Anarchy In The UK

August 8th, 2007

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The Announcement

Alternate Historian – Back Again!: Yet another plague has ripped its way through our Academy and gone back to its home dimension, and we are happy to see it go. Tomorrow, we will hopefully feel like picking back up and contributing to the web site. Especially since it's one week till our first birthday and you need to send in your alternate lives for me (August 14, 1965) and Steve (November 22, 1967). Get that research done quickly!

George Orwell	In 1917, Aldous Huxley arrived at Eton College to teach French. The previous year he had graduated from Balliol College, Oxford with First Class Honours at English literature. Eric Blair (later known by the pen name George Orwell) was among his pupils, remembering him as another incompetent and hopeless teacher who couldn’t keep discipline.
By coincidence, both teacher and pupil would following similiar career paths, known for both novels and a wide-ranging output of essays and published short stories. Huxley wrote Brave New World, whilst Orwell penned Nineteen Eighty Four, an anarchistic vision of the future partly based on the indiscipline of Eton. In the world of 1984, Government has ceased to exist to be replaced by a loose form of autonomous control from the "the Party". Unaware of this connection [to his own failed supervisory methods], this publication prompted Huxley to write to Orwell in 1949 to congratulate him on "fine and how profoundly important the book is". Returning to his own dystopian vision of "Brave New World", Huxley continued: "Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience".
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1975, at the two-story house at 17841 Beaverland, former President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Jimmy Hoffa received a presentation from the fourth dimensional aliens who Kurt Vonngeut had likened to Plumber's friends.
Jimmy Hoffa	Barred from Union activities since his release from prison in 1971, Hoffa had planned a big comeback. He wanted to extend the national freight agreement to cover all transport workers. The Tralfamadorians showed Hoffa the 1981 Air Traffic Controllers Strike, and how President Reagan fired the striking workers.
In this future, Hoffa was completely discredited by the new strong arm tactics of the Republicans. Worse, Americans seemed to want this action - it was the first time since Vietnam American's felt the White House had got the country moving ahead. Yet the Tralfamadorians moved forward a further twenty years, and Hoffa's son was now the President of the Teamsters, so clearly the father's removal was a setback with a long-term win. Hoffa could rest easy - he accepted his fate.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

"I rented this little chalet in Switzerland, in the mountains just beyond Lake Geneva. I rented this gear from a little shop in a village, a little music shop, with a Revox tape recorder, an electric piano - I had my guitar there - and just sat there to try and write. For two weeks, I came up with nothing - and I only had four weeks to write this double album!

Jeff Lynne	I was sort of thinking, 'bloody 'ell, maybe I can't come up with anything'. The weather had been really bad and then one day I got up and it was fantastic, the sun was brilliant and shining, all the mountains were lit up and this mist had gone away. It was gorgeous, so I went out to ski, and well, that was that." ~ Jeff Lynne of the Electric Light Orchestra
Uninspired

Immediately after ELO's 'A New World Record Tour' ended in April 1977, Lynne left for Switzerland determined to compose enough new material for a double album. The singer-songwriter and producer had elevated ELO to global superstardom with the release of 'A New World Record' during 1976 and expectations of their record company, critics and ELO's millions of fans were higher than ever. In fact, it turned out that expectations for Out Of The Blue were far too high and the double album was never made.

~ quotation by Co-Historian Steve Payne from Counter-history – You're the Judge!

In 1945, mysterious mechanical failures on board the Enola Gay resulted in a late reassignment in both aircraft and the crew. The Lucky Strike is selected instead by USAF General Curtis "Bombs "Away" LeMay and C-in-C Douglas MacArthur.

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

Forest Whitaker	"[Idi Amin is] a splendid type and a good football player” ~British Foreign Office. ”You [director, Kevin Macdonald] don't think I've got the anger in me to do this part, do you?” ~ Forest Whitaker.
Playing Idi Amin

African American actor Forest Whitaker received critical acclaim for the lead role in The Last Governor-General of Uganda. To prepare for his role as the British stooge Idi Amin, Whitaker gained 50 pounds, learned to play the accordion, and immersed himself in research. He read books about Amin, watched news and documentary footage, and spent time in Uganda meeting with Amin's friends, relatives, generals, and victims; he also learned Swahili and mastered Amin's East African accent. Whitaker's performance earned him the 2007 Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, making him the fourth African-American actor in history to do so. For that same role, he also received the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama, the Screen Actors Guild Award, a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award, and accolades from the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the National Board of Review and the Broadcast Film Critics Association.

