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  1. River transport on a medieval Mississippi?

    Assuming a civilization or series of civilizations along the Mississippi river with a late medieval/ early modern level of technology, what would the regular traffic along the river look like? I know early American settlers would raft down river, sell the raft for lumber, and then walk home but...

  2. DBWI: Elvis never gives "Christmas in Dixie" speech

    Shortly after his meeting with President Nixon in December 1970, Elvis Presley gave what the papers would famously call his "Christmas in Dixie" speech. That, combined with his acceptance of the TOYA award just a few weeks later propelled him from show business into the political sphere. So...

  3. Names for an independent New England

    The scenario of the New England states breaking away from the USA in the early 19th century has been brought up many times and timelines usually give it a name like Republic of New England or something similar. It's always struck me though that so soon after the Revolution it seems very unlikely...

  4. Augustus moves the capital

    Listening to BBC's In Our Time program the other day they mentioned that Constantine's relocating the capital of the Empire from Rome itself to somewhere in the East was probably a change that was overdue by two centuries due to demographics, politics, and economics. They also mentioned that...

  5. Containerization delayed; effects on China?

    I'm curious what the impact would be if mass containerization was delayed from the 1960's by a decade or two due to a combination of regulation and open resistance by longshoremen. Presumably the costs of international trade would remain comparatively high, especially for consumer goods but how...

  6. Much harder US driving tests?

    I've got a pretty simple prompt that I thought was interesting. Assuming that for some reason a majority of US states adopt much harder driver licencing tests in the late 1940's and multiple failed attempts means no license for you, what happens to the automotive industry and car culture in the...

  7. DBWI: Make chiropractic widely accepted

    Chiropractic healing was a pseudoscience along the lines of phrenology or electric medicine that was briefly popular in the late 19th and early 20th century. It was founded in Iowa in 1895 on the belief that misalignment of the spine and joints was the cause and cure for all diseases and had a...

  8. After Amer Revolution Britain integrates colonies?

    What is is plausibility of Britain taking away from the American Revolution the lesson that they need to more closely integrate their colonies into government and possibly provide seats or observers in Parliament? More specifically I'm thinking of the Atlantic colonies and Canada.

  9. China with no WWI?

    What happens to China through the 1920's and 30's in a world where Europe never quite pulls the trigger on WWI? More of the same? Eventual partition between the great powers?

  10. Pre-WWI war to define tactics?

    A big part of the high casualties in the early part of first world war was the lack of experience with modern artillery and machine guns. A limited war between modern powers some time between 1900 and 1914 would make clear a lot of the faults with existing military doctrine without turning all...

  11. DBWI: A united Mexico?

    Mexico is one of the great what ifs of the post-colonial Americas. Assuming Mexico had been able to get a hand on the political instability of the brief republic period and hadn't splintered into individual states throughout the 1830's how does the nation progress? Presumably they'd be a major...

  12. Keep France and Britain out of the Crimean War?

    Just like it says, is there any possible way to keep Russia's invasion of the Danubian Principalities from turning into a major war by bringing in France and Britain on the Ottoman's side? If not, is there some other casus belli besides the religious one that can keep a war limited to just...

  13. McDonald's had repeated health issues in the 1980s?

    Chipotle is back in the news again for yet another health scare. But what if this had happened to McDonald's instead? What does the landscape of fast food look like in America if McDonald's had multiple widely publicized health issues 2-3 years apart in the mid-1980s? Would it only be a blip on...

  14. DBWI: No southern textile industry

    Starting in the 1840's with the introduction of steam powered factories, textiles became the major export for the southern US states. But what if the textile industry didn't exist or was much delayed? Is that even possible and how long could slavery have lasted if the South had remained almost...

  15. Mississippi watercraft in a medieval N.A.

    Assuming that North American civilization reaches a late medieval level of technology, what does river traffic on the Mississippi look like? Egyptian lanteens? Huge human powered paddle wheels like in China? Just lots and lots of canoes? Is the river even slow enough to move upstream with sail...

  16. Plausibility: Another Bering Migration?

    What is the plausibility of an additional Bering migration from Asia to the Americas somewhere between 3000 BC and 1500 BC? Not huge numbers of people but perhaps a few hundred to a few thousand. Clearly this would have to take place largely by boat as sea levels would not be substantially...

  17. Ottomans vs Christendom

    I have a question about the relative power of the Ottomans vs the combined might of their usual Christian opponents in the 16th and 17th centuries. So whenever the Christian Europeans managed to rally behind a single cause they seemed to beat the Ottomans fairly handily. For example the Battle...

  18. 1930s Italy with a weak Germany

    What happens to fascist Italy if the Nazi rise fizzles and throughout the 1930's Germany continues to lurch from one crises to another without ever really getting its footing? How far can Mussolini take Italy without WWII to deal with? Would he rule indefinitely like Franco or would his...

  19. North American camels survive but no horses

    There's been lots of threads and timelines about the prehistoric survival of horses in North America but what if a different mammal survived? The camelops, North America's version of the camel, was slightly larger and heavier than today's Bactrian camels and lived much as you'd expect a camel...

  20. No steam, how extensive is US canal network?

    Just like it says, if steam engines don't become commercially effective until a few decades later, how extensive does the US canal transport network become? Where can, and more importantly, can't it reach?
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