The ASBs flap around in OTL...

This has been brought up in the old forum, and I thought it was time to revive it. The purpose here is to think up of any OTL events that seem oddly "convenient" Some examples:

1) Columbus sailed through the central Atlantic, in the middle of hurricane season and through an area almost always passed by hurricanes and tropical storms. Yet he never ran into a single one.

2) Despite knowing about a planned Japanese offensive in late 1941, no one in the US military came up with the idea that the Japanese would take a swipe at Pearl Harbor. Oddly enough, when the attack occured, all the American carriers were out at sea at the time.

3) Despite the fact that Cortez's actions showed that he was definitely not a god, Montezuma seemed more than willing to let him have free run of the place.

4) The Trojans see a giant wooden horse outside their walls, drag it in, and never notice that it's crammed with Greek soldiers.

5) The US president that got the ball rolling in Vietnam, one of the worst conflicts in American history, is revered as a saint today, while the president that got US forces out (eventually) is hated and reviled.

6) At the same time humanity began its migrations around the world, every continent that could be inhabited on a permanent basis was either connected to another one, or within easy paddling distance.

Any others?

Most people would think of those things of conincidnces. But not us...

1) If Columbus met storm, we wouldn't hear about him. He'd be just another unfortunate explorer, known to some historian (and AH board nuts)

2) That's the reason some people believe in FDR conspiracy . On the other hand, in 1941 nobody expect such deadly efficiency from torpedo planes attacks. Especially conservative army generals.

3) Montezuma was just weak monarch. Morevoer, he seems to me to be someone who plays the game and don't understand rules. Also, at some moment he wasn't actually king, but just Cortez puppet.

5) Strange features of human memory. I think it's called "halo effect" in psychology - act of "nice" people are considered to be "nice", and those of "bad ones" are considered "bad". Imagine, what would you think, if you heard about Saddam donating orphanage?

And my favorite ASB-like is Fermat's theorem. Can anybody imagine anything so silly? "Oh, I have nice idea, but I wont prove it, cause there's no enough place to do it".

JFK was physically attractive and due to his suavity and family connections, was able to keep his sleaziness under wraps until his assassination made him a "holy martyr."

Nixon, on the other hand, in addition to NOT have a Kennedy-esque attraction to the fairer sex, committed several overt legalities and bungled convering them up.

Perhaps if Watergate remains hidden, Nixon is remembered fondly and if it comes out MUCH later (like Kennedy's constant philandering and possible Mafia connections), it's remembered as "a little thing" that shouldn't sully the memory of "a great man."

Cassandra had been telling the Trojans that the Greeks were going to pull something for years, but the gods had condemned her to be always right and never listened to.

Laocoon and his sons warned of a trick, but they were strangled by snakes sent by Posiedon. When the gods say 'trust us or we'll kill you' people tended to listen

Here are some other ASB elements that seem to get forgotten:

-Bill Clinton had 8 publicly known assassination attempts during his presidency, including a man flying a plane into the White House, and another firing an AK-47 from Pennsylvania Avenue, and none of them succeeding...

-Charles De Gaulle,from 1945-1968, had a record 25 assassination attempts on his life, including by Algerian rebels, Pro-Nazi Vichy terrorists, Communist spies, and Right-wing military leaders, and none of them succeeding...

-Richard Nixon, one of the leaders of the HUAC hearings during the 1950s, and staunch opponent of communism, negotiated the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam, opened diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China, and the USSR, and several arms reduction treaties.

-Emperor Hirohito, who waged war against the United States, France, Great Britain, and the USSR during World War II is absolved from any complicity in the decision to go to war and is creditied with opening foreign trade and industry to Japan.

-Martin Luther King, Jr. maintains his call for non-violence, despite the severe beating of his brother, the bombing of his home in Birmingham, Alabama, death threats launched against his wife and children, the near-fatal stabbing by a mentally disturbed woman in New York City, calls from several NAACP leaders to renounce the call for non-violence.

ASB elements of hist

Here are my attempts at determining ASB elements of hist:

During the VW black civil rights leaders and anti-war protesters charged that the war in Vietnam was being fought disporportionately by African-American servicemen who served in large nos. in racially integrated combat units (esp elite units like the airborne and Marines) and supposedly took higher casualties due to their greater level of participation, yet during WWII the forebears of these same civil rights leaders had ironically protested as part of their 'Double V' campaign that a great injustice lay in black servicemen being predominantly segregated into noncombat menial duties/manual labour units instead of being allowed to see combat

The Indians in New England and Virginia provided the most generous assistance to the 1st English settlers during their 1st winters without adequate food and shelter, yet suffered a great degree of abuse of their land and rights from the supposedly Christian colonisers once the latter got themselves established.

