Soldiers of the Japanese Imperial Army shortly after capturing Agra

​Let us say King Louis IX survives the summer of 1270 without catching dysentery. The Crusaders successfully take Tunis and crush the Hafsid dynasty. Louis decides against returning home and establishes a permanent Crusader state. He officially crowns an Angevin cadet branch as the Kings of Africa.

​By 1562, the Kingdom of Africa has survived for nearly three centuries. It has transitioned from a fragile crusader outpost into a heavily fortified Mediterranean power. The map shows the realm administratively divided into several governorates, like Tunis and Kairouan alongside Tripoli. They also set up the County of Constantine to the west as a buffer state.

​The geopolitical situation remains terrifying though. The expanding Ottoman Empire surrounds them completely, with forces advancing from both the east and the west. Their absolute only lifeline is a strict alliance with the Spanish crown in Sicily and the Knights of Malta.

​I am really curious how the Ottomans would deal with this massive Catholic salient in North Africa. Suleiman the Magnificent historically launched the Great Siege of Malta in 1565, but maybe he would focus his massive armada on Tunis instead in this timeline.

Lundian Socialism | Early life of William Lund (1880–1925)

William Hansen Lund was born in Moose Lake, Minnesota, on March 14, 1880, to Norwegian immigrants Johan Lund (1854–1926) and Brigitte Lund (1858–1936), who worked as iron miners. According to the 1880 Census Moose Lake had only 100 inhabitants; it is believed growing up in a small town immigrant community affected Lund deeply.

Lund began working at the age of 12 to sustain his family. He was treated harshly and suffered several workplace injuries, thus shaping his socialist, pro-union views. In 1896, the Lunds moved to northwestern Wisconsin, where William continued working in a mine until becoming a union organizer in 1900.

The following year, Lund became a founding member of the Socialist Party of America, whose main stronghold was Wisconsin (especially the city of Milwaukee). In 1908, Lund married Christina Holbein, a fellow Norwegian American who served as first lady during Lund's presidency. They had three children.

By 1910, Lund was the most important Wisconsin Socialist outside of Milwaukee, allowing him to be elected to the Wisconsin State Assembly in 1912. As a state assemblyman, Lund cooperated with La Follette's progressive faction of the Republican Party in order to improve the lives of working-class Wisconsinites. This made him popular among workers in his district, but he lost reelection to a Republican in 1916.

Like most Socialists, Lund strongly opposed the United States's entry in World War I, arguing it would benefit big corporations but not the working man. Consequently, he was arrested and was only released in 1921, subsequently becoming one of the Socialist Party's most important figures. He campaigned for La Follette during the 1924 election.

This is my first post here! So I hope you all will be patient with me :). This is a map for my alternate history scenario where the articles of confederation were kept, due to the states being unable to agree on any draft, and as time goes on, the idea of an "United States" becomes simply a defensive and economic alliance called the "League of America". Feel free to ask about it down in the comments!

For needed context, Yugoslavia were the defending champions in 2022

instead of a loose confederation in the 1500s the emperor decided to centralise power this instant instantly made the holy Roman Empire the biggest country in Europe throughout the Renaissance it unified Germany after the Napoleon wars in this timeline of France also wins the Napoleonic wars however soon collapses because the sheer amount of territory they have to govern in the 1800s they unify again restoring the empire however it became a completely Germanic dominated state it absorbed Austria in the 1900s and won two world wars

I’m a Korean freelancer who creates and sells 3D models using Blender. As a hobby, I enjoy imagining alternate histories or conceptualizing fictional worlds using my 3D models.

Although I’m not entirely sure if this actually fits the alternate history genre, I thought I’d upload it anyway.

Based on the An-22 3D model I created, I tuned the 3D model as shown in the photo, exploring the scenario: “What if North Korea’s Air Koryo had been in better financial shape, or had received an An-22 as a grant from the Soviet Union and operated it?” The paint scheme is based on the IL-76s operated by Air Koryo.

