What historical event do you think would have changed history if it had turned out differently?

[MaryQueenofKnots]

Here's mine:
What if Edward VI had lived?
What if JFK hadn't been shot?
What if Edward VIII hadn't abdicated?

‘Peaceful settlers’ stole land and displaced the original people of that land. (Where were they to go?) And often used forced labour.

Massacres via poisoning water holes or shooting people happened more than had been admitted to historically. Certainly when it comes to colonial history very much of it has been white washed.

But disease certainly decimated people with no prior exposure. Also, some evidence supports that diseases were sometimes deliberately introduced.

Richard III surviving Bosworth and Henry VII never becoming king maybe? We wouldn’t have had Henry VIII then, at the very least I can think of six people whose lives could have been better as a result of that!

Stanley defected to the other side. I've recently read Josephine Tey's Daughter of Time which is why I remember. Good book if you're interested in Richard III

Yup, 100% agree. And what he said was correct anyway.

Who was burned at the stake? (Apart from Giordano Bruno, and that wasn't really for his scientific theories.)

I sometimes wonder what the African Continent would be like if there had been no appalling Slave Trade.

Henry VIII, and Rome. There would still have been the Reformation because it was under way in the Low Countries, Netherlands and Belgium. The leading Philosopher was Erasmus, our Tyndall went to Holland to learn from scholars there. He wanted to provide a Bible in local languages, He did a new translation. Others had only translated the Latin Vulgate version. Henry had him executed, (Tortured to death?)

If James IV of Scotland hadn't married Margaret Tudor.

If Mount Tambora had not erupted in 1815 - world’s worst volcano in modern times, led/contributed to famine, war and massive social upheaval.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9nJDTR6R7Gc

The impact of weather events on history is fascinating.

Excellent book by Jared Diamond:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel

It talks about how and why nation states evolved as they did and the impact. I highly recommend it.

There are so many what ifs--if Britain never colonized, if Hitler's life trajectory went a different way, if Henry VIII kept his dick in his pants, if Constantine hadn't adopted the Christian banner...

Colonization, war, establishment of religion would still occur--just by different people, in a different way.

Just because I'm curious, what was the novel?

Which has been heavily criticised over the years.

Anti-semitic sentiments were widely held back then by aristocrats and working man alike. In the last few weeks it has become.clear that many people still hold those views.
By focusing on two famous individuals you fail to recognise the context of the times they lived in. It is rather unfair to single out two individuals among so many for judgment.
.

Some of the responses on this thread are a bit emotional. I think colonialism was a very much more organic thing, coming out of companies wanting to trade with other countries and then it developed into various different things. It wasn't "the British government" just deciding to go over to other countries and immediately engage in genocide. Plenty of different nations have had empires/colonies throughout time. Poor little Belgium, who we ostensibly went into protect in August 1914, for eg, had a hideous colony in what was known as the Belgian Congo.

I don't think the German army were the first to have tanks in WW1. The cavalry actually had their uses in, especially the beginning of WWI. The British had the first tanks and a prototype was adopted in 1916.

Some of the Mitford sisters were anti semitic, and TS Eliot. But many other people were anti Semitic through history. Probably most people would have had relatives with anti Semitic views.

I'm not sure you could describe Ireland as having "won" independence from Britain. The liberal Asquith government was intending to give home rule to Ireland in summer 1914 when the Tories led by Edward Carson were trying to gather a Unionist "army" to keep Ireland part of the U.K. This all became moot when Britain joined WW1.

Also the indigenous people of what became the USA were a mixed bunch and some of them were very much murderous and brutal.

Editing my previous post.

“Many people were anti semitic at the time; the Mitfords that were anti semitic and TS Eliot were not unusual in that in the pre ww11 era”

Do you mean the book has been criticised?

I should hope so. It's a theory, after all, which incorporates some fact and can form a basis for wider learning.

The "peaceful settlers" line must be a new euphemism for dehumanize ("savages" as labelled by thomas "the pioneer of scientific racism" jefferson in the "declaration of independence"), displace (ethnic cleansing), massacres, and those who are left put in their cages (reservations).

As Hitler glowingly stated in 1928, these peaceful...

....White settlers "gunned down the millions of Redskins to a few hundred thousand, and now keep the modest remnant under observation in a cage"

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/how-american-racism-influenced-hitler

The Romanov's. What if Tsar Nicholas had remained in power and the family not assassinated?

It's always so hard to know the path not followed.

Eg we could argue that if Catherine if A had a son, England would be Catholic but we don't know what that son - and all those people that came about after - would have done.

Maybe that son would have gone to to turn England Protestant for some other reason. Or one of his dependents.

@KylieJennersMakeUpSponge I Googled and found several references to historians believing Edward Viii was infertile, due to a case of mumps he had at the age of 13 whilst at naval college. Wallis Simpson also once made a joke apparently that Edward was 'not heir-conditioned'.

What illegitimate son? Perhaps you are getting mixed up with another of the Edwards.

MariaLuna · Yesterday 03:04

Imagine Hitler having tea in Buck House. The horror! England - and by extension - UK is lucky that fucker never set foot on British soil.

I haven't read the thread, but he was an art student in Liverpool, between 1912 and 1913...

If Franz Ferdinand’s coachman had taken a different route.

No WW1 or WW2.

WWI still would have happened without the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. There just would have been a different trigger on a different day. All the involved parties were gearing up for war and it was just a matter of someone striking first.