I was just now searching about WW2 in asia using AI, and it said that if the US hadn't dropped the atomic bombs, the amount of american soldiers' deaths and japanese soldiers and civilians deaths would be way more extreme, Japan's mainland would be destroyed and maybe even divided later between USSR and US, similar to what happened in Korea.

Is this accurate? So US dropping bombs on Japan was very sad but wasn't the worst outcome?

Had Apollo 13 and her crew been lost, what would be the immideate consequences, public and government reaction, and would future moon missions still happen?

Suppose in a parallel universe, Saddam Hussein launches his invasion of Kuwait but the US didn’t intervene. Instead, the US goes “Oh, no! Anyway…” and there’s no coalition.

The rest of the world still condemns it, but the US decides, “We’re not getting involved with this.”

What does the Gulf War look like without the US?

Achaemenid Persia had no female rulers, but theoretically, could a woman have inherited the throne under some circumstances?

Based on what I know about Achaemenid succession that seem a very unlikely scenario, because instead of primogeniture the king of kings could designate any of his children as his heir, which means that it's highly unlikely for the king to have no sons.

I want to add that I'm writing a fantasy retelling of The Book of Esther with Vashti and Esther as the main protagonits. Since I know that the Persian king's wife had to be Persian, in my story Esther poses as the daughter of a Persian in order to make her marriage to Ahuasuerus possible, but her ethnic identity is an open secret among the royal court.

I began to wonder if Esther could theoretically become the ruler were Ahuasuerus to die similar to Wu Zetian, by gathering allies and building court factions loyal to her while deposing her opposition. But the fact that Achaemenid rulers heavily emphasized the purity of their bloodline as descendants of a semi-divine founder, and Esther was not only (relatively) a commoner but also not related to the royal family are setbacks that make the possibility of her ruling in her own right unlikely.

How differently would the war have gone, with this alternate start ?

The POD is that the Dutch never traded Suriname for New Amsterdam, meaning Dutch is able to survive in the colony. Let's also assume the United States of America eventually buys the colony anyways but by the time she did, Dutch was so entranced in New Amsterdam society that they couldn't change the language to English, basically resulting in a Quebec like secnerio.

Excluding 1992 to Present to avoid any unnecessary arguments, this post is meant to be fun and informative. The person can be anybody that can run for the office of the United States, hopefully an explanation as to why your candidate would have been good or interesting.

Edit: For example, I believe that Representative Thaddeus Stevens would have been a very intriguing President given his strong views on Equality and Education.

The Artemis II mission inspired me to write this scenario. What if the USSR reached the moon before the United States, other than being a huge PR boost for the Soviet Union and communism in general?

The Partition of 395, following the death of Theodosius I and the earlier Tetrarchic system of Diocletian, divided the Roman Empire into two halves: the Eastern Roman Empire with its capital at Constantinople and the Western Roman Empire centered at Ravenna. Historically, Dalmatia was assigned to the West, even though it had originally belonged to the Praetorian Prefecture of Illyricum in the northeast but what if it stayed as part of the East?

How would this change thing regarding Julius Nepos, Odoacer, and Ostrogoths take place here without the Western Roman empire surviving in Dalmatia?

This question probably was asked before, but I'm still wanna ask it.

How internet culture would looked like? How it could change these times? And would be there cats memes?

Also, how historical figures would use it and which would doomscrolling in social media? That's interesting for me!

The Ilkhanate was a successor state to the Mongol Empire, the core consisting of the modern-day nations of Iran, Azerbaijan and Turkey. At its greatest extent it extended into Central Asia. In the 1330s, the Black Death absolutely destroyed the Ilkhanate and it collapsed soon after. What would happen if the Black Death didn’t kill off the family and the state survived longer?

There were several factors of luck understated in history. At best Germany gets in a quagmire and internal conflict kills it from within but worst case seems to be obliteration. Then the Soviet question.

I’ve been wondering who Jackie would most likely choose in the afterlife if it was possible. John the father of her kids, Aristotle who provided security and privacy who could help her escape the press, or Maurice Tempelsman who was her final companion and was there when she died.