All Screenshot: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/lEVmXJ

Original: https://www.reddit.com/r/blender/comments/1v1ajip/this_is_my_first_time_using_reddit_so_im_not_very/

In this timeline, a set of events occurs leading for most people that would normally bolster and strengthen the CSA to not be able to. Disease, death, etc. Also, most states pass more progressive legislatures. Robert E. Lee moves to SC after Virginia moves to be more liberal, and there he meets governor Francis Pickens. The two share common sentiment and eventually independence.

No other states secede though, also thanks to Lincoln sending some US military soldiers to patrol. Needless to say, South Carolina quickly loses the war after getting their hopes up with early ambush victories at the start. Due to there only being one state, only the Bonnie Blue (yes that's the name) flag is used as the Confederate flag is never invented in this timeline. The state rejoins the Union and that's that.

Also i just realized I probably should've changed the name of the war itself, though it makes sense that in the years following the war they would want to call it that to make it seem more equal of a fight. I'd imagine it's just called the Carolinian Insurgency outside of that. Beyond the war, a brief reconstruction period happens from 1861-1863. The state votes in the 1864 election and goes on like normal though. The government is completely changed. I know it's not all realistic but eh.

EDIT: I made a shocking amount of errors. I forgot to update the US army size among one of them. I acknowledge this and the others now stop buttering up my comments thanks El Reddit

The Turkish Commune emerged as a consequence of the Ottoman Empire's declaration of insolvency in 1875, when it announced that it could no longer meet its foreign debt obligations amid a period of political struggle between the Sultan and constitutionalist statesmen, the devastating Ottoman defeat in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, and, ultimately, the Empire's decision in 1881 to surrender major sources of tax revenue to Britain and France for a period of thirty years in repayment of its debts. More specifically, it arose in response to the Tobacco Régie established in 1883 under this arrangement.

Ottoman producers were required to sell all tobacco, salt, and alcohol they produced to the Régie administration at prices determined by the monopoly. Peasants were forbidden from keeping tobacco for their own consumption without the Régie's permission. A peasant would first be forced to sell his own tobacco to the Régie for three kuruş and then buy it back for ten kuruş. The penalties for transporting tobacco or salt from one village to another without authorization were severe. The Régie maintained its own armed guards, and some sources claim that more than 20,000 Ottoman peasants were shot and killed by Régie enforcers.

These conditions gave rise to a large-scale popular uprising in the Aegean region, the heartland of Anatolia's tobacco production. With the support of the Governor of Aydın, Alfred (Ahmed) Rüstem Bey, the unrest developed into an armed rebellion joined by numerous local military units stationed in the region. Following the Ottoman defeat in 1878, Sultan Abdul Hamid II had dissolved the parliament and sought to consolidate the state under his absolutist rule. Faced with this widespread rebellion, he sought assistance diplomatically by requesting the support of the British fleet stationed in Cyprus in exchange for granting further capitulatory concessions. This humiliating move resulted in the uprising receiving tacit support from constitutionalist statesmen, military officers, and bureaucrats.

Although the rebellion was suppressed in early 1884 with the support of the British Navy, resulting in the deaths of thousands of peasants and the bombardment of Aydın, it came to be known as the Turkish Commune. The movement was named after the populist and Marxist rhetoric embodied by the Turkish bureaucrat Ahmed Rüstem Bey, the indirect support it received from Turkish constitutionalists, and the solidarity extended to it by the international communist public opinion of the time.

The Turkish Commune maintained its existence for one year, from October 1883 to October 1884, during which it possessed its own currency, official newspaper, flag (a plain red banner, and therefore not depicted on the map), and Central Committee. Throughout this period, the Friday khutbah was not read in the name of the Sultan and Caliph anywhere within the Commune's territories in the Aegean. Although it did not receive direct support from high-ranking constitutionalist pashas closely connected to the central bureaucracy, it left a profound impression on the Young Ottomans and intellectual circles that would later shape modern Turkish literature and political thought, influencing figures ranging from Namık Kemal to Ebüzziya Mehmed Tevfik and Recaizade Mahmud Ekrem. Following the suppression of the uprising, Ahmed Rüstem Bey Bilinski -the "Turkish Marx"- fled abroad and continued his opposition for many years, entering history as the leader of the first Turkish communist movement and one of the most prominent Ottoman intellectuals of his age.

