Any Alternate History Buffs Here ?

Friends : I'm a History Buff and I love the new genre of Alternative History. I enjoy speculating how things would've been like if Sir Frances Drake failed to defeat the Spanish Armada or if The British had decided to stand up to Hitler at Munich in 1938....

Authors like Harry Turtledove have written about American History if the South won the War Between The States. Even classics like Man In The High Castle speculate about the world after and Axis Victory in WW 2....

So does anyone care to speculate on the following.....

What If The Royal Navy lost the Battle of Jutland in May 1916 ?

What If The UK refused to enter WW 1 ?

What If Britain & France entered the American Civil War on the Southern Side ?

What If Japan Invaded India in WW 2 ?

What If Japan Invaded The USSR in WW 2 ?

What If Monty was sacked after Arnhem ?

What If Cromwell lost the English Civil War ?

What If Cromwell left for America instead of fighting the Civil War ?

What If The British lost the Battle Of Waterloo ?

What If Hitler Invaded the Mideast instead of launching Operation Barbarossa ?

Log in with your speculations and submit your own if you want !

Time is on your side !
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Not Really. I don't like to dwell on the what ifs. No point to it really. Id rather focus on what did happen.

I like to think about things like this every now and again.What if Germany won WW2,if the south won the civil war,it makes you wonder sometimes.

By the way,welcome to ATS.You will have no problems here,lots of good people.

Well, what if Lincoln wasn't shot? If Lincoln could have gone through with his reconstruction, maybe the south would have been more like the north. No Jim Crow laws, no KKK, no needing national gaurd to enforce desegredation of schools, the likes. But, then Malcom X and King wouldn't have been a big deal. No Martin Luther King Jr. day.

Or if the Catholic Emporer Theodosius didn't order all books and art depicting anything remotely pagan, which included the immortal teachings of Greek philosophers, burned and destroyed. This destroyed over half of the Alexander Library. The library had information on the ancient Egyptians, ancient Greeks, and other ancient cultures. Think of what we would know if that hadn't happened? Think of the works of art, the poems, the epic stories written by Homer, and many more. But, that is an if. And if you believe in multipule dimesions that branch off from past histories, then there is a history where Theodosius didn't order it destroyed. But then the next one did, or the one after that. Or one night a fire happened and it was destroyed. Or who knows, but thats the beauty of it. You can think that anything can happen. But hey, if you believe in only one dimension, then this is a worthless discussion. For this is what happened and that's that.

IMO, alternative history refers to the *real* history that they *don't* want you to learn about...In that regard, I'd have to admit that I'm into it.

Here's more....

What If Hitler had followed Guederians advice at Dunkirk and sent the Panzers in ?

What If Mussolini stayed neutral in WW 2 ?

What If Patton was allowed to attack the USSR after VE DAY ?

What If Germany won the Battle of Verdun in WW 1 ?

What If The British were better prepared in Malaya & Singapore in 1942 ?

What If Pearl Harbour was better prepared and alerted on December 7th ?

What If the Luftwaffe had better luck during the Battle of Britain ?

What If Watergate was carried out without discovery ?

What If Wallace had won the 68 elections ?

What If RFK had gone out a different way out of the hotel after his victory ?

What If Nixon won the 1960 election ?

What If MacArthur was not relieved and allowed to follow his strategy in Korea ?

What If The French Communists supported the 1968 Paris Strike ?

What If Reagan had won the 1976 election ?

What If JFK had avoided being shot in Dallas ?

What If The US Military supported the Bay Of Pigs Invasion ?

Well AR, what about...

If Gore won, not Bush. Or if we had taken out saddam the first time? Or what if Washington didn't surprise the Hessians at Trenton?

Or, my favorite, if the U.S.A. was successful in one of its invasions of Canada? For then America would be the largest country, and connected to Alaska. And we would have all of those resources. The oil alone would make the U.S. less dependent on the arabs. And of course, the population! Think about how it could grow. Right now, crowded cities, forests and farm being turned into housing decelopments. But with all of Canada, no need to make room, for room would be there. Canada, second largest country, about 30-40 million people. We have that east of the Mississippi.

