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Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: Making History on the Toss of a Coin

Of course the first stock image uses a (two-)euro coin :p

I could have written a lot more about this - for example the reason why Hewlett-Packard isn't Packard-Hewlett is also because of a coin toss, but maybe that one would come better under some corporate-themed articles I'm pondering.

Hopefully the sports stuff didn't have any errors, very much writing outside my comfort zone there. As David F says, of course, plenty more examples I didn't cover.
 
The FIFA World Cup group stages still use tossing a coin as a tiebreaker of last resort - this has actually happened three times, twice in 1954 and once in 1990, but only to determine which slot each would have between two teams going through to the next stage.
However, the 1954 ones in particular arguably still had a major impact - Hungary had to literally fight Brazil in the so-called Battle of Berne in the quarter-finals, and went to extra time against holders Uruguay in the semis, before the final saw them face a West Germany who had cruised past Yugoslavia and thrashed Austria, and Hungary being more exhausted has been cited (amongst many others) as a reason why what some (especially in Hungary) would argue was the best team to ever enter a World Cup ultimately lost 3-2. The Brazil/Yugoslavia and Uruguay/Austria coin tosses going the other way would have resulted in the opposite matchups (well, it's quite likely Hungary would have ended up facing England in the semis, and not impossible West Germany would have hosts Switzerland, and of course that's assuming both went through), though given the, er, decidedly oddball rules of the 1954 World Cup one could reasonably argue Hungary having the tougher side of the draw was exactly as intended.
A lot of records that still stand were also set that year and would obviously be affected.
 
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