Mistakes with big consequences? Allegedly King Croesus of Lydia asked the oracle of Delphi if he should go to war with persia. However he made a tiny mistake. When the oracle answered "You will destroy a great empire" he didn't ask "Which one?" So he went to war and got his empire destroyed
Sounds more like the oracle just covering for them self, so no matter what happened they would be right. Probably a bigger mistake to be making any decision from an oracles advice.
And this is why you should never entrust the future of your empire in the hands of an Oracle. Just look at what happend to King Saul: dude went into the desert to find the Witch of Endor and all he got was a revelation from the spirit of Samuel that his kingdom was going to fall. Never trust oracles.
In his defense, Oracles had a history of giving advice/predictions that were open to interpretation. I don't think words like Yes or No were in their vocabulary. I'm sure no other empire (Cough *Russia* Cough) would repeat the mistake of basing policy on the advice of some mystic who claims to be able to commune with the divine.
This is why you never should ask an Oracle about anything. No matter how you interpret their words, you'll probably not find the outcome to be what you expected
Fun Fact: when Stalin died, the Americans intercepted the message that was sent to the Soviet military The Airman who deciphered and translated the message, and so became the first Westerner to know Stalin had died, was Johnny Cash, the Man in Black himself.
@@NatalieJ22 I looked it up, too. It seems that he’s the only one to say it’s true. Well, at least it’s not an internet bs and there’s a chance. Could he translate Russian, though?
12:32 Here it's implyed in the video that the mistranslation of the treaty was an accident. As I studied it here in Italy, it was instead a deliberate attempt to put Ethiopia under Italian protectorate on paper, and to potentially have a casus belli for further expansion in the region. Of course that was unacceptable for the Ethiopians, but Italy wasn't the first and certainly not the last colonial power that had the idea to be duplicitous in it's treaties with the natives. It was just the only one that didn't subsequently win and silence the native's opposition. Just to be thorough on the argument: You also have to consider that Ethiopia had the strong support of the British during the war, and that thanks to them Italy had to face a fairly modern standing army. Being on almost equal technological footing, the more numerous Ethiopians had all of the advantages. In 1935 instead the Fascist won because of the lesser involvement of the British and because of the Fascists free use of gas and war crimes against civilians
I had read that part of Ethiopia's modernization was some clever politicking on their king's part that netted him the first production run of Italy's then-new service rifle... before even the Italians.
After the failed assassination attempt on Archduke Franz Ferdinand, they decided to change their announced route of the motorcade for safety only they forgot to tell several of the drivers this important detail.
In Ireland we learn about the titanic every year in history during primary school and during the junior certificate. Being a resident of Belfast for seven years now I have learnt more about the ship. The binoculars were only one factor of many, the titanic received several warnings regarding icebergs and effectively ignored them and told the Mesaba to stop spamming the airwaves with warnings.
One thing to think about with Alexander III is that he was on good terms with Edward I. If, because of Alexander III surviving, Edward I had decided to not mess with Scotland at that time, he could have focused more on France.
By the 1980s, the Soviet Union was increasingly led by a slew of elderly, out of touch leaders. Brezhnev died in 1982. Andropov died in 1984. Chernenko died in 1985 handing power over to Gorbachev. The thing is that Chernenko was not that old when he died. He was only 73 years old which is younger than both Biden and Trump. But Chernenko started smoking at age 9 and never stopped. He died on lung disease. So a nicotine addiction lead to the rise of Gorbachev to become dictator of the Soviet Union and Gorbachev nearly singlehandedly caused the collapse of the Soviet Union.
I agree with both! The 3rd (and final) part of the Hypatia series also makes an interesting a surprising turn too! (i'd stop the video at 9:40 on part 3 if you're avoiding ads though,lol.) Apparently EH are going back over their previous videos, and making long videos that combine all of each series episodes into one video. I think their doing it to several no matter if they're narrated by Matt, Dan, or others.
A couple that come to mind ... June 1942 Japanese pilots thinking they sank the Yorktown (they thought it was the Hornet) only to mistake it for the Enterprise the next day. Going a little bit further back in Navel History Jellico chasing a small scout torpedo boat fleet into the guns of German battle cruisers. Also didn't help that his guns were blowing his own ships up. Admiral Rozhestvensky fleet firing on every fishing boat in sight didn't help. Arguably they lost the war. Of course can't mention mistakes without talking about the Marrils of Machais in 1812. With a British blockade out there drying up rum they figured you know whose got rum... That British warship. So they sailed out in dingies during the night to raid the ship and ... Well Theodore Roosevelt tells it better in his book... There's the boched invasion of Tripoli in 1801. First the Philadelphia was captured and had to be destroyed. Then the Marines tried to use a fire ship to brake the harbor and the fuse was to short... Leaving the Marine invaders exposed to gunfire. Then they push to shore so fast the Navy guns fired on them. ... Was a pretty auspicious start to a war that was a wash.
They had to demonstrate the ability to follow a schedule. My opinion, but Ronald Reagan's "space truck" and "free enterprise in space" crap might have had something to do with pushing safety boundaries. Not the only factor, of course.
@@jeffslote9671 Although in earth orbit, the "Space" Shuttle actually operated in the upper reaches of the earth's atmosphere. I sometimes considered it the upper atmosphere stunt plane. Teacher in space was a publicity stunt. Did the Space Shuttle do anything that could not have been done more cheaply and safely by other means?
Selling the O ring as completely different from a washer was another. It's really just a better washer in a different shape, thus LESS prone to failure from freezing.
The story of Beria cursing Stalin when he thought Stalin was dying and then grovelling when Stalin seemed to recover comes from " _Khrushchev Remembers_ ", Khrushchev's own memoir (Note: The authenticity of the book is somewhat disputed)
The Titanic sunk because it was running at damn near full speed (22kts IIRC) into an ice field that the captain had been fully warned about. In fact, he made a course correction earlier that evening because of ice. Secondly the crew wasn't fully trained on the use of the watertight doors, and left some open to facilitate moving AFTER the collision.
The channel Ocean Liner Designs explains very well how the binoculars wouldnt really have mattered, among other misconceptions. I'd like to see a reaction to one of his videos someday.
“A disaster that happened, and it seems like it was preventable, people start looking for anything, or look for alternate scenarios… more often than not, the simplest explanation is the explanation.” I agree with you very much on that statement. The Kennedy assassination is a perfect example. People don’t want to believe it was possible for a man like Oswald to be able to take 3 shots and to hit the target. There must have been something more.
