Simple Request

Anything? Well, that's a hell of a lot! I'll just put in some 20th Century ideas-

1. Fanny Kaplan kills Lenin.
2. Gustav Stresemann doesn't have a stroke and die in 1929.
3. Winston Churchill dies during the Blitz.
4. Calvin Coolidge runs for a third term.
5. Georges Clemenceau never comes to power but Joseph Caillaux does.

They cover some pretty important points and it's fairly simple to think of the immediate consequences of each one.
 
Thinking more of typical 10th grade World History:
-What if Columbus fails/sinks?
-What if the Black Death doesn't happen?
-What if the French (or American) revolutions fail?

Obviously, those are all incredibly complicated questions in practice, but it depends upon how much you're looking for out of the assignment, I suppose
 

Driftless

Donor
Can't... Stop....

Here's one for the kids who are into morally ambiguous super-heros...

No Benedict Arnold to save the day at Saratoga in 1777. Does Arnold's absence prevent the clear-cut American victory that allows France to recognize and provide crucial direct support to the Americans?
 
Here's one for the kids who are into morally ambiguous super-heros...

No Benedict Arnold to save the day at Saratoga in 1777. Does Arnold's absence prevent the clear-cut American victory that allows France to recognize and provide crucial direct support to the Americans?

Or...Benedict Arnold never turns traitor. He remains loyal to George III and Britain.
 
PODs for simple request

Having taught elementary school for 35 years I used to bollix their heads with what ifs. For your kids I would suggest things in their timeline--eg,
what if Steve Jobs' Apple failed?,
What if Reagan lost to Carter in 1980 or Bush beat Clinton in 92,

Somebody posted about 9/11 failing, that is a good one, but would have happened if Flight 93 DID reach Washington and destroy the capitol?

What if Ipods were not invented or were shown to be faulty, like Chevy ignitions.
What if Hilary beat Obama in 2004 and got elected?
Too subtle, too complicated?--do a Marty McFly on them--what if their parents married different people, who would THEY (the kids) be?
What if there was no Sesame Street or the show was canceled very early on?
 
Here's some idea's
-Nelson Mandela never comes to prominence
-The Entente are beaten by Germany's Spring offensive in World War 1
-Joseph Stalin dies of Smallpox at the age of seven in 1884
-Athens wins The Peloponnesian War.
-The Incans attack The Spanish at Cajamarca
 

Driftless

Donor
* IF the Germans had been allowed access to US Helium for their Zeppelins, does that alter 1930's commercial aviation?

* Amelia Earhart completes her circumnavigation of the globe

* Amelia Earhart goes down near Howland Island, but is rescued

* No Interstate system in the US.

* No Nineteenth Ammendment to the US Constitution (Women's Right to Vote)

* Native Americans are recognized as citizens from the original ratification of the US Constitution

* Slavery is abolished with the original ratification of the US Constitution

* Nullification is held as legal. Does the US still exist?

* What if Prohibition did not occur?

* What if the Roswell event in 1947 occured in a more populated area?

* What if Native Americans had functional immunity from the diseases the European settlers brought to the Americas? How does that change the population dynamic?

* What if Native Americans groups develop a larger, more unified common culture in Pre-Columbian times?



 

Driftless

Donor
* What if the PC/Mac never caught on and computers remained very large, very expensive, and were practically only available to big business or big government?

* Would CGI exist as a part of entertainment technology (The original Toy Story was a technology breakout)

* What if the Internet were not available to the public? That it remained a Defense Department project.

* What if there was no high-speed Internet as we know it today? Over the phone dial-up is your only option

* What if Net Neutrality was never a factor?

* Given some of the above conditions, does FaceBook, YouTube, Google, etal even exist, or do they exist in a much shrunken capacity?

* What if Cellular technology doesn't catch on? Your communications choices are land-line phone or CB radio (in the US anyway.... )

* What if Cable TV never caught on with it's eight bazillion channels? What, no Kardashians?!?!, No Emeril?, No Storage Wars?

* What if your choice of TV channels remained only as broadcast from the big 3 + PBS (in the US and similar situations across the world)

* What if Nasa wasn't able to fix the Hubble Telescopes precision difficulties?

* What if Les Paul didn't invent/enhance/popularize the electric guitar?

* What if LeBron James remained in Cleveland?

* What if Gerald Ford did not pardon Richard Nixon?

* What if the US Electoral College didn't exist?

* What if toilet paper didn't exist and bidets weren't a practical alternative? (kids will like that one.......)

* What if the elected US President had to achieve more than 50% of the popular vote to be elected?

* What if the US had a Parliamentary system of government?

* What if the vulcanizing process for rubber wasn't invented, or greatly delayed? How does that impact the development of the auto?

* What if there were no GPS?
 

Delta Force

Banned
What if McClellan and the Copperheads win the 1864 election?

What if Lincoln lives?

What if William Jennings Bryan wins in 1896?

What if the USS Maine doesn't explode?

What if Teddy Roosevelt wins in 1916?

What if the United States doesn't enter World War I?

What if FDR doesn't run in 1940?

What if Japan doesn't attack Pearl Harbor?

What if Operation Barbarossa succeeds?

What if D-Day fails?

What if FDR dies earlier and Henry Wallace becomes president?

What if the Republic of China wins the Chinese Civil War?

What if nuclear weapons are used in Korea?

What if Khrushchev doesn't order a violent crackdown in Hungary?

