If that series of circumstances had been even slightly different, there would have been no egg-headed Homo sapiens.

ECONOMIST: Evolution

Cdr Stacey said several drug runners of different nationalities had been arrested but no more details could be revealed.

BBC: Navy seizes cocaine 'worth ?240m'

But even if it had been, that may not have helped: How would a doctor know to report a heart attack that had been caused by Vioxx, if it looked no different from any other heart attack?

FORBES: Behind Merck's Fall

"Had the path been different, there's no particular reason this drug couldn't have been on the market in 1998 or 1999, other than very ineffective development, " says Warrell, who also worked as a physician at New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital for 22 years before becoming CEO at Genta.

FORBES: Magazine Article

There was a broken bed, a broken cabinet door, furniture had been moved into different rooms, food was left behind to mold, and no one had thought to move and stack firewood after using it.

WSJ: How Owners of Vacation Homes Can Deal With Friends Who Want to Visit

He says he has been refused three different loan requests, although many Croats in his region had no trouble getting money.

BBC: NEWS | Europe | Serb struggles for Croatian home

If you were a VC during that time and had "been there and done that, " your gimlet eyes would have seen Steve Jobs as no different from 100 other "Napoleons in rags" who wanted your capital.

FORBES: Been There, Done That

Their cultures were entirely different, and Digital, once No. 2 to IBM in computers, had been slipping for years.

FORBES: Bon apptit!

But it is by no means certain even if everything had been done by the book that the outcome would have been different.

ECONOMIST: Crime and policing