Or another favorite of mine. You mentioned Japan attacking pearl Harbor. Well, if they never did, would we get into WWII? Or, if no Japan, would we have worked on making nukes? No nuclear power plants, but no mutations or Chernoboyl.(sp?)
Or with your scenarios AR. Yes, Mussolini stays nuetral, but then if Nazi Germany attacks, would they be ready? Or if patton attacks USSR, how much money and lives would be spent fighting them?

Or if we were prepared for Japan, would we have ended war with them sooner, for our navy wouldn't have been as crippled in the Pacific Ocean, and Japan might have been weakened. Or may have said sorry, we make mistake, so big mistake, we can do nothing to you, for Americans sooo big. We japanese, we small, so very small, what can we do?(From South Park) Anyways, MD, you have any good scenarios? You said you are a what if historian buff, I want to see what you come up with. And AR, come up with some more, and put your input on what would happen. And welcome to ATS! We had a small problem with hackers, but hey, what if they hadn't struck? I'd still be setipsychic, Ultra_pheonix would still be himself, and so on.

The Japanese were planning to knock out the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour and then give themselves 6 months to conquer all of SE Asia. However the following factors could've knocked off their timetable severly....

If Chinese troops had attacked their rear during their assault upon Hong Kong thus buying time for the British-Canadian Forces there...

Or if Chaing Kai-Shek's Nationalist forces had put up or more dogged resistance thus draining more Japanese troops from the SE Asia theatre..

The US could've turned the Western Canadian provinces into American Territory if they had decided to Arm and support Louis Riel's drive for independence during the late 1800's...

BTW there is a new book out called What If 2 which discusses most of those scenarios you mentioned !

I think you misunderstood what I wrote JL...I'm more into the *true* history, not the "what if" history.

For years, I've been finding out that the history that normally gets taught or reported isn't the actual truth. Doing the digging on my own, I've been learning a *lot* more than the education system & reportive-media could provide.

Ex: School taught me that Christopher Colombus discovered America, but then I learned (from *other* sources) that the Vikings (& the Miami Dolphins ) were here before that...Not to mention that the Native American Indians arrived long before them.

I've long since learned that you can't accept *any* "official" version of history (or anything else) at face value...You've got to dig & search for the truth before you can learn anything.

I have too much fun (or is it apprehension?) about finding the *real* truth...Playing "what if" just doesn't trip my trigger as much as it used to (When I still played RPG's).

I know what you mean there Midnight, I too was taught that Columbus "discovered" America. Who would of thought that the Vikings, even had a colony or two on this continent, well before the Cristobol Colon. We even still let the banks close on that day here in the States, it's kind of ridiculous if you ask me.
Some historians are even saying that the Chinese and their amassed fleet back in which century? also had some maps of this continent before Colon. And then yes, you have the Native Americans, I mean really, who really discovered America? How can you "discover' something that already has people inhabiting it?

How Do I Know ?

They had a reservation !

I dont like to dwell on this kind of thing, it can be quite frightening, but i find it interesting sometimes...good job hitler was a $hite military leader, or we could all be screwed.

The battle of britain's an interesting point...all it took for the luftwaffe's whole operation to fall apart was for one nazi to stray off course and drop his bombs on london, that was damn good luck

If the south would have won in the civil war we would be in much better shape.

I mean I dont think if the south would have won they would have made any deals with aliens or traded our future for money or destroyed the planet this bad.

Plus pot would be legal.

stupid yanks.

no wonder girls hate you

anyway the only real positive thing that could come from the south winning the civil war would be the economic and technological competition and that would rely heavily on us getting along somewhat with the confederates otherwise we would resemble some african countries

constantly at war with one another

on a different note has anyone heard of any alternate history books about Patton invading the USSR after WW2?

I will attempt to make a crack at this one.



What If Nixon won the 1960 election ?



We'd all be dead because I'm sure Nixon would handle the Cuban Missile Crisis poorly in comparison to JFK. I wouldn't be suprised if Nixon bombed Cuba and ignited World War III ... but then again these are a bunch of ifs and I am no historian.

some people say that JFK took an incredible risk by threatening the russians on a very public level maybe nixon would have threatened them in a more subtle backroom way because the russian ?premeir? lost all political face by backing down to JFK but who knows for sure

Have you ever read the book Fatherland?

Basicly its about what happened when the Nazis won WW2