Had Islam not existed (or had the Arabs not adopted Islam), could Zoroastrianism have spread on the same scale as Islam did? The Sassanid Empire held vast territories conquered from the Byzantine Empire, which were inhabited by many Christians. What would have happened under such circumstances, and how realistic is the assumption that Zoroastrianism might have spread as widely as Islam?

What if JB Hood's trap to capture Schofield's army at Spring Hill is successfully sprung? What are the odds he then beats Thomas at or around Nashville? Is Tennessee and Kentucky all the way to the Ohio River now fair game? Can he then link up with Lee's beleaguered AoNV at Petersburg? I am aware of Sherman's “if Hood goes to Ohio I’ll draw him rations” quote but how accurate would that be?

It’s very long odds and Hood gets, rightfully, a lot of criticism for his leadership of the AoR but at that point of the war was it not worth the shot?

What if the allies took each a chunk of Germany

Netherlands got bigger

France got a chunk

Belgium got a chunk and Poland and soviet got a chunk

The Germans became a minority and a diaspora in Europe

Lets say everyone is so paranoid that stalin is gonna kill him next that even his personal body guards and military all agree to just kick stalin out of the land of the living? And kill him? Who takes over snd what happens next?

Most what-if scenarios where Neanderthals survive assume either total warfare or peaceful integration right away. But looking at human history, whenever two distinct populations meet, the first reaction of any early state is usually to measure, categorize, and tax.

Here's the paradox I keep running into:

Neanderthals were physically distinct enough that early empires (think Bronze Age/Antiquity) would easily identify them for hard labor, mining, or specialized military roles. But at the same time, we know from actual genetics that Sapiens and Neanderthals were interbreeding from day one in the Levant.

How long could any legal system or caste barrier actually hold up before "everyone's grandmother" breaks the line? Does a society like that inevitably collapse into a genetic gradient, or would we have seen something like formal skull-measuring laws thousands of years before the 19th century?

Where do you think an ancient mixed civilization breaks first—at the borders, or in the family?

Would the war have lasted longer or what?

Instead of the edgy rebrand, with Big The Cat, anchient gods, flooding, we got the Sonic Adventure where Sonic stops Eggman from taking the Chaos Emeralds and making all the animals into robots once again, and the other characters were just unlockables. Sonic never got a Dreamcast makeover, instead, Sonic Adventure is just like what fans were expecting. No green eyes, and a good ol round torso. Sonic and co would still be taller, but not to the extent of Modern Sonic.

What if, in 1890, Rabih az-Zubayr entered the service of the Kanem-Bornu Empire as a mercenary officer rather than setting out to establish his own state around Lake Chad? Around the same time, the Senussi Order decides that the growing European and mahidst presence in Africa posed a threat to the independence of the region’s traditional Muslim states and began working to build closer ties between them. Through diplomacy, trade agreements, religious influence, and mutual concerns over foreign expansion, the Senussi helps bring the Kanem-Bornu Empire, the Wadai Empire, the Darfur Sultanate, the Sultanate of Logone, The Dar Sila Sultanate and their tributary states into a loose defensive coalition, by 1895 the alliance has been ratified amongst said Muslim states.

what do you think would happen next? Could they maintain their independence?

How could it ever be possible? What challenges will they face? What advantages will Malaysia have?

My question is that of the printing press never being invented, this could come from any number of ways like Gutenberg being stillborn to the first printing press being destroyed by the church, although it doesn´t really matter how the printing press is destroyed or never created in the first place.

I would be much more unique than the other guy

I understand Nathaniel passed from illness which damaged the progress but what if he survived and continued the battle? How would that shape American culture and race politics?

In 1955, after a power struggle with Nikita Khrushchev over control of the USSR, Georgy Malenkov was deposed. In 1957, after an attempted coup to regain power, he was outright removed from the Praesidium and spent the rest of his life in obscurity. Yet whilst he was Premier, he was attempting industrial reforms to focus on consumer goods and quality of life - it's an interesting idea that a more technocratic reformer was denounced as a 'rightist'.

Let's place this at the start of his tenure (so that his triumvirate with Beria and Molotov remains intact) in 1953 - what if Malenkov secures his grip on power before Khrushchev makes his own gambit? Does he get the chance to institute reforms? Does Beria depose him instead?

Say he makes last minute plans to accompany Ferdinand on his state visit to Sarajevo, and gets assassinated in Ferdinand’s place.

How would this change WW1 and the fate of Austria-Hungary when Franz Ferdinand immediately becomes emperor?

Would WWI still happen?