Escape From Alcatraz

The state of TIAH

June 11th, 2006

in 684, the prophet known as The Beast forces another village to accept his mark or be killed. The triple-6 is burned into their foreheads and right hands, and most of the Christian villages around shun them for their surrender to The Beast. A few timid peasants in the countryside around The Beast's stronghold begin to brand themselves in hopes of staving off an attack by the barbarians he commands. Word reaches Rome of this leader, and Pope Benedict II declares that Christianity faces the Armageddon, and The Beast must be killed so that the Church may survive. He offers a bounty of 10,000 pieces of silver for the head of The Beast. When this news reaches the prophet's ears, he makes a counter-offer – 10,000 silver for the head of the pope.

in 1509, King Henry VIII of England married Catherine of Aragon, his brother Arthur's widow. They had met 8 years before, when Henry had filled in for her father in her wedding to Arthur. There was quite a bit of speculation that the teenaged Catherine, very unsatisfied with Arthur, befriended the young Henry and convinced him to slip poison to his older brother. After Arthur's death, Catherine remained in England and her friendship with Henry grew into love; she pushed him to marry her in 1505 when he was finally old enough, but Henry's father, King Henry VII, had lost his desire for a Spanish alliance and forbade the marriage. The young lovers carried on their affair until old King Henry's death in 1509, when young Henry could ascend the throne as Henry VIII and claim Catherine for his queen. Their strong marriage produced only daughters rather than the son Henry always longed for, but their love kept them together, and Henry taught his daughter Mary how to rule after he was gone. On his death in 1547, she ruled the land as Mary the 1st, whose monarchy was renowned as one of the strongest ever in the British Isles.

in 1962, three prisoners escaped from the maximum security facility on Alcatraz Island, across the bay from San Francisco. The desperate men, Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers, John and Clarence, managed to float a raft they had constructed from raincoats across the treacherous waters surrounding Alcatraz to the mainland. Once there, they met up with a cousin of the Anglins, who drove them to Sacramento and set them up with jobs on his farm. After two weeks of the farming life, the three criminals had had enough, and robbed a bank in Sacramento; their successful escape from “The Rock” had made them believe they were criminal masterminds who could pull off any job. Unfortunately for them, the guard at the bank was a quick and deadly shot, and killed all three of them before they could escape the bank.

in 1963, although he wished to make a show of presidential support for the African-Americans attempting to attend the University of Alabama, President John Kennedy is convinced by his advisors to let the matter go. His brother Robert, the US Attorney-General, and his Vice-President, Lyndon Johnson, both ask him to do something in support of these brave young men, but the young president doesn't feel sure enough of himself to force this issue through. Robert Kennedy and Vice-President Johnson coordinate resignations to protest this abandonment of civil rights by President Kennedy, and the pair begin an odd partnership. The next year, the two join forces in a presidential campaign, easily defeating the unpopular Kennedy in the Democratic primaries, and in November, Lyndon Johnson and Robert Kennedy are elected President and Vice-President of the United States.

Today's "Six Degrees of Star Trek" challenge: Connect Escape from Alcatraz to Star Trek. Place your answers in the comments and see the Forum for previous results. For more on 6 degrees games, click here.

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Announcements & Portents

The state of TIAH

April 23rd, 2007

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in 1891, the call goes out for volunteers to swell the Union Army's ranks and take back Kansas. Thousands of men answer the call and join up. In Kansas, 'Sockless' Simpson's troops stand guard across the state's borders and drill themselves to readiness. Just across those borders, General Anthony Franklin keeps his men ready and tries to locate a telegraph office to report in his location. “There's one every block back east,” he complained to Major Wainwright, “but the 'wild west' hides theirs so you can't find them.” Major Wainwright was thoroughly sick of the general at this point, but was still unwilling to resign his commission. He also wanted revenge against Simpson, and that kept him going as they tromped through Missouri's wilderness.

in 1999, on the occasion of Shakespeare's birth and death, and just a few days after his first anniversary on the throne, King Arthur II declares a general amnesty for the Windsors if they will return to Great Britain. “We are willing to forgo our righteous vengeance against the family of the false queen, Elizabeth Windsor, and grant them peace and safety within our borders,” he says in the statement at Stratford-on-Avon. “This is no time for the British family to be split.” Although it seems like a totally magnanimous gesture, it does quell the minor pro-Windsor factions in the country, giving Arthur a united country as he prepares his Templars for war against the Central European Empire. His new queen, Lady Gwen, gives up one of her homes for the Windsors. The former royal family, unsurprisingly, does not take King Arthur up on his amnesty. Prime Minister Merl Myrddin uses the offer of amnesty to persuade the rest of the Commonwealth to recognize Arthur as King and increase the power that can be brought to bear against the CEE.

