By now, we all know that Christopher Columbus ended up in the New World by accident, a result of mistakes in navigation and lack of knowledge. The result was that the Old World and the New World were brought into contact, for better or for worse, which would have happened eventually anyway. But that's only the first of a string of miscalculations and screwups that led to the way the United States is today. Some of these mistakes were the result of hubris, while others were just incompetence or stupidity. Then again, some of these movers and shakers were confronting problems never seen before. Would Japan have surrendered if they had really grasped the power of the atomic weapons the US had developed?
That's a big one, but other mistakes you've never even heard of may have led to permanent changes in the US. These eight historic errors are not presented in chronological order, but you can place them easily if you know anything about American history.
Commenting on Neatorama will earn you NeatoPoints!