Critical Historical Events.

D

Dinosaur

Rational Skeptic
Valued Senior Member
While in college, my primary interests were mathematics, physics, & sports. Fortunately, the college I attended required me to take one or two courses each year in non-technical subjects.

While I did not like taking non-technical courses at the time, I have since appreciated the requirements. In particular, history has become extremely interesting to me.

What I (& others) consider critical events are especially interesting to me, since a different outcome from any of them might have had long term effects. Many are familiar with some of the following.

In 732, the Arabs were in control of North Africa & Spain. Their army marched into France & were defeated by Charles Martel south of Tours. Charles did not accept the surrender of defeated foes, which was the reason he was given the name Martel, which means hammer. He chased the Arab army as they retreated back to Spain, killing as many as possible. The demoralized Arabs never again attempted to extend their control beyond Spain. If Martel had lost, the Arabs might have gained control of most of Europe.

The 300 Spartans at Thermopylae held back a huge Persian army while the Greeks mobilized a national army. At that time, the Greeks were organized as City States & did not have a unified army. Some historians think that holding up the Persian forces might not have been that important. It has been suggested that the Persians were demoralized due to knowing that they would later face an army which would include 2000 or more Spartans.

The Defeat of the Spanish Armada.​

Does anyone Posting here have some other events to add to the above?
 
Dinosaur said:
While in college, my primary interests were mathematics, physics, & sports. Fortunately, the college I attended required me to take one or two courses each year in non-technical subjects.

While I did not like taking non-technical courses at the time, I have since appreciated the requirements. In particular, history has become extremely interesting to me.

What I (& others) consider critical events are especially interesting to me, since a different outcome from any of them might have had long term effects. Many are familiar with some of the following.

In 732, the Arabs were in control of North Africa & Spain. Their army marched into France & were defeated by Charles Martel south of Tours. Charles did not accept the surrender of defeated foes, which was the reason he was given the name Martel, which means hammer. He chased the Arab army as they retreated back to Spain, killing as many as possible. The demoralized Arabs never again attempted to extend their control beyond Spain. If Martel had lost, the Arabs might have gained control of most of Europe.

The 300 Spartans at Thermopylae held back a huge Persian army while the Greeks mobilized a national army. At that time, the Greeks were organized as City States & did not have a unified army. Some historians think that holding up the Persian forces might not have been that important. It has been suggested that the Persians were demoralized due to knowing that they would later face an army which would include 2000 or more Spartans.

The Defeat of the Spanish Armada.​

Does anyone Posting here have some other events to add to the above?
Click to expand...

No battle : Fernando Magallanes found the route across to India , even he was eaten by Lapu Lapu in Cebu Philippine
 
Dinosaur said:
Does anyone Posting here have some other events to add to the above?
Click to expand...
Japan attacking Pearl Harbor in 1941. If they had not done this, it's reasonably possible that the USA would never have entered World War II. We would have continued to provide material to support the Allies' war effort, but without the active participation of American troops and without the additional leadership talent of American generals, the Germans and Italians might have been victorious in Europe, and the Japanese in Asia. Germany and Japan would be the great economic powers that they are in our reality, but also great political powers rather than docile client states forever prohibited from building large military forces again.

Communism would not have spread so widely in Europe, and a defeated and exhausted USSR could not have become the world power that it was after the war. In Asia, Japan would have occupied China so communism would also have failed to take root there.

The Germans, Italians and Spaniards might have occupied all of Europe, even the U.K. Perhaps even Russia, although that would have required a lot of personnel and other resources, so after the war they might not have been able to mount the effort.

The European colonies in Africa would have been taken over by Germany and Italy. It's hard to envision how that might have affected the continent. But considering that the Germans were bloodthirsty racists they probably would have begun exterminating any of the native people who were brave enough to fight for independence.

The same would surely have occurred in German-occupied India. Both Gandhi and Mandela (along with all of their followers) would have been executed long before they had a chance to change the world.

Latin America managed to sit out the war, so the Germans and Japanese would probably have plundered the place for raw materials. But eventually they might have set up puppet states with more productive agriculture and even industry, in order to increase the wealth which they could then siphon off into Germany and Japan.

