Shepherds

Jesus	In 2007, the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come shows Ebeenezer Scrooge a strange vision of the far future. Portly parents (and children too!) consume vast quantities of packaged food in a shopping mall flooded with light. Huge amounts of money pass hands. Yet something is missing in this future. Despite the wild extravagance there's not nearly so much joy as at the 1843 Cratchit family christmas. Something is missing. Or rather, someone.
Is Love

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	In 5764 anno mundi, on the 25th day of Kislev according to the Hebrew calendar European Jewry celebrated Hanukkah (Hebrew: חנוכה‎, alt. Chanukah or Hanukah). The Festival of Lights commenced an eight-day Jewish holiday commemorating the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt. The earliest known celebration of Hanukkah in Europe was the arrival of the Bethlehemite Rabbhi Yeshua Ben Jesse in Rome in 3761 anno mundi.
Hannukah

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in 1929, American courts had the good sense to ban that British pornographic tome, Lady Chatterly’s Lover. Once it was settled that the moral health of the nation stood to gain from the government determining what was good for the citizenry to read, the Department of Censorship was created and its secretary made a full Cabinet officer. Now, we only read what’s good for us.

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In 1996, NeXT merges with Apple Computer, starting the path to Mac OS X which is used on 98% of personal computers today.

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In 1984, British Horror Writer Graham Masterton published IKON, a tribute to Philip K Dick's 1964 counter-factual novel Man in the High Castle. Set in America in 1985, the once-proud nation has been reduced to an Oblast of the USSR with a powerless President. All because some twenty years earlier America secretly lost the Cuban Missiles Crises. Like Dick before him, the essence of Masterton's masterpiece is the book within the book, 'The Eagle Lies Heavy', a work of fiction written by a man called Graham Masterton. It describes a world where the Americans won the Cuban Missile Crisis - as a result, it has been banned by the Americans. Given his unpopularity with the world's two great powers, Masterton is said to live in a heavily fortified home and has become known as "The Author in the High Castle". Critics panned the concept but loved the story. After all, it was predicated on the US surrendering to Secretary Khrushchev. Today we know that Mr Kennedy meant it when he said “the problems of the world today are not susceptible to a military solution”. He had already surrendered by then.

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In 1812, the North American Confederation started a minor war against its Sioux neighbors when a group of N.A.C. colonists moved into land they mistakenly believed to have been ceded to them by the Sioux. Nearly 50 colonists were killed, along with an equal number of Sioux, before the dispute was settled and the N.A.C. colonists withdrew.

In 1946, magician and world-renowned skeptic Uri Geller was born in Tel Aviv, Israel. Geller, an accomplished magician, took on all sorts of “psychics” in his native land, proving them to be phonies. He then took his act to America, where he helped unveil the truth behind notorious frauds such as Jeanne Dixon.

In 1980, in one of the most obvious attempted murders of the century, Sunny von Bulow was found in a coma in her Rhode Island mansion. Her husband, Claus, was arrested and quickly confessed, since the police had him dead to rights. He is currently serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison in Rhode Island.

In 1977, Home Secretary Margaret Thatcher returned from a Christmas reception at Number 10 Downing Streeting hosted by Interim Prime Minister Lord Louis Mountbatten and his deputy Major General Ord Wingate, DSO. Young people from the Norwich Choir showcase British youth of the “the right sort”. The smile wiped off her face, Thatcher worked through the night on plans for the forthcoming Miner's Strike. She would break the back of the Trade Union movement for sure, but first she needed to stockpile oil and coal like crazy.

Violent End

In 1973, on this day the Spanish Caudillo, General Franco, was killed in a car bomb attack in Madrid. The 78-year-old, his bodyguard and a driver died instantly and four other people were injured after a remote-controlled bomb was detonated as he passed. A massive explosion sent the car hurtling into the air and over the roof of the San Francisco de Borga Church where Mr Blanco had just been attending mass. The vehicle landed on the second floor terrace of a building on the other side of the church and a great deal of damage was caused in the area. No one has admitted carrying out the attack.

