Some bright and discerning readers may wonder about the purpose of the following list.
I could say “the encouragement of curiosity” since there is much to be gained in taking events for more than their face value. The benefits mainly stem from an appreciation of the whims of history.
In short, we live in a world of close calls.
The following did not happen, but consider a world in which:
- Carthage defeated Rome.
- The Moorish invasion of Europe succeeded at the Battle of Tours in 732.
- William Shakespeare became a farmer.
- Spain, not England, settled North America.
- The printing press was not invented until 1700.
- King George III decided to placate the colonists by granting their demands.
- George Washington was killed during the French and Indian War.
- There was no Louisiana Purchase.
- The United States lost the war with Mexico.
- Robert E. Lee decided to command the Union forces.
- Ulysses Grant was not given any Army commands in the Civil War.
- Lincoln did not go to Ford’s Theater.
- Russia kept Alaska.
- Napoleon Bonaparte won the Battle of Waterloo.
- Theodore Roosevelt was killed in the Battle of San Juan Hill.
- The Panama Canal had not been dug.
- Stalin completed seminary school and became a priest.
- Hitler was admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.
- Lenin was executed by the Czar.
- World War I had been averted.
- King Edward VIII was not forced to abdicate.
- The briefcase with the bomb meant to kill Hitler had not been moved.
- Einstein was not permitted to leave Germany.
- Mussolini decided to ally Italy with Spain and Portugal instead of Germany.
- Charles de Gaulle was not promoted to general shortly before the fall of France.
- Winston Churchill was not chosen to be prime minister in 1940.
- The United States remained neutral during World War II.
- The American aircraft carriers were in Pearl Harbor when Japan attacked.
- Hitler decided to take the Suez Canal instead of invading the Soviet Union.
- Mahatma Gandhi simply practiced law.
- Henry Wallace became president when FDR died.
- Dwight Eisenhower ran for the presidency as a Democrat instead of as a Republican.
- France had kept Algeria.
- Ngo Dinh Diem had not been overthrown in South Vietnam.
- Senator Robert F. Kennedy had not been assassinated.
- Honda had not made motor scooters.
- Concorde supersonic airplane flights were not stopped.
- Elon Musk decided to stay in South Africa.