9.
SABINA SELIMOVIC AND SAMRA KESINOVIC
In what could best be described as a parent’s worst nightmare, two teenage girls fled their
family homes in Vienna, Austria in 2014 to join the Islamic State terrorist group in
Syria.
At ages 15 and 16 at the time, Sabina Selimovic and Samra Kesinovic left a note to their parents
stating “Don’t look for us.
We will serve Allah and we will die for him.”
The pair went on to appear in ISIS propaganda, which showed them mingling with jihadis and
carrying Kalashnikovs.
Just months later, news broke that one of the girls, believed to be Sabina, died while
fighting the fight.
The other girl, Samra, vanished.
Word of her whereabouts went silent for several months until reports surfaced claiming that
an ISIS member caught her trying to flee and beat her to death with a hammer.
A Tunisian woman who claimed she was kept at the same house as Samra came forward in
light of the tragedy.
She said that the young woman was used as a sex slave, and that she was a “gift”
for new fighters.
Samra reportedly tried to escape numerous times before she was killed.
8.
REJECTING NEW TECHNOLOGY
Back in 1975, a young engineer named Steve Sasson invented a camera that recorded black-and-white
photos to cassette tapes.
It was the world’s first digital camera.
Each photo took 23 seconds to produce, and could only be viewed on a television screen.
Sasson showed his invention to some executives at Eastman Kodak.
But the high-profile execs scoffed at the device.
They couldn’t imagine a world where people would want to view pictures on a screen.
Speaking with the New York Times, Sasson explained that print photography had been the company’s
bread and butter for over a century.
He said that prints were inexpensive and nobody complained about them.
In other words, why fix something that isn’t broken?
And although the bigwigs at Eastman Kodak shot down Sasson’s idea, they also told
him not to tell anyone about it.
The company resisted digital photography for 18 years, and its reluctance to change eventually
caught up with it.
In 2012, Eastman Kodak filed for bankruptcy.
7.
INFAMOUS INFIDELITY
Tiger Woods is undoubtedly one of the greatest golfers of all time.
He hit the peak of his career around 2009, and it seemed like he had it all: on top of
being the number one name in golf, he had a beautiful wife, two children, a mansion
in Florida, and more money than most of us could ever dream of.
All that changed one day in November 2009, when news broke that Woods was having an affair
with a New York City nightclub hostess named Rachel Uchitel.
Within days, another woman, Jaimee Grubbs, came forward and admitted that she was also
seeing Woods behind his wife, Elin Nordegren’s back.
Fourteen more women came forward over the next few weeks, and that was just the beginning.
It’s believed that Woods had as many as 120 mistresses.
His marriage ended, and he lost lucrative promotional partnerships with major brands
like Nike, Gatorade, and Gillette.
Woods owned his behavior -- after all, it was well past the point of him being able
to deny it -- and checked into rehab for sex addiction.
In 2017, just when it seemed like he had managed to put his checkered past behind him, Woods
was arrested for driving under the influence.
He returned to rehab, this time for his addiction to prescription painkillers.
But Tiger Woods made an impressive comeback, and he managed not to destroy his career.
In fact, it recently seemed as though he was doing just as good as, if not better than
how he was doing before the cheating scandal made headlines around the world.
An insider source told the press in early 2020 that Woods was a changed man -- that
he was focused on his kids and his career, and that he and his ex-wife were getting along
and co-parenting peacefully.
He even began dating again -- without cheating, according to news reports.
Not long after that, however, Woods crashed his car while going 86 miles per hour(138kph)
in a 45 mile per hour(72kph) zone.
He was severely injured and is still healing, and it’s unknown whether he will return
to professional golf.
Luckily, his girlfriend, Erica Herman, is standing by him through his recovery.
6.
BIG BUSINESS BETRAYAL
In 1989, Nintendo and Sony collaborated in secret to create a CD-based video game console.
They named the device the Nintendo Playstation, and they announced their plans for the game
system to the world in 1991.
But executives at Nintendo grew increasingly paranoid that Sony would use the deal as an
opportunity to establish itself in the video game market.
