Obscure events that have changed the world.

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For example if New Zealand had Defeted the Turks at Gallipoli (WWI) there would have been no Soviet Union. Why? Because if New Zealand had taken Gallipoli, Great Britain could have sent their ships up the turkish straights to the black sea where they were planning to re-enforce Russian Troops. But beause New Zealand LOST at Gallipoli Great Britain were not able to support Russia on the eastern from against the germans, The russians then deserted in huge numbers and formed the 'Soviet' which later became the Soviet Union.

I would Be interested for examples similer to this one.
Of cause we can't know these things for sure as they did not happen.
But there is very good arguments.
Please post (:

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[+3] - George - 07/02/2010[quote=Bluto]Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no![/quote]

@Ali phil,

History is full of such events. Recently it was mentioned, what if Hitler had been accepted into art school or Churchill had been recaptured by the Boers. At the time they would have been completely insignificant events. Or Cromwell had left for America, as he had planned. You then must consider even smaller events such as one lone unnamed soldier killed in WWI, who may have been a genius and deprived the world of a certain important discovery. We cant speculate with certainty because other events may have directed history in a thousand different ways.

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@xris,

I'm still bumfuzzled by Hitler welcoming Italy into the tri-partite pact but refusing to allow the Soviet Union to join...

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@melonkali,

melonkali;158084 wrote:

I'm still bumfuzzled by Hitler welcoming Italy into the tri-partite pact but refusing to allow the Soviet Union to join...

I think that because Stalin and Hitler could never have agreed (in the end) Where as Mossalini was weaker minded, and already a facist, (having been the first)

Also Stalin had very valuable resources in soviet land, which hitler was fairly keen on.

Hitler and Mossolini had many many parralles where as Stalin had little.

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@Ali phil,

Ali;157870 wrote:

For example if New Zealand had Defeted the Turks at Gallipoli (WWI) there would have been no Soviet Union. Why? Because if New Zealand had taken Gallipoli, Great Britain could have sent their ships up the turkish straights to the black sea where they were planning to re-enforce Russian Troops. But beause New Zealand LOST at Gallipoli Great Britain were not able to support Russia on the eastern from against the germans, The russians then deserted in huge numbers and formed the 'Soviet' which later became the Soviet Union.

So, the difficulties of rapid change from rural/artisan society to urban industrial society, under an absolute monarchy, played no part in the Russian revolution?
:sarcastic:

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@Ali phil,

Ali wrote:

Obscure events that have changed the world

Although your average Iberian macho doesn't really like to admit it, they know Spain got absolutely hammered by Islamic invaders.

Starting around 711, the Moors from north-west Africa totally annihilated Spain, and just about conquered the entire country in a decade. That's no small feat. We're talking about a time when it took about a decade to get from one end of the country to another, let alone with angry Christians trying to spike and spear you along the way.

So the Moors went sweeping across Spain. They had the cheek to propagandize the Spanish with strange philosophies and math, medical practices and sanitation, and maintain prosperous cities in which the Jewish, Christian and Arab populace could live peacefully together.

They took over everything, everything that was, except this little damp, cold, boggy strip of land up in the Asturian mountains. Here, one of your true Iberian machos called Pelagius got himself together a gang of about 300 irate Christians and took on and actually defeated the well trained and organized Muslim army pursuing him. Hardcore, or what!

The story thickens. It turns out that Pelagius' tiny mountain kingdom would be the essence and heart of the Spanish Reconquista. Yeah, I know, I know, so it took the Spanish almost 800 years to get their act together, but still....you got admire the persistence and faith.

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How about one unsung hero changing the course of WWII? A real-life James Bond, Soviet spy Richard Sorge, based in Japan, used his inside channels to discover that the Japanese were not (as Hitler had hoped) planning to attack the Russians along the Siberian border, thus freeing large numbers of Soviet Siberian reinforcements to head West, and save Russia from German conquest. Sorge was later found out and hanged in 1944, but his story is one of the most interesting in the annals of history (IMO).

rebecca

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@qualia,

The Muslims were invited in to help a certain waring faction. The Iberian peninsula was made up of tribal groups hardly a united force with the ability to withstand a determined invader. They did not live in harmony with their vanquished. They treated them like slaves and did not allow them the same benefits as muslims. This distortion of history always amazes me, what purpose does it serve?

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@Ali phil,

Ali phil wrote:

For example if New Zealand had Defeted the Turks at Gallipoli (WWI) there would have been no Soviet Union. Why? Because if New Zealand had taken Gallipoli, Great Britain could have sent their ships up the turkish straights to the black sea where they were planning to re-enforce Russian Troops. But beause New Zealand LOST at Gallipoli Great Britain were not able to support Russia on the eastern from against the germans, The russians then deserted in huge numbers and formed the 'Soviet' which later became the Soviet Union.

I would Be interested for examples similer to this one.
Of cause we can't know these things for sure as they did not happen.
But there is very good arguments.
Please post (:

In a famous aphorism, Blaise Pascal once observed, ''Had Cleopatra's nose been shorter, the face of the world would have changed.'' In other words, if Cleopatra had been less beautiful, Caesar and Antony would not have fallen in love with her, and the course of history would have been fatefully altered.

Statements of the form, if so and so had been true, so and so would be true (or would have happened), are known as "counterfactual conditionals" (or as "counterfactuals" for short) and philosophers, logicians have studied such statements at length in order (among other things) to determine what are their truth conditions. (Under what conditions would they be true, or false). Whether or how we can know they are true is another issue, an epistemological issue, and we can know that at least some of them are true. For instance we can know that if Earth had been located where the planet Uranus is now, then there would have been no life on Earth, since it would have been too cold for life to exist. Again, we can be quite sure that if Germany had won World War II, then life in the United States would have been quite different than it has been. So, it is not true that we cannot know that some counterfactuals are true. We can know some are true as well as we can know that any other statement is true. In this respect (the epistemological respect) they are no different from any other kind of statement.

There have been some recent historians who have written "what if" books, which speculate on how events would have been different if what happened had not happened, or is what did not happen, happened.

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@Ali phil,

Ali phil wrote:

For example if New Zealand had Defeted the Turks at Gallipoli (WWI) there would have been no Soviet Union.

New Zealand?

Drunk

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@xris,

You are right there. They got invited by the Byzantine rulers in the south-east of Spain. Long before the Reconquista was completed the Muslim Kingdoms were paying tribute to the Christian Kingdoms Aragon, Castilia and Leon. Many of the science and technical inventions stemmed from other cultures the Muslims destroyed by the way.

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@joefromchicago,

Bluto wrote:

Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no!

1 Reply

@George,

don't stop him, he's on a roll...

1 Reply

@Rockhead,

Rockhead wrote:

don't stop him, he's on a roll...

I really like things on a roll. Much better than white bread (except for turkey, of course).

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@kennethamy,

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm . . .
Rolls

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What would have happened if the can opener had never been invented? That would have been interesting.

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@Mame,

That's a point what came first the opener or the can?

1 Reply

@Mame,

Mame wrote:

What would have happened if the can opener had never been invented?
That would have been interesting.

My uncle Ray woulda died of thirst somewhere in the middle of a Red Sox
game.

1 Reply

@xris,

xris wrote:

That's a point what came first the opener or the can?

The point's on the opener.
Sheesh.

1 Reply

@George,

Im so silly...

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Obscure events that have changed the world.

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