To ask which historical crossroads you wonder about?

[HoneyParsnipSoup]

For me it’s wondering what would’ve happened had Catherine of Aragon had a son and Henry hadn’t divorced her. Country may well be totally different.

If Elvis had been selected by the gospel group he auditioned for and not made a record "for my mama's birthday" which was 6 months away.... would we have had pop music? The Beatles, the swinging sixties? No glam, prog, punk. New wave never happened . Sting really was a bell hop. The Gallagher boys are working on the building sites. David Bowie was an acclaimed artist and Paul McCartney lives in Ryll as a retired teacher on a pension.

The teenager and pop music could have died in 1956 with James Dean and we'd be listening to today's version of Doris Day and Mantovarni and his orchestra

If David Milliband had become Labour leader instead of his brother, Ed.

If Merkle had never obtained power in Germany.

If he had, I probably would never have met DH and had DS

Yes I think so

I would want to lecture Henry about genetics and chromosomes, it was his responsibility to produce boys!

If Charles 1’s big brother, Henry, has lived. He died in 1612 from typhoid fever. Good looking, charismatic, charming and the crowds loved him. His death meant the shy Charles became king. Maybe there would not have been an English Civil War
Then later Queen Anne had seventeen babies/ miscarriages and only one lasted a few years. In 1700 William aged 11 died of smallpox and so the Stuart dynasty died. Illness has played a big part in the shaping of England.
And what if Edward V11 had not abdicated. He was said to be a friend of Hitler….

Neil Kinnock winning in 1992
David Miliband running instead of Ed and winning. No Brexit!
It’s a big deal when you think about how vulnerable we are now. At the time I flagged both Putin and Trump and Leave voters just laughed in my face. Many were military types as well.

The death of the heir to the throne happened over and over again, and I’ve even amused myself on sleepless nights by mentally flicking back through all the post-Conquest reigns to see which monarchs ought not to have reigned but for mischievous fate.
I suppose two great examples would be the shock death of Edward, the Black Prince (eldest son of Edward III), which put young Richard II in the hot seat and emboldened the House of Lancaster to grab the crown, and lead to the War of the Roses.
Then obviously, the death of Prince Arthur (Tudor), and all the strife his brother brought to the country even though the sole virtue of his father Henry VII was (imo) that he at least represented peace at last between York and Lancaster.

But once you begin this, many other examples tumble in swiftly, and we can surely include an heir who has only recently ascended the throne dying suddenly, and the reign then being his inadequate brother’s (Richard I aka Coeur de Lion , and King John)

But yes, what might a King Henry Stuart have achieved! And prevented.
You’d wonder if his brother Charles would still have sired the wonderful Elisabeth, and would she have still married Palatine. (Would John Donne still have written his impeccable wedding poem for her?)
Would Elisabeth’s descendants still have been such ubiquitous pillars of European nobility and royalty? (Im a great fan of the Winter Queen!)

Feck, I boggled a moment there when bloody Prince Harry hove into view in my head

I often wonder about this one too. A more recent one: if Gordon Brown had won the election rather than David Cameron.

We already had Rock n Roll, and most important as an agent for the development of this new genre, the Delta Blues.
That lead to other great artists, not just Elvis.

But I wanted to add what Paul Jones ( Manfred Man singer) once said about the Rolling Stones, which is a great illustration of historical inevitability, and apposite here in a world where there’d been no Elvis.
Jones had been invited by Brian Jones (no relation) to be the singer with a new Beat combo he was putting together.
He said no and the rest is history (which kicked in at Dartford railway station when Mick and Keith bumped into each other on the platform.)
Paul Jones was asked whether The Stones would have been an equally immortal band had he been the front man and he replied that they would not, but that whatever other band Mick and Keith had set up in this other timeline would definitely have been as intergalactic as the actual band
Inevitability, like water, can find a way in anywhere!
.