The General's death came 15 minutes before the start of a trial involving 10 of Spain's leading opponents of the Franco regime, one of them a Roman Catholic priest. They were arrested in a Madrid Church 18 months ago and were accused of unlawful assembly. Thousands of angry demonstrators have campaigned against the case and have already clashed with police. Commentators said the General's death must be seen in the context of this controversial trial and against the backdrop of his staunch support of General Franco's regime. Not since the Civil War, which ended in 1939, has a government minister died in such violent circumstances.

Carter	In 2003, on this day the compendium “A Collection of Political Counterfactuals” was published. Simon Burns' masterful sequel "What if Raymond Lee Harvey had missed?" was a keynote contribution, considering the scenario of May 5, 1979 where President James Earl Carter survives the shooting at the civic center mall in Los Angeles. In this story, another man is hired to create a diversion so that Mexican hit men armed with sniper rifles could kill Carter; he fails and Raymond Lee Harvey shoots Carter with his pistol but misses. The consequence is that Carter is re-elected and implements a two-state solution of Israel and Palestine, bring peace to the Middle East.

In 2182, the United States General Accounting Office (USGAO) published economic and demographic forecasts up to the end of the twenty-second century. By 2200, America would be a quadrillion dollar economy with one billion citizens it was confidently predicted by the USGAO. One man thought otherwise, he had plans to return the Turtle Island to the First Nations by setting the clock back seven hundred years. And he had just obtained the means to do so.	C22 Jihadist

Suleiman

In 1522, Suleiman the Magnificent accepted the surrender of the surviving Knights of Rhodes, who are allowed to evacuate. They eventually re-settle on Gibr al-Ţāriq and become known as the Knights of Gibraltar.

In 1989, the United States sends troops into Panama to overthrow government of Manuel Noriega and recover Extraterrestrial Technology (ET) buried in Panama. However, Noriega had beaten Bush to it, and the US Marines were confronted by Panamanian troops armed with futuristic weapons.	Bush41

The Coyote On The Cliff

June 28th, 2007

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The Announcement

in 1999, Walton Ray Thermopolous meets with Prime Minister Kay Ector at the PM's insistence. “I have a feeling the queen needs our help,” Sir Kay says to Thermopolous. “But she cannot ask for fear of what may be revealed. Therefore, We must come to her aid stealthily.” Thermopolous, who is doing quite well now that he no longer has to split his profits with either the Illuminati or Queen Gwen, is reluctant to do anything to jeopardize his position. “She seems to be fine with the state of affairs they way they are,” he tells the prime minister. “Why act without orders? Right now, we're on top of the world – the CEE is gone, my old masters went with them, and the queen sits at the side of the king rather than in a jail cell. There is no need for action.” Ector simply cannot bring himself to believe this. “She needs our help. I know this is the case. And if you will not help, your government contracts will be cut off.” Thermopolous reluctantly agrees to supply a small team of professionals for the plan that the prime minister has drawn up for them.

In 1999, the networks ran instalment two of TSEotTC, part two. The Mountbatten Project delivers .. the British bomb the Japanese into an unexpected defeat. On the balcony of Buckingham Palace, the Royal Family wave and smile at the crowds. In Hiroshima, children choke in the radioactive slag.

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

In 1952, an historian in a fifth-rate 1952 CSA, overshadowed by the USA and the Germanic Union, obtained a position at an academic commune near Gettysburg, and one day he is offered the chance to travel back in time to July 1, 1863. In Bring the Jubilee author Ward Moore casts a fresh perspective on the War of Northern Aggression - for the twenty-six breakaway states would defeat have been worse than stalemate?

~ variant from Steve Payne : to celebrate the author's genius, original text of Ward Moores's 1997 classic "Bring the Jubilee" has been reserviced to present an "in context" alternate ending.

In 2006, the International Mars Mission found an ancient carving of the Coyote on the cliff side of the Canyon where they were hopelessly trapped. Navajo astronaut Jamie Waterman could hear the Coyote laughing in the crystal darkness of the frozen night.

~ variant from Steve Payne : to celebrate the author's genius, original text of Ben Bova's classic "Mars" has been reserviced to present an "in context" alternate ending.

