It’s become a bit of a meme to remark upon the bonkers nature of the timeline that we find ourselves living in these days. And while there are certainly some aspects of it that are unprecedented—the yawning chasm of capitalist climate apocalypse being one very notable example—it’s always interesting to remember that history has always been, and I think this is the correct academic terminology, fuc*ing ridiculous. We’re all just bungling our way through history, after all, and when cause and effect are mapped on the infinitely complex tapestry of human existence, that bungling can appear particularly stark. Twitter had this topic on its mind the other day when it explored the dumbest ways that huge turning points in history began. Here, let’s take a trip down bonkers history lane together:

"You see class, Trump denied being intimate with the adult entertainer he called Horse Face, but she described his genitalia in great detail, saying it was like a mushroom character from a popular video game. He gave her money to keep quiet. And then the Second Civil War began."

— Peter Manseau (@plmanseau) March 18, 2023

Top 5 for sure: Anthony Weiner sexting leading to Comey letter about reopening Hillary email investigation leading to Trump election.

— Alec MacGillis (@AlecMacGillis) March 21, 2023

Saul of Tarsus fell off his horse.

— Liz (@ClinicalLiz) March 21, 2023

Credit to/more details from a reddit thread https://t.co/QgcrWiwgn3

— Roey Hadar (@roeyhadar) March 20, 2023

That reminds me of a second WWII translation snafu: in 1945, the response of Japan's FM to the Potsdam Declaration was translated as "ignore" rather than "no comment", which led to…you know.

— Allan (@AllanRicharz) March 22, 2023

Answer to: “What is the dumbest way a huge turning point in history began?” https://t.co/BViDkLUKmx

— Ellen Kushner (@EllenKushner) March 21, 2023

Seth Rogen releases a movie about a talking hot dog and then three years later, the British Columbia Employment Standards Branch rules that animation workers are not classified as tech workers and therefore entitled to overtime pay. https://t.co/TELr5zAIdV

— Amanda Wong (@amandawtwong) March 21, 2023

Lucille Ball funds a wacky “wagon train to the stars” sci fi western that ends up having multiple spin offs and inspiring scientists all over the world to invent the fictional technology on the show https://t.co/XenHl3hCXt

— Beth (@Gilariwrites) March 21, 2023

Queen Victoria choosing to wear a white wedding dress (when most wedding gowns at the time were colorful) leading to women's "purity" being called into question for the next 200 years simply because of a random choice made on a Tuesday.

— bornonmonday (@bornonmonday) March 21, 2023

Nixon was advised to record his Oval Office meetings by outgoing president LBJ, so that people couldn’t misrepresent what was said in meetings, and he could more easily write a memoir later.

— RegularSizedRuthie (@Never_Ruthless) March 22, 2023

Henry VIII blundering into a Protestant revolution b/c he wanted a male heir and the 20-year-old who caught his fancy had to be his lawful wife for that to work but the Pope wouldn't let him divorce/annul Wife #1?

— Betsy Cazden (@Betsy_Cazden) March 18, 2023

The Berlin Wall falling by accident. https://t.co/8ATWFoL8cL

— lauren (@haikustorm) March 18, 2023

J Lo wore a green dress that showed cleavage, Google search was inundated, image search was invented and the web quickly pivoted to visually dominated layouts over text based websites to optimize for SEO

— Urvi 🏳️‍🌈😷📷🚴🏻‍♀️ (@theurv) March 22, 2023

🤷🏽‍♀️https://t.co/H5xYiPbUKP

— Ria Chopra 🐍 (@riachops) March 21, 2023

Indo-Chinese militant Nguyá»…n Sinh Cung was unable to secure a meeting with Woodrow Wilson in Versailles, to advocate for Indo-Chinese independence.
He returned to his home country, now called Vietnam, and changed his name to Ho Chi Minh.

