In Alternate History discussions, we ususally preface a discussion of a story or situation with the root of the alternative - what event happened differently in a specific timeline to create the different situation.

In my case, if my mom's best friend had not moved to South Dakota and met my wife's mother, the three of them would have never had the opportunity to matchmake - and I would have never met my wife. That breakpoint I call the point of divergence, or POD for short.

The term seems to have caught on....and I used it for the title of this APA when I started it in 1995.

Here's some examples of what's been in POINT OF DIVERGENCE this last few years:

Annoyances in AH writing:

• where we keep meeting recent historical people in a widely divergent world (Richard Nixon as a California used-car salesman where the POD was 200 years back and very divergent),
• writers twisting the divergences to prove a personal political point,
• murdering history with a dull knife, major inconsistencies, etc.
• committing trilogy and worse - should the editor have a sharper blue pencil? How much is too much?
  

US HISTORY:

• Discussions on the Norse settlement of North America.
• What if a English follow-up to Drake's expedition had started a New Albion in California?
• What if the American Revolution had failed? Discussions of Andrew Jackson and the 'Revolution of 1816', Napoleonic influences, and so on.
• Elbridge Gerry and his influence on the US Constitution - more than you might think.
• Henry Clay as President? What happens to Manifest Destiny?
• Annexation of Mexico after the Mexican War...and what comes after.
• Zachary Taylor and the Compromise of 1850 - could this have collapsed, and if so, what would have been the result of a Civil War fought then?
• Abe Lincoln accepts the offer of Governor of the Oregon Territory…then what?
• The 1860 Republican ticket of William Seward and Cassius Clay
• How could the CSA won the Civil War?
• Back to Africa - could it have happened?
• The Samoan War - Germany and the UK versus the USA in 1889
• Isolationism before and during WWII in the US - what and who could have made the difference?
• Harding and Coolidge and the path to economic disaster...could it have been avoided, and how?
• Nixon is impeached by Congress in 1974, fighting to the bitter end...
• The Island of California (masterful - Ed.),
• a Puritan American Revolution,

Alternate History as Literature:

• SF Panel Reviews of major AH panels at SF conventions.
• Book reviews -
  • 1901, 1945, Worldwar: Tilting the Balance, The Two Georges, Hitler Victorious, Fatherland, Runaway Time, Archangel, Plausible Worlds, Clash of Eagles, Drakon, Paths to Otherwhen, Time Station London, Branch Point, Child of the Eagle, Far Edge of Darkness, Shaman, Moon of Ice, London as it might have been, The Empire of Fear, Anno Dracula, Lest Darkness Fall, Celestial Matters,Sliders: the Novel, The Probability Broach, The Bison Riders, The Lincoln Train, Worldwar: Striking the Balance, West of Eden, The Bloody Red Baron, A Different Flesh, The Crystal Empire, Alternate Worldcons, Again, Alternate Worldcons, To Bring the Light, What If? (Discovery Channel), The Difference Engine, Eaters of the Dead, Patton's Spaceship, The Shaping of America, Plagues and Peoples, The Red Queen, Timescale, GURPS: Alternate Earths, Milton in America, Making History, Voyage, Firestar, Dead Morn, The Tranquillity Alternative,
  • Disaster at D-Day (Peter Tsouras), For Want Of A Nail (Robert Sobel), Paths to Otherwhere (James Hogan), The Iron Dream (Norman Spinrad), Gettsyburg, an Alternate History (Peter Tsouras), various works by William McNeill and Avram Davidson, Time on My Hands (Peter Delacorte), The Dog King (Christoph Ransmayr), Jack Faust (Michael Swanwick), The Moon and The Sun (Vonda McIntyre)
  • King of the Wood; Prince Charlie's Bluff; 'Dead, Mr. Mozart'; If Britain Had Fallen; Hitler: The Victory That Nearly Was; FreeSpace; Mysterium; If the South Had Won The Civil War; Why The Allies Won; Guns, Germs and Steel; Island in the Sea of Time; Comet of the Century;
  • Titan (Baxter), First Dawn, How Few Remain (Turtledove), VIRTUAL HISTORY, UNFINISHED LIVES, WHAT IF THE MOON DIDN'T EXIST,TWO GUN COHEN, THE CRABTREE ORATIONS, CHILD OF LIGHT/CHILD OF THE JOURNEY/CHILDREN OF THE DUSK, ALTERNATE SKIFFY, The HOUSE OF MANY WORLDS, THE QUICKSILVER SCREEN, THE SHORES OF TOMORROW,
• Discussions on obscure short works of AH and upcoming novels and short stories, along with articles in the mainstream press on AH, including wide-ranging reviews and interviews concerning of the work of SM Sterling, Brad Linaweaver and Harry Turtledove.
• Debates on Writing: Is getting published a matter of knowing the right editor, or having a quality manuscript?
• The Sidewise Award for Alternate History
  

World History

• How could Hitler have won WWII? Richard Rostrom presents several scenarios, and the members debate their viability.
• Relatives: What do we call them (Naming systems from Asia) and discussions on Royal and Papal naming conventions.
• Royal activism in modern Britain...how and why?
• Why Latin American development has laggged behind North America.
• Alternate Christianities and other Gospels.
• Alberto Santos-Dumont beat the Wright Brothers into the air - and the Brazilian Government becomes a power in the skies.
• The Battle of the Marne is won by the Kaiser - and victorious German troops come into Paris. What then?
• Colonial independence in South America...and how it could have been very different.
• The Rise of Napoleon II in 1840s Europe.
• The pros and Cons of Sliders
• Otto III and the rebuilding of the Holy Roman Empire.
• Architechtural AH - different city and building designs and their impacts on life.
• The Cordovan Caliphate's navigators, or Islam Rules the Waves as it explores Africa, the East Indes and the Americas...
• Could Rome have quickly developed into a highly advanced technical civilization?
• Alternate weather in AH stories - great storms, Ice Ages and others.
• The Synod of Whitby and the rise of Celtic Christianity in an alternate middle ages.
• The Fall of Soviet Russia in WWII
• The history of Reme, founded by Remus in central Italy...
• The Third British Empire: Irish Home Rule in 1886
• The medieval empires of the Western Sudan
• The Australia That Could Have Been (Alternative Australias)
• World War I Averted (with PODs)
• The Fall of the Third Republic in 1898 and Truman's Fall
• Timeline for THE ETHICS OF TREASON (alternative South America, from "A Ética da Traição" by Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro)
• Worldcon panels on Alternate History
• Russian Reform under Stoypin and Witte
• the Assassination of Gandhiji
• HIV Origins
• Asteroid 1997 XF 11
• The White Ship
• Dushmumin and the Aryans
• GURPS Alternate Earths and the colors thereof
• Solano Lopez and the War of the Triple Alliance
• Alternate Australias
• Alternate Aeronauts
• a longer WW1 and German Victory
• Introduction of Malaria into the New World around 300 BC
• Avoidance of WW1 by the fall of France in 1898
• The Romanov Succession
• Project Orion
• a swift German victory in WW1
• The Demise of the Age of Nationalism
• What if St. Paul had went east to the Orient