Days after news broke of the up-and-coming console, Nintendo backed out of the agreement
and went to work with Sony’s rival, the Dutch company Philips.
As it turned out, Sony engineer and project leader Ken Kutaragi had indeed been acting
on his vision of getting Sony into the gaming business.
After being elbowed out by Nintendo, the company’s president greenlighted the creation of Sony
Computer Entertainment, a new division that would focus solely on video games.
It took considerable time and effort, but Sony eventually convinced game developers
that 3D graphics were the next big thing.
Slowly but surely, big-name companies got behind this ambitious vision, including Japanese
arcade firm Namco, which abandoned Nintendo in favor of Sony.
The Sony PlayStation launched in 1994.
During its first year, it was outcompeted by Nintendo’s Sega.
But, as any modern gaming enthusiast knows, the PlayStation became wildly successful.
In fact, it’s the top-selling console of all time.
What system do you play?
Let us know in the comments below and if you’re liking this video, be sure to hit the thumbs
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:)
5.
A DEADLY SHORTCUT
In May 1846, a group of 87 settlers left Missouri for California in covered wagons.
They set out a month later than they should have, hoping to reach their destination within
four months.
And they only took enough food to last them precisely that long.
By the time the group reached Fort Laramie, Wyoming, they were already a week behind schedule.
Hoping to make up for lost time, they traveled the newly established Hastings Cutoff route.
It would trim 300 miles(483 km) off their journey, and seemed like a no-brainer.
But the route’s promoter, Lansford Hastings, had never actually traveled the Hastings Cutoff.
Several people warned the settlers that it was dangerous and not to take it, but they
took their chances anyway.
Hastings had agreed to guide the party through the trail, but he failed to keep his word
and went ahead with another group.
The settlers found themselves hacking through dense foliage in the mountains to make room
for their wagons to pass.
Then, they reached the Great Salt Lake Desert, where the sand had turned to mud.
They had to ditch most of their belongings just to lighten their wagon loads, but their
oxen were still too weak to pull.
Many of the animals died or ran away.
After traversing the Hastings Cutoff, the group resumed traveling along the main trail.
By then, they were a month behind and were quickly running out of food.
A catastrophic blizzard trapped them in the Sierra Nevada mountains for the entire winter.
At first, the settlers ate their cattle.
Then, they ate leather, tree bark, and even their own hide shelters.
In a final act of desperation, they resorted to cannibalism, eating the remains of fallen
party members who had succumbed to their dire circumstances.
You may have heard of the group, infamously known as the Donner Party, and now you know
that their ill-fated mission resulted from a string of bad decisions.
4.
WHY BLOCKBUSTER WENT BUST
If you’re old enough to remember the days of going to the store to rent DVD’s (or
maybe even VHS tapes), surely you’ve been to a Blockbuster.
At one point, the business was a household name.
Today, there’s only one Blockbuster left.
The independently operated store is located in Bend, Oregon, and it’s doing its best
to stay in business.
So, what happened?
Netflix began as a DVD rental-by-mail service in 1997.
A decade later, it introduced paid streaming services.
Naturally, people stopped going to stores like Blockbuster and opted for the convenience
of having movies delivered to their home or watching them online.
Unable to keep up with the competition, Blockbuster declared bankruptcy in 2010.
But it didn’t have to be this way.
In 2000, Blockbuster CEO John Antioco sat down with Netflix co-founders Reed Hastings
and Marc Randolph, who offered to sell Netflix to Antioco for $50 million.
At the time, Netflix was suffering from the effects of the dot-com crash, and it wasn’t
making as much money as hoped.
Randolph later recalled in his book, That Will Never Work, that Antioco struggled not
to laugh at the offer.
The Blockbuster bigwig rejected the opportunity and failed to make a counter-offer, making
it pretty clear that he flat-out wasn’t interested in acquiring Netflix.
The last corporate Blockbuster closed in 2014.
Meanwhile, Netflix skyrocketed in value, and is alive and well today with an estimated
worth of nearly $33 billion.