In 1966, Ronnie Harran, the booker from the Sunset Strip Whisky A Go-Go Club watched the house band at the London Fog, a pathetic little nightclub just down the street. She was impressed by Jim Morrison's primal stage-appeal and almost offered the Doors the house-band slot at the Whisky. Morrison who had been tripping on acid then introduced “The End” with some crazy “Oedipus Rex” talk about his parents and Harran walked out in disgust.

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

Grape treaders	In 1761, the seven European stowaways enjoyed fellowship aboard the Arab Dhow. Speakers of Flemish, German, French and Spanish, they struggled to communicate little more than their fierce job of discovery. In fact, they were crying with God-sent joy. All of them were red grape-treaders, that was the connection. Despite their ..
.. ignorance, at some level they grasped that massive doses of the juice had protected them from the plague known as the Red Death. Twenty-fourth century scientists would discover that this was resveratrol, a chemical found in grape skins rather than the juice of the fruit itself. But that was a detail of little consequence to this elated band of survivors. They knew their Old Testament apocalypses well enough to know that Jesus had saved them from extinction. Not a sparrow falls to earth that God does not see. And after all, were these Europeans little more than sparrows, flying from a dreadful storm?
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1984, British Horror Writer Graham Masterton published IKON, a tribute to Philip K Dick's 1964 counter-factual novel Man in the High Castle. Set in America in 1985, the once-proud nation has been reduced to an Oblast of the USSR with a powerless President. All because some twenty years earlier America secretly lost ..	IKON
.. the Cuban Missiles Crises. Like Dick before him, the essence of Masterton's masterpiece is the book within the book, 'The Eagle Lies Heavy', a work of fiction written by a man called Graham Masterton. It describes a world where the Americans won the Cuban Missile Crisis - as a result, it has been banned by the Americans. Given his unpopularity with the world's two great powers, Masterton is said to live in a heavily fortified home and has become known as "The Author in the High Castle". Critics panned the concept but loved the story. After all, it was predicated on the US surrendering to Secretary Khrushchev. Today we know that Mr Kennedy meant it when he said “the problems of the world today are not susceptible to a military solution”. He had already surrendered by then.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

George Washingt..	In 1776, Thomas Hinkey was hanged for mutiny, sedition, and treachery for plotting to kidnap George Washington. Hinkey was one of his bodyguards, and his actions had resulted in the death of the General. This great blow to the Americans assisted in no small way the nation of Great Britain as she brutally suppressed the troubles in the Colonies.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1914, Tsar Nicholas Romanov II and his wife the Empress Alexandra of Russia were assassinated in Warsaw by young Polish nationalist Stanislaw Wasilewska. The Reichwehr had predicted that Russia's military capability would outperform the German Military by 1916. This estimation was drawn from huge French subsidies for railway ..	Tsar Nicholas I..
.. tracks that could deliver the Russian Steamroller into East Prussia at a day's notice. As a consequence, when the Grand Duke Michael took draconian measures in Poland, Kaiser Wilhelm II and his Hapsburg allies seized the opportunity to invade Galicia, the casus belli of World War I.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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Le Jour De La Bastille

