Pivotal Events in History
by
, 05-16-2015 at 03:31 PM (2377 Views)
I was thinking about a piece of fiction that I’m writing; it is built around a somewhat mysterious event that led to great changes in the world. It was a simple murder by an unknown attacker that led to religious persecutions, the Inquisition, and great political changes in Europe. This got me to thinking about other pivotal events in history, so I leaned back and started thinking. I made a list of a dozen or so, but there must be more. I searched online, and found a few similar lists, but most such lists were of periods of time that were pivotal, rather than single events.
Periods of time are quite different from what I was looking for. World War 1 was different from the assassination of , Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. The assassination was the pivotal event, while WW I was a result, a result that led to great changes, but the assassination was the trigger. Some of the other events that I found were The Battle of Senlac, the U.S. election of 1860, Caesar at the Rubicon, the birth of Genghis Khan, Saul of Tarsus’ conversion, the Battle of Saratoga, Cossacks not firing on the rioters, the untimely death of Richard the Lionhearted, the signing of the Magna Carta, Jesus’ birth, Mohamed’s birth, and so on. There have been other such events, and I didn't include the one that triggered this idea in my mind. I will continue to lengthen the list, and I wouldn't mind getting hints from others. These pivotal events did not exist or occur in isolation; they were the final blocks in piles that led up to a certain point. If one believes in free will, then these were the final decisions, and if you believe the universe is determined, then these are culminations of chains of cause and effect.
It is amazing that something as simple as Adolph Hitler having bent down at the right moment during a street march during the Beer Hall Putsch meant that the man next to him was hit by a bullet, rather than Adolph. That simple action by Hitler led to a huge amount of trouble; that isn't to say that World War II wouldn't have happened, but it would have been very different, and the Holocaust might not have happened. Or if Richard I of England hadn't taken a walk on March 25, 1199, then he wouldn't have died from the crossbow bold the struck him, and John Lackland wouldn't have lost nearly all of the mainland possessions of England, and there wouldn't have been a Magna Carta, at least not then. And the differences would have snowballed of the centuries. Randall Garrett used that event as one of the premises of his Lord Darcy series, but the idea hasn't been worked out.
Imagine a time traveller landing near the castle of Châlus-Chabrol while it was under siege, and spending the day talking with Richard, so that Richard didn't get a chance to take a walk.
Or imagine that Hannibal was feeling nasty one day and turned his army toward Rome, instead of laying waste to the surroundings. The army would probably have walked right through Rome, but we won't know, until our time traveller goes back and mocks Hannibal until he attacks the city. I would have to spend a few weeks studying the matter before I started guessing what would be different because of that.
My short list is tilted toward Europe, and I am sure that there were individual events in other parts of the world that would go on this list. This exercise in imagination shows how fragile history is and how many parallel worlds there might be, if there are parallel worlds. Just think of the Presidential election of 1960. Nixon would have sent in the free Cuban air force during the Bay of Pigs Invasion, and that might have changed the result of that, and that's just one difference.
I pasted links to some lists of such events. They may tickle your imagination until it thinks of some other parallel world.
http://www.pernacontent.com/properti...nts-in-history
http://listverse.com/2009/12/11/10-i...ts-in-history/
http://www.theguardian.com/culture/g...ts-andrew-marr
http://www.thegreatcourses.com/cours...d-history.html