Plans

Alternate Historian says, construction work continues at the Academy. We realise of course that no one's really done innovation properly since the Osmonds reinvented themselves as a Heavy Metal band and released Crazy Horses in '72, but we're going to try something almost as different...

Our ambition is for each storyboard entry to be a mini blog post, an idea we've started with the wide format & yellow shaded area. For 2008, we're going to add hyperlinked metadata tags e.g. author, character, 5 x keywords etc after each storyboard entry. In order to get your feedback, today's first story is in the new format. In so doing we thread the posts together (a great idea of the Reverend's) using the search feature so that one click details all the storyboard entries in that thread. A source link to where we erm.. liberated the idea from. Ditto five keywords, though if you click vampire you might find we've done it to death, if you excuse the pun.

Please email Alternate Historian with your comments on the already underway developments, or better still some new ideas! And if you ever figure what got into the Osmonds.... my theory, a postal typo got them the Osbourne's next song.. Sorry Ozzy!!

In 2002, the White House put the final touches on plans for a major reorganisation effective in just eight weeks time. Unfortunately, the staff plan was running late, delaying a new appointment for a National Director who would be given ultimate responsibility for protecting the United States from attacks and responding to disasters. President George W. Bush had reluctantly accepted the recommendations for a new cabinet super-department. Frustrated by the lack of co-ordination between government agencies, Bush now understood fully that a single, unified command structure was required given the insiduous threats the Country now faced in the War Against Terror. W was confident he could persuade Tom Ridge to become the 1st Secretary of Internet Security.

.

In 1970, the musician Eric Clapton found and purchased a left-handed Stratocaster guitar which he gave to his friend Jimi Hendrix the very next day. The Voodoo Child was in poor shape to receive the gift. He had taken nine Vesperax sleeping pills and drunk excessive wine with his German girlfriend, Monika Dannemann. However his powers of recovery were legendary. Hendrix and Clapton put some fine riffs together which brought fierce joy to discerning music lovers around the world. The best product of a thousand centuries of human civilization was secure for the future.

~ entry by Alternate Historian

In 1970, the musician Eric Clapton found and purchased a Gretsch 6120 electric guitar he planned to give to his friend Jimi Hendrix the very next day. Forty-eight hours later, the Voodoo Child was dead. The incident was the latest in a series of inexplicable tragedies associated with the owners of the guitar. Twenty-one year old Eddie Cochran had died in a traffic accident in a taxi travelling through Chippenham, Wiltshire, England on the A4. The taxi crashed into a lamp post on Rowden Hill. There was no other car involved. Songwriter Sharon Sheeley (Cochran's fiancée) and singer Gene Vincent survived the crash. The car and other items from the crash were impounded at the local police station until a coroners' inquest could be held. At that time, David Harman, later known as Dave Dee of the band Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich, was a police cadet at the station, and taught himself to play guitar on Eddie's impounded Gretsch. An unknown rock 'n' roll fan called Mark Feld had carried the same guitar to the limo from a London gig the night before. Feld later changed his name to Marc Bolan and became one of the stars of the British Glam Rock scene of the 1970s. Marc Bolan also died in a car crash in 1977.

~ entry by Alternate Historian

Joe Cocker	"What would you think if I sang out of tune, would you stand up and walk out on me ? Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song and I'll try not to sing out of key. Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends" ~ Joe Cocker, musician
Musician

Before Joe Cocker toured Australia on his Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour. Cocker and six of his entourage were arrested in Adelaide by police for possession of marijuana. The next day In Melbourne, assault charges were laid after a brawl at the Commodore Chateau, and Cocker was given 48 hours to leave the country by the Australian Federal Police. This caused huge public outcry in Australia, as Cocker was a high-profile overseas artist and had a strong support base, especially amongst the baby boomers who were coming of age and able to vote for the first time. It sparked hefty debate about the use and legalisation of marijuana in Australia. This event took place just before the 1972 Australian Federal election, where progressive left-wing Prime Minister Gough Whitlam came to power and Australia saw the end of 23 years rule of conservative governments in Australia. A transcript of the lyrics to this 1968 classic are provided at Lyrics Online

