@1dalm One of the more thought provoking books I have read over the past few years is "The Years of Rice and Salt" by Kim Stanley Robinson. Its central premise is that if Europe was wiped out by the Black Death, history would have unfolded roughly in the same manner but in different places. So the Renaissance happened in Samarkand and the Industrial Revolution took place in South India in Travancore. So yes, I think it would have happened.