After remaining more-or-less neutral during the war, the USA might have maintained an uneasy peace with Germany and Japan. Our undamaged infrastructure and industrial base, not to mention our huge military force, would have made us a formidable foe to anyone who considered attacking us--especially two nations exhausted after conquering the rest of the world. As an alternative it would also have made us a fabulous economic trading partner, enriching the economies of all three nations.

Yes, I kinda left Spain out of this. I doubt that Franco would have modernized the country so I don't know how much it would have participated in the post-war enterprises of the Germans and Japanese. Even in our reality, Spain remained more-or-less a medieval backwater until Franco's death. Perhaps the Germans would have become impatient with Spain and simply made it a German colony.

--------

That's my alternative history. Three-quarters of a century later, there's no telling what other things might have occurred, so by now the world could be much different than my scenario. In real life, the USSR collapsed anyway, despite being on the winning side of WWII, and Japan and Germany both became economic powerhouses anyway, despite being on the losing side. Anything could have happened by now. ;)
 
OP:

Maybe edit this post to reflect critical events in MILITARY history? That seems to be common thus far.

3000 bc - 1 AD - Egyptian Power changes hands

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_ancient_Egypt

Nubians rule, then arabs rule, then.... over and over


Early 1200's - Genghis Khan and Mongolian Invasion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis_Khan#Military_campaigns

Those guys boned EVERY woman on thier way!! Silk road, etc


1297 - The Battle of Stirling Bridge (my personal favorite)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stirling_Bridge

While the Scots still lost the war, it was a major battle.


1795 - 1815 - England, France&Spain Pyrenees War + Haitian Revolt

Allowed for the Louisiana Purchase in 1801 (at a GREAT price). Thanks!!


1836 - Battle of the Alamo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alamo

American and Texan volunteers lost the battle, but created passion to win the war


1914 - Assasination of Franz Ferdinand

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand_of_Austria

While many other tensions actually led to the events of WWI, this event is historically accepted as the tipping point. Hence, critical.



I could go on and on and on....
 
850 A.D. Chinese alchemists discovered gunpowder. Their explosive invention would become the basis for almost every weapon used in war from that point on, from fiery arrows to rifles, cannons and grenades. Humans from then on out became far more efficient at killing each other.
1364 - First recorded use of a firearm.

1380 - Hand guns are known across Europe.

1400s - The matchlock gun appears.

1498 - Rifling principle is discovered.

1509 - Invention of wheel lock (rose lock) action in early smooth bore firearms.
1540 - Rifling appears in firearms.

1607 - Settlers arrive in Jamestown Virgina. Cultivation of Tobacco as a cash crop makes it brown gold for the English.
'

1630 - The first true flintlock is created.


1650 First daily newspaper printed and distrubuted - Leipzig.

1714 Englishmen, Henry Mill receives the first patent for a typewriter

French-Indian War: Occurring from 1754 to 1763, which would also prompt the 7 Years War. - Acquisition of French-Canadian territories from the French to the rule of the English Crown. It would prompt the series of taxes that would enrage the English colonies to fight for independence.

1763 Steam Engine Developed by Thomas Newcomen then further built upon and developed by James Watt.

April 1793, Eli Whitney had designed and constructed the cotton gin, a machine that automated the separation of cottonseed from the short-staple cotton fiber. Bad news for African Slaves!

1793 Claude Chappe invents the first long-distance semaphore (visual or optical) telegraph line.

1814 Joseph Nicéphore Niépce achieves the first photographic image.

1821 Charles Wheatstone reproduces sound in a primitive sound box - the first microphone.

1831 Joseph Henry invents the first electric telegraph.

1835 Samuel Morse invents Morse code.

First Opium War March 18th 1839-August 29th 1842: Britain gets trade rights, access to five treaty ports, and Hong Kong from China.


1843 Samuel Morse invents the first long distance electric telegraph line & Alexander Bain patents the first fax machine.
 
Inventions....
Wheel,
Boat,
Sail,
The Pill,
Computer,
Gunpowder,
Coffee (important event for me)


Big Bang....
First life form...

The Greatest Military Generals have been called Popes. So if we are discussing Military...