The consericy theory is less scary in an odd way. What is more frightening: a single nut with a rifle can kill the president or that it takes a complex multi level (and possibly insider) plan?
The events of that assassination, as claimed formally by the government, are physically impossible. That's very different from "no way bro could have hit that shot."
Let's face it - if he was a bad shot or misaligned and happened to move or fire in such a way that their miss ended up being a hit. RNG is a factor in the world. Not just skills. Or for a less controversial version - all those reality show contestants who are great singers etc, yet just never was in the right spot at the right time to make it big. 🤣
8:00 the better "mistake" actually sounds insane. Seeing the iceberg in the first place. Had they actually not seen it, and then attempted to dodge it far too late, titanic would have hit the berg square, crushing the nose and killing anyone in the forward compartments. The ship itself however almost certainly would have stayed afloat and still made it to port, as evidenced by multiple other ships throughout history that have done the exact same thing. So in truth, the mistake was attempting to dodge it, which only happens because it is seen at the last second
Indeed, a single large hit would have been bad but the water tight door would have likely contained it enough to get to port. Having so many hits along the side meant that to many combatants flooded. Also having radio operators on duty at all times could have saved lives, there were closer ships that the first one on scene but the radio operators had called it a night.
I don't think dodging the iceberg was a mistake per se, but the ship was already moving faster than it should have been, especially with the captain knowing there were icebergs in the waters not too far from where they were.
The reason the US never adopted the metric system is because Congress would have had to enact a law to standardize it, which never would have happened. Britain and Canada still use imperial for some things and metric for others. In Britain, for example, most of the time I've heard someone describe their height, they use feet and inches. When describing how fast they're going in their car, they'll use kph, but when describing how far away something is, they'll use miles. Beer still comes in pints. There are a few other oddities like that.
Then you would have to get it implemented at state and local level. As logicistly easy as metric is the cost and complexity of a switch at this point would be massive. Just a single item: the interstate highway system has markers every mile and exits are based on what mile it is on (if more than 1 is on the same mile you get exit 3a, 3b ect) all those would have to be surveyed and remarked. All the maps would have to change, all the systems in the government that reference them would need updating. It is hard enough getting the funding for road maintenance let alone all of that.
The Death of Stalin is a must watch for anyone on the channel. So good. Jason Isaacs as Zhukov... amazing. Metric is incredibly useful to get the mass of a volume. It comes up a lot in my life. A cubic meter of water is a 1000 kg or a metric ton.
In point of fact, if the lookouts on the Titanic had binoculars, it would have delayed their responses to seeing the iceberg because they would need to verify it and then rung the bell and called down to the helm. In comparison, without the binoculars, the lookouts immediately range the bell and called the helm.
They would have been able to see the iceberg at a further distance with binoculars, and could verify what it was. By the time you could see the iceberg without binoculars, it was already too close and the ship was moving too fast to make that turn.
@@thepeacefulbuddah Given how dark it was that night, binoculars would be less than useless. They don't let you see through the darkness, and the only real light that night was from Titanic's own lights. The only thing that would have helped them spot the iceberg sooner would have been a headlight/spotlight. Besides, lookouts were never issued binoculars to begin with, since using them would narrow their field of view. The binoculars were for the bridge officers to examine things that the lookouts had already noticed and pointed out to them.
Yeah, I don't know. These definitions are retcons; they took the previous understanding of the imperial units and shoehorned metric equivalents. If you were defining a unit from scratch, would you intuitively make it exactly 25.4 of another system's units?
They couldn't have broken open the box? I think the two lookouts mutally decided that they fucked up and put the blame on a key to save their own minds from being wracked with guilt.
A lot of people, when bringing this up in regards to dooming Titanic, tend to miss that the ship's crew would have broken open a locked box if they felt they had to. Compared to the daily expense of just running the ship and paying her crew, fixing a broken lockbox once back in port is a pittance, and something they would have to do during the ship's life anyway given the fact that locks can break. And the crew did have access to binoculars during that voyage, so clearly they either did that or there were more available somewhere. That said, I'm not entirely sure where the binoculars got blamed, because I'm not sure this was because of the lookouts blaming that for not seeing the iceberg in time. It might have arisen during the inquiry's by people not knowing how shipboard operations worked asking about the topic, but the lookouts were usually not issued binoculars to begin with. Their job was to scan the horizon and keep a wide field of view for that purpose, so using binoculars, while allowing them to see further, would actually hinder their performance because they might miss something due to the narrow field of view binoculars impose. The binoculars were for the bridge officers to examine things that the lookouts pointed out to them. People who bring this myth up also tend to forget that binoculars would have been less than useless that night anyway, given how dark it was. The iceberg only became visible through the darkness about 40-50 seconds before the collision. Binoculars don't let you see through the darkness of a moonless night, and the only thing that would have allowed them to spot it earlier would have been a headlight, which ships usually don't have.
@@andrewlucia865nevermind that unless this was the kind of box that had a lock built into it. It would I presume just have a padlock which can be quite easily defeated (just call the lockpicking Lawyer) I'd assume they'd have quite a few tools that could do the same as a pair of bolt cutters... Or just use two wrenches
There is also a story that a British soldier had a chance to shoot that certain Austrian fellow during WWI but he decided not to kill the Austrian man.
I thought he would mention Rommel's birthday party that prevented him from being in Normandy during D-Day. It's debatable if his presence would have made so much of a difference, but probably it would have made the landing harder.
There’s so many things to go into Normandy it’s hard to pinpoint 1 and say that was the downfall. The telling of fake landings, hitler keeping most of the tanks under his control around Paris
What a coincidence with your intro, I just been to the shooting site in Sarajevo yesterday. A true piece of history. Amazing video as always, thank you! :)
The beauty of the metric system isn't that everything's a multiple of ten, although that helps. Its that units for other properties are all inter-related. How many BTUs does it take to heat a gallon of water 1 degree F? Good luck with that. How many calories does it take to heat a liter of water 1 degree C? 1,000. I can do it off the top of my head.
