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There was a proposal in 1868 for the US to purchase Iceland from Denmark. When the proposal reached a US Senate committee, the response was literally laughter.

Although British piracy against American shipping was the cause of the War of 1812, a second Anglo-American war was likely to happen over the unresolved borders of Maine and Oregon. Before the War of 1812, it was commonly thought that a war against Britain would be fairly easy. That forced the...

11-year old George Washington successfully evades his mother and enters in the Royal Navy as a midshipman.

That was a serious possibility if George Prévost's 1814 campaign succeeded. His warships were built with largely Vermont timber and Vermont farmers were among the suppliers for his troops.

This is an interesting idea. Certainly St. Pierre and Miquelon would have easily fallen to the British during any later Anglo-American War. They're indefensible and the US would be better off without them, although I doubt that Jefferson would have thought so.

DBWI stands for "double blind what if". This kind of post means that the author assumes that what happened in actual history didn't happen. It's a common thought experiment on this board.

To an extent, you are correct. But the independence was incomplete until 1944.

Iceland successfully broke away from occupied Denmark during World War II.

I agree. A second Anglo-American war was likely due to unresolved border disputes. From the US perspective, the War of 1812 happened at the best possible time. Any delay means an economically stronger and undistracted UK.

I agree that this is the mostly likely avenue to a Dewey victory in 1944, especially if combined with some major scandal associated with Truman.

With a point of departure of August 25, 1944 (the liberation of Paris), how could Roosevelt lose re-election in November? At this point, Truman has already been selected as the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate, so Wallace is out of the electoral picture.

The War of 1812 had a sobering impact on US estimations of British military power and led to major military reforms. Without it, I can see a cocky US getting into a war with the UK over the Maine or Oregon border and then losing badly. Britain would only be a stronger industrial power and not...

The Good Neighbor, the only comprehensive and critical biography of Fred Rogers, is an excellent read for this subject. Rogers was a personal friend and occasional political supporter of Senator John Heinz. Otherwise, as far as I know, he was nearly silent on politics. He was extremely...

For the United States, the easiest way to create a Taiwan-like territory is to have the US annex Cuba at some point during the 19th Century. The greater challenge is to have a specifically Communist revolution on continental North America succeed.

One major limitation is that Alaska had and still has a tiny population--not really enough to be capable of governing a territory so vast. In 1867, the population of Canada was 3.4 million. Alaska became an incorporated territory in 1912. The 1910 census gives it a population of 64,356. Alaska...

Yes, but DC was harder to get to.

Havre de Grace, Maryland was almost the US capital and was easily raided by British naval forces during the War of 1812. A coastal city as capital would be a really bad idea for early America.

In 1938, Prince Franz Josef II of Liechtenstein moves into Gutenberg Castle instead of Vaduz Castle, thus situating the capital of the principality in the village of Balzers instead of Vaduz.

I agree. But in a broken America, it probably would have happened slower.

A farmer from Upstate New York starts his own religion which, within two generations, becomes a major force in the American West and continues to spread two centuries later.