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Create A Top 10 Events That Changed The World With This Poll

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  • #32
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,657 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    Capture of the Moon. Stabilised the climate.
    But with massive tides back when there were 6 hours in the day. Which meant mixing up of the primordial soup and concentrating it in tidal pools. And heat transfer around the planet.


    The Great Oxygenation Event which was going to happen anyway once cyanobacteria found a way to use water as an electron donor and excrete oxygen as toxic by product that was neutralised by the iron salts in the brown oceans.


    The great extinctions that wiped out the competition.
    We got lucky. Especially during the Permian.
    An Octopus is smart. What else could have been ?

    Christmas Island has crabs instead of mice. New Zealand has the Giant Weta. All very, very different. All make it difficult for newcomers. There is no guarantee that we'd have made it.


  • #33
    s1ippy
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,980 ✭✭✭s1ippy


    Assassination Of John F Kennedy (1963)
    Hiroshima and any other nuclear explosions changed the structure of every metal on the surface of earth.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/10/search-dark-matter-depends-ancient-shipwrecks/600718/

    Except for sunken lead on shipwrecks.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidbressan/2019/08/06/the-atomic-bomb-dropped-over-hiroshima-created-a-new-kind-of-minerals/

    Nuclear testing is frowned upon but nuclear energy is used throughout the world in all sorts of irresponsible ways. Who knows what devastation other countries are wreaking.

    https://www.livescience.com/spike-in-radioactivity-detected-above-europe.html

    That was detected in June and afaik we're none the wiser in the West as to what [see: who] the hell caused it.

    We're only scratching the surface of understanding what the real ramifications of unleashing this toxic havok on the entire planet is.
    https://www.businessinsider.com/nuclear-explosion-fallout-cancer-health-effects-2017-8

    Birth defects, cancer, neurological damage (possibly autism in its current guise) and unparalleled destruction of the environment and wildlife are the tip of the iceberg. Current human use of radiation ensures that in the event of a much-needed mass extinction event in our population (only a matter of time, given our behaviour and treatment of our environment), nuclear fallout is guaranteed to wipe out any remaining life on the planet and make it completely uninhabitable.

    Fuck nuclear radiation.


  • #34
    s1ippy
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,980 ✭✭✭s1ippy


    Assassination Of John F Kennedy (1963)
    I like how Perl Harbour is spelled

    I rescind my previous answer and change it to the brewing of a load of beer here in this house which culminated in the state of tonight.

    Bill Bryson suggests that beer is either the cause or consequence of civilisation. People drank beer as a way of coming together. Or because they had to gather together.


  • #35
    touts
    Registered Users Posts: 6,430 ✭✭✭touts


    Treaty Of Versailles (1919)
    That's a list of things that changed America. In fact some of the events e.g. JFK could be argued not to have even done that. And nothing before 1900. Probably because America was a third world nation prior to that.

    I would say Invention of the Internet. But that was by a Brit working for an organization in Switzerland so apparently that doesn't count.


  • #36
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,657 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    jk23 wrote: »
    I voted for the 9/11 attacks, it seemed that the atmosphere around the world changed after that, it was kind of like a downward spiral maybe not financially for a while. But definitely culturally and socially
    Not really. It was just a handy way to define a new scare when they couldn't keep trotting out "I'd rather be dead than red"

    At most it could be considered a wake up call to the US public that they aren't as loved by the rest of the world as they think they are.

    The big change was the wars and deaths in countries where most of those terrorists didn't come from.

    Bin Laden's family was allowed fly out of the USA without interrogation during the period when the commercial airliners were grounded and most people were stranded. So no, this was never about leaving no stone unturned in the search for truth and justice.



    If you had to go across the old border into Northern Ireland you'll know the difference between security and security theatre. The menace was palpable.


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  • #37
    Jimbob1977
    Registered Users Posts: 2,239 ✭✭✭Jimbob1977


    If World War I had never occurred, European powers could have continued to dominate and counterbalanced America's rise.

    I'm sure the USA would have reached superpower status eventually. They have an abundance of resources and an ambitious streak.

    Britain, Germany or France might have sent the first person into space or reached the moon. Scientifically and technologically, Europe was a hothouse of talent.

    Instead, Europe lay in ruins twice within 30 years. Its economy broken and its people demoralised.

    The natural beneficiary was the United States. Factories at full production. The Continental United States undamaged by any war. Using captured German scientists to reach the moon.

    Sarajevo hastened Europe's downfall and stagnation.

    There's plenty of other massive "what ifs".... the Ottomans winning the Battle of Vienna and conquering Europe, the Persians defeating the Greeks, Operation Barbarossa being a success and Nazi Germany ruling the globe.


  • #38
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,657 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    What if Italy hadn't taken Libya from the Turks in 1911 ?

    And then Turkey joined up on the allied side against the Austrians ?

    The Turks could have finished WWI with most of the worlds oil.


