Here is Max's first post, from August 12, 2000, @ 5:05:32:

Does anybody know fiasco came to have its common meaning in English? How does a word for a type of bottle or even "fare fiasco," "to make a bottle," come to mean an abject failure? TIA

http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=3476

In response, tsuwm posted a link to a couple of possible answers, but noted that the answer was not clear:

http://latin.about.com/library/wordstories/blfiasco.htm

and William said:

i've heard somewhere that it came from problems in the italian wine industry. so many more bottles of certain wines were sold than made (and i believe still are sometimes) that a fiasco came to mean a situation where rules had no effect.

My own sources are also conflicting:

from Etymological Dictionary of the English Language:

FIASCO, a failure, break-down in a performance (Ital - Late L). From the Ital. phrase far fiasco, to make a bottle; also, to fail, to break down (reason for this unknown; perhaps it means that the empty bottle fails to please). Torriano, ed 1688, has: fiaschi, bottles, flaggons; also, an interjection of admiration, as papae in Latin.

Origins A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English says:

fiasco, a flask or bottle (esp of wine), hence -- ?from "dead marines" and smashed bottles -- a crash, esp a resounding or ludicrous failure: via F, from It, fiasco, bottle, crash of Gmc origin. The "failure" sense may have an independent origin: it comes, in F, from faire fiasco, from It far fiasco, to make a failure, and this It fiasco is not certainly the "bottle" fiasco.

Dictionary of Word Origins says:

The making of a fine Venetian glass bottle is a difficult process -- for it must be perfect. If, in blowing, the slightest flaw is detected the glassblower turns the bottle into a common flask -- called in Italian, fiasco.

And, Why You Say It says:

Long ago, Venice became a great center of the glass trade. Her craftsmen developed the now-standard goblet made up of bowl, stem, and foot. They also imitated semiprecious stones in the color and texture of fine ware. Many pieces were so prized that royal inventories listed them along with gold and silver vessels.

In addition to costly ware, Italian artisans produced great quantities of the common flask -- which in some dialects was know as a fiasco.

Flaws frequently developed in the process of turning out fine pieces. Glass was too expensive to throw away; even damaged, a hunk of it could be reheated and turned into a fiasco or two. So many inexpensive flasks were the result of bungling that the glass blower's term came to indicate any type of failure.

At least, that is maybe the most believable of half a dozen theories offered to account for the rise of a distinctive and elusive word.

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So, dear Max, the origin of fiasco might stay lost, along with the meaning of the giant heads on Easter Island and the point of crop circles.

But happy anniversary anyway. Those who have followed you here remain in awe.