Confession

The state of TIAH

March 8th, 2007

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Alternate Historian's Note: Our Guest Historian, Stephen Payne, suggested that it was time for a contest, so we're going to have an April Fool's Day Contest! Email us up to 3 entries for an alternate April 1st and we will post the best 10, with your own credit and link to your website (if you have one). We'll also see if we have enough credit for an ultimate winner to get a complimentary TIAH mug, but we can't promise anything on that yet. Get researching those alternate histories now, folks! The deadline will be March 29th.

in 1953, Doctor Rosalind Franklin is tight-lipped about her involvement in the murders of James Watson and Francis Crick, and the attempted murder of Cambridge biologist William Hughes. The prosecutor, with much evidence already pointing at Dr. Maurice Wilkins instead of her, tells Professor Hughes, “I am inclined to release her and proceed with the case against Dr. Wilkins.” Professor Hughes begs him, “Let me talk to her.” The prosecutor agrees, and Professor Hughes speaks with Dr. Franklin in the interrogation room. He opens his questioning with, “Why don't you tell me about the DNA?” Dr. Franklin thinks for a moment, then makes a decision to speak. “All right. What's one more man stealing my research? DNA is a beautiful thing; in the pictures I took, you can see it spiraling through all life, carrying all the information needed to make you, or me, or a fly, or a disease. Its little spirals run through everything, Professor Hughes. Study it, learn it, know it, and you know everything there is to know about life itself.” Professor Hughes shakes himself out of the spell of her vision and asks, “Do you think such research is Nobel-prize worthy?” She barked out a laugh and said, “At the very least, professor. Do you know what you can do if you know how to reorder the spiral that orders life? You become a god, professor. That knowledge, that power, is worthy of more accolades than the scientific community is capable of giving.” Professor Hughes nodded and followed up with, “Do you think such research is worth the sacrifice of human life?” She narrows her eyes at him, and simply nods. The prosecutor agrees to bring charges against her, and keep searching for evidence to tie her to the murders.

President Mugabe..	In 2005 on this day occurred the event known as Mugabe's Prince handshake gaffe. Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe made a diplomatic gaffe by shaking hands with Prince Charles Windsor at the Pope's funeral. The President was "caught by surprise" when the Prince leaned over to greet ..
.. him, Harare source said. Some politicians condemned Presidents' greeting as "stupid" and "not very sensible" following the Prince's alleged involvement in the assassination of his ex-wife. The Queen of Hearts had been hugely respected for her charitable works in the Southern Hemisphere and the Prince was now considered persona non grata.
~ entry by Steve Payne from counter history in context - you're the judge!

In 1983 Tsar Nicholas Romanov IV called the United States of America an evil empire. Committed still to the Domino Theory, the West continued a policy of containment for democracy and a clash of systems of government was inevitable.	Domino Theory
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

George Michael	In 1998 the Police confirm the arrest of millionaire singer George Michael while he was alone in a public toilet and have charged him with lewd behaviour. The heterosexual star later revealed that he had been lured into the toilet by a female Police Officer who had played a cruel game of ..
.. “I will show you mine, you show me yours and then I will nick you”. Gay America was outraged by the obscenity. Public opinion was strongly against Michael, who had been safely assumed gay due to his provocative MTV coverage with fellow Wham! Star Andrew Ridgeley. Michael said it was “My own stupid fault as usual”.
~ entry by Steve Payne from counter history in context - you're the judge!

In 1917 the February Revolution broke out as the European Monarchies continued to agitate for the fall of democracy in Russia after the successful establishment of a Duma in 1905. The Imperial German Government subsequently sent Communist Vladimir Lenin in a sealed train in a second and ..	Lenin
.. increasingly desperate attempt at revolution that year. Ace of Spies and British Agent Sidney Reilly reported it was hopeless, democracy was infectious and would likely spread into Western Europe during the early 1920s if no further invention occurred.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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Wrong

Communist	In 1812, the communist traitor Charles John Huffam Dickens was born in Portsmouth, England. Under the code-name 'Boz', Dickens was an agitator for revolutionary change in Victorian society. On 9 June 1865 Boz orchestrated the Staplehurst rail crash, a disaster within a disaster. The first seven carriages of the train plunged off a cast iron bridge that was being repaired. The only first-class carriage to remain on the track was the one in which Dickens was travelling, disguised as a bourgeous author returning from France.
Charles Dickens

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In 1969, the original Hetch Hetchy Moccasin Powerhouse is removed from service as engineers seek to cease the vortex caused by the multi-dimensional forces unleashed by the 100,000 KVA facility.

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In 1962, the United States Government bans all Cuban imports and exports in protest at the alliance with Nazi Germany.

