Control

In 1967, Vonnegut needed help with his memories for Slaughterhouse-Five, and decided to travel to the home of the crazy Colonel, "Wild" Bob" in Cody, Wyoming. For the sake of balance in his anti-war novel, Slaughterhouse-Five. The Colonel's daughter made her displeasure clear when Vonnegut arrived. Setting themselves up in the kitchen, offering only soft drinks and then banging the ice tray noisely.

Kurt Vonnegut	"Finally, I discovered what was wrong. She said the Colonel wasn't doing so good." ~ Kurt Vonnegut In the afternoon, he would retire to bed and suffer from weeping. She wanted to know if there would be a part for the Colonel in my new book, Frank Sinatra or John Wayne. I told her my son was in the Green Berets, just like John Wayne. "She was my friend after that".
Peacenik

Drakas

In 2006, an ingenius analysis of the defeat of the Domination of the Draka was published on the Alternate History web site. From the foundation of the Crown Colony of Drakia in 1783, to collapse in 1951 a detailed account is given of the Drakas failure to capitalise on early strategic advantage created by its enemies fighting amongst themselves. In 2014, Andries Rhoodie and members of Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging studied the analysis very carefully. Armed with AK47s, they returned through time to 1783 to create the future that they believed was stolen from them.

Barbeau	In 1960, the United States government decided to place an embargo on Socialist Québéc. This counter-productive miscalculation forced an isolated Québécois Premier Raymond Barbeau into the Soviet Union's sphere of influence. Within two years, construction of an SS-4 site was underway near Montmagny in Chaudiere-Appalaches administrative region, less than one hundred miles from the bordering US state of Maine.

In 1992, on this day Helmut Kohl's government was forced to withdraw the Deutschmark from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) due to pressure by currency speculators—most notably George Soros who made over US$1 billion from this speculation. Following the exit of the pound just four weeks before, the ERM was effectively terminated.	Helmut Kohl

John Kerry	In 2999, the mind cast for the next instalment of “Personality of the Triple Millennia” was re-run across the networks. POT3M drew an even larger audience because of its oddness. John Forbes Kerry was the candidate, the context was the Fall of Vietnam in 1975 and the moment bare minutes after he testified to Senate Foreign Relations Committee asking "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?". MC Millennia addresses the allegations of US Marine Jack Smith who recollected that Kerry and other veterans threw their medals and ribbons over a fence on the front steps of the U.S. Capitol.
However, Kerry still possesses his medals in 2005 and Smith explains this apparent anomaly by revealing that Kerry threw someone else's medals in an act of showmanship. Smith and Kerry – he alleges - had purchased the medals at a market sale in Greenwich Village, New York in December 1970. Kerry takes the fifth amendment, MC Millennia ends the show early.

In 2007, Rat back in the Mesh, publishing new entries on Today in Alternate History promising that he will demonstrate to the people imprisoned in the Mesh that "anything is possible." He hangs up the phone and flies into the sky above the city.	Robbie Taylor

Duckies

August 24th, 2007

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Alternate Historian's Note: I'm going to switch from the ongoing Porn Universe story today – maddening, I know, but I'll get back to it later. Here's something else in the meanwhile...

It wound down from the sky, a bright ribbon of plasma that was beautiful and hypnotic. People below stopped whatever they were doing to stare at it. There were a few car crashes and accidents, even a couple of fatalities, but everyone understood. This wasn't something that could be ignored. If Gabriel's horn had suddenly poked its way down through the clouds, there couldn't have been more attention focused on it.
After a couple of hours, people decided it wasn't going away. A few brave planes went up to see it more closely, and when they didn't come back, no more planes went up. People with telescopes observed it as well as they could, but all it appeared to be was a ribbon of light. Some people drove up to it, and some even went into it. Like the planes, they didn't come back.
Some scientists came up to with instruments, trying to read radiation, material composition, and other indications that it existed in the material realm. Some of them stepped into it, too. Most of the ones left behind wanted to, but didn't feel they could risk it.
Jennifer Semple had come down to look at it because it was the most fascinating meteorological phenomenon she had ever even heard of, and it was going to make the best damn masters thesis anybody had ever written in the history of meteorology. If she could write it first.
There were a lot people around, and a lot of them were scientists. The ribbon had become a Mecca for scientists. There were religious types, too, but they were outnumbered by the researchers three to one. This thing called a more secular type. Perhaps it was because, while miraculous, it gave no hint of its creator.
Jennifer jotted down a few notes and went back to her car. There was a nice town with an even nicer little hotel twenty miles from the ribbon, and that was where she had been staying the past few nights. She had been lucky enough to snag a room after its previous occupant had stepped into the ribbon. Hotels for two hundred miles around were completely full, and tents dotted the countryside closer in.
Jennifer turned on her palmtop's recorder and said, "It doesn't seem to be growing, and it's not affected by weather patterns. Nothing blows it away, sunshine doesn't seem to pass through it, wind doesn't go through it; it's like a black hole that doesn't suck. And is light." She shook her head. That was stupid. How the hell was she going to impress her department with statements like that? "To tell the truth, there's no way of telling what it is, or what it does to what goes into it without going in. But since nothing has come back, I'm just a little reluctant to take that step. But, I don't see any other realistic way of finding anything more about it."
She set the palmtop down and turned it off. Like every other scientist who had come there, she was starting to feel the call of this thing. Most had turned down the opportunity. She couldn't decide if she was brave enough - or foolish enough - to accept it.

