Alternative History:Point of Divergence Ideas

For inspiration see the following pages:

Free Ideas

 * Hinge moments - Alternate histories caused by single isolated decisions or events.
 * Alternate trends - Alternate histories caused by many small changes to OTL resulting in a general large scale change.
 * Counterfactualities - Alternate histories caused by introduction of completely alien element to OTL.

Projects in development

 * List of Althists
 * POD

Pre-History (13.7 Billion to 5000 B.C.)

 * Super eruption at Mount Toba in 74,000 BCE doesn't occur - quicker human expansion across the world?
 * Earth shifts so OTL panama is the North pole
 * No Thera/Santorini eruption, Minoan culture spreads around the Med rather than the Greeks?
 * Homo sapiens does not evolve - different human race?
 * Homo sapiens has the same fear of water as chimpanzees, meaning no small boats, a later leaving of Africa, no colonisation of the America's, Australia, Madagasar etc - other species of human possibly have no fear of water?
 * Later discovery of Agriculture?
 * Earlier discovery of Agriculture?
 * Mammoths do not become extinct after the Ice-Age. They roam England, Europe, Russia, and parts of North America. Some are used them the way elephants are used in India.
 * Mastodons do not become extinct after the Ice-Age. Native Americans in Florida use them the same way elephants are used in Asia.
 * Horses do not become extinct in America after the ice age, Plains people become supreme horsemen like the Mongols, Native American Genghis Khan?
 * The Drake passage does not open 20 to 40 million years ago, leaving Antartica attached to South America and with no ice sheet.
 * Australian megafauna (rhino-sized wombats, sheep-sized echidnas and bery large kangaroos) do not go extinct. How would this effect the development of Aboriginal society? Could the magafauna be domesticated?

Ancient History (4999 B.C. to 476 A.D.)

 * Ramses II dies at the Battle of Kadesh.
 * King Tutankhamun lives to 60 years old.
 * Alexander the Great has a son who takes after his father.
 * During the Corinthian War, Sparta faced a coalition of the leading Greek states: Thebes, Athens, Corinth, and Argos. The alliance was initially backed by Persia, but if not the Spartans may have won comprehensively?
 * Queen of the Iceni, Boudica expells the Roman emperor Nero and Roman empire from the island of Britannia, what would happen the the modern British Isles?
 * What if ancient egyptians discovered the Americas?
 * What if the Secret Gospel of Mark (which says that Jesus and Lazarus became lovers after he was brought back from the dead) was incorporated into the Christian canon? How would this affect Christian attitudes toward homosexuality? Variant: Jesus is already married to Mary Magdalene, who marries Lazarus after the Crucifixion.
 * What if the Christian nudist movement known as the Adamites became mainstream? The Adamites were a recognized Gnostic heresy in the 200s-300s AD, and resurfaced at various points during the subsequent years, culminating in the neo-Adamites of the 1700s. How would this have altered the culture?
 * Attila the Hun wins the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains and founds a longlasting hunnic empire.
 * Qin Shi Huangdi - First emperor of China dies as a child - no China, No unified nation in that area?
 * The Crisis of the Third Century- The Gallic Empire and the Palmyrene Empire remain seperate from the Roman Empire.
 * What if Saint Paul instead of travelling throughout Rome travelled East to Persia, India, and possibly even as far as China? How would this affect Christian thought? Christianity in Europe? Et cetera.
 * What if Jesus visited Pontius Pilate after his ressurection and Pilate became a Christian? Could he have helped stop persecution of Christians in Judea? Would St. Paul have become a Christian if hadn't been persecuting them? How would this affect Christianity in the Near East?

Middle Ages (477 to 1453 A.D.)

