History as Chaos Theory

You may remember a scene in the movie Jurassic Park , where Ian Malcolm explains the Chaos Theory to Ellie.   "The shorthand is the butterfly effect."

The butterfly flaps its wings in Beijing and it rains in New York.  Whoa!  That's the reaction Ellie has, as she gestures that it goes way over her head.

If you accept that this is true, and I do, then you may ask if it applies to other areas of research, such as history.

I've done something like that with my alternative Texas history post.    

The question I am asking now is the same as I asked when I wrote that post--- what if things had gone a little differently?  It's hard to imagine the kind of world we'd be living in today if just one little detail had gone just a little bit differently.  If so, isn't that a lot like the Chaos Theory?  Chaos Theory depends upon initial conditions.  Change the initial conditions and big changes can occur further down the line.  A butterfly flaps its wings in Beijing ( initial conditions ) and it rains in New York.  Or Santa Ana is captured and spared (initial conditions), and the United States becomes the most powerful nation on Earth.  Same thing, I say.

 Furthermore, if history is the story of human civilization, then there's no telling where this ends up.  Chaos rules the universe.

Update:

I did this more than one time as this video shows.