“Following the costly Southern victory at Gettysburg, Hood’s Division, McLaws’ Division, and other Confederate organizations broke northwest to cut off Union supply lines and military communications."

"Despite this effort, the Confederacy was ultimately defeated in the Great American War, which resulted in the deaths of approximately 2.6 million Americans.”

The American War, (April 12, 1861 - June 5, 1868)

Let's say papa Stalin would be good enough to them so they could keep them

Ahh the best community that I can pull out all my creative mind towards to! My first post of this community btw

There's 5 singleplayer mode campaign in there, all happened in East Asia, here's all the story below! (Article were took from wargame wiki)

Busan Pocket: 🇰🇷🇺🇸 vs 🇰🇵

After a protest calling for Democracy in South Korea in 1987, the North Korean Army launches an invasion of Korea, in a surprise attack, and has managed to push the South Korean Army all to way to the Busan Pocket.

Bear vs. Dragon: 🇨🇳🇰🇵 vs 🇷🇺

After a series of events that arose tensions between the People's Republic of China and the USSR, war is on the horizon, poised to strike first, you take command of Chinese and North Korean troops to strike the port of Vladivostok in a deadly border conflict.

Pearl of the Orient: 🇬🇧🇨🇦🇦🇺 vs 🇨🇳

After negotiations over the British handover of Hong Kong between the UK and China fell apart, the PRC has decided to take the islands by force, opting to declare war on the UK in an invasion of Hong Kong, you take control of the British, Canadian and Australian task force sent to defend the islands until reinforcements can arrive in 10 days.

Climb Mount Naronadïa: 🇷🇺 vs 🇯🇵🇰🇷🇺🇸

For years after the end of the Second World War, the status of the Kuril Islands has poisoned Japanese-Soviet relations, after a re-militarization of Japan under the US, that had done little to warm up the Soviets. After a joint US-Japan naval exercise called "FleetEx '84" the Politburo was convinced it was a warm up to a full scale NATO invasion, the Soviet Union invades Japan in a preemptive strike. After the opening days of the Invasion you take command of Soviet Paratroopers, Marines, Army troops and Navy ships sent to Southern Japan in a strike to down from Osaka to Hiroshima to finally end the war once and for all...

The Second Korean War: NATO(Blufor) vs 🇷🇺🇨🇳🇰🇵

After a coup in August, 1991. The Communist Party had wrestled back control of the Soviet Union from Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, before they can dissolve the Soviet Union, however the same could not be said for the rest for the Warsaw Pact. With this however, the Soviet Union had struck up a relationship with its remaining Communist Allies in China and North Korea. After supplying the North Koreans with its most advance tanks and equipment, the US sends a Carrier task force led by the USS Enterprise to the Sea of Japan, as the world braces itself for the Second Korean War. You take command of the South Korean Army and USS Enterprise task force escorted by the JMSDF in the opening hours of the Invasion, then you would assume control of a UN led coalition in the counterattack to retake South Korea and eventually, the invasion of North Korea itself to settle this rivalry once and for all...

Shakushain was hardly the model of a revolutionary leader, given that he was an octogenarian who'd been leading what was at first an internal conflict among the Ainu between the Shibuchari and Hae. It was almost by misfortune that he was propelled into leading an ever-growing group of Ainu rebels against the hated Matsumae, the Wajin who had settled the south and had been steadily consolidating their hold over the entire island. With more and more soldiers rallying to his banner, the well-equipped but small Matsumae garrison fell victim to two forces. The first was an Ainu attack through a brutal rainstorm, catching their garrison at Matsumae Castle off-guard. The second and perhaps more devastating was a lack of support from other Daimyo clans. Even when united under the Tokugawa Shogunate, the Daimyo still clung to old rivalries, leaving the Matsumae to fall victim to the people they had been given carte blanche to exploit for decades. The Tokugawa themselves weren't happy with the circumstance, but the lack of cooperation from the Daimyo led to the fall of the Matsumae and the destruction of Matsumae Castle.

