You don’t know much about American history.  And that’s ok.  The dead don’t care.  A quick lesson though:

This country was founded on a demand for headrushes.  Upon exposure to tobacco’s quick and social intoxication, Europe began centuries of addiction.  And with its perfect sandy soil and seemingly infinite expanses of arable land, recently founded Virginia became the Old World’s supplier for the deliciously toasted gold-brown leaf.

But what if things had been different?  What if tobacco didn’t exist, and our nation’s firsts had been forced to find profits elsewhere?  Here are three examples of such an alternate history.

Coffee

Clearly, we were already a high-strung nation.  Deficient in representation, the colonists revolted and begun sniping British officers.  The substitution of coffee for tobacco would have also meant the substitution of coffee for tea, and while we might have added some cool Juan Valdez-style facial hair to the portraits on our currency, the extra caffeine would have probably caused Thomas Jefferson to write the declaration of independence twenty minutes before it was due.

Marijuana

Our forefathers would never have gathered the ambition necessary to eradicate an entire civilization.  Instead, we would have hung out for a while, looked forward to Thanksgiving even more than we already did, and considered braiding those crazy white wigs into dreadlocks.  Even if we managed to establish a nation, Lewis and Clark would never have journeyed into the unknown.  Rather, the bros would have walked around the woods (which were basically everywhere) for a while, eaten some stew and settled down for for a discussion about how crazy it is that boats exist that can sail across an entire ocean.

Beets

A society built on the back of the beet is hardly a society at all.  You know how when you were little you used to have a friend whose house smelled weird, to the point where you would be uncomfortable when you went over there?  That smell was beets.  And America would be that friend’s house.

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