British settlers while colonising Australia from 1788 claimed their title to the land by virtue of the doctrine of TERRA NULLIUS in order to dispossess the native inhabitants of their lands, yet fully acknowledged in their diaries and official correspondence the great love for country held by Aboriginal tribes which led them to conduct protracted guerilla warfare against the European invaders

George Custer, a flamboyant, vain egotist and martinet, is a household hist figure for the great fatal blunder of his career at Little Big Horn and the destruction of the 200-odd men under his command, while a contemporary like Wesley Merritt, a careful, disciplined leader, has been virtually forgotten despite his excellent exploits and combat record on the frontier in commanding the Buffalo soldiers of the 9th Cav

Winston Churchill, despite his record as 1 of Britain's outstanding wartime leaders, was voted out of office immediately after victory was won by the same British ppl whom he'd served and who held him in such great esteem during the war yrs

And then there are the ironies of the world. Like in WW2, a Soviet spyring master set up shop in the same building as the German that was out to get him, and the Soviet spy received several mjor contracts from the Atlantic Wall.

How about over 9000 medieval setlers living in Greenland for over 500 years, importing there timbre from thousands of miles away in europe instead of exploiting the vast forests a relatively short hop away in North America, despite knowing of this place. And not moving from Greenland to America en mass, even after Greenland gets increasingly cold and inconpatible with their lifestyle. Plus showing an irational dislike of fish and other seefood in there Midens.

Some of these are colored by myth. First, it DID occur to many people that Japan might try an attack on Pearl Harbor, but the Phillippines was considered so much more likely a target that most people were caught by surprise - it was pretty lucky though that none of the carriers were in port.

Cortez wasn't though of as a god, and Montezuma wasn't even especially weak. Cortez just didn't follow the rules of behavior the Mexicans were accustomed to, giving him a leg up, and also completely forgotten by history is the fact that he had a giant army of Mexicans who hated the Aztecs with him.

Kennedy didn't get us into Vietnam, Eisenhower did.

Hirohito was against the war, and had no power to prevent it. I don't see why he should be held accountable, and even so, he took full responsibility for everything Japan had done when he presented himeself to MacArthur.

Sweden vs Russia at the battle of Narva. Just as the 8000 swedes were to attack the Russians besieging the city a snowstorm came down and the wind was in the swedes back making the 30-40000 russians dont see anything

Stonewall at Chanslorville(spelling). Taking his entire corps and attacking the union flank and then on the brink of total victory getting shot down by his own troops

WitheRussia against Sweden in the hockeytournament during the 2002 olympics. Last goal HAS to be ASB involved

was the ASBs involved during the super bowl this year also? Same kicker who had TWO attemps fail become the big hero. Even Hollywood couldnt make anything like that.

A few more to play with

1) At various periods during the 20th century, the leaders of the USSR, the PRC, and communist southeast Asia all attempted to restructure the agricultural system of the country, despite the fact it never seemed to work. Ever.

2) Despite brutalizing the Soviet people in a horrendous fashion, and engaging on endless purgesof terror that only stopped with his demise, Josef Stalin is still remembered fondly by some of the older generation in Russia.

And, of course...
3) Throughout his reign, Adolf Hitler was the target of some 40 assassination attempts, none of which succeeded. Oddly enough, the Guiness Book of Records still states Charles DeGaulle has having survived the most attempts, with only thirty.

"-Bill Clinton had 8 publicly known assassination attempts during his presidency, including a man flying a plane into the White House, and another firing an AK-47 from Pennsylvania Avenue, and none of them succeeding..."

Could you list them? I recall reading about some guy landing a helicopter on the White House lawn, but I didn't think it was an actual assassination attempt.

Matt Quinn said:

"-Bill Clinton had 8 publicly known assassination attempts during his presidency, including a man flying a plane into the White House, and another firing an AK-47 from Pennsylvania Avenue, and none of them succeeding..."

Could you list them? I recall reading about some guy landing a helicopter on the White House lawn, but I didn't think it was an actual assassination attempt.

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Well, since our current President views holding a protest sign outside of a "Free Speech Zone" as an assassination attempt, I can hardly be surprised by landing a helicopter on the White House lawn being classified this way.

monkey said:

How about over 9000 medieval setlers living in Greenland for over 500 years, importing there timbre from thousands of miles away in europe instead of exploiting the vast forests a relatively short hop away in North America, despite knowing of this place. And not moving from Greenland to America en mass, even after Greenland gets increasingly cold and inconpatible with their lifestyle. Plus showing an irational dislike of fish and other seefood in there Midens.

