MAKING A GAME OF HISTORY # 2: WHAT IF …?

Older kids who already know some history might like to ponder how certain events could have changed the world if they had not turned out the way they did.

For starters:

WW I’s Battle of the Somme (1916) lasted from July to November. One of the German soldiers hunkered down in the trenches was Adolf Hitler. On October 5^th, 1916, Hitler was wounded. What if he had been killed? How would the world be different? 

(* Note: Many sources give this date as October 7^th, 1916 because that is the one Hitler gives in his book, Mein Kampf, but on his battalion’s casualty list, it was October 5^th.)

The Battle of the Somme provides another what if, as well. Also in attendance, albeit on the other side, was John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, and his Somme experiences would later show up in the pages of Lord Of The Rings and some of his other works. Would he have written them differently if he had not had those experiences?     

Tags: Adolf Hitler, Battle of the Somme, J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord Of The Rings, Mein Kampf, World War I