Historically, islands and archipelagos have ended up unified by the strongest power of that group. The British Isles, the Hawaiian Islands, Madagascar, all of them brought to heel by great powers, but Japan was an odd example where one stubborn holdout seemed to continually and perpetually resist their encroachment. Of the Japanese islands, the land known as Ezo to Japan and Ainumosir to the Ainu people themselves was for centuries a bizarre kind of frontier, heavily forested with a harsh climate and strange "barbarians" that were alien to not only the Japanese but seemingly every other people in the world, something the Ainu themselves often felt was something that helped to define themselves as a people. Being the heirs to the ancient Jomon, the Ainu were no stranger to the advance of the Japanese Empire, and had made themselves enemies of the Yamato for centuries. Under Shakushain, for the first time they truly gained a victory against them and drove them out of their lands, something that the Tokugawa were not happy about at all.

At the same time, the downfall of an entire clan was enough of a threat to the internal stability of the Tokugawa Shogunate that the Shoguns were forced to disregard this unruly frontier province for the time being while ensuring that their internal balance could be maintained, allowing Shakushain to begin consolidating his hold along the south and west of the island. His charisma and status as a liberator won the affection of many Ainu clans, even if those in the north and east were more resistant towards his influence. The Ainu were never a united people in history, but the same could be said for most every culture and nation. Shaukshain was the first to lead an incipient Ainu state, gathering the clans to his banner and calling upon the Ainu to at last become one people, united in the face of the threat from the south. And to a large degree it worked. While most Ainu held to the traditional ways, Shakushain was able to use the twilight years of his life to create the foundations for what would become the modern Ainu nation.

Upon Shakushain's death, the Ainu clans met at the town of Satporopet on the plains of the Isikari River. Where the domain established by Shakushain may have fallen apart after his death, the threat of the Japanese continued to be present to a very real degree, leading the most influential leaders among themselves to agree that maintaining unity in the face of a possible reprisal from the Shogunate was of paramount importance. What followed was what some historians have described as a sort of proto-democracy, wherein the clans established a kind of elective monarchy wherein the overall chieftain of the Ainu (Aekote-nishpa) would be elected from among the clan leaders, then rule for the duration of their lives. Balancing local leaders with the need to create a centralized state, this foundational effort helped set in motion the consolidation of the Ainu tribes into what would be considered to be more of a "state" in the traditional Westphalian sense, especially with the arrival of a new force that would fundamentally reshape the entire region: the Europeans.

European influence came to Ainumosir from two directions. The more immediate was from the south, where the Portuguese and Dutch began attempting to work their way into Japan from tiny trade outposts in the south. Not long after them, though, the Russian Empire completed its long-running eastwards expansion and established themselves on the Sea of Okhotsk. For the Europeans, Ainumosir presented an interesting place to try and gain influence, especially for the Russians. The Ainu, meanwhile, were more than happy to have potential friends if it meant bolstering themselves against the Japanese, and out of necessity in the face of a colonizing force that continued to present a threat from the south, the Ainu began to embrace European presence more readily than Japan if it meant being able to trade for guns and weapons the Japanese didn't have. While Japan isolated itself, Ainumosir was at least somewhat more open to the world, for better or worse.

Most of the early travelers to Ainumosir were missionaries, seeking to convert the Ainu. They found converts, yes, but most continued to cling to the old worship of the Kamuy. Nonetheless, most of the missionaries did have more altruistic means for traveling through Ainumosir, notably through the work of the Swedish missionary Josef Sjöberg, who traveled extensively through the island both within and without territories subject to the authority of the Eukoramkoro, the council seated in Satporopet. Having already been made familiar with the Japanese language and syllabary, Sjöberg ultimately developed the first codified system of writing the Ainu language. Although writing is often overlooked as a system of communication, the impact of the Ainu being able to write down their own stories and thoughts without the need of outside forces was like a shock of thunder through Ainumosir, kick-starting a period of cultural and social development which saw the island rapidly develop a system somewhat parallel to the Tokugawa system of military governors to the south.

