Line #119 TemptingFate/RealLife


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/stab_me.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:Well, gee, now that you've suggested it...]]
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4	A list of times when people ended up TemptingFate in real life, sorted by the context in which the examples occurred.
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6	----
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8	[[foldercontrol]]
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10	[[folder:News]]
11	* The page image is from a news report about a fight between two roommates in Spokane, Washington in 2011. The stabbee survived.
12	* Many initial reports of the Titanic disaster claimed there had been no loss of life and the ship was being towed to Halifax.
13	* The BBC tempted fate during the Moon landing to a horrifying degree that -- thankfully -- never went through. While the astronauts were on the moon, the BBC decided to play [[Music/SpaceOddity "Space Oddity"]] by Music/DavidBowie. It was a space-y song, which is understandable. However, the last few lines of the song have Major Tom ask Ground Control to tell his wife he loves her, before his circuit dies. This implies he never makes it back to Earth, which was pretty creepy when you realized that no one knew if the Apollo astronauts would make it back alive.
14	* On the 9th of June 2021, the ''Washington Post'' [[https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/06/08/us-weather-lightning-fatailities/ reported]] that nobody had been killed by lightning in the USA so far that year, noting that this was a new record. Guess what happened [[https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/weather/stories-weather/man-struck-and-killed-by-lightning-at-nj-golf-course/2842726/ just a few hours later.]]
15	* This comment from then-new Creator/{{NBC}} Entertainment president Jeff Zucker shortly after NBC lost [[UsefulNotes/NationalBasketballAssociation NBA]] coverage to [[Creator/AmericanBroadcastingCompany ABC]] after the 2002 NBA Finals.
16	-->"We lost [[UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeague football]] two years ago, and we stayed a strong No. 1. We lost [[UsefulNotes/{{Baseball}} baseball]], and we stayed a strong No. 1. Now we're about to lose basketball, and I believe we'll stay a strong No. 1. The fact is, it's had no impact on our prime time strength... NBC can now program all of Sunday nights without going around basketball. I think that's a huge advantage for us. We haven't been able for the last several years to put a program at 8 o'clock because we've had the NBA."
17	** What happened afterwards? NBC crashed to 4th place, resulting in a new decade-long AudienceAlienatingEra for the Peacock.
18	* A news report on road improvements to a notorious stretch of road in the United Kingdom featured a spokesperson from the Department of Transport saying that he refused to accept that it was a dangerous road. As he was speaking, a car can be seen behind him [[InstantlyProvenWrong swerving out of control and getting into a crash]]. (Fortunately, nobody was injured.)
19	[[/folder]]
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21	[[folder:Business]]
22	* When the co-CEO of Blackberry [[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2015/05/26/blackberry-iphone-book/amp/ responded]] to the debut of the iPhone, "It’s OK. We'll be fine." He lied.
23	* [[http://www.translink.ca TransLink]], the company in charge of transit in UsefulNotes/{{Vancouver}}, is quite fond of doing [[https://twitter.com/translink/status/146971968594378754 this]] via their Website/{{Twitter}} page. But the UsefulNotes/NewYorkCitySubway Transit Authority seeks to avoid it. Their dispatchers try not to schedule any train from [[Film/TheTakingOfPelhamOneTwoThree Pelham at 1:23 in the morning or afternoon]].
24	* The Chinese name for the antibiotic [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancomycin Vancomycin]] is 萬古黴素, where 萬古 literally means "ten-thousand old" which can be interpreted as something that would last practically forever, or something that can turn everything into history, [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI War To End All Wars]] style. Several species of bacteria have since evolved resistance against it.
25	* One advertisement for Northrup Grumman says, "How do cyber-terrorists get past 75,000 of the industry's best? They don't." [[http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/05/31/northrop-grumman-hit-cyber-attack-source-says/ Oops]].
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27
28	[[folder:Warfare]]
29	* On the first day of the 1529 siege of Vienna, the Ottoman sultan Suleiman I sent a message to the city reading "I will have breakfast in Vienna's cathedral before two days". Two weeks later, he received a letter reading "Your breakfast is getting cold".
30	* Captain Manfred von Richthofen, better known as the RedBaron, was shot down [[{{Retirony}} only a few days before he was due to go home on leave]]. His last words were spoken as he climbed into his cockpit while addressing a fan begging for an autograph: "What's the hurry? Are you afraid I won't come back?"
31	* Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham, commander of the Northwest African Tactical Air Force, held a press conference in Bari on the afternoon of 2 December 1943 where he said "I would consider it as a personal insult if the enemy should send so much as one plane over the city". Later on the same day [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_raid_on_Bari Bari was bombed by 105 German bombers.]]
32	* [[TheShortWar The Six-Day War]] began with a massive buildup by five larger Arab countries against Israel, which even with reserves only had about half as many troops and inferior technology; Arab leaders made it clear that their intention was total genocide against the Jews. When Egypt blockaded Israel's only Red Sea port, which Israel had warned would be taken as an act of war, the Egyptian president even boasted “War might be an opportunity for the Jews and for Israel to test their strength against ours." When the war broke out two weeks later, [[BadassIsraeli Israel suffered less than 10% of the Arabs' casualties, destroyed the entire Egyptian air force before it left the ground and doubled its size in captured land, including regaining control of Judaism's holiest sites in Jerusalem]]. [[CurbStompBattle All in six days.]]
33	* Union General [[SedgwickSpeech John Sedgwick]] in the American Civil War. His last words: "What? Men dodging this way for single bullets? What will you do when they open fire along the whole line? I am ashamed of you. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance!" Several minutes later, he made the remark a second time and was shot by a sniper while his men were ducking for cover. In some versions of the story, the soldier accompanying him lampshaded this, and Sedgwick replied, "All right, my man; go to your place."
34	** Another Union major general, Philip Kearny, was looking to investigate a gap in the Union line following a retreat. When warned by his men, he said "The rebel bullet that can kill me has not yet been molded." Soon after, he was engaged by Confederate soldiers, and chose to attempt to escape rather than surrender, being shot and killed in the attempt.
35	* During UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, a British battle cruiser was named ''HMS Invincible''. During the Battle of Jutland, it was blown into fragments by an ammunition explosion (after being hit by a single shell shot by a German battle cruiser) and sunk with most of its thousand-man crew.
36	* The Italian navy commissioned two ships named after [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camillo_Benso,_Count_of_Cavour count Camillo Benso of Cavour]]. The first was the battleship ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_battleship_Conte_di_Cavour Conte di Cavour]]'', which, during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, was sank in the harbor by planes ''twice'' (the first from British carrier-launched torpedo planes while in Taranto, whose waters are so shallow that the use of air-launched torpedoes was deemed impossible ([[OlderThanTheyThink the Japanese got the idea for Pearl Harbor from this]]), the second from Allied strategic bombers while in Trieste for repairs). The second (and current one) is the ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavour_%28550%29 Cavour]]'', an ''aircraft carrier''. Equipped with ''American-built planes based on a British design''. So far, the ship is doing well...
37	* Nazi field marshal Fedor Von Bock, who was nicknamed The Dier, was famous for lecturing his troops [[DeathSeeker about dying for the glory of Nazi Germany.]] He was killed by a British plane, along with his wife and daughter, being the only one of [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler Hitler's]] field marshals who was killed by enemy fire.
