6 Assassination Attempts that Almost F#@ked the World
We could play the what-if game all day. "What if Hitler had really been killed in the Operation Valkyrie assassination plot?" Answer: Not a hell of a lot would be different.
But that's not always the case. Some assassination attempts have come dangerously close to changing the world in horrifying ways. We're not saying we'd be living in a land of breakdancing dinosaurs and chocolate flavored rainbows if a few things had gone the other way ... we're just saying we might all be Nazis.
#6.
The Kaplan Incident
The Target:
Vladimir Lenin
If Successful:
The Nazis would have won World War II.
Fanny Kaplan, besides sounding like an LSAT prep teacher slash old-time burlesque dancer, was a political revolutionary during the Bolshevik Revolution. Unfortunately for her, she wasn't a Bolshevik, but a Socialist Revolutionary and her party was banned by Lenin shortly after he came into power. Already a little messed up in the head from a stint in a Siberian prison, Fanny figured assassinating Vladimir Lenin would be the perfect way to get her party back on track.
So she fired three shots at him on August 30, 1918. He survived the assassination attempt, and showed her what was what by having her and a few thousand others assassinated three days later.
But What if She Succeeded?
The Bolshevik Revolution would have collapsed. And the Nazis would have won WWII.
By 1918, Lenin's ability to inspire crowds and his willingness to kill the crap out of anyone who opposed him was the only thing keeping the loose factions of the newly triumphant Bolsheviks together. Especially since his Czar-loving opposition, awesomely called the White Russians, were backed by the better funded Allies.
Delicious, delicious opposition.
Without Lenin, the White Russians would have won the struggle for control of Russia, and a non-communist, possibly even democratic government would have eventually emerged. So Joseph Stalin wouldn't have been around to kill tens of millions of Russian people, which would have been super, but there also would have been no "Uncle Joe" to drag Russia kicking and screaming into modernity so that they could have the military badassery to kill eight out of every 10 Germans that died in WWII.
Of course, that also means Hitler's ill-fated invasion of Russia may have been a raging success, providing the Nazis with the much needed manpower, raw materials and crops they needed to win the war. So, yeah, thanks Fanny. Thanks for failing.
You know your country's in for some hard times when "not shooting the tyrant" is the best option.
#5.
Giuseppe Zangara and The Man in The High Castle
The Target:
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
If Successful:
A Fascist planet.
In February 1933, America was in the anaconda vice hold of the Depression and Franklin Roosevelt was less than a month away from his first inauguration. But a five-foot tall bricklayer named Giuseppe Zangara nearly undid the 20th century when he showed up at an FDR speech in Miami with the intention (we think) of killing the president-elect.
Fortunately, Zangara was so short that he had to stand on a wobbly folding chair to get his shot, which missed. Then the surrounding crowd knocked the short out of him as Zangara fired wildly in FDR's general direction.
Awww.
But What if He Succeeded?
Aside from the tragic loss of one of the most influential figures in history, how would the assassination of FDR have affected everyday life as we know it? According to one expert, we'd be living in something out of a science fiction novel. In fact, somebody did write a science-fiction novel about it, and he was none other than the legendary Philip K. Dick.
In 1963's The Man in the High Castle, Dick imagined the assassination of FDR as a "point of divergence," in history, triggering a domino of events starting with a weak Vice President Garner taking office. Unlike FDR, Garner maintains the stance of isolationism through the war. The Allies lose without America's help and, shortly thereafter, the Axis powers turn their attention to conquering the U.S. Which they do, in 1948.
Because Hitler's still alive, but debilitated by syphilis (?), his under-Fuhrer is the guy who starts rolling out the Mein Kampf agenda. Specifically, the eradication of the world's inferior races. And, oh yeah, Germany's unstoppable rocket program gets the Swastika on the moon, Mars and Venus, which is important because colonizing the solar system with National Socialism is all the rage.
You try weathering a Venusian summer without short shorts.
If looking at the Axis map below isn't enough to thank your god for Giuseppe Zangara's height/aim/planning deficiencies, then you're either a Fascist or maybe you just think Philip K. Dick was full of shit.
Basically everybody's Fascist but Canada.
#4.
Kyujo Incident
The Target:
Japanese Emperor Hirohito and other officials, when they were on the verge of surrendering WWII.
If Successful:
Japan would be a barren wasteland.
By mid-August 1945, the war in the Pacific was just about over. The USSR had bounced Japan's ass out of Manchuria; Hiroshima and Nagasaki were still smoldering; and Emperor Hirohito was finally ready to announce he was going to call it a day and surrender.
But not everyone on Team Japan was cool with surrendering to the Allies. So officers of the War Ministry and the Imperial Guard concocted the plan to prevent Hirohito's announcement of surrender, namely by assassinating all of the peaceniks except for the emperor, who would be placed under "protective custody."
Then the plan would be to broadcast an alternate speech declaring Japan's intention to fight down to the last man, woman and child. Fortunately, four officers went A-Team on the conspirators' asses and the whole shebang fell apart at the last minute.
