Fate pivots on such small things. For the want of a nail, the shoe was lost. Well for the want of a rope, the course of history might have been very different. I saw this sign in Plymouth yesterday. John Howland fell overboard from the Mayflower on passage to America. He caught hold of a rope and was recovered. If he hadn’t caught the rope, he would certainly have drowned. Franklin D Roosevelt, George Bush, George W Bush, Humphrey Bogart and Ralph Waldo were his descendants.
What might history have been like without FDR? I think he would have been the greatest loss. Without FDR, American history could have been vastly different. Roosevelt’s New Deal policies helped to alleviate the Great Depression and modernise US infrastructure. Additionally, his leadership during World War II guided the United States to victory and established America as a global superpower. Without FDR, it is uncertain how the country would have responded to these challenges, and what the future of the world would look like today
Can you imagine Casablanca without Bogart? I can’t. Wikipedia offered me too many Ralph Waldo’s for a Brit to imagine which Waldo we are talking about. Perhaps American readers can let me know via my contact page.
Fate affects us all. If I hadn’t been in the right second-hand bookshop, at the right time, I would not have bought George Malcolm Thomson’s biography of Sir Francis Drake. I would not have known about Sir Anthony Standen, and I wouldn’t be writing historical fiction.
Fate certainly played a role in Standen’s life. If he hadn’t gone to Edinburgh with Lord Darnley he probably wouldn’t have been recruited as a spy by Walsingham. The Spanish Armada might have conquered England without his intelligence, and I might be Spanish. Well at least my Spanish would be better, and I do love tortilla.