Fun fact regarding Franz Ferdinand: he and his wife missed their children and wanted to go home the day before the assasination. He was convinced to stay because Bosnian officials had planned something, and leaving would have been offensive to them
You’re voice is just so welcoming and puts me at ease! Absolutely relish watching every video you release and depending on the location of your visit to Scotland I definitely have some cool and fascinating historical facts for you about my hometown, Paisley. Firstly, a modern fact. 1. Paisley is the biggest town in Scotland and has a cathedral and university so could be considered as city status in the U.K. but you know, politics lol. 2. Paisley is also the scene of the last mass execution of Witches in Europe (The Bargarran Witches) in 1697 where, a horseshoe is sunk into a certain road junction to this day to mark the spot where this happened. 3. Marjorie Bruce, the eldest daughter of Robert the Bruce died in Paisley after a horse riding accident and is buried in Paisley Abbey, with a cairn memorialising the spot where she fell just less than a mile from the abbey. There’s plenty more amazing historical facts about Paisley and if you ever visit there I’d hope that we bumped into each other!
Another series of mistakes in WW1 that led to disaster was the improper navigation and speed of the Imo in Halifax harbour that led to the collision with the Mont Blanc, a munitions ship, leading to the Halifax explosion. 1782 dead, and at least 9000 injured. The blast is the largest non-nuclear man-made explosion.
7:21 I'd have to disagree with you on this one. The fact that they were able to see it at all to even attempt avoiding the iceberg and still side-swiping it without the binoculars would lead me to believe that if they DID have the binoculars, they likely could have seen it earlier from a further distance, giving them enough time to call the bridge to avoid it entirely. As difficult as spotting it may have been, i wouldn't think it would have been impossible or even unlikely.
If you like this, you might check out a series called "Great Moments in Unintended Consequences". The vids are rather short, but many of them cover lesser-known things like the Hearth Tax (the precursor to Britain's infamous Window Tax), the Siege of Antwerp in 1585, or Georgia's de facto ban on third-party candidates.
On the subject of World War I starting with the the assassination of the archduke, I have a feeling that the fact that the driver turned out a one-way street the wrong way and had to back up certainly was a mistake that could have led the assassination, but it seems like the world must have already been at such a tipping point that the assassination was just sort of the straw that broke the camel's back, as opposed to being THE thing that started the war, without which world war I would never have started.
Apparently Stalin was a huge John Wayne fan. But he felt John Wayne was the ultimate American. He even ordered the KGB to form a plan to assignate John Wayne
The Doctors' Plot is absolutely essential to understanding why the death of Stalin went down the way it did. Not only had the most competent doctors been purged due to Stalin's paranoia about top Soviet doctors being out to kill him, but everyone else was reluctant to call doctors for fear of being implicated as trying to assassinate Stalin.
I believe the event that would have saved the Titanic more then the keys was the message of an ice burg near there trajectory. It was sent and received, however the captain and first mate were at dinner with the first class guests and the second mate had turned in early. The second mate was woken up and informed of the message and told the man he would bring it to the captain. However he went right back to sleep and didn’t wake up until the Ice burg hit.
I'll say this much about the Titanic. As you mentioned, the ship only grazed the iceberg, so it's entirely possible that spotting it just 30 seconds earlier might at least have mitigated the damage. The high death toll was caused, in part, by the high speed of the Titanic's sinking, so even slowing down the sinking by an hour could've saved lives. We'll never know, obviously.
My favorite mistake in this regard was at Austerlitz, where the Russians and Austrians agreed to meet up on a certain date. Unfortunately no one considered that Russia still used the Julian calendar while the Austrians used the Gregorian and Napoleon was able to strike in the time between while the Austrians were waiting on the Russians.
Regarding the Titanic one. These accidents usually have multiple overlaying causes. Mentour Pilot presents a "swiss cheese model" in his videos on aviation accidents. This is also applicable here. There are many things that, if done different, could have prevented the disaster by themselves. But they were not, and the overlap of all the mistakes lead to thousands of people losing their lives.
The binoculars - if used the night of the sinking - would have actually reduced the chance of the lookouts to spot the iceberg, since they drastically reduce your field of vision. Binoculars are only used to confirm a sighting, after you already spotted it with your bare eyes. They are also especially useless at night when there is next to no light. The night the Titanic sank there was very likely a meteorological phenomenon called a "cold water mirage" going on, which would have made it impossible to see the real horizon anyway.
I bought some special fertilizer for my community garden. Decided to walk over and deliver it to the head gardener who was working in an orchard. He left to get ladders and while he was gone, I helped out by climbing in some of the trees. I am little and flexible. A bit later, I was on a limb and it snapped. Down I went. Broke my leg. Couldn't fly home because I needed surgery. Missed Xmas and my dad passed away. Worst mistake ever. Should have never gotten in that tree.
7:51 This is basically the swiss cheese model in action. It's basically a scenario where many layers of safeguards have to be bypassed to bring about the disaster, and any one of them would have changed the outcome.
Having spent many an hour on watch in the USCG, I assure you, those binoculars make all the difference in the world. Especially on calm water at night.
There were no problems with the building of the Titanic and second officer David Blair before he was removed forgot to hand over the keys but binoculars still wouldn't have seen it and there was no moon which made it harder to see the iceberg
6:20 the titanic skimming along the side of the iceberg was actually why it sank. If it had full on collided with the iceberg it probably would’ve remained afloat either because it was”beeched” on the buoyant iceberg or because it wouldn’t have opened the full side of the ship
Binoculars would have helped tremendously. Binoculars are like telescopes, in that they bring more light and detail to your eye. The bigger the aperture the more light and detail that is brought into your eyes. The aperture of the binoculars is much bigger than a person's pupil. It isn't about the magnification, but the ability to bring more light and detail to the lookout. Binoculars would have been a BIG help.
Only if they knew where to look. Binoculars decrease your depth of field, so unless said iceberg was already in view, they probably still would have missed it. And given that it was a dark, moonless and starless night, it would have been very difficult to spot it right away with the naked eye. And that's not even counting the fact that there was a mirage effect going on, which made objects appear in a different place than they actually were.
A Maine dairy company has settled a lawsuit over an overtime dispute that was the subject of a ruling that hinged on the use of the Oxford comma. An absent "Oxford comma" will cost a Maine dairy company $5 million.
It absolutely blows my mind that Italy couldn’t win a war against some peasants in a third world nation that suffered from a complete lack of infrastructure. Shows they had no business participating in either world war. 😩
The failure of the Soviet War against Poland (The Miracle on the Vistula) was partially blamed on Stalin. Stalin siphoned off some troops originally destined for the attack on Warsaw for his attack on White Russians in the area of Ukraine. In that battle a company of Renault tanks under French supervision were important in the defense. This unit’s overall commander was a young Charles de Gaulle. A squadron of American veteran aviators also fought for Poland, the Kosciuszko Squadron organized and led by Fauntleroy and Cooper (King Kong).
