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Suppose for whatever reason that Christian missionaries successfully evangelize in the Senegal-Niger watershed in the time period stated in the thread title. The empire of Ghana coalesced during this time period and commanded great wealth from trading in gold, copper, and salt. Does...

With a POD no earlier than 1910, was there anyplace in South America where trade unionism could develop along anarcho-syndicalist lines as it did in Catalonia during the 1930s? What would be an ideal political crisis to cause, if not the whole takeover of a nation, then at least the creation of...

IOTL the Lithuanians expanded from their base on the Baltic periphery to the Black Sea in an amazing run of vassalization and annexation. What if instead of expanding into the lands of the former Kievan Rus, they incorporate the neighboring lands of Prussia and Livonia, which from the 13th...

I'm not certain of the veracity of the sources I've uncovered (mainly nutrition blogs, unfortunately), but apparently the Incan armies were sustained on the march by "war balls", a mixture of quinoa and fat. What other "powerbars" existed in other pre-industrial ethnic groups and civilizations...

Located in the Valley of Mexico and in existence from approximately 100 BCE to 750 CE, Teotihuacan was once the largest city in the Americas, with a population of perhaps 150,000 residents and an area of over 30 square km at its zenith in 450 CE. Some of the greatest monumental architecture of...

When I consider this topic, one person that comes to mind is Kamehameha I of Hawaii. He went from ruling a single district on the Big Island of Hawaii to reigning over the entire island chain by the end of his life. When it comes to uniting a single ethnic group in one lifetime, who do you think...

First, what type of ships would be used to transport infantry, cavalry, siege equipment, etc. and what was the carrying capacity of each type? Second, for a great naval power like Athens, what would it spend on its navy and how quickly could it scale up in preparation for war?

From the little I know, it seems that Carthage didn't keep the army well supplied with men an material in Sicily for most of the war, plus their navy suffered humiliating defeats at the hands of the Romans, who didn't even have a navy at the beginning of the war. If the Romans are crushed at sea...

Before the Second Punic War the eastern and southern coasts of what is now Spain were occupied by independent tribes referred to by Classical authors as the Iberians. Speakers of a non-Indo-European language (or languages), they had centuries of contact with Phoenician and Greek colonies. They...

What if instead of the Nazis with their focus on lebensraum by conquest, another fascist movement comes to power that instead seeks to greatly increase ethnic German immigration while simultaneously expelling "undesirables" ( Jews, Gypsies, etc.). They still want the territories lost in WWI and...

Although the Anschluss was definitely a diplomatic coup for Hitler and a prestige boost, does it really materially affect his preparations for war? I've never read anything to suggest that Austria provided an indispensable source of manpower or industrial capacity for Germany's war effort...

Throughout the interwar years the various border disputes between the two nations prevented a military alliance that might have offered some protection against the rising menace of Nazi Germany and the USSR. Were there any mediation efforts that ever had even a reasonable chance at success, or...

Instead of being conquered by Rome as a consequence of a dynastic struggle in 70 CE, suppose the Brigantes tribe remains a loyal Roman client until Rome withdraws from Britain entirely. This tribe occupied perhaps the largest territory in pre-conquest Britain, in what is generally referred to...

In the early part of the Great Prussian Uprising (1260-1274), the Old Prussians, a collection of pagan tribes centered around historical Konigsberg, had beaten the Order repeatedly in the field and pushed them back to five remaining castles in what would be called East Prussia. The most famous...

During the 14th century, the territory of the duchy, like today, was small by current standards. The dynasty that ruled it however, the House of Luxembourg, was far from insignificant. It provided three Holy Roman Emperors during the 14th century, Kings of Bohemia and Hungary, and Archbishops of...

Suppose in 1902 the lobbying for a Panamanian canal fails and Congress chooses Nicaragua instead. The president of Nicaragua at this time was Jose Santos Zelaya Lopez, an energetic and talented man with dreams of reuniting all of Central America into one nation. From the little I know about him...

In one of history's many turning points, Odaenathus, the lord of Palmyra, led a patchwork army against the forces of Shapur I, the second Sassanid king, in 260 AD as it was marching back to Persia. The Persians has just won a mighty victory against the Romans, even capturing the emperor Valerian...

Let's assume Murphy somehow gets a waiver for height and is picked up for paratroop school and ends up in either the 82nd or 101st Airborne. With minimal butterflies Market-Garden is executed in September 1944. Although I know one man alone cannot be responsible for the success or failure of...

Jim Jones, leader of the Peoples Temple and architect of the Jonestown massacre, was infamously paranoid about the FBI and CIA, regarding them as an existential threat to his "revolutionary" congregation. This paranoia was likely a contributing factor to his decision to relocate the Peoples...

Given that Japanese military communications remained open to US code breakers right up to the end of WWII, did the US top brass realize how well prepared the IJA was for an invasion of Kyushu? Conservative estimates for American casualties topped half a million, so if American leadership also...