20 of the Most Important Five-Minute Increments of History

‘8:45 AM to 8:50 AM EDT on 09/11/2001’
20 of the Most Important Five-Minute Increments of History
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Sometimes, movements in history are slow. Careful, measured changes to what will become the new world. Other times, you can trace a whole spools-worth of threads back to an insanely short chunk of time, comparatively. As in, roughly the length of a modern commercial break.

Redditors volunteered their thoughts on some of the most impactful five-minute periods in our planet’s history. Times where the direction of the world changed in less time than it takes a pasta pot to boil over. 

See the posts below for some incredibly powerful, tiny stints of time in the past.

godzillabobber . 9y ago The five minutes after the apple hit Newton on the head. | know the story is apocryphal, but physics has influenced far more humans on this planet than any political or military event.
Benu5 9y ago Maybe not the most important, but could have been. Battle of Savo Island. Japanese Ships under Vice Admiral Mikawa Gunichi managed to effectively wipe out the escort for the Allied Expeditionary Force landing on Guadalcanal. At 0216 on the 9th of August, 1942. Vice Admiral Mikawa decided not to attack the transports, fearing (incorrectly) that there were Allied Carriers nearby, and the re-arming of his ships would take too long, leaving them exposed to aerial attacks. If Mikawa had destroyed the transports, around 11,000 Marines would have been killed, and the Japanese would have most likely won
highdiver_2000.9 9y ago That. US soldier charging at the German roadblock minutes before ceasefire was announced.
Cadichon . 9y ago Year 800 000BC : Ouch ! FFS, fire burns ! Hey, maybe I should put some raw flesh on it, just for fun.
kvz9023 . 9y ago The launch of the World Wide Web. The internet has been both astronomically influential to society as a whole, but arguably detrimental at the same time.
picksandchooses 9y ago Japan attacks Pearl Harbor and Japan and the US go to war. Japan has conquered everyone they have fought with entirely minimal losses.
. 9y ago 8:45 AM to 8:50 AM EDT on 09/11/2001 Those five minutes caused more widespread change than any other 5 minutes in history.
SlyJoke 9y ago We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds. I suppose we all thought that, one way or another. - Robert Oppenheimer discussing Trinity
OrcSoldat . 9y ago It hasn't happened yet: The last 5 minutes.
oarviking 9y ago You could say 12:30 to 12:35 p.m. on November 22, 1963. At 12:30 President Kennedy's motorcade entered Dealey Plaza, and less than 5 minutes later he was dead. It's impossible to say how the 60's would have played out had Kennedy lived, but needless to say world history could have turned out very differently.
9y ago When Judas decided he was going to betray Jesus Christ. I am not a religious person, but that decision alone probably set the precedent for the next 2000 or so years of western civilization. If not truly historically, but at least from a philosophical level, it pretty much helped drive the narrative for the rest of Jesus's story, which became the foundation of christianity, his sacrifice that he made.
IHateEveryLastOneofU . 9y ago the time between nothing and the big bang, more happened then than any other point in time.
Surprise_MoFo 9y ago August 6, 1945: The 5 minutes leading up to the decision to drop a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. This would be the first use of nuclear weapons against an opposing country. While it's unknown how the use of nuclear weapons would have played out how this had not happened, it's molded current warfare and the geopolitical climate.
baronmad 9y ago Something that was pretty important, the start of world war 1 was the assasination of Prince Ferdinand, which happened for two reasons, the driver of the cab in which Prince Ferdinand was sitting in made a wrong turn, and instead of speeding up trying to get on route he stopped, just infront of the would be assasin. A wrong turn and stopping was the reason we even had two world wars.
NnortheExperience . 9y ago The moment man created fire. From this moment our technology only got better and better, with fire driving it all.
NZT-48Rules . 9y ago From our perspective, probably the moment when the first DNA strand successfully replicated itself.
Euchre . 9y ago 10:00 to 10:05AM, Sunday, October 28th, 1962. That was basically the moment the Cuban Missile Crisis ended. It was the closest the world has come to bilateral global nuclear war.
ivegotbeef 9y ago Sorry there Adolf, but you didn't make it to art school.
ppdx1000 9y ago Stanislav Petrov made a startling decision on September 26,1983. Не was a Russian, in-charge at nuclear warning system when the radar showed five incoming missiles from the United States. Не judged that five missiles for a start would be an illogical start strategy for the U.S and hence it must be a false alarm by the relatively young detecting system. Thereby the Russians did not launch a retaliating nuclear attack. Later it was confirmed that the detecting system had malfunctioned . That one minute in which he made his decision averted a possible nuclear war.
grass_type 9y ago A certain 5 minutes on the night of the 20th of June, 1791. When Louis XVI was attempting to flee France - which had recently overthrown the ancien regime and established a constitutional monarchy - he had to pass, in disguise, through the village of Varennes. A guard saw through his disguise after recognizing his face from the French coinage of the time. Не was promptly arrested and returned to Paris. This was the final nail in the coffin for for reputation of the French monarchy, and led to both the execution of the royal family and the radicalization of

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