I don't know if it counts as a "mistake" but The Battle of Gettysburg. More of I trick of fate, than a mistake, but Lee insisted on engaging while both armies where there, rather than find a more advantageous battlefield.
Army officer for 14 years, whenever we maneuvered as a brigade, basically every single battle happened when we ran into each other similar to Gettysburg. When we thought we knew where they were, they weren't. Several times we ran into them while they were maneuvering to come at us. My point in saying this is that most battles start because contact is made, not because it was the intention of the commanding general.
@@ryanbailey6401Armies like the Army of Northern Virginia can't afford to fight like that. When you're institutionally outnumbered and out supplied, you need to be able to break contact quickly when you don't have the advantage. Otherwise you just get ground down. This was Washington's greatest contribution to victory, but Lee chose over and over to pursue tactical wins that cost him chunks of his army that got harder and harder to replace.
The binocs would have made a difference since they would allow more light to enter the eye due to the objective collecting more income light than an unenhanced iris could. Anyone who wants to test this irl can use a binoc at night and see more stars with it than without. Reg. Stalin: Only CCG-Players will get the "defense mode" reference :]
Temperatures a metric oven is terrible. With a Fahrenheit oven, you can cook food at a lower temperature. This means you can easily bake a pumpkin pie without burning. With a metric oven which we have in Japan, it's a German oven and every oven I've seen here be set with increments of 10 which means you have a pumpkin pie that is not cooked enough in the center or it'll be burnt. The solution I found out. From an Australian is to heat up the pumpkin pie mixture in a double boiler then when it's hot, we can transfer it into pie shell. I interesting video of how food taste differently when cooked in a Fahrenheit oven then in a metric oven.
Pompey (and the Roman Senate) not taking the gold from the Treasury when they abandoned Rome. Caesar marched into the capital and was able to capture the gold and pay his troops. They might have followed him anyway (once they crossed the Rubicon, they knew he was committing treason) but it certainly helped secure their loyalty. While the language may have made a difference, it's probably the case that the Italians (like other European powers at the time) were looking for an excuse to invade Ethiopia. Provided they could claim they had some justification for an invasion, what the treaty actually said was less relevant.
I watched a thing on History or discovery that said if they had hit the Ice head on the ship could have ether survived or sunk slower saving more people. I might be remembering it wrong but I know they said some stuff that could have saved the ship had not come in to wide spread use and as such that was one of the only things they could have used.
Ironic that the picture the original video used for Alexander III of Scotland is actually a portrait of Edward Longshanks. You can tell by the lazy eye shown on the portrait, which Edward was reported to have had.
7:48 There was also the cold air mirage effect on top of the darkness and lack of waves breaking against the berg. Binoculars would not have helped. The cold air mirage created a false skyline that obscured everything beneath it.
Instead of attacking Fort Sumter, the Southern States should have just peacefully seceded, telling the Feds, “It’s been swell, but we’re done. Good luck to you.”
Another example: Interstate 19 itself. I-19 is the only interstate in the US that has primarily metric road signs. It was built in the 60s through the 70s during a push for the metric system.
maybe this is just my inner Canadian talking but I really think the metric vs imperial arguments are overstated. Both are arbitrary and intuitive so long as you use them. Imperial conversions are easy to remember and conversion ratios between the systems are also easy to remember if you actually use them
wake up soldier! VTH uploaded!
Hey you, you’re finally awake.
🫡
Ye ye yes sir! Sorry sir 🫡
Yes sir
Mistakes with big consequences? Allegedly King Croesus of Lydia asked the oracle of Delphi if he should go to war with persia. However he made a tiny mistake. When the oracle answered "You will destroy a great empire" he didn't ask "Which one?" So he went to war and got his empire destroyed
Sounds more like the oracle just covering for them self, so no matter what happened they would be right. Probably a bigger mistake to be making any decision from an oracles advice.
And this is why you should never entrust the future of your empire in the hands of an Oracle. Just look at what happend to King Saul: dude went into the desert to find the Witch of Endor and all he got was a revelation from the spirit of Samuel that his kingdom was going to fall. Never trust oracles.
In his defense, Oracles had a history of giving advice/predictions that were open to interpretation. I don't think words like Yes or No were in their vocabulary.
I'm sure no other empire (Cough *Russia* Cough) would repeat the mistake of basing policy on the advice of some mystic who claims to be able to commune with the divine.
This is why you never should ask an Oracle about anything. No matter how you interpret their words, you'll probably not find the outcome to be what you expected
That king of Scotland story sounds like something out of Crusader Kings.
It honestly sounds like an assassination event chain. Edit: or maybe even a freak accident event chain.
Fun Fact: when Stalin died, the Americans intercepted the message that was sent to the Soviet military
The Airman who deciphered and translated the message, and so became the first Westerner to know Stalin had died, was Johnny Cash, the Man in Black himself.
@iammattc1 For real? 😳
bs
@@ELVIS1975T It's 100% true. Google it.
@@ELVIS1975TI looked it up and it appears to be true which is honestly kinda wild
@@NatalieJ22 I looked it up, too. It seems that he’s the only one to say it’s true. Well, at least it’s not an internet bs and there’s a chance. Could he translate Russian, though?
C'mon VTH. While sailing to the states with his cylinder in one hand and the kilogram in another. Pure comedy gold that went right over your head.
12:32 Here it's implyed in the video that the mistranslation of the treaty was an accident. As I studied it here in Italy, it was instead a deliberate attempt to put Ethiopia under Italian protectorate on paper, and to potentially have a casus belli for further expansion in the region. Of course that was unacceptable for the Ethiopians, but Italy wasn't the first and certainly not the last colonial power that had the idea to be duplicitous in it's treaties with the natives. It was just the only one that didn't subsequently win and silence the native's opposition. Just to be thorough on the argument: You also have to consider that Ethiopia had the strong support of the British during the war, and that thanks to them Italy had to face a fairly modern standing army. Being on almost equal technological footing, the more numerous Ethiopians had all of the advantages. In 1935 instead the Fascist won because of the lesser involvement of the British and because of the Fascists free use of gas and war crimes against civilians
I had read that part of Ethiopia's modernization was some clever politicking on their king's part that netted him the first production run of Italy's then-new service rifle... before even the Italians.
Yup, same thing that happened with New Zealand.
