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Columbus knew where he was going. And would have died trying to get there, if he hadn't serendipitously run into something else, first.

But he misjudged that something else (America) with his original destination (India).

Quoting from wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus):

"Amerigo Vespucci's travel journals, published 1502-4, convinced Martin Waldseemüller that the discovered place was not India, as Columbus always believed, but a new continent"

Not sure this takes into account everyone else who died at sea. Occasional serendipitous results are to be expected, but don't represent what is probably a large body of associated failures to this approach.

Also not always true. Think Twitter.

Taken out of context. Twitter wasn't a result of good or bad QA. In fact, it's got nothing to do with that.