~ quotation by Co-Historian Steve Payne from Counter-history – You're the Judge!

In 2009, the TV networks presented the final episode (number twenty eight) of So What If?. John F Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas. Suspicion falls upon a member of the motorcade, Texas president Lyndon Baines Johnson.

~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Elimina Castle	In 1482, to pass the long night of six hundred years at St. George El Mina Castle, Kwame’s brother spoke to him of African Poetry. ”The weaver bird built in our house, and laid its eggs on our only tree, we did not want to send it away, we watched the building of the nest
And supervised the egg-laying. And the weaver returned in the guise of the owner Preaching salvation to us that owned the house They say it came from the west Where the storms at sea had felled the gulls And the fishers dried their nets by lantern light Its sermon is the divination of ourselves And our new horizons limit as its nest. But we cannot join the prayers and answers of the communicants We look for new homes every day For new altars we strive to re-build The old shrines defiled from the weaver’s excrement.”
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1945/3001, (Third Age) a wretched US President Harry S Truman pours himself a bourbon in the Oval Office. He is starting to realise, actually has realised, that the delayed Japanese surrender is in fact nothing other than the slow cogs of decision-making. Perhaps, probably, tomorrow's strike on Nagasaki is unnecessary.	Gandalf
Startled by the door opening unannounced, he looks up from the Resolute Desk to see an old man with a long white beard and huge floppy hat. "I am Gandalf the Grey", says the stranger, "and I have returned to Bag End to tell you to give up the Ring of Power". Truman reacts with panic and suspicion when Gandalf tries to persuade him to leave it. The last straw is when Truman refers to the Ring as his "precious" and Gandalf loses his temper, putting some sense into him. Truman then admits he would have liked to be rid of it, and leave it behind. Gandalf departs, the scene changes and the President presses his intercom, "get me the head of the U.S. Army Air Forces and tell him to cancel the strike!".
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Lloyd George	In 1914, European diplomacy entered a critical phase as the August Days continued in the build up to War. In Caerdydd (Cardiff) First Minister David Lloyd George confirmed the nation's policy of neutrality. The Welsh Free State had no strategic interest in a European conflict said the Welsh Wizard.
He would be damned if he sent the flower of Tywysogaeth Cymru (Wales) to die in the mud of Flanders. This statement was to have two very unexpected outcomes on the threat and opportunity scale. Put simply, what goes up, must come down.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1917, in order to release the Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarist Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin and the Okhranka burst into the den that is housing the hostage, and his kidnappers. Thereupon the leader of the Paris nest, the Vampire Henri confronts Stolypin with an unexpected explanation for the kidnapping.	Stolypin
A condition for the Tsarevich's release requires the Peace Conference to announce a Free Vampire State of Transylvania. The leader said it was a reasonable request, after all, France would not have emerged victorious from the Great War without nosferatu attacks after sundown on the German trenches. After all, what else did the General's mean when they talked of “bleeding the Germans white?”. Hmm. Stolypin and the Okhranka do a rapid about turn, seeking further orders from the Tsar.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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Traumas

In 1980, John Lennon and wife Yoko Ono spent several hours at the studio on West 44th Street before returning to the Dakota Building at about 10:50 p.m to see their five-year-old son Sean before he went to sleep. Unusually they refrained from exiting their limousine on 72nd Street, instead the car was driven into the courtyard. The doorman at the entrance Jose Perdomo saw Mark David Chapman standing in the shadows by the archway. Perdomo discovered that Chapman was carrying a .38 revolver, 14 hours of Beatles music and JD Salinger's “Catcher in the Rye”. When questioned, he calmly explained to Police he was there to shoot John Lennon.

In 2168, the Sammāsambuddha (supreme Buddha) Siddhārtha Gautama achieved enlightenment in his travels in India. The Awakened One realized complete insight into the nature and cause of human suffering which was ignorance, along with steps necessary to eliminate it. These truths were then categorized into the Four Noble Truths; the state of supreme liberation—possible for any being—was called Nirvana. He then came to possess the Nine Characteristics, which are said to belong to every Buddha. As transcribed in one of the stories in the Āyācana Sutta (Samyutta Nikaya VI.1), a scripture found in the Pāli and other canons, immediately after his Enlightenment, the Buddha decided not to teach the Dharma to human beings. He was concerned that, as human beings were overpowered by greed, hatred and delusion, they would not be able to see the true dharma, which was subtle, deep and hard to understand.

