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Face Palm Moments: Some of History’s Most Embarrassing Mistakes

Khalid Elhassan March 23, 2025 16 min

Mistakes - Cain, by Henri Vidal, in the Tuileries Garden, Paris — Cain, by Henri Vidal, in the Tuileries Garden, Paris. Wikimedia

8. A Bling-Tastic Procession

Mansa Musa’s lavish pilgrimage to Mecca. Superinteressante

Founded in West Africa, circa 1226, the Mali Empire was famous for its wealth, derived from huge gold deposits, salt, ivory, and slaves. The empire’s first few rulers piled up the gold, until Mansa Musa ascended the throne circa 1312, and began to spend lavishly. His greatest splurge came when he decided to make the hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca, about 2700 miles away, and do it in style to showcase his magnificence. Musa’s procession included 60,000 men, clad in expensive silk and brocade. Heralds were dressed in even more expensive silks and carried gold staffs, while 12,000 slaves bore four pounds of gold each. More wealth was borne on eighty camels, each with about 300 pounds of gold dust. As they trekked across the Sahara and savannah, Musa freely handed out gold to the poor he met along the way.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.