The Crusades... It forced Muslims to become more militant forever changing the landscape of the middle east. The Catholic Church also replaced Rome through fraud, beat up on Germany, France, Spain and destroyed any known sciences that disagreed with their beliefs. If their ill fated run at England was successful we might all be speaking Spanish.

Yes. I think that the Catholic Church has affected our lives more than anything else. So whoever it was that decided to start this Church in Rome is responsible for so many atrocities and historical decisions.

Kill them all and let god sort them out was the message from a Catholic emissary, and so they did.

Note - I would pay a small fortune to root around in the cellars of the Vatican. The Vatican stomped through countries and cities after it took over Rome a civilization that itself defeated the 6000 year old Egyptian Empire. There is likely stockpiles of golden treasures and forgotten art as well as possible technologies at the time we might not give them credit for.

This Church is the only religion that has its own country. Vatican city is a country. It is a odd tale. I wonder why there is no movie about it...

It is funny that we celebrate and revere Cleopatra, when she herself opted for suicide for losing the empire. It goes to show you that time forgives all, and suicide is mostly pointless.

Clarifying note - I am not endorsing this or any known religion. I despise the Catholic Church. To me a Catholic is like somebody going to celebrate Hitler every week and all of the Children that died under Catholic blades died in vain. If you are a Catholic I'd advise switching to any church that does not finance The Vatican.
 
The first religion must of been satanism, cause and effect.

The first time humans had the idea of them being some sort of doctor. Probably one of the most important moments. Most of you will not understand this one.

Being a doctor was probably seen as a calling up until today.
 
Dinosaur said:
Does anyone Posting here have some other events to add to the above?
Click to expand...
i have 2 i can think of off the top of my head.
the first is the invention of the transistor.
this tiny device revolutionized electronics and made modern computers possible.
without it there would be no laptops, no cell phones, no flat screens, no internet.

the second would be the sustained chain reaction of atomic bombs.
the world could very well be a different place were it not for "the bomb".
 
17 January 2014 comments by Paul Craig Roberts, who was an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal:
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/01/17/hows-whys-gold-price-manipulation/ said:
When gold hit $1,900 per ounce in 2011, the Federal Reserve realized that $2,000 per ounce could have a psychological impact that would spread into the dollar’s exchange rate with other currencies, resulting in a run on the dollar as both foreign and domestic holders sold dollars to avoid the fall in value. Once this realization hit, the manipulation of the gold price moved beyond central bank leasing of gold to bullion dealers in order to create an artificial market supply to absorb demand that otherwise would have pushed gold prices higher. The manipulation consists of the Fed using bullion banks as its agents to sell naked gold shorts in the New York Comex futures market. Short selling drives down the gold price, triggers stop-loss orders and margin calls, and scares participants out of the gold trusts. The bullion banks purchase the deserted shares and present them to the trusts for redemption in bullion. The bullion can then be sold in the London physical gold market, where the sales both ratify the lower price that short-selling achieved on the Comex floor and provide a supply of bullion to meet Asian demands for physical gold as opposed to paper claims on gold.
Click to expand...

IMO, this is the economic atomic bomb but the blast wave is just starting to be felt. The TARP & QEs triggered of forced the manipulation of gold. Gold could not be allowed to be a more attractive investment than US Treasury bonds. They were the result of banks becoming mainly investment channels than providers of loans. I. e. too big to fail.

Robert's paper is well worth the read if you want to understand how you have been screwed by those in power. Here is the last sentence:
"When the Fed runs out of gold to borrow, to rehypothecate, and to loot from ETFs, the Fed will have to abandon QE or the US dollar will collapse and with it Washington’s power to exercise hegemony over the world." Dollar collapse, US just an big poor country, etc. I would say is a "Critical Historical Event" now developing.
 
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Grumpy said:
How about a trip down a Market Street in San Francisco 4 days before the Earthquake in 1906? With added sound.

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/silent-fi...-before-its-destruction-1503300106/@jesusdiaz

[video=youtube;8Q5Nur642BU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8Q5Nur642BU[/video]

Grumpy:cool:
Click to expand...

loved the video. half horse-carriages, half horse-less carriages; quite the transition going on at that time. Almost all of those people are dead now, having gone through WWI, WWII, Cold War, etc. 2014-1906 = 108 years ago!
 
