Accident

John Lennon	In 1969, at Peace City One John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono broadcast Give peace a chance. Four people amongst many had journeyed to the metropolis, rebuilt upon the site of fire-bombed Dresden. Taxi driver Gerhard Müller and his daughter lived but a few miles away. War buddies Bernard V. O'Hare and Kurt Vonnegut travelled from America on Tralfamadorean money, God love it. Lennon invited the four on stage for the corus, philosophically joking that “the accident had”. For Vonnegut, something had been missing in this harsh world. He had suffered from weeping for many years and in his despair had contemplated suicide. Now it was finally fulfilled. And so it goes.
GPAC

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Jesus	In 1986, the Ghost Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come shows Ebeenezer Scrooge a strange vision of the far future. In Africa the emaciated arms of starving children lack the strength to swat the flies buzzing around them in the haze. And that haunting song, Do they know its Christmas?. And yet in this harsh world there's something that was missing in that shopping mall flooded with light. Him.
Is Love

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Infected Cow

In 1997, an independent inquiry into the BSE "disaster" and the devastation it wreaked on British farming has been announced by the government. Agriculture Minister Jack Cunningham said the BSE inquiry would be led by Judge Lord Justice Phillips who has a year to complete the investigation. Describing the BSE crisis, he said: "It has been, literally, a disaster." The inquiry would be far-ranging covering the BSE crisis' origins and the way in which authorities responded to it and the development of "the Rage".

Five years later the disaster was portrayed in the movie 28 Days Later, directed by Danny Boyle and starring Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris and Christopher Eccleston. The films depicts the breakdown of society following the spread of the "Rage" which rendered people mindlessly violent, focusing upon the struggle of four survivors to cope with the ruination of the life they once knew. A critical and commercial success, the film is widely recognized for images of a deserted London, and was shot almost entirely on digital video. In a radical alternative ending the Agriculture Ministry fails to respond to the crisis.

Violent End

In 1973, on this day US President James Earl Carter called for progressive change in Fascist Europe following the assassination of General Franco, who was killed in a car bomb attack in Madrid two days before. In the United States, it was unthinkable that the Head of State could be removed by the act of a violent few said the Georgia Giant. It was now time for the Plot Against America to end and leaders to work with Carter to build “the World that Hitler never made”.

The Central Intelligence Agency was delighted with the outcome, which represented twenty years work in Spain. Carter had the luxury of talking about freedom, the Agency's job had been to find a drastic and odd resolution to a political situation reminiscent of a deus ex machina.

Danville

In 1999, whilst driving in Center Lovell, Maine, agent of the random Bryan Smith was distracted by an unrestrained Rottweiler named Bullet, moving in the back of his vehicle, a 1985 Dodge Caravan. The author Stephen King was walking on the right shoulder of Route 5. Agent of the purpose, Patrick Danville had been sent because King must not die. Before the author could be fatally struck by the Dodge, Danville grabbed King and they both landed in a depression in the ground about 14 feet from the pavement of Route 5.

In 1992, British Home Secretary Norman Lamont announced “Today has been an extremely difficult and turbulent day. Massive refugee flows continue to threaten the Channel Tunnel opening at Coquelles near Calais in northern France. The Government has concluded that Britain's best interest is served by sealing the Tunnel whilst emergency measures can be implemented on the continent of Europe.”

Norman Lamont

Rice

In 2009, in a presidential broadcast Condoleeza Rice speaks to the nation with her proposals for solving the problem of litter. Since the advent of mass production and consumerism in the 1950s, she explains, packaging and waste have entered American society. As civil society has lost its value, personal responsibility had declined partly due to a reaction to authority for sending so many American boys to their deaths in foreign wars. During 2010, Rice would bring forward legislation that would place a retrospective burden on producers to collect litter.

In 2004, former US Marine Jack Smith made damning allegations regarding President-elect John Forbes Kerry's actions outside the Senate committee at the April 22, 1971 following his famous “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” speech. Smith recollects that Kerry and other veterans threw their medals and ribbons over a fence at 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 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 agrees to step down in favour of Vice President-elect John Edwards, which many regarded as an appropriate reversal of a travesty of justice.

Kerry

In 1944, German troops accept the surrender of United States troops at Bastogne, Belgium as the disastrous Battle of the Bulge reaches a decision.

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In 1853, Theodore Roosevelt and Martha Bulloch were married in Roswell, New Mexico. The happy couple disappeared for a week, and when they returned, Martha was pregnant with young Theodore, Jr. Teddy had an unhealthy grey sheen to his skin, but managed to overcome this handicap and rise to the presidency of the United States.

