Cheyenne Pagan Q4 'What if?' Benchmark

What if Leonardo died sooner? 

Click Here to view my website.
Screen Shot 2012-06-04 at 12.14.18 PM
Screen Shot 2012-06-04 at 12.14.18 PM
​For my Point of Divergence I chose to kill Leonardo Da Vinci before he had tampered with mechanics and began experiments with flight. Specifically, the divergence happened when he was 24 years old. Leonardo had been arrested because of an accusation of sodomy which, in reality, he was never found guilty for however, in my alternate reality a witness came forward and he was then charged and found guilty. The penalty of being accused of homosexuality in that time period was death. Therefore, killing him with probable cause. 

In result of his death, I imagined a future a future very different then the one we have now but more specifically a world where there were no planes or aircrafts in general. I then imagined what would changed in result of there being no aircrafts which led me to the conclusion that war would directly be affected. I wanted to make this timeline as accurate as possible so when I began tampering with the Wright Brother's live's I knew I had to give them alternate live's that would be likely if they did not become immersed in aviation. Firstly, I to insure that they did not become inspired in the first place or even have the correct help that ensured the first flight. This help came from Octave Chanute and his book of Aviation which directly quoted Leonardo. Erasing Leonardo from his book and from history dominoed the timeline perfectly which was extremely helpful and interesting that history does have a domino effect a lot of the time. 

 it became extremely challenging finally compiling the primary sources based of this alternate timeline and with time running out a lot of the components I wanted to include in my website could not added. It was also difficult to find primary sources as far back as Leonardo's time which made the research process take much longer. As for the documents I required from the 1800's, there were limited amounts making the creative primary sources and little more bland. Which is definitely something I wish I could've changed. This project probably could've been improved by including all the things I originally had planned for it to include. I focused a lot on the research aspect of this assignment and if I would've spent equal amount of time on the actual website I think the final project would've been much better. 

Comments