00:00Welcome to WatchMojo.
00:09Today we're looking at perilous gambles in history which almost completely backfired.
00:13For this list, everything doesn't necessarily mean the whole world, but everything from
00:17the risk-taker's perspective.
00:29Black Saturday
00:43The Cuban Missile Crisis was perhaps the closest humans have come to mutually assured destruction.
00:48In 1962, the Cold War between America and the Soviets peaked.
00:53America placed nukes in Turkey and Italy, motivating the Soviets to put their own in
00:58Cuba.
00:59It turned into a Caribbean standoff.
01:16On Black Saturday, the U.S. Navy accidentally dropped practice depth charges on a Soviet
01:21nuclear submarine without telling them.
01:24The submarine nearly retaliated by launching their nukes, but thankfully one commander
01:29refused to give his consent.
01:30The whole crisis was an enormous risk that almost wiped out humanity.
01:47Nuclear bombs in Korea
01:49The Marines can consolidate to begin a fighting withdrawal out of the Chosin Trap.
01:54Hageroo's unfinished airfield, now the only means of getting out the growing number of
01:58wounded, must be completed and made operational.
02:02In 1950, the Korean War began, a proxy war between both sides of the Cold War.
02:07The North was communist, the South capitalist.
02:10Douglas MacArthur was one of the most famous American generals in history, and he was a
02:14major player in the war.
02:16It wasn't as easy to win as they expected, and in 1951 MacArthur was nearly authorized
02:22to use nuclear weapons on China.
02:24Thankfully, the Atomic Energy Commission didn't like this idea, and refused to give MacArthur
02:29this power.
02:30Truman preferred a less aggressive approach, and eventually relieved him from command to
02:34avoid nuclear war with China.
02:55Heraclius' reign Heraclius came to power after an extremely
02:59risky revolt against Phocas in 1610, a widely hated ruler.
03:04If failed, he would have been executed without a second thought, but he managed it.
03:08The Roman Empire was on life support at this point.
03:11By 627, the Sasanian Empire had captured Egypt, Syria, and most of Anatolia.
03:26Instead of surrendering, Heraclius bet everything on a counter-offensive.
03:31He restructured the economy, and personally led his army deep into Persia.
03:36If he had failed, the Roman Empire would have been annihilated from history.
03:40The Battle of Nineveh in 627 brought him to a decisive victory against the Sasanians.
03:46Without his actions, they might have fallen to the Sasanians, or been unable to completely
03:50resist the Arab conquests in the 630s.
03:54The Tet Offensive Now for a textbook example of a massive miscalculation.
04:08In 1968, during the brutal Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese launched a surprise attack
04:13on the South.
04:14It was a military defeat for the North, with most attacks being repelled.
04:18Still, its consequences were devastating.
04:21It revealed to the U.S. public just how unwinnable the war was.
04:25In 1967, General Westmoreland famously declared they could see the light at the end of the
04:31tunnel.
04:32You know, Vietnam reminded me of a child, the developing of a child.
04:38The laws of nature control the development of this child.
04:41The child has to sit up before it crawls, it has to crawl before it walks, it has to
04:46walk before it runs.
04:47This coordinated offensive from the Communists showed just how false this claim was.
04:53Support for the war plummeted, President Johnson was humiliated, and the U.S. would eventually
04:58leave in the early 70s.
05:00The enemy has very deceitfully taken advantage of the Tet ceasefire to launch an offensive
05:09all over the country.
05:12So far, we've had it pretty easy here.
05:16Caesar Crossing the Rubicon
05:24Now for a move so risky, it became an idiom.
05:27The Rubicon River was the boundary between Gaul and Italy, and Caesar's crossing was
05:32considered treason, since a general was forbidden from bringing legions into Roman territory
05:37without the Senate's approval.
05:39This was an act of civil war, and if defeated, he would have been executed, and his entire
05:43faction destroyed.
05:45The Roman Republic was in a fragile state, and Caesar was heavily outnumbered.
05:50A defeat would have caused further unrest, but he emerged victorious, marking the end
05:55of the Republic.
05:56He would eventually be killed by the Senate, but his heir Augustus finished what he started,
06:01and Rome entered a golden age.
06:02I can abide the law and surrender my arms to the Senate, and watch the Republic fall
06:07to tyranny and chaos, or I can go home with my sword in my hand and run those maniacs
06:16to the Tarpian Rock!
