History SpannerInTheWorks / RealLife

* Believe or not, the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg-zYvHjZMU Philippines]] is this to China. China, for a variety of military and political reasons, has wanted to invade Taiwan for a while and has recently been making more aggressive moves in that direction. The Phillipines are located just south of Taiwan, so China's been butting into their waters as well, and the Phillipines protested the actions and started outright defying "requests" from China (ordering the former to remove BRP Sierra Madre for "illegally" using it as an outpost on the Spratly Islands) in response. The AFP opening a naval base in North Luzon at 2023, coupled with the US Navy having an outpost stationed in strategic areas will ensure that China's grand goal of invading Taiwan will become an unlikely reality.

* Creator/{{Sega}} was rescued from being shut down thanks to this trope. Ravaged by the failure of the UsefulNotes/SegaDreamcast, it seemed that Sega was on its way to being shuttered. Instead, Isao Okowa, late president of Sega's then-Majority Shareholder CSK Holdings, loaned them $500 million of his personal fortune to pay off their debts then waived the loan entirely on his deathbed. This allowed Sega to exit the console-making business and transition into a third-party developer.

** [[https://notalwaysright.com/box-of-stolen-stupid/60198/ These videogame store employees]] leave a UsefulNotes/PlayStation4 box filled with junk by the door, just to see if anyone would attempt to steal it. Upon returning to work the next day, the manager sees the prank box is gone and laughs, telling the assistant manager about the joke. The assistant manager gets angry -- turns out the assistant manager had told his friend to just take the box, believing it to be an actual [=PS4=] system. This prank done out of the blue would eventually expose that that assistant manager had been [[StealingFromTheTill stealing money from the registers and stealing games from the store's shipments]]. The assistant manager was promptly fired, entirely because of a prank that was in no way intended to catch his thievery.

* In early 1983, Creator/{{Nintendo}} and Creator/{{Atari}} began negotiations to release the [[UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem Famicom]] outside of Japan, and a deal was set to be finalized at the 1983 Summer Consumer Electronics Show. Unfortunately for the would-be contract, [[UsefulNotes/ColecoVision Coleco]] showed off their port of ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong'' playing on their Coleco ADAM computer at that very show, a violation of a previous agreement between all three companies.[[note]]Coleco had the home console rights to ''Donkey Kong'', while Atari held the computer rights.[[/note]] Long story short, Atari refused to sign the deal at the show, believing Nintendo to be at fault, which combined with UsefulNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983 and the firing of Atari CEO Ray Kassar amid mounting losses and insider trading allegation, killed any deal between Atari and Nintendo. Legal shenanigans aside, Coleco effectively sabotaged a deal involving their main competitor at the time completely on accident (not that it hurt Nintendo in the long run).

** One of the robbers took the Gang's disguises and other equipment to be thrown into a dumpster so it could be buried in a garbage dump. He planned to only toss the bag when the garbage truck came, but when a cop car drove by he got scared, tossed the bag in the dumpster and drove off. Later, a couple searching searching for cans found the garbage bag when they were poking through the dumpster. They turned it over to the police when they saw its contents. The FBI found the robber's fingerprint on a garbage bag.

* Believe or not, the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg-zYvHjZMU Philippines]] is this to China. China, for a variety of military and political reasons, has wanted to invade Taiwan for a while and has recently been making more aggressive moves in that direction. The Phillipines are located just south of Taiwan, so China's been butting into their waters as well, and the Phillipines protested the actions and started outright defying requests from China (ordering the former to remove BRP Sierra Madre for "illegally" using it as an outpost on the Spratly Islands) in response. The AFP opening a naval base in North Luzon at 2023, coupled with the US Navy having an outpost stationed in strategic areas will ensure that China's grand goal of invading Taiwan will become an unlikely reality.

* Marcos Perez, the title character of the ''Frontline''/''Independent Lens''/''Voces'' documentary "Marcos Doesn't Live Here Anymore", was deported on a traffic violation because [[ForWantOfANail his wife's cell phone ran out of batteries when the police contacted her about the violation]].

* The 9/11 attacks could have been much worse if not for a major spanner. Four planes were hijacked; the fourth, which never reached its target, was probably intended to crash into the White House. However, the terrorists did not take into account the possibility of passengers attempting to retake the plane. The aircraft crashed a hundred miles or so from its target, and although lives were lost, it would have been far worse if the White House had actually been hit.

* Believe or not, the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg-zYvHjZMU Philippines]] is this to China. China planned on invading Taiwan, and use it as a foothold for their eventual invasion of the USA. The one problem, Philippines is protesting against China's aggressive maneuver towards the Sea of Asia, and openly defying to the latter's demands (ordering the former to remove BRP Sierra Madre for "illegally" using it as an outpost on the Spratly Islands). The AFP opening a naval base in North Luzon at 2023, coupled with the US Navy having an outpost stationed in strategic areas will ensure that China's grand goal of invading Taiwan will become an unlikely reality.

