Transcript of Did these random events change your timeline too?

Hey, guys. Before we begin, I want to let you know that later in this video, I'm going to be making a major announcement. You want to stick around for that? I'll give you a hint. New content. Pretty good, okay? As for today's videos, we're actually going to try something new. I'm going to tell you three stories about real people who had something totally unexpected and insane happen to them. Think like Stranger Than Fiction, that type of thing, that not only changed their lives, but also changed the lives of millions of other people, too. Now, these stories are a slight departure from what is normal on this channel. We know that, so please let us know in the comments what you think about this series. If you enjoy it, we will do more of them. But before we get into those stories, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you come to the right place because that's all we do, and we upload once a week. If that's of interest to you, please sneak into the Like Buttons house and replace all of their very expensive, nice knives their butcher's block with plastic knives.

Also, please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into today's stories. One late night in the summer of 1974, a 30-year-old A man named Fred stood inside of a loud casino in Las Vegas feeling incredibly nervous. He knew what he was about to do was a horrible idea. In fact, he didn't even know if he had the guts to try it. Fred grabbed a huge wad of cash out of his pocket, and as he looked at it, he thought about the reason he was here. So Fred had actually flown to Las Vegas on a whim after a bad meeting with a group of investors. So Fred had founded this small company three years earlier, and he really needed a loan from these investors, but they had said no. Fred had actually already It had cost over $13 million to this point, and so the investor said, Look, your track record is not good enough. We're not giving you any more money. This was a huge problem for Fred because right now, in all of his company accounts, he had a total of $5,000.

At a minimum, he needed to pay his fuel bill for his company, which was $24,000. That bill was due soon, so he didn't have enough money to cover it. Besides the fuel bill, he also didn't have any money to make payroll. Basically, Fred did not have any more money. If he didn't find a way to find more money, he would have to file for bankruptcy, shut his business down, and lay off all of his employees. So Fred really couldn't think of a worse fate here. He totally believed in this company. I mean, this was his baby. He'd invested all of his inheritance into it. But now it was about to collapse, unless he got really, really lucky. All around him in the casino, Fred could see gamblers hunched over slot machines and over poker tables and blackjack tables, and some people looked elated like they were having the time of their lives, and many other people looked like they were maybe having the worst time of their lives and were on the brink of tears. Fred didn't know if he'd be celebrating or sobbing by the end of this night. All he knew is he was out of options here.

He could either do nothing and just accept his fate, that his business was doomed and would have to be shut down, or he could do what he was doing tonight, which was to basically take what little cash he had and put it on a game of chance, basically gamble the money he had in hopes of winning enough money to keep his business going a little bit longer. And so after taking a calming breath, Fred began walking over to a Blackjack table because someone had told him that of all the games you could play in a Las Vegas casino, the game with the best odds was Blackjack. Fred chose a table with an open seat. He exchanged all his cash for chips while he prayed that he was making the right choice here. Then, Fred began to play. For the first few hands, Fred was pretty cautious, only placing small bets. But he won all those small bets and it emboldened him. So he began placing larger bets, and he began winning those bets, too. In fact, it got to the point where he was winning so consistently that a crowd of strangers had formed behind the table just to watch Fred.

But Fred wasn't even aware of the crowd behind him. He was so focused on every single hand. I mean, for him, this was like his life he was gambling with. Then eventually, he got to a place where he had a mountain of chips in front of him, and he was gambling huge sums of it all at once. Then eventually, when this big mountain of chips in front of him, Fred decided this was it. He was going to double down and go all in. He puts all these chips out and he waits, and eventually, the dealer flips over their cards. As soon as they did, the crowd around Fred, who he hadn't even notice to this point, erupted in cheers because Fred had just won. When the dealer pushed all the chips back over to him and he got to count how much money he had, he realized he had started with $5,000, but now had $27,000. He had gambled and won. $27,000 was just enough to pay that fuel bill and keep his company running a little bit longer. Basically, exactly what Fred had hoped for had happened. Then during this extra time that Fred had basically won himself, he was able to secure $11 million in investor funding, which was enough money to finally scale up this small business into the behemoth that we know it as today.

