"...almost all consequential events in history come from the unexpected" - that's the claim attributed to Nassim Taleb, who developed the term Black swan theory to label unexpected, rare events.

Is that true? War may be preceded by a widespread expectation of war, as in Britain in the mid-1930s. (A more specific example would be Chamberlain & Daladier appeasing Hitler with the Munich Agreement - there were certainly those, notably Churchill, who vocally opposed it, and even Daladier correctly predicted Hitler's general course of action that followed.)




Then I find myself thinking of all the campaigns for independence from colonial powers, or from discriminatory regimes (apartheid, whether in South Africa, the USA or Australia). Are they not consequential events? Interesting questions, but I would have to read Taleb's book to give it fair treatment.

If I knew more history, I may not have had to cross Godwin's law so quickly...


Regarding Mussolini, from xkcd.


(Pardon the formatting - I wanted to wrap the text around the pictures, but my browser crashes if I try to switch to HTML mode to edit.)