The Biggest Butterfly You Can Think of

The title says it all. Make me the most extreme butterfly effect that you can think of from the smallest turning point possible. I'll start:

Turning point: A medieval Chinese ruler introduces a phonetic system to the bureaucracy to make intermediary communication more convenient.

Result: In a UN-monitored referendum in 2010, 87% of Hui voters supported full independence from the Republic of Wu. This closed the last painful chapter in the decade-long ethnic violence that devastated the former Chinese Union.

The president of Yue, a longtime supporter of Hui independence, applauded this landmark event from his new capital city of Shenzhen.

When fully established, Hui will join 9 other nations that arose after the collapse of the Communist government in 1989. The last country to establish independence, Jin, seceded from Han after a major peace agreement in 1992.
 
Turning Point
A knight sneezed and wiped his nose with his hand before he went to meet William the Duke of Normandy.

Result: An Scandinavian Britain.
 
Turning Point
A horseshoe is improperly attached in a New York battle camp 1778.

Leading to...
The horse's ankle to break when Benedict Arnold tries to ride out, in turn crippling its rider, leading in turn to the American loss at Saratoga, leading in turn to the failure of the American Revolution...

Result
A delayed and diminished French "Revolution", North America split along the Mississipi bw Spain and Britain for most of the 19th Century, survival of the Holy Roman Empire...
 
Turning point: On PicoSecond in the Primordial Era: The Weak Radioactive Force does not separate from the electromagnetic Force.

Result: Everything Changes.
 
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Turning Point....
The Christians in East Asia survive.

Leading to
East Asian Patriarch of Christendom, perhaps with communion with the pope.
 
There are a few PODs I can think of, especially battles, where the outcome of the battle itself would have massive butterflies. The perhaps most obvious one is this:

- Different outcome of the Battle of Yarmouk: Byzantine forces defeat the Arabs, thus bringing the fast expansion of Islam to a sudden end.
 
1778 is abit late for a maahoooosive butterfly, a personal favourite is a none partitioned Frankish empire (france, Holy Roman Empire) or a saxon victory at hastings. Or a none christian Roman empire.
 
The turning point:

In a munitions factory somewhere in Europe a worker carelessly mishandles a single primer for a batch pistol cartridges. Months later on June 28th 1914 an automatic pistol misfires.

Leading to:

The start of WW1 is delayed by months or years resulting in a very different twentieth century.
 
Turning point:
A cult around sumpweed arises in the Mississippi culture, leading to it eventually becoming domesticated.

Leading to:
One very efficient crop is available both to the Mississippi culture, but also civilizations in the old world.
 
A gamma ray burst that happens in between the Permian and the Triassic never hits, dinosaurs never evolve and the planet sees the rise of the mammals and crocodiles, with pterosaurs dominating the skies.
 
Turning Point: Muhammad's parents conceive him a night earlier. Resulting child remains a shepherd.

Leading To: Zoroastrianwank?
 
Turning Point: A large asteroid does not collide with the young earth approx. 4 billion years ago. It instead get's caught in it's gravitational field, becoming it's satellite.

Result: Gee I don't know, Kerry get's elected in 2004? :rolleyes:
 
A gamma ray burst that happens in between the Permian and the Triassic never hits, dinosaurs never evolve and the planet sees the rise of the mammals and crocodiles, with pterosaurs dominating the skies.

I was under the belief the Siberian traps had something to do with it...

But on this Gamma Ray/Extinction topic, The Cambrian explosion fails to subsist producing competing *vertabrates which eliminate our very fish ancestors.

Or, best idea yet!:

Turning Point
A microscopic peice of dust collects milimeters to the right of where it was IOTL.

Leading to; Earth fails to form in it's OTL shape, becames just another rogue planet, screwing with her planetary neighbors. *Mars/Venus/Theia becomes the dominant life supporting planet in the solar system. (and then Al Gore wins the 2000 elections :rolleyes:)
 
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