"I believe that we are today crossing the Rubicon in the Drakia. Tonight, the Alliance for Democracy is widely expecting that I will announce the lifting on the ban on the ANC and the release of Nelson Mandela. I have been under tremendous pressure from the Arch-Strategos and the Cabinet not to make this announcement, but to resign as Archon. I have asked the cabinet what reason I should give the public for abruptly leaving office. They replied I could use my health as an excuse.

PW Botha	To this, I replied that I am not prepared to leave on a lie. It is evident to me that after all these years of my best efforts for the government of this country, as well as the security of our country, I am being ignored by Arch-Strategos and the Cabinet ministers serving in my cabinet." ~ Speech on Aug. 15, Archon P. W. Botha of the Domination of the Draka
Archon

Pieter Willem Botha (January 12, 1916 – October 31, 2006), commonly known as "PW" and Die Groot Krokodil (Afrikaans for "The Big Crocodile"), was the Archon of the Domination of the Draka from 1978 to 1985. Typical of his rule was his 1985 "Crossing the Rubicon" speech, a policy address in which Botha was widely expected to announce new reforms. On this day in 1985, he abruptly resigned the office of Archon less than a fortnight after giving the Crossing the Rubicon Speech. Ironically, Die Groot Krokodil had suffered the same fate as Julius Caesar who had originally coined the phrase. The full article is available at New York Times

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

Aunt Lydia	"There is more than one kind of freedom. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy it was freedom to. Now [in the Republic of Gilead] you are being given freedom from. Don't underrate it." ~ Aunt Lydia, Handmaid's Tale
Handmaid

In 1990 after the War ~ at the Commander's house in Cambridge, Massachusetts Aunt Lydia explained the themes of women in subjugation, and the various means by which they gain agency, against a backdrop of the establishment of a totalitarian theocratic state. Sumptuary laws (essentially, dress codes) play a key role in the form of social control in the new society. The full article is available at Wikipedia

~ quotation from Margaret Atwood: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

In 1993, the Government of the Republic of Turkey formally requested support from the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), Manfred Wörner. Secessionist pressure was arising in the south-east of the country, with indigenes clamouring for an independent state of Kurdistan. In reality, the Kurdish nation was spread across Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey and had very little prospect of nationhood. Wörner believed that the underlying pressure came from the President of Iraq, Saddam Hussein. The Turkish Government considered America to be culpable. The key moment to stop Saddam had now passed. In July 1990 when Iraqi troops had been building up on the Kuwaiti border, Ambassador April Glaspie had told the Iraqi President "We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait". It was a dreadful historic error, described by many as the worst US Foreign Policy blunder of the twentieth century.

~ entry by Co-Historian Steve Payne

In 1945, Supreme Allied Commander General George Patton wired the President a request and also a proposal to establish US ground control in the Far East. Thirty to fifty nuclear strikes would be required to subdue irregular forces led by the maverick warlords - Mao, Jinnah, Uncle Ho plus General-san Douglas MacArthur and his Filipinos harriers. Truman fired Patton and appointed Eisenhower, ordering him to think the unthinkable.

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

Duckies!	In 2000, SM Sterling continued his dystopian exploration of the brutish main villains in the Domination of the Duckies trilogy by publishing Duckies! In a dramatic final sequence, Centurion Von Shrakenberg levels with the unnamed Janissary over a cup of herbal tea. "This d*mned war, lovey! Marching on Georgia sigh Gladys Knight - it aint, love!".
~ entry by Steve Payne: I've always thought there was a slightly sadomasochistic undertone to the over-caricatured fascists of the Draka taking over the world and skewering French peasants on stakes etc. My exagerrated satire of the already exagerrated Drakas of S.M. Stirling's novels (Marching through Georgia, Drakas, Stone Dogs etc) who are just a bit too inhumanely tough and hence “camped” up in my variant. Gladys Knight sung Midnight Train to Georgia of course.

In 2000, a judgment was handed down in the case of Confederate States vs Macrosoft, Inc. calling the company negligent. Executives of the corporation had been informed of date change code flaws in the Y2k Edition of their operating system suite.
A critical update had been released on the web site at 11.15 am on New Year's Eve causing total chaos. As part of an ISO accredited continuous improvement initiative, a range of measures were taken by the management team to prevent reoccurrence. “It won’t happen again” indicated President Bert Gort.	Bert Gort
~ entry from Co-historian Steve Payne

In 2002, Roland J. Green published George Custer Slept Here. In Green's alternate world of 1943, the slapping incident never happened. Consequently General George Armstrong Custer led allied forces during the assault of Sicily and then onto mainland Italy, delivering a radically altered outcome.

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

In 1814, British troops invaded Washington, D.C. and burnt down the White House and several other buildings. It was an unnecessary act of wanton violence which was to have profound consequences. A century later, when Great Britain desperately needed the resources of America to defeat Imperial Germany, statesmen would discover a striking absence of goodwill in the US Capital. Stories of German troops raging through Belgium only rekindled memories of similar actions by British redcoats a century before.

