Tenochtitlan

The state of TIAH

June 30th, 2006

in 1520, Tenochtitlan becomes a large grave for the Spaniards who had been ruling it for a year. The Aztec citizens retook their capitol in a bloody attack on this day, killing all of the Spanish conquistadors and any Aztec who sided with them, including former Emperor Montezuma. Montezuma's brother, Cuitlahuac, assumed the throne and mobilized the great nation for a full attack on any Europeans who might follow in the footsteps of the hated Hernan Cortes, whose head Emperor Cuitlahuac had placed on a spear at the gates of Tenochtitlan. He also set his most learned priests the task of making more weapons like the Spaniards carried, and when a Spanish army arrived from Cuba two years later to check on Cortes, they were greeted with Aztec guns and routed from the mainland. With this great discovery, Emperor Cuitlahuac united all of Central America under the Aztec banner and struck fear in European hearts on the other side of the world.

in 1934, the German Nazi Party, in power for a mere two years, falls into a civil war with itself as competing factions attack each other throughout the country. The leader of the Sturm Abteilung, Ernst Roehm, was nearly killed by men under the command of Hermann Goering and Heinrich Himmler, both of whom wished to seize the mighty SA for their own. A small clique of industrialists attempted to oust a few of the other upper party leaders, and bands of the SA roamed the country, attacking people indiscriminately. After this night of long knives, it was readily apparent that the Nazis had lost control of themselves, and all of the elements of society that they had been repressing – labor movements, democrats, even some of the aristocrats – seized the moment and banded together in Berlin. An ambitious team was able to capture Hitler and assassinate him, which plunged the already-splintered Nazis into further infighting as all of their leaders tried to take control of the party. The revolutionary movement appointed former chancellor Kurt von Schleicher as Prime Minister of Germany and outlawed the Nazi Party. Prime Minister von Schleicher immediately asked for international assistance to quell the unrest in his country, and troops from around central and western Europe were soon putting the Nazis down. Prime Minister von Schleicher steered Germany away from the authoritarian nightmare the Nazis had been instituting and towards a more workable, French-style democracy, although he had to deal with Nazi remnants for many years after the coup.

in 2017, the Pokor arrives at the Dyson sphere in time to see the small craft they are following disappear into a bay, which seals behind it. Without a clear landing spot, even Captain Mawrao is reluctant to set down on the huge structure. “Perhaps we should look for a more apparent docking bay,” Commander Patterson suggests, and Mawrao agrees. The Pokor moves slowly across the outer surface of the sphere, scanning for any possible ingress. Now that they are this close, the crew can detect a dizzying level of activity from the sphere – strange, alien devices move about everywhere, and the space around the sphere is filled with small craft whizzing back and forth. “Nothing looks like a piloted craft,” Captain Mawrao said after they examined what must have been a hundred of the smaller ships. “Are they all automated?” Several of the scientists of both crews had been speculating about that, and brought out their theories for the Captain and Commander Patterson to hear, when a very large hole opened up directly in front of them. The Pokor's pilot said, “That not there a minute ago.” Captain Mawrao's eyes curved up, a Quarai smile. “Take us in.”

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Hitler/Schicklegruber's Birthday

ALTERNATE HISTORIAN'S NOTE: we have our second anniversary coming up on May 27th, and we would like to have another contest. For our second anniversary, send us up to three of your own alternate histories, and we will publish the best - no limit on how many will end up on the final page! We would like to see as many of you enter this as possible, so please - think 'em up, write 'em down, and send 'em on to us at rat4cat@gmail.com! Help us celebrate our 2nd year of existence in style! Oh, and if you're like Sean and we owe you an appearance in TIAH - email us!

April 20th, 2006

BRIEF NOTE BEFORE WE BEGIN - I am not a Nazi. I am not a fan of Hitler. However, Hitler remains probably the most popular subject in alternate history simply because he was recent and there was so much that could have happened differently, and so we treat his birthday as an important occasion. None of the links you will follow go to the unfortunately numerous sites that are fans of Hitler.

in 1889, Adolf Schicklegruber was born in Braunau, Austria. Schicklegruber was at the forefront of post-Great War comics who lampooned the democracies that emerged in Central Europe. Although racist by today’s standards, Schicklegruber was considered somewhat tame in his own time.

in 1889, Adolf Hitler was born in Braunau, Austria. Placed at the head of the German Underground by neo-Nazi time travelers from the future, he proved completely inept in strategy and was made a powerless figurehead in the 1930’s. He continued in this position until his death in the 1980’s, reveling in successes that he was never able to achieve through his own efforts.

