![\"30](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/30-of-the-most-expensive-mistakes-in-history.jpeg\")
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Everyone makes mistakes, we are all human. However, you\u2019ve probably never made a mistake as badly as this. These huge oversights and mistakes have costed these people millions. Here is a list of the absolute most expensive mistakes made in history.<\/p>\n
![\"SNCF](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/sncf-train.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
In 2014, French company SNCF, made a mistake purchasing 2,000 trains that were too large. Most of their platforms were too narrow to fit the new trains. This little situation costed them about 50 million euros.\u00a0This issue happened, when the operator neglected to factor in measurements of the train platforms that had been built more than 50 years ago.\u00a0Expanding the 1,300 platforms to accommodate their trains took two years. This process was not only expensive, but it was also time consuming.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/the-walkie-talkie-building-reflects-the-sun-intens.jpeg\")
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This building can actually melt your car. This building had to put out some extra funds for sun protection, after complaints that it had\u00a0melted a person\u2019s Jaguar that was parked across the street.\u00a0<\/strong>General view of the Walkie-Talkie, 20 Fenchurch Street seen looking down Lombard Street from Bank on June 19, 2018, in London, England. (Photo by John Keeble\/Getty Images)\u00a0Martin Lindsay was walking to his car one day, when he saw a photographer taking pictures of his car. His rear-view mirror and part of the body had dented under the heat generated by the reflection off of the side of the building. The developers of the building had paid the 946-pound fee to Lindsay, and they also had to use a temporary fix on the building to prevent more damage to other people\u2019s property from being done- until a more permanent fix could be made.<\/p>\n After filming\u00a0Justice League,<\/em>\u00a0Warner Brothers realized that a couple of scenes needed to be added. However, Henry Cavill had already begun shooting for a different film,\u00a0Mission: Impossible \u2013 Fallout. <\/em>This scheduling problem quickly became a hairy situation… Literally.<\/p>\n Cavill\u2019s role in his other movie required him to grow a mustache. Paramount didn\u2019t want him to shave to reshoot his scenes as Superman; however, Warner Brothers begged them to let him shave it. Coordinating the reshoots costed them around $25 million, and on top of that- the studio had to pay a visual effects crew to remove Superman\u2019s mustache in those scenes.<\/p>\n NASA lost a $125 million satellite, due to miscommunication, in 1999.\u00a0When calculating coordinates of a communication station, Engineers at Lockheed Martin used the imperial system, while NASA used the metric system. This mistake caused the Mars orbiter to miss its mark, and its engine burned up and vanished.\u00a0It\u2019s a common struggle to compete between measuring systems. In this case, a minor mistake ended up costing this team of engineers huge. We are positive that the team will never make this minor mistake again.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve heard the story about Harry Potter- you may not have read the books or watched the movies, but you have at least heard the name. J.K. Rowling is the author of the books and she definitely had humble beginnings. She wrote the Harry Potter stories on mostly scrap paper.<\/p>\n J.K. Rowling shared a couple of her rejection letters on Twitter, to inspire her many followers. One publisher says \u201cI regret that we have reluctantly come to the conclusion that we could not publish [Harry Potter<\/em>] with commercial success.\u201d Just book sales alone, the Harry Potter series have grossed approximately $7.7 billion.<\/p>\n The Spanish government put $2.2 billion into a new submarine called\u00a0The Isaac Peral, <\/em>in 2013. Before they finished building it, the engineers saw an issue with the design. It wasn\u2019t even finished at this point, yet the submarine was already extremely heavy. With the vessel being this heavy, it ran the risk of not being able to reemerge after submerging itself underwater.<\/p>\n The engineers were able to trace the issue back to an easy miscalculation when drafting the design. The issue was that someone put a decimal point in the wrong place. Luckily, the mistake was caught before the submarine was built.<\/p>\n A minor mistake cost Mizuho Securities Co., a Japanese company, a lot of money in December of 2005. A stockbroker mistyped the data. Originally, he meant to offer a single share in J-Com\u2019s stock for 610,000 yen (about $5,000) on the New York Stock Exchange, but instead, he ended up offering\u00a0610,000 shares for 1 yen.<\/p>\n Investors jumped on the opportunity, buying up a fantastic deal of the mispriced stock. The loss was somewhat mitigated by stock exchange rules, which only allowed the stocks to be sold for as low as 572,000 yen. Due to this mistake, the company lost around $225 million.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard telling what band is going to make it big in the future. When you\u2019re a record label company, you constantly have to roll the dice on artists you think will have a bright future.\u00a0Dick Rowe, executive at Decca Records turned down a band called the \u201cSilver Beatles\u201d when they auditioned for the label. He passed on this band, because he thought guitar music was a fading trend in 1962. Shortly after, The Beatles were signed to EMI. Just in the year 1964 alone,\u00a0The Wall Street Journal<\/em>\u00a0estimates their record sales grossed $50 million.<\/p>\n Yahoo! owned 30 percent of Alibaba, a profitable Chinese multinational e-commerce, technology, and retail behemoth, in 2005. Seven years later, they sold half their stake to Alibaba at $13 a share. It seemed like a great deal, at the time. Yahoo! made $7.6 billion.\u00a0In 2014, Alibaba goes public and breaks records when their stocks rose to $68 a share. Today, shares in Alibaba are worth $150 and Yahoo! sold its internet business to Verizon in 2017, for $4.8 billion.<\/p>\n The oxford comma separates the penultimate and final items in a list and is usually considered optional. It is quite a sore subject for the Oakhurst Dairy shipping department \u2014 an overtime dispute between the company and its drivers hinged on the lack of one.\u00a0Lawyers representing the drivers fought that there was a sentence in a contract the employees all signed, needed the oxford comma to clarify that overtime pay was forfeited in a specific situation. By settling the lawsuit, the company paid the drivers $5 million.