Control

In 1967, Vonnegut needed help with his memories for Slaughterhouse-Five, and decided to travel to the home of the crazy Colonel, "Wild" Bob" in Cody, Wyoming. For the sake of balance in his anti-war novel, Slaughterhouse-Five. The Colonel's daughter made her displeasure clear when Vonnegut arrived. Setting themselves up in the kitchen, offering only soft drinks and then banging the ice tray noisely.

Kurt Vonnegut	"Finally, I discovered what was wrong. She said the Colonel wasn't doing so good." ~ Kurt Vonnegut In the afternoon, he would retire to bed and suffer from weeping. She wanted to know if there would be a part for the Colonel in my new book, Frank Sinatra or John Wayne. I told her my son was in the Green Berets, just like John Wayne. "She was my friend after that".
Peacenik

Drakas

In 2006, an ingenius analysis of the defeat of the Domination of the Draka was published on the Alternate History web site. From the foundation of the Crown Colony of Drakia in 1783, to collapse in 1951 a detailed account is given of the Drakas failure to capitalise on early strategic advantage created by its enemies fighting amongst themselves. In 2014, Andries Rhoodie and members of Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging studied the analysis very carefully. Armed with AK47s, they returned through time to 1783 to create the future that they believed was stolen from them.

Barbeau	In 1960, the United States government decided to place an embargo on Socialist Québéc. This counter-productive miscalculation forced an isolated Québécois Premier Raymond Barbeau into the Soviet Union's sphere of influence. Within two years, construction of an SS-4 site was underway near Montmagny in Chaudiere-Appalaches administrative region, less than one hundred miles from the bordering US state of Maine.

In 1992, on this day Helmut Kohl's government was forced to withdraw the Deutschmark from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) due to pressure by currency speculators—most notably George Soros who made over US$1 billion from this speculation. Following the exit of the pound just four weeks before, the ERM was effectively terminated.	Helmut Kohl

John Kerry	In 2999, the mind cast for the next instalment of “Personality of the Triple Millennia” was re-run across the networks. POT3M drew an even larger audience because of its oddness. John Forbes Kerry was the candidate, the context was the Fall of Vietnam in 1975 and the moment bare minutes after he testified to Senate Foreign Relations Committee asking "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?". MC Millennia addresses the allegations of US Marine Jack Smith who recollected that Kerry and other veterans threw their medals and ribbons over a fence on the front steps of the U.S. Capitol.
However, Kerry still possesses his medals in 2005 and Smith explains this apparent anomaly by revealing that Kerry threw someone else's medals in an act of showmanship. Smith and Kerry – he alleges - had purchased the medals at a market sale in Greenwich Village, New York in December 1970. Kerry takes the fifth amendment, MC Millennia ends the show early.

In 2007, Rat back in the Mesh, publishing new entries on Today in Alternate History promising that he will demonstrate to the people imprisoned in the Mesh that "anything is possible." He hangs up the phone and flies into the sky above the city.	Robbie Taylor

Kids Stuff

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In late 1944, Kurt Vonnegut had met Colonel "Wild" Bob of the Four-Fifty-first Regiment on the Prisoner of War train to Dresden. "Wild Bob" was almost the only survivor of the regiment, having lost forty-five hundred men. Or boys mostly, in what Vonnegut thought of as the "Children's Crusade".

Kurt Vonnegut	"God be with you, boys!" ~ Colonel "Wild Bob", delivering his last address to his already dead troops Kurt Vonnegut was a fourth-generation German-American living in easy circumstances on Cape Cod (and smoking too much), who, as an American Infantry Scout hors de combat, as a prisoner of war witnessed the fire-bombing of Dresden. In 1967, Vonnegut needed help with his memories for Slaughterhouse-Five, and decided to contact the crazy Colonel. For the sake of balance in his anti-war diatribe, if nothing else. And just taking up an open offer, after all.
Peacenik

Missing	In 1975, a tour de force performance as Lord Southmere in One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing had earned Nimmo enough popularity (and credibility) among fans of detective fiction to earn him the role James Bond despite the inevitable comparisons to Sean Connery.
Roger Moore had abruptly resigned after the Spy Who Loved Me had failed at the box office. Hoping to capitalise on the success of One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing, a slight change of format was introduced. The new Bond Girl for the next movie, Moonraker would be his Scottish Nanny, the actress Molly Weir.

