Miscellaneous <1900 (Alternate) History Thread

When did the Mongols stop being OP? What changed militarily, technologically, or politically?
Did people find counters to the Mongol style of warfare? Did the Mongols get worse to the point they couldn't steamroll their enemies anymore?
I've also heard that the "Mongol" identity just failed since there were too few Mongols, and they integrated into local peoples. While that is true, IIRC the Mongols became weaker militarily as well?
 
When in history could we have had a queen regnant of France?
Have Philip II Augustus die as child and one of his sisters can be Louis VII’s successor
Your best shot is have Louis X dying between the death of his son John and Clementia’s churching meaning who Jeanne will be her father’s indisputable heiress
 
When did the Mongols stop being OP? What changed militarily, technologically, or politically?
Did people find counters to the Mongol style of warfare? Did the Mongols get worse to the point they couldn't steamroll their enemies anymore?
I've also heard that the "Mongol" identity just failed since there were too few Mongols, and they integrated into local peoples. While that is true, IIRC the Mongols became weaker militarily as well?
They had already conquered nearly the entire world and then they fell apart from internal division. I also think that people misunderstand why the mongols were as successful as they were. I'd argue it had far more to do with having an incredibly mobile army that they used to great effect (being nomads they were far better equipped than other armies to keep their supplies with them on long marches), some brilliant generals and their fearsome reputation (as in a reputation for slaughering anyone who resisted) than their armies being particularly difficult to beat. Relevant video:
 
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I was thinking in terms of a religion that spread like Islam, so that Sumerian became not only the liturgical language but the lingua franca as well from Morocco to Iran or further.

Also, of course, there's them... ;)
 
I was thinking in terms of a religion that spread like Islam, so that Sumerian became not only the liturgical language but the lingua franca as well from Morocco to Iran or further.

Also, of course, there's them... ;)
Well the problem is that such evangelizing religions didn't really start appearing until around the time of Christianity. Of course it's conceivable that one could have started and been successful as early as 2000 bce or so but it is a bit of a stretch. Perhaps you could combine that idea with Lugal-Zagesi defeating Sargon and then such a religion arising a bit later, say 1000 bce or so in competition with Zoroastrianism. Another problem with the idea though is that in the cases where a religious language has replaced local languages it's usually closely related languages as in the case with Arabic and Aramaean. Since Sumerian is a language isolate that makes it a bit more difficult for it to spread into neighboring regions that all spoke related (semitic) languages which were thus more useful as trade languages and lingua francas. Even so, if Lugal-Zagesi had won I do think that Sumerian would have had a decent chance of becoming, if not a lingua franca for the region, at least the language of diplomacy as Akkadian did in reality.
 
Have Philip II Augustus die as child and one of his sisters can be Louis VII’s successor
Your best shot is have Louis X dying between the death of his son John and Clementia’s churching meaning who Jeanne will be her father’s indisputable heiress
Interesting, thank you :)
 
Why didn't the Austrians try to create a Zollverein - like structure in the 1820s-1830s, either before the Prussians, and as a, means to add another layer that would bound the German states together and perhaps prevent Prussian designs in northern Germany for an exclusive sphere of influence from materialising or after the Prussians, in order to consolidate their influence in southern Germany?
 
Nikola Tesla is a popular figure for alternate history, and for good reason. But I just recently found out about a contemporary figure who was also a pioneer in alternating current: the German mathematician Charles Proteus Steinmetz who emigrated to America in 1889 and eventually worked for General Electric. This presumably made him more-or-less a rival for Tesla, but a quick search didn’t turn up much, so I don’t think they interacted directly. The only thing I found was a biography of Tesla that briefly mentioned Steinmetz in 1902 as one of the people celebrating Marconi as the inventor of radio and downplaying Tesla.

Is it possible that Steinmetz and Tesla could have worked together in the 1890s? Could they perhaps have become business partners? And what could they achieve? Or would they be unable to work together due to natural rivalry or clashing personalities?

[I should also shout out ComradeHuxley who is making a timeline called 'It Takes Two' about early solar power that seems to involve Steinmetz]
 
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Explain why Ferdinand would be a happy man, he still only has one male heir...
Because a daughter of Isabella and Manuel would mean who he can marry her to a Trastamara boy and keep both his line and his dynasty to rule over Spain. Plus he loathed Philip, who was way too much pro-French for anyone’s liking (and Fernando loathed France) and do not wanted him as successor
 
Because a daughter of Isabella and Manuel would mean who he can marry her to a Trastamara boy and keep both his line and his dynasty to rule over Spain. Plus he loathed Philip, who was way too much pro-French for anyone’s liking (and Fernando loathed France) and do not wanted him as successor
Ah I see, thank you.
But why Alfonso specifically? The man himself wasn't exactly of high rank
 
Ah I see, thank you.
But why Alfonso specifically? The man himself wasn't exactly of high rank
He was not of high rank? He was a fully legitimate scion of the House Trastamara and the male heir of Ferdinand (well after his father, but you know what I mean) and one of the most important nobles of Aragon
 
What if the Ottoman dynasty comes to an end due to fratricide?
Let's say Murad IV kills Ibrahim. What's next?
I am given to understand that there was a pact where the Giray dynasty of the Crimea would be enthroned in such an eventuality. No idea on how many of the local magnates/vassals would go their own way (or try to) while the governmental structures in Constantinople locked the bumpkins in question out of power.

Tax: Imagine a few personalities (not least that of one Isabel de Trastamara y de Aviz) involved in the unification of (most of) the Iberian peninsula being rather different... perhaps less dogmatic....

Spain's State Religion is Catholicism. Full stop. While Muslims and Jews have extensive access to a number of skilled professions, scholarship, and even middling Civil Servant ranks; thy have to cough up extra taxes and their houses of worship (especially new ones) outside the most backwater villages of the far south (and possibly some explicitly mentioned in capitulation treaties) get the full schuilkerk treatment while failure to convert eliminates any possibility of a military career or a non-advisory political one above village headman or member of a city council.

That is the official line.

In practice, if certain members of the nobility up to an including the Duques de Nasr do not set foot in the shiny new churches/cathedrals save for the most unavoidably obligatory state ceremonies, keep their private chapels very much so, and perhaps have some resemblance to the prosperous families visiting certain "Casas de Ismael" (or whatever polite euphemism comes into use) on various holy days? It is quietly-but-firmly understood that no fuss is to be made.
 
For that to happen, Albert Frederick probably needs a son.
Not really as Prussia being inherited by the Brandenburg branch was not in the original plans. Likely Prussia will go back to Poland and probably will be used by the current King of Poland for giving an hereditary fief to his own son
Albert Frederick's name had been thrown around for the Polish throne at one point; perhaps if he has a surviving son said son could be elected King of Poland?
 
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