 * During the Tang, China vassalizes the states of India. Ever since, India has been under Chinese cultural hegemony, much like Japan, Korea, or Vietnam.
 * Field Effect - Area 51 undertakes the development of a faster-than-light propulsion system. When it goes online for the test the field it produces sends the entire base 1,300 years into the past and make contact with the fremont people. They start trading black-powder weapons, and the included knowledge necessary for these weapons, for food and water. After a while the tribes learn how to find the materials to produce their own weapons, allowing them through experimentation to develop fully-automatic weapons one thousand years ago. When Europeans show up you should be able to guess what will happen.
 * What if the An Shi rebellion was successful in toppling the Tang Dynasty? Would a new dynasty be able to rise, or would China fall into chaos?
 * The Christians win the Crusades.
 * Big Little Ice Age?
 * No Black Death.
 * The Mongol Hordes invade and conquest Western Europe and most of Northern Africa.
 * King Stephen of England is succeeded by his son William
 * Owain Glyndŵr the first Prince of Wales kicks the English, (under Henry IV), out of Wales in an uprising in 1410 causing the Welsh nation to become independant to modern times? One possible outcome of that idea is that you get a 'European Community' a lot earlier...
 * Matilda beats her cousin Stephen for the crown of England. Changes the right of women to the throne to be the same as men. Meaning after Richard I (lionheart) dies, the throne passes not to King John but to Queen Matilda II.
 * King John is not forced to sign Magna Carta by the Barons
 * Italy is unified much before OTL, around the 1300's. What would have happened on Italy and on the world?
 * Kublai Khan's invasion of Japan attain success.
 * Mongolians are the first to discover America.
 * May 878. King Alfred of Wessex takes refuge from the Danes on the Isle of Athelney, Wessex - the precurser of England had been reduced to a few acres in size, what if the Danes had found Athelney and destroyed it and everyone there? No England. The Danelaw extended over all of what is now the UK.

Renaissance (1454 to 1600 A.D.)

 * Spanish are defeated by Aztecs and then Mayans colonize Spain.
 * Oda Nobunaga survives the assassination attempt at Honnoji during the 16th century Japanese Warring States period, continuing his quest for the unification of Japan under the Oda clan. --れび (talk to Lavi!) 19:44, October 3, 2010 (UTC)
 * Martin Luther is killed by the Inquisition. There is no Protestant Reformation.
 * In 1478, after a Pazzi Conspiracy, Lorenzo de' Medici and Pope Sixtus IV start a war that engulfes europe.

Seventeenth century (1601 to 1700 A.D.)

 * The Royalists win the English Civil war.
 * Oliver Cromwell elects someone other than his son the become Protector of England, no return to monarchy? How about John Milton?
 * What if James II fled to America in 1688 instead of France? Maryland was a predominately Catholic colony, perfect for a Catholic monarch
 * Władysław IV Vasa becomes Tsar of Russia.
 * The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth becomes a major superpower.

Eighteenth century (1701 to 1800 A.D.)

 * Washington joins the Royal Navy instead of the british army.
 * Sweden wins the Great Northern War
 * Bonnie Prince Charlie becomes King Charles III of England and Scotland after defeating George II in the 1745 Jacobite rising.
 * France wins the Seven Years War.
 * For Want of Socks or For Want of A Boat: What if Washington's soldiers refused to cross the Delaware until they got shoes, socks, and proper clothing? Perhaps American victory would be delayed. A similar POD: What if the three boats used to cross the Delaware collapsed as they pushed them into the river?
 * Elizabeth's 1741 coup agaist Ivan VI failes.
 * Prince Henry of Prussia becomes King of America.

Nineteenth century (1801 to 1900 A.D.)

 * The Battle of the Alamo was won by the Texans.
 * Napoleon dies after being wounded at Toulon.
 * Canada is annexed by the US in 1867.
 * Napoleon does not betray Spain or invade Russia.
 * Vittorio Emmanuele II and Giussepe Gribaldi die without desendance on Sardinia-Piedemont. Italy is never unified.
 * The General Sherman incident in Korea sparks a war with the US, Britain, and France against Korea, forcing the latter to modernize.
 * 1893: Doomsday - Where aliens / meteors hit earth in 1893 destroying much of civilization.
 * What if the Southern States abolished slavery right before the outbreak of the Civil War?
 * What if Princess Elizabeth of Clarence didn't die young and Victoria never became queen?
 * A compromise is made over the design of the tricolour and the French monarchy is restored.
 * The Union in peril. John Wilkes Booth kills President Abraham Lincoln and Vice President Andrew Johnson, and injures Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Stanton becomes the new President of the United States. Considering the killings an act of war, he blames the Confederate states. Second Civil War begins.
 * John Wilkes Booth misses Lincoln.
 * Henry Clay becomes President in 1840.
 * The defeated Confederacy turns to Socialism.
 * Marie and Pierre Curie, with the help of Henri Becquerel, built the first nuclear weapon in a basement of the University of Paris. As a result of it, France win the World War I and become a superpower.
 * President-elect Franklin Pierce does not survive the train wreck in Andover and William Rufus King becomes President, only to die soon after, making David Rice Atchison the President.
 * What if Spain managed to stop the revolutions of Cuba and Philippines, preventing the Spanish American War from happening?
 * What if King Amadeo I of Spain managed to hold onto the throne?
 * What if the Spanish Republic managed to strengthen itself and solidify its position?