<\/p>\n $39 is an excellent price to fly from Los Angeles to San Diego, so travels were ecstatic to get tickets at that low of a price. This happened to chagrin of Alitalia, the airline company that offered this price to travelers by accident.\u00a0This price was actually a typo \u2014 the tickets were supposed to cost $3,900. However, their website offered the tickets, by forgetting a few zeros. Approximately, 2,000 people got tickets before the company could fix the price. But, the company did the right thing and they honored the low priced tickets, which costed them about $7 million.<\/p>\n The production crew for the film\u00a0The Hateful Eight,<\/em>\u00a0borrowed a one-of-a-kind guitar from the Martin Guitar Museum. The guitar was intended to be used for one scene, where Kurt Russell grabs the guitar from actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, then smashes it. Before smashing the guitar, the film crew was supposed to cut right before and switch the guitar with a cheap replica.<\/p>\n However, Russell didn\u2019t know about the plan and he went ahead and smashed the one-of-a-kind instrument as the whole crew looked at him in shock. Actually, Leigh\u2019s reaction to the guitar being smashed in the film is completely genuine;\u00a0it seems like everyone knew about the priceless guitar except Russell.\u00a0The Martin Guitar Museum was not happy about the incident and they decided to never lend another instrument to filmmakers again.<\/p>\n Prescribed fires are actually needed for the preservation of the wilderness. Old trees accumulate an excess of fossils, which makes them more flammable and dangerous. By burning targeted zones, experts can lower the chance of a fire spreading throughout the entire area.<\/p>\n In the Cerro Grande in New Mexico, workers lost control of a controlled fire in May 2000. Gusts of winds quickly spread the flames across the wilderness, and the fire raged for a month before it was extinguished. This costed them around $1 billion in property damages. Thankfully, no humans died in the fires.<\/p>\n Very few saw the way cryptocurrency would take off in the coming years in 2009. James Howell was not one of the few blessed with the foresight. Not long after acquiring 7,500 bitcoins when they were worth very little, Howell spilled coffee on his computer. He was able to salvage it and he sold most of the parts, and got all the information he thought he needed off of the hard drive.<\/p>\n The hard drive sat in his drawer for quite a while, before he threw it away during a move. When he discovered his mistake, (and after seeing the way bitcoin had taken off), he began searching for the lost hard drive in the city dump. To make things worse, the Newport City council barred him from continuing the search, due to concerns about the environmental impact of disturbing possible hazardous waste. In December 2017,\u00a0Bitcoin skyrocketed when it hit $19,783. This meant that Howell basically threw away $148 million.<\/p>\n When museum workers realized that King Tut\u2019s beard on the funeral mask was coming off, an inexperienced restorer glued it back on. Apparently, there\u2019s actually a better way of fixing priceless gold artifacts than using permanent epoxy-based glue.<\/p>\n A curator at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo said, \u201cEpoxy has a very high property for attaching, and is used on metal or stone \u2014 but I think it wasn\u2019t suitable for an outstanding object like Tutankhamen\u2019s golden mask.\u201d To be honest, there are much worse things the worker could have used to restore it. We are just happy they didn\u2019t use duct tape.<\/p>\n When an 80-year old parishioner noticed the fresco Ecce Homo (Behold the Man) at the Sanctuary of Mercy church in Borja was fading, she knew how to restore it. Or, at least she thought she did.<\/p>\n The restored result looks a tad different to the original piece, which prompted jokesters on the internet to re-dub the painting Ecce Mono (Behold the Monkey). The original painting may be ruined, but there is a positive side to this situation. So many travelers flocked to Borja to see the painting, that the church began charging people to see it \u2014 generating 50,000 euros to charity.<\/p>\n George Lucas is a very rich man \u2014 however; it\u2019s possible he could have been a whole lot richer. The film studio was loathe to hand over the needed cash to film a certain science fiction story involving spaceships, robots, and light-up swords, so Lucas decided to sweeten the deal.<\/p>\n He signed over the merchandising rights for all\u00a0Star Wars<\/em>\u00a0films to 20th Century Fox, which means that Lucas doesn\u2019t see a penny from every TIE fighter, toy droid, or lightsaber sold. Star Wars<\/em>\u00a0action figures alone exceeded $100 million in sales, in 1978. Today, sales are well into the billions.<\/p>\n This kind of fail makes you wonder if someone was playing a prank. You wouldn\u2019t think that anyone could mess up that important of a project\u00a0On the plus side, one lane on each side lines up with the other, so hopefully they can just get a couple of ramps to fill in the gap.<\/p>\n Due to bad construction practices, a residential complex in Shanghai collapsed. Ten meters of displaced soil was piled against one side of the building as a 4.6-meter car-park was being dug beneath the opposite side. Unfortunately, a worker died in the collapse- due to returning to the site to collect his forgotten tools.\u00a0The real estate company responsible for this situation, kept ignoring warning signs about the mud-pile. Just by moving the soil before the incident, would have saved the company approximately $800,000 and one man\u2019s life.<\/p>\n Construction was completed on an 18.2 million-pound bridge connecting both sides of the River Thames on June 10, 2000. The bridge closed three days later, due to it swaying.\u00a0About 160,000 people crossed the pedestrian bridge during the weekend it opened, and many people were alarmed by the rapid movement of the fixture. The bridge\u2019s popularity caused the issue; due too many people stepping in unison along the path.\u00a0The bridge immediately closed following the concerns; however, more money had to be raised to correct the problem. The bridge didn\u2019t open again, for two years.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Last Frontier,\u201d used to belong to Russia. Alexander II didn\u2019t think much of Alaska; the rough weather made it hard to farm, and high transportation costs kept it from being especially profitable as a trading port. In 1867, he sold the colony to the U.S. for $7.2 million.