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Lesser-Known Near-Deaths and Near-Misses

Speaking of Iraq, during an Alliance bombing in 1991, Saddam Hussein would be a car crash and suffer rather severe injuries and it was only the fact that his surgeon was incredibly good that Hussein would survive with only a few scars. If things go different than Saddam is dead, just as the Gulf war is starting.
 
Less than two weeks before Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic, two French pilots attempted the same feat with the L'Oiseau Blanc. Unlike Lindbergh, they took off from Paris and had to fly against headwinds on their way to New York City. The aircraft was last confirmed to have been spotted over Ireland and disappeared somewhere between there and its intended destination, although some believe that it may have reached Newfoundland before crashing.

If the French flight had been successful that would have reduced some of the fame that Lindbergh received after his flight. He was obscure at the time and that's one of the reasons why he had such difficulty financing his flight.
 
The 1967 USS Forrestal fire occurred after an F-4 Phantom suffered a power surge and accidentally launched a Zuni rocket into the external fuel tank of John McCain's A-4 Skyhawk.
Some of the more bizarre Trump supporters (although I think it actually predates Trump's candidacy) smeared McCain as being responsible for that, even though that makes no sense from even a casual description of the incident.
 
When people mention “Clinton” and “near-death misses” most think of Manila 1996. What is less thought of is this: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-60-minutes_n_5797ddbce4b02d5d5ed35a4c/amp
Had that stage light hit Hillary Clinton, she would’ve died — not only butterflying the 2008 and 2016 campaigns, but most likely Bill’s presidency too — does his campaign fall apart under the weight of the sexual assault allegations? Does he drop out?
If the 1992 nominee isn’t Clinton, who wins? Bush? Moonbeam? Perot? Tsongas? The list goes on.
 
Resd this too fast and parsed as Franz Ferdinand nearly being shot in a Games Workshop.

Princip had given up on his mission so went to play some 40k.

Luckily for him the Archduke popped in to buy some Stormcast on his way home and the rest his history
 
Another British Prime Minister who had a near-miss was John Major, who was in a car accident when he was working in Nigeria in 1967. You can have it either way - if the car accident kills him, obviously he can't be Prime Minister in 1990 and instead we get Hurd or Lamont or someone. Or, he avoids it altogether, he's in Nigeria longer, so doesn't stand for council election in 1968, he doesn’t gain prominence within the Conservative Party and doesn’t make it on to shortlists for constituency candidates, and never enters Parliament in 1979. You still have (idk) Lamont as PM in 1990, but I would have Major staying in Nigeria for good and being the backbone of his local cricket club there.
 
Michael Foot was almost killed in a car crash in 1963 suffering pierced lungs, broken ribs, and a broken leg.

It's been a while since I read his biography, but I seem to recall the crash somehow caused his previously life-long eczema to clear up, and him to go from chain-smoker to quitting completely.

In hindsight a remarkably long-lived and long-careered man.
 
In August 1943, the interallied conference codenamed Quadrant was held in Quebec City. According to some accounts, it was nearly marred by tragedy: Chief of Combined Operations Lord Mountbatten had become convinced of the potential of Pykrete, a composite of ice and wood pulp, and insisted on demonstrating its strength by shooting at it. When he fired, the bullet reportedly ricocheted and grazed US Admiral Ernest King. It's possible to imagine that he could have been mortally wounded, making the incident an extreme case of friendly fire given the ranks of the men involved.
 
On November 7, 1861, Ulysses S. Grant led an ordered "feint" that he accidentally on purpose turned into a sharp little fight at Belmont, Missouri, when he and 3,000 Union troops disembarked from troopships on the Mississippi to attack a forward Rebel position near the heavily fortified batteries at Columbus, Kentucky. Grant's green men ran into an enemy force of more or less equal strength and experience, forcing them back towards their camp until they eventually broke and ran. As Grant would tell it, his troops then became "demoralized by victory", breaking ranks to loot tents and the camp in defiance of their officers, in a scene that was sharply reminiscent of Rebel looting at Shiloh the following spring. While this was happening, heavy enemy reinforcements arrived, cutting Grant off from his river transports. Some officers believed they had no choice but to surrender. Grant demurred, and after hard fighting his men cut their way back out to the Mississippi, though one Illinois regiment got lost and wandered along the bank before they were finally picked up by friendlies.

Grant's first battle in command, he had a horse shot from under him, but his closest call came when he got back on the transport when the firing had supposedly stopped. He went down below and lay down for a while, and right as he stood up from his nap a bullet slammed through and hit right where his head had been minutes, if not moments, earlier.
 
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During WWII Clement Attlee was apparently onboard a flight in Scotland when the aircraft passed over an Australian cruiser in Pentland Firth. Unidentified aircraft flying over warships being considered a bad thing, even though the aircraft changed course to try and avoid it, the ship started flashing signals whilst also opening fire with its anti-aircraft guns. The pilot took evasive action and managed to get away without being hit but it could have easily seen them shot down if their luck had gone the other way.


Obvious recent political cases, semi-related to AH Layard's last point, Boris Johnson and Donald Trump were both hospitalised with Covid at one point.
I doubt we did at the time because it would have been somewhat morbid, but later on did we ever discuss what would have happened in the event of his death?
 
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