38	* According to Website/TheOtherWiki, leading up to the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Nazaire_Raid St. Nazaire Raid]] during World War 2, one of the German commanders, when asked what would they do if the base was subject to an attack by British Commandos, replied that "an attack on the base would be hazardous and highly improbable."
39	* Related to the attack on Pearl Harbor:
40	** Before WWII, the American military was warned that if the Japanese were to ever launch an attack on the United States, their most likely first target would be Pearl Harbor. Not only did the American military [[CassandraTruth blow it off as nonsense]], they fired the guy who warned them as well. A couple years later....
41	** Related to the Pearl Harbor attack, on November 29, 1941, the Army and Navy Academies played their traditional football game against each other. In the program is a picture of the USS Arizona with the caption, "A bow on view of the U.S.S. Arizona as she plows into a huge swell. It is significant that despite the claims of air enthusiasts, no battleship has yet been sunk by bombs." Today, the USS Arizona is the most famous ship sunk at Pearl Harbor.
42	** The Japanese admiralty believed that as a “nation of merchants” America would just roll over after the attack on Pearl Harbor. One can only guess what the expressions on their faces were once America no longer saw the need to pull her punches. Even their own emperor was far more than willing to surrender than they were!
43	* During the Battle of Midway, one of the Japanese naval aviation force's standouts was unit commander (lieutenant) Tomonaga Joichi. He was considered an elite pilot, and had led the strike that damaged Midway. Now he was due to lead the counterattack on the American surface fleet that had sunk ''Soryu, Akagi,'' and ''Kaga.'' When his flight crew protested his departure in his damaged plane (the plane had a hole in the fuel tank they couldn't fully patch), he tried to reassure them with a joke: "Don't worry, the Yankees are only 90 miles away. I can get there and back on just one tank of gas." Partway through the air strike, his bomber was hit by gunfire from US Navy AcePilot (and expert aerial tactician) Jimmy Thach in his ''Wildcat'' fighter. Tomonaga's bomber burst into flames thanks to its leaking fuel and eventually crashed, killing the entire bomber crew of skilled veterans.
44	* The Residence of the Bavarian monarchs in Munich has many rooms decorated after a theme, e.g. the Elements, or the Seasons. While most of the building suffered damage during air raids in 1944, one of the few rooms to be completely obliterated along with all its contents was the "Eternity Room".
45	* UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler
46	** The objective of Case Blue, the German summer offensive of 1942, was the oil fields of Baku, Azerbaijan. In September, Hitler's generals, who were confident of victory, presented him with a cake in the shape of the Caucasus and Hitler took a piece representing Baku for himself. Less than two months later, the 6th Army would be surrounded at Stalingrad and the Germans would be forced to retreat from the Caucasus.
47	** Also, one of the later strategic offensive plans of the East Front? "Operation Citadel" (Unternehmen Zitadelle). By the time it was ready to be enacted, each of the possible attack vectors that the Germans would have to push through had [[TheresNoKillLikeOverkill multiple lines of defense 100-150 km deep, formed by 4,800 km of trenches, a million landmines, 1,900,000 men with over 5,000 tanks and 25,000 guns]] waiting for them... WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong
48	** Speaking of which, on June 5, 1943, Joseph Goebbels gave a speech in which he declared that the "winter crisis" was over and Germany was now back on its path to final victory. This was, of course, after the catastrophic defeats at Stalingrad and Tunisia, which made many Germans begin to doubt that they would win. The Battle of Kursk began a month later, and this was the battle that sealed Germany's fate in the East.
49	* Hermann Göring reputedly said, "If bombs drop on Berlin, you may call me Meyer." Being called "Meyer" is a German idiom that something is impossible (Meyer, or Meier, is the second most common surname in Germany). Göring also made comments that he would eat his hat. Thus, when he made tours of the devastated cities, civilians would call out "Hello, Herr Meier! How's your hat?" They also took to calling the air raid sirens "Meier's hunting horns."
50	* The Japanese battleship (originally battlecruiser) ''Kongo'', whose name means 'indestructible.' Sunk by a US submarine during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.[[note]] Technically, due to naming conventions it was named after [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Kongo a local mountain]][[/note]]
51	** There is another ''Kongo'' now, a Japanese version of an Arleigh Burke-class (AEGIS) destroyer. We shall see how that goes.
52	* After [[NoOneShouldSurviveThat surviving the nuclear bomb]] that hit Hiroshima, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Yamaguchi Tsutomu Yamaguchi]] returned to work in Nagasaki. After telling the story to his superior, his superior questioned how a single bomb could destroy an entire city. It was right at that moment when Fat Man dropped on Nagasaki... which Yamaguchi ''also survived''.
53	* Speaking of Nagasaki, the Japanese cabinet were discussing how to react to the bombing of Hiroshima, and speculating that that atomic bomb was probably the only one that the US had, when they received news that a second bomb had been dropped on Nagasaki.
54	* Captain William "Buckey" O'Neill of the Rough Riders during the Spanish-American War was strolling up and down the lines in plain view. When one of his soldiers asked him to keep his head down, he responded with "Sergeant, the Spanish bullet isn't made that will kill me." A few minutes later, he caught a bullet that went in through his mouth and out the back of his head, killing him instantly. Some of the Spanish Army's bullets had been made [[ExactWords in Germany]].
55	* Bush's infamous "[[http://politicaldemotivation.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/bush_mission_accomplished.jpg Mission Accomplished]]" speech early in the Iraq War, in which he states that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended" and "in the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." While Bush was technically correct in that Saddam Hussein had been successfully removed from power, he and his administration had no idea how long and difficult the ensuing guerrilla warfare would be. About 96% of American soldiers killed in Iraq were killed after this speech.
56	* In 2021, President Joe Biden executed the long-awaited final withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. He remarked that it would not be like [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Saigon the chaotic evacuation from Saigon]] in 1975. On August 15, the Taliban entered Kabul, and within hours, images of helicopters landing on buildings were already compared to images from Saigon.
57	* General William Slim's book ''Defeat into Victory''; he said during the catastrophic retreat from Burma: "It could be worse, it could be raining." And sure enough, a few hours later, [[CueTheRain it was]]!
58	* The UK military putting automated death machines under the control of a system called, of all things, [[Franchise/{{Terminator}} Skynet]]. Nothing bad yet, but we can all agree it is only a [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters matter of time]].
59	* Field Marshall UsefulNotes/ErwinRommel was once watching a propaganda film with his men when it showed a clip of him boasting that the Afrika Korps would never again retreat. Everyone ([[ActuallyPrettyFunny including Rommel]]) immediately burst into laughter.
60	* The RAF roundel was designed for a number of practical reasons, but one can't help but notice that it looks like a giant bull's eye.
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63	[[folder:Ships, planes and spacecraft]]
64	* "What a view of the Hudson today." - Captain Chelsey Sullenberger, right before US Airways Flight 1549 struck a flock of geese and performed a miraculous water landing in the Hudson.
65	* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikarus_C42 Ikarus]] ultralight plane. For when you ''really'' want to die, since it's not a [[IcarusAllusion promising name]] for an airborne vehicle.
66	** Even better, it's manufactured by an aircraft manufacturer called Comco Ikarus.
67	* On March 10th 1980, Spanish naturalist Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente was in Alaska, working to film the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, and said "what a beautiful spot to die" before the Cessna plane he worked with took off. The plane crashed several minutes after takeoff, killing everyone within.
68	* UsefulNotes/RMSTitanic
69	** An apocryphal story circulated after the Titanic's sinking says that that someone once boasted that [[BlasphemousBoast not even God could sink her.]]
