PIPER BRAVO OIL RING: A safety inspector forgot to replace a valve after a routine check, and when a worker (unaware that a valve was missing) pushed the start button, gas leaked out. The explosion killed 167 men.

Napoleon’s army attempted to invade Russia 200 years ago...

In 2009, Facebook turned down a pair of programmers for jobs. A few years later, though, the pair developed WhatsApp. Facebook subsequently purchased that venture for $19 billion.

Yahoo rejected offer to buy Google for $1 million. (1998)

In 2013, a British guy named James Howells threw away a hard drive containing a virtually worthless cryptocurrency known as Bitcoin.

New Mexico loses control of a controlled burn in the Cerro Grande. (2000)

Nintendo suddenly stopped communicating with Sony about the console the two companies were meant to create together. The name of the videogame was PLAYSTATION.

A hunter starts the biggest fire in California history. (2003)

Captain Edward Smith crashes the Titanic into an iceberg. (1912)

Twelve publishing houses rejected JK Rowling's Harry Potter manuscript.

In 1977, Kodak filed a patent for one of the first digital cameras, but they decided to focus purely on film and film cameras. They went bankrupt in 2012.

On March 30, 1867, the United States reached an agreement to purchase Alaska from Russia for a price of $7.2 million. The Russian government thought it was just a useless tundra.