Duckies

August 24th, 2007

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The Announcement

Don't forget - Birthday Contest for Steve – November 22, 1967. Send in an alternate birthday for him for us to post!

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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Brutus Executed; Hungarian Revolt

October 23rd, 2005

in 711 AUC, Marcus Junius Brutus is publicly executed for his part in the conspiracy to assassinate Roman dictator Julius Caesar. Since he and Caesar had been friends, he had begged the dictator for exile rather than death, but Caesar wanted to make an example of him in order to prevent any other Senator from trying the same thing.

in 1805, Ireland declared its independence from the United Kingdom, launching a 4-year war for freedom from the British Crown. Since one of the Mlosh colony ships had landed on the Emerald Isle, there was a sizable minority of the aliens claiming Irish citizenship, and they stood with their neighbors against the British. They were at the forefront of the war, and after victory, instrumental in turning Ireland into a democratic confederation.

in 1855, in spite of strong pressure from pro-slavery ruffians from Missouri, Kansas elects an anti-slavery legislature. Retaliation by the invading Missourians sets off a bloody full-scale war as southern states send in volunteers to turn Kansas into a slave state while northern abolitionists hasten to the state to defend freedom. “Bloody Kansas,” as it becomes known, is the starting point of the American Civil War that begins in 1856.

in 1890, the Senate tables discussion of the Anti-Mormon Statute. In Utah Territory, newly displaced Latter-Day Saints swell the ranks of rebel Charles Brigman's army and Brigman begins planning his next assault against federal troops in Salt Lake City. Colonel Beauregard T. Jackson steps up patrols around the city to forestall any new attacks.

in 1905, Felix Bloch was born in Zurich, Switzerland. After moving to America in 1933, the great physicist fell in with Richard Tolman’s parallel dimensions cult and his Nobel win in 1952 gave it a shot of credibility. Like so many other members of the cult, he mysteriously disappeared in 1960 after giving a lecture at Stanford University about the ability to cross between realities at will.

in 1950, film legend Asa Yoelson dies in St. Petersburg, Soviet Union. Although he started his career as a comedian, he moved into film after the revolution and was soon obsessed with the technology of film. He got the backing of party officials in Moscow to make the first talking picture in 1927, The Jazz Singer, about a young man who becomes obsessed with the decadent ways of the west until his father, a loyal Communist leader, needs him to come back to the party.

in 1956, the comrades of Hungary attempted to throw off the shackles of their reactionary oppressors. In spite of aid given by a sympathetic Soviet States of America, the country’s prime minister, a puppet of Russian and West German capitalists, crushes the rebellion with military assistance from those governments. Comrade President Joel Rosenberg calls it, “a black day for the freedom-loving people of Europe”.

in 1959, satirist Al Yankovic is born in Lynwood, California. Starting out his career at the Rolling Stone in 1978, Yankovic's acid pen was first aimed at the music industry, but he soon broadened his focus to all of popular culture, penning such classics as UHF, (which was made into a movie of the same name), and Dare To Be Stupid, poking fun at the “punk” rockers of the late 70's and early 80's. He won a Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Commentary, rare for a comic journalist, in 1991.

in 1978, Doctor Barnett Slepian was shot to death at his home in Amherst, New York. Slepian, a Jewish doctor who had been suspected of treating Semitic-African Resistance members without reporting them, had been threatened with death many times in his career, but had always managed to evade the killers until this day.

in 1983, terrorists in Beirut blow up a hotel near the airport, killing almost 200 people. Since the failure of pro-Palestinian separatists to take over the country in the Civil War of 1975-77, they had taken to random acts of violence against the Lebanese people. This was one of the worst attacks in their history, and it backfired; popular support for the government increased after the terrible toll of this bombing.

TIAH HALLOWEEN CONTEST: EXTENDED BY 5 DAYS - no donation required, just send us your stuff! Only 2 days left! We're extending the deadline to October 25th to give you more time to get in those entries!

