Not really - if anything, the 50s were a bit of a backlash to the 40s.
What are some Post-1900 real world historical events that would seem ASB and highly unrealistic in any other timeline?
- Thread starter The Banker
- Start date
Not really - if anything, the 50s were a bit of a backlash to the 40s.
Memoriam Damnatio
Banned
Pretty much any post-WW1 revolution, A tint group of radicals who only have a presence in a few urban centres take over the largest country on earth, A ragtag group of rebels occupy Dublin castle and gain independence from their far larger and more powerful neighbour who's occupied them for 400 years, a random journalist and his brand new party/ideology becomes the largest in the country and forces the king to make him de-facto dictator in 2 years.
The career of Churchill, if you put him in your timeline people would be accusing you of a britscrew and saying the only way he keeps getting reelected is the people of britain are just stupid.
Most of the third world dictators, we've got cannibals, witch doctors, and The insane.
The career of Churchill, if you put him in your timeline people would be accusing you of a britscrew and saying the only way he keeps getting reelected is the people of britain are just stupid.
Most of the third world dictators, we've got cannibals, witch doctors, and The insane.
The Khmer Rouge.
If someone said they ballooned as a military force from 6,000 troops to 50,000 because the Cambodian monarch had called on the religious Khmer peasantry to join them, what would your reaction be?
If someone said they ballooned as a military force from 6,000 troops to 50,000 because the Cambodian monarch had called on the religious Khmer peasantry to join them, what would your reaction be?
The Tories under Churchill were only elected once (1951) and then only by the vagaries of first-past-the-post as they came behind Labour in the national popular vote.
Memoriam Damnatio
Banned
Probably should have said keep getting elevated to cabinet/surviving politically, still ASB though
Shackleton’s trans-Antarctica expedition, and in particular the fact that everyone survived the ordeal.
American economic aid to the former Axis nations after WWII, and how spectacularly effective it ended up being.
Rattenfänger von Memphis
Donor
I think the involvement of T. E. Lawrence, AKA “Lawrence of Arabia” with the Arabs during World War I and afterwards, at the Paris Peace Conference on their behalf, seemed “highly unrealistic” at the time as well as now.
At the Paris Peace Conference: T.E. Lawrence is the second from the right in the middle row. King Faisal is in front.Wikipedia said:
Landmines in Cambodia
books.google.co.uk
That Sihanouk lived in Cambodia throughout the entire period of Khmer Rouge rule, despite everyone and their aunt being murdered for wearing glasses, an orange sarong or speaking Chinese, kinda demonstrates how their leadership were either shit scared of upsetting their foot soldiers or just a bunch of score-settling ethno/imperialist nationalists.
First, let me say this is NOT political.
No matter what you think of him or what side of the spectrum you're on, you have to admit that the election of Donald Trump seemed so ridiculous an idea that The Simpsons, among others, made joke about it for years before it actually happened. If someone had submitted it as an AH timeline idea ten years ago, it would have been considered too outrageous .
No matter what you think of him or what side of the spectrum you're on, you have to admit that the election of Donald Trump seemed so ridiculous an idea that The Simpsons, among others, made joke about it for years before it actually happened. If someone had submitted it as an AH timeline idea ten years ago, it would have been considered too outrageous .
I think it's perceived to be unbelievable simply because Americans themselves had made the version of history they teach at school so boring (not even about being sanitized) that people have forgotten that they had elected some really interesting and just out there characters at various points.
For example, Abraham Lincoln was a really good wrestler who invented the chokeslam, and Ulysses S. Grant got arrested for speeding (which sounded like some junior enlisted stuff you hear weekly on a military base rather than something happening to one of the most powerful man of the nation).
The death-ride of the Russian Baltic Fleet during the Russo-Japanese War. Special shout-out to the activities of the Kamchatka during that voyage.
The adventures of one Mad Jack Churchill during WW2.
The adventures of one Mad Jack Churchill during WW2.
The Zimmerman Telegram. How stupid do you have to be to piss off the largest industrialized country on the planet? You're on the verge of winning or at least getting a favorable peace. Russia is knocked out, French troops are refusing to fight. Just hold on a little longer. But no, you send a telegram to Mexico of all places, which is in the middle of a civil war, and promise them four US states. It just boggles the mind.
Worse, he admitted sending it. I mean, they already knew that, but still...
I feel like I need elaboration on this one. What did Churchill do that makes him a uniquely potential britscrew, rather than just a politician with ups and downs?
The 2000 US Presidential Election is, if not ASB, the kind of thing that would produce howls of implausibility in any TL. Think about it: George W. Bush not only lost the popular vote, not only had the cartoonishly evil Dick Cheney as his henchman/VP, but to engineer the staggering *1* electoral vote margin of victory, Bush had to do the following:
1) Win reliably Democratic West Virginia, a state that voted for Michael Dukakis (!) in 1988, and for Bill Clinton by a 15-point margin the prior election (1996);
2) Erase a 17-point deficit in Bill Clinton's home state of Arkansas and a 12-point deficit in neighboring Louisiana;
3) Win Al Gore's home state of Tennessee, something that last happened during George McGovern's landslide wipeout in '72, and before that, Adlai Stevenson in '52 and '56 - even Walter Mondale won his home state in 1984 (!);
4) Win New Hampshire by 7,000 votes, despite Clinton having carried it by 10 points in ''96; and, of course
5) Convince the US Supreme Court to intervene to stop a state recount in Florida ordered by that state's Supreme Court, something that no federal court has ever done before or since.
What makes it borderline ASB is that George W. Bush had to pull off each and every one of these improbable events to win; had he lost any, the Florida recount wouldn't have mattered. Now, you can make an argument for any one or two of these, sure. Gore ran a more liberal campaign in 2000 than Clinton in '96, so maybe that cost him Arkansas and Louisiana - but shouldn't that have helped him in New Hampshire?
I think there used to be a President Gore TL, but that's always struck me as such an overwhelmingly likely outcome.
1) Win reliably Democratic West Virginia, a state that voted for Michael Dukakis (!) in 1988, and for Bill Clinton by a 15-point margin the prior election (1996);
2) Erase a 17-point deficit in Bill Clinton's home state of Arkansas and a 12-point deficit in neighboring Louisiana;
3) Win Al Gore's home state of Tennessee, something that last happened during George McGovern's landslide wipeout in '72, and before that, Adlai Stevenson in '52 and '56 - even Walter Mondale won his home state in 1984 (!);
4) Win New Hampshire by 7,000 votes, despite Clinton having carried it by 10 points in ''96; and, of course
5) Convince the US Supreme Court to intervene to stop a state recount in Florida ordered by that state's Supreme Court, something that no federal court has ever done before or since.
What makes it borderline ASB is that George W. Bush had to pull off each and every one of these improbable events to win; had he lost any, the Florida recount wouldn't have mattered. Now, you can make an argument for any one or two of these, sure. Gore ran a more liberal campaign in 2000 than Clinton in '96, so maybe that cost him Arkansas and Louisiana - but shouldn't that have helped him in New Hampshire?
I think there used to be a President Gore TL, but that's always struck me as such an overwhelmingly likely outcome.
Yes who would believe a nation with about 15 minutes of sub-orbital space flight to their name and against a seemingly far advanced opposing space program would not only have the guts to announce they were going to land on the Moon in less than a decades but actually then do it! ASB for sure
And then the aforementioned nations just STOPS going to the Moon and the opposing nation never even tries. Nobody would believe it, but in context far to many STILL don't believe it in a timeline where it all happened
In either case you can of course find and understand the reasons behind it all OTL but people would say you're reaching if they just read it on a forum
Randy