Winston Churchi..

In 1941, Winston Churchill received the news that the British Naval base at Pearl Harbour had been destroyed due to poor combat readiness. In particular, the torpedo nets had not been raised. After the fall of Hawaii to the Japanese in World War II, prime minister Winston Churchill confessed his ignorance of the weakness of Pearl Harbour's defences, saying: "I did not know. I was not told. I should have asked."

In 2046, on this day a complex medical procedure was initiated at the world-renowned Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Founded in 1902, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center had an enviable reputation for providing the finest healthcare available among California hospitals. More than 1,800 physicians in virtually all medical specialities were affiliated with the hospital, Cedars-joining more than 8,000 employees, 2,000 volunteers and 15,000 fund-raising support group members to form a unique partnership in delivering world-class medicine. But would those resources be enough? Shortly before midnight, surgeons prepared to deliver the world's first child of dual planetary heritage. The surgeons had no text book to prepare for the procedure, and had to rely upon combined best practice in human and newcomer birthing methodologies. The event was sure to be a first for ObstETrics.

Cedars-Sinai

Guns of August	In 1984, the alternative history classic Guns of August was published. Barbara Tuchman demonstrated how close the world came to war in 1914. In reality, we now know that the inter-marriage of the Royal Families of Europe, and their shared interest of survival held the key to peace, as demonstrated in the Dear Nicky, Dear Willy, telegrams revealed to the public for the first in this great book.

In 2005, cyber-agents of the government of (censored) are alarmed to discover that the revolutionary blogger known as Rat is organising a contest. Clearly this is a nom de Guerre for an event centred on his alternative life activities to spread perception-challenging content through advanced RSS news feeds. They decide to move to Phase 2, by arresting Richard S. “Kinky” Friedman.	Rat

In 1976, the Eagles release “Hotel California” which goes on to sell over 16 million copies in the United States alone between late 1976 and early 1977. The title song "Hotel California" reached number #1 on US billboards on May 7, 1977. The “beast” described in the lyrics was generally assumed to be a symbol for the drugs and alcohol which gripped vocalist Don Henley's life at that time. Not so, the lead song was a true story of events that really happened to Henley in Hotel California in Todos Santos, Baja California Sur, Mexico during 1973.

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In 1936, the American actor David Caradine was born in Hollywood, California. A talented actor of some respute, Carradine is remembered chiefly for a principled stand that had huge ramifications for Chinese Americans for generations to come. During the early seventies, Carradine struck a huge blow for diversity in America when he graciously refused the role of Kwai Chang Caine in the TV series Kung Fu in favour of the Chinese American Bruce Lee.

Herbie Pilato, in his 1993 book The Kung Fu Book of Caine: The Complete Guide to TV's First Mystical Eastern Western, commented on the casting history for the series, particularly on the involvement of both David Carradine and Bruce Lee. Before the filming of the Kung Fu TV movie began, there was some discussion as to whether or not an Asian actor should play Kwai Chang Caine. Bruce Lee was considered for the role. In 1971, Bruce Lee wasn't the cult film hero he later became for his roles in Fists of Fury (1969), Enter the Dragon (1973), and Game of Death (1979). At that point he was best known as Kato on TV's Green Hornet (1966-1967). (Kung Fu guest actor Robert Ito reports that Lee hated the role of Kato because he "thought it was so subservient.") "In my eyes and in the eyes of Jerry Thorpe," says Harvey Frand, " David Carradine was always our first choice to play Caine. But there was some disagreement because the network was interested in a more muscular actor and the studio was interested in getting Bruce Lee." Frand says Lee wouldn't have really been appropriate for the series - despite the fact that he went on to considerable success in the martial arts film world. Carradine insisted otherwise, and the rest as they say, is alternate history.

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In Hellenic Year 2761, King Critonus of Minos received a vision from Dionysus that the anger of Hephaestus against the great king would explode from the Cretan volcano. Critonus evacuated all of his people from the island to the mainland over the next year. Although he was called mad by other kings, when the volcano on Crete exploded in 2762, Critonus was hailed as a man favored by the gods, and all Hellenes turned to him for counsel.

