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Would hits from the 90's and 2000's also be hits if they were released in an earlier era? Some songs seem timeless or even retro, but others have a certain zeitgeiss that I don't know if they would've appreciated as late as the 80's. Also how would people react to the more explicit lyrics we...

Lithography was one of those accidental inventions of the 18th century that could've been done much earlier. I mean it's just limestone, grease ink, and water. Compared to the printing press, this is a cheap process which can reproduce detailed and colorful illustrations in addition to text...

Body armor was conspiciously absent in 18th century Europe due to the gunpowder revolution. I always felt it was a shame armor did not continue to evolve, so I looked up ways to keep armor in the race against anti-armor weapons. There are not many effective yet practical alternatives, but I...

What if Gaddaffi did not give up his nuclear program and maintained his chemical stockpile? I just read this article from the NYT on North Korea drawing the lesson from the Libyan intervention that Gaddaffi would have been better off staying a pariah and not disarm...

Edward Jenner's work on smallpox inoculation is well documented. However long before him the practice was already common in Asia though it was not understood scientifically. Lady Mary Montagu was credited with begining the practice in Europe after observing it in the Ottoman Empire. But what...

I'm trying to understand why the Portuguese start pepper plantations all over India and Ceylon without trying to do it nearer home in West Africa. Was there some reason the African tropics were unsuitable for black pepper? Even today it's not grown there in any quantity that I can find.

The bayonet was a transformative weapon from the 1700s on. But this required no technological breakthrough. What if armies just started putting pointy ends on matchlocks back in the 16th century? The pike formations would disappear earlier. Firearms replace cold weapons sooner, and infantry...

During the age of steam, there was a period in the late 1800s when every new warship had to have a bow ram. The iron clad ram became the definitive warships of the age, marking a return to ramming as an important naval tactic since the ancient Romans. The cause of this phenonmenon was the age...

There are many WI threads on technology being adopted where it was not. However history is full of instances where societies abandoned known technologies for inexplicable reasons. Jared Diamond's book offers a sample of the phenomenon. The bow and arrow were abandoned by several peoples from the...

Brushing up on Brone Age New World* again I'm thinking what if instead of a year 500 POD we start with a year 1000 POD and iron stead of bronze. So hypothetically a Viking ship comes ashore in Mexico and it's crew loses a battle with and are imprisoned by the Toltecs. They incorporate the Viking...

I'm not looking for an Indian wank TL. This is a thread asking for what the realistic impact of the wheel would have on Indian technology and society. IOTL the Olmecs had access the wheel but used it only for toys. What if they or some other early Mesoamerica culture had managed to develop it...

So I'm reading 1491 again and thinking about the Indians of the Bolivian Beni savanah. These people built impressive canals, causeways, and weirs but apparently disappeared in 1450, over two centuries before the isolated region was reached by Europeans. Unfortunately they lived in a tropical...

For unknown reasons, Roman concrete making technology became completely unknown during the Dark Ages. Was it still in use in the Eastern Empire? During the Middle Ages, Western European construction were stone based. Concrete wasn't reinvented until the Renaissance. It seems bizzare something...

Koxinga intended to eventually invade the Philippines after his forces drove the Dutch out of Taiwan. However Koxinga died of malaria only a year after his victory at the age of 37. His young son was unable to carry out his father's plans, despite defeating a Manchu-Dutch naval alliance against...

WI Coca-Cola decided to drop the ingredient of cocaine and substitute it with Aspirin? After all Aspirin is derived from willow bark, and that has been used in theraputic treatment for pains and fevers since antiquity. Millions of people take asprine daily to reduce chance of heart attacks and...

What if Norma Jeane Mortenson called in sick the day the Army photographer showed up at her munitions factory and was never noticed. After the war her husband James Dougherty came back from the Merchant Marines and joined the LAPD. Norma did some small time modeling but her career never took...

Which were the best armies that didn't fire a shot in anger? Right now I'm reading about the Czechoslovak pre-war army. So wonderfully armed, what a shame.

What if Napleon sized Mexico for France after the invasion of Spain in 1807, and what if he delayed the Lousianna Purchase to 1808 where by the US aggreed to defend Mexico from invasion as a condition of the territorial sales? So after Napoleon's defeat, he abdicates the throne of French...

WI the Japanese army took an interest in the Avtomat Fedorova and built enough of them by the end of 1941 that every squad in the Pacific was issued a couple of these rifles, how would it impact attitudes to such weapons?

The game is to write alternative lyrics for the song "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel. You don't have to write the entire song of course, just one stanza between the chorus would do. Your historical references can be anytime after 1900, including post 1989 where the OTL song was...