After the failed assassination attempt on Archduke Franz Ferdinand, they decided to change their announced route of the motorcade for safety only they forgot to tell several of the drivers this important detail.
In Ireland we learn about the titanic every year in history during primary school and during the junior certificate.
Being a resident of Belfast for seven years now I have learnt more about the ship.
The binoculars were only one factor of many, the titanic received several warnings regarding icebergs and effectively ignored them and told the Mesaba to stop spamming the airwaves with warnings.
13:36 the Pokémon Unown scroll is funny
Glad someone else noticed that lol.
i noticed that immediately lol "wait arent those pokemon?" probably the best joke of the video
lol i also stopped to read it, i can only understand "subscribe to history or ethiopia will murder you"
One thing to think about with Alexander III is that he was on good terms with Edward I. If, because of Alexander III surviving, Edward I had decided to not mess with Scotland at that time, he could have focused more on France.
Mistranslation is so real, multiple mistakes in the translation of my countries founding document led to land wars and general bad blood (New Zealand)
By the 1980s, the Soviet Union was increasingly led by a slew of elderly, out of touch leaders. Brezhnev died in 1982. Andropov died in 1984. Chernenko died in 1985 handing power over to Gorbachev.
The thing is that Chernenko was not that old when he died. He was only 73 years old which is younger than both Biden and Trump. But Chernenko started smoking at age 9 and never stopped. He died on lung disease. So a nicotine addiction lead to the rise of Gorbachev to become dictator of the Soviet Union and Gorbachev nearly singlehandedly caused the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Elderly, out of touch leaders, eh?
Kinda sounds familiar.
Calling Gorbachev a dictator is crazy.
the ussr was collapsing anyway. gorbachev got a few more years out of the corpse.
The only dictoar in the Soviet union was Stalin @@ConkerVonZap
Many would argue Gorbachev merely failed to save the Soviet Union, accelerating its collapse in the process. We will never know.
Never would have gone down that way, while talking about the Titanic... I love that.
Extra History's videos on the Viking Expansion, ( the long one) and Hypatia are relatively new and good. Check them out
I agree with both! The 3rd (and final) part of the Hypatia series also makes an interesting a surprising turn too! (i'd stop the video at 9:40 on part 3 if you're avoiding ads though,lol.)
Apparently EH are going back over their previous videos, and making long videos that combine all of each series episodes into one video. I think their doing it to several no matter if they're narrated by Matt, Dan, or others.
A couple that come to mind ...
June 1942 Japanese pilots thinking they sank the Yorktown (they thought it was the Hornet) only to mistake it for the Enterprise the next day.
Going a little bit further back in Navel History Jellico chasing a small scout torpedo boat fleet into the guns of German battle cruisers. Also didn't help that his guns were blowing his own ships up.
Admiral Rozhestvensky fleet firing on every fishing boat in sight didn't help. Arguably they lost the war.
Of course can't mention mistakes without talking about the Marrils of Machais in 1812. With a British blockade out there drying up rum they figured you know whose got rum... That British warship. So they sailed out in dingies during the night to raid the ship and ... Well Theodore Roosevelt tells it better in his book...
There's the boched invasion of Tripoli in 1801. First the Philadelphia was captured and had to be destroyed. Then the Marines tried to use a fire ship to brake the harbor and the fuse was to short... Leaving the Marine invaders exposed to gunfire. Then they push to shore so fast the Navy guns fired on them. ... Was a pretty auspicious start to a war that was a wash.
The O real seal failing, causing the Challenger Space Shuttle to crash is another one.
They had to demonstrate the ability to follow a schedule. My opinion, but Ronald Reagan's "space truck" and "free enterprise in space" crap might have had something to do with pushing safety boundaries. Not the only factor, of course.
@@jeffslote9671 Although in earth orbit, the "Space" Shuttle actually operated in the upper reaches of the earth's atmosphere. I sometimes considered it the upper atmosphere stunt plane. Teacher in space was a publicity stunt.
Did the Space Shuttle do anything that could not have been done more cheaply and safely by other means?
Selling the O ring as completely different from a washer was another. It's really just a better washer in a different shape, thus LESS prone to failure from freezing.
The story of Beria cursing Stalin when he thought Stalin was dying and then grovelling when Stalin seemed to recover comes from " _Khrushchev Remembers_ ", Khrushchev's own memoir
(Note: The authenticity of the book is somewhat disputed)
The Titanic sunk because it was running at damn near full speed (22kts IIRC) into an ice field that the captain had been fully warned about. In fact, he made a course correction earlier that evening because of ice. Secondly the crew wasn't fully trained on the use of the watertight doors, and left some open to facilitate moving AFTER the collision.
I'd like to add the gunpowder plot 1605. A letter sent to "a friend" lead to the capture and execution of Guy Faulks and co-conspirators.
"Hey, about that appointment you have in Parliament on November 5: You might want to reschedule it. I can't tell you why. Just trust me."
Guy Fawkes. No L or U
The channel Ocean Liner Designs explains very well how the binoculars wouldnt really have mattered, among other misconceptions. I'd like to see a reaction to one of his videos someday.
“A disaster that happened, and it seems like it was preventable, people start looking for anything, or look for alternate scenarios… more often than not, the simplest explanation is the explanation.” I agree with you very much on that statement. The Kennedy assassination is a perfect example. People don’t want to believe it was possible for a man like Oswald to be able to take 3 shots and to hit the target. There must have been something more.
The consericy theory is less scary in an odd way. What is more frightening: a single nut with a rifle can kill the president or that it takes a complex multi level (and possibly insider) plan?
The events of that assassination, as claimed formally by the government, are physically impossible. That's very different from "no way bro could have hit that shot."
Let's face it - if he was a bad shot or misaligned and happened to move or fire in such a way that their miss ended up being a hit. RNG is a factor in the world. Not just skills.
Or for a less controversial version - all those reality show contestants who are great singers etc, yet just never was in the right spot at the right time to make it big. 🤣
8:00 the better "mistake" actually sounds insane. Seeing the iceberg in the first place. Had they actually not seen it, and then attempted to dodge it far too late, titanic would have hit the berg square, crushing the nose and killing anyone in the forward compartments. The ship itself however almost certainly would have stayed afloat and still made it to port, as evidenced by multiple other ships throughout history that have done the exact same thing. So in truth, the mistake was attempting to dodge it, which only happens because it is seen at the last second
Indeed, a single large hit would have been bad but the water tight door would have likely contained it enough to get to port. Having so many hits along the side meant that to many combatants flooded. Also having radio operators on duty at all times could have saved lives, there were closer ships that the first one on scene but the radio operators had called it a night.
