Take out WWI, and the Soviet Union never comes about. Hitler never comes to power. No WWII. Nuclear weapons aren't invented (or at the least, delayed). No Holocaust. No Korean War, no Vietnam War. You basically take out a bunch of the bad stuff of the past 90-odd years just by taking out WWI.
It's the problem of history, really; redrawing Europes map in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars, and a century of dancing around the consequences to avoid another major war, made some form of the Great War inevitable. The pressure was never relieved, it just built with each attempt to contain it, until it exploded.
Without the Great War the tensions that led to the Bolshevik Revolution are still present; they'd been festering in Russia for some time before 1914, already having resulted in the assassination of a Czar and the exile of Lenin well before war broke out in Europe. That comes to a head sooner or later, too; the absence of the Great War might mean the White Army wins the Russian civil war due to greater Western aid, but the problems remain, and the fact is Russia was plenty autocratic even before Stalin, so the same Cold War might have resulted, only slightly mitigated by the debt the Czars owed the west for keeping them on the throne. And, yeah, nuclear weapons are just the inevitable march of science; had America not used them it's entirely possible WWII would've lasted long enough for Japan to develop them, a big game changer.
Honorbound and honored to be Bonded to Mahtaliel Sedai
Last First in wotmania Chat
Slightly better than chocolate.
Love still can't be coerced.
Please Don't Eat the Newbies!
LoL. Be well, RAFOlk.
Last First in wotmania Chat
Slightly better than chocolate.
Love still can't be coerced.
Please Don't Eat the Newbies!

LoL. Be well, RAFOlk.
I know I just did a survey, but this was too good to pass up.
07/04/2010 12:44:15 AM
- 712 Views
Myself: World War I.
07/04/2010 12:45:57 AM
- 589 Views
I don't think it's that simple.
07/04/2010 12:57:16 AM
- 534 Views
I see your point.
07/04/2010 01:02:33 AM
- 514 Views
True, one might even say *adding* a war there would've improved things.
07/04/2010 01:36:07 AM
- 496 Views
Re: True, one might even say *adding* a war there would've improved things.
07/04/2010 10:48:49 AM
- 484 Views
I had a teacher with an interesting theory related to that
07/04/2010 12:57:49 AM
- 371 Views
Well, at this time, it was pretty well accepted that Russia wasn't exactly a techinical power.
07/04/2010 01:04:35 AM
- 339 Views
The Plague
07/04/2010 12:52:33 AM
- 466 Views
Re: The Plague
07/04/2010 01:05:35 AM
- 374 Views
He must be talking about a different plague, but I'm not sure which one, either. *NM*
07/04/2010 01:37:32 AM
- 314 Views
Maybe; there were episodic plague epidemics before and after that time.
07/04/2010 02:05:18 AM
- 504 Views
I am talking about one of the plagues not THE plague
07/04/2010 02:50:25 AM
- 470 Views
Re: I am talking about one of the plagues not THE plague
07/04/2010 08:45:26 PM
- 464 Views
I'm so glad you have the time and inclination to type up these replies.
*NM*
08/04/2010 07:09:22 AM
- 313 Views

...?
08/04/2010 07:51:14 PM
- 366 Views
Sounds like he was thanking you for saving him the effort of writing a similar reply. *NM*
08/04/2010 09:28:55 PM
- 335 Views
OK, think this one's been pretty thoroughly covered in my absence.
13/04/2010 11:51:16 AM
- 517 Views

