I gather we don’t have Community dial ins for Pointless views any more which is a shame as I would have given you the following ‘historical gaps’;
Irish pre-viking history is largely guess work. We know they had trade contact with Rome, we think they still had chariots, other than that the 4 Cycles are as good a gap as you are going to get. Particularly as there are people that shoot lasers from their eyes, invasion fleets that arrive in ships that decend from the clouds and people who end up with replacement limbs made out of metal.
Polybius – this guy is great for ‘here be monsters’ story. He’s not referred to as either the “Father of history” or alternatively the “Father of lies” for nothing. The story of the phoenix existing is a personal favourite.
Some time after C6th BC Carthaginian explorers like Hanno went down the mediteranean coast of Africa, saw elephants (so before the Sahara had dried out) and supposedly fought off hairy ape-men that attacked them. Propably Baboons or whatever but we’ll never know. Carthaginians also went north to a ‘frozen’ land they called Thule. Probably the UK but possibly Scandinavia.
Whilst in Africa there is the kingdom of Nok that exists from around 1500BC to 500BC. They smelted metal and had contemporary engineering/building skill levels. For some reason the civilization vanishes and we only have theories as to why.
The Chinese also sent out exporation/conquest/treasure fleets which we known made it to Australia and suspect made it to South America. It may be the basis of Dragon motifs and pictures on men with beards in South American art despite there being no reptiles resembling dragons and native South Americans having no beards.
The Chinese also have theories about Romans and Greeks coming to visit and setting up cities. There’s a ‘Roman’ style ruins somewhere there and there was a Chinese Roman re-enactors goup dedicated to this which I’ll assume still exists.
The Celts also got around. Galatia in Turkey is named after the Gauls that settled there. Celtic mercenaries fought in ancient Egypt during their many wars. Ptolemy II-IV recruited them in great numbers in their wars against Syria.
Julius Caesar wrote some ‘Polybius’-like stuff about Celts and Germans. Some of that stuff would be interesting, like kneeless animals. They’d look like people trying to run on stilts.
There’s always the Vikings going to America. They more than likely made it to North America but may have made it to Central America. Imagine if they had left the secrets of ship building, horses, bows, shield walls and iron smelting to the Incas and North American Indians? Cortez may not of had it so easy or Incan fleets may have shown up in Spain.
The Irish became quite famous mercenaries in Europe in the 15th Century. There’s some famous pictures by Durer of them. They went all over Europe. A great historical what-if would be if Hugh O’Neill had been able to complete his ‘modern’ army with the help of Spain and/or France. The Battle of Yellow Ford could have been the first of many victories if that was the case. It was always the British fear after the Flight of the Earls’ that the Wild Geese would return with the numbers and experience to gain independence.
In WWII (like you didn’t have enough “what ifs”) you have the Nazi foriegn legions (up to 500,000). More than half the SS divisions contained foriegners (non-Germans). What if the George Washington Legion or British Free Corp had got off the ground (they existed) or the Germans had handled conquered soviet territories better (they recruited over 100,000 even with their terrible treatment).
What would have happened if the Germans had given the design of the various Pathers or Tigers to the Japanese and they’d used them in China? Or jets?
If you want gaps, history is full of them.