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  1. Latest possible use of privateering in naval operations

    With a POD after the 1856 Paris Declaration, how late can we push privateering? Most countries signed on but not all. Bolivia wanted to recruit privateers for the War of the Pacific, but it lost all of it’s harbors and it’s ally Peru was a signatory to the declaration. Was it still plausible in...

  2. What if the MiG-25 was made of titanium?

    The Foxbat was manufactured with nickel steel to resist the high temperatures of Mach 3 flight. Titanium alloys could have done the job with much less weight but was not considered for cost reasons. When western intelligence saw the Foxbat it was assumed to be made of lightweight alloys and it’s...

  3. Camel railway

    This is something I’ve never heard done before. How feasible is it to have a railway pulled by camels? Horses railways predated steam locomotives. But camels are much stronger than horses. In the post below the Soviets experimented with camels towing wagons and artillery in Southern Russia...

  4. Have Nigeria develop a world class cuisine

    This thread is inspired by a Nigerian commentator’s post that Nigerians don’t have a good cuisine I’m setting the POD at 1960, post independence because otherwise I’m going to get responses like what if different colonial powers or immigrant groups went to Nigeria. Food preference in America...

  5. Make handball as popular as popular as basketball

    Handball today is an indoor game much like basketball, with the advantage that its played by normal statured people as extreme height has no advantage. It used to be an outdoors game like soccer, but it seems that version was largely popular in Germany and German speaking communities in pre-war...

  6. What does the US do if it doesn’t get the Philippines?

    Assuming US never gets possession of the Philippines, perhaps the Spanish stay, or the Germans, the French, the Japanese take over, or they become a successful independent nation. Does the US still try to get colonies in East Asia or is the central Pacific as far west as it goes? If the former...

  7. How early could unmanned combat vehicles be effective?

    Drones have existed for decades, initially for reconnaissance or as decoys. In the 90s they were increasingly used as armed combat systems as to reduce human pilot casualties and as a low cost substitute for expensive manned air force. It seems the underlying technology is fairly simple...

  8. Question about George Minor, Confederate States Navy
    Threadmarks: civil war

    He was one of the top leaders of the Confederate Navy, served as Chief of Ordnance and Hydrography. But internet search says he was born in 1845 and died in 1904. Which makes him a teenager in the war? It also says he became a composer later in life. I’m guessing the composer is perhaps the son...

  9. WI: Higgins boat invented before WWI

    Higgins boat made invasion of open beach possible, doing away with capturing ports. Any coast your navy controls, you can land troops and supplies. What if it was invented earlier and samples were purchased by all significant powers before WWI? Gallipoli probably succeeds I think, maybe the...

  10. WI: Sumerians invent zero

    AFAWK zero first appeared in mathematics in 3 BC in Mesopotamia. The Mayans independently invented it in 4 AD. Yet in almost every other aspect of science and technology the Mesopotamians were far ahead of the Mesoamericans by this time. It seems there’s no reason zero could not be invented when...

  11. If the Soviets pursued stealth technology

    What if the Soviet Union grasped the significance of Petr Ufimtsev‘s 1962 paper Method of Edge Waves in the Physical Theory of Diffraction? Obviously they would not allow it to be published into English and become the cornerstone of Lockheed’s stealth program of the 1970s. But how would they...

  12. FDR and Joseph Stalin switch dates of death

    Both men died of cerebral hemorrhage a few years apart. What would the world look like if Stalin unexpectedly died in his sleep on April 12, 1945, and FDR lives on until March 5, 1953? This also assumes FDR is healthy enough to complete his final term as President.

  13. Alternative iconic fashion products

    Certain brands and products have become iconic symbols of luxury or heritage manufacturing. These include relatively blue-collar items like Levis jeans, Red Wing and Clarks footwear, Ray-bans sunglasses or expensive luxuries like Burberry trench, Hermes bags. They are brand leaders and enjoy...

  14. WI: Hong Kong population resettled in Northern Ireland

    The UK government entertained the idea of resettling 5.5 million Hong Kongers in Northern Ireland during The Troubles. The site chosen was Magilligan. Apparently the idea was these likely pro-Unionist Chinese would secure Ulster for the UK. Even if a fraction of this number arrived, they would...

  15. Weird coincidences in history

    I’m looking for instances of weird historical coincidences you might have encountered but went unnoticed by everyone else. My story concerns the theft of the Whitehead torpedo. This was the first operational modern torpedo. It was powered by compressed air with a gyroscopic guidance and a depth...

  16. WI: Iran had submarines during Iran-Iraq War?

    Pre-revolution Iran bought large quantities of modern weapons from the West, including orders for surface warships. But it seems they had no submarines. I do not know whether Iran was not interested in submarines or was prevented from buying them. It seems to me the most likely submarine they...

  17. WI: Returning Crusaders popularize Islamic hygiene in Europe

    Inspired by this recollection from Usama ibn Munqidh, a 12th century Arab scholar.

  18. Impact on slave trade if Africans exported chocolate

    According to James McCann maize was introduced to West Africa by Europeans in the 1500s soon after the discovery of the New World. My research shows cultivation of cocoa in West Africa didn’t start until around 1870. So there’s no reason this couldn’t get a 300 year head start. One of the major...

  19. Question: why was bronze plate armor not more common?

    Making full plate armor out of steel was difficult, but casting a bronze sheet and beating it into the shape of front and back plate seem pretty simple. I don’t think it was that much more expensive than iron chain mail or lamellar. Yet bronze cuirass was never adopted by anyone but the ancient...

  20. Could cartoons be invented before film?

    The earliest film footage dates to 1888. But how early could cartoons be invented? You would still need the projector technology, but that should be possible after celluloid was invented in the 1850s, perhaps with limelight as the light source? Were there any alternatives to celluloid, maybe...
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