This is a thread you can add to. You ask a question on how history would be different if something did or did not happen, and you can answer or leave that to somebody else. I’ll go first. How would history be different if the United States were colonized by Spain or France? What if France won the French and Indian War?
We were. Look at Louisiana, Florida, California, Texas and beyond. The results are what you see.
Counterfactuals can be a lot of fun. I will say however that you need to keep them more narrow. Asking what might have happened if Spain had colonized the United States (to the point of becoming the dominant force in US history) is a very wide open question and people could propose most anything.
Generally keeping it as narrowly focused as possible yields the best results (and only change one thing). E.g. What if the D-Day invasion failed?
If you like this stuff I highly recommend the book What If? . The whole thing is a collection of essays from historians who take one moment in history and speculate (educated speculation) what might have happened had things gone differently at that moment. Perhaps the most striking thing you take away from that book is how all of human history has hinged by sometimes the mere chance or luck of a moment. It had always been my impression that history was some grand, sweeping force of nature kind of thing largely unaffected by the little fiddly things. This is not always so and it is spooky to think going right instead of left could change the world.
It’s great stuff (there is a sequel as well).
:smack: I meant the 13 colonies.
How would the world be different if that 16th century pope hadn’t divided the world into Spanish and Portuguese hemispheres?
I think for one thing that South America would have become a hot contention zone, not only between those two powers but all the others of the age. Endless battles, not with native tribes but between European powers.
And, due to that distraction, the far east would have no strong Spanish or Portuguese colonies, making the Dutch much richer. Wealth translating to political power, they would have expanded in Europe, collecting neighboring duchies wanting to marry into wealth.
Well, if you look at the history of the Carribean, it was a pretty hot contention zone. Without the treaty, you might have seen more fighting between Spain and Portugal, but not much more among anyone else, because only the Spanish and Portugese paid any attention to the treaty anyway. England and the Netherlands were Protestant and didn’t pay any attention to the pope, and the French didn’t recognize the treaty.
What if American Indians had more immunities to European diseases? Or the Europeans had wimpier diseases?
In 1421, Charles Mann cites many scholars who believe that millions and millions of Indians died of pandemic European diseases well in advance of colonizing Europeans. We tend to think of the defeat of the Indians as a forgone conclusion of superior technology, but maybe they could’ve done considerably better for themselves if not for the microbes.
What if…
John Hinckley, Jr. had been successful? Would the senior George Bush have been able to lead the country? Who would have won the '84 election?
SSG Schwartz
I think that if D Day had failed the war in Europe would have dragged on until 1947,the Russians would have overrun Germany and then as a pretext most of western Europe .
At the last minute with no opposition from German forces the allies would have landed in France and then there would have been an eyeball contest between us and the Soviets lasting god knows how many years.
But don’t you think we would have used the atomic bomb on Germany long before that?
…if Monica Lewinsky had had a bad case of strep throat?
…if Oprah Winfrey didn’t have a couch, just beanbag furniture on her set during Tom Cruise’s appearance?
…If Forrest Gump had been given a hotel room that didn’t overlook the Watergate?
…if Albert Einstein had been dyslexic?
True, but how many would we need to drop? No surrender would’ve been possible as long as Hitler lived.
How would the world be different if the Louisiana Purchase had never been made?
Watching the documentary, I wondered what the world would be like if Forrest Gump was never born at all. We wouldn’t have the happy face and Elvis never would have made it. The school principle would have gotten laid at least one less time as well. It is a good thought exercise.
Wasn’t he?
I flipped through What If while I was waiting for Harry Potter 7 to come out (the kids wanted to go to the Borders party, so I parked myself in a comfy chair for five hours) and I was very impressed. The essayists were extremely intelligent and it made for very thought-provoking reading.
I’ll do one…what if no one had invented the air conditioner?
…if Eleanor Roosevelt could fly…?
Who’s around to say she couldn’t though?
What if Bill Gates had had no interest in technology?
What if Nikola Tesla had been the dominant influence in history rather than Thomas Edison?
If the U.S. were colonized by Spain or France we probably would have turned into another 3rd world country, like Brazil (which is slowly developing), most of the driving spirit that made America great comes from English ideals of personal freedom that stem from Magna Carta.
What if Paul had a heart attack and Christianity never got off the ground?
What if Europe was devastated by infectious diseases imported from the Americas in the 1500s?
What if the federal income tax was never introduced in the United States?
What if Cecil had chosen another profession?
I dunno what OS (if any) I’d be running now, but I know that this (pic, SFW) never would have happened.