* Believe or not, the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg-zYvHjZMU Philippines]] is this to China. China planned on invading Taiwan, and use it as a foothold for their eventual invasion of the USA. The one problem, Philippines is protesting against China's aggressive maneuver towards the Sea of Asia, and openly defying to the latter's demands (ordering the former to remove BRP Sierra Madre for "illegally" using it as an outpost on the Spratly Islands, and continuing to bring supplies to the outpost despite China's attempts to actively roadblock them). The AFP opening a naval base in North Luzon at 2023, coupled with the US Navy having an outpost stationed in strategic areas will ensure that China's grand goal of invading Taiwan will become an unlikely reality.

* Believe or not, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg-zYvHjZMU Philippines]] is this to China. China planned on invading Taiwan, and use it as a foothold for their eventual invasion of the USA. The one problem, Philippines is protesting against China's aggressive maneuver towards the Sea of Asia, and their open defiance to the latter's demands (ordering the former to remove BRP Sierra Madre for "illegally" using it as an outpost on the Spratly Islands, and continuing to bring supplies to the outpost despite China's attempts to actively roadblock them). coupled with the AFP opening a North Luzon naval base, and allowing the US Navy to have an outpost will ensure that China's grand goal of invading Taiwan will become an unlikely reality.

** [[https://notalwaysright.com/box-of-stolen-stupid/60198/ These videogame store employees]] leave a [=PS4=] box filled with stuff as a prank by the door, to see if anyone would attempt to steal it. Upon returning to work the next day, the manager sees the prank box is gone and laughs, telling the assistant manager about the joke. The assistant manager gets angry -- turns out the assistant manager had told his friend to just take the box, believing it to be an actual [=PS4=] system, and this little prank done out of the blue causing his little side-business to be revealed. The assistant manager was fired.

* The November 5th, 2017 massacre at a church in Sutherlands Spring, Texas, could have been a lot worse had it not been for a concerned neighbor. He had heard the gunshots at the church, went to investigate, grabbed his own rifle and confronted the gunman, wounding him. He even gave chase when the shooter attempted to drive off, which lead to the killer's death. Farther back up the chain, it turned out the killer was banned from gun ownership, but ''someone'' in the Air Force screwed up his dishonorable discharge paperwork, so the NICS check didn't flag him.
** Another, similar shooting at the West Freeway Church of Christ, also in Texas, ended with only two victims. Because one of the armed ushers happened to be a firearms instructor and ex-reserve deputy sheriff. If Wilson didn't get him, he said five or sex members of the congregation were ''also'' armed. It's possible the Sutherland Springs shooting led to the armed ushers.

* A couple of fraudsters decided to make large amounts of [[CounterfeitCash fake $20 bills]], and in turns they bought food with those at [=McDonald's=] and other stores which worked so well they earned several thousands of dollars from the exchange money. Around half a year later they went to Las Vegas and gambled for a week without getting noticed... until one day a woman who had the weird habit of ripping the upper-left edge from the bills noticed the paper was white inside (they did not use enough ink). The couple wanted to leave but was quickly taken by security and in their apartment they had 4 four more boxes filled with fake money.

* Developers of the '''perl''' programming language have stress-tested new versions by having it parse /dev/random as input. Bugs that had resulted in segmentation faults were discovered this way. Throwing shit at the fan and see what happens is a fairly common way of stress-testing, usually known as ''fuzzing''.

* After the Death of Kaiser Wilhelm I, Chancellor UsefulNotes/OttoVonBismarck planned to undermine the recently crowned Frederick III by using the kaiser's own son Wilhelm II as a pawn in a move to retain his own power. The scheme fell apart when Frederick III died from laryngeal cancer little more than 3 month onto his reign and the young Wilhelm II ascended to the throne. Thanks to Bismarck's manipulation, Wilhelm did grow up full of disdain for his parents' opinions on government except for the bit about the position of the chancellor being too strong and how it should be modified in favour of a more powerful Emperor. In fact, one of the top priorities of Wilhelm was the removal of Bismarck whom he saw as the biggest obstacle in implementing this policy. An increasingly desperate Bismarck ran the gamut of options trying to cow the young Kaiser into falling into line and let him do as he pleased only to fail time and time again. At wit's end, Bismarck threatened to quit, a ploy that worked with Wilhelm I only for the Kaiser to ''accept'' his resignation. Having double-crossed pretty much every one of his allies on his way to absolute power, Bismarck was left with no support, and thus his political career was effectively done for.
* John Wallace's stranglehold of influence on Meriwether County in Georgia was ended in 1948, when his plot to kill Wilson Turner in said county. Wallace had his sheriff drain the gas tank and let Turner out of jail, in an attempt to kill him in Meriwether County. It failed when Turner's truck had enough gas to cross into Coweta County, where Wallace killed Turner and the death was investigated by a cop Wallace had no influence over.