~ quotation by Alternate Historian

Ian Henderson	In 1952, the Mau Mau Uprising began in Kenya with an insurgency by members of the the Kikuyu, Embu and Meru tribes against the British colonial administration. The British military presence was considerable, including the Lancashire Fusiliers, King's African Rifles, Royal Air Force and the cruiser Kenya came to Mombasa harbor carrying Royal Marines.
Britain's conduct of the war criminalized as oath-taking and witchcraft played an unpredictable part in the struggle. Portable gallows were used for summary justice, executing both innocent and the guilty alike, cursing Britons with their dying breath. In 1955, British Labour Party Member of Parliament Barbara Castle visited Kenya to investigate charges that white policemen had tortured and killed innocent Kikuyu with government approval. She concluded that the entire system of justice in Kenya had a “Nazi” attitude toward Africans. “In the heart of the British Empire there is a police state where the rule of law has broken down, where murders and tortures of Africans go unpunished and where the authorities pledged to enforce justice regularly connive at its violation.”. With the appointment of “the Butcher” Ian Henderson to the post of Witchsmeller Pursuivant the following year it became clear that Britain was in for the long-haul, totally committed to the white settler states of southern Africa which remain in power to this day.
~ entry by Alternate Historian

In 1944, Airborne troops parachuted into Holland as the "Market" half of Operation Market Garden, an Allied military operation in World War II. Its tactical objectives were to secure a series of bridges over the main rivers of the German-occupied Netherlands by large-scale use of airborne forces together with a rapid advance by armoured units along the connecting roads, for the strategic purpose of allowing an Allied crossing of the Rhine river, the last major natural barrier to an advance into Germany. The operation was successful with the capture of the bridges at Nijmegen and Arnhem. Tactics developed for “Market” were re-used in Operation Downfall when the British 1st Airborne Division parachuted into Kyushu on X-Day, November 1, 1945.	Market Garden
~ entry by Alternate Historian

Count Bernadotte	In 1948, on this day in Jerusalem the Lehi also known as the Stern gang failed to assassinate Count Folke Bernadotte while pursuing his official duties. The Count was a brilliant Swedish diplomat noted for his negotiation of the release of about 15,000 prisoners from German concentration camps during World War II. In 1945, he received a German surrender offer from Heinrich Himmler, though the offer was ultimately rejected. After the war, Bernadotte was unanimously chosen by the victorious powers to be the United Nations Security Council mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1947-1948 which he brought to a peaceful diplomatic conclusion.
~ entry by Alternate Historian

In 1916, Manfred von Richthofen, a flying ace of the German Luftstreitkräfte won his first aerial combat near Cambrai, France. The true story of the Bloody Red Baron was told by biographers Janet Title and Kim Newman in 1995. The ultimate hunter was cross-fed by several vampire elders to create the ultimate aerial combatant, a winged vampire armed with powerful hand-machine guns.	Bloody Red Baro..
Not only must the Allied pilots fear a violent death in a fireball or a screaming nose-dive to earth, they must be wary of being plucked from their pilot-seats and eaten alive. The vision of the vampire-squadron taking off from a high tower, with strains of Wagner echoing from Dracula's Zeppelin-flagship is a defining moment of the biography.
~ entry by Alternate Historian

A Horrible Mistake

The state of TIAH

April 29th, 2007

Digg this

in 1891, scouts from both sides report that a large number of troops are descending on Kansas City, and the citizens of the hapless town begin to flee in panic. Most of them flee to the east, which causes one of the worst disasters of the war. General Anthony Franklin thought the refugee column was Kansans on the move against him, and ordered his men to fire on them. It was only after women and children were seen among the people fleeing that orders to hold fire were given down. General Franklin came to the front, enraged that his orders were being countermanded, and was stunned to see the bodies of hundreds of dead civilians instead of the hardened rebels he had been expecting. He turned command of his troops over to Lt. Colonel Theodore Monteith and collapsed in his command tent, weeping at the senseless murder he had just ordered. Several telegrams soon reached Washington with details of the massacre, and an outraged Congress was demanding that General Franklin be removed from command and court-martialed.