70	** Five years before setting sail on ''Titanic'', while in command of the ''Adriatic'', Captain Smith said that he couldn't "imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that." Christ, there's Tempting Fate and then there's just ''begging'' for it.
71	** Thomas Andrews, the head designer of the ''Titanic'', remarked to a friend that the ship was "nearly as perfect as human brains can make her." He said this on April 14th, only a few hours before the sinking, though to be fair studies of the wreck have shown that ''Titanic'' was more than likely the strongest merchant ship ever built up to that point, and just about any other non-warship[[note]]warships are, and were, built to different design standards which place ''far'' more emphasis on survivability, and a warship of comparable size to the ''Titanic'' would likely have survived the iceberg strike without too much trouble[[/note]] would have fared worse under the same circumstances.
72	** On the final day of the voyage, one first class passenger fell in the Grand Staircase and had to have her arm set by the ship's doctor. When other passengers heard about this, one comment was that this was to be "the most interesting event to happen during the voyage."
73	** Good press about the ''Titanic'' might have convinced passenger Ramón Artagaveytia to choose it to return home to Uruguay from Europe. Artagaveytia had recurrent nightmares about being on a sinking ship after he survived a sinking in 1871:
74	--->''"'At last I will be able to travel and, above all, I will be able to sleep calm. The sinking of the'' América ''was terrible!... Nightmares keep tormenting me. Even in the most quiet trips, I wake up in the middle of the night with terrible nightmares... I have even gotten to the point where I find myself standing in the deck with my lifebelt on...'"''
75	--->''"You can't imagine, Enrique,'' [Artagaveytia's nephew] ''the security the telegraph gives. When the'' América ''sank, right in front of Montevideo, nobody answered to the lights asking for help. The ones that saw us from the ship Villa del Salto, did not answer to our light signals. Now, with a telephone on board, that won't happen again. We can communicate instantly with the whole world."'' -- Nobody answered the ''Titanic'''s light signals, and the one ship that answered the telegraph -- the RMS ''Carpathia'', who dashed to the stricken ''Titanic'' immediately -- was so far away that even she arrived two hours late. Artagaveytia was among those who perished in the sinking.
76	** Now [[http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/04/30/1739206/ someone is working]] on creating the ''Titanic II''. Commenters wasted no time asking WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong
77	* The ''Titanic'' has also inspired similarly named and similarly ill-fated successors.
78	** The ''Britannic'' was designed with much better safety features and when it became a hospital ship in WWI, it was said it would take more than one torpedo to sink her. It struck a single naval mine and met the same fate as its sister, though this time it wasn't the engineers who built the thing that were to blame, but rather a single crewman who failed to activate the watertight door he was supposed to man.
79	** Folks still don't seem to have realized that naming warships Invincible or Indomitable, or private boats and yachts Unsinkable, Eternal, Everlasting and such (or the equivalent in the local language), is just asking the universe to send them to the bottom of the sea first chance it gets. Bonus points to whoever owns the boat called ''Unsinkable II'' that keeps popping up on comedy websites every once in a while.
80	** Mark Wilkinson of Birmingham, England gave his 16-foot fishing boat the tongue-in-cheek name ''Titanic II'' and took it on its maiden voyage in Dorset in June 2011. [[http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/06/07/whats-in-a-name-titanic-ii-sinks-during-maiden-voyage/ No points for guessing what happened to it.]]
81	** One of the nicknames that the iron ore freighter ''Edmund Fitzgerald'' had was "''Titanic'' of the Great Lakes." She is now the largest wreck to have sunk in the lakes. Her entire crew perished.
82	** Stockton Rush, founder and CEO of [=OceanGate=], had built a submersible called the ''Titan'', designed to visit the wreck of the ''Titanic''. For further tempting, he declared that "safety is for wusses," building his submersible out of materials that had never been tested in extreme pressure; dismissed safety concerns from outsiders as "baseless cries of 'you are going to kill someone'"; and fired a whistleblower who realized the port window was too weak to handle those depths. He and four others were killed by implosion hours after they set sail. For insult to injury, his wife is the great-great-great granddaughter of Isidor and Ida Straus, two of the passengers who died on the ''Titanic''.
83	* There was once an airship called the R-101. Devised as a part of the British "Imperial Airship Scheme," the contract pitted two competing designs against one another- the exemplary [[note]] but admittedly rather bulbous [[/note]] Vickers-built R-100, and the government-built R-101. The materials, design, and capabilities of the R-101 were woefully inadequate in comparison to the R-100, to the point where the airship had to be lengthened so that it would have enough lift to fly- making it the largest airship in the world. More consideration was given to the incredibly spacious, opulent (and heavy) interior than to the vessel's airworthiness. Eager to get a lead on its rival, the government pulled strings to have flight and safety testing rushed through or neglected so that it could make a maiden voyage to India before the R-100. Despite being warned of a vicious storm ahead, the captain decided to plunge straight into it, much like the Titanic before it. The R-101 never made it to India. She was damaged by the storm and crashed into the ground, where her hydrogen exploded in a massive fireball that took the lives of all but eight of the people aboard. Afterwards, the wreckage of the R-101 was collected. It was reforged into a new airship, one of unprecedented size and exquisite luxury... called the ''[[UsefulNotes/TheHindenburg Hindenburg]]''.
84	* ''Franchise/StarTrek'' technical consultant Michael Okuda tempted fate by saying that NASA did not share Starfleet's concern about 25-year-old spaceships as the Columbia was nearly that old and still flying in his text commentary for the ''Star Trek 3 Special Edition'' DVD. Shortly after the release of the DVD, the Columbia burned up on re-entry.
85	* NASA outlined a potential plan to colonize the upper atmosphere of Venus, with structures in the planet's upper atmosphere rather than its [[PlanetHeck unfriendly]] surface. It's called the High Altitude Venus Operational Concept... or [[FunWithAcronyms HAVOC]]. It remains purely theoretical, so whether this trope is [[ColonyDrop played straight]] or wondrously averted remains to be seen.
86	* The videotape recovered from the debris of the Columbia space shuttle after it broke up during re-entry covered part of the descent into the atmosphere from inside the cabin (but not the moments of the disaster itself). At one point Pilot Willie [=McCool=] says, "This is amazing, it's really getting fairly bright out there", and Commander Rick Husband replies, "Yeah, you definitely don't want to be outside now"...
87	* On January 28, 1986, a group of engineers from Thiokol, the manufacturer of the space shuttle's solid rocket boosters, watched as the shuttle ''Challenger'' took off. They had voiced concerns that recent ice buildup might cause a failure in the boosters' O-ring. They were relieved when it cleared the tower and after a minute, one of them remarked "Oh God. We made it. We made it!" A few seconds later, they watched as the shuttle disintegrated.
88	** In the CNN coverage of the launch, correspondent Tom Mintier can be heard saying "this morning it looked like they would not be able to get off," right as the shuttle was lost.
89	[[/folder]]
90
91	[[folder:Natural disasters]]
92	* According to Website/TheOtherWiki, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill Deepwater Horizon explosion]] occurred when BP executives were on board celebrating the project's safety record.
93	* In the 1700s, British surveyors near the Indian port town of Coringa named a nearby island "Hope Island", in the hope of warding off environmental disasters. In 1789 a cyclone struck the city, causing massive damage and killing 20,000 people, and fifty years later an even more powerful cyclone ''completely destroyed'' Coringa and killed ''300,000'' people. Coringa is now nothing more than a village.