When I started this Thread, I had in mind events which could have had two outcomes, like the Battle of Tours (Arabs could have won) or the Spanish Armada (problems with weather & high waves, not beaten by the British).

Note that important inventions would have come into existence sooner or later if not invented at at some particular time. Development of speech & writing also seem like inevitable events.

BTW: Some historians have suggested that the main effect of the 300 Spartans might have been a demoralizing effect on the Persians.

Wow! 300 of them beat the 1000 Immortals & held our huge army at bay for days. They would have lasted longer if we had not found a way to get behind them. Now we are going to face a Greek army with 2-3 thousand Spartans.​
 
Dinosaur said:
Development of speech & writing also seem like inevitable events.
Click to expand...
The technology of spoken language was probably invented around 70KYA. This is when archeologists and anthropologists see a sudden increase in evidence of highly complex, coordinated tasks that could not possibly have been performed by people who were using their hands for communication at the same time.

The technology of written language was invented in the early Bronze Age, around 6KYA. Contrary to popular assumption, it was invented by merchants, not priests, scholars or government leaders.

The cities of Bronze Age civilization were much larger than the cities of the Stone Age. Time-delayed transactions among multiple parties who didn't all know each other personally (if at all) became commonplace. This made it mandatory to record who sold what product or service, to whom, and for how much. Debts were exchanged between people who never met, so to maintain the integrity of the economy and, therefore, the city, they had to be recorded.

The first written symbols were hash marks for numbers (Roman numerals are only a slight improvement over that, and we still use four vertical strokes crossed by a long diagonal stroke as a symbol for 5), then simple ideograms for a jug of olive oil, a sheep, a pair of boots, etc.

Eventually the catalog of symbols became huge. The Chinese left it that way and simply stylized the symbols so everyone used a standard set: logograms in which each symbol represents one word. In other civilizations the ideograms were abstracted into symbols that represented sounds.
  • In an abjad, as used for Hebrew, each symbol represents a consonant. Vowels are not phonemic in the Afro-Asiatic language family, so there's no need to record them.
  • In an alphabet, the writing system we're familiar with, both vowels and consonants are indicated by symbols. Of course over the millennia the pronunciation of words change, so each alphabet is more precise or less precise than the one in the neighboring country, depending on how recently it's been reformed. Italian spelling was reformed in the 19th century so it's fairly easy to read. English spelling has never been reformed so it's almost impossible to read. Not all alphabetic writing runs in a straight line like ours. In Korean words, they're arranged in a square.
  • In an abugida, as used in many of the languages of India, each symbol is a consonant with a small vowel attached, so it represents a syllable.
  • In a syllabary, as used by the Cherokee language (and Japanese, although it also uses Chinese logograms and Roman letters), each symbol represents a syllable, but there's no rhyme or reason to its construction: you can't break it down into a consonant and a vowel.
 
Dinosaur said:
When I started this Thread, I had in mind events which could have had two outcomes, like the Battle of Tours (Arabs could have won) or the Spanish Armada (problems with weather & high waves, not beaten by the British).

Note that important inventions would have come into existence sooner or later if not invented at at some particular time. Development of speech & writing also seem like inevitable events.

BTW: Some historians have suggested that the main effect of the 300 Spartans might have been a demoralizing effect on the Persians.

Wow! 300 of them beat the 1000 Immortals & held our huge army at bay for days. They would have lasted longer if we had not found a way to get behind them. Now we are going to face a Greek army with 2-3 thousand Spartans.​
Click to expand...

I hope I'm not being picky, but it was the English not the British who fought the Armada. The Act of Union didn't occur until 1707. And the weather helped but the English were certainly superior in their ships and fire-power, though out-numbered.
 
Sorcerer: It was my understanding that an English victory was not a slam dunk situation & that the weather had some effect on the outcome.
I hope I'm not being picky, but it was the English not the British who fought the Armada. The Act of Union didn't occur until 1707. And the weather helped but the English were certainly superior in their ships and fire-power, though out-numbered.
Click to expand...
Sorry about my error in calling it a British victory.
 
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