\u00a0Very few Russians had explored the land\u2019s interior up until that point; otherwise, they would have noticed what a big mistake the sale was. The U.S obviously got away with robbery during negotiations: Alaska is rich in natural resources like gold and oil. A century and 20 years later, economists estimate Alaska\u2019s oil and gas reserves alone are worth $200 billion.<\/p>\nSuperman\u2019s mustache problem<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"Superman,](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/superman-mustache-cgi-bad-cgi.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nThe metric system vs. imperial system<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"https:\/\/cdn.history101.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/orbiter.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/https-cdn-history101-com-wp-content-uploads-2019.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nPublishers turned down Harry Potter<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"J.K.](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/j-k-rowling-twitter-picture-of-rejection-letter.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nThe Spanish government almost built a submarine that couldn\u2019t resurface<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"Submerged](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/submerged-submarine.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nA Japanese company lost $225 million due to a stockbroker\u2019s typo <\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"Mizuho](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/mizuho-securities-president-makoto-fukuda.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nA record label passed on signing The Beatles<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"25th](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/25th-november-1963-liverpudlian-beat-combo-the-be.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nYahoo! sells to Alibaba<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"Yahoo](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/yahoo-ceo-and-alibaba-founder-announce-deal.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nA missing Oxford comma had cost Oakhurst Dairy $5 million<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"dairy](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/dairy-company-truck-drivers-oxford-comma.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n$39 to fly across the world<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"Cheap](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/cheap-flights-cost-airline-a-ton-of-money.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nKurt Russell destroys a-one-of-a-kind guitar<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"Martin](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/martin-guitar-in-the-hateful-8-expensive-mistak.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nNew Mexico actually lost control of a controlled fire<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"Surveying](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/surveying-damage-the-cerro-grande-fire-expensive.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nJames Howell threw away 7,500 bitcoins in 2009<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"Trash](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/trash-compactor-landfill-lost-bitcoin.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nKing Tut loses his beard on priceless funeral mask, man glues it back on<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"CAIRO,](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/cairo-egypt-december-16-the-golden-funerary-ma.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nPriceless Elias Garcia Martinez painting is ruined <\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"restoration](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/restoration-failure-borja-spain-ecce-homo.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n\u2018Star Wars\u2019 merchandise loss<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"star](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/star-wars-merchandise-target-action-figure.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nBridge fail <\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"https:\/\/cdn.history101.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/1300612536_1238695399_stroiteli_01_resize.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/https-cdn-history101-com-wp-content-uploads-2019-1.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nA Shanghai apartment complex falls on its side<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"Apartment](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/apartment-complex-that-collapsed.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nA swaying bridge <\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"Millennium](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/millennium-bridge-across-the-river-thames-swaying.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nRussia sold Alaska to the U.S<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"Glacier](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/glacier-alaska-mountain-russia-sold-to-usa-mista.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nRobert Wayne sold his Apple stock for $800<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"Ronald](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/ronald-wayne-at-macworld-founder-of-apple-sold-o.jpeg\")
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![\"Netflix](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/netflix-cofounder-blockbuster-failure.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Google](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/google-symbol-excite-didnt-buy-investor-mistake.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Teacher](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/teacher-in-front-of-students.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Morgan](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/morgan-stanley-bond-trader-mistake-financial-cri.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"CEO](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/ceo-of-daimer-chrysler-with-chrysler-ceo-expensiv.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Louisiana](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/louisiana-waterfall-caused-by-lake-peigneur-disast.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"B-2](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/b-2-bomber-flying.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"big](\"https:\/\/cdn.thedesigninspiration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/09\/big-mistakes-titanic-sank-expensive.jpeg\")
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