the big grab bag of unusual WIs

[Straha]

since soem people are bitching about my spamfest(tom mazanec eat your heart out! Your spamfests are weak compared to mine) so heres a grab bag

Raleigh the explorer never picks up a dirty health-damaging
Amerindian mouth habit, and thus tobacco smoking and the tobacco
industry never start.

Heroin and cocaine are legalized. (Likely result: a high death
rate for a time, perhaps a century or few, while natural selection
makes gradually more and more of the population resistant to the
worst of the effects. (This likely happened OTL with alcohol in
ancient times, in areas where alcohol has been known since ancient
times.)

The Green movement as we know it today never occurs.

An influenza epidemic (on the scale of the so-called Spanish Flu
epidemic which took place in 1918) takes place during the time of the
Second World War. (Of course anyone who responds to this message is welcome to place the epidemic at the time of a different war (such as Vietnam) or an event such as a political convention (such as the tumultous 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago) or the fall of the Warsaw pact in
the late 1980s.)

In the early 1960's a case comes before the US supreme court vis a
vis the Legality of private possession on firearms .
The Supreme court hold that as stated in the second amendment , "the
right of people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed " ,but
only only the Proviso that they belong to "a well regulated militia"
, that being the national guard or other state or federal defence or
law enforcement units or reserves . For those that do not qualify
ownership is no longer a right but a privellage and stictly
liscenced . Results ?

Potatoes are Native to Europe.

No Santa Claus myth. What is Christmas like, especially for kids around
the world?

Frederick the Great, or someone of his exact stature (no smarter, no
dumber), is the king of Prussia from 1793-1821, during the period of the
Fr. Rev. and Nap. Wars.

The Soviet union, and The West allow Germany to reunite, in say 1950.
however it is to remain neutral and disarmed...

What if the biblical principle of Jubilee had been adopted at the
very earliest stages of colonial development? The OTL principal of
chattel slavery is replaced by a system whereby ALL slaves are freed
every 50 years. I am not saying that the form of jubilee would be
identical to the biblical model but that the biblical model is used
as a framework. The key being liberation every 50 years.

Internet never invented.

no african slave trade to america.

The USA goes metric in the 70's

NASA run as a military not civilian space program

Isrela doesn't win against the arabs in 1948

Equal rights amendment passed

Germany rearms and gets agressive after reunification in the 80's

zoarastairansim survies as a major faith

SARS mutates into a superflu

Ebola breaks out of africa

[DominusNovus]

with the raleigh one, without tobacco, Jamestown probably won't do as well, and there won't be as much of a migration to Virginia and the area, assuming, of course, that Jamestown even lasts. The Pilgrims and the Puritans still probably go to America and, assuming that they still end up in Massachusetts, New England will be the only major population and poltical center of the colonies.

[tom]

Munch, munch, munch...
Oh, that was just a figure of speech!
I like the Supreme Court one...that is pretty close to my own views on guns.
The no green movement would probably make our GNP a bit higher and our environment a bit worse. No Santa would deprive me of a bunch of beloved cartoons from Rankin-Bass, but maybe kids would just get presents and know who they came from? The legal drugs would need a millennium or two, not a century or two (we've been puffing on tobacco for half a millennium and are still dropping like flies from it).

[Straha]

The rest of continental Europe leaves NATO, which they always saw as as much to restrain a new German army as to fight the Soviets. There would be a giant fight on the US insisting on keeping its bases in Iceland and Greenland [US is having the Greenland fight now that Greenland is on the verge of autonomy]. US becomes much closer to Spain and Portugal which are still under the dictators. Europe other than France effectively disarms. Brandt's Ostpolitik starts a decade sooner. US and Soviets both have major forces freed for other purposes. Makes Vietnam easier for the US and a Russo-Chinese war on the Amur FAR more likely circa 1970.

[Gedca]

Originally Posted by tom

No Santa would deprive me of a bunch of beloved cartoons from Rankin-Bass, but maybe kids would just get presents and know who they came from?

Probably no Santa would mean presents are only given amung family members, not Santa.

[Grey Wolf]

The Green movement as we know it today never occurs.

Well, I think you already have this

Whilst you have on the one hand a Green Party which is big and powerful politically on the continent, you have the antithesis of it here in the UK. The main parties basically pick and choose the bits they want, become 'Green' enough to completely undermine the opposition then implement it as little as possible so that they don't upset too many vested interests

Grey Wolf

[MerryPrankster]

No Santa myth probably means that gifts will be overtly from family, friends, etc, and that more people will probably remember where the custom of gift-giving on Christmas started (with Christ and the Magi).

Not that I'm some ecclesiastical Scrooge by any means, but I think Christmas has gotten WAAY too materialistic and commercialized.

[Straha]

Originally Posted by Matt Quinn

No Santa myth probably means that gifts will be overtly from family, friends, etc, and that more people will probably remember where the custom of gift-giving on Christmas started (with Christ and the Magi).

Not that I'm some ecclesiastical Scrooge by any means, but I think Christmas has gotten WAAY too materialistic and commercialized.

scrooge!!!! Burn the scrooge!!!

[Grey Wolf]

Awww, but Santa is CUUUUTE !!!

He gives fat old men with beards a second chance

Grey Wolf