Ruth Dies; Soviet States Of America

August 16th, 2004

in 1892, as the Bandai group is about to rebuild the mantle around it, the Hawaiian island chain erupts in a series of volcanic explosions and earthquakes. Ships quickly evacuate most of the residents, but thousands die before the Bandai group can finish its work.

in 1904, Thomas Edison established his Edison Endowment for the Electronic Arts at Princeton University. This scholarship helped develop the best and brightest minds in the electronic fields in America.

in 1913, Menachem Begin was born in BrestLitovsk, Russia. When the Greater Zionist Resistance took BrestLitovsk in 1925, Begin joined the movement and proved an able leader. In 1935, when Astrid Pflaume was assassinated, he assumed leadership of the GZR.

in 1948, Herman Ruth, greatest player in the history of Town Ball, died in New York. Ruth left behind a legacy of home runs that wouldn’t be broken for decades. In his own lifetime, was such an impact on the game that other Town Ballers in his own time couldn’t even approach the half-way mark of his home runs.

in 1948, the United States of America, after a national referendum on the subject, was renamed the Soviet States of America, to reflect the deep connection of the nation with its workers and people. The move was denounced by Socialists and other right-wingers as part of the Communist agenda to turn America into a one-party state, but those reactionaries were ignored in the general celebrations.

in 1977, Elvis Presley faked his death at his Graceland mansion in Tennessee. Disappearing for a few months, he got himself back in shape, had a little plastic surgery, and reappeared in public as Reverend Jesse Garon. He spread the word of the gospel all across the south, drawing money from a secret account he had set up years before for this eventuality.

in 1987, Northwest Airlines Flight 188 crashed on takeoff from Detroit. Everyone on board was killed, except for one small boy, who emerged from the wreckage with burned clothing, but not a scratch on him. He also survived a car crash that killed his grandparents in 1995; a fire that burned down his foster parents’ house in 1998; and the collapse of his apartment building in 2001 in St. Paul, Minnesota. He was taken into custody by the U.S. military shortly after this.

in 2003, Livinia Nixon arrives in Antarctica to examine the scars that the Martian invasion force had left behind. At the South Pole, they had removed more ice than on the rest of the continent, and Nixon found a tunnel there. She and 4 Australian Army troopers disappeared down the tunnel to see what the Martians had either found or left there.