in 1889, future Austrian Human Leaguer Adolf Schicklegruber was born in Braunau, Austria. When the anti-Mlosh organization was revived following the ecological disasters at the turn of the century, young Schicklegruber joined the organization and proved one of its most enthusiastic recruiters. He was killed when a bomb he was helping to plant near a Mlosh day-care center went off accidentally in 1918.

in 1889, artist Adolf Hitler was born in Braunau, Austria. Hitler started a style he called Aryan Classical, which presented an idealized view of the German peasantry and past in its work. His personal charisma, rather than mediocre talent, made the style dominant in German art in the 30’s and 40’s.

in 2642 AUC, the fanatical Germanic rabble-rouser Adolfus was born in the hinterlands of Germania. He spent most of his life dodging Roman justice as he attempted to resurrect a mythical German nation-state in the center of the Roman Republic. Although he had some followers and fellow-travelers, he was never anything more than a nuisance to the Republic.

in 1889, German fascist leader Adolf Hitler was born in Braunau, Austria. Although his Nazi party came close to seizing power in the 1932 elections, he was never able to push them to majority status, and with President Hindenburg’s surprise naming of Ernst Thaelmann as Chancellor, Hitler faded into obscurity.

in 1914, comrades in Ludlow, Colorado go perhaps a step too far when they kill the management and owners of the coal mines in the community. The local militia, mostly good communists, joined with the striking coal miners and slaughtered the mine’s elite because of their refusal to agree to the reasonable requests of the miners. It set an example for other owners across the United States, and the local DA, a communist himself, refused to prosecute anyone for the murders.

in 1940, Ralph Shephard, future leader of the right-wing Constitutionalist Party and President of the United States, was born in Oahu, Hawaii. Shephard made his political career by ridiculing American leaders to his left after the defeat of America in the Vietnam War. His rise to power through election as Speaker of the House, followed by the suspicious resignations of President Reagan and Vice-President Bush, gave him the trappings of electoral victory without ever having to have actually won a national election.

in 1957, Dr. Eliot Ross and adventurer Jake Robinson find Hitler’s hidden tomb in the Antarctic just as the dark forces he had invoked at his death reanimate his hideous corpse. In the ensuing struggle, McMurdo Station is destroyed and Ross and Robinson are chased halfway around the world before they manage to send the Fuhrer back to the underworld with a spell they discover in Rome.

in 1996, Bartholomew Thompson meets his ancestor, Mikhail von Heflin, when the two attend the second day of Aggiecon, a science fiction convention in Texas. The Baron is there investigating a kidnapping; Thompson has fallen in love with the kidnappee. The two join forces to rescue her, and Thompson is given a glimpse of his destiny.

in 2005, Chelsea Perkins and her mother are assaulted by four young skinheads who target them because Mrs. Perkins is Hispanic. Chelsea is able to dispatch them with a little magic she had carried with her, but is unable to completely conceal her spell from her mother, who becomes quite frightened for – and of - her.

Timelines in today's post: the Roman timeline, the Mlosh, the GZR, von Heflin, Communist America, the Ralph Shephard timeline and the Chelsea Perkins timeline

Today's "Six Degrees of Star Trek" challenge: Connect The Bunker to Star Trek. Place your answers in the comments and see the Forum for previous results. For more on 6 degrees games, click here.

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Out of Control

	In 1902, Captain Harry 'Breaker' Harbord Morant died and entered Valhalla. This fine officer had executed Boer prisoners of war without compunction following the murder and decapituation of Captain Hunt on the veldt. The trial was to have long-reaching consequences. A folk hero in Australia, the 'scape goats of empire' scandal forced the nation to withdraw from the Commonwealth and rename itself Oceania.

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	In 1917, the 39th Governor of Texas John Connally was born. During the Vietnam War, Connally hawkishly urged Johnson to finish it by whatever military means necessary. He was wasting his breath, LBJ already had every intention of doing precisely that.

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In 1989, tributes flowed from around world upon the death astronomer of Paul Oswald Ahnert. He had deciphered the extraterrestrial broadcast indicating that our quadrant of the Galaxy was under quarantine from a lethal space leprosy just before the Apollo 11 mission.

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	In 1917, the 39th Governor of Texas John Connally was born. During the Vietnam War, Connally hawkishly urged Johnson to finish it by whatever military means necessary. That assertion included the assassination of John F Kennedy, and Connally's role in the conspiracy was revealed after his death in 1993. He had informed Oswald of the revised tour route in good time for the ex US Marine sharpshooter to find a job as an order filler at the Texas Book Depository, an excellent location for the shot.

