Sorted

In 1976, in Israel Jeremy Thorn reached the archaelogical dig. Beneath his feet were King Solomon's quarries, an intricate system of ditches and canals that possibly stretched to Jerusalem, some sixty miles away. Somewhere within the system were the ruins of an ancient city, believed by many to be the site where the Bible itself was created. Text had already been recovered, carefully preserved in pottery and cloth, that reflected stories closely following those in the Old Testament. Thorn sought out some of the archeologicl students, but gleaned little information. They were unfamiliar with the name "Bugenhagen" and all they knew of the city of Meggido was that many centuries ago a violent upheaval had caused it to sink into the earth. It was an earthquake, possibly a flood, for they had found snail shells here, far from any known body of water.	Hallowe'en Story

Jason Statham	In 2008, hardman actor Jason Statham was chosen as the new Grant Mitchell for British soap opera Eastenders. Statham sailed through the screen test. It wasnt too challenging. Some grunting. Throwing a few "sauceys" up against the wall and telling them to "shut it" and "stay sorted". That kind of thing.

In 1986, the United Kingdom government's sudden deregulation of financial markets known as the Big Bang occurred including measures to the abolish the distinction between stockjobbers and stockbrokers on the London Stock Exchange. The Big Bang was so called because the abolition of fixed commission charges precipitated a complete alteration in the structure of the market. One of the biggest alterations to the market was the change from open-outcry to electronic, screen-based trading. Other reforms were enacted at the same time, and it was the aggregation of the measures plus the expected increase in market activity that led to the event being called the Big Bang. In Britain, the Big Bang became one of the cornerstones of the Thatcher government's reform programme. Prior to this event, the financial institutions of the City of London were seen as elitist and operated within tight-knit old boys' networks. The Big Bang brought the free market doctrine of meritocracy to London, allowing a new class of nouveau riche to profit from the economic boom. Flawed thinking and British muddleheadedness were not realised for four years until the economic meltdown of 1989, fundamentally because the architects of the Big Bang were optimistic young men living in boom-time. Institutions set automatic trigger points for selling shares in their IT systems, and when the market slumped the whole system collapsed in 17.2 seconds as tail-spin computer programming continued to recalculate prices downwards in real-time until they hit zero.

Barbeau	In 1962, on this day in a personal letter to Khrushchev dated 27 October , Québécois Premier Raymond Barbeau urged Khrushchev to launch a nuclear first strike against the United States if Quebec were invaded, but Khrushchev rejected any first strike response. Soviet field commanders in Quebec were, however, authorized to use tactical nuclear weapons if attacked by the United States. Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles in exchange for a US commitment not to invade Quebec and an understanding that the US would remove American MRBMs targeting the Soviet Union from Turkey and Italy, a measure that the US implemented a few months later. The missile swap was never publicized because the Kennedy Administration demanded secrecy in order to preserve NATO relations and protect Democratic candidates in the upcoming elections.

In 1962, the U-2 reconnaissance air plane of Major Rudolph Anderson of the US Air Force was shot down by a Soviet-supplied SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air missile, becoming the first direct human casualty of the Cuban Missile Crisis. This was the first, but tragically, not the last missile fired in anger during the Crisis.	Major Anderson

Rasputin	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. Tsar Nicholas Romanov II was the candidate, the context was the sustenance of blood-drained Tsarevich Alexei and the moment was the assassination attempt on the master, Rasputin. MC Millennia asked when the Tsar first became aware of the deceit in the Royal household. The truth was his son did not suffer haemophilia and was not being supplied anticoagulants; Alexei had been turned by the vampire Rasputin.

In 1997, journalist James Herbert published the true story of the American Hoke in '48. Set three years after the Allies lose WW II, Hitler hits London with his V1 rockets but still finds himself losing the war. So he fires off V2 rockets, which hold a deadly virus that freezes human blood and causes fast death, although some rare victims die more slowly. Only that three percent of the population with AB negative blood survive the virus--so that gangs of slowly dying Blackshirts roam the city looking for AB-negs whose blood they hope to exchange for their own.	48
One of those fighting the Blackshirts as they pursue him is Hoke, an American once with the RAF who now holes up in a vacated luxury hotel, the Savoy. races about on his Matchless 350 motorcycle, locked into anger against the Germans because the virus killed his wife and child, while the Blackshirts are Nazi sympathizers sprung from England's worst pre-war racists.