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Well at least as far as the fish, the bishop told them not to, along with learning anything from the Inuit. Once again, Christianity shows its immense practical value and concern for its practitioners welfare.

Besides, there is some scanty evidence that they finally did join the Inuit. Remember, the Vikings left probably the least legacy of material artifacts of any European people so scanty's actually a lot.

I think that the simplest way to try and pick "ASB" items in our timeline is to try to think of things that would seem "too good to be true" or far too convenient. I ask myself, "would I consider this really far-fetched if I didn;t know that it had really happened?".

Some that come to mind are:

- Washington escaping from Long Island with his army when the British fleet and army made no serious attempt to stop him.

- Pizarro's force arriving in the Inca Empire right at a key moment during a civil war, so that Atahualpa was so focused on defeating his rival that he didn't bother to send troops to try and stop the Spanish in the mountain passes, where they could definitely have been defeated.

- France being forced to sign an armistice after less than 6 weeks of fighting in 1940, even though this same country had resisted the Germans for over 4 years in the previous war, and many French units in 1940 fought as well as their predecessors had.

- Magellan sailing for thousands of miles across an unknown ocean and managing to avoid any serious storms or even rainfall, leading him to give the highly misleading name of "Pacific" to the world's largest body of water.

- An obscure group of people who originally lived in southern China start making boats and voyage to Taiwan. Then, some go on to the Phillippines. Then, they just keep going from island to island across thousands of miles of ocean until they have populated some of the last uninhabited parts of the globe. They almost make it all the way across the world's largest ocean from west to east. Meanwhile, those who staid in their original homeland on the Asian continent are absorbed by the Chinese and lose their separate identity.

- The species known as Homo Sapiens has less genetic diversity than most other species of life, yet many members of this species end up using these miniscule genetic variations as justification for killing or enslaving many millions of their fellow Homo Sapiens .

- The belief system followed by one rather obscure tribe in the Middle East ends up being the root source for 3 religions that combined claim the allegiance of almost half of the world's populations. At the same time, the belief systems of the powerful ancient empires in that region vanish almost totally.

- Human settle 2 large continents (North and South America) and live there for well over 10,000 years and yet never find a single species of large, heavy native animal that is suitable for domestication. Also, they only find a few native plants that can be used as crops, and most of those need many generations of breeding before they become very productive. As a result, some of their technology and society probably lags behind other continents where more domesticated animal and plant species are available.

- The 4th Crusade - A large Christian army that is brought together for the official purpose of fighting Muslims and defending fellow Christians ends up capturing and sacking the largest Christian city in the world - and celebrating this as a great victory.

- Switzerland, a country that sits right in the middle of one of the world's most war-torn areas and yet goes for centuries without being directly involved in any wars.

Paul Spring said:

- Human settle 2 large continents (North and South America) and live there for well over 10,000 years and yet never find a single species of large, heavy native animal that is suitable for domestication. Also, they only find a few native plants that can be used as crops, and most of those need many generations of breeding before they become very productive. As a result, some of their technology and society probably lags behind other continents where more domesticated animal and plant species are available.

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They did find the Llama, and truth be told there are very few animals in the world suitable for domestication.
Actually, if there had been two or three domesticable species in America, THEN you'd be able the scream ASBs!
(the question of course is ... are ASBs domesticable)
They did have some good crops, ok, not as good as the rest of the world, biggest problem was that America is a north-south continent, unlike Eurasia, which is east-west

it's easy to move crops along an east-west axis (climats stay mostly the same) but to do the same along a N-S axis quickly gets you into lands that are to dry/hot/cold/wet/dark/whatever

this simple fact handicaped the natives a whole lot

Paul Spring said:

- Switzerland, a country that sits right in the middle of one of the world's most war-torn areas and yet goes for centuries without being directly involved in any wars.

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well, the fact that they're on top of some of the best defensive terrain on the planet might have something to do with that

Abdul Hadi Pasha said:

Cortez wasn't though of as a god, and Montezuma wasn't even especially weak. Cortez just didn't follow the rules of behavior the Mexicans were accustomed to, giving him a leg up, and also completely forgotten by history is the fact that he had a giant army of Mexicans who hated the Aztecs with him.

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I thought there was an Aztec prophecy about 'a white man coming from heaven' or something like that. Which is why the preisthood and Montezuma accepted him into the city.

thearcticfalcon said:

I thought there was an Aztec prophecy about 'a white man coming from heaven' or something like that. Which is why the preisthood and Montezuma accepted him into the city.

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"with hair like fire" I seem to remember ... now, that's ASB, Cortez just happened to be one of the few Spaniards with blond hair