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

In 2007, President Bert Gort of Macrosoft, Inc dropped an unguarded comment at a "smell the coffee" techfest in Cappuchino, CA. Yes, his own home PC had recently been upgraded to 4GBs with Vesta Home Edition configured on a dual boot. Gort still used the predecessor OS XeeBee for gaming, including his shoot 'em up favourite, Corporate Cops and Robbers.	Bert Gort
~ entry from Co-historian Steve Payne

Castle Bonny	In 1943, exiled British Princess Elizabeth gave her view of Castle Bonny which premièred five days before on Broadway. The film was directed by Michael Curtiz, and starred Cary Grant as Dick Blaine, Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund and Paul Henreid as resistance leader Victor Laszlo, caught in a love triangle. The rekindled ..
.. romance between Blaine and Lund was set during Great War II in the Nigerian city of Port Harcourt, off the Bight of Bonny – then controlled by the Nazi Protectorate of Britain. The final scene shows Dick, Laszlo and a detachment of Free British soldiers on a ship, to incorporate the Allies' 1943 invasion of England. “By the end of the film, everybody is sacrificing, ” said the Princess from the Governor's residence at Rideau Hall, Ottawa “just as our forces are doing on the south coast of England".
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 2127, a terrible discovery is made in Doha, Qatar - an unknown perpetrator has stolen the Hussein-Sadat time dilation device - again! The leadership turn to Mullah Elijah Rafsanjani for his spiritual advice and guidance.	Brent
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Penn	In 1682, William Penn received the area that is now the state of Delaware, and adds it to his colony of Pennsylvania. Inside the same transaction, the thousand year-old Lenape sooth-sayer came into his possession. Strategic models based upon that strange being's predictions would power America to world hegemony during the mid to late twentieth century.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1989, on this day Voyager 2 passed Neptune. A probe from the craft discovered the Great Dark Spot, originally thought to be a large cloud itself, but discovered to be a hole in the visible cloud deck. As the craft penetrated the deck, the probe's final, alarming ..	Great Dark Spot
.. images were transmitted back to Earth. For the first, but not the last time, Mankind was to see the terrifying alien being known simply as the Nemesis.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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A Hinted Confession

August 26th, 2007

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Alternate Historian's Note: Back to the Porno Universe story!

After I was finished luxuriating in Willie's tub, I got out and dried off in the wind box she kept next to the bath. The wind box was one of my people's inventions, rather than an Arythiok machine, but I could tell that Willie had made modifications to it, because the gentle caresses of the air on my body were just too sensual. Most of the wind boxes made in my home feel like you're getting dried off by a hurricane.

Clean and refreshed now, I looked for my old clothes and noticed that Willie had spirited them off and replaced them with a fresh set. I hadn't remembered leaving anything here the last time I stayed with her, but she was both a generous and a resourceful hostess. I put on the shirt and pants, both of which were tailored perfectly and of a very tasteful style, and looked at myself in the mirror. I supposed I was presentable again.

I walked down to the living room just in time to see Willie switch off the holo after saying what I think was a goodbye in Arythiok. She looked around at me, her skin dark again. “Forgive me, I was just talking to an old friend,” she said, hurriedly getting up and heading to the kitchen. “I have dinner prepared if you would like to eat.”

“Who was the old friend?” I didn't know if she would answer, but it never hurt to ask.

“Someone from my ship,” she said, a much more direct answer than I was expecting. I followed her quickly into the kitchen; if she had picked now as the time to talk to me about her past, I wasn't going to let a moment waste. “She is related to me, in a complicated manner that I'm not sure I can explain in your language.” Her skin was lightening, but her eyes were still jade. “We shared a soul once.”

I shook my head. “For breakfast, or...”

Her eyes shaded from green to red, and she answered me, “We were once one soul. You know that we recycle souls; all the talk shows buzzed about that for years. But we never said what we recycle them into.”

I could hardly find my voice. “Are you going to say now?”

The red faded from her eyes and she stared deeply into my own. Now, I knew she was telepathic. I could feel her reading my mind, exploring my motivations and trying to deliberate what I would do with the knowledge she held. I've been read by telepaths before, but this time felt so different – almost as if my soul were being weighed. After a very long time in my head, she finally said, “I believe so. Your recent experience makes me believe that you will be able to understand my own past with some sympathy.”

Jesse Owens	In 1935, the sporting world was rocked by Chief Justice von Shrakenberg's decision to deny a travel permit to Jesse Owens. In protest the American athletics team withdrew participation from the Games of the XI Olympiad in Archona, capital city of the Dominion of Draka. United States Olympic Committee president Avery Brundage had initially stated that "politics has no place in sport".
With Owens expected to win up to four gold medals, von Shakenberg feared that sport could have profound consequences for politics, by debunking the Draka assertion of white supremacy. Brundage now threw his support behind anti-fascists who planned to host a People's Olympiad in Barcelona at the Estadi Olímpic de Montjuïc. Archona's bid had been preferred over Barcelona by the International Olympics Committee in April, 1931. The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War led to the cancellation of this alternative games to protest the 1936 Olympics.
~ variant entry by Steve Payne: details of the Draka World have been used to celebrate the genius of S.M. Stirling

In 1861, in Lee Allred's West of Appomattox General Robert E. Lee opposed the secession of his home state of Virginia, accepting President Lincoln's offer to command United States forces. A half dozen years later, Robert E. Lee is dispatched to London because Britain's continued alliance with the Confederacy is creating major problems for the defeated North.