In 1939, Anglo-French troops landed in Helsinki determined to support their Finish allies in the Winter War. Because the Russian attack was judged as illegal, the Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations on December 14. The Allies had absolutely no problem with a de fact declaration of war on the Soviet Union. In their calculations, prospects for Anglo-French survival were improved, having permitted Germany to invade Poland. This way, they hoped to drive a wedge between the signatories of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, bringing Mr Hitler back into the fold.

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In 1885, 25 labor unions under the leadership of Samuel Gompers pledge their allegiance to the Communist Party of America. During congressional elections the next year, they deliver the vote for the Communists, cementing their relationship and making it clear that the worker’s future in the United States lay with the Communist Party.

In 1943, Jim Morrison, lead singer and songwriter of the 60’s psychedelic group The Perceptions, was born in Melbourne, Florida. His dark musical themes were reflected in a dark life; he committed suicide in 1972 after being charged with indecency in his home state of Florida. He had exposed himself to the crowd during a concert.

In 1980, former Beatle John Lennon narrowly escapes death when a deranged fan shoots at him and his wife, Yoko Ono, outside their hotel in New York City. Yoko is fatally wounded, however, and dies the next day. Her funeral marks the first time all four Beatles reunited since 1970.

Human League Takes Lunar Colony Hostage

Alternate Historian's Note: Sorry for the lateness of the post. Blogger was not accepting updates this morning.

September 8th, 2004

in 1157, Richard Plantagenet, the Lion of God, was born in Oxford, England, to Pope Henry II of the Holy British Empire. Like all the Plantagenet popes, Richard schemed for the papacy at an early age, and led many ecclesiastical rebellions against his father. He is remembered more for his attempts to recapture the Holy Land than for anything else, although the harshness of his reign led to the movement known as Protestantism, and a Protestant assassinated him in 1224.

in 1638, the first institute of higher learning in colonial America opened its doors in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard College, named after the man who donated the library, produced many renowned 17th century theologians, but closed its doors in 1779 because of damage from the Revolutionary War.

in 1893, Human League terrorists gain control of Brahe’s atmospheric controls, and send an ultimatum to the lunar colony – either all Mlosh leave, or the city will perish. The city’s police chief, a Mlosh named Kelnir, launches a daring raid against the terrorist, killing every one of them without damaging the atmospheric controls in the process. He is hailed as a hero across the moon, but marked as a target forever after by the Human League.

in 1925, actor Richard Sellers was born in Southsea, England. Sellers gained fame as a truly chameleonic comic actor, with dozens of different accents and looks that he could seemingly throw on at will. His comic talents were so prodigious that the Oscars, which usually overlooked comic performances, awarded him the best actor award for his portrayal of 3 different characters in 1964’s Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb.

in 1935, Comrade Senator Huey P. Long, champion of the people, was assassinated in broad daylight in the Capital Building in Baton Rouge. An official investigation blamed the shooting on counter-revolutionaries, but many conspiracy theorists have made a plausible argument that the Communist Party itself had comrade Long killed because of his rapport with the proletariat. Such rumors are frowned upon in polite company.

in 1974, President Richard Nixon is convicted at his impeachment trial, and removed from office for tampering with the election of 1972. Vice-President Gerald Ford is sworn in as the 38th President of the United States. Ford refuses to pardon Nixon for his crimes, and fires almost all of Nixon’s staff. “Cleaning house is the only way the nation’ll trust our party again,” he told Republican activists.

in 1986, the newly admitted United States Football Conference played its first game as an NFL conference, after several years of play as a successful league on its own. The New Jersey Generals defeated the Washington Redskins at home, 38-21; Hershel Walker of the Generals ran in 2 touchdowns.

in 4697, Captain Wu’s probes land on Yang Gao, and their transmissions pierce the static for almost 10 minutes before being shut down. The visual transmissions show a city that has been turned into a parody of human life; metal men walk Yang Gao, performing the mundane tasks of Chinese life in a mockery of those they have supplanted. Captain Wu orders his 3 remaining ships to drop all stores of explosives on the planet and retreat back to earth. On the way, they alter the trajectory of several large asteroids so that they will impact on Yang Gao. Captain Wu intends for nothing to survive his leaving.

Tired

In 1766, Rip Van Winkle, driven out of home by his wife for his broken promises to repair the house wandered into the Castkill mountains with his dog “Wolf”. A band of men hailed from the river. The whole group reminded Rip of the figures in an old Flemish painting, in the parlor of Dominie Van Schaick, the village parson, and which had been brought over from Holland at the time of the settlement. Together they drank a flagon of “Hollands” together, and Rip fell deep asleep.