World at War (1901 to 1945 A.D.)

 * In 20th century, a pandemic disease goes on to kill many people... But only whites with blond hair and/or light eye colours. A large part of the population of Europe, USA, USSR/Russia and Australia die, and widespread immigration rates try to "conquer" those nice, now-unpopulated lands. A possible name is BlonDie or Blond Death (for the old "Black Death").
 * With the agreement of the British, Hitler deports all the Jews in the Third Reich to British Palistine in the late 1930's - No holocaust.
 * Four Degrees of Separation. Albert Einstein, FDR, Hitler, and Stalin are all killed in the early 20s. No nukes, longer Depression in America (leading to an extremist coming to power, Commie or Fascist, whichever), a slow rise of Moderate Fascism in Germany (getting power much later and not in the large degree it had), and a menacing Soviet Union that's getting very powerful without the loss from the Great Purge.
 * In 1921 promising German theoretical physicist Albert Einstein dies during his first visit to the USA. He never makes contact with Ernest Rutherford or Leó Szilárd and the Manhattan Project never born. A world without useful atomic energy or Nuclear Bomb, a world without the Person of the Century. Nein
 * Herbert Hoover vetoes the Smoot-Hawley tariff act, and this leads to a different WWII.
 * The Spanish Republic manages to defeat the Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War and turns communist.
 * The Spanish Republic manages to defeat the Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War and remains a democracy.
 * The Spanish Civil War is avoided.
 * The Nazis win World War II.
 * King Edward VIII decides to put his country before his love for Wallis Simpson, he does not abdicate. A different ending for WWII?
 * Hitler doesn't kill himself, but hides in Switzerland? That's a classic.
 * What if the Hiroshima nuclear bomb didn't ever happen and Japan fights to the death?
 * Elvis's twin brother Jesse doesn't die at birth. The Kings of Rock and Roll?
 * Red America. After the Russian government arrested the Bolsheviks and outlawed their Party, Lenin flees to the United Sates months before the world War I breaks out in Europe. He establishes the American Communist Party, a minor political force until the Great Depression, when it becomes the most powerful party in the USA, pointing Vladimir Illych Ulyanov, 'Lenin', as his presidential candidate.
 * What if the United States aided Germany during the First World War?
 * What if Germany had renewed the League of the Three Emperors, possibly resulting an unstable German, Russian, and Austro-Hungarian Alliance in WW1.
 * What if Hitler put more military effort on the Eastern Front during the final days of the Third Reich?
 * Hitler finishes off Western Europe (France, UK etc) before attacking the Soviets.
 * The Easter Rising fails completely, treating it as an act of 'sabotage' the British Government in effect establishes military Government in Ireland.
 * The General Strike is declared 'illegal' by the British Government.
 * Lenin dies unexpectedly in exile before the Russian revolution.

Cold War (1946 to 1991 A.D.)

