Search results

I'm not buying the "Ottomans blocking the Route to India" story. The Ottomans conquered Syria and Egypt when the Portuguese were already in India. A single Moslem entity controlling Egypt and Syria - i.e. the most direct routes to India and China - was the norm from 640AD onward. Even fanatics...

And the fun part is that in the XIXth century Nova Scotia averaged 250kg of gold a year for a few decades. First placer, later mining. If half of that would be possible with 16th century technology then it would still be meaningful.

Age of Discovery? About 1500 America starts to get explored from the Grand Banks area. No push around Africa because why? And how?. Maybe without Portuguese input naval tech could be less advanced that in OTL.

England can break up, while France might never be united by the Crown. :p Neither France nor England as we know it are predetermined. In OTL England could had broken up in the early XVth between Wales, North and South, while French unification i.e. imposition of Royal authority over the whole...

Too far from the POD as to be relevant. E.g. there might not be a united "France" ITTL. Or an "England".

France (whatever shape it takes ITTL), maybe independent Viscaya and/or Aquitane and/or Brittany? Maybe a Galicia? Other suspects would be polities from the British isles and North Sea coast. I suspect that The Spanish Style was largely brought about by the Castillians conquering existing states...

New World gets explored from the north starting from the early XVI century onward.

Mongols in Anatolia - no problem. They got to Syria, so ... There is a theory that Heraclius was of Armenian stock. An emperor had the moniker "Isaurian" - clear indication of ethnicity.

@ATP - true. Manzikert as a draw or minor Roman defeat changes everything. Of course - a like disaster can happen sometime later - but in OTL it was Manzikert which produced a permanent change in the geopolitical setting.

For Anatolia - easiest is butterflying away Manzikert. But there are many possible POD's, latest being the Ottoman Civil War after their being crushed at Ankara in 1402. Imagine a lucky and crazy-warrior type of Byzantine ruler.