Change of Death date as POD

There is a great AH tradition of shortening or lengthening a historical figures life. Whose longer or shorter life would have changed history?

Enormous numbers of people, as already noted in this thread.

I listed some people whose longer lives would lead to major changes. Here are some shorter lives, but with limits - people who might have died through natural causes five years sooner, but after 1900, with major historical consequences:

Ci Xi (in 1903)

Franz Josef (1911)

Vladimir Lenin (1919)

Woodrow Wilson (1919)

Warren G. Harding (1918)

Paul von Hindenburg (1929)

Ramsay MacDonald (1932)

Neville Chamberlain (1935)

Wendell Willkie (1939)

Franklin Roosevelt (1941)

Henry Ford (1942)

Joseph Stalin (1948)

Joseph McCarthy (1953)

Lyndon Johnson (1968)

Steve Jobs (2006)
 
I believe it's pretty well documented that Woodrow Wilson had a minor stroke (not disabling to speak of) before attaining the governorship of NJ (1909, I believe). Had it been a major / fatal stroke, the chaotic (OTL) state of the Democrats in 1912 becomes worse: quite possibly the convention goes beyond the 40+ ballots needed to nominate a candidate, and a compromise candidate emerges who doesn't have Wilson's gift for the turn of a phrase, Wilson's (apparently) progressive views (if you disregard his southern attitudes on race), etc. That opens the way for TR to win as a Bull Moose candidate.


I can't see how the Democrats in 1912 were any more chaotic than, say, the Republicans in 1920.

They had two perfectly acceptable candidates in Wilson and Clark. Should Wilson fall out, either Clark takes it (OTL he did well in the primaries) or Bryan runs, and probably gets in. Even if the nomination does go to a compromise candidate (maybe Thomas R Marshall) there is no reason whatsoever for this to cost the Democrats the election. In 1920 the Republicans chose just such a candidate yet did themselves no (electoral) harm, and the Reps in 1912 are as much of a basket case as the Dems in '20. Marshall (or whoever) would have won in November just as easily as Harding was to do eight years on.

Could still make an interesting WI though.
 
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Sandra Day Conner retired from the court because he her husband suffered from Alzheimer's. I heard this week that he died shortly after she resigned. What if he died earlier. She stays on the court. No Alito, so the SCOTUS is more moderate. Today she is 83 and has a very stressful job. President Obama might get another appointment.
 
long ago I read an AH anthology published in 1931. One of the contributors was MP Winston Churchill. One of the stories had Kaiser William I's son surviving. HE takes the throne and follows Bismark's advice and does not alienate Russia. He brings democracy to Germany. In 1914, Germany helps mediate the troubles between Austria Hungary and Serbia.
 
Vladimir Lenin (1919)
I think Stalin takes over. We have collectivism and purges in the 1920s.

Woodrow Wilson (1919)
I have always assume President Marshall makes the necessary compromises to get the treaty passed. Then again Vice Presidents were so out of loop in those days, that while I know he favored progressive reforms and a good five cent cigar, I don't know what he thought about the league.

Warren G. Harding (1918) Some other Republican wins in 1920, maybe Hoover, and serves two terms. Probably there is no scandal.

Neville Chamberlain (1935) Somebody else wants to appease Hitler in 1938.

Wendell Willkie (1939) Dewey or Taft gets the nomination loses worse than Willkie did.

Franklin Roosevelt (1941) President Wallace never develops his naive attitudes toward the Soviet Union. He is hampered by his weak political skills, Maybe the presidency is frustrating and he doesn't run in 1933.Lets hope so.

Henry Ford (1942) Just as in OTL, Henry II is discharged from the Navy and sent back to Dearborn. Maybe he takes over the company.

Lyndon Johnson (1968) President Humphrey makes moves toward peace and wins the election.
 

katchen

Banned
The Democratic Party's fate during the Great Depression was bracketed by a failed assassination and a successful assassination.

FDR came very close to dying in 1934 when he was President-Elect but not yet sworn in. A man named Zangara shot at FDR at close range, missed and the bullet killed Mayor Cermak of Chicago. If Zangara had not missed, "Cactus Jack" John Nance Garner , the Vice President Elect would have become President. Garner was a Texas segregationist, put on to balance the ticket. The New Deal as we know it gets butterflied out of existence. Democrats and Republicans argue more and more heatedly these days about whether or not that would have been a good thing. Nobody knows what economic policies Garner would have followed. But if Garner did not satisfy Americans hungry for a change.....

In 1936, Governor Huey Long of Louisiana ran for President on a "share the wealth" (at least for white people) platform that has just been posted elsewhere. He got nowhere challenging Roosevelt between the time he mounted his campaign and when he was assasinated later that year. If Long had lived, would his challenge have been successful? If Long ran against Garner, would his campaign have been more successful? And if Long ran against Garner but was still assassinated as OTL, would he be seen as a martyr by the Left in a crisis 1936 campaign and election?
Who else might have run against Garner in the Democratic Primaries and caucuses in 1936? Could Long have mounted a Third Party campaign? If Garner (Dixiecrats) and the Republicans mounted a solid front against things like unions, could a Socialist or even Communist candidate defeat or seriously challenge them?

If social forces were bottled up for 8 years during a Garner Administration andthe Depression still did not get better, how might they have boiled over in 1940? Might Garner seek a third term over an increasingly less Democratic US, offering what amounted to Dixiecrat ascendency and war as a panacea for the Depression? It was, after all, the Southern states who supported Roosevelt's rearmament most enthusiastically before Pearl Harbor. And might the war have worked and left he US a much more conservative place?
Lots of butterfies here.
 
