If you could change One event post 1900..?

Crazy Boris

Crazy Boris

Banned
Seandineen said:
Allow the Princely states, the right to not accede to Pakistan or India. Balkinization has a soothing event in the long term.
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They did have the option to, it’s just that India and Pakistan wouldn’t let them have it.

Most states didn’t accede right away and delayed it for weeks, months, even more than a year in some cases. They were pressured into agreeing to accession and tried to hold annexation off for as long as it was viable, if Patel hadn’t been hellbent on eradicating the princely states most probably would have declined or only agreed if they could stay intact and keep the autonomy they had under the Raj. A few like Hyderabad and Kashmir tried to hold onto independence indefinitely, but were met with military force.
 
THE KINGFISH

THE KINGFISH

Here are some PODs I can think off:
  • The Germans manage to capture Paris in 1914, ending World War I shortly after and preventing it from degenerating into trench warfare. While Germany keeps its colonies and something like the September Program would be implemented in the Eastern Front, France would be too weak to have anything like a Mussolini or Hitler to rise up and start another war. Russia would also have a different revolution that would produce a better government.
  • Prohibition in the United States never takes off or is limited to only certain types of alcohol. This (mostly) blunts the horrible American tradition of banning stuff based on morality. This in turn makes policy like the War on Drugs less likely.
  • Joseph Stalin never rises to power, instead someone like Nikolai Bukharin takes his place after Lenin dies.
  • Again, nuclear power is embraced by environmentalists rather than shunned like OTL.
  • A Jewish state is founded anywhere other than the Middle East. Perhaps the Kimberly Plan (settlement of Jews in Western Australia) or some other alternate settlement plan goes through.
  • There is no 1953 coup in Iran. ‘Nuff said.
  • No Comics Code Authority.
  • The Vietnam War never happens, and that results in a more sustainable hippie movement that never sees a conservative backlash in the 1970s and 1980s.
  • The Space Shuttle is never developed and NASA continues using non-reusable launch systems. While this does create more space junk, it keeps launch costs down and continues the fast pace of space travel.
  • Either Ford or Reagan wins in 1976 instead of Jimmy Carter. Neoliberalism and the evangelical right are both set back massively and the 1980s is a liberal decade.
  • When streaming services rise up in the 2010s, they aren’t owned by media conglomerates and are instead independent. This results in a better transition from cinema/television/home media to streaming than OTL, since the services are competing more on price and actual quality rather than what movie studio they are owned by.
 

The Oncoming Storm

Maybe also have Britain stick with the original target of independence on June 30th 1948, AIUI everyone in India was content with this date and there was little pressure to advance it. In the best case scenarios either Nehru and Jinnah agree on a new government or at least for a more amicable and orderly separation.
 
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Discernible

The 1903 assassination of Alexander I of Serbia and overthrow of the pro-Habsburg Obrenović dynasty.

Not that I carry any candle for the dynasty or A-H but it could have avoided the rise of the Black Hand, the Sarajevo assassination, WW1, the Bolshevik takeover of Russia etc and the Nazis.

What happens in its place? Well that could be huge butterflies or maybe just small ones but an assassination attempt may result in Alexander purging the army and state of Greater Serbianists/Pan-Slavists.
 
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TuberAlloy

TickTock The Witch's Dead said:
The partition happened because a lot more than him. The Indian National Congress’s failure to properly address Muslim demands was one of them.
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The Muslim League was a one man show and had no leader who came close to Jinnah in stature, while there were plenty of popular Muslim faces who stood against Pakistan. Without Jinnah the whole movement crumbles apart, as the 1946 elections would be a repeat of 1937 with the ML unable to win a majority of Muslim votes. As late as 1946 Pakistan was a pipe dream no different than, say, New Afrika (a black ethnostate in the Southern US - popular among some black nationalists).
 
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Lalli

Discernible said:
The 1903 assassination of Alexander I of Serbia and overthrow of the pro-Habsburg Obrenović dynasty.

Not that I carry any candle for the dynasty or A-H but it could have avoided the rise of the Black Hand, the Sarajevo assassination, WW1, the Bolshevik takeover of Russia etc and the Nazis.

