Well, mostly. As it turns out, some of the most important changes in pop culture and world history have turned on some guy shrugging and saying, "screw it."
Everyone knows the Pilgrims settled in Plymouth because they were searching for a place that would let them practice religious freedom (and that wasn't the Netherlands). What's stupid or arbitrary about that?http://www.iphonereplacementscreen.top/iphone-5s5c-refurbished/
Actually, it was about beer. The pilgrims weren't even supposed to go to Massachusetts, they were set to settle in what is now the state of New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River.iphone 5c refurbished That was the plan all along, and that's where they would have landed if they hadn't run out of beer.
"It's not beer, it's just a rock!"
The more standard story is that the bad weather made navigation almost impossible and people were getting sick, so they had to stop somewhere. They began searching for a suitable place to settle. However, it was the fact that they were running out of provisions especially beer that finally made them realize they couldn't be picky. And as anyone who's lived in New England can tell you, the only way you can voluntarily choose to settle there is if you're not picky about climate, or really anything else.
"We could not take time for further search or consideration,
our victuals being much spent, especially our beer" The First Goddamn Americans (1622)
Since beer was boiled, it was cleaner than what passed for regular water at the time and therefore safer to drink (especially during long trips). So, if the beer in the Mayflower hadn't been running low at the time they were passing near Plymouth, they almost definitely would have continued their trip further down south, as close to the Hudson River as they could make it.
Of course, once they had settled on land and found perfectly drinkable water there, they didn't really need beer.
As did their obsession with beer.
The Pilgrims are responsible for much of American folklore, starting with Thanksgiving. Speaking of which, if the Pilgrims had run out of beer anywhere besides Plymouth, there's a good chance they would have been screwed. The Native Americans they happened to befriend (Pilgrim for "stealing their corn") at Plymouth had a guy who spoke English, and were friendly enough to teach them how to survive in that area. Without that stroke of good luck, the Colony doesn't survive that first winter.
In other words, if the murmurs of "keg's tapped" and "this party's lame" had started a few miles down the coast, none of us would be here right now.
4. Woody Allen Reinvents Cinema By Accident
The film Annie Hall didn't just transform Woody Allen's career: It transformed the world of cinema by reinventing the romantic comedy genre and using a widely imitated style of non linear narrative (we're looking at you, Tarantino). It also transformed Star Wars fans into raging maniacs by getting the Best Picture Oscar instead of Episode IV.
With Annie Hall, Woody Allen made a conscious decision to leave behind the wacky genre spoofs he was known for and become a respected filmmaker.
Well, actually, Annie Hall was supposed to be a wacky genre spoof, too. In fact, it was even shot that way.iphone 5c refurbished The story was conceived as a murder mystery that happened to have a romantic subplot, but upon viewing the four hours of footage, the editor thought it sucked.
That's right, it was the editor, not Woody Allen, who decided to change the whole thing. The guy convinced Allen to scrap the entire murder mystery plot and focus on the romantic aspect instead. Suddenly Diane Keaton's character went from a quirky supporting player (similar to her role in Woody's previous films) to the most important part of the film.
But hold on a second, you can't just cut the main plot out of a film, can you? Wouldn't that leave the story a little disjointed? Sure it did, which accounts for the influential non linear narrative we were talking about earlier. Romantic comedies had been practically non existent in Hollywood since the early 60s. Like musicals, they were deemed too silly for modern audiences. Annie Hall accidentally made them cool again. There was enough neurosis left over from the murder mystery spoof, and since Allen didn't know he was making a romantic comedy, the guy didn't get the girl in the end, which was the guaranteed outcome in romantic comedies up to that point. The basic formula of Annie Hall was ripped off by When Harry Met Sally, and then When Harry Met Sally was ripped off by every single romantic comedy made since then.
Then there's the non linear thing. No mainstream film was so blatantly disjointed as Annie Hall, and the fact that it did so well proved that wide audiences could go for a thing like that. Modern films like Memento, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, (500) Days of Summer and Everything Tarantino Has Ever Done only exist because Woody Allen shot a film that was too terrible to edit.
3. A Change of Underwear Changes Music
In 1959, Rock 'n' Roll pioneer Buddy Holly boarded a plane with popular musicians Ritchie Valens and JP "The Big Bopper" Richardson.iphone 5c refurbished If you've heard the song "American Pie" you know what happened next: the plane climbs high into the night, Satan begins laughing with delight, nobody takes this to be a red flag because the 50s were a more innocent time, the plane crashes, music dies.
The events leading up to the accident that killed three of the earliest pioneers in rock stardom are full of coincidences, misfortunes and last minute changes; but everything can be traced back to Buddy Holly's hard on for clean underwear.
