And you should know that simple history discussion is actually quite common on this board, for the reasons explained above. With the understanding that rigorous alternate history work is helped by discussion of actual history, what’s the problem?
The problem is the purpose of this site. I am sorry is this a History Board or an Alternate History Board? The entire Internet you are able to use to answer history questions, even other history sites. Honestly the moderators should create an entirely separate discussion section for this.How can you write a good alternate history if you are not even aware of OTL history? Understanding OTL and why it happened the way it did is a great indicator what could happen or what POD you need for certain things to happen/become likely.