History Forum / General / What If / June 2005

The creation of the United States Senate as a chamber with equal
representation among the states has been called a "panda's thumb" by
some political scientists, like Frances Lee and Bruce Oppenheimer in
"Sizing Up the Senate."  Given the current political theories of the

    I just had this pointed out to me:
    http://straight-edge.com/definition.html
    And my question is: could this have been the seed of a wide-
spread political movement in the 1980s? No, actually since the answer

I recently had a discussion with a friend concerning the implausibility
of histories in most fantasy worlds.  Your typical fantasy novel has a
generally European-like world that resembles the Middle Ages, but often
the history of the world is far more ancient than Europe in the ...

When Sulla returned home from Asia Minor during the last century BCE,
he defeated the democrats in a civil war and had himself made
dictator for life.  Pompey, Julius Caesar, more emperors, etc.
Now suppose Sulla dies on the trip home.  Bug, accident, whatever.

The British Empire sought a series of interconnected protectorates to
buffer India from any encroachments from the Ottoman Empire or Russia
in the 19th and early 20th Centuries. They formed the Trucial States in
1835 with a series of treaties tying the shiekhs to British payments in

As annoyingly off-topic the recent rec.arts.sf.science,
rec.arts.sf.written, and sci.space.policy cross-posted threads are, the
newsgroup has only just come out from under a much more odious threat
[Lord willing it be so]

Neither Holy, Nor Roman, Nor an Empire
Part 2 - Imperial War
The crowned (and non-crowned) heads of Europe were shocked. Few outside
Germany had really expected Austria to follow through with its threat

POD: The British succeed in defeating the American Revolutionaries in
1782 despite French involvement. Besieged American commander George
Washington surrenedered to British general Cornwallis at Yorktown,
Virginia, in 1779.

Greater France itself is a pretty good accomplishment. WI N's successor
dropped the Continental System and kept peace with Russia and Britain?
Would France avoid its 19th century demographic decline? Would it
industrialize faster than OTL? Better prepared for the German challenge?

I have trimmed this up a bit both for copyright and sense. The last
sentence is for Robert Kolker.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/science/28time.html?pagewanted=print
une 28, 2005

What if the concept of zero in mathematics never emerged or was kept as
the esoteric center of a cabalistic sect? The concept was invented or
conceived by the Sumerians, brought to fruition by the India Indians
and duplicated independently  by the Mayas.

With the 60th Anniversary of V-J Day coming up, here's a topic that will be coming up for
discussion: the planned invasion of Kyushu on or after 1 November 1945 by the U.S. 6th Army, supported by the USN's 3rd, 5th, and 7th Fleets, the Far East Air Forces, and the Strategic Air ...

Trying to create a World War I that is both more destructive and
involves more and larger battlefields than in the OTL. To create
multiple theatres of war one needs four PODS but the result I think is
much more interesting and impressive WWI. After this WWI the whole

Hard to beleive it, but as the Economist reminds us E-bay is ten years
old at this point.
ObWI:  E-bay never exists.

During Hitler visit on 5th October 1939 during in the freshly conquered Warsaw
he took tour of the city in open car. Little did he know that the car
drove at one point over former anti-tank ditch. Said ditch was levelled
(in accordance with capitulation terms) but it cointained ...