Historical What Ifs

We all study history. We have to. But something that a lot of histrophiles, myself included, always wonder is this: what if we studied a different history? What if things played out differently? For nerds like me, it's a sort of mental aerobics -- who can think of the most interesting historical "What If.."? So here are some I have thought of over the years

1. The usual: What if Germany had won World War I or II? I have literally spent hours thinking about what a map of the world would look like. Something I always stop on is whether the United Kingdom would exist anymore if Hitler had won. Would the US have been able to save their closest ally or would it have been absolved into a greater German Empire?

2. What if the American Revolution had been crushed? What if all of the Founding Fathers had been caught, tried for treason, and hanged? Would it be possible for the United States to still be apart of the United Kingdom? Would Britain have tried even harder to hold onto its other colonies like Australia and India out of fear of losing the US (and probably Canada too)? Would the British Empire still the exist?

3. What if the German generals in World War II had followed orders and destroyed Paris?

What if Zheng He's voyages had never been stopped? What of China dominated the seas from the 1400s onward? How far would Chinese culture and occupation have spread? Would Europe have ever competed? What if they colonised America too?

4. What if Nicholas II never mobilized the Russian Army after Franz Ferdinand was assassinated? Would the domino effect of alliance mobilization ever have happened?

5. What if Shakespeare never learned to read and write?

6. What if Catherine of Aragon was able to give Henry VIII a son? He would have never had to divorce her to marry Anne Boleyn, and then he would have never had to break from the Catholic Church to divorce Anne. How would the relationship between England and the Church have panned out? How would the relationship between England, Spain, and France have been different?

7. What if Abraham Lincoln had lost the Presidential Election of 1864?

8. What if the Roman Republic had never turned into an empire? Would the West be so tied together by a similar foundation?

9. What if Napolean had succeeded?

10. What if Africa colonized Europe?

11. What if the US had used an atomic bomb against North Korea in 1950?

12. What if the Sumerians never developed cuneiform and the Egyptians never created hieroglyphics?