What would be an interesting alternative history that's not be done to death already?

Question

What I'm curious for are alternative histories that would have a not-often used divergence point but would likely to have major ramifications for its change. I'm looking for ones that haven't been used very much, and I would like it if you had a rough idea of what effects that such a change would have. Try to have it where it's just one change that has the effect and not a large series that occurs at once. Be as creative as you wish.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

In answering this question, I considered first what changes in history might have resulted in the greatest effect on mankind in general. I got too many answers. This question resolves to the individual and the things individuals have done that changed the future history of mankind. To narrow the field of possible choices I turn to things that would have a more Definitive result that would be traceable forward through history, a switch and a simple one - not the life or death of a person, but more elegant. Here is my answer:

Alternate history:
In 1897 - At age 28 Grigori Rasputin receives a cure for insomnia from a local apothecary and does Not seek out the clergy to heal his insomnia. As a result he remains a typical drunk Siberian peasant, farming wheat in the countryside for the rest of his days.

In the real history, Rasputin was cured by the clergy through meditation and prayer. They helped him foster his innate abilities, which included having an extraordinarily deep and soothing voice, combined with intense and hypnotic eyes. He took these abilities and became a wandering hermit of sorts, drawing on his personal experience with the priest's healing to fuel his faith and teach the healing powers of faith wherever he went.

In the real history, Rasputin sought out the Bishop of St. Petersburg to help him fund a church in the countryside. The Bishop introduced Rasputin to the Tzar of Russia at that time, and helped gain Rasputin entry to the royal household one through his ties to the Bishop and two through his notoriety as a mystic and healer.

Because the royal heir (a ten-year old boy) was a hemiphiliac and convention doctors offered no hope that the child would live to majority, the Tzar soon came to call upon Rasputin's services as a healer. Rasputin soon became a regular fixture in the household and court of the Tzar. Unfortunately, Rasputin had an extraordinarily bad reputation as a womanizer, and drunkard, which the nobility disliked (mostly because it was their wives he was sleeping with, I suspect).

Trouble was stirring in Russia as the aristocracy sought to diminish the power of the royal family, they used Rasputin's reputation as leverage against the royal family, unaware or uncaring about the royal heir's illness. The time was 1916 and the civil unrest prompted by the aristocracy was fueled by Rasputin's constant presence at court. Ultimately the Tzar's blaze attitude toward the opinions of the aristocracy (specifically concerning Rasputin's presence at court) is what pushed them over the edge into revolution. It was believed at the time that they Tzar was disconnected from the rest of the nobility and was involved in the devilry and debauchery of Rasputin's infamous orgies and parties. The truth was the Tzar could not let Rasputin leave for fear of losing his son, for whom conventional doctors said there was no hope, yet whom Rasputin had thusfar miraculously sustained.

As a result, revolution finally did grow from the seeds of the nobility's discontent and resulted in the death of the Tzar, his entire family and the nation itself.

Millions more died in the chaos that ensued.

Alternate history:
In 1897 - Grigori Rasputin receives a cure for insomnia from a local apothecary and does Not seek out the clergy to heal his illness. As a result he remains a typical drunk Siberian peasant, farming wheat in the countryside for the rest of his days. The royal heir dies at age 10. The russian Tzar focuses on running his country, the Russian Revolution never occurs.

Imagine how this would change the complexion of WWII? Might the line of the Tzar have supported Hitler's rise to power? I personally believe they would at least have been much less involved in the support of the Allied forces. Can anyone here speak German?

Answer 2

I believe you're looking for a kind of butterfly effect change, as in, how small a change can have the greatest long-term ramifications on the world.

What if Genghis Khan was a woman?

They say one in six people across the world can trace his or her lineage back DIRECTLY to Genghis Khan in some way or another (in other words, his/her great-times-one hundred-grandsire was Genghis, or however many intervening generations), and imagine how the population would be affected today without such an influence back then. Hell, a whole different genotype might have come to the fore, or perhaps the causcasian type would have triumphed over the Asian, so on and so forth. Who knows? It's fun to think about. I guess he wouldn't have to have been a woman, just infertile. But still.

I'm trying to think of actual historical facts instead of changes in legend or myth (like, what if Lilith had behaved, and Eve was never made?) but I'm still coming short. Well, here's one for you: what if the Earth spun in retrograde?

Can answer that one, though - we'd consider it normal, and call the OTHER way retrograde! It's all a matter of perception, now, isn't it?

Answer 3

I'm a writer and I have several ideas of. What you need to realize is that the gene pool of people is so large that it isnt like one person is destined to be born. Change one thing, change everything. I wont reveal my origional ideas but I can give you a few. One-- Chinese explorers land in south america and the phoenicans in the north. So you have a Chinese speaking latin america. A massive genocide doesnt occur. Spanish are driven out right away. Brits still come into possesion of top states but now have a new and have a few tiffs with the chinese-aztec settlers and then live semi-happily ever after losing a chunk of california. Grover Cleveland is Assasinated--fudementally alters the state of politics in american history for the next five hundred years. Indus River Valley civilization survived and takes over world. There is a lot you can do.

Answer 4

Here's one after a few minutes of thought:

What if Queen Elizabeth I married King Phillip of Spain? They'd unite both the British crown and the Hapsburgs (and their kids would still have physical deformities from all that inbreeding from the Hapsburgs, though not as much).

Eventually, the Hapsburgs would be the dominant force in Europe.

Or, say Tsar Nicholas II and his family survive the Russian revolution. Would they try to assume the throne again? Probably not since they'd still be considered citizens of Russia.

Answer 5

There are some great "What If?" books out there. Some of my favorite ponderings have to do with, "What if the South had succeeded in the Civil War, what would the nation(s) look like today?" And branching off from that, what if we were still two separate nations in 1917 and an invasion of the South from Mexico (as the Germans were trying to initiate to divert possibly US involvement in WWI) had succeeded. (There has been a series of novels written based on the "South as victors" premise, but I haven't gotten around to reading them yet.)

And what if the US hadn't gotten involved in either of the two World Wars?

Answer 6

How about a historic future where raptors and other dinosaurs are the intelligent life form and have dug up machines from our era after a collision with a comet?
Or maybe one where the native americans have been the ones that overcame Europe or Asia?

Answer 7

If John Hancock hadn't signed his name so freakin big!

In the supermarket today I wouldn't have been reminded to put my John Hancock on the tiny machine that transfers money out of my possession with a rectangular piece of plastic.

Instead, the sweaty cashier would have asked my for my "Robert deBruce" or something lame like that.

Answer 8

If the Boers had won the Boer War. Then South Africa would never have been a British possession, and you can bet that Apartheid as it was in our history would have been a cake walk compared to what it would have been like in that alternate history.

Answer 9

What would have happened if Japan didn't bomb Pearl Harbor?