Civil Strife

The state of TIAH

April 16th, 2007

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in 1891, the eastern Kansas border is fortified by volunteers from around the state. Major Mark Wainwright and his band of men encounter part of this fortification as they head to Topeka to free President Grover Cleveland, and the ensuing fight leaves 12 of his men dead; but he wins the engagement. By the evening, they are in Topeka and in pitched battle at the governor's mansion, where they steal the former president from the room where is being held. They fight their way out of the city, with only half of their original force left, when a stray shot hits President Cleveland in the stomach. Major Wainwright struggles with his remaining men to Kansas City and desperately searches for a doctor in the chaotic city.

in 1982, Nathaniel Strawn is born in College Station, Texas. Strawn, a mathematician by training, joined NASA's Mars Project in 2029, just in time to work on the final lander that would put his cousin, astronaut Catherine Taylor, on the Red Planet in 2034.

in 1998, a bar fight turns into the first battle of the war to unseat the Windsors, when a small group of the Royal Marines enter a bar in Swansea, Wales, that is very loyal to Arthur Pendrake. Several harsh words are exchanged, fists fly, and then the owner of the pub reaches for his hunting rifle. A marine sees him, reaches the rifle first, and shoots the older man dead. There is a moment of silence as the implications of this sink into everyone present; then, all the local pub crawlers are running home for their weapons. One of the marines pulls out a cell phone and calls back to base for help. Within the hour, the marines are wiped out by the locals, and military units are heading into Swansea. Arthur, as soon as the news hits the airwaves, puts out a call for all his followers to defend Swansea and repulse the royalists. His cold war against the Windsors has just turned hot.

Ord Wingate	In 1972 Deputy Interim Prime Minister Major General Ord Wingate, DSO reviews his report for the Conference which is to be presented at the Conference tomorrow. Ord reflects upon the state state of affairs that had let to the formation of the military government. The Labour Government had used the retreat from empire as a ..
.. reason for reducing the military and closing bases in the Far East ('East of Suez' strategy). Matters had come to a head with the financial crisis of 1967. During the disastrous 'pound in your pocket' devaluation assurances had been given to overseas investors such as the King of Saudi Arabia. The promises had not been honoured and the lion had become an ass. Senior members of the services suspected that the Labour Party was purposefully running down the size of the armed forces. Whatever the truth, by 1967, the military had been forced to act before it was too late.
~ entry by Steve Payne from counter history in context - You're the Judge!

In 1942 Windsor, Montgomery and Auchinlech agree on the basics. The British Empire faces extinction in the next two decades, and the meteoric rise of the Labour Party suggests a ghastly future in which chaps such as themselves have no meaningful role outside of museum pieces.	Edward VIII
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

RMS Titanic	In 1912 on this day owners of the near-bankrupt White Star Line made a fateful decision. As is the nature heinous crimes, encouraging a number of conspiracy theories can do absolutely no harm. Agents were paid to supply Journalists with a number of stories in the bars and pubs of Belfast and New York. One of them was the ..
.. genuine article - the switch with the RMS Olympic - slipped in amongst a pack of other lies to cover up the truth.
~ entry by Steve Payne from counter history in context - You're the Judge!

In 1922 the Treaty of Rapallo was signed by Imperial Germany and Tsarist Russia re-establishing diplomatic relations between Berlin and Moscow. After the Second Franco-Prussian war, it was absolutely clear that the Triple Entente binding Russia, France and Great Britain was finished. Recognising that the window of opportunity ..	Tsar Nicholas I..
.. to defeat Russia had now passed, the House of Hohenzollern cut their loses, and allied with Russia, in effect restarting Bismarck's Re-insurance Treaty of 1887. It was a smart move for both sides, and effectively gifting the hegemony of Western Europe to the Prussians.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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Tailgunner Joe

The state of TIAH

May 2nd, 2007

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Alternate Historian's Note: I have to go out of town to attend a funeral tomorrow, and my laptop is unfortunately ancient and unable to connect to the Internet, so there will be no post tomorrow. We will have a double post on Friday.

