Search results for query: *

  • Users: Marc
  • Content: Threads
  • Order by date

Forum search Google search

  1. Marc

    No Dutch settlement of South Africa

    Dutch East India Company in 1651 created a way station at the Cape under the command of Johan Anthoniszoon van Riebeeck. This simple, but certainly profound supposing is what happens if turns out to be a failure? In 1654 for example, the station came close to starving out. I'm sure there are...
  2. Marc

    La revolución progresiva: A Latin America supposing

    This is a beginning of some notes towards, a granted unreasonably idealistic, imagining of the history of Latin America after the Second World War. Gualberto Villarroel was the Head of State [nee dictator] in Bolivia in the 1940's. Broadly, his political philosophy was in many respects not...
  3. Marc

    The least meaningful "Great Man"

    There is a natural bias to think of history in terms of individuals - "The history of the world is but the biography of great men." In some cases clearly warranted; for example the singular effects of Alexander the Great on the course of events. However, often those historical figures we think...
  4. Marc

    Shakespere dies of the plague

    From a recent New Yorker article: "Shakespeare lived his entire life in the shadow of bubonic plague. On April 26, 1564, in the parish register of Holy Trinity Church, in Stratford-upon-Avon, the vicar, John Bretchgirdle, recorded the baptism of one “Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakspere.” A few...
  5. Marc

    Earlier nuclear weapons.

    It has been proposed more than once about a delay in the development of atomic bombs, or what would be consequences of an early WW3 with the huge advantage that the US enjoyed for a decade or so; or what if the Nazi's/Japanese had successful nuclear programs. However, how about the quite...
  6. Marc

    The Fokker Eindecker is state of the art in 1940

    This theme is inspired by two other threads: one that asked how early manned aircraft could have been developed prior to 1903, and one I threw out for the fun of it, having the 1944 RAF show up at the beginning of World War 1. In considering the first one, it occurred to me that a not impossible...
  7. Marc

    Radar delayed for some years.

    Just a simple late night thought. Let's say that Heinrich Hertz for whatever reason doesn't do his critical work on electromagnetic radiation, and the process of developing radar is say, 5-10 years behind. I can imagine that the consequences would be profound.
  8. Marc

    Have West Texas secede from East Texas a la West Virginia

    A recent conversation with a friend from Austin made me consider this scenario, which I haven't seen before. The underlying premise that that slave plantation institutions were concentrated in East Texas - which more resembled the Deep South than the usual cliches about Texas. Say, West Texas...
  9. Marc

    Earliest Southern defeat.

    It's probably been done a few times before, but a supposing worth refreshing, given the bitter-sweet contemplation of potentially a better American society than what transpired. A key stipulation, both on my personal part, and what I believe realistically what would be most likely a consequence...
  10. Marc

    Flavios Iraklios is lost at the Battle of Yarmouk; consequences?

    The supposing is straightforward. Iraklios, or Heraclius, the former the name that he probably formally preferred, is present at that decisive battle and is either killed or captured as his army is routed by one of the greatest generals in history, Ibn al-Walid. Please, this is not about the...
  11. Marc

    USSR to the Adriatic: Tito-Stalin split.

    A Viennese friend of mine once idly wondered, when we were talking about the very bad old days, if the Russians had ever seriously regretted letting Austria go away (as in giving up their zone of control), particularly after Tito and Stalin had their (at the time) famous divorce. The...
  12. Marc

    Alternate calendar system for the Byzantine empire?

    I know, a relatively trivial (okay, very trivial) riff on history, but I'm composing a novella that is set in the 14th-century Mediterranean world, that is largely congruent with real history, where the calendar happens to incorporate parts of the Judaic/Babylonian (and later Arabic) system...
  13. Marc

    What really matters: Roe vs Wade

    I thought I would toss out some counterfactuals that didn't involve either war or political intrigue or pop culture - all the other things that actually affect people's lives, past and present. Here is a start: In 1973 the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that state abortion bans infringed on...
  14. Marc

    That Belgian-Dutch alliance in 1905...

    Never happened, of course. But for a little while, there was some consideration given to the notion of establishing a customs union and military alliance between the Low Countries. From what little I learned browsing about when the what-if idea came to me, it was, not surprisingly, mostly the...
  15. Marc

    A slower twilight: 14th century Byzantine empire and the Balkans

    In 1293 Constantine Palaiologos, third and favorite son of Michael VIII - and easily the most competent of the latter's sons - mounts a successful coup against his then ruling older brother Andronikos II. Andronikosis is tonsured (perhaps not that unwillingly), his wife and heirs ah, deposed of...
  16. Marc

    13th Century - Byzantines and Balkans: Alternative story line.

    Hello, I'm beginning to work on a series of short stories based around 13th-14th century Balkans, Anatolia, and the South Caucasus. For creative reasons I'd like to somewhat alter the actual history in some various ways. Principally with the goal that the region continues to be fairly...
Top