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From ancient Rome to Silicon Valley, some decisions have changed everything. Join us as we examine the pivotal choices that altered humanity's course! Our countdown includes Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon, Gandhi's Salt March, Truman's atomic bomb decision, and more! Which world-changing moment do you think had the biggest impact?
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00:00That was Caesar's make-or-break moment.
00:03He chose to gamble everything and take on the political establishment.
00:08Welcome to WatchMojo.
00:10And today, we're counting down our picks for the top 10 decisions
00:14we found to be crucial to the acceleration of human history thus far.
00:18Jefferson's advisors convinced him, look, just do it.
00:24Number 10. Steve Jobs greenlighting the iPhone.
00:28Before smartphones launched in 2007, you would have to carry numerous devices
00:32just to achieve what can be done on one modern-day device.
00:36What we want to do is make a leapfrog product
00:40that is way smarter than any mobile device has ever been
00:44and super easy to use.
00:46This is what iPhone is.
00:48If you wanted to take a picture, listen to music, or get in contact with someone,
00:53you needed a separate device to do each task.
00:56Well, in the early 2000s, Steve Jobs, one of the founders of Apple,
01:01decided to greenlight the iPhone,
01:03turning Apple's famed iPod Touch into a cellular device.
01:07And to unlock the phone, I just take my finger and slide it across.
01:11All right, you want to see that again?
01:13Not only did this decision spark a whole new popularity
01:16of the app and phone market altogether,
01:18it also changed the way we do our everyday computing.
01:21If the future for humans involves integration with technologies,
01:25products like the iPhone are the first steps.
01:28We're very excited about this.
01:31Number 9.
01:32Franklin D. Roosevelt enacting the New Deal.
01:36From 1929 to 1939,
01:38the United States of America experienced what is known today as the Great Depression.
01:43And the consequences were profound, massive poverty everywhere,
01:49a strong sense of social dislocation,
01:51also a strong sense of capitalism didn't work.
01:53When the American stock market fell in October of 1929,
01:57it led to record unemployment, critical banking failures,
02:01and overall deflation of the U.S. dollar,
02:04an impact felt around the globe.
02:06After becoming president in 1933,
02:09Franklin D. Roosevelt launched the New Deal,
02:12establishing relief efforts such as
02:14the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
02:16and introducing the Emergency Banking Act.
02:19Before this moment in American history,
02:22the federal government had never taken it upon itself
02:24to bolster an industry the way the federal government
02:28was bolstering the banking industry.
02:29It was quite a striking, even a revolutionary thing
02:33for the government to undertake.
02:35Both helped protect depositors and the banks themselves,
02:39stabilizing the banking system during an otherwise unstable period.
02:43These reforms, along with many other programs and relief efforts,
02:47helped pull the American people out of one of its lowest points
02:51in its still very young history.
02:53Among our objectives, I place the security
02:56of the men, women, and children of the nation first.
03:01Number eight, Mahatma Gandhi launching the Salt March.
03:05From 1858 to 1947, the people of India
03:09were under the rule of the British Raj.
03:12But for the poor of India in the early 20th century,
03:15even this basic necessity of life, salt, was not a given.
03:19It was being heavily taxed by their British rulers.
03:23Indians could even be thrown in jail
03:25for just making or selling this vital preservative.
03:28The colonization of the country was accomplished
03:30with economic exploitation, unfair taxation,
03:34and an overall hemorrhaging of wealth from India
03:36to their occupier's homeland.
03:39The Raj held monopolies over vital resources
03:41like salt and other necessities.
03:43On March 12, 1930, Mahatma Gandhi gathered 78
03:48of his most trusted followers
03:49and marched 240 miles in protest of the British monopoly,
03:54amassing thousands of others who joined them in their journey.
03:58For 23 days, they marched.
04:04Thousands upon thousands of his countrymen
04:06joining along the way.
04:08Eventually, the throng of protesters reached over two miles.
04:16This highlighted the injustices of colonization,
04:19gaining international attention,
04:20and pressuring the occupiers to allow the Indian people
04:24the right to limited salt production.
04:26The salt march would go on to inspire
04:28civil rights movements around the globe.
04:30But Gandhi proved that nonviolent methods on a vast scale
04:33could be used to achieve that most basic of human rights.
04:37The world was at war.
04:45After being elected to a fourth term
04:47as president of the United States,
04:49Franklin D. Roosevelt passed away on April 12, 1945,
04:53and Harry Truman was sworn into office
04:55as president that same day.