94	* Thomas Bloodworth was the Lord Mayor of London in 1666. On 2 September 1666, he expressed a lack of concern about a fire at a bakery by saying "a woman might piss it out". That fire would go on to destroy 75% of London.
95	* According to Website/TheOtherWiki, the town of Frostproof, Florida so named itself as "a marketing ploy to convince potential landowners that the town has never had, and never would have, a frost that could destroy the large citrus-driven economy". However, only a couple of years later, a frost killed most of the citrus in Frostproof.
96	* In the beginning of May 2013, Creator/TheWeatherChannel expressed surprise at how quiet, tornado-wise, the weather had been and made a bit of their focus more on the upcoming 2013 hurricane season. Then came [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Moore_tornado May 20, 2013...]]
97	* During the fall of 1990, the Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge, which was scheduled for rehab and maintenance, sank into Lake Washington. The disaster was caused by someone having the simpler idea of cutting holes in the concrete pontoons and temporarily storing the hydro-demolition wastewater INSIDE them. Then on November 22-24, mother nature came along and poured in some rain and lake water through the holes, causing the pontoons to sink which cost the State of Washington $69 million in damages.
98	** The reason why they put the hydro-demolition wastewater in the pontoons is because they were forbidden by Environmental Laws to dump it straight into the lake. Well, they ended up with a much bigger mess instead. Another possible reason is that they put too much confidence on the weather conditions around Lake Washington which were ''[[CueTheRain usually calm all-year-round]]''.
99	* The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam Banqiao Dam]] was nicknamed the "Iron Dam" due to a belief that it was indestructible. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure When it did fail]], it was the deadliest technological disaster of all time (overshadowing even the Chernobyl disaster), causing at least 85,000 deaths.
100	* On October 15, 1987, BBC meteorologist Michael Fish proclaimed that a woman called into the station, scared of a hurricane hitting Great Britain. Fish proclaimed that no hurricane would hit them. Later that night, the Great Storm of 1987 struck, the worst storm to hit England in three centuries.
101	* At the turn of the 20th century, a brilliant politician and the Russian prime minister Pyotr Stolypin said that given 20 years of peace he'd be able to turn Russia into a prosperous and advanced power. Before long the country was plunged into the bloodiest war so far, had two revolutions break out with the second of which the Russian Empire was gone. To be fair, he was not even around at the start of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, since he was assassinated in 1911. There is still [[AlternateHistory a lot of speculation]] about what would have happened if he managed to keep Russia out of the war.
102	* While en route to California in June 1846, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_Party Tamsen Donner]] wrote, "I never could have believed we could have traveled so far with so little difficulty. Indeed, if I do not experience something far worse than I have yet done, I shall say the trouble is all in getting started." A few months later, she did experience something far worse.
103	* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katia_and_Maurice_Krafft Maurice Krafft]] famously said: "I am never afraid because I have seen so much eruptions in 23 years that even if I die tomorrow, I don't care". Forty-five minutes later, he, his wife, and dozens of others get all kinds of dead from a pyroclastic flow.
104	* During the making of ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994'', directors Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff had just gone through a spat with Music/EltonJohn about the song "Can You Feel The Love Tonight". They said that now they were out of that, things couldn't get any worse. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Northridge_earthquake Then the ground started to shake.]]
105	[[/folder]]
106
107	[[folder:Other historical examples]]
108	* Some short-lived empires and dynasties had names boasting about their longevity.
109	** ThoseWackyNazis just had to go and call their state "The Millennial Reich" (''Tausendjähriges Reich'', "[[ThousandYearReign Thousand-Year Empire]]"), didn't they?
110	** Similarly before them, the emperor UsefulNotes/QinShiHuangdi of the Qin dynasty, said that his dynasty would last for a thousand years. It then only lasted less than 15 years.
111	** There's also the Ottomans, who referred to their empire as "The Eternal State".
112	* UsefulNotes/NevilleChamberlain pronounced that "I believe it is peace for our time" after returning to England following the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement Munich Conference]]. The date? [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII 1938]]. While he publicly said this, he privately didn't believe it.
113	* [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI The "War to end all Wars"]] created ''more'' wars.
114	* In a German newspaper from January 20, 1989 [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Honecker Erich Honecker]] was quoted saying "Mauer bleibt noch 100 Jahre", "The [[UsefulNotes/BerlinWall [Berlin] Wall]] will stand for another 100 years". The Wall was torn down before the year was out, shortly after his own Politburo forced him from power.
115	* In 532, the Byzantine and Persian Empires signed a peace treaty titled the "Perpetual Peace," which was meant to end hostilities between the Empires forever. It lasted 8 years.
116	* As worded in ''Film/EscapeFromAlcatraz'', "No one has ever escaped from Alcatraz, and no one ever will." 34 people attempted to escape, but everyone was recaptured or killed, one when he reached shore. Five were unaccounted for and probably drowned, though there's evidence pointing to Frank Morris and his co-escapees boarding a nearby boat headed for Brazil, thus making them the only people to successfully escape from Alcatraz.
117	* Roy Dell Schmidt was one of the hundreds of people ducking for cover in 1966 when Charles Whitman went to the top of the University of Texas at Austin clock tower with several rifles and started shooting people below. Schmidt crouched behind a vehicle with two other men, but being five hundred yards away from the tower, eventually Schmidt stood up and announced that they were out of range. Whitman shot and killed him seconds later.
118	* During the reign of Roman emperor Tiberius, a senator quipped it was easier to cross the bay of Naples on a horse than for UsefulNotes/{{Caligula}} to become the next emperor. Not only Caligula ''did'' become emperor, one of his first orders was to have a boat bridge built across the bay of Naples just so he could cross it on a horse, and had that same senator watch him do so.
119	* On October 16, 1929, the US economist Irving Fisher was quoted in the ''New York Times'' as stating that stock prices had reached "what looks like a permanently high plateau," adding that "I expect to see the stock market a good deal higher than it is today within a few months." Wall Street suffered its calamitous crash less than two weeks later.
120	[[/folder]]
121
122	[[folder:Entertainment]]
123	* In an interview before the UsefulNotes/{{Academy Awards ceremon\|ies}}y in 2017, Brian Cullinan, an accountant at [=PricewaterhouseCoopers=], discussed his job of placing the winning nominees' names into the award envelopes then handing them out to the presenters. When asked what would happen in the event that a wrong winner was announced, Cullinan admitted that an exact procedure wasn't in place because it had never happened in the show's history, before dismissing the possibility as "so unlikely". Two days later, Cullinan mistakenly handed the envelope for Best Actress to co-presenter Creator/WarrenBeatty instead of Best Picture, leading to an instantly notorious flub that, among other things, caused Cullinan to lose his Oscar gig.
124	* The exchange between Creator/RogerEbert and Creator/RobSchneider regarding the negative reception of the latter's 2005 film ''[[Film/DeuceBigalow Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo]]'' was largely the result of Schneider's denunciation of another critic's review. Schneider had said that Patrick Goldstein of the ''Los Angeles Times'' was unqualified to review the film because he had never won a UsefulNotes/PulitzerPrize. At the end of his own review of the film, Ebert led off his rebuttal by naming some of Goldstein's achievements to that point, including once winning an award from the Los Angeles Press Club, and comparing it to Schneider, who at that point only had a [[UsefulNotes/GoldenRaspberryAward Razzie]] nomination to his name (and [[TakeThat having lost that to]] [[Film/ThePhantomMenace Jar-Jar Binks]]). He then summed up his retaliation thusly:
125	-->'''Ebert:''' As chance would have it, I ''have'' won the Pulitzer Prize, and so I am qualified. Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, [[SophisticatedAsHell your movie sucks]].
