History is a tapestry woven from countless tiny moments, and among those are the 10 forgotten people who almost reshaped the world. A single misstep, a stray bullet, or a hesitated hand can turn the tide of entire eras. Below we dive into ten astonishing near‑misses that could have rewired the course of civilization.
Why These 10 Forgotten People Matter
10. An Anonymous Servant Nearly Averted World War I
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in June 1914 sparked World War I, setting the stage for Hitler, World II and the modern world we know. Yet that catastrophic chain of events was almost sidestepped by a single clumsy servant.
Back in November 1913, the Archduke visited the Duke of Portland in Britain as part of a diplomatic tour. Eager to showcase supreme hospitality, the Duke arranged a pheasant‑hunting outing on his estate. As the two rode across the expansive fields, one of the gun‑carrying servants stumbled. The firearm slipped from his grasp, struck the ground and discharged both barrels straight at the Archduke.
The mishap could have rewritten history. Had Ferdinand been killed or gravely wounded, his nephew Charles would have become Austria’s heir, and any future assassination attempt would have unfolded differently—or perhaps not at all. Instead, the bullet missed by mere inches. The Archduke returned home unharmed, and nine months later the world erupted into war. The anonymous servant, whose accidental shot almost changed everything, faded into oblivion.
9. Peter Godwin Almost Assassinated Ian Smith
In 1965, white‑supremacist Ian Smith declared Rhodesia independent from the United Kingdom, igniting a protracted civil war, birthing Zimbabwe and eventually ushering in Robert Mugabe’s rule. Yet the war might have ended years earlier if a disgruntled guard had taken a lethal shot.
It was 1976 when Peter Godwin, serving his conscription in Rhodesia’s British South Africa Police, was assigned to protect Smith. Frustrated by the drawn‑out conflict and his forced service, Godwin found himself alone with the prime minister poring over documents. In that charged moment, he realized he could kill Smith with ease.
Armed with a loaded gun and military training, Godwin was only a few feet away. Later, he recounted that he placed his hand on his holster and saw Smith looking directly into his eyes, as if pleading for an honorable exit from the devastating war. At that exact instant, Smith’s personal bodyguard burst into the room, shattering the spell. Godwin slipped away, and the war dragged on for four more years, eventually producing a guerrilla leader—Mugabe—who would dominate Zimbabwe at the expense of more moderate voices. Had Godwin pulled the trigger, the world might never have heard of Africa’s most notorious dictator.
8. Thomas Wedgewood Nearly Invented Photography (In 1802)
In 1826, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce placed a bitumen‑coated plate inside a camera obscura, exposed it to light, and produced the world’s first photograph. That breakthrough ignited the age of images, spawning commercial photography and forever changing visual culture.
Niépce’s achievement was nearly pre‑empted by Thomas Wedgewood, who might have delivered photography two decades earlier. The son of an industrialist and famed abolitionist, Wedgewood spent his youth inventing and mingling with luminaries like Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. By the early 19th century, he had already grasped that light’s chemical action could create images. Although his early attempts at a functional camera fell short, his work attracted the Royal Institution’s attention.
Tragically, chronic illness plagued Wedgewood, and he died in 1805 at just 34. Had he lived longer, the photographic revolution could have ignited a generation earlier, gifting us early pictures of figures such as Coleridge and scenes from the Napoleonic wars.
7. Stephan Goldner Nearly Destroyed The Tinned Food Industry
Canned food, though humble, reshaped the world: it let explorers reach Antarctica, kept armies nourished, and improved nutrition for the destitute. Imagine a world without it—smaller, harsher, and riddled with scurvy.
That world came frighteningly close thanks to a cheap crook named Stephan Goldner, whose shoddy practices nearly outlawed canned food as a health hazard. By 1845, the British Navy relied heavily on canned provisions, and the supply contract fell to Goldner. He cut corners mercilessly—using low‑quality meat, basing his factory in modern Romania, and slashing cooking times.
By 1852, the majority of his cans contained uncooked, rotting dog meat. The Navy was forced to discard over 300,000 kg (600,000 lb) of the tainted product, shattering public confidence. For a decade, consumers shunned canned goods, and the BBC claimed the industry was nearly doomed forever.
6. Mark Rossini Could Have Stopped 9/11
Mark Rossini deserves recognition as a would‑be hero. A former FBI agent, he spent the late 1990s and early 2000s tracking high‑profile terrorists—no small‑time jihadists, but the very architects of the 9/11 attacks. At one point, he stood on the brink of averting that tragedy.
In July 2001, Khalid al‑Mihdhar and Nawaf al‑Hazmi entered the United States. Both were already on the FBI’s radar for radical Islamist ties. Rossini, then attached to the CIA’s “Alec Station” (the group monitoring bin Laden and his network), learned of their arrival. He and colleague Doug Miller drafted a report for their superiors, intending to alert the FBI. However, the CIA blocked the transmission.
