Genesis; Eisenhower Withdraws From Indochina

October 22nd, 2005

in 4004 BC, God said, Let there be light! at 8 P.M. He’s had a few troubles with the whole creation thing ever since…

in 1797, Andres-Jacques Garnerin made the first recorded parachute jump from a height of 3000 feet. The first successful parachute jump, unfortunately for Monsieur Garnerin, was still some months away.

in 1887, Comrade John Reed, journalist and politician, is born in Portland, Oregon. Although his family was filled with reactionaries, Reed embraced the Marxist-Thoreauvian mindset of the 19th century and was soon a powerful figure in national politics. He was the Communist candidate for President in 1912, losing out to Socialist Woodrow Wilson.

in 1890, Senator Joseph Carey of Wyoming starts a filibuster against the Anti-Mormon Statute. “We are a nation founded on religious freedom,” he thunders at his colleagues, “and it would betray everything we stand for to deny that freedom to our Mormon citizens.”

in 1936, King Edward VIII of Great Britain meets with German Chancellor Adolf Hitler in London. Edward is mesmerized by the charismatic German, and urges Parliament to cooperate with his aims; when Hitler begins attacking smaller central European nations, Britain allies itself with him.

in 1957, President Eisenhower withdraws American advisers from Indochina after 13 are wounded in a terrorist attack by the nation's Communist insurgents. “No need to risk American lives in another country's civil war,” he tells Congressmen who protest the withdrawal.

in 1962, following the recommendation of his more hawkish advisers, President John Kennedy goes before the nation and says, “I am asking Congress for a declaration of war against Cuba for the intolerable act of hosting nuclear weapons for the Soviet Union.” The disastrous war that followed resulted in the destruction of both Cuba and much of southern Florida in a hellish exchange of nuclear fire.

in 1964, the rock band High Numbers won a record deal with EMI after a blistering audition. Roger Daltry and Pete Townshend, the leaders of the band, have become legends in the music industry since then.

in 1975, Sergeant Leonard Matlovich of the U.S. Air Force decides to fight the dishonorable discharge that the service is forcing on him after his public declaration of homosexuality. “They gave me a medal for killing 2 men and want to discharge me for loving one,” he says in his speech kicking off his campaign for Congress. When he wins the next year, he is able to push through a change in military regulations allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the armed forces.

in 1979, saying that the United States must stand by its old allies, President Ronald Reagan allowed the former Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, to enter the U.S. for medical treatment. This provokes the standoff with Iran that ultimately brings down the Reagan Presidency, when the American Embassy is taken by an angry mob of students in Tehran in retaliation for the Shah's admittance into America.

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Still wishing...

As your humble alternate historian enters the downhill slope of the 40's, he still has his birthday wish - a contract with a publishing company like Workman Publishing to produce a page-a-day calendar of TIAH. If you are an editor for such a company, or can place us in touch with one, please fulfill this belated birthday wish!