The Third Punic War.
What?
How far do you think Hitler would have gotten if North America and its vast resources had been part of the British Empire?
I have to go with Franco Prussian/WWI.
I have to go with WW2. WW1 was way uglier, as a battlefield phenomenon anyway, but it did nothing to prevent WW2, whereas the ugliness of WW2 certainly prevented WW3 and the end of all life.
Now if we could just not ever have any war under any circumstances whatsoever, then we could call ourselves morally superior to insects.
I realized something earlier. A lot of people seem to be answering this question from the “What would happen if x War went a different way?” angle. Taken that way, I’m in the Persian War camp.
The German reparations insisted on by the French were arguably the cause of WWII in Europe.
My vote: the Napoleonic Wars. Had Napoleon won, Europe would be totally different today-Germany would never had emerged as a world power. How would Europe have progressed under French hegemony? Who knows, but the 20th century would have been far less bloody that it turned out to be!
Well if we have to pick one: I’d nominate the campaign of conquest of Alexander aka Alexander the Great in the fourth century B.C. The ripples of that conquest impacted the birth of and growth of the Roman Empire, the Christian Religion, Science and the formation of “the West”. It changed how Caesar was raised, who Jesus’s neighbors were, what Muhammad’s political world was and (arguably: stretching it alert) “lasted” in an unrecognizable to Al, muted form until the fall of Constantinople in 1492.
It reverberates thru the history of every Middle Eastern Country. Through Iran, Afghanistan and Indian history as well. All that is just *DIRECT impactees, like any war or empire establishment this one sent shock waves of culture, language, science, literature, migrations and politics even unto our time.
Also just practically, it was the first war of conquest at such an early time it just set the table for so much that followed. C could never have followed B if A had not happened kind of thinking
was the first war of conquest at such an early time …
should read:
was the first widespread world-war of conquest and at such an
In what way? It didn’t seem to slow anyone down in the areas of the arts and sciences. Take for example Eudoxus of Cnidus, just to name one. The idea that the Achaemenid Persians were either cultural barbarians or cultural imperialists is just not born out by the evidence.
By far the strongest argument is that Athenian experients in democracy would have been ended prematurely ( Persia preferred to appoint tyrants, in the original use of that term, in its Greek possessions for ease of control - in this case they meant to re-install the Athenian Hippias, expelled in 510 ). However a) athough the reforms of Ephialtes might have been forstalled, Athenian democracy had been around for about 20 years at that point, had evolved from earlier thought on this matter ( i.e. reforms of Solon and Pisistratus ), and the germs of the idea likely wouldn’t have died and b) again, there is no guarantee or even likliehood that Persian control would have been either overly lengthy or excessively intrusive ( other than on that one point ). Likely Rome would have eventually taken the area anyway. At any rate the Roman Republic was not overwhelmingly beholden to Athenian ideals, as the Republic actually predates by a year the rise of Athenian democracy and mostly just adopted Etruscan codes and laws, replacing the king with an appointed consul. Predicting just how differently modern thoughts on democracy would have progressed is hard to say, but I wouldn’t necessarily assume the impact would have been dire.
I can make an argument it would have been, mind you. We’re talking ~200 years of democratic experimentation squashed. I’m just not quite willing to take a deterministic stance on it. The seeds of democratic thought had already been planted.
Hmmm…elucidate. I’m failing to see the big impact on Rome, other than having to deal with the Diadochid successor states. Similarily with Christianity or Islam - I don’t see much connection at all ( Alexander scarcely impacted Palestine and I’m not sure you can say that the revolt of the Maccabees against the Seleucids had any developmental impact on Christianity - if you’re arguing that Israel becoming an independant state led to chain of events leading to the Jewish diaspora>leading to modification of Jewish thought>leading to Christianity, I think that is a bit much to lay at Alexander’s feet ). Science? I’ll give you Alexandria, I guess. And in the same vein as the question on Rome, I don’t see how any serious continuity can be claimed with the Roman state ( by the way Constantinople fell in 1453, not 1492 - you’re thinking of Granada ).
- Tamerlane
At the rate Tamerlane is shooting down potential candidates, soon he’s gonna be stuck arguing that the War of Jenkin’s Ear was most important to history, by process of elimination. 
Nah. My candidate I would think is blindingly obvious. IMHO no war in history will have more devastating cultural impact and importance for future generations than the ‘Soccer War’ between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969. The effects of that mighty conflict I expect to be felt for millenia to come :p.
- Tamerlane
Damn, that’s what I was going to say.
It would be a very different world if there were a whole other species of human walking around.
I’ll answer this part first and come back later (maybe tommorow) to answer the rest. I feel strongest on this point, but I’ll cop to where I’m clearly wrong on the fall of constantinople.
