# How would history be different if the participants were sober? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 26, 2007, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-history-be-different-if-the-participants-were-sober/401754 "2007-04-26T17:18:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2007, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-history-be-different-if-the-participants-were-sober/401754/21 "2007-04-27T17:05:30Z")
It was. From [Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grog): _Due to the subsequent illness and disciplinary problems, the rum was mixed with water. This both diluted its effects, and delayed its spoilage. A half pint of rum mixed with one quart of water and issued in two servings before noon and after the end of the working day became part of the official regulations of the Royal Navy in 1756 and lasted for more than two centuries._ ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2007, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-history-be-different-if-the-participants-were-sober/401754/22 "2007-04-27T17:33:47Z")
The Exxon Valdiz might still be afloat. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2007, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-history-be-different-if-the-participants-were-sober/401754/23 "2007-04-27T22:29:47Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] Paradox Press’ **The Big Book of Vice** claims that most of the battles of Medieval Europe (and later) were “fought drunk”. I’d love to know where they got the idea, or how it’s substantiated, and I don’t really believe it. But, if true, it would completelt revamp our picture of why the world is the way it is. [/QUOTE] I dunno. In medieval Europe there were no distilled spirits, only wine and beer. It would take a whole lot of either to get a whole army drunk. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2007, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-history-be-different-if-the-participants-were-sober/401754/24 "2007-04-27T23:02:10Z")
I’ve read one theory that Alexander the Great drank himself to death. History might have turned out quite different if he’d stayed alive to administer the known world, after he’d spent so much effort conquering it. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2007, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-history-be-different-if-the-participants-were-sober/401754/25 "2007-04-27T23:06:41Z")
[QUOTE=Miller] I’ve read one theory that Alexander the Great drank himself to death. History might have turned out quite different if he’d stayed alive to administer the known world, after he’d spent so much effort conquering it. [/QUOTE] He was never going to outlive [Hephaestion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hephaestion) by very long. He thought of the two of them as Achilles and Patroclus – and Achilles did not long survive Patroclus. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2007, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-history-be-different-if-the-participants-were-sober/401754/26 "2007-04-27T23:17:36Z")
I’ve often wondered about fetal alcohol syndrome in the past: in those working class slums and serf villages, in the fateful period between the invention of cheap distilled liquor and the development of the idea that there was something wrong with too much strong drink–what percentage of folks had the problems we now associate with fetal alcohol syndrome? ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2007, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-history-be-different-if-the-participants-were-sober/401754/27 "2007-04-27T23:45:47Z")
I read or heard somewhere that the Chernobyl disaster happened in part because the scientists were drunk. I have no idea if this is true or not, and a search revealed no evidence that it is, so I tend to doubt it. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2007, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-history-be-different-if-the-participants-were-sober/401754/28 "2007-04-27T23:56:22Z")
[QUOTE=Argent Towers] I read or heard somewhere that the Chernobyl disaster happened in part because the scientists were drunk. I have no idea if this is true or not, and a search revealed no evidence that it is, so I tend to doubt it. [/QUOTE] It was the Soviet Union. I don’t doubt it for a second. I remember one instance, as noted in the **NYTimes** : _Four Soviet soldiers who got lost on maneuvers in Czechoslovakia traded their tank to a tavern owner for two cases of vodka and were found sleeping it off in a forest two days later, a West German newspaper reported. Czech Communist authorities later learned that the tavern owner dismantled the tank and sold the pieces to a metal-recycling center, the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported in its weekend issue_. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2007, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-history-be-different-if-the-participants-were-sober/401754/29 "2007-04-28T00:13:59Z")
[QUOTE=Dinsdale] Is it entirely urban legend that holiday partying by the Hessians played a role in Washington’s success at the battle of Trenton. If nothing else, ISTR the Brit commander was informed of danger while at dinner, but couldn’t be troubled to respond. [/QUOTE] The American attack was in the early morning hours of December 26, 1776, in the aftermath of a blizzard which the Hessians would rightly have believed would have prevented any coordinated effort by the broken-up, pursued rebel forces. Many of them probably were indeed hung over, but their defeat was certainly due more to Washington’s achieving total surprise. Col. Rall was not waked up until the Americans had already entered town, true, but the blame for that belongs to his aides and their own surprise. Once roused, he commanded the counterattack capably, but the battle was already lost. Rall and all his coloners were killed in the battle, and both Hessian regiments were destroyed. It’s quite possible that the Continental Army would have been destroyed much earlier, if General Sir William Howe had left the comforts of loyalist New York to pursue them instead of deciding to spend the winter “in bed with Mrs. Loring”. Certainly there would have been alcohol aplenty at the officers’ parties, but that doesn’t seem to have been a direct factor in Howe’s plans. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2007, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-history-be-different-if-the-participants-were-sober/401754/30 "2007-04-28T00:51:31Z")
[QUOTE=Miller] I’ve read one theory that Alexander the Great drank himself to death. History might have turned out quite different if he’d stayed alive to administer the known world, after he’d spent so much effort conquering it. [/QUOTE] He was also a thoroughly mean, nasty drunk and one theory about his death ( not inconsistent with his symptoms ) was that he was slow-poisoned by his officers via his daily wine intake. It was a technique cetainly known to the Greeks of the time. I haven’t read the book **Burton** cites above, but I’d have to guess sight unseen that Alexander is one of his key cites. An erratic megalomaniac who had killed key officers while in a drunken rage, it may be that his alcoholism was a factor ( and opportunity ) in finally pushing his wary officers into conspiring to remove him, before he lead them off the face of the world and/or disposed of more of those that displeased him. And if he _did_ die of natural causes ( certainly more than likely ), like you said the drinking undoubtedly took a toll on his body. - Tamerlane ---
**Author:** ![FRDE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e68b1a/32.png) [@FRDE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FRDE)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2007, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-history-be-different-if-the-participants-were-sober/401754/31 "2007-04-28T12:52:51Z")
[QUOTE=Tamerlane] He was also a thoroughly mean, nasty drunk and one theory about his death ( not inconsistent with his symptoms ) was that he was slow-poisoned by his officers via his daily wine intake. It was a technique cetainly known to the Greeks of the time. I haven’t read the book **Burton** cites above, but I’d have to guess sight unseen that Alexander is one of his key cites. An erratic megalomaniac who had killed key officers while in a drunken rage, it may be that his alcoholism was a factor ( and opportunity ) in finally pushing his wary officers into conspiring to remove him, before he lead them off the face of the world and/or disposed of more of those that displeased him. And if he _did_ die of natural causes ( certainly more than likely ), like you said the drinking undoubtedly took a toll on his body. - Tamerlane [/QUOTE] And I always heard that Lysander died of apricots - and I agree that his officers were fed up of him [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-history-be-different-if-the-participants-were-sober/401754.md?page=1)