Things that look like alternate history but aren't

[Thande]

Here's one I found:



Taken from this Forces TV video, British soliders practicing for the Trooping of the Colour wearing bearskins with more modern uniforms.

 

[OHC]

Spoiler: A marginal case

Silverton's state House seat, the Division of Forest River, will be renamed the Division of Davenport in advance of the 2023 snap election.

(You can tell I'm a nerd since this label on our work trailer always makes me think of Australian politics.)

 

[Thande]

This one is more surprising not from the immediate image itself but from the caption: 1941, Winston Churchill observes the launch of a drone.

In fact, this specific radio-controlled aircraft (the de Havilland Queen Bee) is thought to be the origin of the word 'drone' for unmanned air vehicles due to the pun on male bees that fly once (a mating flight) and then die, or in this case are shot down by the manned aircraft whose pilots are being trained.

 

[RyanF]

One I discovered during a visit to the Smithsonian earlier this year.

One US President, for the sake of anonymity let's call him Richard N R Nixon, felt that Secret Service agents assigned to the White Houe should be uniformed. The result was these nifty wee numbers:



The uniforms were quietly phased out by his successors. Some of them were purchased by an Iowa high school for their band at $10 a pop, which was a steal considering the government paid $16,000 each. They just beat out Alice Cooper, who wanted to outfit his road crew in them.

 

[Thande]

Another 'captured enemy vehicle that could also be an alternate lend-lease with different alliances' image - American Tiger tank

 

[Warthog]

Carthaginian forces advance through Baden-Württemberg, 1945



Actually circus elephants in Hamburg, used to clear wreckage after bombing raids (IWM)

 

[Arthur_Phuxache]

Another 'captured enemy vehicle that could also be an alternate lend-lease with different alliances' image - American Tiger tank

View attachment 70232

I think at one point, the Wehrmacht operated more T-34s than the Red Army.


They also liked free Lend-Lease tanks.



If they had more of these, Hitler might have won!

Googling the word "beutepanzer" gets you some good alternate history pictures.

 

[AH Layard]

There’s a museum near Ahmednagar in India that has a whole range of German and American tanks from WW2 that were later used in the 1965 and 1971 wars between India and Pakistan. Some still had the swastikas on which looked like HoI AH where the Germans had broken through the Middle East to India.

Also notable that many Indian cavalry regiments retain their British names E.g. Skinner’s Horse.

 

[LSCatilina]

Among the Musée de l'Armée weirdest pieces.

1) You might already know the shield-pistol combo, but would you be ready to face the key-pistol?

2) "What if we combined a rifle with a cannon?" and thus was born the bullet-cannon.

3) A XVIIIth century grenade-launcher

4) A dismountable canon. (Result)

 

[Thande]

Among the Musée de l'Armée weirdest pieces.

1) You might already know the shield-pistol combo, but would you be ready to face the key-pistol?

2) "What if we combined a rifle with a cannon?" and thus was born the bullet-cannon.

3) A XVIIIth century grenade-launcher

4) A dismountable canon. (Result)

Oh, good idea. Unfortunately I can't find an idea of that strange novelty musket with a twelve-foot-long barrel that they had at the Royal Armouries at some point.

 

[Thande]

TIL that the Iraqi Embassy in Beijing is made to look like the Ishtar Gate in Babylonia.



Does that count as ancient civilisation one-upmanship (or solidarity)?

Link to original picture as the pattern creates some unintentional moiré effects on the smaller image: https://content.fortune.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/ishtar.jpeg

 

[Alex Richards]

And how does that intersect with the Germans having the original (and half in storage to boot!).

 

[Arthur_Phuxache]

Oh, good idea. Unfortunately I can't find an idea of that strange novelty musket with a twelve-foot-long barrel that they had at the Royal Armouries at some point.

Saves the bother of engaging the enemy more closely.

TIL that the Iraqi Embassy in Beijing is made to look like the Ishtar Gate in Babylonia.

View attachment 70239

Does that count as ancient civilisation one-upmanship (or solidarity)?

Bit small compared to the one in the Pergamon.

 

[LSCatilina]

The Elephant of the Bastille. It will never be not weird as heck.

 

[RyanF]

The Elephant of the Bastille. It will never be not weird as heck.

No wonder they were able to storm it with that lad on side.

 

[SpanishSpy]

That these people operate in the US.

 

[OHC]

That these people operate in the US.

Railways and national sovereignty are complicated. Heard of a case a while back where a guy got injured in a rail yard in St Louis and had to sue in Mexican court for damages because some rail treaty meant that Mexican law applied on the site.

 

[Thande]

The Elephant of the Bastille. It will never be not weird as heck.

I like how there is no explanation whatsoever in the Wiki article about why an elephant. My first thought was some sort of strained Carthaginian reference to Hannibal crossing the Alps as Napoleon also did that, but that's clearly meant to be an Indian elephant and howdah.

 

[Alex Richards]

I like how there is no explanation whatsoever in the Wiki article about why an elephant. My first thought was some sort of strained Carthaginian reference to Hannibal crossing the Alps as Napoleon also did that, but that's clearly meant to be an Indian elephant and howdah.

Even the French Wikipedia article basically offers about a dozen different explanations (a proposal for a statue of Louis XV on Place de l'Étoile, a royal symbol adopted by the republic, a carriage clock in Berlin, the stories of Alexander the Great, the Danish Order of the Elephant, a fountain in Rome, pure artistic Oreintalism etc.) as to why.

It's basically one massive *shrug*

 

[Charles EP M.]

That these people operate in the US.

"Private Canadian law enforcement for railroads" feels like a thing in a Wild West AH where something's gone very bad for Washington