There is a universal law that everyone agrees on: for whatever action, there is always an
opposite reaction.
This is most true in physics but certainly applies to our daily lives.
Imagine the Butterfly Effect where it is said that, in one part of the world, a butterfly
would flap its wings and it would cause a devastating hurricane in the opposite side
of the globe.
Our actions and the actions of others always have consequences to it, good or bad.
It can be Karmic or a kind of domino effect.
In this list, we examine the actions of people who, in recorded history, have completely
changed or greatly affected it with the decisions – or indecisions – that they made.
Here are the 10 Warnings That the World ignored that completely changed the course of history!
Number Ten: The Great Depression Who could ever forget that time when Stock
Market crashed and sent the international economy spiralling out of control, leaving
thousands of people unemployed and hungry?
Today’s economic recession is nothing compared to the financial meltdown of 1929.
It may have been unthinkable back then because of the speed at which the United States economy
was accelerating in terms of industry and its economy.
However, on September 5th, 1929, one man saw this great crash coming.
Economist Roger Babson delivered a speech where he predicted that an impending economic
crash was just around the corner.
Unfortunately, the business community as well as fellow economists shrugged the warning
off claiming it to be impossible.
Two months later, over $5 billion was wiped out of the market – an amount, in today’s
standards is beyond calculating.
According to records, Babson had been warning everyone about the crash for years and what
it may precipitate and when people started believing in him, it was already far too late.
Number Nine: The Sinking of the RMS Lusitania In some sense, the sinking of the Lusitania
was not unexpected.
However, the events that led to this disaster are incredible enough that it lands number
nine on this list.
It was at the height of the First World War when the Lusitania was given more than enough
warning by the German army to stop anyone in their right mind from sailing straight
to their doom.
For several weeks, the German army published several advertisements in newspapers including
the New York Times warning the entire world of the ship’s numbered days.
In a most brash attempt, the Lusitania set sail from New York to England.
Incidentally, news of the ship’s departure sat side by side with the German ad in the
New York Times.
As an exercise of caution and to avoid innocent people getting caught in the crossfire, the
British government warned the captain of the Lusitania to avoid areas around the British
shores where German U-boats have been known to actively patrol; and should the ship pass
through those waters, the captain was strongly urged to zigzag his way through.
Unfortunately for the passengers of the Lusitania, the captain ignored these warnings and advice
from the British government.
The RMS Lusitania was torpedoed by a German U-boat, taking with it the lives of 1,195
people.
Number Eight: Asbestos Warnings It may seem trivial to talk about the dangers
of asbestos in this list and it would also seem that it may not have had much of an impact
around the world as the Great Depression, but this silent killer has slowly claimed
hundreds, if not thousands, of lives since it was conceived in the 19th century.
Known for its strength and resistance to fire, asbestos manufacturers have made a fortune
selling this product to the public with no regard to its dangerous implications to an
individual’s health; and for nearly a century, asbestos has cropped up almost everywhere
and has been used for almost anything.
However, people have been suspicious of the product since the early 1900s because of the
high-rate of illnesses that were reported around towns where asbestos was mined and
manufactured.
In 1938, due to public alarm, asbestos manufacturers commissioned a study that proved that death
by the product was airborne.
These same manufacturers at that time swept the undeniable link between asbestos and fatal
illnesses under the rug.
Saying that there was “no proof” that links asbestos to diseases such as lung cancer,
many workers in their factories either suffered horribly from the chemicals or were let go
of their companies leaving them impoverished.
Today, even as a great majority of the globe, has banned the use and manufacturing of asbestos,
many companies still refuse to compensate their dying employees as they continue to
keep a firm stand that there is nothing that connects asbestos to their employees’ illnesses.
Number Seven: The Rwandan Genocide 800,000 Tutsis and Moderate Hutus lost their
lives during a bloody ethnic cleansing and massacre that was dubbed as the Rwandan Genocide.
Beginning in April 6th, 1994, the genocide was led by Hutu tribesmen with the objective
to attack another local tribe called the Tutsis; however, not only did the Hutu plan to massacre
the Tutsis, they also planned a purge of their own tribesmen who were protecting the Tutsis.
It was a Belgian ambassador to Rwanda who uncovered the plot and revealed that the plan
had been started since at least two years before.
