Unexpected events - Chetan Parikh

In a great book, "The art of Contrary Thinking", the author, Humphrey B. Neil, recounts events where contrary thinking helped.

“I’m sometimes asked about unexpected (and unsuspected) events of the past, when contrary ruminating might have been useful in mental preparedness and when contrary planning might have saved losses to nations as well as to peoples. Here are a few; many more might be added.

1914	Little general apprehension of war. Newspapers carried scarcely any mention of strained relations prior to mid-July, 1914.	Yet—black headlines soon appeared: Aug. 1—Germany Declares War on Russia Aug. 2—Germany Invades France Aug. 4—Germany Invades Belgium Aug. 5—England Declares War on Germany
A stunned world looked on believing
1916	Sensational rise in stocks of “war babies” and general stockmarket boom expected to continue.	Year-long bear market set in in November, 1916. By December, 1917, market average almost returned full cycle.
1919	Immediate postwar depression generally expected and predicted.	Inflation boom occurred, to be nicknamed the “silk shirt era.”
1926	Fears of another bear market and depression.	“New Era” commenced, with greatest market rise in history.
1929	Permanent plateau of prosperity.	New Era delusions shattered.
1930’s	Economics: We reached the age of “maturity.” World Politics: Why worry about the little paperhanger and his Nazis?	Economic maturity laughable, but Hitler no laughing matter! War in 1939 expected but “it can’t last long.” Hitler “has no money and no powerful armies.”
1940	Hitler could never breach famed French Maginot line; Holland’s dikes would be opened to flood out any invader. The stock market was expected to rise when the invasion occurred on May 10 to 14, 1940.	The “blitzkrieg” overran Belgium, Holland, and into France as fast as the reports carried the news. The western world awoke to the realization that “everybody’s” opinion about Hitler and the Nazi armies was woefully wrong! The market collapsed on the fall of France.
1945-1946	Immediate postwar slump expected, with eight to twelve million to be unemployed.	As in1919, a postwar “replacement” boom made all predictions look silly.
1949	Great Britain would not again devalue the pound, Sir Stafford Cripps so asserting some thirteen times.	September 18, pound devalued to $2.80; currencies of 29 other nations following suit—and as many more since.
1947-1954	Persistent predictions of a slump were common.	Booming conditions largely prevailed; there were only brief interruptions.
1955-1957	The years when fears of slumps vanished and the idea of perpetual prosperity became the fad.	Stock market collapsed in mid-’57 just when the future looked brightest.
1961	Mania for growth. Stocks fomented a great speculative era; hundreds of companies “went public”; and a greedy public grabbed for the shares at fast-rising prices.	As in manias of the past, the cruel awakening came in the summer of ’62, as stock prices plunged. Again, it paid to be contrary!

And so we come to the end of our narratives and essays on THE ART OF CONTRARY THINKING.

The writer’s hope is that you, the reader, will follow through with persistent thinking on the Theory of Contrary Opinion to the end that it may develop into clearer thinking on the world’s intense and complex subjects.”