Ainumosir had the fortune to develop at the outset of the Age of Enlightenment, and a number of the merchants and traders who came from Europe often brought those ideas with them. At the same time, the Eukoramkoro was working to subjugate the northeastern lands of their island, carrying out military campaigns with the assistance of Russian military observers who were eager to put the island under their influence as a precursor to potentially bringing all of Japan under their banner. Although Russia's wilder ambitions were never fully realized, the Russian presence on the island was a long-lasting one that helped to keep the island apart from Japan, especially as the Sakoku Period began to put Japan further and further behind the world. The Europeans were no merciful liberators for the Ainu, but the driving force of colonialism was always economics, and Ainumosir presented little in the way of economic benefit for Europeans. Japan never stopped seeing this growing power on their north as anything but an inferior backwater, but increasingly it also began to see it as a threat.

The Menashir War of 1725-1727 was a clear demarcation point in the history of the island, as it marked two things. The first was the final subjugation of all of the island under the authority of the Eukoramkoro, crushing the power of the last clans resistant to the growing central authority of Ainumosir. The second was that Ainumosir was a proper state in its own right as far as Europe and Japan were concerned, as by that point Europe had largely ceased dealing with individual clans and now dealt most frequently with the newly-entrenched central authority that sat in Satporopet. The Japanese government looked on this development with increasing concern and alarm, not least for the fact that this state seemed to be rapidly evolving in its own right. The Tokugawa found themselves in a dilemma, trying to balance its policy of Sakoku with the very real desire to impose itself over Ainumosir, especially with the Ainu developing more and more hallmarks of a true state: central government, a standing army, and a burgeoning economy.

The Ainu themselves were increasingly at a crossroads in their society's history. With the country now becoming more modernized, many of the old rituals and traditions were increasingly strained by the needs of a modern nation-state. Much of the same identity and culture that the Ainu had fought to preserve was now under threat as even the ancient iyomante ritual was looked on with disdain by an evolving culture that sought to cast off what was considered "barbaric" even by fellow Ainu. The Hotempayaya Yaitobare-kuni-ita, literally the "Era of Crisis", was a period of immense cultural and social tension between progressive and conservative elements of Ainumosir struggled to reconcile the modern age with their ancient culture. That the European empires were growing ever bolder and more aggressive in their attempts to bring the entire world to heel didn't help either, and Russia especially was growing more and more willing to approach Ainumosir as a new territory to be annexed along with the rest of their Siberian holdings.

Internally, most Ainu had begun to view the outside world with an increasing level of suspicion. After all, the world seemed hell-bent on trying to conquer them into one empire or another, and when Russia laid claim to the island of Saklhalin, itself part of the traditional boundaries of Ainumosir, the country grew increasingly agitated at what seemed like a new encroachment from the north. More and more the country began to throw itself at the idea of modernity for the sake of self-preservation, even going so far as to cast aspersions on the old traditions as having held the Ainu back from making the necessary developments to defend themselves. This was in turn opposed by those who said that if the Ainu were going to abandon what made them Ainu, then there was no sense in trying to defend themselves from those who weren't Ainu. Japan was less of a threat these days since the two states seemed at parity with each other, but now the growing threat of Europe required more effort than ever.

The island which formed the core of Ainumosir was a rugged one full of natural resources that had long been used in moderation by the Ainu, but as the world entered the 19th Century, an age of industrialism and scientific conquest of the world and its resources, Ainumosir increasingly exploited its own resources to try and keep pace with Russia, something that alarmed Japan to no end. Worse still was the fact that the United States was prepared to step in, negotiating with both Japan and Ainumosir in 1854 to open trade in the region. This, combined with the threat of European powers and the fact that Ainumosir was a rapidly growing power in its own right, helped trigger the Boshin War which overthrew the Shogunate and put Japan on a path to rapid modernization. As Russia itself began to stagnate and fall behind, Ainumosir found its anxieties again focused southwards, especially as it became increasingly apparent that the question of a Japanese attack wasn't a matter of "if" but "when".

