Bedford

Were it not for a web-footed rodent and a haberdashery fad in the eighteenth-century Europe, Minnesota might be a Canadian province today. The beaver, almost as much as the horse, helped shaped the course of early American history. Some Mayflower colonists paid their passage with beaver pelts... But even more influential were the trappers and fur trappers penetrating the great Northern wilderness between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, since it was their presence that helped hold the Near West against British expansion from the north... These men, by making pelts the currency of the wilds, laid the base for a new economy that quickly overwhelmed the old. And all because European men of mode simply had to wear a beaver hat.

Imitation on another small cause producing a large effect:
Were it not for a certain uneducated boy from Illinois, the United States of America would not exist. Abraham Lincoln had such a profound effect on our country and guided her through so much, if he had not been there, America would be split into two or more countries. He was a mostly unknown lawyer from Springfield before he started into politics. He lost many times before becoming the 16th President of the US. He saved the United States from a major disaster. and even though thousands of lives were lost, the slaves were freed and the US was united once again. And all because of a simple self-educated boy from the back-woods of Illinois.