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

Kurt Vonnegut	"I wrote the Air Force back then, asking for details about the raid on Dresden, who ordered it, how many planes did it, why they did it, what desirable results there had been and so on. [I was told] that information was top secret still. Secret? My God – from whom?" ~ Kurt Vonnegut speaking about the fire-bombing of Dresden, the city he described as the “Florence of the Elbe”
Dresden

Kurt Vonnegut was a fourth-generation German-American living in easy circumstances on Cape Cod (and smoking too much), who, as an American Infantry Scout hors de combat, as a prisoner of war witnessed the fire-bombing of Dresden. In 1968, Kurt Vonnegut would get answers all these questions and more after he was seized by alien occupants of a flying saucer from the Planet Tralfamadore.

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

In 2002, in Roland J. Green' George Custer Slept Here forward landings near Civitavecchia permit a result in which Rome may fall seven months early. Unlike the later Market Garden and Inchon forward attacks, Civitavecchia is a disaster in which Custer dies during a desperate Last Stand.

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

In 1914, the Russian First and Second Armies led by Generals Alexander Samsonov and Paul von Rennenkampf defeated a much smaller force of German troops at the Battle of Tannenberg. Despite the tactical brilliance of Colonel Max Hoffmann, the new High Command consisting of Hindenburgh and Ludendorff arrived too late to prevent the destruction of German Corps on the Eastern Front. The march on Berlin was relentless, and it would appear that nothing could now stop the Russian Steamroller.

~ entry by Co-Historian Steve Payne

In 2006, at the food court a Canadian customer asked "Can I get an ice cappuccino?". The next customer was a somewhat startled English-born immigrant who asked "Can I have an ice cappuccino please?". Startled because he had never thought of ordering as ordering. Surely, an order was a polite request not an aggressive stock inquiry?

~ entry by Co-historian Steve Payne

Castle Bonny	In 1943, former War Leader Winston Churchill gave his public view of Castle Bonny which premièred seven days before on Broadway. The film was directed by Michael Curtiz, and starred Cary Grant as Dick Blaine, Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund and Paul Henreid as resistance leader Victor Laszlo, caught in a love triangle. ..
.. The rekindled romance between Blaine and Lund was set during Great War II in the Nigerian city of Port Harcourt, off the Bight of Bonny – then controlled by the Nazi Protectorate of Britain. The final scene shows Dick, Laszlo and a detachment of Free British soldiers on a ship, to incorporate the Allies' 1943 invasion of England. “The bulldog spirit runs through the whole film, ” said Churchill from the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York “we shall fight on the south downs, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets of the home counties, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." Privately Churchill considered the movie quite dreadful. Of greater concern was the pressing need to position himself as the leader of the liberated British nation. Naturally, he and not the Head of the British Government in Exile, Lord Halifax was the right man for the job.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 2127, through the functioning of the Hussein-Sadat time dilation device, and assisted by the kidnapping by the Eurasian fugitive known as Brent, first Asian QC Kim Hollis and her lover the Attorney General arrive in Doha, Qatar. Brent has ..	Kim Hollis
.. but a moment to explain that the world of 2127 is most definitely not a Newt Gingrich pipe dream. The UN has been reconstructed and is run by first nations. Indigenous control has been re assumed of the Turtle Island (America), the Dreamtime (Australia) and Eurasians have returned to semi-barbarism, starving in the unheated and unlit city slums. “Peter, “ says Hollis “ this is terrible, you must alter the legal advice to Tony Blair!”. Goldsmith frets, he has to tell the Prime Minister of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland that he is having an extra-marital affair with the first Asian QC, and also he has decided to rule that invasion of Iraq is illegal. His credibility will be in tatters, and people will suspect he has been “got to” by Hollis. OMG, people might even think he is deep sleeping with an al-Qaeda deep sleeper agent!
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Duckies!	In 1998, SM Sterling's third book the Stone Duckies portrays the ultimate triumph of the Domination. A bio-psychological virus based on peppermint flavoured herbal tea defeats the Alliance for Democracy, who flee to a distant star led by Arnold Schwarzeneggar. It was all done in the best possible taste.
~ entry by Steve Payne: I've always thought there was a slightly sadomasochistic undertone to the over-caricatured fascists of the Draka taking over the world and skewering French peasants on stakes etc. My exagerrated satire of the already exagerrated Drakas of S.M. Stirling's novels (Marching through Georgia, Drakas, Stone Dogs etc) who are just a bit too inhumanely tough and hence "camped" up in my variant.

