A few religious questions:
What if the Red Sea hadn’t parted?
What if Jesus had been female?
What if Martin Luther had never lived?
What if there had been 11 commandments? What would the 11th one be?
What if the Pope announced that he has become an atheist?
If the US was colonized by Spain, we’d be building the fence across the Canadian border.
If the US was colonized by France, our women would sound sexier, and the poor would have croissant stamps.
If the US had been colonized by France your women would have hairy armpits, you would chew garlic instead of gum,you would be known as cheese eating surrender monkeys, you would eat snails/frogs legs instead of burgers and hot dogs, you would play soccer instead of baseball, you would spend very little on soap.
And a whole lot more
From the Civil War:
What if Stonewall Jackson had known the right password?
or
What if the artillery barrage at Pickett’s Charge had not been overaimed and the charge had worked?
or
What if Lincoln’s bodyguard hadn’t stepped next door for a drink (true)?
or
What if all the slaves had all gone on strike?
I like Harry Turtledove’s series that is called “Timeline 191” in which the Civil War turned out different.
In Lee’s first invasion of the north, his officers accidentally left behind his battle plans which were titled “Special Orders 191”. The north discovered these and stopped Lee at Antietam where his army suffered heavy losses.
In Turtledove’s alternative history, a Confederate rear guard finds the orders before the Union can, and Lee is able to move further north and achieve a total Confederate victory in the Civil War.
His 10+ books follow the course of this alternate history through WWI and WWII in a mesmerizing story. I’m just finishing “The Grapple” so please, nobody spoil it for me…
Although everyone knows that reaching the speed of sound creates a sonic “boom,” few know that reaching the speed of light creates a “wooshing” sound.
Well his dyslexia is only conjecture after his death, but still commonly cited as one of his disabilities.
Alternate history is one of my favorite genres of speculative fiction. But it takes an author who’s a good historian and can extrapolate circumstances believably.
One of my favorite short stories on the subject is “He Walked Around the Horses” The short story can be found here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=242358&pageno=2
It’s based on the actual disappearance of a British diplomat in 1809. Told in the form of a series of letters between German and British officials, the fictional tale purports to be what actually happened to the guy. The “changed circumstance” is that the American Revolution failed. If you like irony, and know your history, the signature on the final letter is great!
panache45 asked “What if Martin Luther hadn’t lived?” There were other reform movements even before Luther. I think that with the changing economics of Europe and with new learning and sciences, a breakdown in the overwhelming religious authority of the RCC was inevitable. It wasn’t all religious, see, there was a lot of class dissatisfaction and political unrest as well. Just read about Henry VIII. Calvin and Knox without Luther might have wielded even more influence.
Gary Kildall would have made the deal with IBM and CP/M would have continued its de facto dominance of microcomputers into the IBM PC era. CP/M-86 wasn’t really different enough from MS-DOS for this to be a huge difference, though Digital Research and Kildall were both rather different from Microsoft and Gates. Maybe there wouldn’t have been a monopoly like the one Microsoft has now.
Key technologies would have been delayed, because Tesla went mad in his later years and would never accept the advances in technology past a certain point. Tesla is lionized by people who actually believe his later nonsense, including various ways of destroying the Earth more suited to Republic serials than the USPTO.
What if I had brought a flashlight?
(Why didn’t I bring a flashlight!)
What if ,when the Mongols were on the point of invading Europe the great Khan hadn’t died back on the asian planes and as a consequence the Mongol leaders along with their armies hadn’t packed up and gone home to choose a new leader?
Talking of Mongols, how about if the Japanese hadn’t got lucky with that divine wind thing?
How about if Harold Godwinson and his huscarles had stood their ground on top of Battle Hill instead of breaking ranks? Or if Henry V hadn’t got sick and died young?
George III, in a spell of lucidity, says “All right, let us form a colonial parliament under a Viceroy, and have them appoint their own representatives to the House of Lords. We shall turn a blind eye to what looks like ‘rebellion’, and count on the support of the two-thirds of the colonists who don’t want independence and will side us if we make a few concessions.”
Napoleon Bonaparte says “You know what? Russia’s just too damn big and cold. Let’s draw a line while we’re winning.”
What if Margaret Thatcher had died in the IRA bombing of the Conservative Party Conference in Brighton in 1984?