The spread of Christianity
07/04/2010 12:55:29 AM
- 542 Views
Re: The spread of Christianity
08/04/2010 09:29:17 AM
- 384 Views
But wasn't Christianity the inspiration for a whole era of art? *NM*
08/04/2010 01:41:34 PM
- 332 Views
Re: But wasn't Christianity the inspiration for a whole era of art?
08/04/2010 01:44:36 PM
- 503 Views
The product of Christian inspiration was heavily Hellenistic in origin...
08/04/2010 07:54:12 PM
- 346 Views
The destruction of the Great Library.
07/04/2010 01:02:59 AM
- 422 Views
Internet spam sucks indeed.
07/04/2010 01:08:23 AM
- 551 Views
We'll never know; makes for fascinating speculative fiction.
07/04/2010 01:13:49 AM
- 457 Views
This whole topic is wild, it's something I sometimes think about.
07/04/2010 01:17:50 AM
- 472 Views
"Joel captures Alexandria! The Great Library is destroyed!" *NM*
07/04/2010 01:08:35 AM
- 195 Views
It's crazy to think that the human knowledge base doubles every 2 years...
07/04/2010 08:49:28 PM
- 324 Views
Literacy and communication have literally made a world of difference.
13/04/2010 09:25:45 AM
- 427 Views
if the giant meteor hadn't destroyed the dinosaurs...
07/04/2010 01:10:42 AM
- 389 Views
"FOR" global warming? Now there's a phrase I never thought I'd here!
07/04/2010 01:16:04 AM
- 325 Views
The spread of Islam
07/04/2010 01:26:11 AM
- 492 Views
oh aren't you clever. *NM*
07/04/2010 01:47:13 AM
- 303 Views
There's such a thing as being right for the wrong reasons, though I'm not sure he is.
07/04/2010 02:12:14 AM
- 316 Views
Wikipedia is of course not a scholarly source, but all the same...
07/04/2010 11:57:01 AM
- 470 Views
Fair enough.
07/04/2010 12:51:16 PM
- 467 Views
Re: The spread of Islam
08/04/2010 09:24:31 AM
- 524 Views
I...do not know.
07/04/2010 07:18:13 AM
- 370 Views
A lot of times, you change one thing, and everything changes- even the things you don't think about.
07/04/2010 12:26:51 PM
- 347 Views
Amusing that the underlying expectation seems to be more along political history lines
07/04/2010 12:56:49 PM
- 549 Views
Here's one that'll be more to your liking...
08/04/2010 10:40:53 AM
- 308 Views
Re: Here's one that'll be more to your liking...
08/04/2010 11:58:27 AM
- 341 Views
Uh...
08/04/2010 12:11:14 PM
- 496 Views
Re: Uh...
08/04/2010 12:15:20 PM
- 520 Views
The Devil is always in the details
08/04/2010 12:29:25 PM
- 458 Views

Re: The Devil is always in the details
08/04/2010 12:32:34 PM
- 266 Views

Not really
08/04/2010 01:07:57 PM
- 427 Views
Re: Not really
08/04/2010 01:10:16 PM
- 336 Views
Only to a degree
08/04/2010 01:27:22 PM
- 434 Views
Re: Only to a degree
08/04/2010 01:30:12 PM
- 548 Views
I was into cultural and religious history
08/04/2010 01:38:24 PM
- 434 Views
Re: I was into cultural and religious history
08/04/2010 01:41:31 PM
- 332 Views
Ha!
08/04/2010 01:49:23 PM
- 478 Views

Re: Ha!
08/04/2010 01:51:28 PM
- 304 Views

Since, surprisingly, no one's pointed it out yet, prehistory/=history.
13/04/2010 09:52:19 AM
- 437 Views
Re: I know I just did a survey, but this was too good to pass up.
07/04/2010 09:04:02 PM
- 350 Views
Science getting on the ball in the 40's and making superhumans *NM*
08/04/2010 05:31:34 AM
- 342 Views
The spread of peanut butter and jelly.
08/04/2010 07:12:21 AM
- 477 Views
I think two spreads that would be better to eliminate would be marmite and vegemite (sp).
08/04/2010 05:30:26 PM
- 444 Views

The head of [Roman Catholic] Christianity.
08/04/2010 07:15:21 AM
- 446 Views
You completely missed the "pick 1" part of the question, didn't you? *NM*
08/04/2010 09:26:23 AM
- 304 Views
Well, techinically, I never said that you couldn't make multible posts, each discussing 1 thing. *NM*
08/04/2010 05:36:37 PM
- 281 Views
I'm fairly sure he was just mocking someone's earlier post "just thought it would be interesting..." *NM*
08/04/2010 08:06:56 PM
- 287 Views
I'm pretty sure of that too. *NM*
08/04/2010 08:33:46 PM
- 291 Views