Brunel	In 1867, at a price of £10 million Great Britain completed the Alaska Purchase from Russia. Shortly thereafter, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, having recently recovered from several years of ill-health, arrived. He began a new engineering “first” - the Fort Sitka-Mexico City railway, the arterial transport link upon which the North American Union was founded.

In 1989, in one of the final acts of the meltdown of Western Monarchies that year, West German Head of Government Helmut Kohl resigned. After German re-unification, he first fled to the America but was extradited by the new US government to Germany, where he was imprisoned and tried for high treason and crimes committed during the Cold War (specifically the deaths of 192 Germans who tried to escape the Kohl regime). However, as he was dying of cancer, he was released from prison. He died in exile in Chile about a year and a half later.	Helmut Kohl

LBJ	In 1988, Simon Burns published What if Jack Ruby had missed? in which Lyndon Baines Johnson is discredited by Lee Harvey Oswald's testimony. The story climaxes in September 1964 with a tearful President telling America I will not seek, not will I serve...

In 2007, Rat sees the Mesh as it really is, lines of streaming green code: he finally becomes "the One". Agent Smith makes a final attempt to physically attack him, but his punches are effortlessly blocked, and Rat destroys him.	Agent vs Rat
The other two Agents flee, and Rat returns to the real world just in time for the ship's EMP weapon to destroy the Sentinels, which already breached into the ship.

Networking

In 2002, the Catholic Church was astonished by news that Mother Teresa, a globally beloved symbol of saintly devotion to the poor, spent her last fifty years secretly struggling with doubts about her faith. A research team led by Rev. Brian Kolodiechuk of the Missionaries of Charity Order had been examing secret letters for publication in a new biography, Mother Theresa: Come Be My Light. It appears that an unknown researcher had released the letters to the press after being shocked to read "How painful is thus unknown pain - I have no Faith".

	"If there be God- please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul." ~ Secret Letter from Mother Theresa The purpose of the letters was unclear. However the Holy See reacted by suspending the process of beatification, the second step towards possible canonization. The full article is available at National Post

"Sixteen hours ago, a German plane dropped one bomb on an American division in Northern France. That bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of T.N.T. It had more than two thousand times the blast power of the British "Grand Slam," which is the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of warfare. It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed by those who brought war to the continent of Europe. Before 1939, it was the accepted belief of scientists that it was theoretically possible to release atomic energy. But nobody knew any practical method of doing it.

Nazi's Experimental Nuclear Pile	By 1942, however, we knew that the Germans were working feverishly to find a way to add atomic energy to all the other engines of war with with they hoped to enslave the world. Yesterday, we found out that they had succeeded. ~ Harry S Truman, US President Having lost a race against time to defeat Nazi Germany in conventional war, committed to a land invasion before America herself was ready to respond in kind, Truman was trapped in the inescapable logic of nuclear weaponry.
Werner Heisenberg's team at Haigerloch

Missiles on Turkey	In 1962, a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21surveillance flight over Izmir takes photos of American nuclear weapons being installed. Two days later, the Strategic Rocket Forces Marshal Mitrofan Nedelin presents the photographs to Secretary Nikita Khrushchev and the Turkish Missiles Crisis begins.

In 1925, French inhabitants flee an anti-French uprising in Damascus. Just six years before, Ho Chi Minh had persuaded US President Woodrow Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference that the principle of self-determination applied to the indigenous people languishing in the British Empire and French Union. Sympathy for the entente powers had been soured by the acts of bad faith such as T.E. Lawrence's Arab Revolt, Balfour Declaration inter alia. As the winds of change continued to blow through the southern hemisphere, Europeans were ejected from the Middle East by the end of 1920s. But a few short years later, oil was discovered; decisions affecting the future of the world would no longer be taken in the capital cities of Europe.	Arab Peninsula

