Lamia’s post in this thread got me wondering about this - as well as linking to a more specific version (Plot Holes in World War II) of what I would like to do here.
So… what plot holes can we pick in reality itself - what things ought to be, but aren’t? - and what things are, that are frankly a bit difficult to believe?
I’m looking for possibly-small, singular details of reality that stand out against a general background of otherwise-plausibility.
Not sure this is what you’re looking for but I always thought it strange that we landed on the moon before we developed gps.
Less plotholes and more if this happened in fiction everyone would roll their eyes:
The Native Americans being wiped out by disease, but not the Europeans.
Everytime there was some huge armada that got wiped out by a freak storm.
Napoleon coming back.
The Titanic being called unsinkable, then sinking.
Leaders being assassinated by random crazy people.
Apollo 13 is a hurricane of cliches.
The freakish speed of technological and social progress is hard to handwave. In the Civil War telegraphs and hand cranked gatling guns are advanced technology, germ theory is barely known, most people live on farms, etc. A hundred years and change later and we’re landing on the moon and have ICBMs, computers, millions of miles of electrical cables, advanced medicine and surgery, nuclear power plants, etc. The hell happened?
The Cold War arc was amazing but just fizzled at the end. It was built up forever as the clash of the most powerful nations on the planet, and one of them just collapses after some weak protests and economic problems? Who’s writing this junk? Talk about blue balls.
You’d swear mighty empires simply fizzled out because people got tired of the phrase. The Western Roman empire, the Ottoman, the Mongolian, the British, the Mafia.
9-11. Is it any wonder conspiracy theories abound?
Jack Ruby.
Low wage workers being Pro Republican.
The closest thing I can come up with is Florida’s SYG law.
China trashing its exploration fleet would be one.
Or as it is known in the twentieth century, Project Apollo.
I’ve got a story in which I need a very powerful hurricane to hit the New Jersey/New York area. in order for it to hit the area head on I’ll just have the storm make a hard left turn in the middle of the ocean.
Come on, work with me. Suspend your disbelief for a second.
To me Venice always feels like a place from a not very convincing fantasy novel. There’s this place where everything is done by boat, from moving house to ambulances. Set in a world totally dominated by cars. Nice idea, but not very realistic.
Man traveled to the moon, went “meh” and decided to stop exploring space. Just have the robot servants do it.
Maybe not a plot hole, but certainly anti-climatic.
There’s also the fact that we had to amend the constitution to outlaw alcohol, and after a decade, changed our minds and amended it back. But the very next decade, nobody blinks when we outlaw marijuana and eventually plenty of other drugs, and that prohibition lasts almost a century. Is this the same country?
Similarly, we impeached a president for spying on a handful of people. 40 years later and the president spies on literally every last person on Earth – Americans could care less. What happened in the meantime? Plot hole.
I believe the hullaballoo was that Nixon used the powers of the office of the President for partisan political advantage- that drew the ire of the opposition.
People believing that an invisible entity is watching over them and judging all of their actions. Yet these same people basically do whatever they want and then excuse it using the rather dubious logic that they will be forgiven by this entity at the end of their lives by attending his private club at least once a week and by repeating chants to him daily.
Bonus points: No two people believe in the same invisible entity in the same manner.
Quantum mechanics makes no fucking sense! (And the whole universe is supposed to be based on it.)
Add the US, which definitely seems to be fading away as a world power 
The former is still shocking. On the other hand, when I was teaching World History, my students just could not wrap their heads around the concept that Africa was virtually immune to large-scale colonization because of malaria - until quinine was formulated.
The killer fact about the Titanic sinking was that it did so on its maiden voyage. The most impressive ship ever built couldn’t make it across the pond one time?
I honestly don’t find that surprising at all. The tactic of flying as big an airplane as you can get your hands on into the most vital office building you can find sounds like a rather obvious terrorist idea. I could tell you another one, but no one has done it yet, and I really don’t want to get a knock at my door.
I agree. Would you say that Ruby killing Oswald is the prime reason why an industry developed around JFK conspiracy theories?