what if

What if the Roman Empire had collapsed during the Crisis of the Third Century?

While the British won the Battle of Bunker Hill, it was very much a Pyrrhic victory for them. But it didn't necessarily have to be that way. In the lead-up to the battle, Henry Clinton pushed for securing the Charlestown Neck to cut off the colonists' retreat. However, he was outvoted by his...

What if the Great Siege of Malta had ended in an Ottoman victory? What repercussions might their triumph have had?

I've heard it suggested that had Charles XII not been wounded, Sweden might have won the Battle of Poltava due to him being able to take operational command. How true is this?

Though Sulla won a decisive victory at the Battle of the Colline Gate, it was a very close-run thing. Sulla came very close to losing, and only the unexpected success of Marcus Licinius Crassus turned the tide in his favor. What if Crassus had failed, or even been killed, causing Sulla to lose...

Considering how close-run the Battle of Sentinum was IOTL, it's not hard to imagine a scenario where the Samnites and their allies scored a victory. One easy POD might be the Romans never discovering the Samnite plans, which means the Etruscans and Umbrians stay. Which leads to a fairly obvious...

In March 1979, the Tanzanian invasion of Uganda seemed to be going well. Tanzanian forces, with help from Ugandan rebels, had captured the town of Masaka, leaving the capital of Kampala vulnerable. However, to get to Kampala from Masaka, they would have to take a causeway through some swampland...

Between 1755 and 1758, the Qing dynasty and its Uyghur allies perpetrated a brutal genocide against the Dzungar people. What if this genocide had never occurred?

What if there had been no Celtiberians? How might their absence have altered history?

The abduction of Börte by the Merkit is considered by many scholars to be one of the defining events in the life of Temüjin, who would later be known as Genghis Khan. These scholars contend that it moved him along the path towards becoming a conqueror. What if this kidnapping had failed, or had...

There have been countless "what if Hitler at [point X in his life]" threads. So I decided to do something a little different: talk about another prominent Nazi's near-death experience. In 1918, Hauptmann Ernst Röhm contracted the deadly Spanish flu and was not expected to make it. But he...

Between 1849 and 1978, the LDS Church prohibited anyone with black ancestry from joining the priesthood, and black people were largely not allowed to receive or participate in any temple ordinances. What if these restrictions were never put into place?

Aurelian and what he might have accomplished had he lived longer is a frequent topic among counterfactual historians, but I believe his predecessor is also worthy of attention. Claudius Gothicus, despite reigning for less than two years, proved an able military commander, crushing a Gothic...

What if more Irish immigrants had gone to Mexico? How might it have changed Mexico and the Irish diaspora?

Whether history repeats itself or merely rhymes, one can find a lot of parallels in historical events. For example, Darius III's retreat at Gaugamela would be echoed over a millennium later by Muhammad al-Nasir at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa after Sancho VII of Navarre unexpectedly led an...

The Umayyad Caliphate is well known for discriminating against people who weren't Arab practitioners of Sunni Islam. What if the Umayyads were more inclusive?

What if Otho had managed to put down Vitellius' rebellion? Could he have remained emperor had he done so?

I recently posted a thread asking why Native Americans never developed ironworking independently. Now I'd like to ask: what if they did?

In 301 BC, during the battle of Ipsus, Antiochus was commanding the left flank of the allies. His flank was soon routed and pursued by Demetrius cavalry, but Antiochus survived, while Seleucus cut off Demetrius from the rest of his army using elephants, allowing the main Antigonid army to be...

I've recently been thinking about the idea of something similar to a "warlords era" or "warring states period" in 20th century Russia, and I've decided it would be interesting enough for a TL, but I wanted to get some feedback and information from the community before I started. Now, what I...