Our Defining Days

[poisonedpure]

According to Hywel Williams the 50 defining events that have changed the course of world history are as follows:

1. The Battle of Salamis- 28th September 480 BC

2. The Assassination of Julius Caesar- 15th March 44BC

3. The Crucifixion of Jesus-Good Friday c.30AD

4. The Dedication of Constantinople- 11th May 330

5. A Confederacy of German Tribes Crosses

Comments

[reverancepavane]

Being a fan of alternate history SF for a long time (well, since I first read Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen), and being a long enthusiast of role-playing games where I can practice what I preach, the thing that strikes me about the list is that they are all footnotes of great moment in history (at least in the opinion of the person that holds them), rather than nexus points where history will alter and take a different path. In most of the list, as given, the consequences of a change in the event would not actually cause a change in the subsequent history.
This is especially true of invention, since I am a firm bliever of "steam-engine time" (a reference to the fact that when it is time for a development to appear it will appear nearly simultaneously within that level of the social-technological matrix. As Leibnitz and Newton showed, this even occurs when the nature of the invention is a paradigm shift such as calculus. Thus the appearance of most technological innovations is a natural consequence of attaining that level of knowledge (

[poisonedpure]

"the thing that strikes me about the list is that they are all footnotes of great moment in history (at least in the opinion of the person that holds them), rather than nexus points where history will alter and take a different path."I noted that, and was wondering how long a person would take to bring that subject to fore. These are moments that are catalysts for a cause of change, not the point that the change occurred. These are based on the opinions of the author and his views of a time-line of events that if they did not happen would not have caused these changes to come about

[vasillis_childe]

In most cases I'll agree with you about the footnote issue, with at least one, major exception.

35. The Assassination of Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo- 28th June 1914

This single act set the stage for World War One, World War Two and the everlasting hostilities in the Middle East (at least those involving Israel). WW1 and 2 were the hubs of the single greatest leaps in technology of all of recorded time and between them killed almost as many people as had been alive at any given point of time prior to 1700.

Hell, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand should be about three items on the list.

[reverancepavane]

Would it have though? The stage was set for a conflict well before the assassination occurred. The fundamental cause was the Serbian Unrest, the assassination was simply that Casus Belli that allowed the Austro-Hungarian government to finally do something about it. The dominos were already poised to fall in a trditional "extention of politics by other means." This is especially poignant because the general staffs of most of the European powers steadfastedly refused to believe the casualty figures that the Americans came up with for the Civil War (and the Franco-Prussian War was rather inconclusive in that regard – an often underlooked cause of pre-war tensions). I think you'd have to go back a bit further to prevent the occurrence of WWI.
Although I agree that England reneging on it's wartime (both WWI and WWII) agreements wrt Palestine really was a moment that changed the world. Although the root cause of that was embarrasement about being a passive participant in the Holocaust. After all, they're just "damn wogs" and we are

[vasillis_childe]

I disagree strongly about the technology issue. Many technologies (especially avionics and, hell, computers) are direct descendants of technology developed in order to gain some advantage over the opposition.

And while you are completely correct about Frazy-boy being the catalyst, that's the point here. We're talking about one event on one day in history that changed the world as we know it. That's the event and that's the day, I reckon.

[poisonedpure]

You are correct, but as I have stated in another comment it was actually "who" assassinated Franz Ferdinand that set around the chain of events not the actual assassination in itself. I minor adjustment to state that he was assassinated by the Serbian secret society of "The Black Hand" would be a good thing to note as that is what caused the political rife and the going abouts of the First World War.

I'm being nitpicky.

http://www.firstworldwar.com/origins/causes.htm