July 14th, 2007

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The Announcement

L'Historien Alternatif Parle: Joyeaux Jour du Bastille! Allons, enfant de le Patrie... Happy Bastille Day to all our French-speaking readers! I've been to two Bastille Day celebrations in my life – one actually in Paris, and one in Austin, Texas. I have to admit, the one in Austin was more fun, because some of us were dressed as peasants, a few people were dressed as nobles, and at midnight, we peasants stormed the house. In Paris, there was no storming – just a lot of military parades. A LOT of military parades. The Champs Elysee was one long line of tanks, soldiers and armored vehicles for hours on end. The French really like to show off their guys and gals in uniform. The night before, though, was something called the Fireman's Ball, I think – where hopefully no fires start in the city, because all of the Parisian firefighters are out getting drunk. That was an interesting night to be out and about in the city.
The Bastille itself no longer exists, of course – they tore it down because it was a symbol of their oppression. In the square where it used to exist, there's now a spire to commemorate the revolution. Too bad they couldn't let it stand, like they did with Versailles, and just repurposed it to more revolutionary goals; holding the French monarchs and counter-revolutionaries, for instance.
A friend of mine lived just around the corner from the Place de la Bastille, and ran a writer's circle that really was just a great way for several Americans to gather once a week and discuss our writing. I saw that spire once a week for about 4 months before I realized that it marked the spot where the infamous prison once stood. I think it was because I usually got off the Metro one stop early, instead of the stop at the actual Place de la Bastille – like many Metro stops in Paris, the one at Place de la Bastille has a lot of historical color to let you know what it once was. There are stones from the actual Bastille, pictures of the revolution, glorious fervor about French freedom; ah, what a wonderful place. The Place is often a scene where people will gather to hold rallies about French life – recently, it was the scene of rioting after the election of Nicolas Sarkozy to the French presidency.
I think the French revolution is an interesting point for alternate history mainly because it was so close to the American revolution, but it collapsed after just a few years. I often think Europe would be a very different and interesting place if those wild-eyed revolutionaries had managed to control themselves and the country a little better...
Anyway, those are my thoughts on Bastille Day – enjoy Steve's entry for today and, vive le Revolution!

Kennedy	"The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution." ~ John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States
US President

After he had secretly surrendered to the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missiles Crises, and was organising a national resistance movement. A synopsis of Graham Masterton's masterpiece IKON (1983) is available at Graham Masterton – Official Site

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

Oscar Wilde	"Like feasting with panthers – the danger is half the excitement." ~ Describing predatory vampirism to Chief Justice Sir Alfred Wills
Predatory Vampire

Heads up ~ In Anno Dracula historian Kim Newman described how Abraham Van Helsing, Jonathan Harker and Lord Godalming failed to stop Count Dracula's conquest of Great Britain, resulting in a world where vampires are common and increasingly dominant in society. By 1888 Dracula married the widowed Queen Victoria, and ruled as Prince Consort. Yet the Lord Ruthven defeated the Count who subsequently fled to Paris. Eager to stabilise his own rule of non-predatory vampires, Ruthven sought a show trial of the Irish playwright, novelist and poet Oscar Wilde. Wilde had brought a suit against the father of his familiar Lord Alfred Douglas, the ninth Marquess of Queensberry, for leaving him a libellous calling card at his club. The offending card read “For Oscar Wilde, posing predatory vampire”. Wilde was subsequently convicted. Prison was unkind to Wilde's health and after he was released on May 19, 1897 he spent his last three years penniless, in self-imposed exile from society and artistic circles. He went under the assumed name of Sebastian Melmoth, after the devilish central character of Wilde's great-uncle Charles Robert Maturin's gothic novel Melmoth the Wanderer. Nevertheless, Wilde lost no time in returning to his previous pleasures. According to Douglas, Ross "dragged [him] back to vampire practices" during the summer of 1897, which they spent together in Berneval. After his release, he also wrote the famous poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol. Wilde spent his last years in the Hôtel d'Alsace, now known as L'Hôtel, in Paris, where he was notorious and uninhibited about enjoying the pleasures he had been denied in England. Again according to Douglas, "he was hand in glove with all the familiars on the Boulevard. He never attempted to conceal it." A transcript of the vampire's tale is described at Wikipedia

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

In 2009, TV networks ran episode five of So What If?. Blasting the Reich Chancery Doors away with dynamite, Allied soldiers race into Hitler's Bunker. They find the Fuehrer's Deputy Martin Bormann hanging upside down, his lifeblood emptied. In a tradition as old as Macedonia, the Master had abandoned his nest, sacrificing his Familiar.

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

In 2008, Susan Shwartz published Suppose They Gave a Peace.... Due to the increasing count of body bags returning from Iraq, John F Kerry was elected US president in 2004. Not waiting for the promised US withdrawal, insurgents tighten their grip on the country. An Ohio family worries about its soldier son.