126	* Rapper Yung Mazi, who once claimed he was made bulletproof by God, [[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rapper-who-once-declared-god-made-me-bulletproof-shot-and-killed/ was shot to death.]]
127	* Defied by stuntman Paul Malvern. According to the documentary ''Hazard Of The Game'', his doubts about a stunt saved his life. For the 1927 film ''Beloved Rogue'', he was told to get into a catapult, which would be sprung and send him flying into a net about 50-75 feet away. His response: "How do you know I'm going to land in that net?" The director, engineers, and technicians tried to assure him it was all worked out mathematically, but Malvern was having none of it--he wanted to see it tested on a bag of sand that weighed as much as he did. [[GoneHorriblyWrong The sandbag went through the top of the stage and landed a block and a half away.]] Malvern's response to this: "There goes your mathematics all to hell, boys." The engineers then worked out the stunt by testing with bags of sand until they got the range right.
128	* ''Series/MasterpieceTheatre'' host Alistair Cooke was reportedly so afraid of his body parts falling into unscrupulous hands that he specified in his will that his dead body be burned to prevent that from happening. Naturally, the black market body part dealers had their way with him first.
129	* Creator/RobertMcKimson, one of the WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes directors, told Creator/FrizFreleng (who he was working for) one day in 1977 that his doctor said he could expect to live a long time, due to family history. Freleng later reflected, “He had just come from the doctor who told him he had a long life coming because of his [family] history, and he was bragging, ‘I’m gonna be around after you guys are gone!’” A few days later, [=McKimson=] died of a heart attack while lunching with Freleng. Freleng outlived him by 18 years.
130	* IGN's negative review of ''VideoGame/JustDance'' states "...don’t even think about this game lest someone at Creator/{{Ubisoft}} find out and they prep a Just Dance 2. Such would be the end of all things, mark my words." When the game became a surprise commercial success, a SurprisinglyImprovedSequel, ''Just Dance 2'', was released the next year and thus, the series was kick-started and has become a CashCowFranchise for Ubisoft since.
131	* When preparing for [[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall his review]] for ''ComicBook/SecretEmpire'', Creator/LewisLovhaug Website/{{t\|witter}}weeted a question asking about [[https://twitter.com/Linkara19/status/1283357418764804098 a man in a weird helmet]], wanting to make sure he didn't screw up the man's name. [[https://twitter.com/Linkara19/status/1283362111629000705 Cue Lewis's utter incredulity at the man turning out to be]] UsefulNotes/IsaacNewton.
132	* On November 10, 2014 in the midst of public opinion of him reaching an all-time low due to resurfaced rape allegations, Creator/BillCosby launched an event on Twitter where he said: “Go ahead, meme me!” However, most of the captions created for the event [[GoneHorriblyWrong talked about the rape allegations]] and it was quickly shut down. [[http://www.avclub.com/article/bill-cosbys-twitter-team-asks-it-meme-him-apparent-211674 You can read more about it and see some of the captions here.]]
133	** The year before, in November 2013, Cosby did a comedy special (his first since 1982's ''Bill Cosby: Himself'') called ''Far From Finished''. Thanks to [[BrokenPedestal the growing backlash against his allegations]], [[RoleEndingMisdemeanor Cosby's career may indeed be finished]].
134	* While being interviewed on ''The Dick Cavett Show'' in 1971, publisher and organic-gardening advocate J.I. Rodale boasted, "I've decided to live to be a hundred!" Sitting on the couch as Cavett interviewed his next guest, Rodale slumped backward and lost consciousness. After two doctors in the audience failed to revive him, he was taken to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival, a victim of a heart attack at age 72.
135	* [[https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/12/entertainment/ian-cognito-comedian-dies-bicester-intl-scli-gbr/index.html Happened to British comedian Ian Cognito when he died onstage]]. He wasn't feeling well before the show but went on with it anyway, and joked about his health saying "Imagine if I died in front of you lot here?" Then halfway through the set, he suffered a massive stroke and died shortly after. Given that his style of humor tended to be dark, the audience thought it was AllPartOfTheShow at first.
136	* In 1991 Steve Irwin did a weekly segment on an Australian kid's show. During his brief segment, he had a python around his neck, and explained why despite this he was safe, because the python wouldn't bite him. Just after he explained why it wouldn't bite him, he asked the station to stop for a moment, because it bit him. (Fortunately, pythons are non-venomous.)
137	* When Harold Camping of ''Family Radio'' [[CaughtUpInTheRapture predicted the end of the world]] which never came to be, he was asked in an interview if he'd step down as C.E.O. and dissolve the company. His response was that he was not the C.E.O, but that God was and that "He had a thousand ways of getting Camping out of ''Family Radio'' if He wanted." Quite literally two weeks later Camping was hospitalized by a stroke and, while he survived it, that pretty much put an end to his work with ''Family Radio'' and his rapture predictions.
138	* When Music/BuddyHolly learned that Music/WaylonJennings had given his seat on a chartered flight to Music/TheBigBopper, he said in jest, "Well, I hope your ol' bus freezes up!" Jennings replied in jest "Well, I hope your ol' plane crashes!" These parting words haunted Jennings for the rest of his life, as the plane would indeed crash in what has since been called [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Music_Died The Day the Music Died]], claiming the lives of Holly, Bopper and Music/RitchieValens.
139	* In ''Fear of the Flesh'', a retrospective documentary on ''Film/TheFly1986'', makeup designer Chris Walas recalls telling writer-director Creator/DavidCronenberg ''not'' to cast a lead actor with a prominent bridge-of-the-nose or ears because those features would make his job designing the SlowTransformation of the protagonist from man to monster that much more difficult. Cronenberg ended up choosing Creator/JeffGoldblum, who has ''both'' those features. Walas and Stephan Dupuis ''were'' both fans of Goldblum, though, and went along with Cronenberg. Their resultant work netted them the Best Makeup Oscar for 1986.
140	* On November 30, 1963, the actor Sabu had a routine physical in which his doctor told him "If all my patients were as healthy as you, I would be out of a job." Sabu died off a heart attack two days later.
141	* Evidently, {{Website/Crunchyroll}} and the creators of the ''Manga/ExArm'' anime adaptation had a lot of faith in the project, boldly saying that they were "declaring war against all of the [[ScienceFiction SF series]] around the world." How did the show rank compared to other Sci-Fi? Well, it became one of the most poorly-rated anime in history by the first episode, and things weren't exactly going up from there.
142	* Music/KanyeWest went on the Drink Champs podcast and after going on a huge anti-Semitic rant, boasted "The thing about Adidas... I can literally say anti-Semitic shit and they can't drop me... now what?". A few days after this interview came out, Adidas came out with a statement and said that they were dropping their partnership with Kanye West and are the sole owners of the Yeezy branding.
143	* According to Philip Kaufman, he had just told his wife, Rose, that he finally completed the story for his planned ''Franchise/StarTrek'' film, ''Planet of the Titans'', when Paramount's Jeffrey Katzenberg called to inform him, the movie was canceled. According to Katzenberg, the higher-ups declared "There's no future in science fiction." This was two weeks before [[Film/ANewHope a certain film]] came out and proved that there was future in science fiction.