In 1912, in honor of the Winter Solstice, Sidney Peters of Manhattan, Kansas, pens the holiday classic Carol of the Hells. Its sweet tones have been heard every winter since: Ring silver bell/ Bring Christmas Hell/ Now gentlemen/ Pay for your sin/ Come quake with fear/ Satan is here/ Satan your lord/ Forever more/ Ring, ding-a-ling/ Evil is king/ Hope, fade away/ Despair today…

In 1971, former Austrian Chancellor Kurt Waldheim is appointed Secretary-Fuehrer of the Eurasian Union, the organization used by the German Reich to organize the governments of their conquered Eurasian nations. Waldheim was appointed by Hitler, himself, and enjoyed the favor of the Fuehrer until Hitler’s death in 1981. Waldheim was ousted the next year.

In 1984, comrade Bernhard Goetz was appointed the People’s Chief of Police for New York City. During Comrade Goetz’s administration, crime in the subways and streets of New York dropped by 12%, although the Socialist Party in the city complained of the comrade’s heavy-handed tactics.

In 2007, Mitt Romney's candidacy of the Presidency of the United States received a huge boost. The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King said that he had a very clear recollection of marching with Romney Senior in June 1963. Alex Hayley had given his people a myth to live by. Perhaps now Romney could deliver the dream.

Connections

"I had the Bell Telephone Company find him for me. They are wonderful that way. I have this disease late at night, sometimes, involving alcohol.

Kurt Vonnegut	I get drunk .. and then, speaking gravely and elegantly into the telephone, I ask the telephone operators to connect me with this friend or that one, from whom I have not heard in years." ~ Kurt Vonnegut 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

In 1978, it was just about impossible to enter any bar in Toronto without having to endure it at least twice during the course of the evening. Oh yes, we're talking about Plastic Betrand's's crazy French song Ça plane pour moi. Even in Old Toronto, our last anglophone bastion in New France.

Ça plane pour moi	Worse, knowing it was a French rip-off version of the British queer punk anthem Jet Boy, Jet Girl. Talk about adding insult to injury, yet that was our history in this part of the world.
Play

Some of us still hoped for our own nation, New Britain. It wasn't as if there was a shortage of real estate of course. And the language barrier was absurd in one nation. It was like two dogs having a fight under a blanket. The secession vote was only twelve months away. There was still hope for us Brits. Was it possible that the majority of citizens in Ontario would vote to leave New France? Possible - yes? Likely - not a chance.

The Ambassador	In 1962, US President John F Kennedy angrily replaced the red telephone on its cradle on the Resolute Desk. Secretary Nikita Khrushchev had categorically denied Soviet participation in the deployment of nuclear missiles on Cuba. Bobby's back channel communication to Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin had the same, puzzling result. His intercom buzzed and Evelyn Lincoln said in a small voice “Mr President, the Ambassador says he would like to see you”. “And I him” replies Kennedy, starting to stand up, ready for an argument with Dobrynin, until the door opens, and the Ambassador walked in to the Oval Office.

In 1962, during the Turkish Missiles Crisis Strategic Rocket Forces Marshal Mitrofan Nedelin warned Secretary Nikita Khrushchev that some of the US ships in the Gulf of İzmir were probably carrying missiles. In fact on a recent honeymoon to Armenia he had been told by Turkish KGB Agents that the US was planning to deploy missiles in Turkey. Direct military invasion was studied in depth, and an operational plan for pre-invasion bombardment was presented by Red Air Force CINC Colonel-General Braiko. Russian overflights of Turkey airspace and minor harassment at Izmir Naval Base were also the subject of repeated diplomatic notes from Turkey. Privately, Khrushchev believed Kennedy would withdraw the weapons, after all, he had demonstrated weakness over the Bay of Pigs, Berlin and at the Vienna Conference. He had backed down on all three occasions.	Kennedy

Bush	In 1962, CIA Agent George HW started to plan the greatest conspiracy of the twentieth century – to arrange a CIA hit on the President, concealed as a KGB plot. It required an elaborate deception. The murdered US marine Lee Harvey Oswald was being impersonated by Soviet double Alek. The genius of Bush was to recruit a further six doubles who would shuttle between Mexico City, New Orleans, Fort Worth and Dallas to plant crucial evidence of a KGB plot the kill the President. The real plot to kill the President was the CIA's, and it was a punishment hit for failing to authorise air strikes on Cuba, thus abandoning their agents to Cuban Forces at the Bay of Pigs.

In 2007, using advanced techniques demonstrated on International Visit Today In Alternate History Day Rat hacks into the networks of global news agencies. RSS news feeders are intercepted, instead of publishing regular content, alternative history stories are published from TIAH.	Robbie Taylor