In order to give us a tad more time for Halloween, Today In Alternate History is sponsoring its first contest - email us up to 3 alternate history entries for October 31st, 2005. The best 10 entries will make up the entire content of the post on October 31st, Halloween day. Entries must be received by October 25th! Boring Legal Info - By entering the contest, you grant TIAH the right to electronically print your writing on October 31st, 2005, maintain your writing in our archives, and reprint your entry should we decide to reuse it in the future. TIAH only maintains full copyright over material it has originated that has been used by contestants in writing their own entries. Enter early and often!

Also, we still have our standard offer - everybody who donates $10 or more through our Paypal link will become alternate history entries on the site. When you donate, I will email you asking your preference for a day & timeline; if you don't reply to me, I'll place you in a day that seems to fit your name :) Thanks for your continued support!

Forum Link not working for now - Forum has been hacked! We're working on getting it back, and will let you know once it's back up.
Fresh New Poll - Shall we use future dates in our entries?

Warp and Protocols still available; also, see the script I submitted for Bravo's Situation: Comedy. Speaking of which, the winning writers have been announced; not the ones I voted for, but you can see the one I did at http://www.marktreitel.com

Still wishing...

As your humble alternate historian enters the downhill slope of the 40's, he still has his birthday wish - a contract with a publishing company like Workman Publishing to produce a page-a-day calendar of TIAH. If you are an editor for such a company, or can place us in touch with one, please fulfill this belated birthday wish!

Impact

Jesus	In 2007, the Ghost Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come shows Ebeenezer Scrooge a strange vision of the far future. Eugene Cratchit Facebooks an annual megablurb of a family update, "In May we hired a beachfront in Malibu, Timmo got that iPhone he wanted..Awesome!" Yet something is missing in this future. Or someone. Despite the wild extravagance there's not nearly so much joy as at the 1843 Cratchit family christmas. If these descendants thought they were having a nice day, they sure were lieing to themselves.
Is Love

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In 1945, on this day US Army General George Smith Patton Jr. narrowly avoided serious injury in a road accident at Neckarstadt, (Käfertal), in the country outside Mannheim. At 11:45 a 2½ ton truck driven by T/5 Robert L. Thompson appeared out of the haze and made a left-hand turn towards a side road. The Cadillac smashed into the truck. His chief of staff, Major General Hobart R. "Hap" Gay, was thrown forward and his head struck a metal part of the partition between the front and back seats. The driver PFC Horace Woodring and Patton were uninjured. Paralyzed from the neck down, General Gay died of an embolism on December 21, 1945 at the military hospital in Heidelberg, Germany with his wife present.

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In 1970, Elvis Presley became a narcotics officer for the FBI, under the direct order of Richard Nixon. With Presley’s help, most of the musical talent of the 60’s was put into prison on drug charges.

In 1958, Charles de Gaulle was elected President for life by an unstable and frightened French nation. Revolt in the Algerian colony led the French down the road of dictatorship, which de Gaulle followed with relish. Under his unquestioned reign, he forged closer ties with fellow dictator Franco of Spain, massacred workers and students who protested against his policies, and made France the world’s second-greatest nuclear power. The Second Napoleon, as he was known, was finally halted by death in 1970.

In 1945, private Kurt Vonnegut died of gangrene that had started in his mangled feet. After his capture on December 14th, German soldier has swapped his boots for clogs and force marched him and the “three musketeers” of the 106th Infantry Division into Germany's interior.

In 1945, on this day U.S. Army general George Smith Patton Jr. Died and entered Valhalla. Old Blood and Guts was a well-respected disciplinarian after the Slapping Incident, and he was planning to launch a political career until Eisenhower had him assassinated.

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In 1614, Tommasso Caccini, a priest of Florence, spoke with Galileo Galilee for several hours to discuss the scientist’s theory that the earth circled the sun, and not the other way around. After this meeting, Caccini left the priesthood and devoted his life to spreading the word of science. He was executed for heresy in 1616.

In 1977, the Young people from the Norwich Choir spoke of their admiration for Home Secretary Margaret Thatcher returned forty-eight hours after a Christmas reception at Number 10 Downing Street. “Where there is discord, may we bring harmony” was one of the key messages they had taken on board. Shortly after the party, Thatcher had returned to her office and worked through the night on stockpile forecasts for primary resources oil and coal. Within the next twelve months, she would break the back of the British Trade Union movement for sure, provoking a Miner's Strike this time.