144	* The Iroquois Theater in UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} advertised itself as "Absolutely Fireproof" when it opened on November 23, 1903. 37 days later, during a matinee performance, sparks from a light ignited a curtain, leading to a fast-spreading fire that quickly engulfed the building. Over 600 people died in what still stands as the deadliest building fire in American history, and subsequent investigations proved that the "fireproof" claims were always bogus: the theater was built with tons of building code violations that were either overlooked or ignored, including an excessive amount of wood furnishings, a small number of usable exits (many survivors escaped through the sewer) and ineffective fire extinguishers. Exit signs and outward opening doors with panic bars both became mandatory in American public buildings specifically in response to the structural failures at the Iroquois that led to the large death toll.
145	* Following a lawsuit over ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'', New Line Cinema executives Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne declared in early 2007 that Creator/PeterJackson would never direct another film for New Line while they were in control. Just over five years later, New Line released his newest film, ''Film/TheHobbit'', under new management, Shaye and Lynne having been removed by Creator/WarnerBros in a shake-up directly resulting from the failure of ''Film/TheGoldenCompass'' later that year.
146	* Music/SouljaBoy once entered the gaming market trying to sell "his" own brand of consoles, which were just knock-off emulation boxes from China loaded with illegally-acquired Creator/{{Nintendo}} games. He then took to social media to gloat about all the money he had made, and posted a screenshot of a ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'' match of him fighting Reggie Fils-Aimé (the at-the-time CEO of Nintendo) and an ArmyOfLawyers captioned "Nintendo ain't gon' do SHIT!" Yes, he actually goaded ''Nintendo'', who are infamous for their kneejerk reactions to perceived copyright infringement, into "doing shit" about him selling their intellectual properties without permission. Spoiler, Nintendo did shit, he didn't make it to the end of the week without getting the man-shit kicked out of him by their legal team, and his website ended up just redirecting to the Nintendo storefront (It's now just a website that compares watch prices).
147	* Any fan stupid enough to enter a professional wrestling ring is just begging for a beatdown. As Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin says in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wLEtCEMscc this video,]] professional wrestlers expect the fans to insult and jeer them, especially when they're heels, but fans who jump the security barrier and attack the wrestlers will get their asses kicked. In the anecdote Austin mentions, he'd just finished a match with Wrestling/TripleH when a fan charged in and attacked him, only for Triple H to suplex and start beating the fan. Referee Mike Chioda lent a hand too, and between them they subdued the fan until security arrived.
148	* On the night before the 1974 ''Series/EurovisionSongContest'', the male half of Dutch duo Mouth & [=McNeal=] boasted that he was going to take the music world by storm. The people he boasted to were Anni-Frid Lyngstad (AKA Frida) and Agnetha Faltskog from Music/{{ABBA}}, who not only won that year's Eurovision, but went on to be one of the most successful music acts of the Seventies. Mouth & [=McNeal=] by contrast quickly faded into obscurity like most Eurovision acts.
149	* When Creator/DougWalker announced that he'd be reviewing ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'', he commented that he'd been told it was impossible to review a comedy like that, and that thinking like that was silly, he'd always have something to say and talk about. Naturally, once he started watching it, he was left speechless and uncertain of what to say.
150	* Reluctance to tempt fate is the reason why it's customary among the infamously superstitious stage actor community to avoid saying "Good luck!" before a performance. Instead, they go the opposite direction and wish each other ''bad'' luck, typically by saying, "Break a leg!"
151	* Justin Wong opened up a channel where he streams his own online matches of ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIII Third Strike'', usually using Chun-li. During one encounter, he met a Ken player that seemed to be holding quite well and goading his Chun-li to pull her super art, the same super art that got parried by Daigo Umehara during the iconic EVO #37 Moment. Justin responded with how that player was no Daigo, thus couldn't do a Daigo maneuver and pulled off the super art. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyIsGEKo--E To his shock, said player replicated the Daigo parry down to the tee and knocked his Chun-li out.]] Justin felt like having flashbacks of the EVO #37 moment that way.
152	* A BBC tribute for the late Creator/JimmySavile ended with the words "Now Sir Jimmy has gone, but undoubtedly, his legend will live on." Less than a year later, an ITV documentary exposed Savile as one of Britain's most prolific pedophiles and sexual abusers, completely destroying his reputation overnight. Soon afterwards, Britain removed everything they had dedicated to Savile, including his massive headstone.
153	* In January 2024, a Reddit post in the “youtubedrama” subreddit specifically highlighted LetsPlay/{{Chuggaaconroy}} as a [=YouTuber=] that remained drama-free throughout his career. Within about a week, several women had come forward with allegations against him, putting a potential end to both his career and the shared career of LetsPlay/TheRunawayGuys.
154	[[/folder]]
155
156	[[folder:Sports]]
157	* June 8, 1989 -- Pittsburgh Pirates at the Philadelphia Phillies. The Pirates explode for 10 runs in the top of the first inning, a lead which never before in major league history had been blown and prompting Pirates radio announcer Jim Rooker to quip on air, "If we don't win, I'll walk back to Pittsburgh." The Phillies chipped and chipped throughout the rest of the game and eventually won 15-11. Rooker kept his off-the-cuff promise after the season, holding a charity walk starting from Philadelphia City Hall and going all 300-plus miles across Pennsylvania back to Pittsburgh.
158	* Jean Drapeau said that the Olympics could no more lose money than a man could have a baby. Although he was mayor of Montreal, he apparently didn't know his citizens very well, and the 1976 Montreal Olympics were nothing short of an economic disaster. He died in 1999 - eight years ''before'' Montreal finally paid off the Olympics (around 2007). Much of the problem arose from the sheer profiteering by Quebec businesses and citizens.
159	* During the qualifying rounds of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, Dick Advocaat, the manager of the Dutch National Team, responded to a question from a reporter thusly:
160	-->'''Reporter:''' But what if Sweden win with like 8-0 against Luxembourg?\
161	'''Advocaat:''' They won't win 8-0, what a stupid question that is.
162	::: Sweden went on to beat Luxembourg 8-0, effectively ending the Netherlands' qualifying hopes.
163	[[/folder]]
164
165	[[folder:The September 11 terrorist attacks]]
166	* The September 11 attacks: A Discovery Channel documentary somewhere in 1999 about the 1993 WTC bombing in which the narrator spoke too soon and was tempting fate. The documentary ended with the narrator quoting the man who drove the van full of explosives into the garage saying something in the lines of "Next time, we'll bring them down!" to which the narrator concluded that for the WTC, there would never be a next time! Unfortunately, we all know who turned out to be right.
167	** The 1998 edition of the documentary series ''Black Box'' called "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2YNFzBEkCY Sky Crimes]]" ended with federal air marshals being trained and said that no American airliners had been hijacked since the 1980s and the marshals think "that's mostly down to them".
168	** Stanley Praimnath and Brian Clark, two 9/11 survivors, experienced this. After Clark rescued Praimnath and both men had escaped the South Tower together, Praimnath said that he thought the towers might actually collapse. Clark objected, pointing out that it was a steel and concrete building, but before he finished his sentence... you can probably guess what happened.
169	** Several calls were made from Tower 2 after Tower 1 was hit that amounted to "A plane has hit the World Trade Center, but I'm okay. I'm in the other tower."
