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  1. Why Did the United States Pay for Lands Annexed by Force?

    Why did the United States pay for land it annexed from Mexico and Spain when it acquired those as a result of wars it decisively won? Most other wars of the era ended with the loser having to pay a war indemnity, so it doesn't really make sense for the United States to have paid for lands in was...

  2. Alternate Government Involvement in United States Rail?

    Waterways are government owned, as are most roads, highways, and air and sea ports. Water and electric utility systems are a mixture of public and private ownership. Railroads seem to be the only major form of transportation or really national infrastructure in general that doesn't have some...

  3. Which Was More Winnable: Vietnam or Afghanistan?

    Which was more winnable, the United States intervention in Vietnam or the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan?

  4. President Henry Ford?

    Henry Ford ran for Senate as a Democrat in 1918, finishing behind Republican candidate Truman Newberry. Shortly after the election Newberry was tried under the Federal Corrupt Practices Act for election irregularities, and although the conviction was overturned by the United States Supreme Court...

  5. Fuel Injected World War II Tank Engines?

    The HL234 was a proposed fuel injected variant of the Maybach HL230 which would have increased power output from 690 horsepower to 800 or 900 horsepower. The Maybach HL230 saw service in the Panther, Tiger I, and Tiger II (among other vehicles), so the HL234 would have been used on those...

  6. Plausibility of a Nuclear Bruce Ivins?

    There's a long history of irregularities surrounding nuclear material in the United States: the 1965 Apollo Affair involving missing highly enriched uranium, the unknown whereabouts of several nuclear fuel rods from the Humboldt Bay nuclear reactor in California, plutonium and other nuclear...

  7. WI: Goldfinger Type Plot Executed

    What if a Goldfinger type plot were executed during the period in which countries still had specie backed currency, with anthrax or nuclear material being used to contaminate a gold repository?

  8. WI: President Kennedy Shot on Live Television

    President Kennedy's arrival at Dallas Love Field was broadcast live, and it's possible that the speech he was going to give at the Dallas Trade Market would have been broadcast live as well. What if he had been shot during one of those live broadcast periods?

  9. European Uranium Mining?

    European countries with a history of Soviet occupation have a disproportionately high contribution to historical world production relative to the stated size of their current reserves, especially Germany. Did they have any economically feasible reserves during their period of occupation, or did...

  10. Uranium and Cold War Policy towards Africa?

    In the 1940s and 1950s Shinkolobwe Uranium Mine contained almost half of the world's known uranium resources and at a very high grade. Shinkolobwe is located in the Katanga Province of the Congo, and its attempt to secede from the Congo following its independence from Belgium triggered the...

  11. Reactor Containment Buildings as Bomb/Fallout Shelters?

    Reactor containment buildings are designed to contain internal pressures of 40 to 80 psi (275 to 550 kPa) and have been proven capable of shrugging off hits from F-4s traveling at hundreds of miles per hour. How well would the containment building fare as a bomb or fallout shelter? Some of the...

  12. NASA Alternatives?

    NASA's official history states that some proposed using an existing government agency as the basis for the space program. In addition to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), which was already spending 50% of its budget on space activities, there were also proposals for basing...

  13. Indirect Fire Machine Guns?

    Early machine guns had sights and even special ammunition produced for them to enable their use as indirect fire weapons prior to mortars and field cannons becoming common. Does anyone know how they performed in combat? Could they be viable alternatives to designated marksman rifles for infantry...

  14. Why Are Pistols Larger Caliber Than Rifles?

    Pistols tend to use larger caliber and heavier bullets than their rifle contemporaries. For example, .45 ACP bullets are much heavier than .30-06 Springfield bullets, and 9 mm Parabellum bullets are much heavier than 5.56 mm NATO bullets. The 5.7 mm pistol cartridge is somewhat unique in using a...

  15. French Falklands Style Intervention?

    What would a French Falklands style intervention have looked like? For the purposes of this we'll assume it's either a conflict in the Caribbean (likely with Cuba) or a conflict over French Guiana, although a conflict with a stronger Madagascar over nearby islands would likely be closer to the...

  16. Swords Retained as Military and/or Police Weapons?

    It seems a sword could be useful for guarding a ship or submarine against internal threats due to the reduced risk of damaging vital equipment or the hull. Swords could also be useful for defending against people armed with knives and other melee weapons, both as a tool of intimidation and as a...

  17. AHC/WI: Mexican Intervention in the American Civil War

    Mexico was embroiled in its own civil conflicts at the time of the American Civil War (the Reform War and French Intervention). Could pressing irridentist claims against the United States and/or Confederacy have helped to unify Mexico and perhaps even roll back some of its territorial losses?

  18. Radioactive Venting at Fukushima?

    Could the hydrogen and other radioactive gasses at Fukushima have been vented prior to the hydrogen air explosions that cause damaged to the reactor buildings and containment systems? This is how Three Mile Island was saved, but because Three Mile Island still had station power it was able to...

  19. Luger Rifles and Pistols for the United States?

    Luger weapons came close to being adopted by the United States military on at least two separate occasions. The Army pistol trials of the .45 ACP Luger are well known, but Luger also submitted a rifle (Model 1893/1894) to the 1894 Navy rifle trials that was so well received it seems to have been...

  20. Militarization of Lake Michigan?

    Apparently Lake Michigan is located entirely within United States territory. Is it still considered part of the Great Lakes for the purposes of the 1818 Rush–Bagot Naval Disarmament Treaty?
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