The most ASBish non-events of OTL

We have done several threads about the most ASBish events of OTL. Personally, I think it all depends on when you stand. If you are in the VII century, Europe's ascent (and decline) might look absolutely ASBish. Not so much if you are standing in 1750. The same thing happens with the British Empire.

But that's not what I would like to talk about in this thread. What I'd like to know is what are those event that should have happened IOTL, but didn't happen (and whose absence IOTL would be considered ASBish from the point of view of observers from any ATL)

I think one example of this is the fact theat, in 200 years, there has been no war between Argentina and Chile. Both countries share one of the largest frontiers in the war. Chile has fought wars between Perú and Bolivia, and Argentina has fought agianst Brazil (1825-28), Bolivia (1836) and Paraguay (1865-1870).

And yet, even if both countries have had, ocasionaly, very tense relations, and they almost went to war several times (1870ies, 1880, 1900, 1978, 1982) there was never a war between both nations.

Can you think of other examles?
 
Henry V (of England)'s death two months before he would have inherited all of France, killed by a fluke disease during the siege of Meaux, seems very coincidental from the French perspective, especially when you factor in his son being a weak-minded man and a one-year old, and then when you add that England would lose its entire grip on France save Calais and give up all of its continental aspirations within 40 years of England's greatest ever victory over France.

Similarly you could say that England's early colonial history was quite suspicious. For several decades, various ventures went out to try to settle colonies. Every single time, ships were lost, locations chosen were bad, supplies didn't last, etc. On a disturbingly high number of times, a fleet sailed out, hit a storm near the shore, and one ship ran broke up on rocks, with the loss of all victuals on board...on nearly every single occasion the ship lost was the important ship carrying all the food supplies, no matter whether the ship was the biggest, the smallest, was the best ship for sailing or the worst, etc. On a number of occasions colonies were abandoned mere days from receiving a resupply fleet which they had decided would never arrive. It just all adds up to a crazily high amount of bad luck, as if someone was trying to make it all keep failing...
 
Another one I was thinking is (if we were standing at the year 1800) the lack of any war between U.K. and the U.S. after 1812 during the XIX and the early XX century.

During the XIX century, many British rivals imagined thet America would cause real trouble to the British, as she would force her to destinate a lot of resources for the defense of Canada and the Caribbean islands. Whenever they could, ocassional British rivals did what they could to reinforce the U.S. power, as they thought this would cause problems to the British. France sell them Luisiana in 1803, assuming it was better an American Luisiana than a British one. Russia did the same with Alaska in 1867. Yet, contrary to all axpectetion, there wasn't much hostility between U.S.A. and America, let alone a war.
 
Similarly you could say that England's early colonial history was quite suspicious. For several decades, various ventures went out to try to settle colonies. Every single time, ships were lost, locations chosen were bad, supplies didn't last, etc. On a disturbingly high number of times, a fleet sailed out, hit a storm near the shore, and one ship ran broke up on rocks, with the loss of all victuals on board...on nearly every single occasion the ship lost was the important ship carrying all the food supplies, no matter whether the ship was the biggest, the smallest, was the best ship for sailing or the worst, etc. On a number of occasions colonies were abandoned mere days from receiving a resupply fleet which they had decided would never arrive. It just all adds up to a crazily high amount of bad luck, as if someone was trying to make it all keep failing...
Just think, if those expeditions succeeded, why southern North America would be ENglish speaking, and English would be a major world language. Why, this post might be in English.

[Oh, I guess even ASBs aren't omnipotent, then, eh?]
 
As I am focussing on early modernity at the moment, developments
form that time come to my mind first.

It seems more probable than not that
  • Austria vanishes completely in the 1640s, being overrun by Swedes, French, and
    Ottoman-dependant Transylvanians (it is weird that the Sultan would prevent his vasall
    from defeating one of his major enemies only to keep him small, and even weirder
    that Bethlen Gabor obeyed);
  • but actually, all alliances of German states with Sweden should have been cancelled
    when Gustav Adolph, the charismatic leading figure, had died in battle;
  • but even before, Austria should have vanished before its rise to a Great Power,
    in the late 15th century;
  • Prussia defeated in the Seven Years War.

Sifting through other ideas, I recognize two major categories of ASBic non-events:
  • extremly lucky and consequential detail without any causal relation to the big events,
  • WHY did he do that?? Just how dumb can a guy from the history book be.

Many people would also count a major British-French conflict in the late 19th century
as well as a collapse of the fragile peace in Cold War days.
But it turns out that tense caution is an excellent warrantor of stability.
 
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