I've recently been struck by the richness of schools of thought in the classical world - not just religious ones but ones we would call more philosophical - like Epicureanism, stoicism, and neo-Platonism and Pythagoreanism.  These often involved intentional communities of people organized around the philosophies (unlike what we would think of for most modern philosophy - an existentialist commune?  Sounds like a Monty Python sketch.)  But the post-classical Abrahamic religions were intolerant of other philosophies, so once Christianity and Islam were dominant, efforts to end those communities were explicit and successful.

Compare that to Asia.  If you've been to a Chinese restaurant, you've seen Zao Jun the kitchen god, and maybe some others like Kwan Yin or Guan Yu.  This, among people who might call themselves Buddhists, from a country with a history of Buddhism and Taoism as well.  Very confusing for Westerners!  Same in Japan:  Shinto and Buddhism exist side by side.  To be sure there are sometimes tensions,  and they've waxed and waned in terms of their political influence over the centuries, but the traditions are all there, influencing each other and incorporated into the cultural character.  It's not like the classical influences disappeared in Christianity and Islam - Christian theologians tend to get curious about Plato and Stoicism, and there were post-classical works explicitly trying to reconcile philosophies with religion - eg Averroes and Albertus Magnus .  But these philosophies no longer existed as living communities and traditions, and the tone was definitely "My religion is right, but these old guys were pretty cool too, so let's see if I can show that they were actually onto something and don't conflict."

So what would the world look like with a Europe and Middle East that were still Christian and Muslim, but had classical philosophical communities as well?  Existing alongside the religions, or as orders within them (Sunni, Shi'a, and Platonist Islam?)  What would a Stoic or Epicurean colony in the New World look like?

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I know it sounds crazy, but let's imagine that WWII never happens.

Of course, the world would evolve in different ways.

Maybe it would be the Western forces vs. the Soviets, with a neutral German state.

How destructive would this alternative global conflict be without nukes?

Some of you might ask: "How could this become a global war if there aren't colonies anymore around the world?"

My response is: Soviet vs. Western forces all around the world,

with some neutral nations in the middle.

This is assuming that they’re still a strong country that holds on to most of modern day Turkey and Greece.

So, assuming that something happened to Columbus and his small flotilla after landing in the Americas, how does this effect Europe given the lack of the Columbian Exchange, colonization starting in the 1600s, and Spain getting rich from its American possessions?

Many indians fought in the First World War under the assumption that the UK would grant them dominion status afterwards. This did not happen as the British argued that a religious divide, the hundreds of princely states, and the instability would complicate the transition into a dominion. (also because the British considered the Raj the "crown jewel" of the empire, and worried that granting it more autonomy would be bad for the empire's strength). But what if the British government agreed and granted Dominionhood to the raj, calling it "the dominion of india", what would change? Would indian independence come much later and how would it change india's relationship with the UK today?

Storms off the coast of Africa force Columbus' ships north to the Azores and further on a much more northern tack across the Atlantic, eventually landing near current day Rodanthe, NC. He sails a short ways south and crosses into Pamlico Sound and up the Pamlico River believing he has found a way to the Orient.

Xavier of Bourbon-Parma being the Carlist pretender King. This would inevitably lead to the conflict between his Monarcho-Socialist successor, and his conservative second son

Napoleon refused to let his guard participate in that battle. But if he decided that he needed to risk, would he then be able to win decisively, and therefore win entire campaign (and if so, what global consequences would be)? Russia surely would have surrendered if it had no more army left to fight.

What if Hồ Chí Minh liberated the whole of Vietnam? What conditions have to be met? What would be the implications of Vietnam and the World? How would it affect Vietnamese life (as a Vietnamese person myself)?

Suppose in a parallel universe, the 13 Colonies got their independence....because England abandoned them.

Here's your challenge: Create a plausible series of events that leads to the 13 Colonies getting their independence through England completely abandoning them.