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?

It would be heavenly! I think about it a lot. That's exactly the world I want to live in.

I don't think it would tbh. People have taken over other countries and lands since the dawn of time. It's just that it would be more local issues so some European countries wouldn't be mixed in it (not all Europe colonised, parts had their own issues and invading/warring armies to get rid of).

If Hitler had been accepted to art school in Vienna

If Guy Fawkes plan worked.

If William hadn't conquered...

If governments world wide had listened to scientists ( just over 30 years ago ) warning about man made climate change and acted on the warnings.

If any of Anne of Austria's four previous pregnancies had produced a living son instead of miscarrying. A different person would have been Louis XIV, there would have been no regency (assuming Louis XIII had lived at least to the same age he did), no Fronde, and French history (and thus world history) would have been very different.

And on a similar note - if Charles I had won the Civil War. Or in the next generation, Catherine of Braganza had had a child.

I saw a mockumentary about the USA as if the south had won the civil war. It was funny, but also quite worrying.

If the UK has invested in green energy rather than the Upec 30 years ago.

I knew someone was gonna come with this ish. Fuck that. It's genocide.

Not all the Mitford are nazis. Two were for sure, but one went the other way and was a profound communist.

If Covid had been picked up on in the Autumn before it actually had spread..

If Stanislov Petrov hadn’t intervened and stopped the USSR launching nuclear missiles in error https://www.vox.com/2018/9/26/17905796/nuclear-war-1983-stanislav-petrov-soviet-union

I believe there have been other nuclear near misses as well.

If we'd had a PM who took it seriously and locked us down or took other precautions eg cancelling sporting events.

His card was marked for me after spending the darkest months of the year as a 17 year old having to study The Wasteland.

Led us all into a false sense of security with Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats and then Boom - 22 teenage existential crises in mid January.

If The American intelligence agency CIA had intercepted the 9.11 threat and stopped it before it happened.

If Catherine of Aragon had a son that survived infancy. There wouldn’t be a Church of England. Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard and Lady Jane Grey wouldn’t have been executed.

If hitler had been shot befor ww2 started and the war didn’t happen as a result

If there had been no colonisation and no slavery, the world would now be a more equal place.

If John Lennon hadn't been shot , would the Beatkes have reformed?

I always think how the royal family might have evolved if Princess Charlotte hadn't died in childbirth in the 19th century and her unborn child had lived. The original 'people's Princess'.

If William I hadn't won in 1066. Or if the Magna Carta had never been written.

This reads like the racism of lesser expectations.

More recent - but I suspect that the UK would be a much better place if John Smith hadn't died in 1994.

I always wonder how things would have been if the Titanic didn't sink.

Would the social class system have remained unquestioned for a lot longer? The sinking caused outrage for how 2nd and in particular, 3rd class passengers were treated during evacuation of ship, and I believe it sped up the dissolution of the aristocracy of the time.

Also, with so many wealthy individuals and business magnates, what impact would they have continued to have if they lived? What impact would any of those that died have had on the world?!