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

Robert Ludlum	In 1976, the "alleged", secret files of J. Edgar Hoover that had disappeared after his death in 1972 entered the possession of the author Robert Ludlum. The files, when dovetailed with even a layman's knowledge of government crises since the mid 1960s clearly ..
.. demonstrated how people in high places could be forced to do the bidding of those who possessed the secrets contained therein. A deal was struck with FBI Director Clarence M. Kelley whereby Ludlum could publish his semi-fictional novel The Chancellor Manuscript whilst agreeing to return the secret files back to the Agency.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 2002, French President Jacques Chirac was assassinated during Bastille Day celebrations by a lone gunman with a rifle hidden in a guitar case. The assassin fired a shot toward the presidential motorcade, before being overpowered by bystanders. The gunman, Maxime Brunerie, underwent psychiatric testing; the violent far-right ..	Jacques Chirac
.. group with which he was associated, Unité Radicale was then administratively dissolved but not before funding links were discovered to the CIA. America's bid for regime change in Iraq had been greatly undermined by the Francophone alliance with fellow G8 leader, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. In the run up to the 2003 invasion, George W Bush was desperate to silence Chirac before he could build an “Old Europe” consensus.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

New Horizons	In 2015, by cruel irony the NASA spacecraft named New Horizons spacecraft flew by Pluto and Charon at 50,000 kilometres per hour, exploring the area for five months. Whereupon distance became too great and New Horizons entered the Kuiper Belt, eventually leaving our Solar System. It was in the belt that the spacecraft encountered ..
.. the alien intelligence known simply as the Voice. Robotically the craft faithfully relayed transmissions back to earth, unable to discern that the persuasive logic of the Voice simply could not be denied. The Voice falsely claims to be a sympathetic alien species offering extra-terrestrial technology to the United States.. for a price. Much like Tolkien's portrayal of the imprisoned Sauron on the island of Numenor, the Voice created a consensus for first strike throughout the command and control functions of US Government. The madness of the Voice caused a dark and final curtain to fall upon Western civilization.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1940, during World War II: Andrew George Latta McNaughton took command of the 7th Army Corps consisting of British, Canadian and New Zealand troops. The architect of the stunningly successful Dieppe Raid in 1942, military logic rather than political pressures prevailed and McNaughton was named Supreme Commander of Allied ..	Andrew McNaught..
.. Forces. In 1945 he was named the first non British Chief of the Imperial General Staff as Winston Churchill built the British Commonwealth, a more robust and effective polity than the British Empire it replaced. It would indeed last a thousand years.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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Falling

	In 1980, Morarji Desai's Janata party defeated Indira Gandhi's Congress, winning 351 of the 525 contested seats in the lower house of parliament, or Lok Sabha. Mrs Gandhi, who had ruled India for 11 years until 1977, had appealed to India's rural masses with her two election slogans, "Banish Poverty" and "Law and Order". During the 63-day campaign, the 62-year-old gave up to 20 speeches a day during a 40,000 mile tour of 384 constituencies.

But Mrs Gandhi's political comeback was viewed with suspicion. During the 19 months of emergency rule, introduced after she was accused of electoral malpractice, democracy was suspended, many opposition politicians were imprisoned and a compulsory birth control programme was introduced. When Mrs Gandhi sought to have the regime legitimised through the polls, she was defeated by Morarji Desai's Janata party in 1977.

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Leaning Tower	In 1990, the Leaning Tower of Pisa was closed to the public for the first time in 800 years shortly before the structure toppled over. Over the past 100 years the belfry at the top of the mediaeval tower has moved 9.6 inches (nearly a quarter of a metre). The tilt was 16ft (4.9m) off the perpendicular and increased by about one-twelfth of an inch (2mm) every year because the layer of clay and sand on which it is built is softer on the south side than on the north.
Pisa

The Italian government set aside 100bn lire (£47m) and appointed an international team of experts to come up with a detailed plan within three months to save the building from collapse. It was just too little, too late. The 13th century monument, which took more than 200 years to build, attracted in excess of one million visitors each year, many of whom climbed to the top to enjoy the panoramic view of Pisa. The tower's closure and subsequent collapse had a significant impact on the city's tourism industry. < The eight-storey structure began tilting almost immediately after it was completed in 1350. Attempts have been made in the past to stop the building moving. Mediaeval builders tried to correct the tilt but their efforts resulted in the upper section of the tower leaning at a different angle to the lower section. The Leaning Tower's ornate and unique exterior balconies were built to enable local dignitaries to be seen by the populace during religious processions in the Middle Ages.