I don't think dodging the iceberg was a mistake per se, but the ship was already moving faster than it should have been, especially with the captain knowing there were icebergs in the waters not too far from where they were.
The reason the US never adopted the metric system is because Congress would have had to enact a law to standardize it, which never would have happened. Britain and Canada still use imperial for some things and metric for others. In Britain, for example, most of the time I've heard someone describe their height, they use feet and inches. When describing how fast they're going in their car, they'll use kph, but when describing how far away something is, they'll use miles. Beer still comes in pints. There are a few other oddities like that.
Then you would have to get it implemented at state and local level. As logicistly easy as metric is the cost and complexity of a switch at this point would be massive.
Just a single item: the interstate highway system has markers every mile and exits are based on what mile it is on (if more than 1 is on the same mile you get exit 3a, 3b ect) all those would have to be surveyed and remarked. All the maps would have to change, all the systems in the government that reference them would need updating. It is hard enough getting the funding for road maintenance let alone all of that.
I did a 5 mile run this morning because I'm training for a 10K in July...
“It comes in pints?”
Also a pint of beer in the UK is actually 1.25 pints. They stay silly over there.
@@bpnelson7 and strangely enough one of those pints is called an imperial pint in the states, as if to confuse it with the other one
The Death of Stalin is a must watch for anyone on the channel. So good. Jason Isaacs as Zhukov... amazing.
Metric is incredibly useful to get the mass of a volume.
It comes up a lot in my life. A cubic meter of water is a 1000 kg or a metric ton.
In point of fact, if the lookouts on the Titanic had binoculars, it would have delayed their responses to seeing the iceberg because they would need to verify it and then rung the bell and called down to the helm. In comparison, without the binoculars, the lookouts immediately range the bell and called the helm.
They would have been able to see the iceberg at a further distance with binoculars, and could verify what it was. By the time you could see the iceberg without binoculars, it was already too close and the ship was moving too fast to make that turn.
@@thepeacefulbuddah Not with the type of iceberg that hit the Titanic.
@@thepeacefulbuddah Given how dark it was that night, binoculars would be less than useless. They don't let you see through the darkness, and the only real light that night was from Titanic's own lights. The only thing that would have helped them spot the iceberg sooner would have been a headlight/spotlight.
Besides, lookouts were never issued binoculars to begin with, since using them would narrow their field of view. The binoculars were for the bridge officers to examine things that the lookouts had already noticed and pointed out to them.
I think the Seminal Catastrophe that started WW1 was a bunch of small mistakes that could’ve been avoided.
As to metric system: the US is metric by law; all US customary units are defined in terms of (metric) SI units, a process that started in the 1860s
Yeah, I don't know. These definitions are retcons; they took the previous understanding of the imperial units and shoehorned metric equivalents. If you were defining a unit from scratch, would you intuitively make it exactly 25.4 of another system's units?
They couldn't have broken open the box? I think the two lookouts mutally decided that they fucked up and put the blame on a key to save their own minds from being wracked with guilt.
My thoughts exactly.
A lot of people, when bringing this up in regards to dooming Titanic, tend to miss that the ship's crew would have broken open a locked box if they felt they had to. Compared to the daily expense of just running the ship and paying her crew, fixing a broken lockbox once back in port is a pittance, and something they would have to do during the ship's life anyway given the fact that locks can break. And the crew did have access to binoculars during that voyage, so clearly they either did that or there were more available somewhere.
That said, I'm not entirely sure where the binoculars got blamed, because I'm not sure this was because of the lookouts blaming that for not seeing the iceberg in time. It might have arisen during the inquiry's by people not knowing how shipboard operations worked asking about the topic, but the lookouts were usually not issued binoculars to begin with. Their job was to scan the horizon and keep a wide field of view for that purpose, so using binoculars, while allowing them to see further, would actually hinder their performance because they might miss something due to the narrow field of view binoculars impose. The binoculars were for the bridge officers to examine things that the lookouts pointed out to them.
People who bring this myth up also tend to forget that binoculars would have been less than useless that night anyway, given how dark it was. The iceberg only became visible through the darkness about 40-50 seconds before the collision. Binoculars don't let you see through the darkness of a moonless night, and the only thing that would have allowed them to spot it earlier would have been a headlight, which ships usually don't have.
@@andrewlucia865nevermind that unless this was the kind of box that had a lock built into it. It would I presume just have a padlock which can be quite easily defeated (just call the lockpicking Lawyer) I'd assume they'd have quite a few tools that could do the same as a pair of bolt cutters... Or just use two wrenches
I’d say the fine arts institute of Vienna rejecting a certain Austrian with a silly mustache has gotta be up there 😂
There is also a story that a British soldier had a chance to shoot that certain Austrian fellow during WWI but he decided not to kill the Austrian man.
@@FinnishDragonalso not assigned that Austrian to spy on Munich bars. Maybe just make him the military mailman (and anger management courses)
You know time flies when even one of your favourite youtube channel host's beard turns grey
You made the HOI4 reference at the same time as I was invading Italy.
New Max Miller is really good too! Love the Wild West!
this man is such a good teacher i wish i had him in high school lol learn so much from these commentary's
I thought he would mention Rommel's birthday party that prevented him from being in Normandy during D-Day. It's debatable if his presence would have made so much of a difference, but probably it would have made the landing harder.
There’s so many things to go into Normandy it’s hard to pinpoint 1 and say that was the downfall. The telling of fake landings, hitler keeping most of the tanks under his control around Paris
What a coincidence with your intro, I just been to the shooting site in Sarajevo yesterday. A true piece of history. Amazing video as always, thank you! :)
12:30 - Oh, hey, Lions Led by Donkeys talked about this! It's the battle of Adwa!
Love the content. You should check out worst day of every US Presidency by Chonky Cheeze. I think you will find it interesting!
The beauty of the metric system isn't that everything's a multiple of ten, although that helps. Its that units for other properties are all inter-related. How many BTUs does it take to heat a gallon of water 1 degree F? Good luck with that. How many calories does it take to heat a liter of water 1 degree C? 1,000. I can do it off the top of my head.