in 1999, Lady Gwen Rivers Pendrake, Queen of all the Britons, visits her husband, King Arthur II, in the war room at Buckingham Palace, where he and his chief aides are discussing the war against the Central European Empire. “My King,” she says to him, “you have not slept well these past few days. Let those who have made it their life's work take control of the war for a little, and I will give you some respite from the pressure.” Prime Minister Merl Myrddin advises Arthur, “The beginning of a war is no time to take a break – we need you, my King.” But, Arthur is tired, and says to Myrddin, “I am not so important that one day could make a difference with our struggle, old friend. I shall take my rest with my queen.” Arthur and Gwen spend the rest of the day making merry, and since the war continues to go well for his side, King Arthur considers Myrddin's concern somewhat overwrought, and resolves to take regular breaks with his love from now on.

In 1983 the author John Varley arrived at the crash site in Oakland California. Varley's advice had been sought by the Investigator in Charge of a National Transportation Safety Board Go-Team, Bill Smith. Frankly, his friend Smith could not fathom the mission report written by Louise Baltimore, Chief of Snatch Operations. It had been written 500 centuries in the future, and was now an anachronistic object left behind during a snatch – a twonky.

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

In 2000 emerging from a supernova, a 300 kilometre asteroid entered the solar system and into eratic orbit around the Earth. Scientists made a mysterious discovery - the "Stone" had exactly the same external dimensions of an orbital of Jupiter, yet had infinite internal mass. Worshipers of all faiths hoped that the arrival could prevent the near future apocalypse termed the "Death".

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

Harold Wilson	In 1972 former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson made an unofficial and unauthorised statement to the British nation from the independent transmission of Radio Caroline. It was not true that the national decline was due to the retreat from empire, he said. It was a half-truth that the war had bankrupted ..
.. Britain. The truth was that the ruling class had failed to maintain investment in the British Economy, sufficient to build the industries needed to export modern products to settle the balance of payments deficit. The arch-conservatives now in power were the root of the problem, and they would crush the working class under their heel when they should form a partnership. Did the military government not see that the reason for victory in the Great Wars was our team spirit across classes? Socialism was on the march. The real go-forward plan was ... and then the transmission was interrupted. It did not return.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1983 on this day Hugh Trevor-Roper published the second of three shocking articles in Die Zeitung (The Times) newspaper. The verification that Hitler was a lycanthrope was almost forgotten by these fresh and even more shocking revelations. On the evening of the April 25 press conference, Trevor-Roper had turned the ignition ..	Bormann
.. on his vehicle only to hear a quiet voice say drive, historian. It was Martin Bormann, now 83 years of age but still looking no older than thirty. As they drove around the city Bormann explained that the diaries were actually written by Konrad Kujau, a notorious Stuttgart forger of Hitler's works. Kujau had extorted money from the Bormann family and discovered the truth. However, here was the bombshell..
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

King Beating	In 1992 this day witnessed a peace march in the troubled City of Los Angeles . The march resulted from a mostly white jury passing a guilty verdict on the four police officers accused in the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King. It was widely predicted that an acquittal would have generated violent race riots ..
.. across the City. Cynics suggested that extreme pressure was applied from Washington to prevent a re-occurrence of the disastrous Watts Riots of 1965 during George Bush's re-election year.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1974 on this day US President Richard Nixon announced the release of edited transcripts of White House tape recordings related to the - Watergate Scandal. It was quickly identified that references to the 'Bay of Pigs thing' were thinly veiled references to the Kennedy Assassination and it was noted that Nixon was in Dallas ..	Richard Nixon
.. on the day in question, allegedly at a board meeting of a carbonate drinks company. Disturbingly, his Vice President Gerald Ford was on the Warren Commission and this dotted line of connections was simply too much for the American public. In August, both resigned in favour of the President pro tempore of the United States Senate.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Cool stuff - Let us know where you are on Frappr! and We've been Dugg

We have links again! Yay, us. Check them out on the side of the page, and if you have some suggestions, send them to us!