OP please excuse my apparent spamming of your terrific thread; it’s very much my kind of fun!
[excuse inordinate length here]

I just wanted to tell you about a thing that struck me this evening, watching The Serpent Queen on foot of my mentioning Catherine de Medici here. (Its fabulous)
The French court is for the moment: the House of Guise versus some Protestant nobles, and these powerful Guises dream of a sort of Catholic super EU (though how they'd reconcile their own vast ambitions with the dictates of Rome is anyone’s bet, and everyone loathes the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles of Spain, too. Fiendishly tricky stuff! )
Anyroad; the long religious wars in Europe have yet to kick off, so the field looks open and this Super-Catholic Union is an obvious aim, I guess. .
The thing is, all their machinations are going to come to nothing very soon, with the St Barthlomew’s Day Massacre and its fallout.

NEVERTHELESS!! The same plan for Catholic temporal dominion across Europe starts up again with Louis XIV, and in his reign it becomes very much closer to fruition as Protestant countries weaken under the constant military and diplomatic pressure from France.
England in particular is in the most perilous position, owing to the fatal weakness in the House of Stuart. They are all enslaved by their personal desires, at the expense of their sacred duty to the realm.
MQ of S was this way, and with Charles II there’s a king (and a Duke of York too) who will only just stop short of selling their souls to Louis (and they’ll certainly sell the country, no bother) so much did they need Louis’s money.

But Charles (and worse, James after him) was not really meant for the throne, because his father's dead brother Henry was to have prevented it. Aha!

What I’m on about is the way we often see famous plots and ambitions foiled (tough titty, Guises!) by historical eruption but return for another go later on when the going looks better, thanks to …..The Death Of The Heir!

I know I’ve come across this same thing recurring over the centuries, and shall no doubt be awake all night trying to pinpoint examples 🙄

This kind of speculation is why I love ‘alt history’ novels! Also loved that TV series, ‘The Man In The High Castle’

Yes!

@Itsjustmethatsall
I asked the original poster but she didn’t reply.
However you’ve agreed with her so I will ask you:

Do you think Callaghan have done nothing to come to the aid of the Falkland islanders when Argentina invaded the Falklands?

No new ones I don’t think but definitely wonder about (mainly recent/ semi recent things)

Brexit referendum going the other way

River Phoenix not dying

Princess Diana not dying

If John Smith hadn’t died and also if Robin Cook hadn’t died - and Mo Mowlam

If the miners’ strike had not been defeated

if the government at the time had heeded the people regarding war in Iraq

The book Cahokia jazz is a detective story but set in an alternate USA, where a milder form of smallpox was first introduced and therefore the native American population wasn’t wiped out the way it was and the country (around prohibition era) was significantly different.

im finding this thread kind of weird though cause of the scale of chat about royalty, being Scottish I just couldn’t tell you the order of all those old rulers or what impact a death/marriage would have had 😂

I thought it was Wallis that was infertile?
I'm sure i read that somewhere 🤔

Absolutely he would. He was an ex navy man himself and acted decisively to deter an Argentine invasion in 1977.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Journeyman

We did have rock and roll. But it was mainly a part of the black rhythm and blues chiltlin circuit. Sam Philips said he would make a million dollars if he could find a white man who sounded black. There were a few cross overs such as Bill Hayley who was basically a novelty act and DJs were playing black music on white radio stations. But and it's a massive but, the big record labels, the advertisers, the radio stations and American society were still strictly segregating music. Elvis crossed the line.

If look at how many artists were playing country music and switched to rock and roll and how many made the trip to sun studios. We need at ask could the stones have broken through and become anything other than a white English band covering black r&b? Would they have had any opportunities to do so? Would skiffle have just been a precursor to the folk revival rather than also boosting rock and roll?

I also wonder what would have happened if Richard III had won Bosworth. But also what would have happened if Edward IV hadn't married Elizabeth Woodville.

Awesome OP 😍

Seamus Mallon, the deputy leader of the SDLP, said that first.

Too true. That thatcher brought about the destruction of the working class.
While managing to make them stupid at the same time. They think reform will look after them. Hilarious.

There’s a lot of rumours that Wallis was intersex or male, which tbh I think is believable.