In 2165 the position of Michael Version7 Punk was a distant second in the cyberspace game of basket ball played out in the Venice Beach “skin”. Michael would describe himself as white. It was not the same definition that could be applied to a seventh century Welshman. White was a primary ethnicity that Michael was fanatical about. He spent a great deal of money on peroxide to sustain this fiction, over two trillion new dollars in the past six months.

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

Boeing 707	In 1974 on this day a Pan American World Airways Boeing 707 almost crashed into the side of Gunung Patas west of Singaraja (Bali). All 107 passengers ..
.. on board Pan American flight PA-812 from Hong Kong to Sydney survived despite this near miss while the Boeing 707 was making a scheduled intermediate stop at Bali. The plane had almost struck a mountain in Bali's north-west when the pilots misread a malfunctioning Automatic Direction Finder (ADF). The reason for the malfunction became clear some short hours later when the plane set down in Sydney to be greeted by aboriginal airport officers dressed in the military uniform of the Dream time Republic.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1983 the press conference at which the  Bormann Diaries  are to be show-cased is a mere forty-eight hours away. One individual is making a more difficult journey than most to get there.	Bormann
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Henry VIII	In 1533 the Church of England annulled the marriage between Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII of England. A precedent had been set, and in this more enlightened times, adults have an average of 2.5 marriages according to the famous social satire on statistics.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1661 King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland was crowned in Westminster Abbey. The Stuart had been through a difficult time with Parliamentarians, but Charles II ushered in a new era such that nascent British Empire was given an appropriate governance structure. Effective and dynamic Stuart rule was of course ..	King Charles II
.. superior to an assembly of laypeople, a model which could not possibly work in the global superstate which survives to this day.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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Thomas More Recants

The state of TIAH

July 6th, 2006

in 1535, Sir Thomas More, faced with beheading for his defiance of King Henry VIII's new church, recants his position and swears his loyalty to the Church of England, with King Henry as its head. Although More was a loyal Catholic who inwardly felt that the Pope was God's only true representative on earth, he felt a greater degree of loyalty to his neck. In secret, though, he began writing seditious documents under the pen name Moritius Loyola. His greatest work as Loyola was a recantation of the history of King Richard III he had written, telling the truth of King Henry VII's treachery and the virtue of the last Plantagenet king. This history, The Truth of Good King Richard and the Base Lies of Henry Tudor, was spread throughout Europe, and used by Catholics to attack the legitimacy of Henry VIII's claim on the English throne – if his father was a usurper, then he was not the true king of England. A number of English nobles, still loyal to the Catholic Church, rose up in rebellion against King Henry, who lacked any popular support to suppress them. He was deposed in 1541, and replaced with his cousin, Edward, Earl of Warwick, who had been named the royal heir by Richard III and who had escaped death by pledging his allegiance to the Tudors. Old Edward, as he was known, ruled for only two years before his death, and was succeeded by his grandson, who reigned as King Edward VII for almost 40 years, ushering in an era of enlightenment as England took its place among the great colonial powers of the world.

in 1571, Emperor Mectezuma of the Aztec Empire entertains a Spanish ambassador who has come to ask for the mighty American nation's assistance in war with England. Although the Aztec had no love for the Spanish, the Iberians had been respectful, where the English had harassed Aztec possessions and ships with pirates for decades. Mectezuma promised the Spanish ambassador, “We shall lay the British crown low for their crimes against us.” Queen Elizabeth of England called for a draft of soldier and sailors as soon as word of Mectezuma's alliance with Spain reached her country, and prepared for war against what she correctly perceived as her nation's greatest threat.

in 1982, although supportive of the peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, the United States declines to offer troops, hampering the UN's effectiveness in the chaotic country. Without enough troops to maintain buffers between the competing militias in the civil war, the peacekeepers became targets themselves, and in one horrific incident, suffered massive casualties when their headquarters were blown up in October of '83. The failed mission pulled out of the country just days after, leaving the Lebanese militias and their parent organizations in Syria and Israel to fight to the bitter end. The war finally ended in 1995 when Syria and Israel partitioned the country and moved their own troops in to quell the violence.

