History Forum / General / What If / August 2008

On September 21, 1947 John F. Kennedy collapsed in Claridge's, a
London hotel.  A friend, Pamela Digby Churchill, took him to a clinic
and sent for Dr. Daniel Davies.  Davies examined him and found he had
Addison's Disease, an autoimmune destruction of the adrenal gland.  He

when you got old.....

What if no newsgroup had no postings irrelevant to the subject of the
newsgroup?

Basically the strategy of Japan seems to be to destroy the
U.S. fleet in the Pacific so that they can drive them out of the
Phillipines and then destroy the U.S. bases in the Hawaiian islands
and perhaps establish a few there themselves so that the U.S. would

I see him getting so wrapped up in constant gaming that he would scarcely
have had the time or inclination to actual conquest.

Right one poster is putting forward ideas about how the Japanese could
have done better. However it seems that he is ignoring all other
Japanese targets. It does not really matter what additional resources
were assigned unless the Japanese have a major change in mind set.

Apologies if this has been done before, but I was beginning to wonder about
the 'what ifs' involved if the USA was never dragged into World War I.
Would it have just kept grinding down to a bloody stalemate until the sides
dropped from exhaustion?  Would the rapid advancements in ...

One thread in modern history was the need for states for oil both in
availability and then at the right price.
Before WW2, no one knew that in Libya, a fortune in oil was available.
The Italians did look there before WW2 but gave up. Interestingly in one

This is my first (and rather long) alternative history posting here so
I hope that it will be well received and generate much discussion.
I'd like your comments wrt the following alternative
history scenario which I propose might have been

After Midway, the US decides to adopt the follow plan. Their plan is to
wait till Hitler is beaten and fight Japan on the cheap. A plan that FDR
would approve.
So they concentrate on submarine warfare, holding the Japanese

Can any predictions be made based upon
the point of departure from our time line?
Or would the potential both long and
short term outcomes be so heavily

"Churchill's premiss, which did not greatly differ from those of the
other two (Hankey and Lloyd George), was, that for a variety of
reasons, stasis had settled on all the main fronts. In France the
opposing armies were dug in so completely that there were no

First what was the original Japanese intent when planning the raid?
Second, what would have been the effect on other Japanese efforts if
extra resources had been supplied?
Third would extra resources result in more damage?

at Pearl Harbor on Dec.7'41 ?
I have read much back and forth debate on the subject but still cannot
see why he could not have done so, had he been interested in taking on
a bit more risk, for a much larger reward.

I'm looking for ideas in terms of the development of regularly
scheduled elections in History. In parlimentary systems, generally
there is a maximum time that a parliment can serve, but no real
minimum between elections (for example 1970 for the UK, less than a