And in fact that "when" was a lot sooner than anyone had expected. Former Tokugawa officials and soldiers who opposed the restoration of Emperor Meiji's power fled north into Ainumosir, seeking shelter and offering to lend their strength to the nation. When the government in Kyoto demanded their return, Ainumosir refused, and thus began the Oshima War (Oshmaushi Kotumi). Both a punitive action and a renewed effort to retake the island long considered Japan's by right, the war was a disaster. Although the Meiji government had adopted new weapons and tactics, the Ainu had long prepared for such a conflict. The Japanese landings at Usukesi, Ponay, and Morureran saw initial success but were rapidly cut off from resupply by the Ainu navy bottling the Japanese naval force in Atkorkamuy Bay. The rugged terrain and Japan's lack of knowledge of the landscape made attempts at advancing a nightmare, and within eight months Japan was forced to withdraw following a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Penpe.

Ainumosir stood triumphant, but facing down a vengeful Japan that would not allow such a humiliation to go unchallenged. They had held a head-start over Japan, but within half a century that advantage was rapidly erased through the Meiji Era's whirlwind effort at industrialization and modernization. The country made its own efforts to industrialized, helped by its own coal deposits that matched those of Japan, but Japan was already growing overwhelming in strength. The Japanese ideologies of the "Line of Control" and the "Line of Advantage" made the island an immediate target for Japanese expansion. For Ainumosir, the unthinkable was soon made a necessary evil, and the island had to approach the Russian Empire to try and find a protective power that would shield it from Japan's strength. The governments of Alexander II and Alexander III were patronizing and domineering, happy to treat Ainumosir as another extension of their empire, but it was preferable to direct colonization by Japan.

And that lasted for all of 30 years. Nicholas II, like so many things, screwed that up as well. In launching the Russo-Japanese War, Ainumosir was now a target for the Japanese military. Better equipped, better trained, and better made ready for the fight, the Japanese army struck into Ainumosir just as they struck into Manchuria, delivering a defeat to Russia and "avenging" their defeat during the Oshima War. Ainumosir wasn't annexed, not immediately, but just as Korea had been vassalized by Japan so too was Ainumosir, and in 1910 Japan went forwards with annexing the island just as they did Korea, leaving both colonized provinces of the Empire. Now renamed as Kaihokudo (海北道), the same horrors of colonialism were now brought to the country. The Ainu became colonized subjects in their own country, worsened by a wave of Japanese settler migration that sought to aggressively turn their new acquisition into an integral part of the Japanese homeland itself as Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu.

Ainu language, culture, customs, and even names were outlawed in the process, and for the next 35 years Jepan embarked on a systematic effort to Iaponize the island. Active effort was made to try and resist the occupation, but Japan's army was overwhelming. As an added effort towards this, the Japanese forced Ainu women to marry Japanese men, and law courts often overlooked cases of rape when the man was Japanese and the woman was Ainu, as part of an active effort to even wipe out the existence of the Ainu people. It was by all accounts a genocide, one lambasted by Europe and the United States (of course ignoring their own actions), and later a rallying cry for the United States to help liberate the Ainu as much as the Koreans or Chinese or Filipinos that had been subjugated by the Japanese Empire. The Ainu themselves were actively militant in their opposition, as once civil efforts to try and gain recognition or relief proved fruitless they took up arms and again launched military action to liberate their homeland.