in 1891, General Anthony Franklin's court-martial trial begins in Washington, DC. In the opening statements, the prosecution simply presents the facts – Franklin's disastrous retreat from his first engagement clouded his judgment and made him long for a victory to wipe away the sting of defeat at the hands of the Kansans. “He, therefore, willfully ignored reports that the people coming out of Kansas City were refugees, rather than combatants, and directed his men to mercilessly slaughter these innocents,” the prosecutor, Captain Roger Miller, says. “General Franklin's direction of the campaign in Kansas has been slipshod and incompetent, and he deserves the highest punishment that this court can hand down.” Franklin's military attorney, Captain David Danforth, attempts to soften the image of the general by saying, “Yes, General Franklin was responsible for the deaths outside of Kansas City. But, he was acting in good faith, and truly believed that a large column of the Kansan rebels were pushing through Kansas City into Missouri. He had personal experience of how aggressive the rebels had been, and was trying to contain what he felt might spread into a wider rebellion, endangering the entire American heartland. The general is willing to be stripped of his rank and leave behind a career he has followed since he first fought to preserve our Union in the Civil War; but, officers of the court, he is not willing to be branded a murderer, an Attila the Hun who kills the innocent with no more compunction than a lion slaughtering a lamb.”

In 2039, the big weather problems and the food situation were easing on Earth with six billion people undernourished. If the population growth could have been halted then, mankind might have come through the century relatively unscathed. But the Tokyo earthquake created a financial crisis, and the depression that followed became a permanent economic state of affairs.

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

In 2000, in the museums on the Stone Patricia Vasquez studied The History of the Death (2012). Military planning 20ths believed in the deterrent - no sane society would permit nuclear holocaust. But 21st historians had perspective, the nations were rational, logical but not sane.

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

Joseph McCarthy	In 1946, the Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin, Joseph Raymond McCarthy, nicknamed Tail gunner Joe poured himself a glass of bourbon. Rather a large one I should say, some would have more accurately described the drink as a vase of bourbon. He had just been appointed to the Tydings Committee and was rather ..
.. excited. The terms of reference for the Committee were unambiguous: to establish precisely why the United States had recently suffered a catastrophic and unexpected defeat at the hands of Nazi Germany. However, that was not what really excited the Tail gunner. He was simply thrilled by the racing joy of power, the opportunity to give full reign to the sinister side of his character. A new word was about to enter the US English dictionary. The term McCarthyism was coined that same year to describe and condemn the senator's methods, which were widely seen as demagogic and based on reckless, unsubstantiated accusations. Bullying in short and as always, played out by a real coward.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1989, in Great Britain today was the traditional May Day Celebration. There was shall we say, a little more drinking in London than usual and the celebrations got ugly. If you did not know better, you could even think they were protests. the British Royal household did know better. They let the press know that the ..	Ugly Scenes in ..
.. youthful exuberance was due to the hot weather and plentiful alcohol : the British youth were just celebrating the freedom they enjoyed under Stuart rule.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Fatherland	In 1993, Robert Harris published the counter-factual novel Fatherland set twenty years after the Soviet Union's triumphant victory in World War II with the entire country preparing for the grand celebration of Stalin's eighty-fifth birthday, as well as the imminent peacemaking visit from President Joseph P Kennedy. ..
.. Meanwhile, a Moscow Detective investigates a corpse washed up on the shore of a lake. When a dead man turns out to be a high-ranking Soviet commander, the KGB orders him off the case immediately. Suddenly other unrelated deaths are anything but routine. Now obsessed by the case, he teams up with a beautiful, young American journalist and starts asking questions...dangerous questions. What they uncover is a terrifying and long-concealed conspiracy of such astounding and mind-numbing terror that is it certain to spell the end of the USSR -- if they can live long enough to tell the world about it. Critics described the novel as an interesting piece of escapism, but ludicrous in concept. It would have been impossible for the Soviet Union to conceal the genocides within Russia that were perpetrated by Stalin.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1982, on this day during the Falklands Conflict, the British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror sank the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano. It is the only ship ever to have been sunk by a nuclear-powered submarine as a hostile act and only the second since the end of World War II. Argentine and Chilean ships rescued ..	Belgrano Sinks
.. 770 men in all from May 3 to May 5. In total 323 were killed in the attack, 321 members of the crew and two civilians that were on-board at the time. Britain was still obsessed with naval action even at this late stage of military development, and the sinking of the Belgrano had little impact on the course of the war. Exocet anti-ship missiles and Super Étendards pulverised the British Task Force which was subsequently forced to withdraw. Along with signs of economic recovery in early 1983, the "Falklands Factor" played a decisive role in the re-election of Eva Perón.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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Tragedy