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In 1933, Germany's parliament building in Berlin, the Reichstag, was set on fire by agents provocateurs of the Nazi Party. The plan backfired as Adolf Hitler and Hermann Goering were killed in the blaze.

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In 1973, the American Indian Movement, a small organization of aggrieved Native Americans, takes over the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota. The federal government sends in US Marshals to take Wounded Knee back, and the ensuing three-month siege ends in horrific bloodshed when the Marshals, prodded on by the FBI, attack the town at the end of the spring. Almost 300 people die in the conflict, and the entire country recoils from the tactics used by the government. Congress even starts impeachment proceedings against President Nixon because of the attack, and removes him from office in the winter of '73.

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In 1997, Robin Dennell from the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology at the University of Sheffield published the article 'The World's Oldest Spears' in Nature Magazine. Humans of 400,000 years ago were sophisticated big-game hunters. Complete hunting spears discovered in a German coal-mine puncture the idea that these people hadn't the technology or foresight to hunt systematically. One mystery remains. Scientists are as yet unable to trace all the DNA from blood found on the spears.

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In 1033 AUC, Emperor Constantine of Rome was born in Naissus. While emperor, he flirted with the possibility of joining the cult of Christos, a Judean messianic religion that had gained a few converts in Rome, but felt that the restriction of worshipping only one god was too harsh.

	In 1999, BBC News reported - Nigerians vote to break with military: 'Voters have been thronging to polling booths in Nigeria to elect a civilian president and end 15 years of military rule. Queues formed at polling stations soon after they opened for registration. On some street corners groups of exuberant young men shared bottles of palm wine, singing and chanting party slogans. In the cities of Lagos and Abuja, the turnout is reported to be higher than for parliamentary elections last weekend. Up to 40 million Nigerians are expected to cast ballots in a contest between former military ruler Olusegun Obasanjo, who relinquished power for the last elected president in 1979, and former finance minister Olu Falae. The vote is being closely monitored by foreign observers.

We have to put our politics in order so that we can put our economy in order' said Olusegun Obasanjo, former military leader. Trouble was, by the end of his second term the economy as far from in order. Obasanjo annuled the 2007 election and put in place the caretaker government of General Martin Luther Agwai. 'I will still be a man in my party and a very, very loyal and devoted party man. I cannot say goodbye to politics. I will be the chairman of the board of trustees of the party.' explained Obasanjo in his new back-seat driving role.

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	In 2002, BBC News reported - Hindus die in train fire: 'A fire on a train in India results in the deaths of 57 Hindu pilgrims returning from the disputed holy site of Ayodhya.' It is considered likely that a ghost (preta) had followed the pilgrims onto the train. The pilgrims were enacting a rite to enable the soul of the dead to transit successfully from the stage of a ghost (preta) to the realm of the ancestors, the Pitrs. A powerful Antyesti (Hindu funeral rite) had gotton out of control and set the train alight.

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	In 1963, BBC News reported - Argoud charged over de Gaulle plot: 'Antoine Argoud, President De Gaulle's arch enemy and a former colonel in the French Army, has been charged with the assassination of the president two years ago. Argoud was, until now, the only active member of the Algerian Secret Army (OAS) , an organisation opposed to Algerian independence that has used violent methods to promote its cause. He was found by police yesterday tied up and badly bruised in the back of a blue van in central Paris after a tip-off. He claims he was kidnapped from Munich, Germany, by the French secret service, known as Les Barbouzes (the Bearded Ones).

But the man who phoned police about Argoud's whereabouts claimed to be a member of the OAS. He told the police: 'Argoud has betrayed us. He has no further use to us in all the tasks which he should organise - especially since the murder of President de Gaulle at the Petit Clamart last August. 'You can pick him up now. He is very near you.' The blue van was found just yards from the Quai des Orfevres, the French equivalent of Scotland Yard.

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Ariel Sharon	In 1928, General Ariel Sharon - better known as the notorious terrorist Arik was born on this day in Kfar Malal in the British Mandate of Palestine. Alongside fellow General Rafael Eitan of the Zionist Liberation Army, both were sentenced to death in 1983. The court found that Mr Sharon was indirectly but personally to blame for the massacres of more than 800 people in the Sabra and Shatila villages near Beirut in 1982.
The terrorist Arik

The Court's report said Mr Sharon had made a 'grave mistake' by failing to order 'appropriate measures for preventing or reducing the danger of massacre of innocents' by his allies in the Phalange Christian militia. Mr Sharon's defence lawyer said that because he had no knowledge of what would happen when ZLA irregular troops allowed the militia into the camps, he could not be held to account.

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