History DespairEventHorizon / RealLife

* The Imperial Japanese military became increasingly desperate as the Allies began to draw the noose around the Home Islands. They recommended a LastStand on a national scale and began training schoolchildren to fight with sticks, but when the Emperor supported the decision to surrender following [[UsefulNotes/AtomicBombingsOfHiroshimaAndNagasaki the dropping of Little Boy and Fat Man on Hiroshima and Nagasaki]], many military officers chose ''[[DrivenToSuicide seppuku]]'' as an alternative, inclusive of those officers who tried to stop the Emperor's broadcast and continue fighting without his Majesty's approval only to be arrested.

* The Imperial Japanese military became increasingly desperate as the Allies began to draw the noose around the Home Islands. They recommended a LastStand on a national scale and began training schoolchildren to fight with sticks, but when the Emperor supported the decision to surrender following the dropping of Little Boy and Fat Man on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, many military officers chose ''[[DrivenToSuicide seppuku]]'' as an alternative, inclusive of those officers who tried to stop the Emperor's broadcast and continue fighting without his Majesty's approval only to be arrested.

** The less-speculative horizon for the Union was the summer of 1864. Having been buoyed into over-optimism by Ulysses S. Grant being promoted to general-in-chief and launching the first major Union offensives since Vicksburg, the horrific casualties suffered to achieve only apparent stalemates at Petersburg and Atlanta while the Confederates could still threaten Washington via the Shenandoah wore down Union civilian morale to the point that even Lincoln himself assumed by mid-August that he would lose the fall election and thereby the war. Then Sherman captured Atlanta and Sheridan scoured the Shenandoah, securing Lincoln's re-election and paving the way for victory the next spring.

** Frederick Fleet, the lookout who first spotted the iceberg, shot himself after his wife died and his wife's brother evicted him from her house.

* The consensus for King Henry VII after the death of his wife Elizabeth of York. He lived for six more years and was generally more melancholic, moody, and distrustful. He refused to get re-married and when he finally was open to the idea he blatantly wanted a copy of Elizabeth. It certainly did not help that months prior to Elizabeth's death his elder son and heir had died and a rival claimant escaped his clutches.

* UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler, when he realized that the Allies in the West and the Soviets in the East were closing in on him, and there was no chance for him to win because Felix Steiner was not able to muster up the forces to repel the Russians. He ordered his forces to fight to the last man and burn Germany to the ground to deny the Allies of anything. Hitler, knowing his work throughout his years was AllForNothing, eventually committed [[AteHisGun suicide]]. According to interviews with those in the Fuhrerbunker, when Hitler got the news that Himmler had defected to the Allied Powers, Hitler completely lost it and knew that the war was over. He was reportedly so deranged that all he desired was to at least capture and punish Himmler's very opportunistic adjutant and his brother-in-law, Hermann Fegelein.

** J. Bruce Ismay, the director of the White Star Line, was consumed by guilt and remorse for the rest of his life. It didn't help that he was blasted by the public and press for not going down with the Titanic. For the rest of his life, he remained depressed and reclusive.