Recent content by Viriato

In 1956 a plant to grant independence to the Congo was published by Jef van Bilsen's , it was called Plan de trente ans pour l'émancipation de l'Afrique belge (Thirty Year Plan for the Emancipation of Belgian Congo) with emphasis on preparing the Congo economically and politically for...

In Africa France and Belgium and to a lesser extent the United States thought it would be easier prop up often corrupt pro-western regimes rather than actually govern these countries, they also funded coups and civil wars against pro-Soviet regimes. The British seemed to largely "wash their...

It really depends on several factors. Firstly how "strong" the colonial power is economically and militarily and how repressive they are willing to be in repressing revolts. On the even of the first World War, most of the colonial powers were increasingly democratising and public opinion might...

The number of Catholic eligible princes was quite small indeed, the children of Augustus III of Poland (Frederick Augustus II of Saxony) come to mind as Frederick Christian (born 1722), Franz Xavier (born 1730), Charles (born in 1733) and Albert Kasimir (born in 1738) might have been candidates...

Very much this as their support was not universal, and some of it waned as increased taxation to pay for the war against Spain and some grumbled with discontent as the war lasted nearly three decades. Though the gold from Brazil did provide a much needed windfall and the War of Spanish...

Argentina, or rather what became Argentina was a very peripheral territory of seemingly little value. Northeastern Brazil, most notably Pernambuco and to a lesser extent Bahia were the world's leading sugar-producing regions and the Netherlands was Europe's primary sugar-refining and...

It's hard to say, but it might depend on external pressure. The big key would have been to be more flexible than the old guard of the regime (Salazar and later Américo Tomás). During the last years of the dictatorship there were two different factions in the government. The first was the older...

Very much this, despite the size of British North America it had several geographic disadvantages. Firstly, there were only two ice-free deep water ports, namely Saint John and Halifax, possession of territory in Maine would have been an advantage to Canada, particularly the harbour of Portland...

The French Canadians did face quite a bit of discrimination in New England and there were even theories that they were flooding Maine to take over the region. The article below mentions some of the examples of the discrimination they faced, yet they kept coming to the U.S...

Between the 1850s and 1920s Canada also lost a huge amount of migrants to the United States, not only Canadian-born individuals, but also immigrants from other countries, perhaps if there was a way to retain more of these individuals. Many European immigrants often used Canada as an entry point...

An Iberian Union would have been easy to avoid, but at the time the rulers of Portugal actively sought a union of the crowns for their heirs, and they consistently wed themselves and their heirs to the dynasty of neighbouring Castile. The result was an increasingly inbred family where few...

My guess is that once land is reached, there will be further exploration of the Antilles. Sailings from Lisbon towards the Canaries and Antilles would have become more commonplace due to the ocean currents, with contact with the Greater Antilles, namely Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Cuba...

A simple one would be to start with textiles, at the time Pernambuco was the principal cotton producing state, and Recife was the principal cotton-exporting port. Perhaps attention is given towards alleviating poverty in the northeast of the country, whereby a protectionist policy against...

Use the money that the wasted on dreadnoughts (close to $9 million) on a national campaign for literacy. At that time just over one-fourth of the population over 5 years of age could read or write. Only in 1960 were over 50% of Brazilians considered literate. Perhaps build a few universities...

North America is much further away from Macau, particularly during the age of sail, meaning that voyages there would be more dangerous, and far costlier than those to Hokkaido, the Kuril Islands and even the Kamchatka Peninsula. The early otter pelt trade would be centered around Hokkaido and...