Turning Points that Failed to Turn

[Josquius]

Mongols in Europe: They would have failed. Europe didn't have the neat and tidy unified system of knock off the emperor in his very northerly capital and you become the rightful ruler.
Europe was densely forested and full of castles and independent rulers. Terrain which is completely unfavourable to the Mongols.

Vikings in North America: It could certainly have been interesting if more had decided to head over to carve out little kingdoms for themselves. Would give European colonisation a totally different set up to 500 years later.
Diseases though wouldn't have mattered. You have to keep the diseases alive in order for the population to keep immunity for them, the population density of the US/Canadian natives just wasn't high enough to do this. There were a lot of diseases too....

Because the sense the Chinese understood the concept was categorically different from the way that Europeans (or indeed Arab traders) understood it.  The concept of "tribute" was not just some linguistic cover for face; it was an accurate description of what the Chinese understood themselves as doing. 

The Chinese government yeah, it had a crazy world view.
Chinese people though? Chinese merchants wouldn't see much issue with trade as we know it.
Could be rather interesting to have Chinese communities as you find in Malaysia, Indonesia, etc.... popping up in other places too.

[Neil]

That's a very interesting one.  There's a few in 1848.

Yeah like an Austrian led Western Slavic Confederation.

But that was never really going to happen.  The Croats weren't working out of nationalism when they helped the Austrians crush the Hungarian rebellion, but out of hatred for foreign tyrants who were planning to mistreat them, and out of loyalty to a hero.

[DGuller]

Also, France had previously shown what happens with those revolutions - they cannot hold on their own and need a strong ruler. Napoleon ultimately failed because he had no legitimacy (he tried it by marrying into the Habsburgs). To succeed, one needed royal legitimacy, which was not attained through the People at the time - even the USA, fighting only against Britain, needed help from France on the ground, and of France, Spain and the Netherlands on the seas.

The US needed help from other European countries because they lacked royal legitimacy? Am I reading this right? 

You are reading this at all, so you're already not doing something right.

[Queequeg]

Because the sense the Chinese understood the concept was categorically different from the way that Europeans (or indeed Arab traders) understood it.  The concept of "tribute" was not just some linguistic cover for face; it was an accurate description of what the Chinese understood themselves as doing.

Chinese colonization of Xinjiang, the expansion of the Han ethnicity south throughout a thousand year period?

I don't think it is totally impossible that a few Chinese dynasties would have tried to relieve population growth with something vaguely akin to the Greek emporiai.

[Martim Silva]

The US needed help from other European countries because they lacked royal legitimacy? Am I reading this right? 

Like it or not, the AWI was a revolt by commoners against their King, nothing else.

Regardless of how right they may have been in our eyes, the chance of success of the American patriots by themselves was nil. Victory was only made possible by foreign intervention, and that because other powers wanted to reduce British power (France in particular was still smarting from the Seven Years' War, and with her Bourbon Spain).

[Razgovory]

The Americans did win their greatest victory before European intervention.

[Habbaku]

Regardless of how right they may have been in our eyes, the chance of success of the American patriots by themselves was nil.

  The British certainly didn't think this.

[Razgovory]

Regardless of how right they may have been in our eyes, the chance of success of the American patriots by themselves was nil.

  The British certainly didn't think this.

John Burgoyne and Johann Rall may have.

[Admiral Yi]

Like it or not, the AWI was a revolt by commoners against their King, nothing else.

Regardless of how right they may have been in our eyes, the chance of success of the American patriots by themselves was nil. Victory was only made possible by foreign intervention, and that because other powers wanted to reduce British power (France in particular was still smarting from the Seven Years' War, and with her Bourbon Spain).

You didn't answer my question.  Did you or did you not claim that the US needed help from European allies *because* they lacked royal legitimacy?

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Regardless of how right they may have been in our eyes, the chance of success of the American patriots by themselves was nil.

  The British certainly didn't think this.

must have been an ambassadorial thing...

[Faeelin]

Anglo-French History:

This is a good example. Henry V lives, and then... he does what? Spends his years begging England for money, besieging castles along the Loire?

[CountDeMoney]

Like it or not, the AWI was a revolt by commoners against their King, nothing else.

Regardless of how right they may have been in our eyes, the chance of success of the American patriots by themselves was nil. Victory was only made possible by foreign intervention, and that because other powers wanted to reduce British power (France in particular was still smarting from the Seven Years' War, and with her Bourbon Spain).

You didn't answer my question.  Did you or did you not claim that the US needed help from European allies *because* they lacked royal legitimacy?

You're asking a screwball Euro with a screwball worldview of history to explain his screwball logic?

[Josquius]

Gets recognised as King of France heralding a new age of French oppression of England.

[Faeelin]

Gets recognised as King of France heralding a new age of French oppression of England.

Leaving aside the myth of poor little England (as its basically rampaging around France at will), who would recognize him that didn't?

[viper37]

The collapse began in fairly densely populated areas though.  The big empires in South and Central America, for one.  The relatively sparesley populated North East might not have been as condusive to spreading the plague as to the regions that had more communication with the urban areas.

They were populated:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippian_culture
they were decimated after first contact with the Spanish.