Not that it excuses my hiatus but I am drafting another timeline right now.Nice to see you continuing. Many of the America timelines seem to be on hiatus: mine, PBSG, HeX, etc.
Not that it excuses my hiatus but I am drafting another timeline right now.Nice to see you continuing. Many of the America timelines seem to be on hiatus: mine, PBSG, HeX, etc.
FTFYNaturally, this didn’t go over so well with the populace
Maybe something like this? https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/ah-fiction-the-game-of-driveball.467752/We may well see something similar arise, though, but it could be closer to rugby or more traditional football.
So the Olympics and World Cup are finally underway. Nice. And I still think the Summer and Winter Olympics should be held the same year for a while as they didn't diverge until the 1994 Winter/1996 Summer Games OTL. Other than that, excellent work.Part 91: The World of SportsMost of my posts in this series have been on politics, military or demographics, so how about a change of pace: a culture-focused update, specifically on the world of sports and athletics? Sounds good? Okay, let’s go.
We humans like to play games. Games are an intrinsic part of cultures around the world, and due to physical activity also being an intrinsic part of the human experience, it’s no surprise that we play games that involve physical activity as well.
Records of sports go back thousands of years, and many regions of the world have had their own games, but it was towards the 19th Century that various sports began to gain an official, standardized ruleset. Many games played in schoolyards and among various villages evolved into codified sports with official clubs and teams, spreading around the world via trade and colonization. Here is a quick sample of some of the sports that became popular throughout the world.
Association Football: Games centered around kicking a ball with one’s feet go back millennia to various regions of the world, but the form of Football that got popular originated in Britain during the Mid 19th Century, quickly spreading throughout Europe and to various European colonies. Overall, it’s pretty similar to OTL’s Association Football, albeit with a few minor differences that I can’t pinpoint.
Tennis: Originating from a game played by Western European royalty, Tennis was standardized in the 1860s in Britain, spreading out from there. It’s very similar to OTL’s Tennis, but there’d probably be some minor differences.
Batonball: Having its origins in the English game of Rounders, Batonball evolved in the Commonwealth of America, before spreading out around North America and the American-influenced parts of the British Empire. The whole jist of the game is based on hitting a pitched or thrown ball with a Bat/Baton, and running around as many bases as you can without getting out. Overall, it’s very similar to OTL’s Baseball, with some differences here and there (notice a running theme here).
Rugball: Sharing the same origins as the aforementioned Football, the game took on a different character in and around the town of Rugby, formally splitting from standard Football in the 1860s. The sport was originally called Rugby Football, but was gradually shortened to Rugball. The game quickly spread to Continental Europe and across the British Empire, with regional variants developing in both the Commonwealth of America and Australia.
With that out of the way, it’s time to talk about some of the sporting competitions that came to be. There’d been sporting competitions within countries or regions in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries, and various leagues and associations developed for sports, but it was after the Second Global War of the 1910s that International competitions started to spring up. After all the devastation and death of the war, the idea came about to get nations’ competitive urges out through sport rather than through bloodshed. One of the ideas was to revive the Ancient Olympic Games, which were a mainstay of Ancient Greek culture but stopped during the Roman Empire’s Christianization (as the games also served as a pagan festival). The idea soon gained favor, and in 1920, the first modern Olympics (this time without the pagan elements) were held in Athens (because where else would you hold it)? After the 1920 Athens, 1924 Berlin and 1928 Paris games, the Olympics were expanded to include Winter Games in the middle year between each of the Summer Games, with the first Winter Olympics being held in Zurich in 1930.
However, that was not the only idea for an International Competition. Seeing the success of the Olympics, the idea came about to hold a tournament for various countries’ national Football/Soccer teams to compete, calling it the Prix du Monde, or World Prize. The first World Prize Football Tournament was held in France in 1934, with England defeating Brazil for the Championship. Sports were becoming an increasingly competitive and international affair, and it would sure bring interesting moments and events to come over the following decades...
I know that the years of the Summer and Winter games weren't separate until the 90s, but I decided to put that separation in immediately anyways.So the Olympics and World Cup are finally underway. Nice. And I still think the Summer and Winter Olympics should be held the same year for a while as they didn't diverge until the 1994 Winter/1996 Summer Games OTL. Other than that, excellent work.
I’d love to see all four of those, and for them to remain perma-separateNow that I've done the sports update, it's time to get back to China, and I've got two main questions that I want y'all to help me decide.
First, you guys voted that China would end up under either a military regime or a new dynasty, so that's obviously what I'm gonna do. Now, looking from OTL's post-Qing China, I see three main options based on my research (source here).
Here's the poll on what China's new dynasty will be: https://www.strawpoll.me/21185125
- The Duke Yansheng, the direct descendant of Confucius.
- The Marquis of Extended Grace, the descendant of the Ming Dynasty, an era that many Han Chinese looked back upon fondly.
- An ATL Yuan Shikai analogue that succeeds at taking power and establishing a brand new dynasty (as attempted by Yuan IOTL).
Second, what regions of China will separate? Namely, I'm looking at Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet, and possibly a rump Qing Dynasty in Manchuria. IOTL, Mongolia and Tibet both became independent after the fall of the Qing Dynasty (although Tibet was later reconquered by the PRC), but it could range from all of them becoming independent to all of them remaining part of China, you guys decide.