Fred went from being a guy betting his last chips at a casino to now being a multi a billionaire. Fred's full name is Fred Smith, and that little company that he scaled up on a gamble was FedEx. I have a major announcement. Ballin Studios, the home of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious, today has launched another brand new show. It's called Late Nights with Nexpo. It is totally free. It's a podcast, and it's hosted by none other than Nexpo, who you might already know from YouTube, who's been around for many years. He's got millions of subscribers on YouTube. He's got this incredible immersive storytelling style. If you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious, I know you're going to like Late Nights with Nexbo. The stories, the mysteries, the bone-chilling crazy stuff he's going to cover on this podcast will be exclusive to the podcast. You can't get these stories on his YouTube channel. You can only get them on this Ballin Studio's production. It's called Late Nights with Nexpo. It comes out every Wednesday. At the end of today's YouTube video, we're going to play you a sneak peek of the first episode. But beyond that, after this YouTube video is over, you can just look up Late Nights with Nexpo on any podcast platform, and you can listen today to the first two episodes because they're live right now.

Again, if you are a fan of the content you already get on this YouTube channel, The Strange, Dark, and Mysterious, you're going to love Late Nights with Nexpo. It's a free show at A Balin Studios every Wednesday. Enjoy. One evening in the late 1980s, a man in his 20s named Norm walked into a house party in the Hollywood Hills, which is a very exclusive and pricey neighborhood in Los Angeles, California. In this house, which was filled with people, there were all these actors and entertainers and Hollywood-type people. Norm, who was this scruffy guy with long stringy hair and who had no experience in the entertainment industry, knew he did not fit in here at all. In fact, Norm never would have been at a party this, if not for what had happened to him just a few hours earlier. That afternoon, Norm had gotten into a fight with his boss at the motorcycle shop where he worked. Now, Norm and his boss never got along, but they managed to coexist for the most part, except Today, this small argument had turned into a huge argument that turned into Norm getting fired. After getting fired, Norm left the shop and just began aimlessly walking around Los Angeles until he wound up running into one of his friends.

Over the course of this conversation where Norm's like, Yeah, I got fired. Not doing too good. The friend was like, Oh, well, tonight there's going to be this big party up in the Hollywood Hills. Why don't you come along? Norm, who was feeling admittedly pretty down after being fired, decided, You know what? What the heck? I'll I'm going to go to this party because maybe that will boost my spirits. Now here he was. Norm went and found his friend in the house party. And for a little while, the party was pretty great. I mean, Norm felt uncomfortable, didn't really know anybody. It was awkward, but it was fine. Him and his friend were drinking and chatting, and his friend was introducing him to some people, and it was all good. Except Norm just couldn't shake the anger he felt about getting fired, not only at the fact that he was now unemployed, which was a huge problem, but he also just felt mad at his boss. How dare his boss do this to him? To cope with this, Norm just began drinking really heavily, way more than anybody else at this party. Before long, Norm was completely plastered drunk.

But it would turn out getting totally smashed did not calm Norm down. In fact, if anything, it only made him more blind with rage about what had happened to him. And so naturally, what he did is he departs his friend and pushes through the crowd of people, and he goes up to the second floor where there was this balcony that overlooked where basically everybody in the house was. Then Norm, who's slurring his speech and he's totally a mess, he screams out to the crowd of these people that he doesn't even know, these Hollywood people, basically screams at them to stop what they're doing and listen to him, and everyone did. They turned around and looked up at this guy like, What's going on here? And Norm just begins delivering this totally angry rant that didn't even make any sense. I mean, he's drunk, but he's basically ranting about how mad he is and this horrible injustice that's been done to him and just on and on. He's just pouring out all of his emotions, and everybody's just looking at him like, What is going on here? It was like a train wreck. They couldn't look away.

