WI a milder Little Ice Age?

Either the Scandinavians, Portuguese, Genoese or Venetians come upon the "North American" Continent a generation or two earlier than OTL (assuming navigational and ship building technologies gets pushed forward, as they probably would in TTL).
 

scholar

Banned
Either the Scandinavians, Portuguese, Genoese or Venetians come upon the "North American" Continent a generation or two earlier than OTL (assuming navigational and ship building technologies gets pushed forward, as they probably would in TTL).
The Little Ice Age is arguably what gave birth to the industrial revolution and helped along nationalism, revolutions, and the independence of the Americas.A milder one may bring more stagnation and less revolutions rather than greater innovation.
 
The Black Plague wouldn't have been so deadly, as Europeans wouldn't have been huddled up so close in their hovels for as much of the year. From there, the butterflies are endless.
 
The Black Plague wouldn't have been so deadly, as Europeans wouldn't have been huddled up so close in their hovels for as much of the year. From there, the butterflies are endless.

I was thinking that the opposite might happen, as the warmer weather might increase human interaction and the movement of rats, fleas and air-borne germs in general.
 
I was thinking that the opposite might happen, as the warmer weather might increase human interaction and the movement of rats, fleas and air-borne germs in general.

Sure, but better weather means better crop yields means better nutrition means (generally) better health. So I'd say things will even out on the side of better resistance to plague.

This scenario could strengthen states like the Novgorod Republic against Muscovy, relative to IOTL. Though any amount of cooling will endanger them and their settlements along the White Sea. Perhaps, though, we may yet get a Russia that is politically divided, instead of centralized in Muscovy.
 

scholar

Banned
Sure, but better weather means better crop yields means better nutrition means (generally) better health. So I'd say things will even out on the side of better resistance to plague.
Europe was already suffering from overpopulation with freezing weather, the strain may well to prove to be even larger if there's more food to go around and more mouths to feed. That sets things to be more of a disaster.
 
The Black Plague wouldn't have been so deadly, as Europeans wouldn't have been huddled up so close in their hovels for as much of the year. From there, the butterflies are endless.
Might not even be a black plague, as it might not make the key evolutionary changes that made it what it is if climate is different.
 

katchen

Banned
There would be less population pressure to settle the New World. Europe would have time to build up it's population after the Black Death. There would be larger families and earlier marriage and less pressure to be well established financially before getting married, more like the 18th and 19th Century than the 14th and 17th Century. Scandinavia can support more people, so Sweden and Finland and the Baltic States play more of a major role in European politics. Perhaps an independent Finnish kingdom becomes possible ITTL. Or an independent Mordovian kingdom, competing with Muscovy. Norway, not so much, simply because of unavailability of level land--though more land in Norrland Iceland might stay independent. And if Iceland stays independent and Greenland stays settled, a Western Crusade against Haudansee aand Miqmaq and Abenaki and Wampenoag and Narragansett, something like the Teutonic Knight's Eastern Crusades against the pagan Prussians and Kur and Lithuanians becomes possible ITTL unfortunately:mad:
 
Greenlander Norse may survive.

They technically did survive, they just migrated away quicker then they were reproducing until the last up and left. But on this note, there will be even morse trading/resourcing in the new world (which, OTL, lasted from 1000 to roughly 1500). With this increase in trading (and easier sailing due to less ice), there will be more attempted norse colonization... some may stick.
 
Top