Think of your worst face palm moment. Once you’re done cringing, you might feel better if you consider that it was probably not as consequential as the face palm moments described here. From Coca-Cola passing on the opportunity to buy Pepsi cheap, to the record executive who passed on signing what became the world’s biggest musical phenomenon. Below are eighteen historic face palm moments caused by perfectly avoidable mistakes.
18. A Revolutionary Refreshment
John Stith Pemberton, a Civil War Confederate colonel and morphine addict with a medical degree, invented Coca-Cola in the nineteenth century. He wanted to concoct a non-addictive drink, and eventually came up with and registered Pemberton’s French Wine coca nerve tonic. Inspired by Vin Mariani, a contemporary coca wine medicine, it was basically Coca-Cola with booze. However, Atlanta outlawed the sale of alcohol, so Pemberton marketed a nonalcoholic version, “Coca-Cola: the temperance drink“. Anti-alcohol types liked it, and in 1888, a young druggist named Asa Candler bought a one third interest in the formula for $50 down and $500 in thirty days. When Pemberton died a few months later, Candler swiftly secured the exclusive right to the Coca-Cola name. He was a better entrepreneur than Pemberton, and saw the concoction’s potential. So he set up a corporation, and began to widely market the drink.
