I'm not really sure if they'd be better things than OTL. In the first case, doing so would stop the Delhi Sultanate Golden Age from taking place, and in the second case, Vikramaditya would rule India, with similar syncretism, as Akbar did.
If you could change one event in history pre 1900
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I'm not really sure if they'd be better things than OTL. In the first case, doing so would stop the Delhi Sultanate Golden Age from taking place, and in the second case, Vikramaditya would rule India, with similar syncretism, as Akbar did.
These are all over the map:
- Cable cars are developed in New York in the 1850s: all the elements were available.
- Wilhelm II doesn't drop the pilot in 1890.
- The obstetrician delivering Wilhelm II is one of the best alive at the time instead of borderline incompetent.
- Delaware votes to abolish slavery (which, I believe, fell perhaps one or two votes short in the 1830s)
- The anarchist who threw the bomb at Alexander II misses, or the bomb is a complete dud
- Daniel Webster becomes president with Henry Clay as SecState: might just be able to accomplish compensated manumission
Following the first defeat of Napoleon, the Poland(Grand Duchy of Warsaw, I think) and the Kingdom of Italy that Napoleon created are allowed to remain around and not allowed to be absorbed into whatever countries held them previously. Whether of not they retain the rulers that Napoleon appointed depends on the Congress of Vienna.
1. Alexander the Great does not die from his last drinking bout, and lives long enough to conquer Arabia and Carthage. His successors eventually conquer north India in the waning days of the Mauryan empire.
2. Drusus does not fall from his horse, and with his legions retains control of Germania to the Elbe, thus eliminating any possibility of Varus coming west.
3. Rome does not conquer Britain, instead strengthening a client kingdom in the southeast corner of the island such that it dominates all others. Britain remains an unconquered Celtic haven. Legions that would otherwise be spent subjugating the island are free for use elsewhere.
3. King Harold Godwinnson defeats and kills Duke William of Normandy at the battle of Hastings. England remains Anglo-Saxon.
4. King Henry VIII has a healthy son with Catherine of Aragon -England remains Catholic.
5. Hemu defeats the Mughals at the second battle of Panipat, capturing the young Akbar in the process.
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And another I've been toying with -keeping the Roman Empire pagan, perhaps with an eventual syncretism of the cults of Isis and Mithras into one faith strong enough to overpower Christianity.
2. Drusus does not fall from his horse, and with his legions retains control of Germania to the Elbe, thus eliminating any possibility of Varus coming west.
3. Rome does not conquer Britain, instead strengthening a client kingdom in the southeast corner of the island such that it dominates all others. Britain remains an unconquered Celtic haven. Legions that would otherwise be spent subjugating the island are free for use elsewhere.
3. King Harold Godwinnson defeats and kills Duke William of Normandy at the battle of Hastings. England remains Anglo-Saxon.
4. King Henry VIII has a healthy son with Catherine of Aragon -England remains Catholic.
5. Hemu defeats the Mughals at the second battle of Panipat, capturing the young Akbar in the process.
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And another I've been toying with -keeping the Roman Empire pagan, perhaps with an eventual syncretism of the cults of Isis and Mithras into one faith strong enough to overpower Christianity.
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1. The Umayyads (and Abbasids) are unable to conquer Sindh
2. The Abbasids are defeated in the Battle of Talas
3. Mardavij avoids being assassinated and establishes the Zoroastrian Yizarid Empire as a revival of the Sassanid Empire, possibly with him or his successors allying with the Qarmatians and ultimately destroying the Abbasids (though the question remains how 2 and 3 would have impacted the descendants of Yazdegerd III and the Sassanid Imperial family who at that point lived under the Tang dynasty - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narsieh)
4. The Qarmatians push the Fatimids out of Hijaz and the Levant.
2. The Abbasids are defeated in the Battle of Talas
3. Mardavij avoids being assassinated and establishes the Zoroastrian Yizarid Empire as a revival of the Sassanid Empire, possibly with him or his successors allying with the Qarmatians and ultimately destroying the Abbasids (though the question remains how 2 and 3 would have impacted the descendants of Yazdegerd III and the Sassanid Imperial family who at that point lived under the Tang dynasty - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narsieh)
4. The Qarmatians push the Fatimids out of Hijaz and the Levant.
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Camillo Benso count of Cavour doesn't die of Malaria just after the unification of Italy depriving the nation of one of his best statesman in a crucial moment
I would be intrigued by a napoleon wank... not sure if it would be my ideal pod but it would be interesting.
Did I Stutter?
Banned
1. Any pod that eradicates both socialism and communism from the face of governments/politics/the earth (assuming has to be pre-1850).
2. Napoleon winning at the battle of Leipzig and defeating the Sixth Coalition or a successful invasion of Russia/Peninsular War.
3. Roman victory at the battle of teutoberg forest and conquering Germany.
4. Alexander the Great doesn't die so young and lives long enough to have an heir take the throne.
5. Majorian's fleet not being sabotaged and him not being assassinated leading to WRE resurgence.
2. Napoleon winning at the battle of Leipzig and defeating the Sixth Coalition or a successful invasion of Russia/Peninsular War.
3. Roman victory at the battle of teutoberg forest and conquering Germany.
4. Alexander the Great doesn't die so young and lives long enough to have an heir take the throne.
5. Majorian's fleet not being sabotaged and him not being assassinated leading to WRE resurgence.
Mardavij would be hard pressed to create such an empire if he immediately wars against the Abbasid. Conquering much of central Iran seems a difficult task, but in the 10th century this area was passing between lords seemingly every 3 years. Thus, it is not a statement of power to conquer these areas, especially for Mardavij who essentially rushed several weak lords and then capitualated to the Samanids to ensure his existence. Warring then against Abbasid is a wholly other matter.
