Vegetarian World

This is the story of how in many respects the human race began to think of itself as a force to preserve life and nature instead of destroying it. Despite the name, this Alternate Timeline (ATL) world is not completely vegetarian, but is much more so than in Our Timeline (OTL), and is moving in the vegetarian direction (just as human rights have been evolving but are far from ubiquitous in OTL). Because of points of divergence starting hundreds of years ago, this ATL world is quite different in other major ways than in OTL, including but not limited to the fact that the religions are quite different, the New World is composed of more nations, and many of them are largely Native American, and the natural world has been preserved to a much greater extent. Many things that do not specifically relate to vegetarian are discussed. Below is a timeline.

676: Emperor Tenmu of Japan, an early Japanese supporter or Buddhism, proclaims a ban on eating meat, including fish. For a decades thereafter, the enforcement was lax, but most of the following emperors over the next 1,000 years agreed with the prohibition and vegetarianism became established in Japan. (OTL Hokkaido and the Ryukyu Islands never became part of ATL Japan.) Emperor Tenmu also supported the Silla kingdom in Korea, which eventually united Korea's three Kingdoms. This alliance led to a lasting peace and cultural exchange between Japanese and Koreans.

500s BCE: Pythagoras, a Greek philosopher and "the father of numbers" teaches that a vegetarian diet is best for the body and spirit. Later Greek philosophers would learn from him and in turn extoll the benefits of vegetarianism. Vegetarians, though not a majority, were a very visible and important minority. (Now, the diets of Greeks are still largely vegetarian, and Greek classical literature is known world-wide.)

962: Alptigin, a Sunni Muslim Turkic general is killed while trying to capture Ghazni (in OTL eastern Afghanistan). Muslims were never able to establish a foothold in the Indian Subcontinent. (Hinduism would spread west to include eastern OTL Iran. No Ghaznavid Empire, Delhi Sultanate, or Mughal Empire would be established in India.)

1000s-1800s: Bantu-speaking peoples are not able to take southern Africa from the Khoisan peoples already inhabiting the area. (Thus, now in the modern Nation-State era, much of Southern Africa is inhabited by the Khoisan peoples, and Central African forested areas are largely inhabited by Pygmies.

1100s: The Chola Dynasty of the southern Indian subcontinent blossoms. It is the main power on the Indian subcontinent and its influence grows. It makes pacts with other Vedic dynasties in the subcontinent, thus creating an economic and military alliance. India becomes one of the richest and most powerful regions of the world, though it generally shows tolerance to other cultures and grows not mainly through military campaigns, but by hegemony through trading and limited migration.

1209-1255: The Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars of Languedoc is a failure, partially because the French King, Louis VIII, dies and his son, Louis IX suffered an incapacitating disease. This disease started the day he gave the order to continue the crusade against the Cathars and led him to believe that he did not have God's support. Interestingly, similar diseases struck the Vatican around the same time, and the Popes Innocent III, Honorius III, and Gregory IX suffered horribly throughout most of their tenures. Support for the Albigensian Crusades waned, and the Cathars emerged victorious. (Their power and influence would grow until versions of Catharism spread across much of Europe. Catharism-based sects are some of the first and largest Protestant sects.)

1400s: Catalonia (OTL Occitania (FR), Catalonia (SP), Valencia (SP)), which is largely Cathar, becomes a major power in Europe through trade.

1498: A Catalonian fleet reached India. This was the first time that India was reached by Europeans by sailing around Africa. The Indians were friendly and many Indian spices and other foods were taken back to Catalonia. The Catalonians, though ignorant of the outside world in many ways, had been interested in India for a long time, because besides India being one of the greatest empires of the world, Indians were also largely vegetarian (like the Catalonians). This trade has a far-reaching impact on Catalonian cuisine, inspiring European curry.

1529: In a bid to outsmart the Catalonians, Portugal and Spain (minus OTL Catalonia, Valencia, Basque areas and Andalusia) agreed to cooperate by sending an expedition West, over the Atlantic Ocean. Many Portuguese officials believed that the earth was much larger than the Spanish thought, however the Portuguese kept this secret, for they thought that the loss of a few men and ships was worth the chance of finding a short way to India, China, or possibly undiscovered lands. (In both Portugal and Spain, slavery was legal and vegetarianism was largely absent. Catalonian ships regularly fought Spanish and Portuguese vessels thought to be involved in slave trading around the coast of Africa.  Any new discoveries would provide a new source of slaves and perhaps more riches, which could propel these countries past Catalonia.)  The 1529 expedition found the New World. The fleet landed on Trinidad, which was occupied by an unfriendly group of Caribs. The expedition was heavily armed and killed many of the Caribs, taking some as slaves and transporting them back to Spain and Portugal.