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The Shadow	In 1941, Orson Welles strikes out in a new direction following the release of Citizen Kane. In order to make himself more appealing to the movie studios, Welles made a movie out of his radio show The Shadow. The protagonist is a fictional character created by Walter B. Gibson in 1931 in a semimonthly series of pulp magazines. The first story was titled "The Living Shadow". The character is one of the most famous of the pulp heroes of the 1930s and 1940s. In print, he wore a slouch hat and a black, crimson-lined cloak with an upturned collar (while in later comic books and the movie, The Shadow wore a crimson scarf around the lower part of his face). He also skulked in the shadows using his skill at concealing himself -- at first. In due course, and in his most famous incarnation, The Shadow became an invisible man who supposedly learned "while traveling through East Asia ... the mysterious power to cloud men's minds, so they could not see him."
Walter B. Gibson

In part, that new incarnation was born of necessity; radio's time constraints made it difficult to describe The Shadow in hiding and nearly invisible. Some believe the Shadow was a hypnotist, as explicitly mentioned in at least a few radio episodes; others contend that the Shadow could manipulate Qi. Because radio was not a visual medium, audiences found The Shadow's invisibility easy to accept. The big screen takes the character to a new level of imagination, and ”The Shadow – the Movie” is the box office hit of 1942.Welles was taken in a new and unexpected direction that eventually lead to the goth classic “Batman”.

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Tom Cruise	In 2007, (KP International) Tom Cruise's reps were reportedly angry about the release of photos of the actor looking bald and fat during filming for his role in the upcoming comedy, Tropic Thunder. "Mr Cruise's private appearance was supposed to be a secret for his fans worldwide. [Paparazzi] have ruined what should have been an upsetting discovery for moviegoers," read a statement from the actor's reps, World Entertainment News Network reported. Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr, Nick Nolte and Matthew McConaughey star in the film, which is expected to hit theatres next summer.
Old and Fat

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Kennedy	In 1979, Stanley Shapiro wrote the second in a series of articles entitled A Time to Remember in which the journalist was sharply critical of post-Vietnam Foreign Policy. Better for the US to have been humbled by the war in Vietnam and then this ultra-belligerance would have been nipped in the bud, and Westmoreland sent off into a quiet retirement was Shapiro's view.
In Eisenhower and Kennedy, the US had been led by careful crisis managers that had steered the nation away from disaster. Ike had assaulted the congressional military industrial complex with Kennedy threatening to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces. In fact Bay of Pigs showed the world exactly what would happen if congressional military industrial complex drove events - a disaster.

In 1941, French Marine Minister François Darlan sent orders to the French Naval Base at Mers-el-Kébir to increase combat preparedness (e.g. deploy torpedo nets in the harbor), with immediate effect. Due to a catalogue of disasters, the orders were not received in good time before six British carriers under the command of British Admiral James Somerville. Launched a first wave of 181 planes composed of torpedo bombers, dive-bombers, level bombers and fighters. Overall, twenty-one ships of the French Mediterranean fleet were damaged and the death toll reached 1,297 with 350 injured. Conspiracy theorists point to a German plot. That aside, the result was very much in favour of the Nazis, with opinion in France swinging strongly behind the Vichy Regime which became a genuine partner in a new european community.

Snakeyes

In 1963, the strange being known as Snake Eyes is still working hard to tie up loose ends. Even though the body count has already reached ten and all the principles are dead. Today's problem is the bullet casings ejected when a bullet or bullet fragment struck a nearby curb. Agents are sent to take away the evidence and store it somewhere safe. Like in the Grand Canyon, thinks Snake Eyes, his mood breaking for a moment.

In 1963, on this day Dallas night club owner Jacob Rubenstein aka Jack Ruby was shot and killed by W. Guy Banister in the basement of Dallas police headquarters. Unconscious, Ruby was put into an ambulance and rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, the same hospital where both JFK ad Lee Harvey Oswald had died over the last three days. Doctors operated on Ruby, but Banister's single bullet had severed major abdominal blood vessels, and the doctors were unable to repair the massive trauma. At 48 hours and 7 minutes after the President's assassins death, Ruby was pronounced dead. After a full autopsy, Ruby's body was returned to his family.