06:20The Penkovsky False Warning
06:22Oleg Penkovsky is a curious figure.
06:25He was profoundly arrogant.
06:27He may have had delusions of grandeur about both his own importance and where he could
06:32serve the Americans and the British.
06:34Colonel Oleg Penkovsky was a Cold War double agent.
06:37A lot of people credit him for defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis by providing the US with
06:42Soviet information.
06:43In 1962, he also sent a warning to Western intelligence agencies that the Soviet Union
06:49was about to launch a nuclear strike.
07:00He made these calls after the crisis ended.
07:03One was received by the CIA, the other by MI6.
07:07Both recipients believed the information wasn't genuine and decided to do nothing.
07:12This was an immense risk, since if it had been true, Europe and the US would have been
07:16annihilated.
07:17Thankfully, their instincts were correct, and nuclear war was averted.
07:31The Battle of Cannae
07:41Hannibal Barca was one of Rome's greatest enemies.
07:44He was a Carthaginian general whose father made him swear to destroy Rome.
07:49In 218 BC, he began the Second Punic War, crossing the Alps on elephants.
07:54This extreme risk nearly cost him his army, but once he made it into Italy, he quickly
07:58allied with the local Gallic tribes, who hated Rome.
08:15This helped him achieve multiple crushing defeats against the Romans.
08:19Most notable was at Cannae, when the Senate sent around 86,000 soldiers to fight Hannibal.
08:34He executed a double-envelopment tactic, and this cunning maneuver resulted in 50 to 70,000
08:40being slaughtered in a day.
08:42Rome's decision to fight Hannibal nearly cost them their republic, motivating their later
08:46decision to avoid fighting Hannibal at all costs.
08:591983 Soviet False Alarm
09:15Returning to the Cold War, in 1983, humanity had another near-miss with mutually assured
09:20destruction.
09:22In September, the Soviet warning system alerted them about five American ICBMs.
09:28Engineer Stanislav Petrov found it suspicious, essentially since only five nukes were launched,
09:33nowhere near enough to destroy the USSR.
09:35Rather than relay the warning, he decided to wait for confirmation.
09:49None came, because it was a malfunction.
09:51The missiles were just sunlight.
09:53If Petrov had relayed the message, then a counterattack would have developed into a
09:57full-scale nuclear war.
09:59Unfortunately, Petrov wasn't rewarded for his bravery, since officials were embarrassed
10:04about the false positive.
10:05The incident embarrassed the military command of the Soviet army.
10:10Petrov was made into a scapegoat.
10:12He was eventually forced into early retirement.
10:14The Battle of Manzikert
10:25The Eastern Roman Empire experienced a golden age during the medieval period, but its decline
10:29began in 1025, after the death of Basil II.
10:33This battle between the Romans and the Seljuks resulted in an overwhelming defeat, with many
10:38Roman forces, including Turkic mercenaries, in their ranks.
10:41Many refused to fight, or even defected, and the Seljuk Empire gained almost complete control
10:46over Anatolia.
10:48This almost destroyed their empire, but in 1081, Alexios Komnenos took the throne.
10:53He spent his reign dealing with crisis after crisis, and after almost 40 years on the throne,
10:59the Roman Empire was stable once again.
11:29The Normandy landings were the largest seaborne in military history.
11:37France was firmly under German control until June 1944, when nearly 160,000 Allied troops
11:44crossed the Channel.
11:45By summer's close, more than two million Allied soldiers were in France.
11:49Its success was vital to toppling Hitler's regime, but was far from guaranteed.
11:53A failure would have prolonged the war, giving the Nazis a stronger hold on Europe.
11:59You have to follow, and that supersedes everything, including your mothers.
12:03Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.
12:04Even if you think the mission's full blast, sir?
12:07Especially if you think the mission's full blast.
12:09The Nazis would have strengthened their defenses, and a second invasion may have never succeeded.
12:14Thankfully, the risk paid off, and within weeks, Paris, and later France, were liberated.
12:19They locked me in a broken-down potting shed and told me to imagine I was a prisoner trying to escape.
12:24If I used that wall, I'd be shot.
12:26If I climbed that fence, I'd be electrocuted.
12:28If I trod here, there, anywhere, I'd be blown up by hidden mines.
12:32What do you think was the most precarious gamble in history?
12:35Leave it in the comments below.
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