Months later, al‑Mihdhar vanished, only to later pilot a plane into the World Trade Center. Had Rossini and Miller succeeded in sending their warning, the three‑thousand lives might have been saved, with the agencies likely moving in to detain the suspects. Instead, inter‑agency rivalry stifled the flow of intelligence, and Rossini, fearing repercussions, kept silent—missing his chance to become a celebrated hero.
5. Alexander Bain Almost Gave Us The Fax Machine (In 1843)
The fax machine, once indispensable until email rendered it obsolete, traces its commercial roots to 1863 when Giovanni Caselli launched a line between Lyon and Paris. Yet its true origins lie deeper. Scottish mechanic Alexander Bain built a working fax prototype as early as 1843.
To put that in perspective, Bain’s invention predates the first telegraph message, the bicycle, the internal‑combustion engine, the Irish Potato Famine and the Donner Party expedition. Imagine Edgar Allan Poe, who died in 1849, casually receiving a fax.
Unfortunately, Bain never moved beyond the prototype stage. He refused to demonstrate his device publicly. It wasn’t until 1851 that Frederick Bakewell exhibited a working fax, and another twelve years passed before Giovanni Caselli convinced the public to adopt the technology.
4. Violet Gibson Came Close To Killing Mussolini
Mussolini’s fascist regime caused roughly three million deaths and bolstered Hitler’s genocidal agenda. Yet that wave of death and suffering was nearly halted in 1926 when the mentally disturbed Irishwoman Violet Gibson fired at him.
An upper‑class Irish lady plagued by paranoid religious delusions, Gibson had moved to a Roman convent after World I, spending her days solving jigsaw puzzles and obsessively reading about Abraham’s sacrifice. Though twice institutionalized, she was deemed non‑dangerous. One day she seized a gun and roamed Rome’s streets. Mussolini, after inaugurating a hospital, passed nearby. Gibson aimed at his head and pulled the trigger.
Mussolini turned at that exact instant; the bullet pierced a hole through his nose instead of his skull. When Gibson tried a second shot, the gun jammed. Before a third attempt, a crowd surged, nearly lynching her. Ironically, Mussolini’s fascist police arrested and deported her to England, where she was declared insane and confined. Mussolini walked away with barely a scratch.
3. Jack Paar Almost Convinced Ed Sullivan To Cancel The Beatles
After the Moon landing, the most consequential television event of the 20th century unfolded. When The Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan’s show, they didn’t just transform music—they set the trajectory of American pop culture for decades. Yet those iconic videos nearly never aired, thanks to Jack Paar.
By the end of 1963, Beatles records were already gaining traction in several U.S. states. Ed Sullivan was publicizing his booking of the British band for February, generating industry buzz. Rival NBC host Jack Paar, unwilling to let the moment slip, contacted the BBC, secured rights to vintage Beatles concert footage, and aired it on his show on January 3, 1964.
Enraged, Sullivan instructed his European talent coordinator to cancel The Beatles’ appearance. Two days later, he realized his mistake and reinstated the booking, paving the way for the legendary performance that reshaped pop culture. Had the cancellation stuck, the world might never have witnessed that historic moment.
2. Norman Morrison Almost Gave Us The Web (In 1983)
Picture yourself at home before the era of ubiquitous screens—reading the New York Times online, shopping for a kitchen appliance, messaging friends, checking banking, and booking flights. It sounds like any recent decade, right? Wrong. In our alternate timeline, it’s 1983.
On October 30, 1983, Norman Morrison of Knight Ridder partnered with AT&T to launch Viewtron, a consumer videotext service in Miami. Priced at $12 per month plus $1 per online hour, Viewtron promised to let users read news before print, send messages, and shop online—a precursor to the modern web, albeit limited to Florida.
Unfortunately, Florida wasn’t ready for such technology. Despite industry forecasts of a multibillion‑dollar home‑information market by 1995, Viewtron attracted only 2,700 subscribers and burned close to $50 million. Knight Ridder pulled the plug in 1986, and Morrison faded back into obscurity.
1. Valentin Savitsky Nearly Killed Us All
On October 27, 1962, during the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Captain Valentin Savitsky came perilously close to ending the world.
A U.S. aircraft had just violated Soviet airspace, and Cuba had shot down another moments earlier. In the Atlantic, the USS Beale began dropping depth charges on a Russian nuclear submarine, hoping to force it to surface. Isolated in the cramped control room, Savitsky lost all external communication. Seeing depth charges explode and carrier fleets swarming, he assumed World War III had erupted.
In that frantic moment, he ordered the launch of a nuclear torpedo. Had it detonated, it would have killed everyone aboard the Beale and likely triggered an immediate retaliatory strike—nuclear bombs raining down on Britain, Europe, China and Russia, with planes scrambling to bomb the United States. Billions could have perished, and a nuclear winter would have crippled the planet.
Fortunately, a trusted co‑commander persuaded him to stand down. The submarine surfaced, the crew realized no global war had begun, and they turned back toward Russia. A slight change in decision could have erased humanity’s future.