Have you ever made a catastrophic mistake? What if your mistakes could cause an empire to fall, a war to start, or thirty million people to starve to death? History and politics are defined by catastrophic miscalculations -- those "oops" moments in which leaders cause immense damage because they just didn't think things through. Whether it's Mao's campaign to murder sparrows leading to a deadly famine; Burma's dictator crashing an economy by following astrology and his lucky number rather than expert advice; or an emperor who really, really should have bought a cannon, such mistakes define our past, present, and future. Don't make the mistake of not listening.

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Power Corrupts is written and narrated by Brian Klaas. The executive producer and sound editor is George McDonagh.