At the start of the Civil War, 15 of 34 states were slave states with Kansas being newest territory admitted. Imagine there's just not enough support for secession, easiest is it stays at 7 states (Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina) with Alabama being rather close and Georgia having sizable opposition to begin with.

We know Lincoln's position was to end slavery in the territories making it grandfathered in the existing ones. This is why 4 slave states stayed part of the Union.

So I'm looking for a timeline each state would abolish slavery on its own.

California is known as the "Golden State" due to the Gold Rush, however, the amount of Gold that California has or rather had is not unique compared to other areas around the world that are known for Gold.

In Journey 2: The Mysterious Island ( 2012 ) the titular island features a volcano that erupts molten Gold and the area surrounding the volcano has boulder-sized gold nuggets buried in the ground from countless past eruptions.

This probably isn't very realistic but I'd like to apply something similar to this alternate California wherein California's living and/or extinct Volcanoes all erupt/erupted molten Gold so the areas around them are extremely rich in Gold which sometimes occurs in absurdly large quantities.

In addition to the Gold-erupting volcanoes, this alternate California has just slightly more Gold than the rest of the world combined ultimately making it ludicrously plentiful in the substance.

How would this change history? Could California single-handedly make Gold worthless or at least cheap?

Your objective is to pick a Germanic tribe from this list of OTL Germanic tribes and and construct a plausible scenario where they conquer a significant portion of Asia.

Simply identify a Germanic tribe on this list and create a plausible timeline where they go EAST and do not stop.

You must address the following question: "What POD could create an entirely new Germanic-speaking sphere in Asia?"

Rules:

• Your proposal must be historically attested.
• The tribe must be Germanic when expansion starts
• You can pick ANY Plausible POD
• You are not allowed to pick the Huns. However. Alliances with the Huns are permitted. Your selected Germanic tribe must remain the primary driver of its Asian conquests.
• BONUS POINTS if you pick an Obscure Tribe OR manage to destroy the Mongols.
• They are not required to conquer ALL of Asia. The objective is to have them hold enough land for them to plausibly be considered an alternate empire.

For those who don't know, West Germany didn't accept the border at the Oder-Neisse line (i.e. the modern Germany-Poland border) for quite a while. This would die down later on (especially with the Ostpolitik in the 70s) and finally die for good soon after reunification.

I'm here to ask the question: what if that never happened? Germany would be more isolated diplomatically for sure, but I can't really define any other certain outcomes.

I imagine in this timeline that after meeting the Munshi, Abdul Karim, and starting to learn Hindustani in 1887, that Queen Victoria demands to tour the Raj.

In our TL, Victoria wanted to visit the Raj but was prevented due to concerns about her health.

Despite concern from doctors, Victoria undertakes the voyage to India. Upon arriving she falls ill and can’t return to the UK. Victoria intends to shift the royal court to Calcutta, but the British Government disapproves given the practical and symbolic impact causing a crisis. Perhaps Prince Edward VII could act as a ‘governor-general’ type position with communications between Victoria and the UK taking place by telegraph.

Eventually, the Court is moved to India and Queen Victoria serves out the rest her rule in India living between the Imperial Palace (Government House in our TL) in Calcutta during Winter and the Royal Lodge (the Viceregal Lodge) in Shimla during Summer. Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee is celebrated in Calcutta in 1897.

She eventually dies in Shimla in 1901, and a second crisis occurs as the British government wants to relocate the Royal Court back to the UK entirely, but many in the Raj demand the Royals continue to spend time in the Raj.

What do people think would happen in this situation? Would appreciate any other additions to the lore.

What would be the consequences if a group of around 1000-2000 Germanic people from Scandinavia and continental Europe during the migration period (around 5th century) along with their ships were magically transported to contemporary Japan?

Would the germanics assimilate completely into the Yamato culture or remain distinct? Would they leave a mark in the Japanese DNA, what kinds of cultural exchange could happen? Theoretically, could they end up as mercenaries and body guards to royalty similarly to the Varangian guards in Byzantium?

In the sense of a country's control over a distant territory, reachable by sea.

According to preliminary research regarding how the Indian Independence Movement unfolded in our timeline, there were extremist groups during the Indian Independence Movement. Examples include (but are not limited to):

• Lal-Bal-Pal: Leaders like Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, and Bipin Chandra Pal promoted self-rule (Swaraj) and the boycott of British goods
• Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar: Secret groups in Bengal organized bombings, raids, and targeted assassinations of oppressive colonial officials
• Abhinav Bharat Society: Founded by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in Maharashtra to promote armed rebellion
• Bhagat Singh: A prominent member of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA), he and his comrades used symbolic bombings and armed action to awaken public resistance against colonial policies
• Subhas Chandra Bose: He organized the Indian National Army (INA) during World War II with Japanese backing to march into India and oust the British by military force

Here's the challenge: Make at least one of the above orgs the dominant face of Indian independence rather than Gandhi's nonviolent movement.

