Jackson Killed In Duel; Debut Of The Dede

May 30th, 2006

in 1806, lawyer Charles Dickinson shoots and kills former Tennessee Senator Andrew Jackson in a duel in Logan County, Kentucky. Dickinson had called Jackson’s wife a bigamist, and the notoriously hot-tempered Jackson had demanded satisfaction on the field of honor. The death of the Senator moved Kentuckians to declare dueling illegal, as had Jackson's home state.

In 1843, Karl Marx moved to America and began spreading his philosophy. He became such an influence that by 1855, the Republican Party had renamed itself the Communist Party, and won its first presidential election the next year with young candidate Walt Whitman leading the party.

in 4579, Chao Sing-Lee, the first Star Sailor, achieved orbit and maintained it for 4 revolutions of the earth. Emperor Chengzu appointed Chao his Minister of the Stars upon his retirement from the Star Sailor program. Chao is still regarded as the father of the modern Star Program.

in 1900, nothing happened. Fnord.

in 1910, the Q’Bar began loading onto transport ships for their journey to the Kantar star system. Resistance was heavy, and only the threat of continued Jovian assault kept a full civil war from breaking out again. As it was, hundreds of thousands of Q’Bar died in the forced migration.

in 1922, Astrid Pflaume took a young Lance Corporal of the Austro-Hungarian empire hostage, for reasons known only to her and the people she eventually negotiated his release with. The hostage, Lance Corporal Adolf Hitler, achieved quite a bit of fame on returning back to Austria, and went into politics.

in 1930, a year before his death, Thomas Edison finally saw his dream fulfilled; the Desktop Eddie, (popularly known as the Dede), a difference engine that was the size of a desk and only weighed 400 pounds. The Dede became the first difference engine small and cheap enough for sale to the general public, and so the Dede opened the door to an information revolution in the 30's.

in 1969, the construction began on the Hollywood set they used to fake the moon landing. The crew were told they were working on a film called One Small Step, and most thought nothing of it. When set designer Harold Stork heard that phrase during Armstrong's “walk on the moon,” he started talking and was quickly eliminated.

in 1990, President Dukakis of the US informed dictator Saddam Hussein of Iraq that the US would no longer be supplying him with weapons if he maintained his aggressive posture towards nations other than Iran. Republicans charged Dukakis with faithlessness towards America's allies. When Hussein killed hundreds of Kurds in northern Iraq to suppress a revolution there, though, President Dukakis had the international stature to lead the charge to take him down.

in 2004, Marjorie Adams and her hacker friends assembled to view the CD Cindy Berenson had made of a suspicious file they had found in the Smartnet node at UCLA. The Emergency Instructions it referred to were in some kind of code; Berenson set to cracking it.

Timelines in today's post: the Chinese Empire, Edison Steampunk, the GZR, Communist America, the Mlosh and The Smartnet Timeline

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