- yesterday
From deadly disasters to accidental discoveries, some of history's biggest blunders led to surprising improvements. Join us as we explore catastrophes that ultimately changed the world for the better! Our countdown includes the Hindenburg explosion, Apollo 13's near-tragedy, and a moldy lab experiment that revolutionized medicine.
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00:00With distance, people are almost incredulous that it ever happened.
00:03It seems such a remarkably bizarre event.
00:06Welcome to WatchMojo.
00:07Today we're looking at some horrifying mistakes
00:09which surprisingly improve things in the long run.
00:13We had to figure out how to perform maneuver without a computer display system
00:16and this was one procedure that developed, I believe, for Apollo 8.
00:22The Hindenburg Disaster.
00:2334 seconds after the first flame appears,
00:26the Hindenburg is consumed by the inferno.
00:29Flying a plane is safer than driving a car,
00:32but in an alternate reality, it might be the opposite.
00:35This would be the reality without the Hindenburg Disaster,
00:38where most planes could instead be strapped full of huge balloons loaded with explosive gas.
00:44A century ago, these rigid airships were in their prime, especially within Germany.
00:48The LZ-129 Hindenburg, the largest flying machine ever built, emerges from its hangar.
00:55Its destination, Lakehurst, New Jersey.
00:57The first flight happened in 1900, but in 1937, the Hindenburg Disaster revealed just how dangerous they were.
01:05It was the largest airship in the world, bursting into flames in the skies of New Jersey.
01:09Next time you're scared of flying, just be thankful there's not a balloon full of hydrogen gas strapped to the airplane's roof.
01:15What scientists now believe happened is that a tear in a gas bag, a hydrogen leak, an electrostatic charge,
01:24and a rare spark between the outer skin and the inner frame all added up to a once-in-a-lifetime chain reaction.
01:33San Francisco earthquake.
01:35Towards evening, a young newspaper reporter named Jack London surveyed the scene.
01:39California is right on the boundary between two tectonic plates, hence making it a region where earthquakes are common.
01:49Nowadays, we have an extensive knowledge of the phenomena, and most Californian cities are designed with them in mind.
01:56We acquired these things through immense suffering.
01:58Primarily because, in 1906, roughly 80% of San Francisco was destroyed.
02:04Words can only scratch the surface of how horrifying such a disaster would have been.
02:08The city was almost completely wiped out, but as we all know, San Francisco stands tall today.
02:14If the disaster hadn't happened, then we might have had to learn our lesson even later down the line, potentially losing even more lives.
02:20Here was manifest an indomitable and impetuous spirit that, in the wake of disaster, had built an entire city and a world's fair from the ground up.
02:32Apollo 13 disaster.
02:34I don't care what anything was designed to do. I care about what it can do.
02:38So let's get to work. Let's lay it out.
02:40In April 1970, this lunar expedition simultaneously became one of NASA's biggest disasters and greatest triumphs.
02:47On its way to the moon, Apollo 13 had a catastrophic oxygen tank explosion.
02:53They had to cancel the landing, instead slingshotting the astronauts around the moon and then landing them back on Earth.
02:59Our mission was called a successful failure, in that we returned safely but never made it to the moon.
03:05It was one of many heroic moments in NASA's history, with their amazing response being dramatized multiple times.
03:11It not only influenced later design of ships, but also emphasized how important adaptability is in space travel.
03:18Additionally, it inspired countless individuals to pursue a career in space exploration, with the ordeal captivating the entire globe.
03:25Kind of miraculously, since we had abused the vehicle, the mother ship, by freezing it for four days, the water tanks were frozen when they recovered it on board the ship.
03:35The Ford Pinto Scandal
03:37Back in the 70s, one of Ford's main cars was the Pinto, with over 3 million being produced prior to 1980.
03:50Unfortunately, it was remarkably dangerous, being prone to explode in rear-end collisions.
03:56Ford was reluctant to recall the faulty vehicles, seeming to care little about fixing their mistake.
04:00On the bright side, the scandal prompted major changes in law, specifically in holding manufacturers responsible.
04:14In the end, Ford suffered serious financial repercussions for their negligence, thus telling the world that profits shouldn't come before safety.
04:22So, even though many people once drove these four-wheeled bombs, be thankful it rarely happens today.
04:28Pinnos hard to hit, easy to fix.
04:31The Great Fire of London
04:33The fire spreading quite quickly, as are the rumours that it was started by Dutch spies.
04:39Spies, the Dutch spies, I'm telling you!
04:41If you visit Britain's capital city, you'll find very few to no wooden buildings.
04:46The opposite would be true if you were a tourist before 1666, when the houses were packed tight with thatched roofs all around.
04:54It took just one baker to set the whole city ablaze.
04:57But on the bright side, there were far fewer deaths than you'd expect.
05:01It's now the end of the third day, and all over London, the fire isn't showing any signs of slowing down.
05:07The city burned bright for four days, destroying most of central London.
05:10As a result, the city was rebuilt out of much less flammable stone, also causing major improvements in firefighting.