04:57And she says, Harry, the president is dead.
05:01And Truman says, oh, Mrs. Roosevelt, I'm so sorry.
05:05You know, what can I do for you?
05:07And she says, that's the wrong question,
05:11because you're the one that's in trouble now.
05:15Soon after becoming president,
05:16the Axis powers had been toppled.
05:19The United States and its allies demanded Japan surrender
05:22or face, quote, prompt and utter destruction.
05:25The Japanese empire refused to give up,
05:28and Truman ordered the use of atomic bombs
05:30on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
05:33At 11.02 a.m., the B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki.
05:38The president's unimaginably difficult decision
05:41took hundreds of thousands of lives,
05:43but did achieve the goal of promptly ending World War II
05:46after Japan's immediate surrender.
05:48The war was over.
05:53At last, the troops were going home.
05:56Number six, Mikhail Gorbachev refusing to use force.
06:01In 1968, after the invasion of Czechoslovakia,
06:05the leader of the Soviet Union, Leonid Brezhnev,
06:08asserted that the Union had the right and the obligation
06:10to protect communism in its satellite states
06:13through military means.
06:14That any threat to socialist power in one socialist country
06:18should be combated by all of them.
06:21Another version of the Brezhnev doctrine is
06:24what we have, we hold.
06:26In 1989, when facing the uprising of revolutions
06:29throughout Eastern Europe,
06:31General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev
06:33of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
06:35decided to defy the Brezhnev doctrine.
06:39But he was capable of recognizing failure,
06:43of recognizing what had gone wrong,
06:45of recognizing the need for radical change.
06:48Gorbachev attempted to democratize
06:50the Soviet Union's political system,
06:52create the Congress of the People's Deputies,
06:54and became the first and only elected president
06:57of the Soviet Union in 1990,
07:00along with winning the Nobel Peace Prize.
07:02Gorbachev's decision proved to accelerate
07:05the downfall of the Soviet Union,
07:07and with it, communism.
07:09Gorbachev resigned himself to the fact
07:11that the Soviet Union was finished.
07:14It was no more.
07:15Number five, Abraham Lincoln
07:17issuing the Emancipation Proclamation.
07:20The United States was in a civil war.
07:22The Union forces in the North
07:24were clashing with the Confederate rebels in the South.
07:27So that's when he begins to think about the fact
07:29that I don't have the constitutional power
07:32to emancipate the slaves in the Union as president,
07:35but maybe as commander-in-chief,
07:37I can emancipate the slaves in the South
07:40as a military necessity.
07:42On January 1st, 1863,
07:44President Abraham Lincoln issued
07:46the Emancipation Proclamation,
07:48announcing that all who were held as slaves
07:51in rebel territories were declared as free
07:53and would be accepted into Union forces.
07:56It cannot be overstated
07:58how consequential this document was.
08:01With the stroke of a pen,
08:03Lincoln, through the authority that he has in that moment,
08:06frees millions of enslaved people
08:09in these Confederate states.
08:10This sparked widespread escape efforts
08:12from the enslaved
08:13in hopes they could make their way
08:15to Union-ruled states
08:17where they would be liberated
08:18and be given a chance to liberate others.
08:21The Emancipation Proclamation
08:22helped turn the tide of the Civil War
08:25and accelerated the end to slavery in the country.
08:28I'm sure he was out there
08:30singing at the top of his lungs
08:31in celebration that this document was finally signed,
08:36which would change the balance of the war.
08:42In order to dismantle the Austro-Hungarian rule in Europe,
08:46a secret Serbian nationalist military organization
08:49called the Black Hand
08:51aided a group of young Bosnian-Serb students
08:54in executing a world-changing assassination.
08:57Archduke Franz Ferdinand,
08:59heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
09:02Today, he will be assassinated.
09:05This is the spark which will ignite the First World War.
09:09On June 28th, 1914,
09:12Gavrilo Princip,
09:13a 23-year-old Bosnian-Serb,
09:16would make a symbolic strike
09:18on the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
09:20Archduke Franz Ferdinand,
09:22heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne,
09:24was to them the ultimate symbol
09:26of oppression against the Southern Sloths.
09:28At the last moment,
09:30the Archduke sees the bomb coming
09:32and raises his arm
09:33to protect his beloved wife.
09:35The driver accelerates
09:36and the grenade bounces off the back of the car.