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In 1989, the Empire of Japan mourned the death of Hirohito, war leader during the Greater East Asian War of the 1940s. Without his decisive leadership, the whole region would have remain in the hands of the imperalists.

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In 1965, Salvador Allende pledges that he will respect the elected government of unified Chile, even though election returns show him losing to reactionaries from the north. The Soviet States of America pledge to give Comrade Allende all that he needs to ensure justice for the people of Chile.

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Balrog	In 1918, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien set about the life-long work of the Middle-earth opus. A good deal had been written while Tolkien was laid up in a military hospital and at home with trench fever. No long suffering from combat tension, Tolkien was not gripped with a new kind of fear. Not longer fearing death, he wonder if he still wanted to live. Seeing the desolation of the World, Sauron [Tolkien's fear] .. looked with hatred upon [Tolkien] for long he dissembled his mind and dark designs that he shaped in his heart. Now the Elves made many rings; but secretly Sauron made One Ring [Tolkien's opus] to rule all the others, and their power was bound up with it, to be wholly subject to it and to last only so long as it would last. And much of the strength and will of Sauron passed into that One Ring ~ Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age
Tolkiens Phantasm

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In 1989, Taiwan mourns the death of Hirohito, Emperor of Japan during World War II. Alongside his unlikely ally Chiang Kai-shek, the combined gold and foreign reserves of China and Japan were used by the two renegades to successfully launch the first Asian Tiger in the 1950s.

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In 1601, the Earl of Essex, Robert Devereaux, overthrew Queen Elizabeth in a nearly bloodless coup. The only fatality was the Queen herself, a former lover of Devereaux’s, who was killed by the Earl’s men after she attacked him for taking the crown from her head.

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Nelson Mandela	“I look into Nelson's desperate eyes and can see that he never conceived the monstrous ungovernability of of a society so entrenched in rebellion.” ~ Samson Zola. In Laura Resnick's dystopia, years of civil war had torn apart the dream of a Rainbow nation. Samson Zola prepared to assassinate the President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela. Even though he loved him like a father, he saw the need to return South Africa to its people.
Alternate Tyrant

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In 1536, former consort to the King, Catherine of Aragon, dies in London. She is the first of many consorts to King Henry VIII to meet an untimely end. Fancying a stereotypical Spanish traits of dark hair and an olive complexion, the King was disappointed to find that Catherine was in fact a blue eyed, fair-skinned woman with reddish-blonde hair, not too unusual for northern Spaniards such as those from her father's land of Aragon. Furthermore, Catherine herself was part English, through her English great-grandmother, Catherine of Lancaster.

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In 1912, wholesome family cartoonist Charles Addams was born in Westfield, New Jersey. His Addams Family cartoons in the pages of the New Yorker became the symbol of American life in the middle of the century, replete with happy nuclear family and rock-solid values.

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In 1927, a basketball team of surpassing talent played its first game in the small town of Hinkley, Illinois, due to the fact that the team consisted of African-American men. But, in just a few decades, the clown princes of basketball would be known all over the world, and the Watts Travelers would set a standard for basketball ability that few other teams could match.

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	In 1983, after twenty long and frustrating years of searching, private detective Henry Friend found Jacqueline Lee Bouvier in a hotel lounge in Arizona. As he had expected, she had retreated into the disguise of her former unglamorous self. Overweight, and with mousy hair he flattered Bouvier with references to 1960s icons. He ordered a whiskey and some nuts, possibly as a gesture to Jack. Later, he would cut her head off with a saw and return it to the mob. It was a contractual requirement for private identification. Absolutely necessary before he could collect on the fee.

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In 1953, President Harry Truman announces that the United States has developed a hydrogen bomb. Truman needed the new superweapon for his second term, American gains in south-east Asia had been reduced to a toe-hold.

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