Oswald	In 1962, simply the most inexplicable network of contacts was developing. The Soviet double named Alek had arrived in Dallas impersonating the murdered US marine Lee Harvey Oswald. A group of Russian emigres including George de Mohrenschildt helped Alek to settle in. de Mohrenschildt had been close to young Jacqueline Bouvier, who referred to him as "Uncle George". He was dating Jacqueline's mother at the time of her parents divorce and had been engaged to Jacqueline's Aunt Michele. de Mohrenschildt was also very close to George HW Bush

In 2007, whilst returning to the hacked telephone line which serves as a safe "exit" from the Mesh, the group is ambushed by Agents and police officers, and Morpheus is captured in an attempt to save Rat. The group was betrayed by one crew-member, Cypher, who preferred his old life in ignorance of the real world's hardships, and made a deal with the Agents to give them Morpheus in exchange for a permanent return to the Mesh. The betrayal leads to the deaths of all crew-members except Rat, Trinity, Tank and Morpheus, who is imprisoned in a government building within the Mesh.	Cypher

Misadventures

Kurt Vonnegut	"I wish you and your family also as to your friend [Kurt Vonnegut] and a happy New Year and I Hope that we'll meet again in a world of peace and freedom in the taxi cab if the accident will." ~ Gerhard Mueller writing to Vonnegut's war buddy Bernard V. O'Hare Kurt Vonnegut was a fourth-generation German-American living in easy circumstances on Cape Cod (and smoking too much), who, as an American Infantry Scout hors de combat, as a prisoner of war witnessed the fire-bombing of Dresden.
Peacenik

In 1980, Vonnegut was shot dead at a Peace Conference in New York by Mark Chapman. Chapman remained at the scene until arrested saying "So it goes", claiming the book Slaughterhouse-Five would explain his perspective and motivation. Chapman was allowed to plead guilty to second degree murder before his trial began and, despite being assessed as delusional and possibly psychotic, was sentenced to 20 years to life. He has been denied parole four times amid campaigns against his release, and remains incarcerated at Attica Correctional Facility.

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

Miracle of the Sun	In 1917, on this day the Miracle of the Sun was witnessed across Europe. According to many witness statements, after a downfall of rain, the clouds broke and the sun appeared as an opaque, spinning disk in the sky. It was said to be significantly less bright than normal, and cast multi-colored lights across the landscape, the shadows on the landscape, the people, and the surrounding clouds. The sun was reported to have careened towards the earth in a zigzag pattern, frightening some of those present who thought it meant the end of the world. Witnesses reported that the ground and their previously wet clothes became completely dry. To a man, the Armies of Europe arose and left the trenches. The sign had been acknowledged, the war was over.

In 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashed in the Andes and 16 survivors were rescued. The miracle of the Andes was at first welcomed as a matter of national pride. However when the first suggestions of vampirism emerged, a new perspective was taken by the public, described in the 1993 movie Alive	Alive

Oswald	In 1962, the Oswalds moved to Dallas, Texas, where they were befriended by a group of Russian emigres who help them settle in. One of them, George de Mohrenschildt, had originally come from Minsk and helped Oswald find a job at a photo lab downtown. Oswald used the photo lab's equipment to forge a new identity, including a Selective Service card, in the name of Alek J. Hidell. It is the first alias Oswald is known to have used. Oswald is beginning to construct a secret life. He opens a Post Office Box to receive mail for himself and Hidell.

Will Shetterly	In 2004, on this day Will Shetterly published What if George W Bush had been elected? in which the blogger indulges in a little speculation, inspired by Patrick Nielsen Hayden imagining the horrors of a hypothetical Bush presidency.
Shetterly concludes - I think the hardest part of Patrick's scenario for me is this: He imagines a Bush who reverses Clinton's record and creates the greatest deficit in history, whose wars in Afghanistan and Iraq result in two unstable countries, who adds a million people to the unemployment rolls and millions more to the number without health care, and with all this, the election between Bush and his Democratic opponent is up for grabs?
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 2007, the group enters the Mesh and takes Rat to the apartment of the Oracle, the woman who predicted the eventual emergence of the One. She implies that he is not the One, then adds that Morpheus believes in Rat so blindly that he will sacrifice his life to save him. Returning to the hacked telephone line which serves as a safe "exit" from the Mesh, the group is ambushed by Agents and police officers, and Morpheus is captured in an attempt to save Rat.	Cypher