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In 1968, LBJ ran in the Democratic primary. With several anti-war candidates running on LBJ's left, the field was fractured enough to allow George Wallace to be the nominee. Wallace then chose solid Dixiecrat Sen. Richard Russell as his running mate (a deliberate slap in the face to the rest of...

Settlement requires motive and opportunity I'm having a hard time imagining the Southern planter class settling the midwest in any meaningful way. The South just didn't have the density of people with both the means and motive to uproot and move to Nebraska on a dream and a prayer. Small...

While I agree that from a scientific standpoint weather is a highly chaotic system, and in 100 different alternate realities you would be unlikely to get the same hurricane on the same day in the same place, I generally leave weather (and certainly tectonic activity) unchanged unless there...

There's so much diversity across the South that trying to lump everyone between Alexandria and Miami and from Cape Fear to Lubbock together into one identity just isn't possible. So, here in South Carolina it seems people are more likely to identify themselves by state rather than region. Thus...

Originally the US was (were?) a collection of sovereign states which voluntarily came together to form a federal government. When a government is formed by equal and independent entities, equal votes for each state might arguably make sense. Most states, however, have primacy over their...

Before I can put in my two farthings in on this, I could really use an exact POD. Making the dollar less stable than the British pound over the past fifty years, and less widely in circulation through the American business and military overseas exploits is not easy to achieve. BTW, I assume...

In the US, if health insurance premiums for workers' children varied based on the genetic health of the parents (expanding pre-existing conditions to include family history) that might lead to defacto eugenics, as parents have their children tested to prove the lack of negative genes...

I think distrust of new technology is a fairly widespread and very human trait, as is distrust of those deemed "the Other". The Other could be foreign colonial rulers, members of another social class within one's own society or simply foreigners one nonetheless considers peers. Learning to use...

I guess it's too late to remove the word "almost", huh? :)

How could it? In real life, not a comic book, I mean.

A POD can be intentional human activity (WI George III appointed George Washington as Governor General of the Bahamas in 1768?), social/economic trends (WI the United Empire Loyalists had been granted lands in Ireland instead of moving to Canada?), natural phenomena (WI the Tunguska event hit...

Almost ASB Solution: Howard's Pacific Solution included a boatload of sweet little innocent orphans and the angelic nuns caring for them. An evil, unscrupulous boat owner, privately contracted to deport them, leaves them on a desert isle with no fresh water, when he is in a hurry to make other...

While I agree that from a scientific standpoint weather is a highly chaotic system, and in 100 different alternate realities you would be unlikely to get the same hurricane on the same day in the same place, I generally leave weather (and certainly tectonic activity) unchanged unless there is a...

Imagine we had made predictions on this board in January 2007 for historical events in 2008. Of the ones which eventually came true, which were the least likely? My guess is that if someone had posited: "The Democrats will win over 360 electoral votes in the 2008 presidential election...

It's very, very, very unlikely for any two states to merge. Between them, the states would have four senators, two governors, two lieutenant governors, two speakers of state houses, two speakers of state senates, dozens of statewide elected officials(AGs, secs. of state, insurance...

Sea level rise following a glacial period has a better chance to erase a paleolithic culture than tsunami. If the society's technology was mainly based on wooden tools and the clever use of objects found in nature (eg tortoise shells for drinking vessels) a rise of only a few metres could wipe...

I have an idea for the Americas, but not yet for elsewhere. Had the medieval warm period been warmer and lasted longer, the Scandinavian Vikings may have managed to establish small, permanent colonies (cf Vinland) along the coast of the western North Atlantic, from Baffin Island to...

The two most likely ways of the US gaining portions of Canada, post 1900, both involve the Maritimes. 1. The Dominion of Newfoundland, 1949. The plebiscite could have gone differently. OTL, in the first round of voting 58% voted for something other than joining Canada. Had the process gone...

Okay, so a total of 60 states? (57 + one left + Alaska + Hawaii) Canada is a lovely place, but we don't need it to reach 60. DC granted statehood by the 23rd Amendment in 1961, with only the Mall, the Capitol and the White House remaining the Federal District. The South is incensed the...

Economic development in Gaza depends less on the miraculous discovery of natural resources and extractive industry than on politics and social history. Until the Palestinians in Gaza stop thinking of it as a temporary way station or refugee camp while they wait for some Deus Ex Machina to wipe...