09:39After his co-conspirators' failures,
09:41Princip shot down the Archduke and his wife,
09:44which was viewed as a direct attack by Serbia
09:46against the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
09:49This event sparked a number of war declarations
09:52that would end up involving almost all of Europe,
09:55leading directly into World War I.
09:58Just six weeks after a man was killed
10:00by a single bullet,
10:01the alliances were triggered.
10:03Germany invaded France
10:04and the First World War had begun.
10:07Number three,
10:08Napoleon selling the Louisiana Territory.
10:11By 1803,
10:12the French were in dire need of funds
10:14for future military campaigns
10:16and quickly...
10:17Number three,
10:18the Louisiana Territory is controlled by France
10:20and its notoriously erratic leader,
10:23Napoleon Bonaparte.
10:24The French colonies in North America were vast,
10:35but scarcely populated with French settlers.
10:38Holding control of the North American territories
10:40was unrealistic if a British invasion were to take place.
10:44American President Thomas Jefferson
10:46was seeking to gain access to the Mississippi River,
10:48a vital trade route originally blocked by the French.
10:52Monroe is the luckiest diplomat in American history
10:55because he turns up virtually at the same moment
10:58Napoleon's decided to sell Louisiana to the United States.
11:02New Orleans was that access point.
11:04It came as a pleasant surprise
11:06when the president learned
11:07that the American people would be gaining
11:09not only New Orleans,
11:10but the entire Louisiana Territory.
11:13The purchase doubled the size of the nation,
11:15allowing for growth,
11:17leading to the country becoming a leading world power.
11:20Presented with this opportunity,
11:22Jefferson seized it with two hands
11:24because he believed this was essential
11:26for the economic future of the United States.
11:28Number two,
11:29Martin Luther posting the 95 Theses.
11:33What if we lived in a world
11:34where we can literally pay for our sins?
11:37Well, in the 1500s,
11:39you could through what was called indulgences.
11:42Leo encouraged the sale of indulgences,
11:44an exemption from punishment for sins.
11:48Indulgences were tickets sold by the church
11:50that would supposedly reduce
11:52the temporal punishment in purgatory
11:54for the sins committed by the ticket holder
11:57or their loved ones.
11:58Martin Luther, a German theologian,
12:01disagreed with the church's use of indulgences,
12:04claiming that repentance
12:05and being forgiven for your sins
12:07is of a spiritual nature,
12:09and indulgences are just a way to bypass that.
12:12His 95 Theses attacking corrupt church practices
12:15were quickly circulated across the country.
12:18The Pope threatened Luther with excommunication,
12:21but Luther responded by publicly burning the bull.
12:24Luther's 95 Theses would go into print
12:26and spread across Germany.
12:28The publishing of these Theses
12:30is said to have sparked the Protestant Reformation,
12:33rapidly affecting both religion and politics across Europe.
12:37Luther was a unifier and a divider.
12:41His legacy has shaped German history for five centuries.
12:44Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel
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13:01Number 1.
13:02Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon
13:04Expanding Rome's territories
13:07through his conquest of Gaul,
13:09Roman General Julius Caesar
13:10gained immense popularity among the Roman Republic.
13:13A lot of ordinary people,
13:15they really like to hear that.
13:16You know, they really like to see
13:18their leaders are cutting it out there
13:20and anyone who gets in their way gets it.
13:23You know, make Rome great again.
13:25It seems to be the kind of message
13:27that's coming through these commentaries.
13:29As governor of Gaul,
13:31he amassed wealth, armies, and influence.
13:34Of course, gaining power means gaining enemies as well.
13:38Caesar was slowly but surely gaining political opponents
13:40in the Roman Senate,
13:41who were seeking to take away
13:43both his power and influence.
13:45Caesar had been backed into a corner.
13:48Either he went home to face prosecution
13:50or he stayed in Gaul against orders,
13:54a rogue general.
13:55It was catch-22.
13:57Staying in Gaul would lose him favour in the Republic
13:59and going back to Rome by himself
14:01would surely be his downfall.
14:04Julius Caesar decided to cross the Rubicon River
14:07with his armies and it resulted in civil war,
14:10ultimately leading to the downfall of the Republic
14:12and the uprising of the new Roman Empire.
14:15So Caesar's assassination only served
14:19to strengthen the very thing it meant to destroy.
14:23What are some world-changing decisions
14:25that weren't on our list
14:26and which ones would you like to see on the next one?
14:29Let us know in the comments.
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