De Gaulle	In 1944, Charles de Gaulle marched into Paris at the head of Free French Forces. Of course this would never have been possible without the American entry into the war in 1941. Both nations bonded during Operation Torch, conquered North Africa together and then invaded the soft under belly of Europe before finally defeating ..
.. Hitler in 1945. Throughout his long-life, and his Presidency, de Gaulle could never forgive perfidious albion. Lord Halifax had maintained a policy of neutrality as France stood alone, refusing even to supply de Gaulle and the Free French Forces in North Africa with arms during the hard days that followed the Battle of France.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1914, on this day the Russians 2nd Army defeated the Germans in the Battle of Tannenberg, a decisive engagement which resulted in the almost complete destruction of the German 8th Army. Inside of three weeks, the Russian Commanders of the 1st and 2nd Armies, Alexander Samsonov and Paul von Rennenkampf would enter Berlin. ..	Battle of Tannenberg
.. Such was their triumph that the Generals settled the bitter personal feud that had existed since they fought at the train station at Mukden in 1905.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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The Truth Of Sacrifice

August 25th, 2007

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Alternate Historian's Note: Another side trip instead of one of the main stories – if you'd like to see more a main story, email us and let us know which ones you prefer!

I went back in time the other day. It was quite an interesting experience. I almost prevented the birth of Hitler, and was an inch away from saving Martin Luther King. And, by the way, it was Oswald, and he was the only gunman. I can say that without fear of contradiction.
I'm not supposed to interfere, but you can't help yourself, really. After all, what's the point of going back if you're not going to try to change things? Time travel is the ultimate wish fulfillment. If you go back far enough, and you know enough, you can be a god.
Marcus had wanted to do that; be a god. He told me that he could bring a few gadgets with him, set up shop in Mesopotamia or someplace like that, and he would never have to worry about anything ever again. I reminded him that modern conveniences like hologames, running water and vaccinations might be missed by someone playing the god for the primitive locals, but he says that he could tough it out. I doubt it.
But, he's been gone for a while now, and I don't think he's coming back. The world hasn't come crashing down around us, so whatever changes he's made, I assume that they've already been taken into account in the time stream. I hope.
That's what we all hope, really. Everybody involved in the project has got to hope that we can't really change the past, at least not in a way that will destroy the present. If we can, then somebody's going to screw us all up any day now.
Maybe they already have.
There are a lot of paradoxes in this line of work, and you really just have to get used to them. I mean, if you try to grasp each set of contradictions that you bring up just by appearing in the past, you'd spend all your time sitting around confused instead of doing something. And that's not very productive.
My main area of focus is on historical accuracy in textbooks. I was the one who got to correct all the assassination buffs who’ve been living on JFK rumors for decades. That was my masterpiece; seventeen cameras along a one mile patch of road in old Dallas. Conclusive proof that the only shots came from the book depository, there was nobody on the grassy knoll, and I got a really good close-up of Lee Harvey himself squeezing the trigger. How they howled. I've now been labeled part of the conspiracy.

In 1940, the Imperial Government of Japan demanded and received the right to place Vietnam under military occupation, restricting the local French administration to figurehead authority.	Uncle Ho
Seizing the opportunity, the Communists organized the broad Viet Minh Front and prepared to launch an uprising at the war's end. The Viet Minh (short for Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh, or League for the Independence of Vietnam) emphasized moderate reform and national independence rather than specifically Communist aims. When the Japanese surrendered to the Allies in August 1945, Viet Minh forces arose throughout Vietnam and declared the establishment of an independent republic in Hanoi. Now the Vietnamese and the French shared the common experience of resistance to a fascist occupier. Matters had moved far ahead from the refusal at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference to hear Ho Chi Minh's case for self-determination. France quickly developed a very independent foreign policy to Anglo-America, demonstrated as recently as 2003 when President Chirac opposed the invasion of Iraq. Bizarrely, Anglo-America described the French's anti-imperialism as the views of "Old Europe". Figure that one out.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

A group of people is coming towards us. They're tourists from Saudi Arabia it looks like, on a tour of the historic landmarks of Cambridge, Massachusetts or out for the local colour. They're diminutive and neatly turned out in burqas.

Aunt Lydia	"And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and guard their private parts and not to display their adornment except that which ordinarily appears thereof and to draw their headcovers over their chests and not to display their adornment except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands fathers, their sons." ~ Qu'ran Sura 24:31
Handmaid

"Excuse me," said the interpreter again, to catch our attention. I nod to show I've heard him. "She asks, are you happy?". I can imagine it, the curiosity: Are they happy? How can they be happy? "Yes, we are very happy, " I murmur. I have to say something. What else can I say?" The full article is available at Wikipedia

~ quotation from Margaret Atwood: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

Jack Black	In 2013, actor Jack Black was selected for the role of Michael Moore in Fahrenheit 9/11: the Temperature at which Freedom Burns. Labelled an al-Qaeda training video by group Move America Forward, the original footage had been lost when the author died in a mysterious accident on this day in 2004.
President Hillary Clinton hailed the release as highly significant. The movie was a necessary reminder of the hard fought freedoms that America had seized back under her Administration.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1945, Supreme Allied Commander Dwight David Eisenhower presented US President Harry Truman with three options to establish US ground control in the Far East. As a catalist for unopposed military occupation Ike recommended biological weapons seized from the notorious Unit 731 in Manchuria, gas or the new super weapon of napalm. Agreement on napalm was reached, and Operation Rolling Thunder authorized.