— Tom Standfield 💯🤖💎🌈🚀☭☀️ (@tom_standfield) March 20, 2023

1242. The Mongol army has carved its way as far west as Vienna, and Ögedei Khan has the aim and the means to reach the Atlantic. Then he has a good day hunting, goes on an almighty bender, dies, and everyone has to go home to sort out the succession.

— Patrick Smith (@drpaddysmith) March 20, 2023

Not exactly a turning point in history, but Adidas/puma split is a fantastic petty escalation story. Basically one brother thinks the other said his wife talks too much, within a couple of years the company has split and they're trying to get each other arrested/ assassinated.

— AltWealthJon (@AltCreditJon) March 21, 2023

The storming of the Bastille started by a misunderstanding of what was agreed to, including in some versions Soldiers trying to wave away the mob being seen as waving To and encouraging them.
Once blood was split the mob wasn’t willing to surrender and…https://t.co/NGXCFDVoCr

— jon_a_ross (@jon_a_ross) March 21, 2023

Somebody abandons a bowl of porridge for a couple of days thousands of years ago. It gets colonized by yeasts who synthesize nutrients in it and produce carbon dioxide. Bread is discovered and nothing is ever the same again.

— Gregg McLennan (@Strayarc) March 22, 2023

After years of being at war, in the saddle, Caesar got varicose veins, and chose to wear high boots, incidentally coloured royal red, to ease the impact.

Added to him wearing his laurel leaf circlet to hold his thinning hair together, he looked increasingly kingly.

— Paul Lynch (@PaulMJLynch) March 19, 2023

Rather than dying in the middle of the Pacific from dyhydration, at a calculated distance roughly 1/3 the actual distance to his desired destination, Christopher Columbus stumbled across a pair of continents spanning roughly the polar length of Earth that he had no idea existed.

— RP Photo Video (@ryanpphotovideo) March 19, 2023

The Spanish had to work really hard, on several occasions, to convince super-loyal William the Silent to rebel against them and start the Eighty Years War

— Colin Brown (@That_ColinBrown) March 18, 2023

I’m pretty sure a lot of the American revolution was due to people getting drunk.

— RSchwarz (@Mrs_Schwarzski) March 21, 2023

A scientist does research on wolves in a zoo. He tells the world that wolves follow the alpha male. The research = skewed, as the wolves don't behave as they do in nature. While the research is myth busted, millions of men call themselves Alpha now, too Beta to admit the mistake!

— Crazy Mask Lady (COVID19=BiohazardLevel3) (@JustineGSwaab) March 22, 2023

King Louis XVI and family successfully escape Paris, heading for the Austrian countryside when they get briefly waylaid in Varennes, where some guy is like "hey, isn't that the guy whose face is on all the money?"

— spinebuster mage (@sleepgolem) March 21, 2023

The marketing guy who came up with ‘bottled water is better than tap water’. 30 years later there’s microplastics in our bloodstream.

— Daniel Vaughan (@pingerficker) March 21, 2023

How the Second Sino-Japanese War was triggered by a Japanese private in Japanese-occupied China getting lost in the dark on the way to the toilet.https://t.co/dEf0LLzsHk

— Benson C. (@Projekt_A119) March 20, 2023

When Prince Philippe of France died when his horse tripped over a pig kicking of a series of events including the creation of the Angevin Empire, and the Hundred years war.

— mediocrecookie (@mediocrecookie) March 22, 2023

The Austro-hungaric Empire raised the price of tobacco in Italy which prompted a smoking strike, to which Austrian soldiers in Milan responded by openly enjoying their cigarettes, thus starting 5 days of barricades that ultimately lead to the Unification of Italy.

— Quarantadue (@Quarantadue) March 21, 2023

(Ryan was already losing to Obama in the polls 52% to 30% a month before their divorce records were revealed, but by the time he withdrew and the Republicans put in a replacement, Obama won the seat 70% to 27%)

— Amanda Wong (@amandawtwong) March 21, 2023