The little things that count

Second book blues? Maybe a little. It’s hard in COVID-19. We’re so lucky on Vancouver Island to have so little of the disease, but the precautions are still in place, and we’re still abiding by them so there will be no gathering, no library launch, no celebratory cake (not even my homemade version!) This release is going to be like a dud firework; a bit of spark, but not as much as excitement.​

So let’s have a fun list of small things that changed the course of history. Many of these are just legends, but still amusing!

A crack in history    
  Safety glass was invented by accident; the French chemist dropped his flask containing cellulose nitrate and discovered that, while the flask did break, it didn’t shatter. Thus followed a staple of our automatic industry. 

Waterloo and the pain in the a**
  It’s rumoured that Napoleon lost the Battle of Waterloo due to acute hemorrhoids. He couldn’t ride to supervise the soldiers, and since the doctors had lost his leeches, he ended up on an overdose instead. So much for such a small (but so incredibly painful) thing! 

Didn’t see it coming
  A last-minute roster change meant the lookout on the Titanic ended up without binoculars as he was missing the key for the locker where they were stored! Some believe that the iceberg could have been seen at a greater distance if the lookout had had access to those binoculars. The ship might not have crashed at all! 

Happy B-day… or D-Day?
    Supposedly, German commander Field Marshal Erwin Rommel left France to attend his wife’s birthday, smoothing the path for the Allies on D-Day. One birthday someone regretted attending! 
Miscalculation
    A Mars Rover once went MIA on NASA because (as they discovered) the two teams working on it were using different units. Suddenly, the tiny difference between centimetres and inches mattered way too much.

When one door opens…
    In ancient times, the Ottoman Empire was founded after the Turks took Constantinople. How? Someone left a gate open. Whoops.  
On a roll…  
  The modern stethoscope was invented by a male physician who, because of current societal expectation, could not press his ear to a woman patient’s chest to check her heart. He rolled up paper and used it to listen, diagnosing her heart disease! Now it’s a vital tool for all physicians. 

Finding the right direction 
   Albert Einstein was inspired by a compass he was given when ill in bed. It fascinated him and instilled in him a deep curiousity as to the working things. That worked out for the best! 
So, no matter how small a thing feels, there is always great potential! 

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