Violent End

In 1973, on this day mixed tributes were paid to the Spanish Caudillo, General Franco, who was killed in a car bomb attack in Madrid the day before. Franco's legacy is controversial. While some Spaniards remember him as a strong leader who pacified and stabilized Spain, others remember him as a harsh dictator. Issues surrounding his controversial legacy include whether the Second Spanish Republic he overthrew had become an unstable regime, the nature of the relationship between his politics and those of contemporaries Mosley, Hitler and Mussolini, the repressive policies adopted in cultural and regionalist domains, state centralization, the nationalist and corporatist ideology of the Movimiento Nacional, and the execution of thousands of military and political opponents during the civil war and in the early years after.

British Prime Minister Enoch Powell paid tribute to Franco, describing him as a great leader. Franco had united two great nations after five hundred years of conflict. The Armada was now "water under the bridge" he quipped.

Danville

In 2011, Patrick Danville died at twenty-two years old, having saved the lives of two men, one of whom must not die. Danville was saved himself in 1993 by Lois Chasse and Ralph Roberts at High Ridge in the State of Maine. Ralph and Lois had to save the boy's life at any costs, because the man he will save six years later is the author himself, Stephen King...

In 1992, with the Red Army massing along the borders of Western Germany, British Home Secretary Norman Lamont spoke candidly about the refugee crisis developing around the entrance to the Channel Tunnel at Coquelles near Calais in northern France. Controversially, Lamont made reference to Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech from 1968– 'I seem to see the River Thames foaming with much blood.' Who now could say Powell was wrong about the vampire threat from Russia?

Enoch Powell

Rice	In 2009, President Condoleeza Rice labels litter as the third biggest problem in the world today after poverty and climate change. The following day Condi will speak to the nation with her proposals.

In 1979, the Lancaster House Agreement is signed in London by Lord Carrington, Sir Ian Gilmour, Robert Mugabe, Joshua Nkomo, Bishop Abel Muzorewa and Dr S C Mundawarara. Secret promises are made by the Britain Government to the White settlers regarding the security of their farms. These are underwritten by the South African government, who required a buffer state with Black Africa.

Ian Smith

Lakota Sioux tribals	In 2007, the Reconstructed United Nations recognised the new nation of Lakota. The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, had withdrawn from treaties with the United States, leaders said Wednesday. "We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us," long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means told a handful of reporters and a delegation from the Bolivian embassy, gathered in a church in a run-down neighborhood of Washington for a news conference.

A delegation of Lakota leaders delivered a message to the State Department on Monday, announcing they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the federal government of the United States, some of them more than 150 years old. They also visited the Bolivian, Chilean, South African and Venezuelan embassies, and will continue on their diplomatic mission and take it overseas in the coming weeks and months, they told the news conference. Lakota country includes parts of the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming. The new country would issue its own passports and driving licences, and living there would be tax-free -- provided residents renounce their US citizenship, Means said. The treaties signed with the United States are merely "worthless words on worthless paper," the Lakota freedom activists say on their website. The treaties have been "repeatedly violated in order to steal our culture, our land and our ability to maintain our way of life," the reborn freedom movement says.Withdrawing from the treaties was entirely legal, Means said. "This is according to the laws of the United States, specifically article six of the constitution," which states that treaties are the supreme law of the land, he said. "It is also within the laws on treaties passed at the Vienna Convention and put into effect by the US and the rest of the international community in 1980. We are legally within our rights to be free and independent," said Means. The Lakota relaunched their journey to freedom in 1974, when they drafted a declaration of continuing independence -- an overt play on the title of the United States' Declaration of Independence from England. Thirty-three years have elapsed since then because "it takes critical mass to combat colonialism and we wanted to make sure that all our ducks were in a row," Means said. One duck moved into place in September, when the United Nations adopted a non-binding declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples -- despite opposition from the United States, which said it clashed with its own laws. "We have 33 treaties with the United States that they have not lived by. They continue to take our land, our water, our children," Phyllis Young, who helped organize the first international conference on indigenous rights in Geneva in 1977, told the news conference. The US "annexation" of native American land has resulted in once proud tribes such as the Lakota becoming mere "facsimiles of white people," said Means. Oppression at the hands of the US government has taken its toll on the Lakota, whose men have one of the shortest life expectancies -- less than 44 years -- in the world. Lakota teen suicides are 150 percent above the norm for the United States; infant mortality is five times higher than the US average; and unemployment is rife, according to the Lakota freedom movement's website. "Our people want to live, not just survive or crawl and be mascots," said Young. "We are not trying to embarrass the United States. We are here to continue the struggle for our children and grandchildren," she said, predicting that the battle would not be won in her lifetime.

