Most ASB event that happened in OTL

[funnyhat]

That was appeasement and made sense at the time, when Communism was the biggest threat to status quo and the traumas of WWI were still pretty fresh on everyone's mind. While we know France and the UK probably could've stopped Nazi Germany's advances dead in their tracks, it came with the risk of another strenuous conflict (since the form of warfare that everyone expected was trench warfare, which was difficult enough to win the first time) when everyone was sick of fighting and afraid of the USSR (and the possibility that they would capitalise on any European conflicts to spread their influence and aid leftist groups). Just letting Nazi Germany get what it wanted and avoiding war seemed to contemporary British and French leaders to be the approach that would guarantee a future free of conflict, saving both money and lives that would otherwise be spent and destroyed senselessly.

Of course, 1939 proved them dead wrong. But we can say that with the benefit of hindsight. We know the extent of Hitler's megalomania and treachery, the Wehrmacht's tactics and the Allies' unpreparedness, and the Nazi's brutality and inhumanity. They didn't, or at least they didn't know those things as well as we do now after the fact.

So was it a poor choice in the long run and a disastrous series of decisions that ultimately resulted in the bloodiest war in all recorded history? Yes. But was it completely irrational and ASB? No, far from it.

It can't be over-stressed just how horrible the first war was. France had six million casualties in a population of 40 million - 15 % of the population. Imagine today's USA having 50 million casualties in four years. How many people would want another war after that?

Not to mention that basically all the towns along the north-east border had been destroyed. A century later farmers still find unexploded ordnance.

It was tragic that Hitler exploited the reluctance of everyone else to fight again, but that reluctance itself was quite understandable.

 

[CHKeeley]

Pewdiepie actually winning the Youtube War.

Probably the most ASB development in modern times

 

[EWilanO]

Some Georgian Priest becoming a literally mustache twirling Dictator that liked the medieval remedy of purging in order to improve his humors.

The founding of the German Empire by celebrating it... Inside the palace of the enemy they had just defeated.

A family squabble of the family ruling most of Europe leading to millions of deaths.

 

[Byzantine fanatic]

That the Aztecs appeased their gods with hearts torn from the chests of their enemies, atop giant pyramids. That was pretty ASB.

 

[xwing@aliciousness . com]

The Khemer Rouge killing anyone that could read in a perverted communistic revolution.

 

[cmakk1012]

The aversion of nuclear apocalypse during the Cold War, especially when it came down to one soldier’s snap decision on at least one occasion, was pretty unlikely.

 

[ShortsBelfast]

That the Aztecs appeased their gods with hearts torn from the chests of their enemies, atop giant pyramids. That was pretty ASB.

Human sacrifice appears to be pretty mainstream at a certain level of cultural development. Inca and Maya followed the same practice and it was apparently common in bronze age cultures. Phoenicia and Carthage may have continued the practice well into the Iron Age.

 

[Byzantion]

What is to you the most ASB thing that happened in OTL? Before 1900 of course...

My nomination are:
1. Alexanders conquest of the Persian Empire

2. The City Rome turning in to one of the largest Empire

3. The small Ottoman Beylik in a small town turning in to one of the largest Empire in two centuries.

That Mesoamericans cultures missed the fact, that round things are good for moving things.

 

[ArchimedesCircle]

That Mesoamericans cultures missed the fact, that round things are good for moving things.

Sure, if you live in a flat area or have draft animals to pull for you. They're less effective in jungles, hills and the Andes Mountains.

 

[EWilanO]

They had wheels in the Himalayas, so I don't think mountainous terrain is that good an argument.

 

[Remitonov]

Oh my god, where to start... Alexander the Great, the rise of Rome, Eastern Rome limping through in agony for the latter half of its 14 centuries, Mongols, Meiji Japan... And that's pre-1900s

The Miracle of the House of Brandenburg.

Ah yes, the bizarre victory of Prussia over Russia where the Tsardom is taken over by a Prussoboo who proceeds to throw away all potential gains and indemnities to his empire to please his senpai.

 

[CaekDaemon]

Borrowing a post of mine from the "what's the stupidest thing a nation has ever done" thread from Chat from last year, but boy oh boy, if the Battle of Flodden happened in a timeline...

In keeping with his understanding of the medieval code of chivalry, King James sent notice to the English, one month in advance, of his intent to invade. This gave the English time to gather an army and to retrieve the banner of Saint Cuthbert from Durham Cathedral, a banner which had been carried by the English in victories against the Scots in 1138 and 1346.

