The Butterfly Effect

“For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.”

Words of Benjamin Franklin, quoted in The Butterfly Effect by Andy Andrews.

The book tells two stories out of American history. I prefer the second, because I have read a good deal about George Washington Carver.

1. George Washington Carver is one of the most important farmers in American history. He is best known for finding 266 uses for the peanut and 88 uses for the sweet potato, and for crop rotation and the protection of soil and crops, which opened up many ways for American farmers to earn a living.
2. And yet America would never have had Carver at all if his slave owner, Moses Carver, had not saved him from a band of slave raiders — he had been carried off in a sack when he was still a newborn.
3. When Carver was 19 and studying at college in Iowa, one of his professors trusted him so completely that he invited him to the house every Saturday and Sunday, along with his own 6-year-old son — Henry Wallace, who would later become Vice President of the United States. And Carver may never have known that his love of agriculture had inspired the future Vice President to back Norman Borlaug and the policies behind high-yield hybrid maize and wheat, which saved 2 billion lives.

Not one of the people in this story had any idea that their small actions HAD CHANGED THE FATE OF A WHOLE COUNTRY.