Matt Ferry - What if...
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Point of divergence - What if the Wright Brothers were never inspired by Otto Lilienthal? I chose this as my point of divergence, as Lilienthal inspired the Wright Brothers to create their flyers with persistence, always building on what went wrong before.
The Wright Brothers not creating the airplane means that technology would not have advanced as it did, meaning planes that could carry heavy bombs would not have been created, meaning the Cold War would have never began from the dropping of the atomic bombs. This would have changed the flow of the United States political system, as Lee Harvey Oswald would have never have been a Marxist, meaning JFK would not have died for his opposing views. All of the Kennedys would have been elected till the 1988 election, when Bush Senior would win. The Gulf War would have still occurred, as would 9/11, as planes would have surely been developed by then. If the airplane were not to have been invented, there would have been politically peace during the era of the Cold War.
I enjoyed this project. Taking an event and manipulating it, altering history was awesome, and reminded me of the butterfly effect; showing that with one small change in history can completely rewrite the world. This was also the most challenging part for me, as it was difficult for me to find a specific event to focus on; I had a ton of ideas that I really wanted to work on, but I felt like this would have given a fairly interesting future. The Wright Brothers being so moved by Lilienthal's pioneering to create their own experiments I found was particularly interesting, as it shows just how much someone can inspire another.
This showed me that the actions of a single human being can directly curve history as we know it. By taking out something, you're taking out someone who could have contributed to something larger, inspired someone else, or helped others create a network that would later inspire. Individuals make changes and cause progression, as apparent by this project. These individuals can also cause systematic changes, causing new ideas to flourish that can lead a movement or a group. These systems influence individuals, such as Lee Harvey Oswald, who following the Marxist philosophy killed JFK, causing a changed caused by an individual, with change brought to that individual by a system.
Looking back on this project I really enjoyed it. Thought, if I were to have done it again, I would have chosen a different topic. I was particularly interested with two topics; How history would be different if the atomic bombs dropped on Japan failed. The other being what if the Cuban Missile Crisis was not stopped in time. I would certainly like to do one of these topics, and maybe even a way to combine both of them...
Point of divergence - What if the Wright Brothers were never inspired by Otto Lilienthal? I chose this as my point of divergence, as Lilienthal inspired the Wright Brothers to create their flyers with persistence, always building on what went wrong before.
The Wright Brothers not creating the airplane means that technology would not have advanced as it did, meaning planes that could carry heavy bombs would not have been created, meaning the Cold War would have never began from the dropping of the atomic bombs. This would have changed the flow of the United States political system, as Lee Harvey Oswald would have never have been a Marxist, meaning JFK would not have died for his opposing views. All of the Kennedys would have been elected till the 1988 election, when Bush Senior would win. The Gulf War would have still occurred, as would 9/11, as planes would have surely been developed by then. If the airplane were not to have been invented, there would have been politically peace during the era of the Cold War.
I enjoyed this project. Taking an event and manipulating it, altering history was awesome, and reminded me of the butterfly effect; showing that with one small change in history can completely rewrite the world. This was also the most challenging part for me, as it was difficult for me to find a specific event to focus on; I had a ton of ideas that I really wanted to work on, but I felt like this would have given a fairly interesting future. The Wright Brothers being so moved by Lilienthal's pioneering to create their own experiments I found was particularly interesting, as it shows just how much someone can inspire another.
This showed me that the actions of a single human being can directly curve history as we know it. By taking out something, you're taking out someone who could have contributed to something larger, inspired someone else, or helped others create a network that would later inspire. Individuals make changes and cause progression, as apparent by this project. These individuals can also cause systematic changes, causing new ideas to flourish that can lead a movement or a group. These systems influence individuals, such as Lee Harvey Oswald, who following the Marxist philosophy killed JFK, causing a changed caused by an individual, with change brought to that individual by a system.
Looking back on this project I really enjoyed it. Thought, if I were to have done it again, I would have chosen a different topic. I was particularly interested with two topics; How history would be different if the atomic bombs dropped on Japan failed. The other being what if the Cuban Missile Crisis was not stopped in time. I would certainly like to do one of these topics, and maybe even a way to combine both of them...
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