Please react to some of the Time Travel Artist's life through time videos
Fun fact regarding Franz Ferdinand: he and his wife missed their children and wanted to go home the day before the assasination. He was convinced to stay because Bosnian officials had planned something, and leaving would have been offensive to them
You’re voice is just so welcoming and puts me at ease! Absolutely relish watching every video you release and depending on the location of your visit to Scotland I definitely have some cool and fascinating historical facts for you about my hometown, Paisley. Firstly, a modern fact. 1. Paisley is the biggest town in Scotland and has a cathedral and university so could be considered as city status in the U.K. but you know, politics lol. 2. Paisley is also the scene of the last mass execution of Witches in Europe (The Bargarran Witches) in 1697 where, a horseshoe is sunk into a certain road junction to this day to mark the spot where this happened. 3. Marjorie Bruce, the eldest daughter of Robert the Bruce died in Paisley after a horse riding accident and is buried in Paisley Abbey, with a cairn memorialising the spot where she fell just less than a mile from the abbey. There’s plenty more amazing historical facts about Paisley and if you ever visit there I’d hope that we bumped into each other!
Another series of mistakes in WW1 that led to disaster was the improper navigation and speed of the Imo in Halifax harbour that led to the collision with the Mont Blanc, a munitions ship, leading to the Halifax explosion. 1782 dead, and at least 9000 injured. The blast is the largest non-nuclear man-made explosion.
New subscriber and I freaking love this channel
7:21 I'd have to disagree with you on this one. The fact that they were able to see it at all to even attempt avoiding the iceberg and still side-swiping it without the binoculars would lead me to believe that if they DID have the binoculars, they likely could have seen it earlier from a further distance, giving them enough time to call the bridge to avoid it entirely. As difficult as spotting it may have been, i wouldn't think it would have been impossible or even unlikely.
was it policy for the binoculars to be locked up?
It was a pitch black night with no motion on the water. Things were not lit up as you see in the movies so binoculars would not have helped.
I feel like someone needs to put this to the test, mythbusters style, to see what difference it would have actually made.
Even still if u saw something from a distance that resembled a iceburg or debris u would see it better with binoculars @altonbunnjr
There was a cold water mirage that night so binoculars wouldn't have made a difference. Especially as it was pitch black already out there.
8:00 Occam's razor bro
Fun story, you have war of roses relations, my great uncle times 6 was Gavrilo Princep. One of his sisters is a descendant on my mothers side
If you like this, you might check out a series called "Great Moments in Unintended Consequences". The vids are rather short, but many of them cover lesser-known things like the Hearth Tax (the precursor to Britain's infamous Window Tax), the Siege of Antwerp in 1585, or Georgia's de facto ban on third-party candidates.
12:20 Use it yes, but the UK officially is metric.
Except for using miles per hour, stones of weight, pints. I don't think we could say metric is official.
7:20 The claim I've read is that the binoculars actually make it HARDER to see icebergs on a moonless night with calm seas.
On the subject of World War I starting with the the assassination of the archduke, I have a feeling that the fact that the driver turned out a one-way street the wrong way and had to back up certainly was a mistake that could have led the assassination, but it seems like the world must have already been at such a tipping point that the assassination was just sort of the straw that broke the camel's back, as opposed to being THE thing that started the war, without which world war I would never have started.
Apparently Stalin was a huge John Wayne fan. But he felt John Wayne was the ultimate American. He even ordered the KGB to form a plan to assignate John Wayne
The Doctors' Plot is absolutely essential to understanding why the death of Stalin went down the way it did. Not only had the most competent doctors been purged due to Stalin's paranoia about top Soviet doctors being out to kill him, but everyone else was reluctant to call doctors for fear of being implicated as trying to assassinate Stalin.
I believe the event that would have saved the Titanic more then the keys was the message of an ice burg near there trajectory. It was sent and received, however the captain and first mate were at dinner with the first class guests and the second mate had turned in early. The second mate was woken up and informed of the message and told the man he would bring it to the captain. However he went right back to sleep and didn’t wake up until the Ice burg hit.
I'll say this much about the Titanic. As you mentioned, the ship only grazed the iceberg, so it's entirely possible that spotting it just 30 seconds earlier might at least have mitigated the damage.
The high death toll was caused, in part, by the high speed of the Titanic's sinking, so even slowing down the sinking by an hour could've saved lives.
We'll never know, obviously.
My favorite mistake in this regard was at Austerlitz, where the Russians and Austrians agreed to meet up on a certain date. Unfortunately no one considered that Russia still used the Julian calendar while the Austrians used the Gregorian and Napoleon was able to strike in the time between while the Austrians were waiting on the Russians.
Regarding the Titanic one. These accidents usually have multiple overlaying causes.
Mentour Pilot presents a "swiss cheese model" in his videos on aviation accidents. This is also applicable here. There are many things that, if done different, could have prevented the disaster by themselves. But they were not, and the overlap of all the mistakes lead to thousands of people losing their lives.
The binoculars - if used the night of the sinking - would have actually reduced the chance of the lookouts to spot the iceberg, since they drastically reduce your field of vision. Binoculars are only used to confirm a sighting, after you already spotted it with your bare eyes. They are also especially useless at night when there is next to no light. The night the Titanic sank there was very likely a meteorological phenomenon called a "cold water mirage" going on, which would have made it impossible to see the real horizon anyway.
Some alien race is going to find our language and be very confused when we write “I love my daughter”
I bought some special fertilizer for my community garden. Decided to walk over and deliver it to the head gardener who was working in an orchard. He left to get ladders and while he was gone, I helped out by climbing in some of the trees. I am little and flexible. A bit later, I was on a limb and it snapped. Down I went. Broke my leg. Couldn't fly home because I needed surgery. Missed Xmas and my dad passed away.
Worst mistake ever. Should have never gotten in that tree.
Can u watch the Time Travel Artist?
7:51 This is basically the swiss cheese model in action. It's basically a scenario where many layers of safeguards have to be bypassed to bring about the disaster, and any one of them would have changed the outcome.
Having spent many an hour on watch in the USCG, I assure you, those binoculars make all the difference in the world. Especially on calm water at night.
There were no problems with the building of the Titanic and second officer David Blair before he was removed forgot to hand over the keys but binoculars still wouldn't have seen it and there was no moon which made it harder to see the iceberg
6:20 the titanic skimming along the side of the iceberg was actually why it sank. If it had full on collided with the iceberg it probably would’ve remained afloat either because it was”beeched” on the buoyant iceberg or because it wouldn’t have opened the full side of the ship
Binoculars would have helped tremendously. Binoculars are like telescopes, in that they bring more light and detail to your eye. The bigger the aperture the more light and detail that is brought into your eyes. The aperture of the binoculars is much bigger than a person's pupil. It isn't about the magnification, but the ability to bring more light and detail to the lookout. Binoculars would have been a BIG help.
