13 Of The Biggest Backfiring Of Plans In World History

We've all made a plan that backfired on us. Maybe you were gonna throw a water balloon at a friend but it ended up bursting on yourself instead. Kinda sucks but whatever. Well, take that plan backfiring and multiply it by 1000 cuz these ones are some of the worst ones in history.

1. TheSuperCactus -- The plague doesn't care who your allegiance is with.  

Scottish border reivers invaded England in 1349, during the height of the Black Death. They believed it to be Gods punishment upon the English, and saw an opportunity to strike while the English population dwindled. All that happened was the plague decimated their ranks, and as the English pursued them northwards, they spread plague throughout Scotland.

2. WokeUp2 -- Leave the poor cats alone.

During Medieval times the general population came to fear cats as consorts of Satan. As innocent cats were killed by the thousands the rat population soared as did deaths from the plague.

3. blah_blah_blahblah -- Well fuck. 

The Chinese four pests campaign. 

In short, people thought sparrows eat crops, people kill all the sparrows, sparrows actually ate insects that ate the crops, insects eat all the crops, 25-40 million people starve to death

4. hennell -- There's always someone to fuck up a good plan. 

Back when the British had 'claimed' India the new rulers got a bit worried about the number of snakes. The government soon set up a plan - a small reward handed to anyone bringing in a dead snake.

It worked briefly as locals found and caught nearby snakes. Of course soon some enterprising souls realised catching snakes was a lot of work, so instead started breading them for easy money.

The government eventually discovered the plan and canceled the rewards; the breeders now had no use for their snakes so released them back into the wild. The end result was there were more snakes then at the start...

5. killagoose -- Don't fuck with Gengis Khan is the lesson learned here. 

Gengis Khan sent a caravan to Khwarezmian Empire in an effort to initiate trade. A governor named Inalchuq in the city of Otrar was wary of this caravan and had all 450 of them killed. 

Gengis Khan, enraged, sent two Mongol and one Muslim diplomat to demand that Inalchuq be punished. The result was the Muslim diplomat being beheaded and the beards were shaved off of the Mongol diplomats.

Gengis Khan responded by invading them. When his conquest reached Otrar, he slaughtered all defending troops and executed Inalchuq by pouring molten silver into his eyes and ears. 

By the year 1231, the Khwarezmian Empire no longer existed.

6. MentalFracture -- Didn't work well. 

That time the byzantine emperor asked the Pope for help getting back some of his land.

Deus Vult!

7. Hopefully_Likeable -- Hindenburg! 

Paul von Hindenburg- "Geez, this Hitler guy is really popular and scary. I don't want him in power."

Franz von Papen- " How about we make him Chancellor, but he won't really have power because I'm his Vice-Chancellor. Then we wait until the next election, where he hopefully loses popularity. The only thing that would ruin this plan is if you die before he loses popularity, because then he will take over."

Hindenburg- "Genius!"

Hindenburg died 5 weeks later.

Edit- Whoops my timing was wrong. it was actually about a year and a half. There were other events that helped hitler, such as the burning of the Reichstag and the great depression, but this is one of the biggest reasons

8. IJacoby -- Always get a % when given the opportunity.

When the ABA and the NBA merged in 1977 the St.Louis Spirits were one of the teams that were bought out by the NBA for the sum of a measly 2.2 million dollars. The owners of the Spirits ALSO negotiated into the sale that they receive a couple percentage points of the NBA's TV revenue as part of the deal. In perpetuity. The NBA didn't think anything of it as hardly any of their money came from TV revenue so it was more than worth it just to close the deal on the buyout and move forward with the leagues merger. Fast forward to 2014 and the NBA paid the two owners a lump sum payment of 500 million dollars just to get out from under the contract. In total the NBA lost about 800 million dollars on the deal.

9. guto8797 -- Guys, how about not killing merchants and taking stuff in the first place? 

A governor in the khwarezmiad empire who decided to line his pockets by accusing some merchants of being spies, killing them and taking their stuff.

Those were Genghis Khan's merchants. And he was not happy.

10. JonathanTL96 -- Steel > wood 

Spanish people trying to attack USA (or what it was back then) in 1898. Basically, we went with wooden ships to attack US destructors made of steel. Needless to say the defeat was incredible

11. TomIce1234 -- Damn. 

The Schlieffen Plan was meant to allow the Germans to take down their enemies at the time (France, Russia) without engaging in a war on 2 fronts by swiftly capturing France through Belgium. What they hadnt counted on was that Britain had a treaty with Belgium that meant Britain would come to Belgium's aid in the event of an invasion, so Britain declared war on Germany and so what was supposed to be a swift victory was instead 4 years of gruelling trench warfare which killed 1.8 million German soldiers in what is now known as World War 1.

12. Laughedindeathsface -- Ahhh yes, the walls one weakness. 

Maginot Line

French spent years building and designing a fortified wall of badassery to stop a german invasion. The germans walked around it.

If i remember correctly the german then took it over. Dont think it was ever defended though.

13. cozymel77 -- On a lighter note:

Blockbuster not buying Netflix.

from CollegeHumor: Pictures https://ift.tt/2LiI28X