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Days Of Grace

July 6th, 2007

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The Announcement

A note from the AH: Since my contribution is now whatever I am currently writing, today my contribution is just a little intro to Steve's work – ah, the luxury of having a Co-Historian! Here are Steve's “bobby dazzlers”, as he calls them...

Kerry Edwards	In 2004, Democrat Presidential nominee John Edwards suffered from pangs of doubt following a meeting in North Carolina with Vice Presidential hopeful John Kerry. Edwards' plan was to secure the national security vote with a balanced ticket combining his strong anti-war stance with a former Vietnam Veteran.
Of course, if Edwards had allowed his political advisor Bob Scrum to push him into supporting the war, the positions would have likely been reversed. Or Howard Dean would have been meeting with Kerry, who could say?. Iraq was the big flip-flop of this political generation. ~ Steve Payne: use of this news item was selected to debate Iraq War not to comment on the Iraq War.

In 1777, the people of the Long House completed a week of celebration for the first anniversary of the birth of their nation. In reference to the expulsion of Europeans from the Turtle Island, Leaders of the Iroquis Federation quoted from the Aztec, Montezuma who famously said "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance".

~ variant by Steve Payne: respect is due to Jerry Oltion's classic Red Alert, potraying the Cuban Missile Crisis, recast in the 1800s as the Iroquois Federation inter-tribal air force vs. Manhattan.

Prince Harry	In 2008, at RAF Northolt the Royal Family welcomed the return of Prince Henry Charles Albert David following his release by hostage takers in Iraq. Third in the line of succession to the thrones of the United Kingdom, "Harry" had been seized on patrol and held for 115 days before his release.
An unusually emotionally scene reminded many of a somewhat similiar scenario from 1982. Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's son Mark had returned from Sahara desert where he had been presumed lost while taking part in an international motor race. Quoting the scriptures, the Queen said "Welcome Home Our Beloved Son...We Are Well Pleased." Three months later, in an unconnected move, British troop withdrawals were announced. Everyone's son was coming home it seemed, and in a sense, Harry's service had achieved the great leveller that national pride had demanded. ~ Steve Payne: use of this news item was selected to debate Iraq War not to comment on Prince's personal safety.

In 1999, the networks ran instalment eight of TSEotTC in two parts. A terrible car crash in Paris, the British nation in tears. The Prince of Hearts, dying in the arms of his lover Camilla Parker-Bowles. And beyond the high drama, the conspiracy..

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

In 1969, Director of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation John Edgar Hoover issued executive instructions effectively banning a musical festival planned in New York State for the weekend of August 15th.	Hoover
400,000 people from all over America were expected to descend on a 600-acre dairy farm of Max Yasgur, in Bethel, New York, for a three-day concert, the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Planned performances were expected from, among others, the Who, Santana, Janis Joplin, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Joe Cocker, Sly and the Family Stone, Jimi Hendrix and, in only their second live show together, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Within Government circles it had been feared that like the million-man March on Washingston six years before, hippies would become self aware that far from being scattered individuals, they actually were much bigger in number than they thought. Since the return of the Republicans to the White House, the Nixon Administration had pursued a conservative agenda. The "showbiz" attitude of the Kennedys combined with anti-war protest threatened to implode American society unless firm action was taken at the beginning of the Presidency. American youth needed "what my father would call a visit to the wood shed" said Nixon, taking a very hardline on the counter-culture that had emerged since he left the White House with Eisenhower in 1961. Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrisson would all die mysterious deaths before the '72 election. In a concilitatory measure, Nixon invited the Beach Boys to the White House, an all-American success story for the music industry.
~ entry by Co-Historian Steve Payne