Only if they knew where to look. Binoculars decrease your depth of field, so unless said iceberg was already in view, they probably still would have missed it. And given that it was a dark, moonless and starless night, it would have been very difficult to spot it right away with the naked eye.
And that's not even counting the fact that there was a mirage effect going on, which made objects appear in a different place than they actually were.
I’ve heard a Titanic expert say because of the atmospheric conditions binoculars actually would have been a hindrance.
The thing that jumped out at me was the White Ship disaster.
Idk about overall historical impact but one that comes to mind is the mont-blanc which led to a massive ship explosion that destroyed a town.
A Maine dairy company has settled a lawsuit over an overtime dispute that was the subject of a ruling that hinged on the use of the Oxford comma. An absent "Oxford comma" will cost a Maine dairy company $5 million.
It was actually smaller than a key that sunk the Titanic. Some man somewhere said “God can’t sink this ship” and God was like “bet”.
It absolutely blows my mind that Italy couldn’t win a war against some peasants in a third world nation that suffered from a complete lack of infrastructure. Shows they had no business participating in either world war. 😩
The failure of the Soviet War against Poland (The Miracle on the Vistula) was partially blamed on Stalin. Stalin siphoned off some troops originally destined for the attack on Warsaw for his attack on White Russians in the area of Ukraine.
In that battle a company of Renault tanks under French supervision were important in the defense. This unit’s overall commander was a young Charles de Gaulle. A squadron of American veteran aviators also fought for Poland, the Kosciuszko Squadron organized and led by Fauntleroy and Cooper (King Kong).
Time Travel Artist plz
The Spyro music😍
Yess, finally vth reacting to chat history. I recommend al his video's. Really funny and informative
This dude definitely took inspiration from Internet historian.
Britain still call their Beers PINTS , in CANADIAN FOOTBALL they STILL use YARDS not METERS , so these other countries are NOT consistent
0:54 Wrong way, down a one way streeet
From the customary/imperial unit system to the word "soccer" the Brits keep teaching us how to do things differently from the rest of the world.
I don't know if it counts as a "mistake" but The Battle of Gettysburg. More of I trick of fate, than a mistake, but Lee insisted on engaging while both armies where there, rather than find a more advantageous battlefield.
Army officer for 14 years, whenever we maneuvered as a brigade, basically every single battle happened when we ran into each other similar to Gettysburg. When we thought we knew where they were, they weren't. Several times we ran into them while they were maneuvering to come at us. My point in saying this is that most battles start because contact is made, not because it was the intention of the commanding general.
@@ryanbailey6401Armies like the Army of Northern Virginia can't afford to fight like that. When you're institutionally outnumbered and out supplied, you need to be able to break contact quickly when you don't have the advantage. Otherwise you just get ground down. This was Washington's greatest contribution to victory, but Lee chose over and over to pursue tactical wins that cost him chunks of his army that got harder and harder to replace.
They likely wouldn't have been using the binoculars anyway. It helps see farther away, but significantly reduces the field of vision.
14:38 unknown Pokémon scroll text reads: “Subscribe to chat history or else Ethiopia will murder you”
The binocs would have made a difference since they would allow more light to enter the eye due to the objective collecting more income light than an unenhanced iris could. Anyone who wants to test this irl can use a binoc at night and see more stars with it than without.
Reg. Stalin: Only CCG-Players will get the "defense mode" reference :]
20:20- Death of Stalin is such a good movie!
Archduke Franz Ferdinand's car driving down the wrong street right to the assassin that was looking for him. ☹️
Temperatures a metric oven is terrible. With a Fahrenheit oven, you can cook food at a lower temperature. This means you can easily bake a pumpkin pie without burning. With a metric oven which we have in Japan, it's a German oven and every oven I've seen here be set with increments of 10 which means you have a pumpkin pie that is not cooked enough in the center or it'll be burnt. The solution I found out. From an Australian is to heat up the pumpkin pie mixture in a double boiler then when it's hot, we can transfer it into pie shell. I interesting video of how food taste differently when cooked in a Fahrenheit oven then in a metric oven.
Fat Electrician had a great video about the metric system vs standard and talked about the pirates.
Pompey (and the Roman Senate) not taking the gold from the Treasury when they abandoned Rome. Caesar marched into the capital and was able to capture the gold and pay his troops. They might have followed him anyway (once they crossed the Rubicon, they knew he was committing treason) but it certainly helped secure their loyalty.
While the language may have made a difference, it's probably the case that the Italians (like other European powers at the time) were looking for an excuse to invade Ethiopia. Provided they could claim they had some justification for an invasion, what the treaty actually said was less relevant.
It makes total sense to me that binoculars would've made a huge difference.
Awesome video for you to react to! You always say “imagine if so and so did this small thing different than that”.
I watched a thing on History or discovery that said if they had hit the Ice head on the ship could have ether survived or sunk slower saving more people. I might be remembering it wrong but I know they said some stuff that could have saved the ship had not come in to wide spread use and as such that was one of the only things they could have used.
Ironic that the picture the original video used for Alexander III of Scotland is actually a portrait of Edward Longshanks. You can tell by the lazy eye shown on the portrait, which Edward was reported to have had.
7:48 There was also the cold air mirage effect on top of the darkness and lack of waves breaking against the berg. Binoculars would not have helped. The cold air mirage created a false skyline that obscured everything beneath it.
Instead of attacking Fort Sumter, the Southern States should have just peacefully seceded, telling the Feds, “It’s been swell, but we’re done. Good luck to you.”
The treaty with Etiopia was not a mistake, that was almost certainly deliberate by the Italians.
Driving through Deely Plaza. Dallas, Texas, November 1963?
8:06 You just described Accom's Razor
In the 1980s schools tried to implement the Metric System. Did. Not. Work.
Another example: Interstate 19 itself. I-19 is the only interstate in the US that has primarily metric road signs.
It was built in the 60s through the 70s during a push for the metric system.
My mother was named after her mother. One of the few modern examples I have seen.
maybe this is just my inner Canadian talking but I really think the metric vs imperial arguments are overstated. Both are arbitrary and intuitive so long as you use them. Imperial conversions are easy to remember and conversion ratios between the systems are also easy to remember if you actually use them
Any decision that any random person makes can influence History, hut great video as always Chris!