Ruby dies

Cordell Hull

In 1941, the Hull note, formally called "Outline of proposed Basis for Agreement Between The United States and Japan" was delivered on this day. The US Government accepted efforts toward the establishment of peace through the creation of a new order in East Asia. President Charles Lindbergh had no time for colonialism, and astutely foresaw that the Empire of Japan could be a strategic partner in the region for the forthcoming battle with communism.

In 1980/1941, a fleet of six aircraft carriers commanded by Japanese Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo left Hitokapu Bay for Pearl Harbour under strict radio silence. The fleet was in the path of the US aircraft carrier Nimitz, which had collided with an unnatural storm and the crew were transported to the same location. Captain Matthew Yelland decided to interfere with the past and stop the Japanese Fleet from attacking the US base. The true story of the voyage was portrayed in the movie Final Countdown. Played by actor Kirk Douglas, Yelland made the decision to intercept the incoming Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, but during the attempt, the freak storm returned and sends both the Americans and Japanese back to 1980.	Final Countdown
The result is that America does not enter the war, and Asia, including Oceania is absorbed into the Empire of Japan.

Worms

Carolus Magnus	"Let peace, concord and unanimity reign among all Christian people .. for without peace we cannot please God." ~ Carolus Magnus, grandson of Charles Martel who was defeated at the Battle of Tours 11 October 732
Frankish insurgent

Carlous Magnus (Charlemagne) was the architect of the European idea, yet unable to establish control over his native territories of the Franks and the Lombards. The set backs at the Battles of Toulouse (721) and Tours (732) had gifted the keys of south-west France into the hands of the Governors of Al-Andalus. Umayyad control spread inexorably westward from Narbonne into Aquitaine. A synopsis of the Frankish insurgency is provided at Wikipedia

Martin Luther	"Hier stehe ich. Ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir. Amen (Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.)" ~ Martin Luther addressing the Diet of Worms, 1521
Heretic

Before being sentenced to death by Emperor Charles V for heresy following the Imperial Diet. Emperor Charles V opened the imperial Diet of Worms on January 22, 1521. Luther was summoned to renounce or reaffirm his views. When he appeared before the assembly on April 16, Johann Eck, an assistant of the Archbishop of Trier , acted as spokesman for the emperor. He presented Luther with a table filled with copies of his writings. Eck asked Luther if the books were his and if he still believed what these works taught. Luther requested time to consider his answer. It was granted. Luther prayed, consulted with friends and mediators and presented himself before the Diet the next day. When the counselor put the same questions to Luther, he said: "They are all mine, but as for the second question, they are not all of one sort." Luther went on to categorize the writings into three categories: The first category was of works which were well received by even his enemies. These he would not reject. The second category of his books attacked the abuses, lies and desolation of the Christian world. These, Luther believed, could not safely be rejected without encouraging abuses to continue. The third and final group contained attacks on individuals. He apologized for the harsh tone of these writings, but did not reject the substance of what he taught in them. If he could be shown from the Scriptures that he was in error, Luther continued, he would reject them. Counsellor Eck, after countering that Luther had no right to teach contrary to the Church through the ages, asked Luther to plainly answer the question: "Would Luther reject his books and the errors they contain?" Luther replied: "Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason —I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other— my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe." Prince Frederick III, Elector of Saxony, obtained an agreement that if Luther appeared he would be promised safe passage to and from the meeting. Such a guarantee was essential after the treatment of John Hus, who was tried and executed at the Council of Constance in 1415, despite a safe conduct pass. The edict was seen as a divisive move that distressed more moderate men, in particular Desiderius Erasmus who led a violent reformation that burned through Europe for two centuries. A synopsis of the Diet of Worms can be viewed at Wikipedia

Kunte Kinte	In 1976/1767, the young actor LeVar Burton dreams of a great river running into a bay. He sees a white state house flying the Maryland flag. African Americans in chains are prepared for a slave auction. Burton is distressed to see Alex Haley amongst them. The author looks at him in misery and says HELP ME. The young actor awakes, and packs his bags. He will must go to Annapolis and, if he can, set right this great wrong.

