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 (and is effectively inevitable and thus not an appropriate probability nexus for creating a divergent time-line/parallel universe. [1] The world changes, but the world would always change in that manner regardless.
And the list is fairly standard, especially in the belief that events that impinge the author's lifetime have an increased significance.
[1] And yes, I know the Everett-Wheeler Many Worlds Theorem of quantum mechanics has apparently recently (within the last two years) been discredited by an experiment (along with the standard Copenhagen Interpretation of QM). We are back to knowing what happens (to a broad degree) but not why.

[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.

However, my point of view is as followed. If you wish to form a time-line of events before and after a pivotal moment in time then it has to be accurate and difinitive. Not an assumption that it was the cause of that effect.

I also feel strongly against the title of this book being "The 50 days that changed the course of history".

The fifty days that changed the course of history should be the moments in time that the course actually changed, and are the nexus points of such actions.

Those points are specifically noted by cause and reaction. You can not have cause and reaction without a nexus.

It makes sense to me. Very obvious, but a trivial and slightly annoying mistake.

If you wish to also make a list based on a World point of view, it should be inclusive of people of the World. As I see it, this above list is based soully on a handful of scientific evidence and viewpoints, and is quite biase of the person that has written it.

See, I love tangents and thinking outside the box that was made for me :)

I may speak a lot of dribble, but at least it gets the brain juices going and it LOOKS as if I know what I am talking 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 leaving the country anyway. So what does it matter.
And the military development during the wars was not so much technological in nature, but an evolution in how to use that technology to fight; the innovations really was doctrinal, not technological (wars are death on technological innovation until you are losing and willing to try anything). However the effectiveness of these new doctrines is plain when you look at the casualty lists, and hence the resulting cultural shock value.
As one historian said, we assume there is peace because there are intervals between wars. It was the invention of a means of easily wiping ourselves off the face of the planet that caused us to have an extended peace.
Actually one moment of possible change is Roosevelt's refusal to continue the war against Russia (as reccomended by Patton et al). That would have been interesting (by then the Soviet army had completed it's reorganization and reequipment).

[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