Jethro Tull	In 1969, the Gnomes of Basle faced an unprecedent challenge to their uninterrupted world rule following the release of progressive rock band Jethro Tull's concept album Stand Up. Ironically, David Palmer, Glenn Cornick, Clive Bunker, Martin Lancelot Barre and Ian Anderson would not have looked out of place at the mastermind's underground HQ below the Bank for International Settlements building in Switzerland.
Quite simply, Ian Anderson flute playing was sublime. Stand Up represented an unexplored dimension of pure mellowness that could prove fatal to the despondency the Gnomes' required to sustain their world-grip. Laboratory tests at Basle had proven that human listeners achieved a degree of freedom that could if unchecked force them to reconsider feelings of disempowerment. Sound government required the Gnomes to accelerate the introduction of formulaic music, stick Ian Anderson on an obscure Scottish Island and flood the coming generations with mindless pulp noises.
~ entry from Steve Payne: tribute to Ian Anderson - you rule, sir!.

In 2010, in Alaska's White Mountains swift and effective counter-measures are taken at the High-frequency Auroral Research Center (HARC II). The world's most powerful beam of high-frequency electro-magnetic energy enters the ionosphere and destroys the small pox virus weapons. The rogue North Korean leadership who launched the weapons were already dead in Pyongyang, destroyed by a British Trident.

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

Freddie Mercury	Machines...It's a machines world, . Don't tell me I ain't got no soul When the machines take over, It ain't no place for rock and roll They tell me I don't care, But deep inside I'm just a man.. We have no disease no trouble of mind No thank you or please no regard for the time We never cry we never retreat We have no conception of love or defeat ~ Lyrics to Back to Humans
Rock Cyborg

Cyborg technology rescued Rock mega-star Freddie Mercury real name Farrokh Bulsara from a certain death at the hands of the AIDS pandemic. In “Back to Humans”, Mercury speaks of the duality of his release and imprisonment through this techno escape route. A synopsis of the life of Freddie Mercury can be viewed at Wikipedia

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

Churchill	In 1942, it was agreed by Taoiseach Éamon de Valera that 32nd American Winston Churchill would after all visit London Town as part of his State Visit to the Irish Isles. It is further agreed he would support the Dublin Government by denouncing the protestant terrorists behind “the Troubles” in Southern England.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1942, following the funeral of Ian Fleming, the fifteen other members of the assassin squad were executed on this day in Dublin. The subversive English underground newspaper reported the executions as follows. ”No nobler blood than theirs has fallen on Irish earth in the long struggle for freedom. The military failure ..	Ian Fleming
.. of the assassination proved to be no less significant than the effects of its impact upon the nation's mind. It was the expression in action of an idea essentially spiritual, the translation of an old and vital aspiration into living history. In this State Visit the historic English nation was reborn. For men who shared in that shining deed Fleming, in one of his last messages, asked the remembrance of England present and to come. He did not ask in vain. 'They shall be remembered for ever'"
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

John Edwards	In 2004, John Kerry named John Edwards as his Vice Presidential running mate on the Democratic Party ticket. Just about the only thing that John Edwards agreed with his boss on is that America can "do better". Edward's interpretation is somewhat different from Kerry's, the North Carolina Senator meant “do better” than ..
.. having his boss assume the Presidency. Regrettably that meant Edwards had to seek common cause with these unlikely allies, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The following year Edwards beat Harry Truman's record ascendancy to the Presidency after only 82 days, when Kerry was forced to resign over inconsistencies in his Vietnam War Record.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1975, on this day Arthur Ashe celebrated the achievement of becoming the first African American man to win the Wimbledon singles title. At 1 John 5:19 it is written that the whole world lies in that wicked one, and Satan did not want to play ball. The story of Ashe's life turned from success to tragedy in 1988, however, ..	Arthur Ashe
.. when he discovered he had contracted HIV during the blood transfusions received during one of his two heart surgeries. He spent much of the last years of his life writing his memoir Days of Grace, finishing the manuscript less than a week before his death of complications from AIDS on February 6, 1993.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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