Professor Filip Reyntjens, another Belgian, appeared before the Belgian senate and revealed
that the Hutus were assembling and operating Death Squads to carry out the genocide and
implicated a Rwandan Army Colonel named Theoneste Bagasora as one of its leaders.
Later on, Bagasora was found to have indeed commanded the genocide.
In January 1994, four months before the catastrophic event, General Romeo Dellaire, commander of
the UN troops at Rwanda, sent what is now known as the “Genocide Fax” to the United
Nations, warning the organization that the Hutus, much like the revelations of the Belgian
ambassador and Professor Reyntjens, were planning a large scale attack on the Tutsis as well
as their own tribesmen.
In the fax, General Dellaire requested for more troops to be sent to the region in order
to attack a Hutu arms cache and prevent the massacre from happening.
The UN, sadly, ignored the plea and told the general to inform the Rwandan government instead
which was filled with the same people and officials planning the genocide.
The same month, General Dellaire was able to seize an arms cache that was placed in
the custody of the UN and Rwandan Troops – the same Rwandan troops who were training the
Death Squads and bands of rebels who directly took part in the genocide.
Number Six: Fukushima Meltdown The 2011 earthquake that shook Japan left
thousands homeless.
The 9.0 magnitude earthquake not only rocked the country but it also brought a giant tsunami
that devastated areas near its coastlines.
It may seem like it was already the worst thing that could ever happen to Japan.
What happened right after, however, was more sinister.
Following the earthquake and the tsunami was the worst nuclear accident in history since
Chernobyl that no one ever expected to happen except for one Koji Minoura.
Like a scene from a movie, Minoura was investigating a reference in an ancient poem about a tsunami
that happened just northeast of the country.
Digging through records and historical texts, Minoura discovered an account about an earthquake
and tsunami that killed thousands in 869 AD dubbes as the Jogan Event.
Investigating the region in the 1980s, Minoura found evidence that the area was “routinely”
destroyed by tsunami every 1000 years and it was already due for another one.
Over the next 20 years, Minoura wrote reports and produced countless studies warning about
the inevitable destruction of the Fukushima area.
Published in journals and magazines, his articles and research were completely ignored by his
peers and by the public.
To this day, the effects Fukushima’s nuclear power plant meltdown spreads and reports and
studies have already confirmed that the waters near and surrounding the area have dangerously
lethal amounts of radiation that is slowly spreading into the northern parts of the Pacific
Ocean.
Number Five: The Kuwait Invasion The early 1990s saw the rise of soaring oil
prices because of unstable political situations in the Middle East and in the morning of August
2nd 1990, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi troops marched into the borders of neighboring Kuwait;
an invasion that virtually took overnight with Kuwait not giving much of a fight after
its head of state fled into the desert.
It was reported that the plan by Iraq to invade Kuwait had been in the works five years beforehand
and was said to be just the first phase of Saddam Hussein’s plan – though futile
-to secure Saudi Arabian oil wells in the region.
Ample warning to the US government was given by both the CIA and US Military Intelligence.
Unfortunately, the government chose to look the other way and even granted Saddam a $1.2
billion loan days before the lightning invasion.
The US government’s refusal to take a stand against Saddam’s plans only gave the dictator
more fortitude to proceed with his plans, believing that he had the US on his side.
When the situation spun out of hand and gained the attention of the international community,
the US government stepped in but was initially unprepared.
The Iraqi forces were ejected out of Kuwait only after the US-led United Nations contingent
landed in Kuwait thus beginning the Gulf War.
Along with 248 UN troops and 25,000 Iragi soldiers, the largest fatality count fell
on Iraqi civilians which numbered 100,000 after the war.
In the following years after the conflict, a million more Iraqi civilians lost their
lives due to sanctions that were placed on Iraq.
Number Four: Wilson’s War US President Woodrow Wilson may very well
have been the catalyst that brought about the devastations of First and Second World
Wars, the Rise of Communism in Europe, as well as the Vietnam War.
The events of how the First World War began and how the US played a key part in it is
numerous and is a complicated web of scenarios like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book.