Eventually, Norman finished up his big, rambling, humiliating speech, and stepped away from the railing, and everybody down below who had been wrapped to this point, but now was like, Whatever. They went back to the party, and Norm just stood up there taken in the scene, and suddenly, he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around and he saw there was this person he didn't recognize. This person says to Norm, Hey, have you ever considered acting in a play? It would turn out that person was a Hollywood producer, and they were putting on a play in LA. They really liked Norm's look, the whole scruffy vibe. But even more as they watched him deliver that totally angry, drunken rant that he managed to get all these people to listen to, that it was obvious he had natural charisma and he could command an audience even when the audience had no idea what he was talking about. Ultimately, this producer literally offered Norm an acting job. And Norm, who really didn't have aspirations to be an actor but now needed a job because he had just been fired that day, he's unemployed, he agreed. He said, Okay, I'll act in your play.

And so Norman would act in this play and he would do such a good job despite the fact that he totally was not an actor. He literally was a drunk guy at a party who randomly got recognized by some producer. But regardless, he acts in this play, and he is such a natural and does such a good job that he gets noticed by other Hollywood producers and casting directors. And before long, he lands his starring role in the mega hit TV show, The Walking Dead. Norm's full name is Norman Reedus. One evening in the late winter of 1973, a 23-year-old mother named Tabby, put her eight-month-old son and two-year-old daughter down for their naps inside of their double-wide trailer, which was parked in a small town in New England. Once her kids fell asleep, Tabby looked over at the clock. She was waiting for her husband to get home from his job as a high school teacher and he was running late. Tabby wondered what could be holding up her husband, and she certainly hoped he was okay, but she couldn't just call the high school to ask how he was doing because they didn't own a landline phone.

They literally didn't have enough money to afford a landline phone in their trailer. In fact, they basically only had enough money to barely make ends meet. Tabby and her husband actually had dreams of becoming professional writers, but they had found over the past few years that breaking into writing at this time in America was nearly impossible. They had gotten a few stories published here and there, but for the most part, the only thing their writing had gotten them was a whole bunch of rejection. As a result of this, both of them had taken day jobs to basically supplement the income that was not being generated from writing. Tabby was home with the kids and then in the evening would work some shifts at a Duncan Donuts, and then her husband, in addition to being a teacher, also worked at a laundermat. But even with their three jobs combined, they barely made any money. Now, Tabby still held on to hope that maybe one day she could break in and be a professional writer and have that be her primary income. But her husband, who also had the same dream, was over time becoming increasingly more pessimistic about his opportunity to one day just be a writer.

He felt like this truly was impossible, that they'd struggle forever and he wouldn't become a writer. Tabby walked to the tiny laundry room in the back of their trailer to switch their clothes from the washer to the dryer. This room, the laundry room, actually doubled as her husband's office. As soon as she walked back there, she saw his desk was a total mess. All around his typewriter, which sat right in the middle of the table, were all these empty beer cans and food numbers and rejection letters from various magazines and publications. The trash can next to the table on the ground was overflowing with crumpled up pieces of paper. Feeling very annoyed by this mess, Tabby reached down to tie up the trash bag to take it outside did. But as she went to do that, she happened to glance at one of these crumpled up pieces of paper in the trash, and she skimmed a couple of sentences that were written on it, that were typed on this paper. As soon as she did, she stopped because there was something really interesting about this writing. Now, She knew her husband had written whatever was on this page, but generally speaking, her husband always shared with her anything he had written, and she would read everything.

