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?

There’s a good podcast episode on this topic on ‘The rest is history’. I often wonder if the combustion engine hadn’t been invented, would we have less reliance on fossil fuels and not be facing climate breakdown.

@ru53 love that podcast. Especially the most recent one on wind rush.

I haven't rtft but if you're interested in a view of how things might have turned out if JFK had lived, read 11/22/63 by Stephen King.

If Doggerland hadnt been innundated. We would still be joined to the continent, with a huge productive landmass, and none of this 'small island' mentality

Can you recall what it's called?

I listen to that podcast but came to it late. Listened to a good few of the older episodes, but there's lots I've not listened too.

There are also several alternate history series. Though hit and miss and tend to be a bit armature.

@TigerOnTour he was really physically unwell wasn't he, so my theory is that this would have made him give up the job.

I have often wondered what the world would have been like (past and present) if religion had never existed?
No wars, no human sacrifices, no burning/hanging of ‘witches’, no corruption and sexual abuse covered up by the church, no terrorism…

If Ireland was included as part of GB would we be stronger and would we English had to have improved our way of thinking. I think we would all have benefited.

I haven't watched it and thanks for the recommendation I will. Years ago we had a CIA whistleblower give a talk at work. He said the same about it being ignored and that the attitude in the US CIA and government was that "whilst the problem (OBL) kept growing, the money kept flowing".

There is a flip side to that as well, though. Religion was the driving force behind a lot of charitable work. The reason for supporting the poor and disabled. The basis of the moral code that outlawed theft and murder. It kept communities together and gave them hope.

Great thread. The butterfly effect is immense.

11.22.63 by Stephen King does the what if JFK didn’t die thing (be careful what you wish for) and
Time and Time Again by Ben Elton does the what if the Kaiser was assassinated thing. And more. (Be careful what you wish for)

Gavrilo Princip assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand. That set off a major domino effect.

If the native American Indians had defeated the colonisers. Their way of life was opposite to everything that is toxic, harmful and destructive about Western industial culture: exploitation of the environment, waste, dehumanising and objectification of people, the marketising and commodification of just about everything, the obsession with money and materialism, greed, competition, futurising and endless dissatisfaction with what we have. They understood the fundamental inter-connectedness of all living things and the necessity of maintaining connection to experience harmony.

Many wars and all sorts of abuses have taken place without religion being involved. Human nature can be very ugly.

Wars and abuses have occurred over territory, money, slavery, greed, belief that one race is superior (Hitler) and so on.

If penicillin had never been discovered.

Also we wouldn't have had the Stuarts, Scotland would not be part of the United Kingdom, we would not have had a civil war and we would possibly still be a royalist country without a "democratic " government.

It would be so weird because brexit took up so much time and energy. We’d have such a different world. Of course there was still covid.

But he was set on marrying Wallis Simpson, which was the main trigger for him abdicating?

Weren't they both around 40 at the time they married and I'm sure that I read that they were both thought to be infertile (him as a result of having mumps as a teenager or something? - that can happen with males).

So he was unlikely to have produced heirs anyway. A very strange man, better that he didn't remain King. A bit rubbish for the young Elizabeth though, having to take over at age 25 when her dad died. In the 1970s after her uncle died would probably have been better for her and her family life.

So many possibilities from WWII and just after:
If the UK had lost the Battle of Britain
If Singapore had not fallen to the Japanese
If the Pedestal convoy had not reached Malta
If the atom bomb had not been invented
If the Kuomintang had won the Chinese civil war rather than the communists

This whole thread is really interesting, and is making me realise how little I know or understand about history. And it's such a fascinating subject. I did it at school (to GCSE), but it was one of those subjects I never saw the point of as a 14/15 year old. And now I'd like to know more.

What's a good way of 'getting into history'? It's SUCH a wide subject, and reading this, I just want to KNOW EVERYTHING! I'm not a big reader, but I find myself now wanting to understand more about the big events nationally and globally that have shaped the current day. Where to start???

There at least one you tube channel that looks at this- AlternateHistoryHub - there's probably more.

I have found that channel and the american map guy very enlighten as to how blind we can be to our own biases and cultural lenses. That not to have a go at them but more I can spot there's while my own are probably hidden from me.

The why couldn't Henry VIII be happy with daughters comment I so frequently see - well Tudor were not secure there were better claims to throne and had come to power after a generations civil war and extended family power struggle. Until Mary I no Queen had been undisputed Queen Regina - and in fact it wasn't well established they could be so some thrones like France excluded women entirely - Empress Maud was first to try and had to fight civil war with her cousin then conceded claim to her son. Tudor women especially noble women died frequently in childbirth to point they frequently had portraits done prior to first labours. The first three undisputed Queen Regina's struggled with power, marriage and succession (and third and fourth - Mary with her husband William and then Ann ceased the throne form their own father )and wasn't till 5th Victoria than a Queen Regina who sat undisputed on throne handed throne to her own child. Having been born under the sixth Queen Regina like most people here gives a very different perspective to where they were in Tudor times.

I came to say this too!!

One of Stephen Fry's books is a 'what if Hitler had died in childhood' (iirc ... time traveller goes back to make sure he never rose to power'. But on returning to his own time things are worse because someone more competent/less mad rose in Germany instead.

Counterfactuals can be thought provoking - there's so many points at which history could have turned out very differently. Not least that the ancestors of humankind survived all the various waves of mass extinction.