** One possible ally to the Axis could have been Spain, but it decided to remain neutral, in part due to its close Relations to neighbour Portugal, which decided to also remain neutral. Therefore, by not doing anything, Portugal kept the Axis from gaining another ally in Spain. [[note]]It's said, too, that Francisco Franco demanded so much in exchange for joining the Axis that Hitler said of his meeting with the former that he'd choose having three or four teeth pulled out over dealing with Franco again.[[/note]]

** The Allied forces built this concept into their instructions for what their soldiers were to do if captured by the enemy. The primary objective was for them to escape, but part of the idea was also that even if the escape attempts failed, it would cause the Germans to have to assign additional manpower to guard the prison camps, which would mean having to spread those resources thinner somewhere else to make up for it. This idea was part of the concept behind the "Great Escape" from Stalag Luft III, and is a large part of the reason why that operation is considered a success despite the fact that only three people ultimately evaded capture.
** A lot of the problems with German's so-called incredibly powerful tanks (supposedly the most advanced of the time, but which somehow broke down almost ''constantly'' and were forever having to be repaired) are believed to have been caused by deliberate sabotage.

* [[https://gamingonphone.com/news/grac-koreas-national-rating-board-charged-with-financial-fraud-allegations-courtesy-to-blue-archive-players/ Korean Gatcha players unwittingly exposed financial fraud]]! GRAC, South Korea’s Game Rating and Administration Committee, had given the game ''[=BlueArchive=]'' an 18+ rating at the end of 2022 despite players pointing out that there was nothing in the game to warrant that rating. A petition was started and gained 5000 signatures, catching the attention of lawmaker Lee Sang-Heon, who started an audit and investigation of the GRAC, revealing they were using the funds to illegally mine bitcoin.

* When Music/JohnLennon was assassinated in 1980, Yoko Ono told the hospital staff to not inform the press so she could break the news herself to her young son Sean. What she didn't know what that Alan J. Weiss, a news producer at New York's WABC-TV (the flagship station of Creator/{{ABC}}) had been rushed into the ER right before Lennon had after Weiss had an accident on his motorcycle. Weiss got to a phone and relayed the news to the station. Word quickly spread until it reached Roone Arledge, then the head of both ABC News and ABC Sports. He in turn told the news to Howard Cosell and Frank Gifford, commentating a game between the Miami Dolphins and New England Patriots on ''Series/MondayNightFootball''; the two debated whether to do this or not. Ultimately, Cosell went ahead and [[https://youtu.be/n73GFvAyIjs famously announced the news during the game.]]

* The November 5th, 2017 massacre at a southern Texas church could have been a lot worse had it not been for a concerned neighbor. He had heard the gunshots at the church, went to investigate, grabbed his own rifle and confronted the gunman, wounding him. He even gave chase when the shooter attempted to drive off.

* On November 14, 1957, the Apalachin Meeting was a CriminalConvention of the [[UsefulNotes/TheMafia American Mafia]] held at the home of mobster Joseph "The Barber" Barbara in the New York village of Apalachin, outside Binghamton. Aiming to assert his authority as [[KingOfThieves Chairman of the Mafia Commission]], it was called forth by Vito Genovese, who aimed to settle mob-related disputes. Around 100 mobsters attended the meeting, but things went awry when a local cop became suspicious of the expensive cars bearing out-of-state plates that were parked on the ranch and sent in reinforcements. While more than 60 mobsters were nabbed, their convictions were overturned as there was no evidence of any wrongdoing before the meeting was broken up. Even then, the fallout was disastrous as it exposed the Mafia to public scrutiny and forced them to hold future meetings in undisclosed locations. Also, FBI head honcho J. Edgar Hoover was forced to dedicate FBI resources to organized crime despite previously refusing to acknowledge the Mafia's existence.

* On November 14, 1957, the [[CriminalConvention Apalachin Meeting]] was a historic summit of the [[UsefulNotes/TheMafia American Mafia]] held at the home of mobster Joseph "The Barber" Barbara in the New York village of Apalachin, outside Binghamton. Aiming to assert his authority as [[KingOfThieves Chairman of the Mafia Commission]], this meeting was called forth by Vito Genovese. Around 100 mobsters attended the meeting, but things went awry when a local cop became suspicious of the expensive cars bearing out-of-state plates that were parked on the ranch and sent in reinforcements. Many mafiosi eluded capture, but more than 60 of them were caught, including Genovese himself. Despite the arrests of the attendees, all of the convictions were overturned on appeal because there was no evidence of any wrongdoing before the meeting was broken up. Even then, the fallout was disastrous as it exposed the Mafia to public scrutiny and forced them to hold future meetings in undisclosed locations. Also, FBI head honcho J. Edgar Hoover was forced to dedicate FBI resources to the mob specifically despite previously refusing to acknowledge its existence.