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

In 2002, in Roland J. Green' George Custer Slept Here a cavalryman's assault on Sicily and then mainland Italy delivers a radically altered outcome. Surprise landings and bombings prevent German troops from evacuating Messina at the end of the Sicilian campaign. With Custer remaining in charge of American forces, aggressive planning results in the Allies skipping a crawl up the Italian boot, and instead landings near Civitavecchia permit a result in which Rome may fall seven months early.

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

In 1814, the second war of independence ended in ignominy when Washington, D.C. was burned to the ground and the White House destroyed by British forces during the War of 1812. Arthur Wellesley immediately began the construction of the modern city of Wellington, residence of the Governor-General of the North American Union which bestrides the Potomac River to this day. It was the start of a new phase in the special relationship for Anglo-America.

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

In 1944, following the Allied invasion of France, Henri Philippe Pétain and members of the Vichy government cabinet prepared to flee to Germany where they planned to establish a government in exile at Sigmaringen. Captured by the French Resistance, Pétain revealed the degeneracy in the French state that had caused the collapse in 1940. Pétain's captors were appalled. It was an incredibly, simply incredible story. If true, Pétain was the only member of La Troisième République (French Third Republic) to emerge with honour. But could such a fantastic story be true?

~ entry by Co-Historian Steve Payne.

Castle Bonny	In 1943, Head of the British Government in Exile, Lord Halifax gave his public view of Castle Bonny which premièred six days before on Broadway. The film was directed by Michael Curtiz, and starred Cary Grant as Dick Blaine, Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund and Paul Henreid as resistance leader Victor Laszlo, caught in ..
.. a love triangle. The rekindled romance between Blaine and Lund was set during Great War II in the Nigerian city of Port Harcourt, off the Bight of Bonny – then controlled by the Nazi Protectorate of Britain. The final scene shows Dick, Laszlo and a detachment of Free British soldiers on a ship, to incorporate the Allies' 1943 invasion of England. “The truth of sacrifice runs through the whole film, ” said the Prime Minister from the Governor's residence at Rideau Hall, Ottawa “just as our forces are doing on the south coast of England". Privately Halifax considered the movie quite dreadful. He also felt quite strongly that the forthcoming Canadian winter would be more then ample suffering for himself. Minus 20, that's just too cold for comfort.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 2127, through the functioning of the Hussein-Sadat time dilation device, the Eurasian fugitive known as Brent arrived in the London office of Lord Peter Goldsmith on 11 March 2003. At that precise moment, confidential legal advice was being written ..	Goldsmith
.. by the Attorney General on behalf of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Tony Blair. That advice was that British involvement in a land invasion of Iraq was legal despite the absence of a UN Security Council Resolution explicitly sanctioning participation by the “coalition of the willing”. Lord Goldsmith had more pressing problems though, his wife of 33 years, Joy was about to discover his affair with the first Asian QC Kim Hollis. At gunpoint Brent seized both Goldsmith to Hollis to join him on return to 2127. Perhaps a few days in the post-Jihad world would convince the Attorney General to offer different advice, changing the course of history..
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Duckies!	In 1942, S.M Sterling's classic Minceing Through Georgia portrayed Duckie Commander Eric Von Shrakenberg and his Century A Janissaries camped in German occupied southern Russia. Actually, the Duckies had put the Nazis on the run and the Eurasian War looked set to conclude very much in favour of the Domination. Trouble was through they were running dangerously low on peppermint herbal tea.
~ entry by Steve Payne: I've always thought there was a slightly sadomasochistic undertone to the over-caricatured fascists of the Draka taking over the world and skewering French peasants on stakes etc. My exagerrated satire of the already exagerrated Drakas of S.M. Stirling's novels (Marching through Georgia, Drakas, Stone Dogs etc) who are just a bit too inhumanely tough and hence “camped” up in my variant.

War of 1812	In 1814, Washington, D.C. is burned and White House is destroyed by British forces under the Duke of Wellington. Ostensibly a revenge attack for the destruction of Yorktown (modern day Toronto), the Duke wanted to stamp British authority as he turned the clock back to 1775. The new city of Victoria was built upon ruins of ..
.. DC and is of course today the residence of the Governor General of New Britain.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1945, an increasingly desperate American military drop the fourth nuclear bomb, “Tall Boy” on Tokyo. Surely, this would forces the Emperor of Tokyo to accept unconditional surrender as inevitable.	Harry Truman
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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Perceptions

Drakas

In 2196, the Thirteen Symposium on Gileadean Studies was hosted at the University of Arconia in the Domination of the Draka. Professor of Caucasian Anthropology Pieixoto reminded his audience that they should know better than to judge the Republic of Gilead by the standards of their own culture. Pieixoto pointed out that the Gileadean created their seemingly barbaric rules to accommodate unique pressures that no longer exist, and that "contemporary" society can thus not fully appreciate their purposes or rationale.

In 2008, restaurant chain Wanda's of Montreal planned to celebrate its fortieth year. Customers were invited to email in great dining moments. A selection of appropriate comments would be showcased on the chain's web site.