3.
A COSTLY MISTAKE
Many people dream of winning the lottery, knowing it’ll probably never happen.
But it would be infinitely worse to know that you had a winning ticket and lost it or accidentally
threw it away.
It reportedly happened to a British woman back in 2010.
She was in her 70s at the time and believed she had chosen the winning numbers to the
EuroMillions, according to a notebook she kept of her entries.
But her husband allegedly threw the ticket out by mistake, causing a £113 million fortune
to pass on by.
The anonymous would-be winner told the press that she was initially angry at her forgetful
spouse of over 50 years, but that she found it in her heart to forgive him.
This is just one example of someone coming close to winning big bucks, only to be denied
their pot of gold due to unforeseen circumstances.
Earlier this year, a young British couple thought they had instantly become rich when
the EuroMillions picked their numbers.
But they soon realized that their payment for the ticket hadn’t gone through because
their bank account didn’t have enough money in it.
Another couple chose winning EuroMillions numbers back in 2001, but were unable to cash
in on the £3million prize.
The numbers had been announced six months earlier when the pair saw an appeal for the
winner to come forward.
They had lost the ticket, so they had the lottery operator check their computer records
to confirm their numbers.
Little did the couple realize, they only had 30 days from the appeal to claim their winnings,
and by then, 45 days had gone by.
They missed their payoff by just 15 days.
The stress of the situation led to a divorce, and the husband spent years fighting in court
for access to the money, but he ultimately lost the case.
2.
A SWEET DEAL
In 1981, Stephen Spielberg began working on the movie E.T.
By then, he had already made several successful films, including Jaws and Raiders of the Lost
Ark.
Those who have seen E.T. probably recall a scene where nine-year-old Elliott uses candy
to lure an alien out of the forest.
The filmmaking company, Amblin Productions, had approached Mars Inc., the maker of M&M’s,
about the possibility of featuring their candy in the scene.
Mars chief executives, John & Forrest Mars, rejected the offer for reasons that remain
unclear to this day.
There are a variety of rumors claiming that the company didn’t want to be associated
with a movie about an alien, they thought the storyline was too “otherworldly,”
and/or didn’t think people would like the movie.
But the plain and simple truth is that nobody knows for sure why Mars turned down the opportunity
to feature its product in what became a massive blockbuster success.
The filmmakers then went to Hershey, which eagerly accepted the offer to use its Reese’s
Pieces in the scene.
At the time, the candy had only been on the market for two years.
Sales tripled within two weeks of E.T.’s release.
Jack Dowd, Hershey's Vice President for New Business Development, certainly didn’t regret
the decision.
For $1 million, the company received an estimated $15-20 million worth of promotion through
the film.
Meanwhile, Mars reportedly denied ever having received an offer.
1.
FIESTA TURNED FOREST FIRE
Imagine going down in history as one of the people responsible for a devastating forest
fire.
It’s the reality that Refugio Manuel Jimenez Jr and Angela Renee Jimenez face after a smoke
bomb at their unborn baby’s gender reveal party sparked a massive blaze in California
last year.
The expectant parents orchestrated the poorly timed stunt at the height of wildfire season.
The smoke bomb malfunctioned, setting flames to the surrounding forest.
By the time the fire started, it was spreading too quickly to put out.
It burned for over two months and devastated at least 22,000 acres (8,903 hectares) of
land in southern California.
At least four homes were destroyed, several other structures were ruined or damaged, numerous
firefighters were seriously injured, and one person died.
Police charged the couple with manslaughter and several other charges relating to their
reckless behavior.
If they are found guilty, the pair could spend up to 20 years each in prison.
This is just one example of several gender reveal parties gone wrong that have graced
news headlines in recent years.
And while it’s understandable to want to creatively announce your baby’s gender to
family and friends, these stories serve as sobering reminders that it’s best to deliver
the news in a safe way.
Thanks for watching!
Which one of these mistakes would you feel the worst about if you had made it?
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See you next time!
Bye! :)