170	** After the North Tower was hit, a number of people in the South Tower started to evacuate. After about ten minutes, they were told to return to their desks. This was for a number of reasons, mostly being that the tower appeared to be secure, the building supervisors didn't want to crowd the concourse with evacuating workers while firefighters were arriving, and, of course, no one in the area knew that there was another hijacked plane on its way. At 9:02, the PA announced to "begin an orderly evacuation if conditions warranted," even though the FDNY chief on the scene ordered that both towers be evacuated. A minute later, Flight 175 slammed into the South Tower.
171	* [[http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/were-the-only-plane-in-the-sky-214230 From an article]] on what it was like to be on UsefulNotes/AirForceOne during DistancedFromCurrentEvents/SeptemberEleventh:
172	-->'''Andy Card''', ''chief of staff, White House'': I remember literally telling [President Bush], "It should be an easy day." Those were the words. "It should be an easy day."
173	[[/folder]]
174
175	[[folder:Politics]]
176	* US politician [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Hart#1988_presidential_campaign_and_the_Donna_Rice_affair Gary Hart]] was the obvious choice for the 1988 Democratic presidential candidate, and a likely predicted winner of the election. Then he gave an interview in which he mocked journalists and taunted reporters, and ended by throwing them this challenge: "Follow me around. I don't care. I'm serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead." [[BullyingADragon They did]] - and photographed the married Hart "meeting" a "model" half his age ''[[BeCarefulWhatYouSay on the evening of the very same day when he gave his taunt]]'', [[CrossesTheLineTwice on a Yacht called the S.S. Monkey Business]]. Hart's public support went down like a meteorite and Michael Dukakis became the Democrats' candidate, with known results. Hilariously, [[InferioritySuperiorityComplex Hart still seems to have hopes of running as a Democratic presidential candidate one day]].
177	* UsefulNotes/BarackObama was the subject of a calendar released for 2012 (and so released in 2011) which counted down the days until 20 January 2013, at which point he'd no longer be President. [[DontExplainTheJoke That day turned out to be the start of his second term.]]
178	** During the 2008 campaign, Obama was ''repeatedly'' called the next "Lincoln" or "Kennedy". Naturally, this was a huge source of snark.
179	* In his speech accepting the Republican nomination for President in 1928; UsefulNotes/HerbertHoover (referencing the economic boom of TheRoaringTwenties) stated that "We shall soon with the help of God be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this land." Just over a year after that speech (and barely seven months into his term as President); TheGreatDepression hit.
180	* During the campaigning for the 2019 United Kingdom General Election, the Liberal Democrats sent out leaflets proudly declaring their leader, Jo Swinson, as the next Prime Minister. Not only did they come nowhere near having the most seats - they won 11 of the 650 constituencies - but their leader [[https://www.bbc.com/news/election-2019-50771123 lost her seat]] and, as a result of the party’s rules, had to resign as their leader.
181	* In the United Kingdom, the coverage of the results of the General Election start with the exit polls. The start of the coverage of 2015's results showed huge losses for the Liberal Democrats and large gains for the Scottish National Party.[[note]]The Lib Dems would lose all but 10 of their seats and the SNP would get all but ''one'' of Scotland's seats.[[/note]] When this was shown, two of the BBC's guests - Paddy Ashdown[[note]]The leader of the Lib Dems between 1988 and 1999.[[/note]] and Alistair Campbell[[note]]Tony Blair's press secretary when he was Prime Minister.[[/note]] - doubted the results. Ashdown said he would "eat his hat" if the result was right, and Campbell said he would "eat his kilt" if the Scottish National Party did as well as expected. When all the seats had been declared, the Lib Dems did ''worse'' than expected (they lost all but ''eight'' of their seats) and the SNP got all but three of Scotland's 59 seats. As a result, the BBC offered both [[http://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/styles/story_medium/public/thumbnails/image/2015/05/08/21/cake.jpg Ashdown]] and [[http://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/styles/story_medium/public/thumbnails/image/2015/05/08/21/kilt.jpg Campbell]] their preferred dessert on the following night's ''Question Time''.
182	* In 2012, US presidential candidate UsefulNotes/MittRomney prepared a 1,118-word victory speech and a special website for his AssumedWin on election night. He did ''not'' prepare a concession speech. He lost.
183	** He must have missed that episode of ''Series/TheWestWing'' where Sam and Toby argue about the need for a concession speech...
184	--->'''Sam Seaborn''': You wrote a concession?\
185	'''Toby Ziegler''': Of course I wrote a concession. You want to tempt the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing?\
186	'''Sam''': No.\
187	'''Toby''': [[SeriousBusiness Then go outside, turn around three times and spit]]. What the hell's the matter with you?
188	** He may have also been channeling [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Defeats_Truman Thomas E. Dewey]].
189	* At the 2016 Republican National Convention, retired US lieutenant general Michael Flynn led a "Lock her up!" chant regarding UsefulNotes/HillaryClinton's email scandal, and said "if I did a tenth -a tenth- of what she did, I would be in jail today." In 2017, Flynn resigned as UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump's National Security Advisor after it was revealed he'd lied to Vice President UsefulNotes/MikePence about his conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, and he later pled guilty to lying to the FBI, although Trump pardoned him in 2020.
190	* In 2018, the Trump administration disbanded a team meant to coordinate and respond to a possible pandemic. Two years later, the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic struck. Likewise, Trump claimed in February 2020 that the pandemic wouldn't last beyond April...it took over two years for WHO to declare the pandemic to be over.
191	* On 6 January 2021, all the senators and representatives in the United States had gathered in Washington, D.C., to count and verify the results of the 2020 Presidential Election. In the statements before the counting and verification, Senator Amy Klobuchar said, "January 6 is not typically a day of historical significance for our country." [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_United_States_Capitol_attack 2021’s would turn out to be one but for all the wrong reasons.]]
192	* Former President of Taiwan Chen during his time in office ran a fierce anti-corruption platform. He even stated that if he was ever convicted of corruption that he should suffer the most severe punishment the law could mete out. Now that he and his family have been indicted for, among other things, embezzling billions (in terms of ''US currency'') from Taiwan's coffers, guess what prosecutors are asking for in terms of punishment?
193	* [[Analysis/RedChina The Great Leap Forward]], an economic and social campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intended to boost China's economy. In fact, it drastically shrank China's economy and it's widely regarded as a colossal disaster, causing the deaths of millions of people, many as a result of violence from the government itself. Admittedly, we have the benefit of hindsight in our cynical day and age, but one can't help wonder whether such a name invited the subsequent catastrophe or not.
194	* [[Usefulnotes/HarrySTruman Harry Truman]] was quoted by newspapers the day after V-J-day in 1945 (August 11), stating: "Today, Nazism is forever dead". He was, unfortunately, dead wrong.
195	* The U.S.S.R.
196	** In a 1961 speech UsefulNotes/NikitaKhrushchev said that "the current generation of Soviet people will live under communism." Not only did the plan to complete the transition from socialism to communism by 1980 fail, the generation he was referring to now lives under [[UsefulNotes/TheNewRussia something that is definitely not communism]] (and [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn the other 14 republics]], where the results of the end of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar vary greatly).
197	** The first two words of the Soviet national anthem were "unbreakable union". [[SarcasmMode Well, one wonders]] how that worked out...
198	*** The second line is "Great Russia[[note]]As in the former Russian Empire.[[/note]] welded to stand forever." Really the whole song is one giant BadassBoast about how united the country is and enduring Leninist communism is. Oops.
