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With a POD no earlier than 1000 AD, how could all of western Europe become fairly tolerant of Jews and Muslims by, say, the 14th century. In OTL, there were some places where western Christians were able to live with Muslims, Jews, and eastern Christians with relatively few problems (Norman...

How could a world come into existence where "classical liberalism" - ie free markets, laissez-faire, and hardly any government intervention in the economy at all - is the dominant economic system everywhere or almost everywhere? Even more extreme, could you get a world where socialism never...

Could a democratic, non-totalitarian version of Communism have developed? If it could have, what would have been the most likely places for this to happen? How would such a system fare in the long run? When I say "Democratic Communism" I mean a government that took control of all of the...

1775 – Hostilities erupt between Great Britain and colonists in North America British forces bottled up in Boston, Massachusetts Colonists send force to drive British garrisons out of Quebec On New Year’s eve, in a terrible snowstorm, colonial forces commanded by Richard Montgomery and...

In the 430s and 440s AD, as the Western Roman Empire was quickly declining in power, a wealthy Roman aristocrat from Gaul, who had spent time among several barbarian nations as a young man, had risen to become the most successful military commander in the western Empire. His name was Flavius...

What if Athens had somehow managed to win a complete victory over Sparta during the Peloppnesian war? Would ancient authors like Plato and Thucydides take a more favorable view of ancient Democracy if it was seen as very successful? Could Athens have maintained a dominant position in the...

What if the men at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 had proposed a Constitution that was a little closer to the existing Articles of Confederation, but that also included features of OTL Constitution like separate executive and Judicial Branches. Such a constitution might look something...

In most timelines where people want to eliminate the Romans as a major historical empire, they have them destroyed at a vulnerable moment in their history. This makes a lot of sense - in OTL, the Romans tended to be pretty aggressive and expansionist, so logically the best way to get them out...

What if China in the 19th century had been ruled by a dynasty of native origin rather than than one of non-Chinese (in this case Manchu) origin? I get the impression (and I could be wrong, not being an expert on Chinese history) that the Qing or Manchu dynasty faced more popular opposition...

I started writing about this in the "Geographic AH" thread, where people were posting scenarios of geographically different worlds and the civilizations that might exist on them. This is my own attempt at such a world The POD is that approximately 1 million years ago, the sun began to...

Part I - Conflicts of a young nation 1783 – US becomes independent from Britain 1785 – Congress does not pass “Northwest Ordinance” banning slavery from territories north of the Ohio River 1787 – Constitutional Convention proposes Constitution almost identical to OTL except that...

Japan is pretty bad in many AHs, too. It often either gets bombed and starved and nuked even worse than in OTL in an alternate version of WWII, or it becomes the center of a brutal and oppressive militaristic empire, or it becomes the subdued colony of some other country - I've seen AHs with...

I intend to take this up to the 21st century soon, with maps and a story set in the alternate world. As you can see, a lot changes besides North America. 1783 – United States recognized as independent country with the Treaty of Paris 1785 – George Washington dies after a sudden illness...

What if the 3 major monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - never developed? Some would argue that a more tolerant world might result, since the monotheistic religions tend to be more exclusive in their claims than just about any other religions, with Christianity...

I posted the beginning of this about 1 1/2 months ago in another thread - C. 282 AD – an 8 year old boy named Flavius Valerius Constantinus, son of an officer named Constantius in the Roman army, dies after a sudden illness. 303 AD – Emperor Diocletian launches the last and largest...

Since I'm about to start writing a new timeline, I wondered which one people prefer ...

What if Francis Drake took a different route across the Pacific during his voyage around the world, and found the Hawaiian Islands? Were they too far out of the way for any European power to seriously consider trying to trade with or conquer them? Would the Spanish have ended up taking them...

Before the British authorities decided to establish a penal colony in Australia, an American Loyalist actually proposed that a colony be established there as a haven for Loyalists who had lost their property because they remained loyal to Britain during the US War of Independence. What if the...

FROM: Encyclopedia of Famous Americans, Copywright 1998, Pelletier-McGraw Publications, Montreal, Lower Canada, United States of America PIKE, ZEBULON (1779 – 1840) US explorer, Army officer, President of the United States,1828 - 1836. Part I Zebulon Pike was born in New Jersey in...

This is a variation on an idea I posted a few days ago. Suppose that in 1920 the Red Army defeats the Poles near Warsaw, seizes all of Poland, and then continues westward into Germany. With the support of German communists the Red army is able to defeat the regular German forces and the...