When the battle of Waterloo was on a knife edge the Prussians who had been watching came in on the British side thereby giving them their narrow victory, and setting in train a whole century of British supremacy in the world. One of the things the explorers who sailed round the world wanted to find was Eden, supposed to have a perfect climate, and they kept on looking for it sometimes believing they had found it in some of the Pacific islands meanwhile finding everything else.
Such serendipity in the world of human events is found everywhere. From Galileo realising the toy of the telescope was a brilliant instrument for looking into the sky to the simplest improvements in equipment giving victory in battle, such as the Stirrup at Agincourt which enabled the British riders to stand in the saddle and bear down on the French.
And as Thucydides tells us, oracles were usually obscure and had to be interpreted but upon interpretation alone Athens created the political climate for her hundred year golden age, Clive gained India for the Empire and in our own age, luck helped defeat the Germans in World War Two from the indecision of the Nazi’s at crucial times, to the weather.
Many years ago my mother said people who wish upon stars need to. But in the fossil record are small animals lost to evolution because at crucial moments they were wiped out because it got too hot, too cold, or some other reason. The foundation of life is inspired good fortune and we should not be surprised if the same underpins our world.