Young can be interpreted liberally. For example I’ll open with an obvious one-
Alexander the Great- he lived to be 32 and combined the Greek speaking lands with the Persian Empire, forever changing history by combining technologies and learnings and art from all cultures causing an explosion of learning and cultural interaction. A coldblooded barbarian by our standards he was amazingly progressive for the standards of his own time, seeking to unite the people under his rule rather than enslave the vanquished. His young death without a capable single heir (he had a mentally impaired brother and an unborn son) caused his vast empire to be torn apart by his generals into smaller empires that would war with each other for centuries.
Had he not died at 32 he would probably have gone on further campaigns into India and possibly to the west in Europe. While it’s not certain he would have won (any more than it’s certain how much the record of his undefeatable military brilliance is valid other than he did managed to conquer the Persians) the notions of a cohesive empire that stretched from India in the east to perhaps Italy in the west would have made history as we know it almost unrecognizable.
Going much younger and almost 2,000 years later I’ll posit any of the sons born to Katharine of Aragon and Henry VIII. Had any of them survived infancy in decent health he would not have sought to annul the marriage, and while it’s not at all inconceivable he may have warred with the church due to their wealth and his need for money it’s unlikely he’d have dissolved the monasteries and his (ever changing) alliances on the Continent may have been different.
Another: The Holy Roman Emperor Otto III died shortly before his wedding day in 1002. He was in his early 20s so it’s impossible to know what sort of ruler he’d have ultimately made, but had he lived to marry and procreate it would have been a merger for all times: his betrothed was Zoe, daughter and niece of the Byzantine co-emperors Basil II and Constantine VIII, which would have merged much of central Europe with the Eastern Empire, made the Mediterranean into a private lake for their heirs, and had their own heirs been at all capable could have made an empire much larger than Rome or Alexander ever knew at the same time as Islam was expanding and the kingdoms of Western Europe were emerging from the Vikings and Dark Ages.
Feel free to comment on the above or add your own.
Hell, have Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales survive at least long enough to have a child with Catherine of Aragon and the last 500 hundred years would’ve gone very differenty. Instead of being king Henry would’ve gone into into the clergy and likely ended up Cardinal Archbishop of Canterbury. No English Reformation, no Church of England, no wives to rid himself of (though he’d still produce a slew of bastards with mistresses).
Re: Alexander the Great, I disagree. The reason he died young was because he conquered all the land he could conquer, due to morale & supply issues which haunt every great war commander. After getting pwn3d by India, he lost his will for world domination and ultimately died of despair (and pleurisy.)
In modern history, JFK deserves a mention. A lot of historians begin “the '60s” (decade of social unrest and lost faith in government) at his death. His successor got us deeper into the Viet Nam war, which had a huge impact on the world. Johnson’s failures likely played a large role in the rebirth of American conservatism and the decline of the New Deal.
And if Henry, Duke of Cornwall, who was born and died in 1511, had outlived his father Henry VIII, and produced heirs, again no divorce for Catherine, no Reformation, and no independent Church of England.
The cause of his death is unknown. Speculation runs from poisoning to malaria to typhoid to alcoholism (the least likely) to cancer of the pancreas, but there’s not enough info to make a verdict. I seriously doubt he died of sadness and disillusion though: the only confirmed case of that was a former Nabooian princess who learned her twins were fathered by a guy she suspected of going queer for an old Sith guy in a robe. And there was more than enough in the empire he had to keep him busy for a lifetime: rebellions, forming merged armies, convincing the Greeks he was a god, and there were still places on the ancient maps that didn’t have a city named after him or his horse or his dog or a member of his immediate family yet.
On the other hand, Johnson’s successes gave us a lot of our modern social safety net (such as it is) and the Civil Rights Act. As disastrous as his foreign policy was, Johnson deserves much more credit than he gets for his accomplishments on the domestic front. In terms of committment to racial equality and civil rights, he was probably a much better man and President than JFK.
I wish Jesus had had the Hugh Hefner/Robert Moses/Winfield Scott attitude: “I’m the only one who knows how to run this, so I’d better stay in charge as long as I can or you’ll just screw it up.”
I’d agree. As a close 2nd I’d nominate Bobby Kennedy. Had Bobby lived, I believe he could have beaten Hubert Humphrey for the Dem nomination, and possibly Nixon that November.
While it is very true that Johnson should probably get more credit for his domestic policy, that is just not how history has defined him. And it should be noted that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was actually proposed and fought for by Kennedy. In fact, Johnson invoked JFK a lot in his promotion of the bill.
In US history, Abraham Lincoln. Had he not been shot, the reformation period probably would have been very different which, perhaps, would have changed the entire tone of race relations all the way up to the civil rights movement.
OTOH, by modern standards, Lincoln was quite the racist. So maybe not.
Even if that were true (i.e. that there was no one else to conquer that he could possibly have conquered), it misses a point. That being that had he lived it’s possible he could have lived long enough to assure some sort of succession, and that his empire (perhaps) wouldn’t have flown apart at his death and his generals cut it up into their own kingdoms. Personally, I think that, had he lived another decade, the world might have been radically different.