A later Scottish chronicle writer, Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie, tells the story that James wasted valuable time at Ford enjoying the company of Elizabeth, Lady Heron and her daughter.Edward Hall says that Lady Heron was a prisoner (in Scotland), and negotiated with James IV and the Earl of Surrey her own release and that Ford Castle would not be demolished for an exchange of prisoners. The English herald, Rouge Croix, came to Ford to appoint a place for battle on 4 September, with extra instructions that any Scottish heralds who were sent to Surrey were to be met where they could not view the English forces

. The Scots had previously been stationed at Flodden Edge, to the south of Branxton. The Earl of Surrey, writing at Wooler Haugh on Wednesday 7 September, compared this position to a fortress in his challenge sent to James IV by Thomas Hawley, the Rouge Croix Pursuivant. He complained that James had sent his Islay Herald agreeing that they would join in battle on Friday between 12.00 and 3.00 pm, and asked that James would face him on the plain at Milfield as appointed

When the armies were within three miles of each other Surrey sent the Rouge Croix pursuivant to James, who answered that he would wait till noon. At 11 o'clock, Thomas, Lord Howard's vanguard and artillery crossed the Twizel Bridge. (Pitscottie says the King would not allow the Scots artillery to fire on the vulnerable English during this manoeuvre.)

Soon after the battle, the council of Scotland decided to send for help from Christian II of Denmark. The Scottish ambassador, Andrew Brounhill, was given instructions to explain "how this cais is hapnit." Brounhill's instructions blame James IV for moving down the hill to attack the English on marshy ground from a favourable position, and credits the victory to Scottish inexperience rather than English valour.

A later sixteenth century Scottish attitude to the futility of the battle was given by Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie, in the words he attributed to Patrick Lord Lindsay at council before the engagement. Lord Lindsay advised the King withdraw, comparing their situation to an honest merchant playing dice with a trickster, and wagering a gold rose-noble against a bent halfpenny. Their King was the gold piece, England the trickster, and Thomas Howard the halfpenny.

...people would be screaming that the Scots were handed an idiot ball or something

 

[Byzantine fanatic]

Eastern Rome limping through in agony for the latter half of its 14 centuries

I wouldn't say they were "limping in agony" from 750 to 1453. I think the empire was doing ok up to 1071. Even in the 12th century they were not done yet, and probably could have recovered.

The real end was the collapse of the Komnenian system at the end of the 12th century and the decline into the Fourth Crusade of 1204.

After that I think limping in agony becomes more apt.

 

[Marius Mazzini]

Actually, given the degree to which the US is a superpower, it is mildly ASB they haven't expanded even more, especially in the Americas where they are still smaller than Canada geographically. Particularly odd are areas like the Baja peninsula and especially Cuba given how long American ambitions existed towards that island.

 

[Lalli]

Actually, given the degree to which the US is a superpower, it is mildly ASB they haven't expanded even more, especially in the Americas where they are still smaller than Canada geographically. Particularly odd are areas like the Baja peninsula and especially Cuba given how long American ambitions existed towards that island.

Even more ASB is that USA expanded lesser than in one century only just from coastal British colonies to Pacific Ocean. And another thing is surviving communist Cuba.

 

[MrKrabsWorstNightmare]

British Raj, it just so happened so coincedentally an industrial revolution bringing enormous military advances was happening alongside a massive empire decaying, not to mention how the British played the Indians off each other and divided and conquer.

No one 300 years earlier would have expected an island with less than 10 million population would come to dominate an entire subcontinent of hundreds of millions of people.

 

[MrKrabsWorstNightmare]

Actually, given the degree to which the US is a superpower, it is mildly ASB they haven't expanded even more, especially in the Americas where they are still smaller than Canada geographically. Particularly odd are areas like the Baja peninsula and especially Cuba given how long American ambitions existed towards that island.

Well the United States doesn’t really have much of an economic incentive in expanding it’s territory in the Americas, its perfectly content installing puppet rulers and a sattelite like relationship.

So the best choices have probably been said already so here's some less-obvious ones (which may have already been said too)

One empire conquered the Mediterranean and held it all together with ancient technology.
China was never a colonial empire. Nor were any of the Caliphates..

Not really that ASB, but it’s kind of shocking how there isn’t atleast 1 Asian colonial empire. I guess they just didn’t have the incentive to explore, find new trade routes and colonize like the Europeans did.

 

[Hegemon]

The natural disasters that hit the Eastern Roman Empire in the 6th century, including plague, earthquakes, tsunami, more plague, perhaps meteors and volcanoes causing cold and famine, etc. etc. I know if I lived at that time, I’d be convinced God was bringing about the end of the world.

 

[Captain Seafort]

Not really that ASB, but it’s kind of shocking how there isn’t at least 1 Asian colonial empire. I guess they just didn’t have the incentive to explore, find new trade routes and colonize like the Europeans did.

There have been at least two - one got dismantled in 1945, the other is still going and recently became the biggest economy in the world.

 

[The Professor]

Royalist and Commonwealth forces in English civil war actually postpone giving battle until a fox hunt in full cry passes between their opposing armies. During Easter Rising of 1916 a local ceasefire is observed every evening between the forces of Constance Markiecwicz and the local British commander to permit the park keeper to go in and feed the ducks.

Really puts the civil in civil war doesn't it?!