When trouble and conflict was already brewing in Europe due to discontent from different
countries and the incompetence of several generals and leaders, President Woodrow Wilson
claimed the role of impartial arbiter in order to bring the war, which has already erupted
by then, to its conclusion without having to directly send US troops into battle – but
when Germany and its allies seem to be getting the upper hand, Wilson and his members of
cabinet had to make a decision because they wanted victory to go to Great Britain and
France.
After his presidential re-election in 1916, he ordered congress to declare war against
Germany a year later despite the fact that Germany or its allied countries were threatening
or attacking the United States as well as a large population of the US wanted their
government to stay out of the war.
After Germany’s defeat, an armistice was created in 1918.
Unfortunately for Wilson and his rhetoric, his idealism was buried by the territorial
ambitions of Great Britain and France after decimating Germany and the former Austro-Hungarian
and Russian empires; a devastation that drove many European countries into revolution and
civil war.
Had Wilson not urged the US congress to declare war against Germany in 1917 and listened to
reason, the US may not have assumed the mantle of being the Global Police throughout the
remainder of the 20th Century and still continues on to this day.
His decision therefore created a domino effect that would cost the lives of millions of people
in the Second World War, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War; and not to mention 75-years
of Soviet Communist rule over Russia and large parts of Eastern and Central Europe.
Number Three: The Rise of Adolf Hitler After Germany’s defeat in the First World
War, France decided to place a fine on Germany in 1919 that was unimaginably large that,
had not the Second World War broken out, the country would be paying it until 2010.
John Maynard Keynes, a British economist, strongly believed that it was the most effective
way to get disastrous results.
By absolutely crippling the German economy with heavy sanctions, the Allied Nations would
no doubt trigger economic collapse on a country that was still reeling from a war.
Keynes therefore lobbied governments and presented them with articles to convince them to rethink
their move saying, in almost prophetic words, that if the Allies’ objective is to drive
Central Europe into debilitating debt and poverty, then vengeance from the subjugated
nations will be reaped through revolutions and conflict.
Believing that Keynes was out of his mind, his pleas and warnings were left in the dust.
True to his prediction, the German economy practically evaporated and civil unrest spread
like wildfire, opening the doors to extremism – and in a small beer hall, a rejected art
student by the name of Adolf Hitler, decided to try his hand in politics; a decision that
cost the lives of innocent millions.
Number Two: World War II The Treaty of Versailles ended the First World
War in 1919.
Included in the Treaty was a hefty sum of money that the Allied nations imposed on Germany
as restitution and, as an ulterior move in the part of the Allies, was a means to make
sure that Germany would not have money to declare a war of retribution.
Soon enough, Germany’s economy collapsed and German society was destroyed by inflation
and a wave of unemployment.
A handful of people could see how ineffective the conditions of the Treaty were.
British economist, John Maynard Keynes, believed the Treaty held no water and was practically
dead even before it was signed.
Another was a French army commander, Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch.
“This is not peace,” Foch said.
“It is an armistice for 20 years.”
Foch’s warning fell on deaf ears and 20 years later, Germany lit the fires that would
start the Second World War.
Now formidable, the German army – as part of their campaign – invaded Paris and staged
attacks in England that would leave the country and most of Europe in ruins until 1945.
Number One: 9/11 In 2012, years after the tragic events of
September 11th, the New York Times published the results of an investigation showing that
the Bush administration, in 2001, had knowledge of an impending terror attack on American
soil.
Far from being caught by surprise, the report states that the US government had known of
the attack but chose to be tied up with bureaucracy instead of preventing it from happening.
As early as June 2001, there was already intelligence that Al-Qaeda strikes on the US were imminent.
The intelligence was considered a certainty and known by the CIA.
However, politicians in the Pentagon refused to acknowledge the reports and dismissed it
as a fabrication by Saddam Hussein, whom the US government were watching closely.
According to the New York Times’ report, the warnings by the CIA were allegedly downplayed
and the agency was practically reduced to begging the President to take notice and take
action.
It was later on raised to extreme levels of urgency on June 29th, July 9th, July 24th,
and August 6th.
With the government’s almost obsessive watch over Iraq and Saddam Hussein and its dismissal
of the constant warnings, it therefore resulted in the worst and most deadly terrorist atrocity
in the 21st Century committed on American soil only because it decided not to take its
intelligence service seriously.