A Different World (POD-1790)

POD-1790
The point of divergence happened around the year 1790. The exact date was never verified by the Timeline Maintainence and Security Division. Before, history had occurred like we know it did. Cristopher Columbus discovered the New World. Britain, France, and Spain colonized this new land. Wars happened as they did. The world was the same. In 1776, the 13 British colonies, that today are known as the United States of America, declared independence. This is thought to have triggered the point o divergence of 1790, simply known as POD-1790. In 1790, the young American nation stretched to the Mississippi River. The British Empire controled territories all over the world. France controlled the Louisiana Territiory. Spain occupied the American southwest and almost all of Latin America. Russia was a titanic empire. So was China. New nations were being created and old ones crumbled.

In the 1800s, the world was changing. The US had acquired new land. Territories, like those of Spain, had become autonomous. Some, decades before they actually did. Around 1830, the west British-Canadian territories declared their independence from England, and called themselves the United Provinces of West Columbia. The English refused to recognize the UPWC as a sovereign state, and so still controled it. The US, who did identify the UPWC as a free country, began to trade with it. When the UPWC declared war on England, it seeked help from the United States. The US wanted to remain neutral in the conflict, and so only traded weapons. After two years of war, the UPWC was losing, and pleaded to the US for help. Economic problems within the UPWC weakened it, and it asked the US for the nation to be annexed. The US did, and Britain, who still did not recognize the nation as independent, was outraged. It accused the United States of invading British territory, and declared war.