WI: An "every dog has his day" model of History

I use one superb but totally unacknowledged example to illustrate my point.  Major General Daniel Sickles very possibly won the Civil War with his totally unauthorized evasive actions that confused General Lee and the confederates on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863.  General Lee had conducted a brilliant series of campaigns for over a year that left him in a position to potentially lay siege to Philadelphia and Washington, and force the North to grant the South its independence.  It was only Sickles' deliberate defiance of General Meade's orders that allowed him to outwit Lee's standard strategy of enfilading the weak link in the line, breaking through and outflanking from the rear.  As a result, the South lost too many troops on the second day of the battle to succeed in the campaign.

Sickle's was a bizarre, philandering, eccentric genius.  The son of a patent lawyer in New York, he spent several years in his youth in the home of Lorenzo Da Ponti -- Mozart's librettist for both Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro.  Sickles appears to have modeled his life on both of these characters.  He insisted on bringing his prostitute girlfriends into the House when he was a New York legislator.  He shot dead the Washington D.C. district attorney on his front lawn for having an affair with his young wife -- the great-granddaughter of Lorenzo Da Ponti.  When he was Ambassador to Spain, he had a very public affair with the Queen!

But Sickles' unique skill set probably kept the U.S. in one piece.  As such, he is a greater conqueror than Genghis  Khan or Alexander the Great!  Historians have no "every dog has his day" model of history.  There are "Great Men", there are "historical cycles".  But, Dan Sickles proves that, even bizarre eccentrics can fundamentally alter history, under the right circumstances.  Forget about Grant, Lincoln, Jeff Davis -- this was just a contest between Lee and Sickles.  And Sickles won!

WI: A theoretical limit on yield of nuclear weapons

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You see, that's the problem with nuclear weapons.  There is no limit whatsoever on their destructive power.  So, even a single individual could, in principle, destroy the entire planet using a single nuclear device.  So, ever since the first atomic b

You see, that's the problem with nuclear weapons.  There is no limit whatsoever on their destructive power.  So, even a single individual could, in principle, destroy the entire planet using a single nuclear device.  So, ever since the first atomic bomb was detonated, the world has ceased to be a competitive environment about power and effectiveness, and it has become one great game of "chicken" between individuals and governments, each attempting to manipulate the other through fear of ultimate destruction.


Of course, no single bomb has ever been built that could actually destroy the entire planet.  Such a technology has been rigorously suppressed by all governments as being too destructive.  But it could have been.  And, when Emperor Hirohito of Japan ordered the surrender of his people, in 1945, that is probably exactly what he was thinking: what's the point in my people's devotion, when a single individual now can wipe out humanity?


So, let's suppose that there is a limit of 20 kilotons to the power of all nuclear weapons.  How does that change things.  Does Japan still surrender?  Are nuclear weapons more readily used?  Are there full scale nuclear wars with 20 kiloton bombs, bearing in mind that's as big as they can get?