I’m going with the abdication of Edward VIII. It’s true that his downfall was predicted by his father, George V, who famously said, “When I am gone, the boy will ruin himself within a year.” But who would have, who could have predicted that the cause of the golden Prince’s ruination would be a homely, angular, American social climber with two ex-husbands? It’s a tale from a bad Ruritanian novel.
Aye, Captain Bligh was a bad-ass!
What seems like fiction to me, after seeing the footage, is that anyone survived the Hindenburg disaster. But there they are, running out of burning, twisted metal.
Christopher Columbus “discovering” the Americas. Guy massively underestimates circumference of the planet, and sails off into the middle of nowhere. Instead of huge failure, he’s taught as great explorer in history books because he stumbles across a conveniently placed landmass. I’ve heard it put “in any well-written fiction, they would have starved to death” but it’s more accurate to say we accept those serendipitous events in fiction, even as we call them unrealistic.
And for a very movie-of-the-week tone, how about MTS Oceanos - crew abandons cruise ship, without even raising an alarm. Entertainment staff then use radio to SOS and then they organize the orderly evacuation of passengers. Nobody dies. Very feel-good.