What if Vanguard 1 is the first satellite in orbit?

What if Nixon wins the 1960 election?

What if Alan Shepard is the first person in space?

What if the Cuban Missile Crisis goes hot?

What if the United States doesn't enter the Vietnam War?

What if the Soviets beat America to the Moon?

What if Nixon doesn't sabotage the 1968 peace talks?

What if Nixon doesn't pursue nuclear arms control?

What if Nixon doesn't create the EPA?

What if Nixon doesn't sabotage McGovern's campaign?

What if Nixon doesn't go to China?

What if Nixon doesn't get impeached?

What if the Shah doesn't fall?

What if the Soviet Union doesn't invade Afghanistan?

What if the Reagan assassination succeeds?

What if the Soviets crack down on the late 1980s revolutions like it's the 1950s and 1960s?

What if the Soviet coup succeeds?

What if Bush Sr. lets Iraq take Kuwait?

What if Al Gore wins the 2000 election?
 
Carthage wins the Punic war

Hannibal dies

Hannibal wins Zuma

Hannibal takes Rome

Rome falls before it conquers Italy

Caesar dies in Gaul

Pompey beats Caesar

Caesar learns of the assassination plot

Jesus dies of sickness as a toddler (Epic POD)

Constantine loses the war

COnstantine doesn't go Christian

Nero is completely successful in Rebuilding Rome

Justinian doesn't listen to Theodoros and runs from Constantinople during the riots

Mohammed dies as a child (Epic POD)

No Sunni/Shia split

No Orthodox/Catholic split

Charlemagne dies as a child

Charlemagne pushes the Muslims out of Spain

William the COnqueror's invasion fails

Spain joins the Axis

Elizabeth of Russia dies earlier and Peter III leads Russia into the 7 Year's War on Prussia's side

Elizabeth of Russia lives longer

Christopher Colombus fails

Catholics win the 30 Year's War

Spain doesn't gungoof the Dutch Revolt

Spanish Armada Succeeds

English Armada Succeeds

English Armada epic failure

Catholics win the French Religious Wars

France actually wins the War of the Spanish Succession

Spain doesn't lose Jamaica and co. to the Commonwealth

Spain never gives the Portuguese more land in Brazil.

Austria actually wins the War of the Spanish Succession

Ferdinand VI of Spain has an heir besides Charles III

France wins the 7 Year's War

Wolfe loses at the Plains of Abraham

France wins in India

British lose at Plassey

American's lose ARW

Benedict Arnold never marries and loyalist and stays with the US

Lafayette dies at Brandywine

King Louis doesn't run during the revolution and Lafayette maintains the constitutional monarchy

Nappy dies during the revolution

Nappy loses at Toulon

Nappy loses at Austerlitz

Britain wins War of 1812

Nappy dies in Elba

Nappy escapes to America

Nappy never invades Spain

Nappy never invades Russia

France and Britain don't intervene in Crimean War

Two Sicilies leads Italian unification

Austria lead German unification

Bavaria leads German unification

One of the 1848 revolutions succeeds

Ferdinand VII of SPain accepts Mexico's Treaty of Cordoba

Spain maintains at least one of the vice royalties

Confederates never invade Kentucky

Virginia doesn't secede

Lee stays with the US

Lee keeps pushing on the First Day of Gettysburg and takes the field before the Union can reinforce

Meade decides from the reports that fighting at Gettysburg is too risky and has Hancock retreat

Meade gets his victory at Pipe Creek

Ulysses doesn't take Vicksburg

Ulysses loses at Shiloh

Jackson isn't killed at Chancellorsville

Abraham Lincoln dies as a child

Breckenridge wins 1860 Election

US loses Mexican American war

Andrew Jackson never takes Florida from the Spanish and listens to the President

Monroe never makes the Monroe Doctrine

Any of the heroes of the Civil War die in Mexico
 
Napoleon III decides to back down and accept the German candidate for King of Spain. No Franco-Prussian War.

If you're using a standard American curriculum for year 10 it's pathetically light on everything pre-Renaissance (because they were supposed to get the Classical and Medieval stuff in year 7) And you may or may not have had time to get to the end, so you need - what? 36 PoDs from 1492 to 1983, so that there are no repeats within a class period? I'm sure you don't want to grade 180 different PoDs...and it seems to me the attention paid to non-European history varies wildly from state to state and district to district. How much of that do you want on the list?

Murad IV's order to execute his younger brother Ibrahim is carried out; the house of Osman is extinct and the Ottoman Empire collapses into civil war in 1640.

1957. Instead of Yugoslavia (bad idea), Imre Nagy makes it to Switzerland and perhaps America. WWIII over Hungary in the 50s?

1975. Valery Sablin improbably evades his pursuers and puts a cruise missile or two into the Leningrad skyline.

1943. Enrico Fermi makes a significant error in his test model and accidentally sets off a nuclear chain reaction in Chicago.

Jinnah dies early (or the independence process drags on), so the Pakistan independence movement loses inertia and it remains part of India.

Sepoy Mutiny manages to lift the siege of Delhi, turning a rebellion into a protracted war of independence.
 
Being in the group you are speaking of, these things would interest me.

CP WW1 victory.
No WW1.
Soviet Union still around.
Persians defeat Greeks.
Holy Roman Empire does better.
 
PODs for class

What if every group purported to have found America prior to Columbus, from the vikings to the chinese to the phoenicians to the jews, actually did?
 
Top