But What if They Succeeded?
Japan would be a barren wasteland. And we'd all probably be radioactive mutants.
Had Hirohito not surrendered, the Allies would have implemented Operation Downfall, an apocalyptic plan that would have resulted in millions of Allied casualties and tens of millions of Japanese casualties. One military planner estimated that SEVEN atomic bombs would have been ready for detonation by X-Day, which was scheduled for November 1, 1945.
And as if this scenario wasn't horrific enough, the U.S. had absolutely no idea what the fuck they were doing with nuclear warfare, and were prepared to send troops into ground zero with no radiation gear whatsoever only 48-hours after the atomic bombings.
And don't think that it would have just been American troops dropping into Radiationland. Allied troops from Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand would have also been invited to the poison party.
Keep your nukes close, and your infantry closer.
And then they'd all have gone home and got started on that baby boom we've heard so much about. Would the next generation have been born with grotesque deformities? Or superpowers?
The world will never know.
Y'know, I like alternate history as much as the next guy, but counterfactuals are really no more legitimate than a Marvel "What If?" comic.
ReplySo if Lenin was assassinated in WWI, and the Whites win the Russian Civil War and there's no USSR, the Nazis win WWII? Part of the reason the German military was so capable in 1939 was because they'd spent much of the 20s and 30s wargaming with the Red Army, as Germany and the Soviet Union were the two "pariah" nations in Europe, they were thick as thieves until Hitler and his anti-Bolshevik policies came to power. At that point the Red Army was one of the best militaries in the world, second only to the Wehrmacht and the only reason they fared so poorly in the early days of WWII was because Stalin's mid-30s purges had absolutely gutted the officer corps. So if there was no USSR, there would have been no German-Soviet alliance and perhaps the Wehrmacht wouldn't have been as ready for WWII. Not to mention if the torchbearer for international communism was extinguished in the 1920s, would there have been a Nazi party without socialist bogeymen to blame (the average capitalist didn't give a crap about the Jews, but he sure feared Marxism)? How would the Great Depression have panned out if Western governments ruthlessly crushed all labour action instead of embracing Keynesian economics? Would we have anything resembling the modern welfare state? Would every major nation have gone fascist? There's a lot of "what ifs" to be addressed beyond a simple "Lenin dies 4 years early, therefore Hitler wins WWII".
This article has it wrong. America existing F#@ked the world...
Replywe might be f*****g the world now sadly, but our revolution inspired similar ones around the glob, IE we caused modern democracy. i'd say overall we've done more good than harm.
Actually the Magna Carta kicked that off a cool 500 years before the Declaration :s
The Puritans may not have had a reason to leave Englan
Replylet's try this again..
The Puritans may not have had a reason to leave England, but the pilgrims still would have. Remember, they are not one and the same.
For #5, it's worth keeping in mind that Philip K. Dick was pathologically incapable of writing a story without some kind of apocalypse involved. Usually these are nuclear apocalypses (apocalypsi?), but sometimes it's a robot rebellion or alien invasion or something. So history buffs may call this Nazi thing implausible, but on the PKD apocalypse scale, it's actually more realistic than most.
ReplyAnd if a Dick story you're reading isn't set post-apocalypse, don't worry. It will END with an apocalypse.
Its a shame he didnt write "Twilight" then.
You know, we make fun of France losing wars all the time, but America wouldn't exist without France. I say we should create "National France Day", in honor of our crescent eating friends!
Replyi think even cracked has written about the french military's undeserved bad reputation.
We repaid the French,Betterdanyou,by kicking the Nazi's out of France when we invaded Normandy. Not to mention our involvement in kicking Germanys' butt in 1918.
So if any one of these scenarios panned out, we could have had two facist Americas, one limey America, no America, a Spanish America, or an Radioactive America without Japan to provide hilarious internet content. I think we can officially say that we're damn lucky.
Replywhat is with cracked and this belief that the Soviets won WWII? Did people forget that Stalin and Hitler were going steady for a time? And how about the Americans, British, and all the other countries who didn't give the nazis a bj? Seriously, writers here need to stop sucking on Russia's balls.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesMaybe because they did most of the fighting. Additionally plenty of American companies like Ford, GM and IBM helped the Nazis until war was declared and Ford continued to do so via a subsidiary.
And you need to crack open a world history book.
because 8 out of 10 nazi were killed by russia you dumbfuck. sure, we helped, but russia gets the MVP award.
saying the british defeated the spanish armada is giving juts a little too much credit to the british. The fleet was blown off course and fucked over by the weather before they even reached britain afaik
ReplyHe said it was down to bad weather and poor planning.
I am not at all surprised Bloomburg was involved on the Washington assassination plot. He's a douche.
ReplyOMG!! U know what? I just came across my best friend and her new boyfriend meeting on a nice dating place--casualloving dot c'0m--. Oh, so gorgeous. I must have a try, too. This place is the first and best club for charming lady and handsome man to find intimate encounters or begin NSA relationship, safe and private! It's for me who wanna begin a relation without too many limits and bounds. Why waiting? Let your soul fly free and find your Mr. or Miss. Right here. Best wishes!