Truganini	In 1978/1833, Australian civilian pilot Frederick Valentich vanished in a Cessna 182 over the Bass Strait south of Melbourne, after reporting contact with an unidentified aircraft. Some ufologists have speculated that the craft Valentich reported was an extra-terrestrial vehicle, and that Valentich was either abducted or destroyed by such a craft. Neither was the case. When the pilot finally touched down, he was rescued and taken to the Teen Toomle Mennenyer (Big River) to meet the Tasmanian aboriginal Truganini. During the parley, he was to discern his true role in saving the Trouwunna from genocide. Truganini had foreseen that cultural disruption and disease transmission would depopulate the lutrawita and only a man from the future could save it.

In 1967, on this day two cameraman Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin were discovered in a state of mutilation at Bluff Creek, California. Conspiracy theories have raged for forty years over the confiscation of their camera film by the authorities; most sensationally, speculation that they had filmed, and then been killed by a sasquatch.	Bigfoot

Jesse Jackson	In 2999, the mind cast for the next instalment of “Personality of the Triple Millennia” was re-run across the networks. POT3M drew an even larger audience because of its oddness. Jesse Jackson was the candidate, the context was the 1960s Civil Rights Movement in America and the moment bare minutes after the assassination of Martin Luther King. Some controversy surrounds the moments just after King was wounded and MC Millennia asked for an explanation. Jackson would later claim on national television that he was the last person to talk to King and that he had held the dying leader in his arms, getting blood all over his shirt.
The other men present unanimously agreed that this was not true, that Jackson had been in the parking lot facing King when he was shot and had neither climbed the steps to the balcony afterward nor gone to the hospital with King. Whatever the truth of the matter, Jackson's appearance on national television the next day with his bloodied turtleneck jersey vaulted him into national prominence. The image of Jackson and his bloody shirt brought the horror of the assassination into American homes. Jackson's ego, stirring oratory and charismatic presence caused the media to anoint him and not Ralph Abernathy, King's successor. Jackson takes the fifth amendment, MC Millennia ends the show early.

In 1600, on this day Tokugawa Ieyasu defeated the leaders of rival Japanese clans in the Battle of Sekigahara. This significant event marked the beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate, who in effect rule Japan until the mid-twentieth century when the victorious Americans installed the General-san, Douglas MacArthur.	General-san

Doctrines

	In 2013, General John Abizaid former head of Central Command paid tribute to the late US President Donald Rumsfeld, who had passed away the week before. The war on terror had delivered a bastion of democracy in the Middle East, securing the region and providing the platform for a New World Order - said Abizaid, repeating the Rumsfeld Doctrine. However, it might not have been. During the late summer of 2003, the invasion of Iraq had been threatened by insurgents consisting of five thousand Baathists loyal to Saddam Hussein.

General Abizaid, declared 'When you understand that they were organized into a cellular structure, that . . . they had access to a lot of money and a lot of ammunition, you'll understand how dangerous they were.' It has been intimated that Rumsfeld expanded a highly secret operation, Operation Copper Green, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Controversially, author Seymour Hersh has alleged that Rumsfeld encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq. Contemporary historians consider it unlikely that the allegations about prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison will ever by revealed. Copper Green has already joined Hanger 18 and the Kennedy Assassination in the popular file of conspiracy theories, yet the effectiveness of Rumsfeld's policies cannot be denied.

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	In 2006, Welsh Prime Minister Rhodri Morgan officially opened the new debating chamber for the National Assembly in Cardiff. The Assembly was formed under the Government of Wales Act 1998, by the Labour government, following a referendum in 1997. The name Wales was derived from the Germanic Walha meaning stranger or foreigner and the Welsh Language and culture persisted in the region after annexation by the Laws in Wales Act 1535 in the reign of Henry VIII of England, who ironically was himself partly of Welsh ancestry.

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	In 1914, Gilbert John Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 4th Earl of Minto, KG, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, PC died. Described by Sir Wilfrid Laurier as 'taking his duties to heart,an energetic man who welcomed many challenges and responsibilities' Lord Minto was an enthusiastic imperialist who served as both Governor General of Canada and Viceroy of India. He served under Lord Roberts in the second Afghan War (1878 - 1879), accompanying Sir Louis Cavagnari on his triumphant mission to Kabul which resulted in the annexation of Afghanistan to the British Empire.

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	In 2007, the US and neighboring countries were plunged into darkness. The crisis is a nearly identical repetition of May 19, 1780 - dubbed New England's Dark Day, - when an unusual darkening of the day sky was observed over the New England states and parts of Canada. The darkness was so complete that candles were required from noon until midnight and did not disperse until the middle of the next night. Many have blamed the genocide of First Nation peoples for the catastrophes that have befallen the American people, asking if a nation so created, can long endure.

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Klaus Fuchs	In 1950, Communist spy Klaus Fuchs was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment for espionage. The former scientist had leaked details of Project Rainbow, the US Navy's invisibility project to the Soviet Union. The technology had been credited with the successful execution of X-Day, in which America Carriers had arrived in Tokyo harbour by stealth. Four years later, both sides would deploy the technology, and also bioweapons, at the horrific battle of Incheon on the Korean Peninsula. It was to be a zero sum game with an appalling loss of life.
Traitor

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In 1956, during the build-up to the Suez Crisis, King Hussein of Jordan refused to bow to anti-British pressure and dismiss Lieutenant-General Sir John Bagot Glubb. Better known as Glubb Pasha, he headed the Arab Legion, repaying this loyalty by capturing Jerusalem for Hussein in the Six Day War.