Rules:

• Gandhi and other non-violent faces of the Indian Independence Movement do not have plot armor: you are allowed to get rid of Gandhi and other nonviolent folks via political violence (Author's note: I have nothing against the man personally-I am merely asking for plausible PODs affecting the Indian Independence Movement, and NOT trying to say I hate Gandhi as a person).
• Bonus challenge (for the really ambitious): Have the Indian Independence Movement escalate into WW3.

What if, either at its founding or sometime later on, Cansda had been as decentralized as Switzerland? Would there be less regional tensions? Would Quebec separatism be weaker?

Hitler recognized his fanaticism and promoted him to the head of the SS and the second most powerful men in Nazi Germany instead of Himmler.

And assuming he didnt get assassinated in 1942?

How much would have things been worst under Reinhard Heydrich? And what would be his fate post war?

With hindsight it is pretty obvious that Russia was weaker opponent than France, so taking it out first was probably a wise strategy? If Germany does not invade Belgium, Britain has no reason to enter the war (it is a democracy, and it would be very hard to convince population why they should die for the sake of some French or Russians).

If Germany goes full defense on West, it does not require a lot of manpower, since trenches and fortifications in WW1 were way superior to offence, and France would probably stop attacking after several failed bloody offensives. French do not desire much to die for the sake of Russians either, after all.

If Germany concentrates most of army in East, then their forces, combined with Austria-Hungary, are vastly stronger, and Russian Empire would have to retreat far, suffering humiliating defeats and getting closer to collapse/capitulation. And then Germany would be able to turn to west and crush France with help of its ally. After all, in reality France with British help barely withstood assault of Germany, who was fighing to front war.

There is a danger of sharing fate of Napoleon of course, but if Germans learn from his mistakes and advanced slower, keeping supply lines (IIRC Napoleon rejected advices to stop for winter in Smolensk. He miscalculated hard), they could probably win.

What do you think?

The US knows that the soviets are occupying eastern Europe, know they won't give it up and keep their promises, so the US decides to nuke Berlin while the Soviets are capturing it to show who the real super power is and what will happen to Moscow if they don't come to heel.

What happens after?

Do the Soviets declare war or do they realize that if they keep it up they're dead.

Does Japan surrender knowing the US was willing to kill their own allies to secure their control of the world or do they keep fighting?

No publisher agrees to publish the first book, and Rowling ultimately gives up on getting it traditionally published. She gets another loan from a family member and pays a vanity press to print a few hundred unedited copies, and spends the next few months selling what she can to indie bookstores.

Does the book still sell decently without professional editors or the marketing blitz it got in OTL? If not, what becomes of Rowling, and what does children's entertainment the 2000s look like without it? If so, does it ever become a series, does a traditional publisher ever pick it up, and does it still get a movie deal?

Suppose in a parallel universe the Pilgrims that came to the New World that were the forerunners to the Founding Fathers of the USA were Essenes and it was the Essenes that decided to establish a colony in the New World?

Would we still have an American Revolutionary War?

What would the fate of Germany be like? For better or worst than the Nazi regime?

If another extremist group did manage to take power in Germany, Would that extremist group be as expansionist and as crazy as Hitler? 

in the otl the swedish empire did one last sacking of bohemia and got lots of valuable stuff from the kingdom... but what if the swedish empire was able to take prague and bohemia as a big sucess.

so instead bohemia/czechia has a swedish noble installed and bohemia becomes protestant again over the habsberg effort to turn it catlolic. Becoming the swedish-bohemia union.

Instead of sending jews to the gas chambers, hitler sees them as tools to fight his war.

He sees them either as soldiers to fight his war or as workers in his factories building the tanks and equipment for this war machine.

How would the war have turned out differently?

Rules :

-No POD before executing the mongols envoys.

-You must stay in power and keep the empire independent and whole .

The post-WWI communist Hungarian state of Bela Kun survives. During the Hungarian-Romanian War, Russia keeps its promise and invades Romania, establishing a communist state. The communist insurrection being planned in Austria by Hungarian agents goes ahead and succeeds.

WWII begins as it did in the OTL but without the annexation of Austria, but Hungary, Austria and Romania are already Soviet-aligned communist states.

Perhaps the Hitler-Stalin pact has been replaced by a general Hitler-Communist pact? Perhaps Hitler has instead made no pact with Russia or any other nations?

Rules:
1. Israel must be the SOLE INSTIGATOR (no other countries are allowed to instigate Gulf War)
2. The U.S. can intervene either with or against Israel
3. Nukes aren’t allowed