Return of the Fish Era

In 1621, at the Narragansett Bay pilgrims tied down indigenes and inserted shafts into their colons. The shafts were then removed if the indigenes agreed to help the settlers, a process known as colonisation. After almost a year on Turtle Island, misery shrouded the settlement as the pilgrims realised their crops had failed and there would not be enough food for the winter. The indigenes had refused to help the setttlers, and desperation compelled the pigrims to force the indigenes to help them by any means necessary. The most effective methods employed was colonisation.

~ variant from Guest Historian Kwame Dallas: web master of I Want to Remember.

In 2007, a fiery twenty year dispute within the progband Marillon reached a predictably explosive conclusion following Fish's concert at the 'Hobbles On The Cobbles' in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire on 26 August 2007.	Marillion
The band was formed in 1979 as Silmarillion, named for J.R.R. Tolkien's book The Silmarillion, by Mick Pointer, Steve Rothery, and others. They played their first gig at Berkhamsted Civic Centre on 1 March 1980 and shortened their name to Marillion in 1981. Over the next six years they enjoyed both artistic and commercial success, and a loyal fan base with "the Web" Fan club at the core. Live musicians at heart Marillion over-toured, and by the mid-80s, lyricist and lead singer Fish (real name Derek Dick) was suffering burn-out. Also, there were some familiar alarming signs, such as appearing under the name "Fish with Marillion", always a sure sign of a schism in a progband. Their 1987 classic album Clutching at Straws was frighteningly self-referential, dealing with alcoholism, despair and depression. Shortly afterwards, Fish walked out with his lyrics which he used in his next three solo albums. If the Fish Era was over, the Hogarth era was just beginning. Trouble was, it just wasn't the real thing for fans, although it did help the live musicians of the progband continue their careers with very limited commercial success. Due to legal wrangles, the band did not speak until 1999. In the mean-time, the more photogenic performer Steve 'H' Hogarth took the lead singer's position and enabled the band to carry on performing, which ultimately was their desire and also their dispute with Fish. Seventeen years of speculation about reforming were considering nonsense given the bad feelings amongst the former line-up and because Steve Hogarth stepped in at a difficult moment. In August 2007, during Fish's concert at the 'Hobbles On The Cobbles' in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire; the "classic" Marillion line-up was reformed for a one off performance of 'Market Square Heroes'. The band had previously made it clear that this was not a prelude to a full reunion with Fish. They had a drink together after the show - and then a couple more. Then a few more. In a press interview following the event, Fish suggested this one-off opportunity could lead to a full reuion, saying that Hogarth "does a sh*t job with the band. The rest of us forged different path [artistic rather than commercial] over the 28 years". H is currently exploring solo opportunities.
~ entry by Steve Payne

Berlin Baghdad Railway

In 2010, in the Oberkommando office in Berlin, Heinrich Gimpel glanced at the report on his desk. The Berlin-Baghdad Railway was being assessed again, and Gimpel needed to make sure sufficient Reichmarks were collected. In fact, the numbers were up from 2009. No matter, the Irakis were hardly in a position to grumble; if they did, panzer divisions might roll out of the Wehrmacht bases in Baghdad, Basra, Mosul and Kirkuk.

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

Madonna	In 1984, people were gasping in the audience at the MTV Video Music Awards as the career of Madonna Louise Ciccone imploded. The artist was briefly known in the abbreviated form as "Madonna" before entering obscurity. Ciccone's longtime publicist, Liz Rosenberg - "An ex-boyfriend of mine leaned over and said, 'Her career is over before it even started.' Of course, I was petrified."
Madonna wore a lascivious reinterpretation of a wedding gown -- a white bustier and a shredded white tutu -- accessorized with lace gloves, dangerously high heels, clunky necklaces and a tulle veil that didn't stay on her head very long. She started her performance dancing on top of a giant wedding cake and ended it by rolling around the stage at New York's Radio City Music Hall, humping her veil and revealing her panties to a live TV audience. "Madonna took it so much further than anyone knew she was capable of," says Rosenberg. "Everyone thought she was disgusting."
~ entry from Steve Payne

In 2008, the Olympic Committee faced a difficulty choice for the location of the 2016 Games. Applications had been received from the two most powerful nations in the world - the Germanic Empire and the Confederate States of America. The decision was for Leesburg, the regional capital of the Confederate State of Mexico. Both the Committee and the Confederate leadership were keen to embrace diversity in the early twenty-first century. Given the nationalist pressures building up in the Confederacy's central and southern America territories, it was hoped that the choice would be viewed favourably in terms of symbolism rather than expediency.

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

McKinley	In 1901, on this day at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz. The bullet deflected off a button, and did not seriously injure the President. The failure of the assassination attempt was to prove highly significant in retrospect. With McKinley serving a full term, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt did not enter the White House until 1905 and was in office at the outbreak of World War I, to which he immediately committed US forces.
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 2127, a terrible discovery is made in Doha, Qatar - an unknown perpetrator has stolen the Hussein-Sadat time dilation device and reversed history – again. Mullah Elijah Rafsanjani must decide on the next steps. He sips from a Starbucks Styrofoam cup, this really was great coffee. Perhaps a world without a Jihad would be – how shall we say – more hedonistically exciting as a consumer?	Mullah
~ entry by Steve Payne

Mayflower	In 1620, the Pilgrims sailed from Plymouth, England, on the Mayflower to settle in North America. With continental Europe ravaged by the Plague, England sought to establish facts on the ground with Colonies on the Eastern seaboard. However Spanish plague ships brought the pandemic to the New World and the Pilgrims were all dead by 1635.
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 1966, the architect of Apartheid, Prime Minister Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd was stabbed to death in the House of Assembly by Dimitri Tsafendas, a parliamentary clerk, who escaped the death penalty on the grounds of insanity, saying that a large worm in his stomach told him to kill Verwoerd. Surgeons discovered that Tsafendas had been transplanted with a bug inserted by early-21st century black abolitionist South African time-travellers.	Bug
Given a fresh hope for the future, the South African government succeeded in remaining power just long enough to obtain the time travel technology, where upon they sent their own agent back to save Verwoerd. This created a temporal loop, which required the intervention of agents from the nexus of time to intervene by introducing the super-agent known to us all as Nelson Mandela.
~ entry by Steve Payne struck by connection with the movie the "Matrix", and Turtledove's "Guns of the South"