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In 2000, Hans Blix was appointed Executive Chairman of United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) with a public mandate to inspect possible nuclear, chemical, and biological facilities in Iraq. He found something alright, most people wished he hadn't when they heard what is was...

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In 2000, Hans Blix was appointed Executive Chairman of United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) with a public mandate to inspect possible nuclear, chemical, and biological facilities in Iraq. Due to Blix vigilence and determination, the UN discovered a large arsenal of Scud missiles containing monsterous arachnid eggs at the nuclear reactor site at Osirak.

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In 2000, Hans Blix was appointed Executive Chairman of United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) with a public mandate to inspect possible nuclear, chemical, and biological facilities in Iraq. A total lack of progress and utter contempt from the Western Allies followed. The public was amazed by Blix's calm patience. Three years later the truth emerged. This double agent had been leaking military secrets to the Iraqis, preparing Saddam Hussein and his regime for the poorly planned American invasion. George Bush was forced to resign as an ironic regime change scenario played out.

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In 1954, the biggest explosion ever made by man was witnessed in the Pacific when US scientists explode their second H-bomb at Bikini Atoll.

The species endangering tragedy that followed was most accurately described with the publication of 'Web', a written account from Arnold Delgrange, a man suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Delgrange had led a failed attempt to establish a utopian colony on an island in the Pacific Ocean remote from civilization, which has suffered fall out and been cursed by the original inhabitants. As a result, intelligent and communally acting spiders had evolved on the island, acting in a manner that endangers all life in the vicinity. Dr Camilla Cogent first realised that the spiders inhabiting the island chosen for the utopian experiment have evolved intelligence, it is her actions that allow Arnold Delgrange to survive to tell the tale.

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Bikini Atoll	In 1954, the biggest explosion ever made by man was witnessed in the Pacific when US scientists explode their second H-bomb at Bikini Atoll. Rather than bombing Beijing, US President Thomas Dewey ordered that a demonstration shot of the hydrogen bomb be given, but the Chines refuse to surrender. The regional conflict on the Korean peninsula was now getting very dangerously out of control.
H Bomb

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In 1910, the actor David Niven was born. In his 1971 autobiography, The Moon's a Balloon he mentioning his private conversations with Oswald Mosley, Edward VIII, the bombings, and what it was like entering a nearly completely destroyed Germany with the invasion forces. He said once: 'I will, however, tell you just one thing about the war, my first story and my last. I was asked by some American friends to search out the grave of their son near Bastogne. I found it where they told me I would, but it was among 27,000 others, and I told myself that here, Niven, were 27,000 reasons why you should keep your mouth shut after the war.' Niven never made any public statement of approval for the rise of fascism in Anglo-America, and most probably he suited the role of English officer and gentleman rather than sought it.

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	In 1984, the son of Lt. Colonel Nicholson wrote an open letter to The Times newspaper, counter-signed by the one hundred living service veterans of the 1942-3 Burma Railway construction. British prisoners of war were forced to build the 415 kilometre (258 mile) railway, by the Imperial Japanese Army. The bridge formed one of many infrastructure pieces built during the Greater East Asia War.

The letter ended on a poignant note ~ When you go home, tell them of us and say for your tomorrow we gave our today. . The fiery controversy created by the revelations of John Lennon's extramarital affair with Mrs Toshi Ichiyanagi continued to rage throughout the vanquished nation.

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	In 2008, a dead U.S. spy satellite in deteriorating orbit hit the Earth within Drakan Territory somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. Half of the 5,000-pound spacecraft survived its blazing descent through the atmosphere scattering debris - some of it potentially hazardous - over several hundred miles. The satellite is outfitted with thrusters, small engines used to position it in space, that contain the toxic rocket fuel hydrazine. Hydrazine can cause harm to anyone who contacts it.

The satellite, known by its military designation US 193, was launched in December 2006. It lost power and its central computer failed almost immediately afterward, leaving it uncontrollable. It carried a sophisticated and secret imaging sensor. Alliance for Democracy officials did not want this equipment to fall into the wrong hands. 'The Drakas spend an enormous amount of time trying to steal Alliance technology,' said John Pike, a defense and intelligence expert. 'To have our most sophisticated radar intelligence satellite - have big pieces of it fall into their hands - was not our preferred outcome.' Where US 193 landed was difficult to predict until the satellite descended to about 59 miles above the Earth and entered the atmosphere. It begin to burn up, with flares visible from the ground, said Ted Molczan, a Canadian satellite tracker. From that point on, he said, it took about 30 minutes to fall. Archon Von Strakenberg accused the U.S. of a clandestine attempt to strike the Domination with a space bio-weapon ~ The Draka will conquer the world for two reasons; because we must and because we can. And yet of the two forces the second is the greater; we do this because we choose to do it. By the sovereign Will and force of arms the Draka will rule the Earth, and in so doing remake themselves. We shall conquer and beat the Nations of the Earth into the dust and reforge them in our self wrought Image; the Final Society without weakness or mercy, hard and pure. Our descendants will walk the hillside of that future, innocent beneath the stars, with no more between them and their naked will than a wolf has. THEN there will be Gods in the Earth.

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