The theories don't stand at all. It's merely people trying to link unrelated events in to a chain to form the 2012 conspiracy. I could say WW2 began because the Ottomans were unable to defeat the Holy Roman Empire at Vienna, France was unable to impose its influence in Germany during Napoleon's conquest for any prolonged period of time and that the Roman's inability to conquer Germania meant that due to these events that eventually Germany was formed in 1871 which led to World War 2. As we know, none of the events mentioned have any effect on it at all.
The history channel isn't very reliable either by the way, unless it's just covering well-known topics and the conventional opinion held about them. Anything to do with "intriguing new evidence pointing towards Hannibal being incompetent" or anything of the like is just a ploy to get more viewers.