05:18Contrary to popular belief, it didn't stop the plague, but that doesn't discount the other long-term benefits.
05:24Most Londoners knew that the safest thing to do would be to flee the city.
05:28But the narrow, winding streets made a mass exodus at speed almost impossible.
05:33Titanic's sinking
05:34If we stay too close, we'll be caught by the suction when she goes down.
05:38You roll with me. One of the ladies can steer.
05:40I'm in charge of this boat. Your job's to row.
05:43When the world's largest ocean liner sank, it had barely enough lifeboats to carry everyone aboard.
05:48Other mistakes included sailing at full speed, despite ice warnings, and barely testing the ship before sailing.
05:55Approximately 1,500 people lost their lives in the incident, many instantly dying from the cold sea.
06:01By the time most of the lifeboats were in the water, those left on board now knew for certain where the Titanic was taking them.
06:08And it wasn't to the new world.
06:10While it would have been terrifying to live through, without it, we wouldn't have made so many improvements in maritime safety.
06:17It prompted ship designers to include more lifeboats, alongside testing their ships more thoroughly.
06:23Soon after, the International Ice Patrol was founded, an iceberg monitoring organization, making sailing much, much safer.
06:29Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster
06:38In 1986, NASA launched the Challenger Space Shuttle, which was a catastrophic failure.
06:52The entire crew died within minutes of launching, all because of a design flaw that they were well aware of.
06:58Engineers thought cold conditions would cause the shuttle to explode, which it did almost instantly.
07:03The people in charge decided to ignore the warnings, because they had delayed the flight multiple times, and thus were worried about bad press.
07:10I heard them say, major malfunction, and then the person beside me said, it's exploded.
07:16And it was, I couldn't speak.
07:21Learning from this, NASA hasn't had a disaster of such monumental proportions since it knocked some sense into the people in charge,
07:28finally convincing them to listen to their engineers, thus improving spaceflight safety forever.
07:33Many of them probably had their view blocked, just as we did with the television cameras, with just a huge fireball and a huge cloud of smoke.
07:42They may not realize yet what has happened.
07:44The Great Molasses Flood
07:45You had people now caught in molasses.
07:48They couldn't move, and gradually they were submerged and drowned.
07:53Molasses is known for being a thick, slow, sticky substance, not a liquid capable of a tsunami, like water.
08:00Well, in 1919, a molasses tsunami devastated Boston.
08:04Approximately 2.3 million gallons of molasses ruptured its storage tank, creating a wave that killed 21 people.
08:11The tank's creators were beyond negligent, not testing it for leakage, plus using substandard steel.
08:18When the leaking was noticed, they decided to paint it brown and hide it.
08:21Thankfully, it taught us a whole lot of safety lessons, thus preventing a repeat performance of such a horrifying disaster.
08:28The story probably went all over North America at the time, and every city across the country probably started to look at the drawings that came into it more carefully.
08:38Bhopal Gas Disaster
08:40The Bhopal Gas Leak of 1984 is considered one of the world's worst industrial disasters.
08:47It's even harmed babies developing in the womb.
08:50In 1984, the world experienced its worst ever industrial disaster.
08:55In Bhopal, India, more than half a million people were exposed to an extremely toxic gas.
09:00Thousands perished as a result, with hundreds of thousands being injured.
09:05It was caused by a factory leak, which had extremely poor safety standards.
09:10It was leaking, but the thing is, that was leaking slowly, slowly.
09:16Minor gas leaks are a regular occurrence, and the workers have had to learn to live with the choking effects.
09:22In its wake, worldwide health and safety standards experienced immense reform.
09:27This included a greater focus on disaster prevention, alongside better emergency responses.
09:32While it would have been a living hell to experience, at least it's not been repeated.
09:37We can also be hopeful that it will forever remain humanity's worst industrial disaster.
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10:03I certainly didn't plan to revolutionize all medicine, Fleming later said, but I guess that's exactly what I did.
10:14Taking our top spot, it's a mistake that was only terrible for being an experimental blunder.
10:20Scottish physician Alexander Fleming was experimenting on bacteria, and decided to go on holiday, leaving some plates behind to inoculate.
10:29He accidentally left a plate open, causing it to go moldy.
10:32Professor, come and see. It's extraordinary. Penicillin mice are bright as rain.
10:38This turned out to be potentially history's most successful academic mistake, as the mold had killed all the bacteria.
10:46Thus, the first-ever antibiotic was discovered, with penicillin becoming humanity's first-ever wonder drug.
10:52Now you're unlikely to die from a small scratch getting infected, which we can all thank penicillin for.
10:59Tell us how you discovered penicillin, Professor Fleming.
11:01Well, it was an accident, really. I, um, I left a culture plate of staphylococcus in my lab over the summer break, and, uh, well, I was about to throw it out, and I noticed that mold had grown on the culture plate.
11:13Were there any other horrendous mistakes we missed which made things better in the future? Leave them in the comments.
11:19All the more reason for today's medical researchers to watch out for peculiar developments in their petri dishes.
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