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I'm surprised nobody has even mentioned Bukharin. Of course, both Trotskiy and Bukharin had a lot of political baggage - Trotskiy from War Communism and his bloody-mindedness, Bukharin from the New Economic Policy and his foreign policy proposals. Of course Stalin managed to triangulate between...

Do Russian ones count? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yermak_Timofeyevich

Basically, Justianian's ambition led to decades of war in Italy, and probably aggravated the war in Spain. Although it might not have devastated Africa as much as Italy and Spain.

Byzantium? BYZANTIUM? They certainly made later late antiquity and the early middle ages a good deal darker than the periods might have been.

So what point of departure could change that attitude? I suppose if paper-making reaches the west earlier, recorded history wouldn't depend so much on the price of papyrus, or [gah! expensive!] parchment, or on re-use of older sheets due to shortages. I suppose if Italy wasn't devastated by...

I think the Russian shell-shortage was at its worst in 1915, although increased production moderated it in 1916. I don't think the Russians could win many large battles until they sorted out their logistical problems. And they just didn't have nearly the heavy industrial base they needed to hold...

Except that they couldn't rely on Mediterranean agricultural techniques. If they are on the rivers, they will have water and arable land, but they are surrounded by [true] steppes. I think these colonies would depend on their relations with the neighboring pastoralists, and could easily fall...

I was imagining something different. Suppose that, after the battle of Mutina, many/more of the rebels from the north, including whole families, escape over the Alps, although Spartacus and most of the rebels from Italy turn south and are defeated as in our time line. What would it take for...

But the distinction between libertarianism and classical liberalism goes back to the 1830s, even if the name only dates to the 1850s, and libertarians have generally avoided electoral politics. And in America, libertarianism was tied to abolitionism, and later to the labor movement, and suffered...

The late Byzantines and Ottomans are after my period, but there's some controversy between high count figures and low count figures for Roman and early Byzantine populations. I tend to favor a low count.

I figure that the better the Germans do in Typhoon, and the worse the Russians do in their winter counteroffensive, the better the Russians do by scaling back, if not cancelling, their spring offensives. And I second Usertron's comment that rail conversion is the real limit on the German offensive.

Which Republican faction? Half the Whites are monarchists. And none of the Whites are ready to restore Kerenskiy to power. And although some have paid lip-service to the Constituent Assembly, Kolchak's coup, and the dominant White opposition to socialism and land reform, make it clear that by...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippian_culture The Mississipian Culture-Complex had a major city at Cahokia near what's now East St. Louis, and smaller cities farther north.

I wouldn't be in a position to dictate terms but I think this would be an improvement... 1. Screw the alliance with Serbia and split the war guilt clause. So say that the Black Hand, the Kaiser, and the German high command are jointly responsible for the war. 2. No reparations to the victors...

... To help the Whites loot the countryside, slaughter the Jews, and restore the landlords to power? If anything, intervention only made the Civil War even worse. Of course, the Bolsheviks were hopelessly authoritarian by the end of 1918, but the Whites were too, and the great landlords had way...

IIRC, Harold was shipwrecked off Normandy years before, and William took Harold prisoner and coerced Harold to swear fealty. When Harold became king, William denounced Harold as an oath-breaker. Of course William would have invaded either way, but the papacy might not have the casus belli for...

What? Is there any evidence that early Germanic Christianity was homophobic? I mean most of the Gothic translation of the New Testament survives, and it's not homophobic. But at that time Roman Christianity was homophobic and transphobic.

It doesn't look like Christianity-bashing to me. I think gender equality in early Christianity is always going to be at odds with the sharp inequalities in Roman society. But I think relative gender equality in some branches of medieval Christianity was more than possible. In the early 6th...