In 1978, a paperback version of What If Booth's Bullet Had Killed Lincoln? was published. In Fern Bryant Fadness dystopian world, the process in U.S. history known as Reconstruction goes awry. When both the Confederacy and slavery were destroyed, attempts to resolve the issues of the American Civil War are largely reversed by Lincoln's heirs. In this dramatic short story the Civil Rights movement is delayed by forty years to the 1960s, and Jesse Jackson never gains the White House.	Lincoln

Dominion	In 1580, Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe, establishing himself as the sixteenth century role model for the Draka, an aggressive militaristic slave-owning society. As described by historian S. M. Stirling, during the American Revolutionary War, the Netherlands declared war on Great Britain, resulting in the loss of its Cape Colony. After defeat in Revolutionary War, the Loyalists settled in the new Crown Colony of Drakia (later, the Dominion of Draka) in South Africa.

In 1907, New Zealand and Newfoundland each became an integrated part of metropolitan France within the French Union. The significance of the loss of these territories from France to Britain was revealed upon the surrender of France in 1940. Suddenly, both Australia and the United States had borders with satellite states of Vichy France, forcing those nations to make urgent engagement decisions. Had they not, Britain would have faced Hitler alone and thus the early loss of Colonies was in the famous words of Winston Churchill “a cloud with a silver lining”.	Winston Churchill

Crossing the Line

	In 1973, at the Putney Hippodrome in London, Peregrine Devlin presented the great Shakespearean actor Edward Kendall Sheridan Lionheart with the 'coveted' Critic's Circle Award for Best Actor for his acting in a season believed to be his best. In his acceptance speech, Lionheart thanked the Chief Critic, and the other members of the committee George Maxwell, Horace Sprout, Trevor Dickman, Oliver Larding, Maisie Psaltery, Ms. Chloe Moon and Meredith Meredew.
Lionheart also indicated he was going to take a short break from the Bard, in favour of escapism by making some movies in the horror genre. To this, Devlin commented 'A remarkable performance. He was overacting as usual, but he knew how to make an exit.'

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	In 1953, rumours circulated in Vampiregrad that Joseph Stalin, the long-time leader of the USVR was near death. The first official news of Mr Stalin's illness came in a statement on Wednesday. It said the Soviet leader, who came to power in 1928, had suffered a cerebral haemorrhage on Wednesday night. An update issued earlier today mentioned 'sharp disturbances of the heart functions'. There was speculation that the 73-year-old, born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, in the Soviet republic of Georgia, was now in the final stages of an illness he has been suffering some time.

On March 1, 1953, after an all-night dinner with interior minister Lavrentiy Beria and future premiers Georgi Malenkov, Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin did not emerge from his room the next day, having probably suffered a stroke that paralyzed the right side of his body. Although his guards thought that it was odd for him not to rise at his usual time, they were under orders not to disturb him. He was not discovered until that evening. He died four days later, on March 5, 1953, at the age of 74, and was embalmed on March 9. His daughter Svetlana recalls the scene as she stood by his death bed: 'He suddenly opened his eyes and cast a glance over everyone in the room. It was a terrible glance. Then something incomprehensible and awesome happened. He suddenly lifted his left hand as though he were pointing to something above and bringing down a curse upon all of us. The next moment after a final effort the spirit wrenched itself free of the flesh.' Officially, the cause of death was listed as a cerebral hemorrhage. Unofficially, the Master had affected his second shape shift since Red October.

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	In 1966, a British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) Boeing 707 almost flew into a mountain wave after 45 year-old Captain Bernard Dobson rashly decided to give the passengers a close-up view of Mt. Fuji. The spiritual beings on the wooded slopes of the dormant volcano took the corrective action required to prevent the death of of the 124 people aboard. The form of that action later became apparent; when the Boeing set down in Hong Kong, a relieved Dobson was greeted by flight traffic mandarins of the Chinese Empire.

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In 1946, Winston Churchill uses the phrase 'Iron Curtain' in his speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri: 'From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an 'Iron curtain' has descended across the Continent.

Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Nazi sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Nazi influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Berlin.'

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In 1904, writing in Electrical World and Engineer magazine Nikola Tesla described the process of ball lightning formation. The military application was of course the Fatman super weapon detonated in 1945 over the City of Tokyo by USAF Enola Gay. Without the Tesla Process America could not have ended the war in the Pacific without the unacceptable casualties predicted by Operation Downfall, the invasion of Japan.

