Monday, January 02, 2006

A Wizard's Journey; Sid Vicious On Trial

ALTERNATE HISTORIAN'S NOTE, in an effort to find out exactly how many readers we have, Today In Alternate History will be holding an International Visit TIAH Day. Our Atom feed will be turned off for tomorrow, January 3rd, 2006, and we encourage you all to visit our site on that day to read our material. The feed will be turned back on January 4th, so you can return to reading TIAH normally. Remember, the site's URL is http://althistory.blogspot.com.

January 2nd, 2006

in 47,392 BCE, Telka the Speaker and her great-granddaughter Swikolay begin walking away from the Himalayas to the southeast. In her dreams, she had seen a great island in that direction, and she thought that it might have a better vantage point from which to reach the sky.

in 902, the wizard Atticus journeys to see Merlin.

in 870, the infidel rulers Ferdinand and Isabella fall to the righteous forces of Caliph Boabdil. Allah saw fit to give the Moors control of Espagne, and from there, a foothold on the rest of Europe, so that His word might reach the poor northerners who had not heard Its beauty.

in 1818, Lord Byron finished canto IV of Childe P’Tir’Losh’s Pilgrimage, his epic poem of the journey of a young Mlosh across the hard and often unforgiving world.

in 1889, Mikhail von Heflin reaches the American border and crosses over into Michigan. From there, he heads to the Mississippi and follows it south. He has sent word ahead to his family in Texas to expect him shortly.

in 1903, after appointing a black postmistress to the post office in Indianola, Mississippi, President Roosevelt sent reinforcements along with her to ensure that she would be able to do her job. Roosevelt’s commitment to the civil rights of the African-American population of America gave him a hitherto unmeasured degree of support in the south. His Civil Rights Act of 1904, ensuring the voting rights of blacks across America, is credited with landing him his unprecedented 3rd term of office in the election of 1908.

in 1905, Russian reinforcements manage to stave off a Japanese attack on Port Arthur, the Russian base in China. It marked the turning point of a war that had been going badly for the Russians, and heartened by this victory, they were able to go on to greater glory and eventually win the war against the island nation. This defeat dimmed Japan’s hopes of becoming a world power to rival the western nations.

in 1960, Senator Joe Kennedy, Jr. threw his hat in the ring for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Kennedy’s inspiring tale of recovery from injuries suffered in a horrific plane crash during World War II made him a natural choice, and he won the nomination handily. He had a little more difficulty defeating Vice President Nixon in the general election, but squeaked by with a margin of half a million votes.

in 1979, punk rocker Sid Vicious goes on trial for the murder of his girlfriend/manager, Nancy Spungen. Vicious attempts suicide several times during the trial process, until he is finally placed into custody and put under a suicide watch. He is found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. He was paroled in 2002, a shell of his former self.

in 1980, Comrade President John Anderson denounces the British invasion of the People’s Soviet of Argentina. He organizes the tattered remnants of the now-defunct Community of Trade into their last concerted action; a boycott of all goods produced by Great Britain. In addition, Comrade President Anderson arms and trains the rebel guerrilos in Argentina, a move which will come back to haunt the Soviet States in years to come.

Timelines in today's post: the Speaker, the Mlosh, Communist America and von Heflin.

Yet another AHN - today's post has something a little different about it. In addition to a link to a long-form entry and the real timeline source of an alternate entry, at the bottom of the post you will find links to the ongoing timelines that are written about in this post. This is extraordinarily time-consuming, so give us some comments about it to let us know if you would like us to continue doing that.

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