Points of divergence concerning various cultural and habitual developments of human civilisation and human cultures. Organised by topic into sections, with each section having its POD entries sorted as chronologically as possible.
What's your favorite prehistoric POD ?
Why can't we speed up the Mesolithic ?
Why no earlier civilizations ?
Questions regarding "Bronze Age Collapse"
Recreation of the Bronze Age systems post-collapse
Peripheral civilisations during the eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age
No Classic Mesoamerican Collapse
Ideas about more developed medieval era Amerindian civilizations
Why didn't urban Native American cultures move particularly far north ?
Challenge: European Society collapses before 1492 AD
Challenge: Proto-Swahili City States in the Indosphere
Challenge: Weirdest 19th century
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
Plausibility check: Europe with a population of 1,5 billion people (POD in 100 AD)
Population carrying capacity of the Malay Archipelago
American cities that could have been more prominent
Global population without decolonisation ?
WI: The world with half the population ?
WI: The world in 2013 with half the OTL population
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
Challenge: Ideologies based on psychology instead of economics
Challenge: Earliest possible feminist movement
Medieval Muslim minorities in Christian Europe
Plausibility check: Queen Elizabeth I a feminist
Challenge: Socially liberal authoritarianism
How inevitable is nationalism ?
Challenge: Native Americans "pull an Iwakura"
Challenge: Minorities in New World countries are politically conservative
How would American culture be different with the draft ?
Challenge: No Great Depression
Plausibility check: Large-scale American anti-war movement in WWII ?
Challenge: Conservative Counterculture
An ATL 1960s counterculture in an USA which lost WWII
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
WI: Discrimination based on eye colour
Challenge: Classical world abolitionism
Challenge: Stoicism bringing the downfall of slavery in Rome
Plausibility check: How long could feudalism have survived?
Challenge: Avoid Black slavery
WI widespread animal slavery ? (the wherefores of domestication)
Different crops and the viability of slavery
Can slavery be ended peacefully with a POD around 1800 or afterward ?
Plausibility check: Napoleon outlaws slavery
Plausibility check: American Racial Equality before 1900 ?
How long can a segregated society last ?
WI modern society stayed more misogynistic for a longer time ?
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
Plausibility check: Female legionaires
Sociopolitical and Cultural progress if Roman Empire survives
Piracy as a British stereotype
Plausibility check: Challenge: Female Soldiers in the 1700s
WI: No rise of secularism in the 18th and 19th century West ?
Challenge: Dueling survives to present day
WI modern society stayed more misogynistic for a longer time ?
Challenge: Spread female AND male military conscription
Plausibility check: More women recruited for combat in WWII
Plausibility check: Earliest possible acceptance of female fighter pilots post-1900 ?
Did the past smell like cigarettes ?
Challenge: Conservative Counterculture
Earth seen regularly from orbit by thousands of tourists - any psychological/social effects ?
Cultural effects of a nuclear war
Most and least multicultural Europes by 2012
Will women ever play professional sports alongside men ?
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
Challenge: Arabian science continues
Challenge: Western-style 'Englightenment' era in the Middle East
Books and TV shows effect on history
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
Culinary and agricultural PODs
Boiling water before drinking it common in medieval Europe
Cuisine and foods of a Japanese/Korean/Chinese colonized west coast of North America ?
Challenge: German cuisine as popular and well-regarded as French cuisine
Challenge: Tea-drinking and coffee-drinking countries reversed
Non-American multinational fast-food and similar chains
Challenge: An Asian-themed fast food chain is as big as McDonald's or Burger King
Europeanised Asian Cuisine - what makes it Europeanised ?
Alternate history clothing, dining habits, etc.
Points of Divergence: Agriculture
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
Are there any standards for fashion and military uniforms in ATLs ?
No early modern era "wig phase" in fashion
Challenge : Blue is seen as the colour of girls, pink as colour of boys
Zipper not invented or invented at a different time
Suppose pantyhose had never been invented/developed
Alternate history clothing, dining habits, etc.
Points of Divergence: Agriculture
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
Points of Divergence : Arts, Architecture and Monuments
Points of Divergence : Musical Instruments and Recording Technology
Points of Divergence : Popular Culture
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
Why do many modern Christmas decorations have an early 1800s aesthetic ?
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
Challenge: Dueling survives to present day
WI: Richard the Lionheart popularizes bullfights in England
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
DBWI: Anti-Magical racism is on the rise
DBWI: Industrial Revolution in Europe
ASBs reverse standards of living in countries
WI ASBs made every country "first world" ?
Know of any PODs or POD discussions ? Feel free to add them.
Points of Divergence : Language and linguistics
Points of Divergence : Famous People
Points of Divergence : Political Movements
Points of Divergence : Religions
Useful Resources on Everyday Aspects of Life in Various Eras