lol, I thought this was dead. The disease POD is a cool idea, but I'm not looking at like a strange TL (I will try to make one however). What I'm thinking is either most of the megafauna in prehistory survives and gets domesticated, an Aztec-like history in North America, an Incan-like history, Any Native American (especially Iroquois) gets advanced enough with a strong federation, or early civilizations like the Assyrians contacted them.