Hillary Rodham	In 2009, fulfilling a key campaign promise, US President Hillary Rodham arrived in Richmond, Virginia for re-unification talks with Confederate President Al Gore. During the election, Rodham had seized upon the theme of unfinished business in former President Bush's last State of the Nation address. It was a bold step that had carried her to the White House, and the restless ghost of Abraham Lincoln.
US President

That Lincoln had a precognitive dream about the dissolution that is well documented. He related the dream to his close friend, Ward Hill Lamon: About ten days ago, I retired very late. I soon began to dream. There seemed to be a death-like stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs. There the silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible. I went from room to room. No living person was in sight, but the same mournful sounds met me as I passed alone. I was puzzled and alarmed. Determined to find the cause of a state of things so mysterious and shocking, I kept on until I arrived at the East Room. Before me was a catafalque on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng or people, some gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face was covered, others weeping pitifully. 'Who is dead in the White House?' I demanded of one of the soldiers. 'The Union,' was his answer. ~ Paranormal Phenomena.

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	In 1536, physician and alchemist Theophrastus Phillippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim, known as Paracelsus, apparently ssucceeds in synthesizing gold from lead and other base elements. When word of his discovery leaks out and his efforts are duplicated, panic sweeps Europe at the prospect of a financial collapse. Particularly hard-hit is Spain, which had been levering its expropriating of Aztec and Inca precious metals to increase its political power. With alchemical gold far cheaper to produce than natural gold is to mine and refine and impossible to tell from the natural product by sixteenth-century methods, the bottom drops out of the gold market.
Paracelsus

Church condemnation of alchemy is greatly strengthened, leading to a wave of arrests and executions by the Inquisition, including the death of Paracelsus himself in 1539. The fledgling science of chemistry is placed under ecclesiastical supervision; thereafter, only priests will be permitted to carry out research in the field. The Church’s prohibition of alchemy, however, does not prohibit Spain from using alchemical gold--and later, alchemical silver--to undermine the economies of its political enemies. England’s Henry VIII, for example, is forced from his throne after defying Rome by divorcing his wife Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn. In the 'starving time' which followed the Papacy's authorization of economic warfare, Henry sees his country's currency turn worthless. Finally, his brother-in-law King James IV of Scotland attacks and defeats Henry’s remaining supporters, and is crowned King of England in Henry's place. Henry is shut up in the Tower of London, where he will die in 1547. The economic chaos in Europe will slow exploitation of the New World; the first English settlement, at Roanoke Island, will not be established until 1651. Also delayed will be scientific progress, as direct Church control spreads from chemistry to all fields. The one exception is in chemistry, where the Vatican supports a research program aimed at developing alchemy and at eventually finding a way to distinguish alchemical products from their natural counterparts. The result is an 'arms race' between alchemical synthesis and chemical analysis which will not end until 1887, when Bishop Ernest Rutherford demonstrates the use of spectroscopy to distinguish infallibly between alchemical gold and natural gold. As Rutherford shows, and as had long been accepted by alchemists, alchemical gold has not really been transmuted; instead, it is a chemical amalgam whose properties mimic those of the natural metal almost exactly. The same is soon demonstrated for other products of alchemical 'transmutation.'

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	In 2000, Indian Point II nuclear power plant in New York State vented a huge amount of radioactive steam when an ageing steam generator failed. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) initially reported that no radioactive material was released but were forced to retract this statement when ten of thousands of people died on the eastern seaboard. On February 16th the NRC stated The event...resulted in an initial primary-to-secondary leak of reactor coolant of approximately 50,000 gallons per minute and required an Alert declaration (the second level of emergency action in the NRC-required emergency response plan.

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In 1933, in Miami, Florida, Giuseppe Zangara shot President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, who died of his wounds on March 6. John Nance Garner ascended to the Presidency, famously described by Alistair Cook as the last public man linking America of the Civil War and America of the nuclear age. Cooke was referring to the fact that Garner was born in 1868, the son of a former Confederate cavalry trooper. His unique understanding of American history enabled Cactus Jack to steer the isolationist nation clear of the tragedy of the Second Great War.