The years that followed the fall of Japan were a period of confused reevaluation across much of East Asia, and the newly independent Ainumosir was no exception. Although largely liberated by the action of the United States, the Soviet Union looked at the island as an opportunity to expand its influence into East Asia much as they had in the newly-divided Korea. The United States for its part was anxious to have both Japan and Ainumosir as allies, but the two states were hideously angry at each other and would never be friends, much less allies, even in the American sphere of influence. Ainumosir was also undergoing a massive period of withdrawal as Japanese settlers left the country for Japan itself, though the scars of the occupation ran deep and left the country struggling to put itself back together after both colonization and the later bombing by the United States that had caused almost as much damage to the Ainu as to the Japanese occupiers. More than anything, Ainumosir just wanted to be left alone.

The Treaty of San Francisco that formally ended the state of war between Japan and the United States thus provided that Japan would fully end all territorial and national claims to Ainumosir and the United States would likewise withdraw from both nations, at a time when the USA and USSR were butting heads over Korea. A formal state of affairs for Ainumosir, though, was only finally put into place through the Apasiri Convention of 1955 between Ainumosir, Japan, the USA, and the USSR, which affirmed the territorial borders of Ainumosir and declared it a neutral nation that would not be aligned to either of the major powers, and which would begin to normalize relations with Japan. The actual execution of this, though, was muddied by the fact that even through to today, Japan largely refuses to take accountability for the crimes it committed in its imperial era, and most of all a refusal to acknowledge Japanese crimes against the Ainu specifically. Relations across the Sankar Strait were, and remain, chilly at the best of times.

Despite its neutrality, Ainumosir's position as directly adjacent to Soviet territory made it a tempting focus for both the United States and Soviet Union. Even after the Apasiri Convention both Moscow and Washington made repeated overtures of economic aid if they would begin to lean towards one or the other, but with the USSR having expelled its own Ainu population from the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin after their takeover in 1946, moods were hardly sympathetic to the USSR. To that end, the United States was better positioned to make inroads, culminating in a secret accord that would station long-range US missiles in Ainumosir. The effort began in 1961, but rapidly spiraled out of control when Soviet agents uncovered the plot, followed almost immediately by the United States discovering that the USSR was doing the same in Cuba. Outrage flew between both superpowers, but especially within Ainumosir anger flared at the government for making their country part of a global cold war it wanted no part of.

For its part, the Missile Crisis was resolved without escalating to war by the agreement to withdraw missiles from both Ainumosir and Cuba, but within the country itself the outrage led to the downfall of the pro-American government of Mennaukei Upash and a political realignment that led the government to rotate to a more strongly isolationist foreign policy. As far as the United States and Soviet Union were concerned this was an acceptable state of affairs. The island was a "no-go" zone for both states, but importantly, that Ainumosir was a separate nation from Japan enabled the two to declare the Sankar Strait an international waterway and allow for the passage of ships and submarines through the strait despite its status as nominally demilitarized. Most Ainu hated that their international affairs were being dominated by two foreign powers, but such is the lot of all small states of its kind, especially when Japan to its south was enjoying the benefits of a post-war economic miracle.

Then again, much of this proved ultimately ephemeral. Japan had 40 years of growth and prosperity, but it all suddenly stopped in the 1990s and effectively stood still thenceforth. Ainumosir by contrast had spent most of that same period in a much slower period of growth, leading many to feel resentful up until the Lost Decade went from singular to plural. Even without such intense growth, though, Ainumosir still had its own form of revival through a resurgence of interest in Ainu culture and traditions, many of which had long since fallen by the wayside but which became indicators of Ainu national identity as much as cultural. With the population rebounding after the pain inflicted during the Japanese occupation, a resurgence of efforts to embrace and revive Ainu identity was brought about in Ainumosir just as in Korea, and with Japan ultimately hobbled by its endless economic stagnation the slower but steady growth of Ainumosir made it seem like a much more appealing prospect for investment.

