[Astromancer]

An interesting alternate history might come from the court of Charles V. German townsmen came to him asking to settle in what is now Argentina. The Castillian nobles shouted the idea down. However, in another parrallel, Siberland might be a thriving nation in the area of Argentina. And given the nature of the German settlements, and there tendency to a much faster rate of growth (much like the settlements in what is now the USA) Siberland is probably much larger than Argentina.

This would give you a new world with different poles of power. The world political history of the USA might be very different. Certainly, many of the Catholic Germans that came to the USA might have gone to Siberland instead. If the stereotype in Europe became, the USA is the protestant nation, Siberland the Catholic one. Then most of the Catholic emigration to the USA might have gone south.