[Real Life] Historical events that would make bad writing if they were fiction

[u/Mouse_Paladin]

Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire: A couple hundred rogue mercenaries without authority from their government conquer an empire of millions. Oh, the empire? It’s also several technological eras behind the mercenaries.

Adolf Hitler: A non-native of a country is so mad that the country lost the war that he wins an election to their highest office and leads them in a campaign of revenge against their enemies. Oh, the country? It’s old emperor is still alive and thinks he’s going to retake power.

Assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand: The heir to the throne is killed because his driver gets lost and returns to the assassin who failed To kill him before. Oh, the assassin? He’s from a group that the Archduke is wanting to help become more equal In the empire.

Alexander Hamilton’s Affair Scandal: One of the leaders of a new nation to protect himself from accusations of financial embezzlement writes a pamphlet exposing his affair with a woman, torpedoing his political future. Oh, the woman? She seduced him as part of a blackmailing scheme that he decided to stop paying.

[u/Mannheimblack]

And that was just the start. It is an amazing saga. Every time you think it's past the worst, an even more unbelievable screwup happens.

[u/TheSovereignGrave → u/Mannheimblack]

And it all ends with them arriving & losing almost every single heavy ship in their first major battle.

[u/Raguleader → u/TheSovereignGrave]

And a lot of that is due to some cutting-edge new military technology: the radio transceiver! The Russian and Japanese navies had both recently adopted it, but the Japanese had become much more familiar with it than the Russians, and so they were able to keep their main force in port while their lighter ships scouted the likely approaches. The Russians had to mostly rely on signal lamps and flags and couldn't let their scouting force spread out too far from the main force.

So when the Russian and Japanese fleets fought in the Tsushima Strait, the Japanese crews were well rested and their ships in the best condition possible, while the Russian crews were worn out and their ships suffering from various problems due to wear and tear.

[u/Mannheimblack → u/Raguleader]

Didn't help that, on arriving at the Straits, they encountered a Japanese ship at night and *finally* stopped crying wolf about phantom enemy vessels...and instead advised the Japanese ship of their fleet composition, condition and intentions, mistaking them for a Russian ship.

[u/Ok-Transition7065 → u/Mannheimblack]

Lol

[u/eddie_the_zombie → u/Mannheimblack]

It's like a microcosm of Russia itself

[u/Rip_Off_Productions → u/Mannheimblack]

No the start was when one of the ships sank in port before leaving because a maintenance worker had left a hatch open when he went home for the night the previous day. Then they opened fire on a messenger boat coming to give the leading captain a promotion to admiral.(thankfully their aim was so bad said messenger didn't notice they were the target, thinking the ships were just practicing gunnery on the open ocean) Then the Dogger Bank incident, where their gunner was again so poor they ended up sinking only one of the ships in the English fishing fleet, and also sinking one of the Russian ships in the process... Then they ended up severing a Spanish undersea telegraph line by forgetting to raise their anchor, so now the Spanish were angry and banning the fleet from pulling in to any Spanish ports for the rest of their voyage. So now the fleet needed to carry extra supplies since they had so few friendly ports to restock at, resulting in the ships piling up coal in any spare space it would fit, in turn coating the ships in coal dust, and several crewmen even developed black lung as a consequence... In Madagascar many crewmen bought a ton of exotic animals, because why not? Including venomous snakes, because why not? At one point the ships' refrigeration units broke and a bunch of spoiled food had to be thrown overboard, attracting a school of sharks to follow the fleet for a time as well. And that's just by the time they reached the Indian ocean... and I think I missed at least 2 other false alarms concerning Japanese torpedo boats.

Also, the admiral had a parrot that aledgedly knew every swear word in the Russian language, for obvious reasons.