8 Most Expensive Mistakes The World Has Ever Made

Did you know how much it costs to clean up, let’s say, an oil spill? Or how much money was lost when the Japan’s stock market crashed after one of the workers made a typo? The world is full of mistakes. Some way-way more expensive than the rest. Millions upon millions of dollars wasted. Just poof… and they’re gone.

So what are some of the costliest mistakes humans ever made? Let’s find out!

Japan’s Stock Market Error – $236 Mil

What happens when you type in a 1 where 610,000 should be? Well, you lose 236 million dollars, because you just sold 610,000 shares for 1 yen. Can you imagine what hell that worker has been through?

Mars Climate Orbiter – $328 Mil

One of the reasons NASA is using the metric system for all the calculations is because the rest of the world uses it as well. But the fate of the Mars Climate Orbiter was doomed from the start, as some of the math was done in imperial units. Which of course caused the orbiter to crash and cost the world $328 million.

The Challenger – $1.7 Billion

In 1986 the entire world witnessed what was supposed to be the first ever space shuttle with civilian teachers on board going into space. Sadly, after only 73 seconds something went horribly wrong and the Challenger exploded in mid air. The even traumatized the entire nation, and cost the US $1.7 billion, but even that amount of money wasn’t enough to make things better for the families of the deceased.