OK. Most AHs tend to focus on politics or wars, since those are so exciting and influential. But, what if someone changed the history of a corporation? That could impact a variety of fields, depending on what the corporation does.
I'm sure there are quite a few on here, but here's a few seeds of company AH's that you could look into:
-The recent "Disney War" has quite a few potential turning points for Disney, both major (WI Frank Wells's helicopter never crashed? (Much of Disney's recent history could be different...)) to minor (WI "A Cinderella Story" had been sent to Disney?) and all sorts of ones in between (WI ABC had listened to Michael Eisner and not approved "Lost"?) (WI Someone besides Johnny Depp had been cast as Jack Sparrow?)
-My dad worked for a division of the late, lamented Warner-Lambert pharmaceutical company (bought out by Pfixer in 2000...). The history of the corporation and its subsidiaries has a lot of strange byways. (Parke-Davis was the first company granted a license to make animal vaccines. They also made Dilantin, a pioneering anti-epileptic medicine (which financier Jack Dreyfus promoted (without the official approval of Parke-Davis) as a wonder drug to cure numerous conditions...), vaccines against cancer (a loooong time ago- unsure if they worked), sold cocaine, and made an extract of peyote at the request of Aleister Crowley.) (American Chicle, bought out by Warner-Lambert was the first company to make chewing gum, inspired by one the founder's business relationships with Santa Ana) (Don't get me started on the history of the Wilkinson Sword Company, which was bought out by Warner-Lambert to add to the Schick brand of razors, and resulted in W-L owning a maker of swords.)
-If a corporation decides to stick to its core businesses and dump others, a lot of things could change, especially for a conglomerate like 3M.
Any other ideas or thoughts?