ReplyFunny, Miss "Right Here" is what I called my hook up in a stall in the unisex bathroom last night. Best wishes!
that nuke picture in #4 is the Chinese nuke cannon in C&C gernerals lol. great article!
ReplyI haven't played that game, but that happens to be a picture of the American nuclear artillery piece nicknamed "Atomic Annie." I think. Maybe. It could also be in the game.
I'd be a whole lot more interested in the counterarguments that commenters posted, if only they would be so kind as to include LINKS.
ReplySome really crazy leaps of logic here. If Lenin had been killed it would have most likely made Stalin's rise to absolute power easier for him. As for the assertion that the Red's would have lost the revolution after Lenin was assassinated it just doesn't make sense. Stalin was already in control of the Red Army after being dispatched to Tsaritsyn. He basically ignored all orders from Trotsky and Lenin and prosecuted the war in good ol' bloody Stalin style. Lenin's early death would have made him an instant martyr and most likely made it easier for Stalin.
ReplyThe Japanese super mutant idea is just silly. Even of other factions of the Imperial Forces failed to succeed in a counter coup and subsequent surrender the fight for Kyushu would have been incredibly brutal yes, but sans the mutants. First of all the atomic weapons used were very small. Secondly, US soldiers did in fact live and work in the areas that were bombed during the reconstruction period. My grandfather for one drove landing craft filled with supplies in the Hiroshima area for months. Everyday he would drive across a bay filled with thick smoke as the debris from the surrounding city was burnt off and demolished. Not a super mutant. He is 89 and has never had cancer.
As asserted in the introduction the success of Valkyrie quite possibly could have ended the war. Valkyrie was not just an assassination, but an intricately, if not all that well implemented, coup. All major figures of the regime were being arrested and a war weary and decimated population and military who had all but lost the war could have easily accepted peace with quite a bit of infrastructure still standing. Wether or not this would have resulted in the German issue cropping up a few years down the road again is another question, but if all went right the Cold War would have been quite a different story. Just imagine a free and democratic Germany, Poland, and many other Eastern Bloc nations. Stalin may never have acquired nuclear technology and would have been hemmed in on all sides by free nations allied with the West. Basically killing Hitler at any point in time would have made long and lasting changes that would have drastically changed the face of the world.
Guy Fawkes was part of the Gunpowder Plot.
ReplyHow did you miss that?
I kept waiting for it.
Would the American audience know who Guy Fawkes is? Oh, yeah, that V for Vendetta face mask.
The USA not existing implies immediatly the World would be fucked???
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesThe USA has had a pretty big impact on world history for the past few hundred years. Some of it was good, some of it was not. But things would've gone very differently either way.
doesn't mean that the world would be totally fucked up yellowfellow
From our point of view yes it would. By our i mean all of us living today.
we did inspire a world-wide democratic revolution starting with France, so.... yeah. we're not that bad.
The Kyujo incident and Operation Downfall should have been #1. If starting an apocalyptic nuclear holocaust prematurely while completely and utterly wiping out Japan from the face of the earth does not make you think "clusterfuck", I don't know what else from this page is.
ReplyWhile the utter destruction of Japan would have been horrific, it certainly doesn't compare to the level of slaughter a Nazi-controlled world would have suffered. The Nazis really only valued the Aryan race, and sort of tolerated other Europeans. But Asians, Africans, Native Americans, and others would have been hunted to extinction.
I'm gonna be so pissed if I ever found out I could have superpowers due to radiation.
Reply'Anti-climatic disaster'? A disaster against the weather? xD
ReplyThis article is rich with ideas for alternate history novels, but poor with historicity. There are too many factors at play in all these events to make any single event into a hinge on which history swings. Yes, 16th century Catholicism was incredibly hidebound and dogmatic, but that was mostly a reaction to Protestantism (the Counter-Reformation). Before Protestantism threatened its traditional power, the Catholic Church could be quite open to new ideas. There's a reason Copernicus was praised by the Pope for his model of the heliocentric universe, while 80 years later Galileo was almost burned at the stake for saying the same thing. If Protestantism was crushed in England, and eventually the rest of Europe, who's to say the Enlightenment (in a very different form) wouldn't have happened a century or two late?
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesUnfortunately, the popular view of history in English-speaking countries seems to have been shaped largely by 19th-century English historians, and despite more current and thorough research by modern scholars, these archaic perceptions persist.
Representin' for the Early-Modern European History crown, Yeah-Yeah!!!
That and Poland was the most forward thinking country despite being Catholic and surrounded by enemies (which is important as they were the big regional power at the time).
Also, for the record, Galileo got into trouble with the Church for completely different reasons, most of them down to him being a douche.
I am really glad about #2. Since one of my ancestors came over on the Mayflower, my bloodline would either be in Europe or not exist at all. Actually, that might not have been so bad.
Reply