Counterfactuals: John Hay and the 20th Century

Welcome to the History Guy Podcast: Counterfactuals. What is a counterfactual? At it’s most basic, it is a ‘what if’. It’s a way of understanding history as it is by discussing what it could have been.On today’s episode, we talk about one of the most famous what ifs in human history: What if the Library of Alexandria hadn’t been lost? The famous story is that the library was burned, but the actual history is more anticlimactic. Huge numbers of scrolls were nonetheless lost to history. What might the world be like if they weren’t?

Welcome to the History Guy Podcast: Counterfactuals. What is a counterfactual? At it’s most basic, it is a ‘what if’. It’s a way of understanding history as it is by discussing what it could have been.On today’s episode, we talk about a little remembered campaign by the Allies to intervene in the Russian Civil War, at the tail-end and even after the end of WWI.

Welcome to the History Guy Podcast: Counterfactuals. What is a counterfactual? At it’s most basic, it is a ‘what if’. It’s a way of understanding history as it is by discussing what it could have been. Today we talk about a 1944 supreme court decision that fundamentally altered the American electorate and set the stage for civil rights victories that culminated in the Civil Rights Act: Smith v. Allwright.

Welcome to the History Guy Podcast: Counterfactuals. What is a counterfactual? At it’s most basic, it is a ‘what if’. It’s a way of understanding history as it is by discussing what it could have been.On today’s episode we talk about the deadliest accident to ever strike a presidential cabinet: the explosion of the cannon on board the USS Princeton in February, 1844. The explosion killed both the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Navy, and fundamentally changed the trajectory of the era.

On today’s episode, we talk about an event often thought to have ended the “High Renaissance” period: the sack of Rome by a mutinous contingent of German and Spanish mercenaries in May, 1527. Often forgotten, it had a profound impact on history.

Welcome to the History Guy Podcast: Counterfactuals. What is a counterfactual? At it’s most basic, it is a ‘what if’. It’s a way of understanding history as it is by discussing what it could have been.Today, we talk about one of the deadliest diseases in human history, and one we often don’t think about at all today: Rabies. How has it changed the world, and what might be different without it?

On today’s episode we talk about an unsung hero of the modern age: the elevator. Without them, the world wouldn’t be the same. 

On today’s episode we talk about a man whose influence on the trajectory of American history is undeniable and pervasive, but whose name you may never have heard of: John Hay, a secretary to President Lincoln and Secretary of State under Mckinley and Teddy Roosevelt. What might the world be like without him?

On today’s episode we talk about a pivotal battle in a poorly remembered war: The battle of Paardeberg in the Second Anglo-Boer War. The war would consolidate all of South Africa under British Colonial rule, and radically transform the Canadian military. But what if it didn’t?

On today’s episode, we talk about a little remembered campaign of the Civil War fought west of the Mississippi, when a former Missouri governor attempted to shake things up as hope for the south dwindled. Ultimately it all went wrong - but what if it didn’t?