Most times, bad data causes confusion at best, or consequences in our immediate lives at worst. Incorrect values, wrong dates, bad inferences, and countless other examples impact people and businesses every day. Watch this slide to find out more

1. 8 JAW-DROPPING WAYS BIG DATA
CHANGED WORLD HISTORY
Most times, bad data causes confusion at best, or consequences in our
immediate lives at worst. Incorrect values, wrong dates, bad inferences, and
countless other examples impact people and businesses every day.

2. 8 JAW-DROPPING WAYS BIG DATA
CHANGED WORLD HISTORY
However, every so often, bad data does much more than create a mundane problem.
When bad data becomes the focal point in an event with global ramifications, the
course of world history can change.
Here are 8 jaw-dropping ways bad data changed world history:
China’s Disrupted Search for Rome
In 97 AD, Chinese military ambassador Gan Ying was sent on an expedition by
Chinese general Ban Chao to travel to the Roman Empire. But Gan Ying never
reached Rome. He travelled as far as modern day Iran, and asked local merchants
how long it took to cross the Black Sea to Rome. Wanting to preserve their trading
monopolies, the merchants provided Ying with bad data, saying the trip could take up
to 2 years. This was too long a wait, so Ying turned back, and China never connected
with the Roman Empire.

3. 8 JAW-DROPPING WAYS BIG DATA
CHANGED WORLD HISTORY
Harald Sigurdsson, King of Norway, invaded England in 1066. After initial blistering
victories, Harald’s army decamped in the defeated town of Fulford. Harald’s
reconnaissance team concluded that English troops were nowhere near the town. The
team passed this bad data onto Harald, who ordered his men to remove their armor
and rest. Then English troops surprised the vulnerable invaders, routed the army, and
killed Harald in battle, forcing Norway’s retreat from England.
In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to find an
alternative route to Asia. But Columbus relied on the inferior calculation of Alfranagus,
a Persian geographer, to chart his route. Furthermore, Columbus either forgot or did
not realize that he had to convert the Arabic miles used by Alfranagus into Roman
miles. This bad data caused Columbus and his crew to land in the Americas, rather
than in Asia.

4. 8 JAW-DROPPING WAYS BIG DATA
CHANGED WORLD HISTORY
For centuries, miasma theory held that diseases were transmitted by poisonous
vapors or mists that contained decomposed matter, rather than by microbes. The
theory was used to treat all of Europe’s major plagues. Miasma theory called for
medical treatments that eliminated poor smells and bad hygiene. Since scientists had
no instruments for measuring real success, they interpreted mild improvements
amongst patients as confirmatory data for the theory. Miasma theory, and all the bad
data associated with it, blocked physicians from properly treating patients all the way
into the 20th century.
During World War II, the Germans created the first long-range guided ballistic missile,
known as the V-2. The V-2 allowed the Germans to hit Allied targets accurately and
rapidly over very long distances. However, a misinformation campaign led by British
double agents convinced the Germans that the missiles were off by 10 – 20 miles. The
Germans adjusted the missiles based on this bad data, and ended up mostly hitting
the sparse areas outside of London.

5. 8 JAW-DROPPING WAYS BIG DATA
CHANGED WORLD HISTORY
By 1971, resistance to America’s war in Vietnam was growing quickly. But there was
still a large portion of the country that supported the effort. When the Pentagon
Papers were leaked to the New York Times, it became clear that most of the data the
US government released about the conflict was false. Without this smokescreen of
bad data, support for the war plunged across the American public.
For the : 8 JAW-DROPPING WAYS BIG DATA CHANGED WORLD HISTORY

6. 8 JAW-DROPPING WAYS BIG DATA
CHANGED WORLD HISTORY
The Mars Climate Orbiter was a NASA space probe launched in 1998 to study the
Martian climate. The probe was expected to generate major breakthroughs, and the
scientific community across the world was eagerly awaiting the results. But the Orbiter
never performed a single test. The probe flew off track and disintegrated in the
atmosphere of Mars because its software was not converting data to the metric
system. The bad data may have been a 6th grade science problem, but it led to a
$193 million dollar mistake.
2008 World Financial Meltdown (2008)
As one of the worst financial crises in history, the 2008 crash was fueled by bad data
that overstated how much mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations,
and other derivatives were actually worth. When the subprime mortgages that formed
these derivatives defaulted, and their true value became apparent, key financial
institutions such as Lehman Brothers went bankrupt. The collapse led to widespread
evictions, foreclosures, and job losses across the world.

7. 8 JAW-DROPPING WAYS BIG DATA
CHANGED WORLD HISTORY
Maybe That’s Why Data Quality is So Important?
Not every instance of bad data is going to generate a world altering event. But it is
interesting to reflect on how the data we use every day could ever become so
randomly consequential. Most of us will never discover a country, or win a war, but we
can certainly try our best to make sure that the data we handle and produce is of a
high quality.