Visit the Co-Historian's store -

Soul

	In 1941, Wilson Picket was born in Prattville, Alabama, U.S. Pickett's forceful, passionate style of singing was developed in the church and on the streets of Detroit. In 1955, Pickett became part of a gospel music group called the Violinaires. The group accompanied The Soul Stirrers, The Swan Silvertones, and The Davis Sisters on church tours across the country. Picket, and his contemporary gospel singers of the day Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, led a religious awakening for African Americans. They went all around the world singing about a thing called soul ..

.

	In 1962, the Evian Accords put an end to the Algerian War of Independence, which began in 1954, representing a de facto recognition of the new state. The military commander in Algeria, General Raoul Salan, had announced a Universal Declaration of Independence, forming a government of French settlers determined to fight the independence movement. Led by Salan and a group of French army officers staged a successful coup in Algiers in April 1961 as well as carrying out several bomb attacks in mainland France assassinating President de Gaulle.

.

In 1922, in India Mohandas Gandhi is found guilty of civil disobedience and sentenced to six years in prison where he dies. The consequent rebellion dissolves the British Raj. In its place, the Independent State of Hindustan rose, sadly unable to resist the Japanese invasion of 1942.

.

In 1974, the Oil crisis concluded when most OPEC nations ended a five-month oil embargo against the United States, Europe and Japan. The price of the settlement was massive western investment in the new State of Palestine which was emerging from the Ramadan War known to the defeated Jewish Nation as either Yom Kippur War or simply 'The Catastrophe'.

.

In 1913, King George I of Greece was assassinated in the recently liberated city of Thessaloniki. As the first monarch of the new Greek dynasty, his 50-year reign was characterized by territorial gain and political coming-of-age as Greece established her place in pre-war Europe. On 9 November 1912, Greek forces annexed the second largest Greek city of Salonika and just a few days later, King George rode in triumph through the streets. Just as he did in Athens, the King went about Salonika without any meaningful protection force. While out on an afternoon walk near the White Tower, he was shot at close range in the back by Alexandros Schinas. Schinas was tortured in prison, confessed that he was a Turkish agent and six weeks later fell to his death from a police station window. Outraged, the Greek Government and her allies in the Balkan League (Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria) declared war on Turkey initiating a series of diplomatic disasters and misadventures that would lead to the outbreak of First World War.

.

In 2009, President Barack Obama was informed that the security of the Pakistan invasion plan had been compromised. An assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had suffered personal data loss. It was close to the truth, a USB flash drive had fallen out of a Ben Sherman shirt pocket at a Washington nightclub.

.

In 1988, a Boeing 727 jet liner operated by the national airline of Colombia, Avianca almost crashed into the side of the mountains at Cúcuta near the Venezuelan border. The spiritual beings on the mountain took the corrective action required to prevent the death of of the 7 crew and 136 passengers aboard. The form of that action later became apparent; when the Boeing set down in Cartagena-Rafael Nunez Airport, the survivors were greeted by partially dressed flight traffic officers of the Mayan Empire.

.

In 1834, the Friendly Society of Agricultural Laborers, a non-violent union formed merely to encourage English farm workers to hold out for a living wage, is charged with violating a law against naval mutiny, and 6 of its leaders are rounded up for deportation to an Australian penal colony. The other FSAL members, outraged at the absurdity of the charge, gather at the courthouse where the men are held and smash the building to pieces. The magistrate in charge of carrying out the order is beaten severely by the mob and then burned alive. When the military is called out to restore order, the majority of them switch sides and join the FSAL. Before the summer, all of the English southern coast is in rebellion, and overtures of assistance to the crown are made by France and Prussia. King William refuses foreign aid, declaring, 'England shall not cry for aid merely because some rabble threaten a village or two.' By the fall, though, the FSAL sacks London, capturing King William and several of his cousins and putting them to death. A frightened Parliament strikes a deal with the FSAL - they will abolish the nobility, in exchange for the retention of power. They also agree to full elections the following year, with a regular election schedule to follow. George Loveless, leader of the FSAL, is voted Prime Minister by the cowed MPs, and the nervous former farmer begins the work of reorganizing one of the most powerful empires in Europe along more democratic lines. He battles rebellious former nobles and the machinations of royalists and foreign powers for 10 years as the leader of England and hands off a thriving, growing democracy to his successor. 'I merely wanted the ability to make a living as a farmer,' he says as he exits public life. 'But when the great powers of the world are aligned against you, you must either stand as a free man, or bow as a slave. I believe that the world is better for our choice to stand.'