Even by the 2000s most people still had some difficulty appreciating what made Ainumosir and Japan different from each other, though this rapidly shifted in the age of the internet. Ainumosir was one of the first nations to truly embrace the internet as a social force, using it to disseminate itself online as a means of helping make its identity known. With a new tourist industry building up around its image as a wild and rugged landscape in contrast to the developed and modernized islands of Japan. This was even while Satporopet itself had become an urban metropolis on par with any other in East Asia, though many of the smaller villages of the interior quite often retained a sense of antiquity around the original and highly ritualized home design principles that the Ainu had used for thousands of years, in many ways similar to Japan, but there was a rapidly emerging difference that set Ainumosir apart from Japan more than religion, cultural practices, or historical realities: its attitude towards the outside world.

Something that goes regularly unappreciated both within and without Japan is how deeply xenophobic the country is. Long after the end of Sakoku, Japan remains frigid towards outsiders, with rigid social divisions in place which even put other Japanese at the bottom of a hierarchy that barely considered them human. Ainumosir by contrast was more willing to allow the world in, and immigrants often found it easier to enter Ainumosir seeking opportunities for work, political asylum, or simply to reach a new frontier. This extended to the country's social attitudes as well, where although the country faces the same issues of older generations holding a death grip on the levers of society, that older generation is one willing to adapt and bend to modern pressures. The embrace of the internet is one of the best examples of this, and in 2007 Ainumosir became one of the first countries on Earth to declare internet access a basic right of its citizens, working to extend it even to towns in the rural interior as a social, cultural, informational, and economic imperative.

After 40 years of resentfully watching Japan outperform it in almost every indice, Ainumosir is finally catching back up. The Ainu have long since reevaluated their slower economic growth as being far more beneficial for their country than Japan's unrestrained growth of the late 20th Century, especially as Japan enters what seems to be the fourth consecutive decade of stagnancy and withering public debt. Likewise most Ainu hold a high degree of satisfaction with their country, as in 2014 some 68% of 300,000 polled Ainu said they were "generally satisfied" not merely with government policy but the far more abstract concept of "the direction of national development", remarkable in an age when more and more people question the direction their countries are going and which has seen the rise of right-wing populism in every corner of the globe, from the United States to Europe to India and, once again, Japan itself, something that serves to agitate and alarm the Ainu for reasons entirely understandable to anyone with a cursory knowledge of its history.

In 2014, the Japanese Diet "reinterpreted" Article 9 of its Constitution to allow for "collective self-defense", a measure that neither began remilitarization nor even really undid the article's effects on restraining the Japanese capacity to make war, but which was met with loud opposition in Ainumosir out of fears that even a step such as this was the first towards a resurgent Japan's efforts to try and rebuild its empire. Even with North Korea as a threat to the whole region, Ainumosir's primary concern then as now remains Japan, and even after 70 years of peace the two nations have remained in a kind of spiritual warfare with each other, a conflict that stretches back more than five centuries and even further beyond that. There's little doubt about it, the Ainu and the Japanese hate each other, though the Ainu certainly have more grounds to dislike the Japanese in much the same way that Korea, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, and others hate them, such is the lot of the former imperialist power.

With the 21st Century rapidly becoming an age of greater uncertainty than ever before, the world is in the midst of struggling to make sense of where it is and where it's going. Most Ainu feel they've already solved that problem for themselves. They know who they are, and root that knowledge in a history which stretches further back than even the Japanese themselves, especially as archaeology begins to increasingly indicate that the ancient ancestors of the Ainu were here before the Yamato were. How much of that is nationalism intruding on the humanities is up for debate, but at any rate the Ainu live in their lands now as they did thousands of years ago, reflected in the very name of their country as Ainumosir, "The Domain of Humanity", one they have fought long and hard for. Even alone, even with Japan still refusing to repent for its crimes and with neighboring Russia becoming more and more of a source of trouble for the world. The Ainu are as they have been, and as long as they can help it that much will never change, even as the people themselves change just as people always do.

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The main reason Netherland unified with Prussia because it almost became bankrupt in 1632.

Maps may contain innacuracy

This was not intended to be realistic

"The End of History" is a philosophical and political concept popularized by Francis Fukuyama in 1992. It proposes that, following the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall, humanity reached the final point of its ideological evolution.