 * What if the USS Enterprise was turned into a WWII naval museum rather than being mothballed and helped increase awareness for the US Navy?
 * The 1973 coup d'etat in Chile fails and President Salvador Allende makes Chile a communist country.
 * The UK returns the British mandate of Palestine to the Palestinians, no Israel, a more peaceful Middle East?
 * Israel loses the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
 * Israel loses the 1967 six-day war.
 * The Far Eastern Republic, Abkhazia, Poland and Tuva are made into Soviet Socialist Republics and The Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic wasn't merged with the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.
 * Belarus, Ukraine, South Africa and Kazakhstan have nuclear weapons.
 * 12th October 1984. A bomb planted by Irish Republican terrorists explodes in a hotel in Brighton. OTL Thatcher survives, but if not?
 * 4th April 1984. At Greenham Common a Peace Camp is evicted, OTL thing went peacefully. What if things got nasty, and police end up killing a protester?
 * Early 1980's. In computing circles there is a myth that a key timing component in the BBC Micro had to be fixed moments before the BBC evaluators arrived. Assuming the circuit failed during the demonstration what is the outcome for UK computer history?
 * Late 1940's. US refuses to grant 'aid' to the UK. (OTL The US eventually relented).
 * 1984. Miner's Strike - A clash at a pit descends into a pitched battle, and things get very ugly, resulting in the first use of the replacement of the Riot Act.
 * Mid 1970's. By a quirk of logic the Great Central is mothballed rather than closed.
 * Mid 1960's. The London Extension of the Great Central, is electrified at 1500v DC rather than the West Coast Main line. 1500v dc becomes the de-facto rail voltage in the UK. It's not unusual to see dual voltage locos switching from pantograph to third rail at speed.
 * 1981. The Provisional IRA gets hold of a 10 kilatonne nuclear bomb. Where would they plant it and what would have happened? (maybe the time of the Hunger Strikes would have been an interesting time to put this. And I really don't think the IRA were interested in massive civilians casualties, or the gigantic opprobium a nuke would have attracted - so maybe some remote purely military target. Or possibly putting it in the hands of some virulent splinter group)
 * Apartheid leads South Africa into a bloody civil war.
 * Patton doesn't die in 1945. How would the Korean War turnout?
 * Chris Curry and Clive Sinclair do not fall out in 1978.
 * Taking advantage of the oil crisis, the USSR invade the United States and Japan in 1973.
 * The Once and Present King. After Lyndon B. Johnson dies of a heart stroke John F. Kennedy chooses rev. Martin Luther King as his vice presidential candidate. When Kennedy dies in Dallas, King becomes the first Afro-American President of the USA. What happens next?
 * It is the mid 1970's. As Harold Wilson prepares to make a speech at a conference, a radicalised member of the provisional IRA takes aim with a snipers precicion. (Title: Murphy's Magic Bullet).
 * Early 1980's. A lucky shot by the Argentine Navy cripples a highly signifcant vessel (HMS Invincible or even the RMS QE2 maybe?) in the Falklands task force. (Even with this, a British victory is possible although somewhat delayed). (this actually happened - Imp)
 * President Ronald Reagan was shot and killed by John Hinckley, Jr. There's no Perestroika. The Cold War continues to the present day.
 * Wasteland. The four reactors of the Chernobyl nuclear plant explodes during a systems test, (in OTL only the fourth reactor was exposed in the accident). The resulting fire sent a plume of radioactive fallout into the atmosphere and over a huge geographical area. Most of the western Soviet Union and Europe had to be evacuated. In the following years, the European countries are burdened with the continuing and substantial decontamination and health care costs of the Chernobyl accident.
 * Pope John Paul II is killed in 1981 assasssination. Triggers a popular uprising in Poland and the earlier break up of the Soviet sphere of influence, or possibly a nuclear confrontation between the USA and USSR.
 * What if the shuttle program was ditched for a program to go to Mars in the late-70s and early-80s and leads to the colonization race of Mars?
 * In the event of a moon disaster. The Apollo XI mission crashes into the moon before landing. Nixon cancels the Apollo program and the USSR wins the space race.
 * The Stonewall Massacre: June 1969 - a confrontation between NYPD Morals Squad officers and homosexual patrons of the Stonewall Inn turns violent. NYPD Tactical Response Force officers open fire on the unruly crowd. By the time the dust has cleared, 36 people are dead, including 6 NYPD officers and a journalist, hundreds more are injured, and two blocks of Greenwich Village are in ruins. Does the police's violent response hasten the burgeoning gay rights movement, or drive it back into the closet?
 * In late Nov 1956 the yacht Grandma sinks in south of Cuba taking 82 Cuban revolutionaries (Known as the 26th of July Movement), including the Castro Brothers and Che Guevara to the bottom of the ocean. No Cuban revolution?
 * The 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion was successful.
 * The Civil Rights Act is not passed.
 * What if the US military had unified into one force headed by the Army right after WWII?
 * Nixon resolutely refuses to resign.

Modern Times (1992 A.D. to Today)

 * 9/11 does not happen because of CIA warnings being heeded by Bush, which leads to a different war on terror.
 * On March 2nd, 2008, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela sent 10 Armed Forces Batallions to the border of Columbia. What if this had sparked a Columbian invasion of Venezuela, (with US backing)?
 * 1st May 1999. A protest in the City of London descends into a riot. OTL police did not resort to rubber bullets. What if they were used?
 * It's the late 1990's, a seemingly minor anomaly in readings from a Shuttle Mission leads to the Discovery of a previously unknown capsule of Soviet origin. Inside are 2 bodies...
 * Space shuttle Columbia doesn't break up on re-entry.
 * Saddam and Qusay Hussain are killed in the Dora Farms raid March 19th 2003. Early end to the war?
 * 6 May 2002. Controversal Dutch political leader Pim Fortuyn is assassinated just nine days before elections. What would have happened if the assassination failed, or never happened at all?
 * What if Counter-Strike wasn't created? What if there wouldn't be any gore games such as Manhunt, Quake, Doom, Prey?
 * Many states secede after the Deepwater Horizon incident.
 * Gordon Brown is pressured into letting banks 'fail' due to EU rules on state aid?