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In 1975, CIA Director George Bush made a fateful decision whilst reviewing the USAAF Project Bluebook investigations into UFO activity. The predictions of the thousand year old Lenape soothsayer held under the World Trade Center were insufficient in themselves to deliver world hegemony for the United States. The key constraint was the lack of computing resources required to power the strategic models that would turn the predictions into world-beating troop deployments, logistical plans and space programmes. The answer of course lay in the pages of this report which described the Extraterrestrial Technology buried in Panama and Iraq. Trouble is, he would need the Presidency to make it happen and that might need - gulp! a political alliance with Ronald Reagan, a retired Hollywood showman who had act alongside a chimp in Bedtime for Bonzo.

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In 1871, revolutionary heroine Rosa Luxembourg is born in Zamos, Poland. After marrying a German worker in 1898, she began a labor movement in her adopted country, merging with the Social Democratic Party just prior to the Great War. The mass disillusionment with the royalist system that had led Germany into the war gave the SDP a huge boost, and they took control of the country in the elections of 1932, defeating the hard-right National Socialists in a hard-fought, corrupt campaign that was marred by violence and barely recognized by the rest of Europe. Once in office, Chancellor Luxembourg sought to create a true 'Worker's Paradise' to match the slogans that the reality of Russia's revolution had made so laughingly absurd. The SDP proved equal to the task, though, with their revolutionary fervor moderated slightly by their right-wing enemies. Germany pulled out of the world-wide depression and became a model of labor-government-business cooperation. Its model spread to France, then the smaller nations of central Europe and Scandinavia. Frau Luxembourg died in 1948, her dream of a just German society fulfilled.

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In 1770, British soldiers exercise uncommon restraint when faced with a crowd of belligerent colonists in Boston, Massachusetts. In spite of taunts, threats and snowballs hurled at them, they do not move from their position in front of the Customs House, calming a large portion of the colony, which had feared the presence of British troops would quickly escalate into violence.

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In 669, the Jewish grand vizier of Persia, Sa'ad al'Da'ulah, narrowly avoids assassination by Muslims seeking to put an end to his influence in Islam's mightiest nation. Al'Da'ulah convinces the Persian Shah to enforce the Koran's admonishment to allow men the practice of their own faith, and Persia becomes a haven for infidel refugees across Islam.

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In 1815, Franz Mesmer, a German psychiatrist who invented a form of mental control known as Mesmerism, made himself grow sleepy, very sleepy…

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In 1969, Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Perceptions, is arrested on stage after he allegedly exposes himself at a concert in Miami, Florida. The arrest for lewd behavior makes Morrison a cause celebre for rock stars across the world, and they become very vocal in his defense. When Morrison is brought to trial, the crowd outside the Dade County Courthouse outnumbers the crowd that had supposedly seen him expose himself.

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In 1996, the Hugo-winning author Harry Turtledove teamed up with Oscar-winner Richard Dreyfuss to publish the counter-history novel The Two Jameses: a tale of an Alternate Canada in which he posed the Canada Question - what would have happened if the Stuart monarchy had settled the dispute with renegade General James Wolfe? In this counter-history Canada is an integral part of the British Empire as a result of an agreement between General James Wolfe and King James Stuart IV. This event is commemorated in a Gainsborough painting titled The Two Jameses which has itself become a symbol of national unity that is stolen at the beginning of the novel. The book which was nominated for the 1995 Sidewise Award for Alternate History, was a highly regarded piece of escapism.

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In custody	In 1956, the United States Supreme Court reaffirmed the principle of 'separate but equal', the legal basis of racial segregation in state schools, colleges and universities. The University of North Carolina was involved in the appeal against an earlier ruling, which dated back to 1954. College officials were empowered to refuse admittance to three black students into the all-white institution. Racial segregation in schools was rigidly enforced. In other states, schools and colleges had indicated a willingness to accept black and white pupils.
Rosa Parks

The feeling of the people of Virginia is rather unanimous - that it was fortunate that this decision should have been handed down. I would say from the letters, telephone calls and telegrams this office has received, a very large proportion of Virginians would want to continue segregation of the races because we believe we can provide a better system of education by doing that said Thomas Stanley, Virginia state governor. Dr Tinsley, president of the Richmond branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, branded the policy of segregation as 'ridiculous, unreligious and unconstitutional'. He said segregation laws in Virginia meant black and white people could not sit down together in a hall where an entry fee had to be paid. Blacks are also forced to sit at the back in buses. Asked how black people felt at this treatment, he said: 'We are plenty angry.' Not all whites object to the ban. Dr Marion, Director of the Council of Human Relations, rejected claims black students were educationally inferior to their white counterparts. He said segregation had imposed a 'second-class citizenship' on the black population.

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