199	* Similar to the above noted example from the Soviet anthem, the Coat of Arms of the Austro-Hungarian Empire bore the words [[GratuitousLatin Indivisibiliter Ac Inseperabiliter (Indivisible and Inseparable.)]] [[{{UsefulNotes/Austria}} Two]] [[{{UsefulNotes/Hungary}} guesses]] as to what happened.
200	* The last thing that UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy heard was, "Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you," which he acknowledged with "No, you certainly can't." He was assassinated moments later.
201	** That very morning, while discussing the large crowds that had greeted him in Fort Worth the night before, JFK had commented to [[UsefulNotes/JacquelineKennedy his wife]] and one of his aides that "Last night would have been a hell of a night to assassinate a president."
202	** Lee Harvey Oswald's last words were, "Aww, there ain't going to be anybody shooting at me. You're just being melodramatic." Then a man named Jack Ruby emerged from the crowd of reporters with a .38 Colt Cobra revolver and shot him at point blank range.
203	* UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush famously proclaimed as a campaign promise, "Read my lips: no new taxes." However, economic realities forced him to indeed consent to do so while in office, triggering a massive backlash within his own party and causing him to be hammered mercilessly for it during the 1992 campaign.
204	* When [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selim_I Selim the Resolute]] died in 1520, [[UsefulNotes/ThePope Pope Leo X]] said "The lion is dead, and the sheep sits on the throne". Said "sheep" was [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suleiman_the_Magnificent Suleiman the Magnificent]], who would prove to be an even greater threat to Christendom than his father had been.
205	* In 1801, Toussaint L'Ouverture, the black general who became the IconOfRebellion of the [[UsefulNotes/{{Haiti}} Haitian Revolution]], wrote the [[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Saint-Domingue first Haitian constitution]], which installed himself as governor of the newly autonomous island "for the remainder of his glorious life." Since UsefulNotes/{{Napoleon\|Bonaparte}} wasn't having any of that shit, he sent an army of 20,000 to the island to capture him, and L'Ouverture died no more than two years later in a prison in France.
206	* UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt was chosen as UsefulNotes/WilliamMcKinley's running mate in 1900 in order to limit his power because his policies as Governor of New York were disliked by the conservatives who ran the Republican Party, and they hoped that his [[KickedUpstairs power would be limited as Vice President]] while still utilizing his popularity. Republican National Committee Chairman Mark Hanna however stated that there would be "only one life between that madman and the presidency". Queue William [=McKinley=] being assassinated.
207	* The March 2024 Irish constitutional referendums, which aimed to remove sexist language from the constitution[[note]]specifically, broadening the term 'Family' to include 'marriage [and] other durable relationships', and removing an article which suggests that women should prioritise 'life within the home'[[/note]], was held on International Women's Day, clearly in anticipation of a Yes vote. The amendment ultimately failed by the largest margin in the history of Ireland's constitutional referendums; while many different factors from across the political spectrum were at play, it's generally held that the timing didn't help, as most people saw it as a transparent attempt to rally sympathy for the amendment.
208	[[/folder]]
209
210	[[folder:Unsorted examples]]
211	* The Swiss managed to get a subversion with their experimental nuclear reactor at Lucens. The head of the project assured the federal council that "everything is safe, and nothing can go wrong." On the same day there was a reactor meltdown. But since the engineers [[ProperlyParanoid feared]] something like that might happen, the reactor was built [[CrazyPrepared in a cave]] which was then simply sealed off for the next decade.
212	* One of Gerald Durrell's experiences, recounted in ''Fillets of Plaice'', involved a visit to Mamfe from the District Commissioner. Within two seconds of the DC commenting that he wouldn't have thought you'd get very many animals so close to civilization, the palm leaf fan attached to the ceiling gave way and disgorged a variety of spiders, bats, and a young green mamba.
213	* "Everything that can be invented has been invented." Or so Charles H Duell, the US Office of Patents Commissioner, said in 1899.
214	* Averting this trope is the reason behind the German superstition to never wish a Happy Birthday in advance. If you celebrate getting one year older before you do, you tempt fate to kill you before the date, even if it's just hours or minutes before midnight.
215	* In 2006, Fred Phelps released a video where he predicts that Billy Graham, who was then 88, would soon die, and he promises that when that happens, he and the rest of Westboro Baptist Church would picket Graham's funeral. Not only did Graham not die for many years to come, but Phelps ended up dying ''before'' him.
216	* Various castles and fortresses that were declared to be "impregnable" at one point or another, although since any television documentary involving a successful siege operation invokes this trope, one has to wonder how often that claim was actually made.
217	* In June 2006, the British Secretary of State for Transport said: "[[http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/vo060620/halltext/60620h0010.htm Network Rail [...] does not believe that the railway sea defences in Dawlish are likely to fail in the foreseeable future]]". They failed in [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-26062712 February 2014]].
218	%%* In possibly one of the most tragic circumstances when this trope is applied, a Dutch passenger jokes about in the case his plane disappears, that how it will look like. Unfortunately for him and rest of the passengers of the plane, that flight was the Malaysian Airlines 17 flight who was shot down in Ukraine, killing everyone on board.
219	* Website/TheOtherWiki once gave "The weather in London" as an inappropriate title for a Wikipedia page and used it as an example of a Administrivia/RedLink. Naturally, people created the page and made it a redirect to London#Climate, leading to a very long deletion war before it was finally abandoned and the redirect kept.
220	* On July 3, 2013, Ryan Davis of Website/GiantBomb [[https://twitter.com/taswell/status/352413837326163968 posted a tweet]] berating himself for not letting himself sleep in as much as he felt like he should have been doing on his vacation, but brushed it off saying "it's not like I'm gonna die". He died later that same day. Tragic, yes, but his fans generally agree that he would have found the whole thing [[BlackComedy hilarious]].
221	* A certain anti-LGBT activist group [[PoesLaw that might be satirical]] somehow managed to configure their brand's Twitter account to post every single text message sent (to anyone!) by a particular member. One of those texts/tweets [[https://twitter.com/lyskoi/status/1067964347174002689 read]] "Look don't worry. I'll delete the tweets in the morning. We're not going to be a laughingstock because of our Twitter account." One of the ''later'' tweets revealed that this had turned out to be impossible, and predictably these leaked messages made them a laughingstock.
222	* Kind of an exploited inversion: The mathematician [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._H._Hardy G. H. Hardy]] was very scared of ship cruises. So when he couldn't avoid it, he announced beforehand he had a proof of the legendary Riemann hypothesis. [[InsaneTrollLogic If God would sink him, he would become instantly immortal, but since that wouldn't happen, he was safe.]] He was right - he survived.
223	* One day in Montgomeryville, Pennsylvania, a man named Robert Braxton III walked into church and sat down at a pew that was already reserved. Braxton got angry when someone behind him told this, and despite attempts to calm him, another man named Mark Storms walked up to Braxton and showed a concealed weapons permit badge. Braxton socked him in the jaw and shouted, "What are you going to do, shoot me?" Storms promptly shot him. This, of course, is real life, and Storms was arrested and convicted of manslaughter and is serving 20 years in jail.
224	* Old West outlaw Elmer [=McCurdy=], when confronted by a posse after a failed robbery, shouted, "You'll never take me alive!" They didn't bother trying, beginning Elmer's career as one of the most notorious examples of DeadGuyOnDisplay.
225	[[/folder]]

Context TemptingFate / RealLife