re: What’s an American history hot take you’ve got?

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The Germans never had the capability of crossing the channel and “capturing” the UK. Maybe a peace deal

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What if Germany had developed the atomic bomb?

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I don't think this is a hot take, but the Feds knew about Pearl Harbor and let US Servicemen die to facilitate popular approval into a previously very unpopular WWII.

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It is a hot take because most people do not believe it is true.

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The only reason Japan didn’t try to invade the west coast was they saw the large number of hunting licenses distributed. They knew it would be a death sentence.

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Good thing they didn't look today. Bunch of pansies out there.

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Benedict Arnold had Legitimate gripes and grievances with the fledgling US and wasn't the evil villain he's made out to be, just opportunistic

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Which confirms my statement earlier that there is no good vs evil in war, just varying shades of grey.

Arnold actually won quite a few victories for the US side, but after he was passed up for promotion, he switched sides. Even that is a very simplistic explanation. There were a whole lot of complicating factors that went into his decision.

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I/m not so sure opening China for business when the rest of the world was in shambles would lead to the exponential growth the US saw as an economic Superpower in the 40's-60's. Cheap labor would have been very detrimental to our economy as it is today. Also, the Chinese were an economic Superpower for thousands of years prior to the Japanese invasion. I don't think even the Japanese even realized how far they had fallen. An economically viable China would definitely not have led to the technical innovations from our rise as a Superpower.

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The nationalist government was still extremely corrupt and inefficient. Everyone wants to view it like they would be an enormous Taiwan and I don't think thats the case. Taiwan became what they are in large part because of our support of them in the wake of the Korean War.

The nationalists were also extremely unpopular with common folk in China so you would have significant internal strife even if they did stay in power. Truthfully another communist movement later on could very well have still taken power if we didn't intervene. Its interesting to think about.

Present day China is what they are because they aren't really all that communist when it doesn't benefit them to be.... they kind of operate on this sliding scale that allows innovation to a point, but then when the private industry gets a little too powerful the government comes in and regulates. It really a hybridized model economically, up to a point anyway.

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The development and use of nuclear weapons didn't cause the post WWII increase in defense spending. The Cold War did

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this

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England was foolish for ever entering WW1. They didn't have anything at stake, and nothing to gain. They went from the financial hub of the world and largest creditor nation to the largest debtor nation in the span of four years. It set the stage for their empire breaking up. The war almost completely bankrupted them and, in turn, transformed America into the world superpower.

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Fully agree here. Which leads me to a couple more hot takes. Or maybe not that hot.

The world would be a better place today if Germany had won WW1, and Britain and the US never got involved.

The British Empire up until WWI produced by far the most global good of any government/empire up until that point and its not really even close.

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Napoleon Bonaparte

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One of my favorite bits of history is the contrast between Charlemagne going to the Rome to be crowned the first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and being crowned by the pope (supposedly reluctantly, I have doubts), and Napoleon a little over a thousand years later getting the pope to come to him and then crowning himself. Just such a cool link there to me.

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Lee had more luck than skill...

Napoleon Bonaparte“I’d rather have lucky generals than good ones.”

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True, But Lee was very fortunate he drew McClellan, Burnside and Hooker.

It was actually East Germany that began the actual destruction of the Berlin Wall seen on TV. An East German newscaster mistakenly stated that travel restrictions were officially over when they had not been yet. Crowds flocked to the wall to cross and the guards couldn't stop them and had to let them go.