What happens in its place? Well that could be huge butterflies or maybe just small ones but an assassination attempt may result in Alexander purging the army and state of Greater Serbianists/Pan-Slavists.
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Wasn't Obrenovic Dynasty pretty hated in Serbia? And even if Alexander I manage to crush coup attempt there would be new ones until some of them succeeds or then he is assassinated. And Obrenovic family wasn't particularly big so it would go easilty to extinct.

Perhaps better way would be that Princip is more intrested about sandwiches or then FF's car driver gets word about changing of the route in time.
 

Discernible

Lalli said:
Wasn't Obrenovic Dynasty pretty hated in Serbia? And even if Alexander I manage to crush coup attempt there would be new ones until some of them succeeds or then he is assassinated. And Obrenovic family wasn't particularly big so it would go easilty to extinct.
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It is said that was the case but just how was public opinion measured in those days before polling.

The mob ('Serbian street') can just be empty drums as most Serbs would carry on with trying to make the best oc their humdrum lives.

So maybe a purge could have exposed that.

(Even in the 1990s Yugoslav wars draft dodging was endemic as many young males weren't enthused by the thought of dying in Vukovar.)
 

TickTock The Witch's Dead

TuberAlloy said:
The Muslim League was a one man show and had no leader who came close to Jinnah in stature, while there were plenty of popular Muslim faces who stood against Pakistan. Without Jinnah the whole movement crumbles apart, as the 1946 elections would be a repeat of 1937 with the ML unable to win a majority of Muslim votes. As late as 1946 Pakistan was a pipe dream no different than, say, New Afrika (a black ethnostate in the Southern US - popular among some black nationalists).
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There were also issues like wanting Muslim representation and worries of Hindu supremacy. If not Jinnah it would've been someone else taking the lead.
 

TuberAlloy

TickTock The Witch's Dead said:
There were also issues like wanting Muslim representation and worries of Hindu supremacy. If not Jinnah it would've been someone else taking the lead.
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There's no smoke without a fire and of course Pakistan wouldn't have been formed without a genuine cause, but there are plenty of genuine causes that have gone nowhere (New Afrika for instance). I think you are underestimating how vital Jinnah was to the movement and how fringe it was before him, in 1937 the Muslim League couldn't even win a plurality of Muslim votes or a single Muslim majority state and within a decade through his masterful oratory, inciting religious riots and assassinating moderate Muslim leaders, Jinnah managed to unite the Muslims of the subcontinent behind his cause of Pakistan. This gargantuan task would simply not be possible without Jinnah.
 

xie323

Successful 1919 Revolutions
Avoid or mitigate the rise of the ideas like Sakaiism on the Western left.
 
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Ogrebear

Ogrebear

Get Douglas Adams to a doctor sooner so his heart problems are diagnosed and he gets treatment allowing him to keep writing for much, much longer.

Give Freddie Mercury a good talking to about his lifestyle and how it will kill him well before his time from a preventable disease.

Have all of Monia Loinsky’s clothes dry cleaned after every shift at the White House.

Have the police collar Chapman for gun possession that day before he met the Lennon’s.
 

Danilov II

Hank Williams survives the night of 1/1/53 and gets better medical treatment to live a longer heathier life. Hank was only 29 when he died, and it would be interesting to see what influence he might have had on Elvis, Johnny Cash, etc. who came along in the few years following Hank's OTL death (Elvis recorded 'That's Alright / Blue Moon of Kentucky' less than 18 months after Hank died).
 

Alien and Sedition Bat

Patsy Cline gets ill after a performance and has to go into hospital. She thus misses the fatal crash in 1963. She goes on to play a major role in fusing music styles for decades ahead and has her own weekly TV show that reaches tens of millions.
 

CaptainCalvert

Nick Clegg decides to work with Labour in exchange for a serious attempt at electoral reform and reform of the Lords. The economy is still a mess, but the OTL austerity measures would be softened (though probably not entirely avoided).
The effects of electoral and lords reform would create a big change in British politics. There would also be profound changes to things that are still a big deal, so I'll treat them as current politics, but the reforms I mentioned are big enough.
 
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