Baghdad alone, has a defensive capability to halt Mardavij, not even counting the immense difficulties in invasion. Mardavij to gain leverage on Baghdad must march through either the hostile north of Iraq or in the Sawad. He will likely go the route of the Sawad, since it has the ruins of Cteshipon and also to link with his Qarmatian allies marching north from Kuwait. The issue, is, the Abbasids have several precaussions for his enemies arriving in the south. Namely, the Batihah Sawad currently is filled with a massed state of bandits, outlaws, pirates, etc... Most of whom are remnants of the Zanj rebellion. These will not let Mardavij cross their swamplands under any circumstance. It is almost entirely clear, that these outlaws preferred the benign neglect of the Abbasids than an upstart conqueror from Iran, as is evident in their wars and victories against the Buyyid.
Simply put, I have doubts. Once Mardavij takes the gamble to battle the Abbasids, he MUST decisively defeat the bandits in the Sawad and take Baghdad. Both of which I doubt, I frankly, imagine Mardavij being defeated in the Sawad by the bandits and forced out of Iraq before he arrives at Baghdad. This leads to the Buyyid threat going over and a massive rebellion in central Iran erupts against his. Or, Mardavij is defeated at Baghdad, likely along the way, Qarmatian support drops off. Qarmatians tended to be the most unreliable allies, they owed their existence to the Fatimids, yet they betrayed them constantly and at its basic level. The Qarmatians were so disagreeable that they could not even agree with the Fatimids on the dissolution of the Abbasid Caliphate.
Thanks for providing the context around that period, to clarify was not imagining Mardavij himself was capable of achieving all his goals by himself had he avoided being assassinated (even with a Mardavij wank) rather ATL Mardavij would accomplish as much as he could in establishing the Ziyarid Empire with his successors continuing where he left off via an alliance with the Qarmatians, agree that it would be a tall order for Mardavij to take Baghdad.
You mentioned the Fatimids and Qarmatians could not even agree on the dissolution of the Abbasids in OTL, what if they managed to come to an agreement? Would the Fatimids have also been inclined to temporarily ally with Mardavij and the ATL Ziyarids? Were there other nearby groups from the north that would have been open to opportunistically go after the Abbasids in such a scenario?
Why? That would mean no Sindhind, and therefore no spread of the Arabic numerals from India to the Arabs, which would have horrific effects on science and math.
From the north, there is only the Byzantines and their dependencies (that can harm the Abbasids, Kurds are very weak due to massacres of their stock during the Khawarij revolt in the north). Byzantium I find to be more favorable to the Abbasids than to Fatimids, Qarmatians or Ziyarid. I discussed this in a post regarding the Buyyid not long ago, about a possible Abbasid-Byzantine alliance. So no, for this period, the enemy for the Abbasids is not north and infact, their rescuer may come from there.
The issue with continued Fatimid-Qarmatians cooperation is that it is almost fundamental to Qarmatian thought. Fatimids were essentially a Shi'i state that attempted to overthrow the previous Caliphal authority, the Abbasids and establish a pan Islamic empire as the Abbasids did and Umayyad before them. It warred against the Abbasid to take its overall claim as well as for land. To accomplish this war of conquest and conversion (conversion as in, how the Islamic Uah transferred, converted to the Abbasid at the twilight of the Umayyad), the Fatimids employed a tactic of massive subversion and propaganda.
This led to the creation of dozens of heterodox Islamic groups across the Islamic world east of Syria and south of Palestine. Some of these formed into Da'i states that would be vassals of the Fatimids and receive orders from the central authority in Cairo from their Imam/Caliph. These Da'i states spread as Far East as the Gujarat in India and west as the Maghreb; a testament to the skilled subversion of the Fatimids.
One of the most fearsome of these Da'i states was the Qarmatians. Already existing as a small nucleus of fanatics in the deserts of al-Haasa, they existed as righteous followers and descendants of the Shumaytiyya (a militant Shi'i group that captured Madinah in the early 9th century, the followers worshipped their Imams), they were approached by Ali al-Dibaj (leader of the Zanj revolt) but rejected his claim to the Shumaytiyya and forced him out. This same group however, was then given new life with the subsequent Zanj revolt and Fatimid rise. Quickly, Fatimid benefactors they became and were tasked with fulfilling their duties as vassals of the Fatimids by crushing Abbasid power in Arabia and Iraq.
However, like with the Hashashin Nizari of Iran (Assassins), they began to run amok. The Qarmatians rejected the legitimacy of the Fatimid Imam claiming instead that the age of Islam (including the Fatimids radical shi'ism) was at an end. They imposed a new religious ideology that including a fanatical hatred of traditional forms of Islam, millennialism, reincarnation, communal society, rejection of authority, etc... Qarmatians thus began battling Fatimids and Abbasids across Arabia, Iraq and Syria.
It simply will not happen, Fatimid powers had given support to the wrong group and allowed them to grow and fester until that original fanatical anarchic nature prevalent in the Qarmatians overtook their allegiance to their suzerain. Regardless, the Abbasids defeated the rogue Qarmatians partly due to the blockades in the Sawad, indomitable Baghdad and their own skill of subversion. Qarmatians however, would last in some respects until the 18th century or longer.
So, the disagreement was that of vision. Qarmatians sought to dismantle the Islamic world (which means the Abbasid dominion, until 1300, Islamic world referred almost completely to the realm the Abbasids once held sway over) in the same manner as that or their predecessors of the 9th century; the Fatimid sought to replace the Abbasids with themselves as sole temporal and religious authority of the Islamic world. A difference in vision so great cannot be solved.
Agreeing with an earlier post any change in history will most likely result in my existence never occurring. Therefore having swallowed that bullet and resigned to my fate I would have the Jacobites win at Culloden.