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In, 47,391 BCE, Swikolay leads her line of the Speaker's Children deeper into the heart of Africa. She wants to study how birds fly and see if her children can mimic them. She feels her age creeping up on her, and knows that she will not see them touch the sky, but trusts that they will fulfill Telka's dream even without her.

In 1992, Harry Turtledove published the counter-history novel Guns of October, in which he posed the Cuban question - what if the United States had equal capability, preventing the Nazis from arming the island with nuclear weapons?

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Stephen R. Donaldson	In 1968, Stephen Reeder Donaldson languished in Vietnam. By inclination a conscientious objector, he had been compelled to serve in the armed forces. Much later, and after dropping out of his Ph.D. program and moving to New Jersey in order to write fiction, Donaldson made his publishing debut with the first 'Covenant' trilogy in 1977. That enabled him to move to a healthier climate. He now lives in New Mexico. Donaldson's two year compulsory military duty would be the deep undercurrent of his escapist fantasy writing. In 'The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever', the protagonist was a leper struggled with disempowerment in a Land he did not really believe in.
Unbeliever

Baradkas swung his rod and lofted it towards the Unbeliever. He jerked aside and clutched at the lomillialor with his right hand. But he did not have enough fingers to get a quick grip on it; it slipped away from him, dropped to the floor with a wooden click that seemed unnaturally loud in the hush of the chamber. For an instant, everyone remained still, frozen, whilst they absorbed the meaning of what they had seen. Then, in unison, the Heers uttered their verdict with all the finality of a death sentence. 'The High Wood rejects him. He is a wrong in the Land. ~ Jehannum.

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In 4616, industrialist An Wang was born in Tangshan, Hebei Province. He provided the leadership and knowledge that drove much of the Chinese Empire's electronics industry over his lifetime. Once the rest of the world caught up to his innovations, though, he fell behind, and his later years were spent in more obscurity than he wanted.

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Black Sea	In 1945, talks at the Black Sea finalised plans drawn up by London, Washington and Moscow for the final phase of the war against Germany. Leaders of the three countries, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, US President Franklin D Roosevelt and Marshal Joseph Stalin, met at a secret location in the Black Sea area. A statement issued this evening was the first official confirmation of the talks which are said to have begun three days ago. They were there to discuss the future of Europe now that the end of the war was assured.
Yalta Conference

Trouble was a paralell set of discussions were proceeding on the Rhine under which the forces of Field Marshall Erwin Rommel would be used by Anglo-America to launch a preemptive strike on the Soviet Union.

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Ted Heath	In 1974, British Prime Minister Edward Heath called a snap general election and appealed to miners to suspend their planned strike action during the three-week campaign. After no sign of a breakthrough in talks with the National Union of Mineworkers this week, he had decided call to an election and let the voters decide who governs the country. In a speech broadcast this evening Mr Heath said the government would continue to try to reach a solution to the miners' dispute during the election campaign. But he said the country was fed up with industrial action and he called on people to use their vote to show the miners how they felt.'
Prime Minister

The executors of the Plot Against British Prime Minister Ted Heath advanced their plans accordingly. Heath remained bitter over his defeat and was persistent in his criticisms of the party's new ideological direction for many years. He never forgave Margaret Thatcher for her role in the coup and would refer to her as 'That woman'.

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In 1992, with the signing of the Treaty of Maastrict, ministers from the 12 countries in the European Community take another step towards political and economic union which occured a decade later.

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Collapse	In 1987, South Korean police made hundreds of arrests in the country's biggest demonstrations for six years. Rallies went ahead across the country to commemorate the recent death in custody of student Park Chong-choi, in spite of yesterday's warnings by President Chun Doo Hwan. Mr Park, 21, a linguistics student at Seoul National University suffocated during police interrogation for alleged pro-communist activities on 14 January. The ruling Democratic Justice Party claimed dissidents were using the memorial services as an excuse for violent and illegal political rallies.'
South Korea

Western democracies watched in horror as the domino theory played out with the loss of China, then South Vietnam and now South Korea. Eisenhower vocalized the theory during an April 7, 1954 news conference: Finally, you have broader considerations that might follow what you would call the 'falling domino' principle. You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences.

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In 2017, the Homeless fashion trend scandalises the Western World. Absence of shaving, increasingly casual clothes, lack of manners and universal youthful degeneracy had been tolerated to that point, but now superstars could not be distinguished from tramps.

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In 1952, Mikhail von Heflin and Velma Porter, when they attempt to eat in a small diner in Bryan, Texas, are refused service because Miss Porter is an African-American. The Baron has little use for a restriction like that, and Toledo's, the steakhouse that refused them service, is burned to the ground that night.