There was something about this text that she knew she had not read it before. This was different. Clearly, he wrote it, but she had not seen this before, and so she was curious. She pulled the paper out of the trash can and smoothed it off, then actually began reading what turned out to be this failed manuscript that her husband had thrown away, and she couldn't believe how good it was. It dawned on Tabby that clearly her husband had been working on this in secret, which made her wonder, one, why are you doing that? Why are you hiding this particular thing from me when you let me read everything else? Two, again, this is so good. Why is crumpled up and in the trash. Just then, Tabby heard the front door of the trailer open and her husband come inside. And so Tabby just took the page she was reading and walked out of the laundry room and she held it up to her husband and she was like, What is this? Why haven't you shown me this? To Tabby's surprise, her husband, when he realized what she was holding, just looked totally embarrassed. He wished she hadn't seen that.

She said to him, No, this is so good. What's going on here? Her husband would tell her, Look, I started writing this thing. I didn't really know what it was going to become, but I quickly realized that I don't know enough about the subject matter, and I'm just not talented enough to finish the story. Even if I was, this is too weird. It's too out there. No one would publish this. And so ultimately, he had just thrown it away and not told Tabby. In fact, he went on to tell Tabby that in addition to this being a failed project, he really understood at this point in his career that he was a failed writer. Right now, what he really needed to do was give up writing altogether and just focus on making money for the family, something they desperately needed. Tabby could see her husband was completely serious. She just held up this piece of paper and she said, No, this, this is the one. This is the one that's going to help you break through. I know it. You know what? Even if you don't know the subject matter, I do. I can help you with that.

Together, we can make this a full-length novel. You got to see it through. It's too good not to. At Tabby's insistence, that's what her husband did. He would spend several months working with Tabby to this novel, and by the spring of 1974, it was done. That same spring, they began shopping the manuscript around to different publishers, really having no idea how anybody was going to react. But they were both totally blown away when one of the major publishers they sent this thing to came back and said, not only will we absolutely print this book, but we'll also give you a $400,000 advance, which in today's money is two and a half million dollars, a massive, massive book deal by any standard. The young couple was totally thrilled. They took the book deal, the book got published, and with the money they got, they were able to move out of their double wide trailer, and they were able to purchase a landline telephone. But that was only the beginning. Tabby's decision to pull that crumpled up piece of paper out of the trash can and force her husband to turn it into a novel would prove to be a good one because her husband would go on to become, arguably, one of the most famous writers in the world.

That story, the Tabby saved from the trash can, would go on to become the iconic horror novel, Carrie. Tabby's husband was none other than Stephen King. And now from Ballon Studios, here is a clip from our brand new show, Late Nights with Nexbo. You can find this show on any podcast platform. So when you're done listening to this, go find it, give it a follow, and tune in every Wednesday for new episodes. Enjoy.

Siberia, August 1993. The river is freezing cold. Snowmelts from the Kamar Daban Mountain Range, which looms overhead. Your kayak cuts through the water. You take in the fresh mountain air and the rugged landscape. It's a long overdue escape from the city. Out here, the only signs of civilisation realization our power lines running over the mountains, which are easy enough to ignore. But out of nowhere, something catches your eye, and the peaceful atmosphere dissolves. There's someone standing on the far shore of the river, framed starkly against the trees. It's a teenage girl. She's waving her arms frantically, screaming for you to stop. From From this distance, you can't quite make it out, but it looks almost like her jacket is stained with blood. You don't hesitate. You dive into the frigid water and swim to shore. And when you reach the girl, she collapses into your arms. She's delirious, inconsolable. You can barely make out half of what she's saying through her sobs. She says she's scared, then she's all alone. You wonder why this girl is out in the wild by herself. But what she says next answers your question, and makes your blood run as cold as the river.

Everyone else is dead.

You can find this show on any podcast platform. Go find it, give it a follow, and tune in every Wednesday for new episodes. Thank you so much for watching. Let me know what you thought of today's episode in the comments. Remember, we have hundreds of videos for you to binge right now. But if you're looking for a recommendation from me of that one video that's worth your time, well, it's this one right here. So give it a watch. All right, until next time. See you.