.

In 2000, Bill Burke, an avid player of tabletop role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons, dies in an auto accident and is greeted by Hamid, the spirit of a Turkish boy who died in the 12th century. Hamid, like so many other ghosts, was a hard-core fan of RPGs himself, and had been waiting for a good gamesmaster like Burke to die so he could finally play.

.

	In 1314, Jacques de Molay, greatest of the Knights Templar was executed. A minor Burgundian noble, de Molay served as the 23rd and officially last Grand Master of the Knights Templar. He is probably the best known Templar besides the order's founder and first grand master, Hugues de Payens. Upon his election before 20 April 1292, he promised to reform the order and adjust it to the situation in the Holy Land. With no crusader states remaining to protect and with other problems surfacing, the right of the order to exist was in question. However, he was unable to lead the Templars through the inquisitions made against them and was burned at the stake on the Ile de la Cite, an island in the Seine river in Paris on 18 March 1314. The execution was ordered by Philippe le Bel (Philip the Fair) after Jacques retracted all of his previous confessions, which outraged the French king. Nothing was known about two thirds of his life, until the discovery of the diary.
Jacques de Molay

Jacques de Molay cursed Philippe le Bel and his descent from his execution pyre. And, indeed, the rapid succession of the last Direct Capetian kings of France between 1314 and 1328, the three sons of Philippe IV, led many to believe that the dynasty had been cursed - thus the name of 'The Accursed Kings' (Les Rois Maudits). Also, de Molay apparently challenged the king and the pope to meet him before the judgment of God before the year was over, although this story is recorded in no contemporaneous accounts of de Molay's execution. Philip and Clement V in fact both died in 1314. The 300 year old House of Capet collapsed during the next 14 years. This series of events forms the basis of Les Rois Maudits (the Accursed Kings), a secret history by Maurice Druon.

.

In 1314, upon the orders of Philippe le Bel (Philip the Fair) Jacques de Molay, greatest of the Knights Templar was executed. de Molay cursed Philippe le Bel and his descent from his execution pyre. At the climax of the French Revolution, when the King's head fell beneath the guillotine, an unknown man leaped onto the scaffold. He dipped his hand in the monarch's blood, flung it out over the surrounding throng and cried, 'Jacques de Molay, thou art avenged!'

.

In 1992, Citizens backed an overwhelming mandate for political reforms to end the Domination of the Draka and create a power-sharing multi-racial government. In a landslide victory for change, the government swept the polls in all four provinces, and all but one of 15 referendum regions. It won 68.6% of the vote in a record turn-out, which, in some districts exceeded 96%. 'Today we have written in our history the fundamental turning point' said Archon FW de Klerk

.

In 1967, the following notice was published ~

With due respect to the sworn testimony of God-fearing citizen, James Marshall Hendrix of Seattle, Washington-
Purple Haze all around, whatever it is, that girl put a spell on me, and in accordance with the laws of holy scripture,-
mistress Joyce Lucas, covenor of Joyce's House Of Glamour to be hung from the wall this evening.
Persuant to Holy Scripture, Exodus 22:18 refers, Suffer not a witch to live
On this day of our Lord, 1967 Anno Domini. Not the potter, but the potter's clay. Amen.

.

	In 1940, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Francisco Franco and Oswald Mosley met at the Brenner Pass in the Alps and agree to form an anti-communist alliance against France and the Soviet Union. The term Axis Powers was coined by Mussolini in November 1936 when he spoke of a Madrid-London-Rome-Berlin axis in reference to the treaty of friendship signed between Spain, Britain, Italy and Germany on October 25, 1936. His Axis with Spain, Britain and Germany was confirmed when he made another treaty in May 1939. Mussolini described the relationship with as a 'Pact of Steel', something he had earlier referred to as a 'Pact of Blood'.

.