] Science and technology

  • The Mars Climate Orbiter, launched in 1998, burned up in the Martian atmosphere. A mixup between metric and imperial measurements in the controlling software caused the spacecraft to miss its intended 140–150 km altitude above Mars during orbit insertion, instead entering the Martian atmosphere at about 57 km.

[edit] Sports

  • 1919 – Boston Red Sox owner Harry Frazee sold star player Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees for $100,000 and a $350,000 loan. With the Yankees, Ruth won four World Series titles and seven American League pennants, and is widely considered to be one of the best players in history. After trading Ruth (and several other players) to the Yankees, the Red Sox finished in last or near last place numerous times, and did not win an American League pennant again until 1946. A mostly fictional, but widely believed, account of the events that led Frazee to sell Ruth to the Yankees portrayed Frazee as a greedy villain. However, recently sports historians have pointed out that Frazee was facing a legal fight with the American League President, financial difficulties due to World War I, and that Ruth's behavior and demands had become a liability. Moreover, while Ruth was a good player at the time of the sale, nobody knew how great a player he would become with the Yankees.
  • 1986 – During the 10th inning of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Mets, Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner allowed a slow grounder hit by Mookie Wilson to go between his legs, allowing Ray Knight to score the winning run for the Mets. The Mets went on to win Game 7 and the World Series. Buckner, despite a solid 21-year career, is now most remembered for his World Series gaffe, even though it is not clear that he would have beaten the speedy Wilson to the base had he fielded it cleanly, and even though the Red Sox still could have won the World Series by winning Game 7. Although Buckner's error is widely remembered, many fans blame manager John McNamara for not replacing the injured Buckner with Dave Stapleton, who was a better defensive player.
  • 1990 – In the October 12th, 1990 NCAA Football match between the 12th ranked Colorado Buffaloes and the unranked Missouri Tigers, the referees made a blunder that allowed Colorado to win the game, and may have affected the National Championship. Trailing by 4 points, Colorado drove to the Missouri goal line for a First Down, with 40 seconds left in the game. They then ran 2 plays, followed by a Missouri timeout. After the second play, the referees forgot to change the down marker. This mistake gave Colorado a fifth down, on which they scored the game-winning touchdown.
  • 1993 – Dallas Cowboys defensive tackle Leon Lett had a solid 11-year career in the National Football League, but he is most remembered for two embarrassing blunders in 1993. During Super Bowl XXVII between Dallas and the Buffalo Bills, Lett recoverd a fumble and rushed down the field for what he thought was a sure touchdown. Lett began celebrating before he crossed the goal line, which enabled Buffalo receiver Don Beebe to knock the ball from Lett's hand, resulting in a touchback. The following season, during the Thanksgiving Day game between Dallas and the Miami Dolphins, Dallas blocked a Miami field goal in the final seconds, which should have resulted in a Dallas victory. However, while several Dallas players celebrated their victory, Lett dove on the ball, and had it squirt from under him into the arms of a Miami player. This blunder allowed Miami another field goal attempt, which was successful, resulting in a 16-14 Miami victory. Ultimately, though the Thanksgiving blunder cost Dallas the game, neither blunder resulted in disaster. Dallas won Super Bowl XXVII 52-17, and won the following year (the year of the Thanksgiving day blunder) as well.
  • 1993 – On April 5, 1993, the University of North Carolina played the University of Michigan for the NCAA Men's Basketball National Championship. With 19 seconds left and Michigan trailing by 2, Michigan forward Chris Webber rebounded a missed North Carolina free throw and dribbled across mid-court and into the corner, where, upon being trapped by the North Carolina defense, he called a timeout. Unfortunately for Webber and his team, Michigan had no timeouts left, and Michigan was called for a technical foul. North Carolina subsequently hit both free throws (and two more after a foul), and won 77-71. Webber had an otherwise stellar game, with 23 points and 11 rebounds, but that performance was overshadowed by his 4th quarter blunder.
  • 1993 – On May 23, 1993, Texas Rangers slugger José Canseco convinced manager Kevin Kennedy to allow him to pitch the eighth inning of a blow out to the Red Sox. Canseco blew out his elbow and had to have Tommy John surgery, costing him the second half of the season. Because of the injury, Canseco could no longer play regularly in the outfield, and became primarily a designated hitter. In the following 8 years, Canseco played well offensively, but also bounced around between several different teams, was plagued by numerous injuries, and went from being one of the game's premier athletes to being known as one-dimensional and injury-prone.
  • 2005-during the 2005 off-season in an effort to save the NAPA Sponsorship money and better team chemistry, Teresa Earnhardt decided to swap the pit crews and cars of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Michael Waltrip, the result was Earnhardt's failure to make the Chase For The Nextel Cup and Michael Waltrip's release. The swap produced only one combined win and 20th in the Nextel Cup points standings. The only positive about the season was admitting failure and the teams switched the crews back with five races left.
  • 2005-Driver Kurt Busch was arrested on a driving under the influence(DUI) charge and was ticketed for aggressive driving on the weekend of the 2005 Checker Auto Parts 400 right after he was given his release to drive the #2 Miller Lite Dodge in 2006. Busch also was not cooperative with police (he said "don't you know who I am?"). Owner Jack Roush acted swiftly suspending Busch for the final two races of that season.
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Rogue traders of our time. BBC News Wednesday, 6 February, 2002. Retrieved on 2006-05-13.
  2. ^ US bank in $4bn clerical error. BBC News Thursday, 3 October, 2002. Retrieved on 2006-05-13.

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

  • Wrong! The Biggest Mistakes Ever Made by People Who Should Have Known Better, Jane O'Boyle, published by Plume Books (1999), ISBN 0-452-28112-1.
  • Wrong Again!: More of the Biggest Mistakes and Miscalculations Ever Made by People Who Should Have Known Better, Jane O'Boyle, published by Plume Books (2000), ISBN 0-452-28201-2.
  • America's Stupidest Business Decisions: 101 Blunders, Flops, and Screwups, Bill Adler and Julie Houghton, published by Quill (1997), ISBN 0-688-15152-3.
  • Great Military Blunders, Geoffrey Regan, published by Motorbooks International (2000), ISBN 0-7522-1844-1.
  • Scientific Blunders: A Brief History of How Wrong Scientists Can Sometimes Be, R. M. Youngson and Robert Youngson, published by Carroll & Graf (1998), ISBN 0-7867-0594-9.
  • The Greatest Blunders of World War II, Horace Edward Henderson, published by iUniverse (2001), ISBN 0-595-16267-3.
  • The 100 Greatest Sports Blunders of All Time, Eldon L. Ham, published by Masters Press (1997), ISBN 1-57028-159-9.
  • The Book of Heroic Failures, Stephen Pile.

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../l/i/s/List_of_incidents_famously_considered_great_blunders.html"