August 30th, 2007
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Alt-Notes: In RATMANifesto, I'm going to collect the continuing timelines and give them a home, finally. That's one of the projects I've been meaning to do or some time, but couldn't get around to because I had to keep putting up new posts. RATMANifesto is also going to be a site for my projects, no matter what they are – I plan on putting up a podcast or two, provided we can swing the bandwidth.
In the meantime, he's Steve, our future Alternate Historian, with today's post. Look for changes in the design of the site tonight – Steve is looking to make TIAH simpler and more conducive to the kind of visual posts he has created for us.
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"Britain was in the wrong Union. Rather than the European Union, a group hostile to Britain and the English language, Britain belonged in the American Union, on the road to worldwide English-Speaking Union. " ~ Expansionist Party of the United States | |
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| ~ quotation by Co-Historian Steve Payne from Counter-history – You're the Judge! |
| In 1868, in Lee Allred's West of Appomattox US Secretary of State General Robert E. Lee agrees to a proposal from a powerful but nameless figure in the British establishment which will settle the dispute between the two nations. Lee agrees to an act of self-sacrifice by resigning his position, admitting that the execution of Confederate President Jefferson Davis for treason was a strike against democracy and the constitution of the founding fathers. He reflects briefly on the insincerity of Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address - You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it." Lifting his pen to write the statement, he says - “I will pay the price to keep that oath”. |
| In 1946, former US Vice President John Nance Garner coined the term “Day of Infamy” when he delivered his Sinews of Peace speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. The anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were fast approaching, and debate raged in the United States about Truman's falsehood in describing the cities as military bases, chosen to minimise civilian casualties. |
| In 2007, Northern Prime Minister John Kerry flew into London, England to meet with the new British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. “We know that we cannot solve any of the world's major problems without the active engagement of the U.K.," Kerry said in a statement to journalist Niall Ferguson at Heathrow Airport. |
~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content from the climax of Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals has been made to celebrate the author's genius.
 Gruffalo | In 2007, Dustin Hoffman was nominated for a BAFTA TV Award for his potrayal of the Gruffalo. Famous for going to extreme lengths to get "in character", Hoffman had spent six months in the deep, dark wood eating scrambled snake, owl ice cream and roasted fox. |
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge! | |
| "Old Blood and Guts" Part 4 (1945-1965) - Robert L. Thompson subsequently admitted on his death bed that Eisenhower had General George Smith Patton III assassinated; that the auto accident in which Patton broke his neck was not an accident at all. Patton was planning either to retire or resign his commission, and enter politics. Given his popularity with the American people and the respect in which he was held by his men, it is entirely possible he could have won the same nomination his erstwhile friend accepted. Evidence suggests that the American public shared Patton's assessment of the Soviet threat. Patton's biography notes "[The] course of World War II would lead these two men to very different ends: one to the office of President of the United States and the other to a soldier's grave on a foreign shore." We now know that these different ends were by design and not by accident. |
| In 1963, Kwame Nkrumah, founder and first president of the modern Ghanaian state delivered a historic breakthrough for the troubled people of New Africa in their centennial year. During the War of the States, the North had refused to enlist African Americans soldiers. Whites had been ejected from from the South after devastating epidemics had destroyed the Confederacy. After the founding of New Africa, African Americans found that their only common language was the oppressor's English. Some refuse to speak until a better tongue was found. A true visionary, Nkrumah was much more than an African anti-colonial leader. He was also one with a dream of a united Africa which would not drift into neo-colonialism. The people of New Africa understood that unity around the English medium was the key to Ghana's success in nation building, a necessary step given the hundreds of languages of West Africa *. Silent no more, New Africa strode forward into its second century with renewed confidence, taking is place amongst the nations. |
* Author's note - Even today in 2007 the Bible has not been translated into all the language of every micro-ethnicity.
 Von Runstedt | In 1943, rioters overwhelm defending Fascist Blackshirts to storm Buckingham Palace. British Prime Minister Oswald Mosley and King Edward VIII are seized and hung from lampposts on Whitehall. Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel issued a command instruction to German forces in Britain that the occupation was over and the Wehrmacht should cease further combat operations. |
| FeldmarschallKarl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt shot Rommel dead with a service revolver. “Death before dishonour” he said before also shooting himself in the head. He was thus unavailable to confirm whether his final statement referred to the cessation of hostilities, or the release of of huge quantities of poison gas just three days before at the liberating invasion forces in Dorking, in direct contravention of the Geneva Convention. | |
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge! | |
| In 2003, from behind a one-way mirror in Paddington Green Police Station, the Prime .. |  Paddington Green.. |
| .. Minister of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland observes the two interviewees, twenty-second century fugitive Brent and first Asian QC Kim Hollis. Urgent investigations are being pursued in relation to the apparent suicide of the Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith. That suicide had prevented Goldsmith from issuing confidential legal advice that British involvement in a land invasion of Iraq would be legal despite the absence of a UN Security Council Resolution explicitly sanctioning participation by the “coalition of the willing”. Now the whole schedule for the invasion was delayed, damn!. | |
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge! | |
 General-san | In 1945, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Douglas MacArthur landed at Atsugi Air Force Base with instructions to accept Japan's surrender. Swiftly installed as military governor and de facto Head of State, it was some time before the United States realised that Brass Hat had no intention of letting going of the reins of power. |
| The incredible story of how General-san crushed post-war Japan under his heel was described in the biography "The Rising Sun at Dusk" by Jack Nimersheim, published in Alternate Tyrants by the editor Mike Resnick in 1997. | |
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge! | |
| In 2003, on this day the compendium “A Collection of Political Counterfactuals” was published. Simon Burns' masterful sequel "What if Sirhan Sirhan had missed?" was a keynote contribution, considering the scenario where Robert Kennedy had served as U.S. president from 1969. The essence of Burns' masterpiece .. |  Snake Eyes |
| .. is the competition of mysterious forces in Los Angeles. Two green pinpricks are amongst the ocean of eyes who watch the Kennedy's car arrive at the Ambassador Hotel. The presidential candidate enters a service area to greet supporters working in the hotel's kitchen. As he enters a crowded kitchen passage way, he notices a young man with a t-shirt banner which declares Snake Eyes watching you. Kennedy instinctively ducks, and the assassins bullets thud into the kitchen wall as the 24-year Palestinian assassin is bundled to the ground by security guards. The novel ends with RFK speaking to Neil Armstrong in the Sea of Tranquillity as his brother's goal “to send a man to the moon in this decade” is achieved. | |
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge! | |
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