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In 634, an Asian team of the Speaker's Line assembles their Dragon, a kite that is capable of carrying two full-grown men and is almost fully controllable from within. They manage to glide the Dragon to a height of several hundred feet and manage to return to the ground safely. There is rejoicing throughout the Speaker's Line as word of this success spreads through their ranks.

In 1965, the far-left government of Canadian Prime Minister Dominic 'Moonchild' Montclair adopts the leaf of the cannibis sativa as the national symbol for the nation's flag. An obviously oblivious Queen Elizabeth attends the flag-raising to hoots and hollers from hippies gathered for the occasion. Canada becomes known as the front line of the drug war as Montclair's government and a sympathetic parliament enact the most liberal drug laws in the western world. Although denounced by Great Britain and the United States, drug abuse actually declines in Canada during this period, even though casual drug use increases slightly.

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In 1950, the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China signed a mutual defense treaty as World Communism continued to gain an unstoppable momentum. By the time that Douglas MacArthur was inaugurated in 1953, the Cold War was effectively lost. The reversal of these facts on the ground required Brass Hat to reconquer the world all over again, a feat of arms he attempted in the Dropshot War of 1957.

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In Hellenic Year 3362, Socrates flees Athens, confirming his guilt to all citizens. He lives the remainder of his life in shameful exile in Thrace, and his work and students no longer commanded respect among the elite in Athenian society. Even today, he is an obscure philosopher of that great era in Hellenic history.

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In 1564, Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa, Italy. An astronomer of great note in his youth, he gave up the profession after accusations of heresy were leveled against him because of certain findings he had made. He was arrested in 1616 for speaking to some students about the possibility of the earth moving around the sun rather than vice versa. When he refused to recant this belief, he was burned at the stake as a witch.

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In 1898, Spanish troops catch a small band of men about to sneak aboard the U.S.S. Maine in Puerto de Habana, Cuba. They are carrying enough explosives to sink the battleship, which might have provoked America into war with Spain. The nationality of the men is never determined, although they speak with heavy German accents.

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Bombing	In 1945, rescue workers looked for survivors in the rubble of Dresden which closely resembled the surface of the moon. A forty-five year old man Edgar Derby was found holding a teapot. German solders concluded this had been stolen as a momento of his incarceration at nearby Slaughterhouse-Five. The previous night, 800 RAF Bomber Command planes let loose 650,000 incendiaries and 8,000lb of high explosives and hundreds of 4,000lb bombs in two waves of attack. They faced very little anti-aircraft fire, even though the city was reported to be a vital command centre for the German defence against Soviet forces approaching from the east. As soon as one part of the city was alight, the bombers went for another until the whole of Dresden was ablaze.
Dresden

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In 1933, a constitutional crisis ensues when President-elect Franklin Roosevelt is shot to death by an Italian-American bricklayer who objected to another plutocrat gaining control of America's government. Although it seemed obvious to most that Vice-President-elect John Garner was next in line to take over the White House in May, Republican President Herbert Hoover maintained that the constitution was unclear on this point, and asked the Supreme Court to decide who should follow. Although most on the court believed privately that the constitution was, in fact, quite clear on this point, they punted the question to Congress. The House of Representatives, given the duty of electing the president if the general election was unclear, took up the question of whether to elevate their former Speaker, Garner, or to continue Hoover's presidency. Although Garner felt confident that he would win among his old colleagues, it turned out that 'Cactus Jack' had rubbed more than a few of them the wrong way; they voted Hoover back into office. An enraged electorate was made even more radical by this action, and the elections of 1934 saw a huge turnover in Congress - virtually everyone who had voted against Garner and was up for reelection was defeated and replaced by a Garner supporter. Hoover was rendered impotent by the loss of Congress, and was very nearly impeached. He managed to negotiate his way to 1936 still in the office, and John Garner was swept into office in 1936 by a near-unanimous landslide, winning every single state in the general presidential election.

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In 1904, the invasion fleet of Q'B'Ton'ra, at least the remains of it, take up position just outside the earth system's Oort cloud. The conquerors of the Mlosh homeworld offer a trade of their prisoners held back on the Mlosh homeworld for the Q'Bar, as he calls his people, held on earth. Delighted that their people are still alive, the Congress of Nations agrees to the prisoner transfer.