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More 3rd Anniversary Stuff; Sunningdale Agreement Collapses

The state of TIAH

May 28th, 2007

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Alternate Historian's Note: We have a couple more entries from our 3rd anniversary – thank you, Max! Today's the real 3rd anniversary, anyway...

in 2004, after a false start the day before, the band Ratman Taylor and the Institute gathered for a first practice. They later went on to some fame. They are especially famous for their concept albums with songs inspired by, quote, "events from history that never occurred." anniversary entry by Max Liebersohn

in 2096, at the behest of the Emperor, the Institute for the Study of Parallel Temporal Mechanics was founded by Dr. Robert Taylor. It is, of course, the organization that creates new forms of crosstime viewers and portals for the conquering of other timelines to become part of the Glorious Empire. anniversary entry by Max Liebersohn

Éamon de Valera	"The English must now move forward from [the Reformation in] 1533 and stop arguing about the past." ~ Éamon de Valera, Taoiseach
Taoiseach

After Churchill was reported to mutter Something must be done. In 1942 the 32nd American President Winston S. Churchill arrived for a State Visit to the Irish Isles. His dual heritage was a source of deep concern to the Dublin Government. Winston's father, Randolph Churchill was English, whilst his mother was daughter of American millionaire Leonard Jerome Taoiseach Éamon de Valera responded with absolute fury to Churchill's ill-concealed sympathy for the English. Collecting himself nonetheless, De Valera spoke truly when he said “The English must now move forward from 1533 and stop arguing about the past”. A truthful, but perhaps unhelpful reference to Henry VIII precipitous action to launch the Reformation, the event which triggered the collapse of English power. The Wikipedia entry on the Taoiseach is available at Wikipedia

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

In 1919, Uncle Alf wrote - Dear sweet adorable lovely Angela, Six months now in Pomerania and only two letters from you! I have taken great comfort from word received from Sweden. Hail victory! With much love, I remain your Uncle Alf.

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

Eisenhower	In 1947, Senator McCarthy shared a late night drink with General Dwight David Eisenhower. 'She's in custody, you know Ike?' says the Tail gunner. Eisenhower takes a huge slug of his bourbon to set his teeth. 'Yes, I am over my infatuation with Kay Summersby, do not worry' says Ike'. Then he adds with a hiss 'That witch'.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1989, the British Royal household awoke to receive some quite frightening news. The British Army had announced a state of martial law existed throughout the British Empire and Commonwealth. The Royal Family were being transported to Canada for their own safety. Lieutenant-General Sir Peter de la Billiere was the Interim ..	Peter de Le Bil..
.. Prime Minister who would seek a compromise with the Republican protesters whilst leading the hunt for the Brighton Bomber. The Royal Household could return from Canada when matters were in control. Sometime soon...
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Dodi Al Fayed	In 2001, the truth was as shocking, as appalling and unexpected as could be imagined. Diana was an amnesiac, with no recollection of her former life. The huntress was aware of course they were in hiding, but she had no idea from whom. He suspected that it was no accident, it was all part of the deal struck all those years ago.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1974, Southern England's power-sharing Sunningdale Agreement collapses following a general strike by loyalists. Edward Heath, Head of the Southern Department and his Government resign the next day. Direct rule from Dublin is re-imposed to restore order as secretarian violence breaks out in London. In a press conference, ..	Edward Heath
.. Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave placed the blame fairly on King Henry VIII and his fateful decision to divorce first wife Catherine of Aragon. Unable to gain papal approval, he launched the Church of England and plunged the country into the reformation. He said the British must move forward from 1533 and stop arguing about the past.
~ 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.