    Or blame Churchill for blocking the sale of battleships.
    Responsible for Gallipoli and the causes of Gallipoli.

    https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour-extras/what-about-the-dardanellesq/
    The installation of three torpedo tubes at Kilid Bahr was not the result of the bombardment of 3 November, but of a suggestion that Churchill’s own representative with the prewar Turkish navy, Admiral Limpus, had made while he was responsible for advising on the naval defences of the Dardanelles.


  • #39
    quickbeam
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 16,287 Mod ✭✭✭✭quickbeam


    Wibbs wrote: »
    The control of fire. 1000000 years BC.

    I was gonna say that the world hadn't fundamentallly changed since the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, but, in fairness, being able to control fire did result in a huge leap forward for homo sapiens that ended up with huge impacts on the world.

    While many of the things the OP lists are dramatic events, they probably have little overall effect on the world in the scheme of things.


  • #40
    quickbeam
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 16,287 Mod ✭✭✭✭quickbeam


    OTOH, if you believe in the butterfly effect, then, maybe he very act me typing the above post will change the world for millenia to come.


  • #41
    banie01
    Registered Users Posts: 16,434 ✭✭✭✭banie01


    No Congress of Vienna?
    No summer of 1848?
    No Prussian hegemony of Germany?
    No Agricultural revolution?
    No peace of Westphalia?
    No 95 theses (and the rise of Protestantism and its effects, still felt)
    No Charles Martell (or any of the other 15 decisive battles from Marathon to Waterloo)
    The German invasion of Russia played far more a role in modern history than the invasion of Poland.
    No Russo-Japan war?
    No Siege of Vienna?

    The OPs list is very US centric and I'm sure Asian and African contributers would point to the slave trade, the race for Africa the Spice trade, the opium wars, the Sino-Japan wars and many others as being far more important than many of the OPs list and to be frank I'd tend to agree.


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  • #42
    TheBlackPill
    Closed Accounts Posts: 321 ✭✭TheBlackPill


    The pole is too weighted to recent history.
    Instead of COVID19 (the longterm effects are not known yet), i suggest placing the Plague of Justinian in its place.
    Up to 40 % of the ROman and Persian's empires died. It stopped Romes attempt to reconstitute its Western empire in its tracks, and indirectly led to the rise of Islam. I contend if these empires had retained their strength the initial islamic raid into Palestine would have been beaten back, or east Africa would have been raided instead as was weaker(an Arab confederation did just this before the plague hit)


  • #43
    sligojoek
    Registered Users Posts: 25,420 ✭✭✭✭sligojoek


    The day the Ice Age ended.


  • #44
    completedit
    Registered Users Posts: 2,639 ✭✭✭completedit


    Treaty Of Versailles (1919)
    Everything is interconnected and interlinked. I don't think you can distinguish one event as being more important. Everything happened as it had to for us to be at this time.


  • #45
    Ipso
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,995 ✭✭✭Ipso


    completedit wrote: »
    Everything is interconnected and interlinked. I don't think you can distinguish one event as being more important. Everything happened as it had to for us to be at this time.

    History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme a bit.


  • #46
    Edgware
    Registered Users Posts: 5,875 ✭✭✭Edgware


    Danny Healy Rae reckons that the closure of a factory in Tralee with the loss of 200 jobs was worse than Pearl Harbour ( 2400 deaths and several ships sunk) so can you take Pearl Harbour from the list


  • #47
    RobertKK
    Registered Users Posts: 33,722 ✭✭✭✭RobertKK


    Covid-19 Pandemic (2020)
    The treaty of Versailles created the conditions for WW2.
    Sometimes punishment can lead to worse consequences.

    The Fall of the Berlin Wall, it is still for me the greatest moment to witness in my life. The sheer joy of freedom we saw in the faces of people as communism collapsed in Europe. One should never forget those scenes. It is a reminder of what we need to protect.

    9/11 was a world changer, wars that are still ongoing, uprisings and migrant crisis.
    The migrant crisis could be argued as a reason why things like Brexit won.
    We are still living in the dust of 9/11.


  • #48
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,657 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    RobertKK wrote: »
    The treaty of Versailles created the conditions for WW2.
    Sometimes punishment can lead to worse consequences.
    see the quote by Foch


    9/11 was a world changer, wars that are still ongoing, uprisings and migrant crisis.
    The migrant crisis could be argued as a reason why things like Brexit won.
    We are still living in the dust of 9/11.
    9/11 was a handy crisis.

    Wait long enough and there'd be another one they could have used. Bombing of a plane or base or embassy.

    Can't keep promising to fix the potholes if there aren't any ;)


  • #49
    cj maxx
    Registered Users Posts: 13,329 ✭✭✭✭cj maxx


    Perl Harbour (1941)
    quickbeam wrote: »
    OTOH, if you believe in the butterfly effect, then, maybe he very act me typing the above post will change the world for millenia to come.

    It's already made me type this post.
    Which means I've decided not to go out tonight , which has changed some woman's life for the better.
    Thanks:(


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