Vladimir Lenin (1919)
I think Stalin takes over. We have collectivism and purges in the 1920s.
There was collectivism and purges in the 1920s. War Communism.

As for Stalin, he wasn't even a blip on the radar. In fact he did not "take over" on Lenin's death in 1924 - it required several more years of maneuvering before he was fully in charge.

Woodrow Wilson (1919)
I have always assume President Marshall makes the necessary compromises to get the treaty passed. Then again Vice Presidents were so out of loop in those days, that while I know he favored progressive reforms and a good five cent cigar, I don't know what he thought about the league.
In 1919, Wilson is still in Paris, trying to negotiate the treaties. Marshall does not have the same views, motivation, or abilities. He probably wouldn't even go to Europe.

Warren G. Harding (1918) Some other Republican wins in 1920, maybe Hoover, and serves two terms. Probably there is no scandal.
But which Republican? An outright Progressive? And Harding was in some ways a very successful President. He and Mellon rode out the 1921 recession, stabilized government finances, cleaned up the tax structure, and set the basis of the 1920s boom.

Neville Chamberlain (1935) Somebody else wants to appease Hitler in 1938.
Again, who? It wouldn't be Churchill. Eden's too young. Halifax is a peer.

Wendell Willkie (1939) Dewey or Taft gets the nomination loses worse than Willkie did.
Are you sure? Willkie was a first-time candidate. Robert Heinlein, then a keen observer of politics, thought that Willkie self-destructed through a lot of first-timer mistakes - and that the third-term issue was a huge handicap for Roosevelt.

Franklin Roosevelt (1941) President Wallace never develops his naive attitudes toward the Soviet Union. He is hampered by his weak political skills, Maybe the presidency is frustrating and he doesn't run in 1933.
ITYM 1948. However - why should the Presidency enlighten Wallace? It didn't enlighten FDR till maybe near the end. Wallace is certain to make different choices from FDR on many issues relating to the war.

And in 1944, the inner circle of the Democrats thought he would be a dangerous drag on the ticket as VP. As President he could easily lose.

Henry Ford (1942) Just as in OTL, Henry II is discharged from the Navy and sent back to Dearborn. Maybe he takes over the company.
The elder Ford's return to the helm in 1943 was disastrous for the company. He nearly ran it into the ground before he was finally forced out. If he's dead, that doesn't happen.

Lyndon Johnson (1968) President Humphrey makes moves toward peace and wins the election.
Unless he is defeated for the nomination by Kennedy, who would declare as soon as LBJ died, not wait for McCarthy to show LBJ's weakness.
 
FDR came very close to dying in 1934
15 February _1933_.
If Zangara had not missed, "Cactus Jack" John Nance Garner , the Vice President Elect would have become President. Garner was a Texas segregationist, put on to balance the ticket. The New Deal as we know it gets butterflied out of existence.
No, not butterflied.

"Butterfly effects" apply to events that are intrinsically improbable - one of millions of similar possible outcomes. The change in pre-existing conditions renders the OTL outcome, with no information as to the ATL outcome.

This change in Presidential domestic policy is a knock-on: a highly predictable result of known conditions and processes.

In 1936, Governor Huey Long of Louisiana ran for President on a "share the wealth" (at least for white people) platform...
From his coffin? Long was killed on 10 September 1935. The "Share Our Wealth" program published under his name in 1936 was largely concocted by Gerald L. K. Smith.
 
Lyndon Johnson (1968) President Humphrey makes moves toward peace and wins the election.

Earlier moves, you mean.

But we now know there were Republicans willing to hamper any successful beginning for peace negotiations, so incumbent President Humphrey is still in trouble IMO. If said Republicans get Saigon to withdraw from the table at Paris after this earlier bombing halt, things could get uglier than IOTL.

And if this all happens before the Miami convention, then I think Ronald Reagan has just got himself elected POTUS...

On a related note, I've been thinking recently that RFK living to the Chicago convention and making a genuine attempt at backroom dealmaking for the nomination throws up one guaranteed result--a bitter, open fight between himself and Eugene McCarthy.

Because if Bobby goes soft on the platform in order to appeal to the bosses, that should prompt McCarthy to threaten to bolt the party. And if Kennedy accepts second spot on the ticket with HHH, then I think the antiwar-movement backlash is even worse. No way is Gene McCarthy and his delegates viewing that as a sincere move towards unilateral de-escalation in Vietnam.

They'd consider it a stab in the back. Yes, I know this didn't happen IOTL, what with the peace factions hanging together reasonably well in the convention hall (though George McGovern put himself forward as a better choice than Gene; decorated war service y'know). But that's because they never felt 'the enemy is within'. Things change when you get an actual split in such a hardcore policy-driven grouping...

On the other hand, if Bobby goes to the convention knowing he doesn't have a chance at beating HHH, and thus doesn't attempt it, but instead tries hard to get the peace plank implemented, then I think he's in a good position to later claim that his 'conciliatory' presence is what causes post-convention nominee Humphrey to make his own declaration for a bombing halt; which in turn sped up LBJ's rush to get Harriman to put together a viable Paris roudtable offer; thence the bombing halt of OTL; thence the Nixon campaign 'treason'.

A living Robert Kennedy might well go into opposition in the Nixon years claiming that Dick sabotaged his peace process!:D
 
An earlier death for King George VII could have huge effects on the 1951/1952 UK General Election.
 
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