*** ( Alexander scarcely impacted Palestine and I’m not sure you can say that the revolt of the Maccabees against the Seleucids had any developmental impact on Christianity - if you’re arguing that Israel becoming an independant state led to chain of events leading to the Jewish diaspora>leading to modification of Jewish thought>leading to Christianity, I think that is a bit much to lay at Alexander’s feet ).***
I didn’t lay it at his feet. I said ** the ripples of that conquest impacted the birth of and growth of … Christianity."** If you are saying anything differently, and not misinterpreting that bit … well let’s just say that is not a mainstream historical opinion. Yes, partially I was referring to the emergence of Ptolemaic and Seleucid Control Over Israel, both direct sucesssor states of Alexander’s Conquest which led to the Hellinization of Israel, Jewish thought, Religion and Jewish speech. Jesus “Christ” grew up in a land that spoke greek as a lingua franca on the Wetsrn Shore of galilee. On the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee was Decapolis: (Greek meaning “Ten Cities”) Ten cities settled by Greek speaking heelenized Syrians and immigrants on the eastern shore. The earliest writing of the New Testament was in Greek and the earliest Christians converts, any buy “Paul of Tarsus” were Greek speakers. All of that is to some extent impacted by Alexander’s conquest
Well, fair enough. Actually more than fair, as thinking about it, I’m willing to say my response was entirely too knee-jerk and just flat out incorrect. Of course you’re correct that Hellenization had a significant impact on Palestine, certainly far more so than it ever would have had without Alexander ( though Greek thought would have still been disseminated a bit without it, it would not have been nearly as unbiquitous in that relative backwater ) and certainly Greek philosophy affected Christian thought. I withdraw my objection and capitulate on that point :).
I still think positing a straight continuity between the Hellenic kingdoms and Rome ( and thence to Byzantium ) is a bit of a stretch though. Nor do I think Alexander’s conquests per se affected greatly the intake of Greek culture by Rome - that would have been there regardless, starting from commercial contacts, to the absorption of Magna Grecia and Sicily, to the absorption of Greece itself.
- Tamerlane
I suppose I should give an answer to the OP.
I dunno :). I think the WW I folks have a good argument for at least the modern era.
I’ll throw out another one though, just for fun, bearing in mind I’m not naming this as my answer. The long war between the early Byzantine state and the Sassanians, ~602 - 628/629. Without going into details it was devastating for both states and left both semi-prostrate, just in time for the Muslim eruption out of Arabia. No war, no Muslim conquests in all probability and no ( or at least far less - conversion from missionary work may have had an eventual impact ) Islam outside of the Arabian penninsula.
- Tamerlane
Christ Tam, you have posted and quoted me again? I have folks waiting for me that I kept waiting 30 minutes so I could write the below. I’ll read what you wrote tomm. its a compliment: When dealing with someone of you depth and breadth i want to have my ducks in a row.
How Alexander’s conquest impacted and rippled on the ROMAN Empire :
· The empire in the East was formed largely by simple a supercsion of governance by Rome of all three Alexandrian successor empires:
o the Antigonid in Greece
o the Ptolemaic in Egypt
o the Seleucid in Asia.
Rome who conquered but did not convert these inhabitants who lived in largely a Hellenistic culture even after now being part of “Rome Empire”
Another good demonstration of Alexander’s impact is that Rome fought three Macedonian Wars from 214 to 168 BC (as the Republic is solidifying) for 50 years (the length of our Cold War) her foreign policy is almost entirely occupied with Alexander’s legacy in his native land and in Greece. Directly, the Greek states of Italy had sent ambassadors to Alexander asking for aid against the growing Roman City stat
How Alexander’s conquest “impacted and rippled’ on the Science:
Alexander increasing movement of philosophers and of sophists with their stress on personal freedom and humanitarianism. The very idea sometimes of historians, rhetoricians, and biographers and moving them into societies and trading ideas that had never been heard before.
Mainly though his impact on Science can be summed up like this: No Alexander = no Aristotle and that is a huge impact. No?
As far as the Eastern Empire = Alexander’s Empire this is the idea above that the Roman East is Alexander’s Conquest with a veneer of Romans administering it. Certainly by the end this Greek-speaking empire it was much more a “Hellenistic” rather than a Roman one. (with an implication – or even a partial cause? - for Christianity).
Alexander Did impact all these things & his war of conquest is one strand of many that made our woe=rld today
OK Tamerlane I lied – I had to peek. Wish i had done it b4 I posted Cool. & good thought there on the early Byzantines. Sorry if I sound militant/defensive I always respect your views and wanted to be right
But has Tamerlane successfully argued against the Third Punic War (my suggestion)?
Obviously, he cannot refute this blazingly good example. 
The Clone Wars?
Fine, I’ll shut up now.
PS
I nominate The Great Northern War. That war, plus the Third Punic War and the Soccer War of '69, shall be recounted in horror by future generations in history class.
I looked at this quite a bit until Tamerlane got his hatchet out 
How about the seizure and sacking of Constantinople in 1204 by the Christians (during the 4th Crusade, I believe). In terms of the destruction of civilation and its intellectual inheritance, fings don’t get much worse . . . ?