What If Archives | HistoryNet

General Hideki Tojo

What If the Japanese Had Refused to Surrender?

by Mark Grimsley6/15/20226/16/2022

An unconditional surrender went directly against Japanese ideals. What if the high command had refused to give up?

What If World War I Was Just a Tragic Accident?

by Daniel McEwen2/11/20227/31/2023

Confederates repeatedly turned back Federal attacks on their Vicksburg trenches in May 1863, prompting Grant to lay siege to the city. (Library of Congress)

What If Robert E. Lee Had Sent Troops to Vicksburg?

by Chris Mackowski10/7/20216/16/2022

Book Review: The World Hitler Never Made / Alternate History and the Memory of Nazism

by Antulio J. Echevarria II 9/2/20194/26/2024

ulysses-s-grant

Grant is Dead!

by Mark Grimsley11/20/20184/1/2024

What If France Had Not Fallen to the Nazis in 1940?

by Mark Grimsley8/14/20185/1/2023

What If Japan Hadn’t Attacked Pearl Harbor?

by Mark Grimsley8/13/20186/27/2022

What If Hitler Had Won World War II?

by Mark Grimsley8/10/20185/16/2023

What If Britain Had Made Peace With Hitler?

by Mark Grimsley8/9/20186/16/2022

Col. Dave Severance, Company Commander of Easy Company of the 28th Marines, 5th Marine Division, became associated with a historic moment in American history on Feb. 23, 1945, when he responded to orders from his battalion commander to send a patrol to Mount Suribachi, the highest summit on the island described by Marine Lt. Gen. Holland M. “Howlin’ Mad” Smith as a “grim, smoking rock.” Following orders from the battalion commander, the platoon hoisted an American flag on the summit. But it wasn’t the famed image captured by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal. The Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal, upon seeing the first flag raised on Mount Suribachi, wanted to keep it as a memento. Thus a second larger flag was raised to replace it, which Rosenthal went on to document to much acclaim. (USMC)

What If the Marines Had Skipped Iwo Jima?

by Mark Grimsley8/8/20186/16/2022