Turning Points

[Eclogite]

Originally Posted by anglepose

perhaps a turning point would be the abolishment of slavery probably the best turning point in history

We abolished it. When did that happen? Why wasn't I told.

I shall inform the UN immediately that there concerns over various forms of enslavement and human trafficing are unecessary.

Regretably there are probably more humans existing of conditions of effective slavery today than at any time in humanity's history

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by Darnok

what if the Dutch settled Australia first, before the English!

Yes then Australia would be now part of Indonesia like the rest of Dutch east Indies. -If you wanted to or not.(a la timor papua bali etc) Now that would be one big Islamic state!

I would prefer The French Please!
They are much better cooks
The French (La Pérouse) only missed out by a bit arriving just after Phillip moved the settlement to Sydney
( "The British received him courteously, but were unable to help him with food as they had none to spare. La Pérouse sent his journals and letters to Europe with a British ship, obtained wood and fresh water, and left for New Caledonia, Santa Cruz, the Solomons, the Louisiades, and the western and southern coasts of Australia. He nor any of his men was seen again.")http://www.win.tue.nl/~engels/discovery/perouse.html

As it happened the aboriginies were here first
Recent estimates are pushsing an incredible c80,000 years!

[Panjandrum]

Australia would not have been made part of the DEI, imo. It would have been a colony, akin to the boer settlements in South Africa. In fact, it would probably have been far worse for the Aboriginals had the Dutch and not the English settled Oz. The French would have been better, they have a good record of treating savages well in North America. They would have obliterated Aboriginal culture and 'Frenchified' them, tho.

[Michaelangelica]

[QUOTE=PanjandrumThey would have obliterated Aboriginal culture and 'Frenchified' them, tho.[/QUOTE]

Yes, most probably. Perhaps French fried them?

Could I suggest another historical "Turning Point".
Perhaps it even deserves its own thread.
It starts when some Poles(?) smuggled the German code machine "Enigma" out of Poland into GB in about 1939-40?. As a result of this the English set up 'Bletchley Park' a code breaking centre that eventually broke the German Army and navy and Air force codes. Without this "Secret War" and the work of people like Stevenson and Alan Turing I don't think the UK would have held against the Nazis. (Churchill was instrumental in starting the spying with Stevenson long before he was PM)-

In the process of breaking the very complex code Alan Turing invented the very first computer. And as we know the rest is history.

O yes -most important Ian Fleming worked as a spy during the war. Goldfinger is based on an actural WW2 operation. Where would we, and Holliwood, be without 007?

Some links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine

http://www.awm.gov.au/Encyclopedia/enigma.htm

[Probable Uncertainty]

big turning point is world war two, change everything in europa really. all old empire collapses, and all east and middle europa she suffer from russian ruler for all of next 50 years. here in Česká republika, was all kinds of suffering and death under russian ruler, and was all from war. million and million of peoples all killed in this war, some of them very clever and would have done great things.

[Boerseun]

I do suppose the invention of the printing press turned the world on its head. What with the arrival of cheap, mass-produced books, the proliferation of knowledge, etc...

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by Boerseun

I do suppose the invention of the printing press turned the world on its head. What with the arrival of cheap, mass-produced books, the proliferation of knowledge, etc...

Yes that's a good one!
It certainly changed the world.
(Perhaps we should give the Chinese invention of paper a plug here too?)

I have been thinking about 'turning points' and it seems to me there are two that are often overlooked.
The first is epidemic & other diseases.The second Climate Change.
What would have happened if Alexander had not got malaria and died at what 24YO?
What happened in the 14th century after the big plague epidemics?
Feudalism broke down for one. Many Europeans developed and passed on genes for resisting HIV for another!
If Napoleon's troops were not beaten back from Russia (mostly) by disease would we have a French Europe a French 20C Cold War??.
I can't think of others but there must be hundreds of examples of history taking a sudden turn because of a little bacterium
Climate[/B]
Some historical evens seem to have been assisted or hindered by climate.
Hitler at Stalingrad is an obvious example but many expeditions of discovery were helped by good climate (Vikings) and good Harvests helped many a social system survive and prosper. Again I defer to your superior historical knowledge for possible examples.

[Boerseun]

Originally Posted by Michaelangelica

What happened in the 14th century after the big plague epidemics?
Feudalism broke down for one. Many Europeans developed and passed on genes for resisting HIV for another!

To the best of my knowledge, is was bubonic plague that struck Europe. I don't think HIV/AIDS featured back in those days...

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by Boerseun

To the best of my knowledge, is was bubonic plague that struck Europe. I don't think HIV/AIDS featured back in those days...

Sorry I didn't make myself clear.
It seems that having the plague confers some genetic immunity to HIV/AIDS.
This immunity is related to a funny-little-locky-thinggy poking out on cells which stop HIV from breaking into the cell. This immunity is best in N. Europe (Norway 20%??) and decreases as you go south to nil % in N. Africa. I guess China must have it to? as they think the plague started there. People who survived the plague have the resistance (funny-little-locky-thinggy) and have passed it on.

By the way the plague bacteria is still with us 1,000 to 3,000 people die every year from it- several in USA.
1 in 7 who get the disease (today) die. Nasty bug!
Yersinia pestis (plague buggy thing) is widespread on all continents of the world except Australia and Antarctica. (Yea!)

O more good news, there are about another 9 primate AIDS type buggies that haven't made the jump to man YET!
(Don't go near the gorillas!)
--
Michael

[Qfwfq]

Originally Posted by Buffy

and mostly exclusively north of SF, where the weather is most "Euro-like",

Tee hee, perhaps you should make that "more Mediterranean-like"

Buffy I was only telling somebody that beer vs. wine isn't quite America vs. Europe. There's plenty of around north of the alps!