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?

I agree too. Weren't there letters between him and Hitler that indicated an agreement that he would be installed as a puppet King if Hitler had succeeded? He was a traitor, yet people blame Wallis Simpson. A woman made a scapegoat for this whole thing for decades afterwards.

Some relatively recent ones:

If Galtieri hadn't invaded the Falklands in 1982. Apart from the general benefits of avoiding a war, the specific implications for the UK are that Thatcher would probably have lost the 1983 election, and a lot of things would have been different here.

If John Smith had not had a fatal heart attack in 1994. He, rather than Blair, would have become PM in 1997, and, while many things would have been similar, we probably would have not been involved in the Iraq War.

This one is more speculative, but: if America and the West had encouraged a more gradual transition from communism in the former Soviet Union in the early 90s, rather than wanting to rush things as much as possible, perhaps Russia would now be a democracy and not have bloody Putin in charge.

I thought she was to endlessly give birth in hell, so she is the mother of all demons. Lilith was badass!

He didn't have any kids, so Elizabeth would still have been the next heir, but would have become Queen in 1972 (when Edward died) instead of 1952.

Assuming that everything else had stayed the same. If it had contributed to a Hitler victory, then a lot of things would have been different. Including that I would never have been born, as my mother would have been murdered for being Jewish.

Yes. Or better still, if he hadn't been born.

Yes. She apparently had a very traumatic and painful birth- not surprisingly, poor child. And, though she survived, she was probably left permanently infertile, as she remarried twice but had no more children.

Henry must have had a strange childhood, with no father (he died of the plague before Henry was born) and a child-mother. Though royals were doubtless brought up mostly by servants.

Yeah I know @TripleDaisySummer! I have a mild obsession with the outbreak of WWI and the first few months!

Yes sorry, I could have phrased that better.

If Neanderthals had remained a distinct species.

Why would she have died later? There's every chance she'd still be alive today if it wasn't for the accident. Unless you're going down the conspiracy theory route and it was all set up...

She was young. Given an average life expectancy - she would be alive now and very much involved with her children I think and might even have remarried and had more children - who knows!!

Yeah absolutely. Probably do some charity work as she did. She would not become the phenomenon she is now. She would just be there, like the others, do her work and that would be it.

By later I meant later in life like people do and there would be no "show". Just a famous person dying, obituaries and that would be it.
That was not well said, sorry!

There was a suggestion that they could have a morganatic marriage. But the government of the day used Simpson as an excuse to get rid of a bad king.

They subtly kyboshed any 'soft' influence they could have had by not giving Simpson an HRH. At the time things like where you were sat at dinner depended on your social status / titles. So if they were invited anywhere the ex king would have been placed nearer the host but she would be seated further away.

Actually it probably does still dictate where you are seated if you are eating with royals.

The obvious one is the Nazis invading England, but also bloody Cameron not pushing for the Brexit referendum.

True, he shouldn’t have caved in on a referendum. But I suspect that he would have been forced out by the ERG if he had refused with another PM chosen by the Tory Party who supported a referendum.

I think the referendum became inevitable once the Tories won an overall majority in 2015.

I put outcome of WW2 below and that’s a biggie, but the race to the atomic weapon was a huge part. It was so huge and all consuming, took so many scientists, many of whom had fled from Nazi Germany that considering the outcome if the Nazis had had the weapon first doesn’t bear thinking.

On a more domestic recent level, David Miliband instead of Ed.

But also Dominic Cummings on Brexit campaign, and leading party gate campaign

Most of the world's big events would not be changed by removing single triggers - the direction was still there.

However in terms of more recent politics the LibDems/Clegg's determination to jump into bed with his public school chums instead of standing with Labour (as promised by many Liberal canvassers) lead to the decade of austerity, Brexit and the fiasco governments of recent years.

Propping up Cameron at that time enabled the 2015 result, continuation of a form of austerity which forgot the bottom half of society because they simply didn't care about them.

People didn't vote Brexit because they were stupid - they voted because they had nothing to lose under a government which forgot that pain and benefits need to be shared across the population, not split with one half receiving all the pain and the other the benefits.

Clegg of course, fucked off to be chief liar for Meta, living in his gated community of millionaires - such was his commitment to making the UK a better place to live.

With regard to the Brexit topic: if Boris Johnson, who prepared two speeches, had decided to go with the Remain speech, the vote might well have gone the other way,

Apart from that: if that coronavirus had not evolved in a way that made it able to jump species!

I read this week that Johnson's bosses at The Telegraph leaned on him to write the anti-EU column.
They should have least made it a super-majority. Destroying the country for 4% was insane.

That is the Johnson camp spin over the last year - Johnson has always done whatever is best for Johnson irrespective of others.

I agree on the majority though - its insane for any country to enact major constitutional change without a two thirds majority or similar.

A very interesting concept. Has there been any independent dispassionate analysis of the financial and economic advantages/disadvantages to the colonising counties ? A cost benefit exercise?
Cost of military forces to take and maintain the countries, cost of building governance, cost of manning and administering the countries against income from import tariffs, profit from sale of land (not owned).

Notwithstanding the immortality of taking over, subjecting and dominating the population, which is clearly wrong, can it be calculated if there were any "advantages" to the colonised countries?

In 1936 when Edward VIII abdicated there was a deal of support for fascism and the Nazis in the UK. The BUF were at their height, support for particularly Mussolini and Hitler or at least admiration at all levels was not minimal. We had not learned the depths of Hitler's evil and would not for at least two years. Unlikely to be an establishment plan to remove a " bad king. "

I suggest Sansoms Dominion to see what a capitulated UK would have been like and the possible fate of Naziism. Had the UK wrapped it's tits in post Dunkirk, or been pushed by U-boat success a few years later the outcome would have been grim.

Most of the world's big events would not be changed by removing single triggers - the direction was still there.

But the outcomes might well have been different in many cases. For instance, would brexit have managed its slim majority if Farage hadn't survived the plane crash?

To go back, some of you are historians. What about Queen Anne? The poor love had about 18 pregnancies and only one child lived into double figures. If that Prince William had lived a full life, would we have needed The Hanoverians, The German Georges?
(this thread is sanctuary from jingling stuff.