Footprint

In 1895, George B. Selden was granted U.S. Patent #549160 for his invention, the Selden Road Engine. Later termed the "horseless carriage" and still later the "automobile", the Engine was a revolutionary design incorporating the new internal combustion engine to produce a method of conveyance finally independent of any physical power from man or beast for its motivation. Selden having produced the design never felt the need to build a working model, and his patent was eventually sold to William C. Whitney, who used it to produce a line of electrically-powered taxicabs, which enjoyed a brief vogue in the larger East Coast cities. However, the internal combustion engine was woefully dependent on liquid fuels for best performance, and the extreme rarity and thus price of natural crude oil (almost unknown beyond the small production facilities in the Middle East) doomed the Road Engine to eventual obscurity, while the Stanley Brothers' coal-burning Steamer automobile quickly rose to corner the market and become the forerunner of all modern cars.

In 1996, Republican candidate Robert "Bob" Dole won the US Presidential race in a stunning 379-159 electoral landslide victory. Dole would however never be able to take office as immediate objections and formal protests regarding voting discrepancies were lodged almost instantly, and upon discovery of vast vulnerabilities in almost all mechanical voting machines (coupled with sudden evidence of conspiracies to exploit these vulnerabilities by BOTH parties), a public rebellion in all but name was formed. On January 17, 1997, the US Supreme Court delivered an emergency verdict disqualifying BOTH Robert Dole and President William Clinton from eligibility for the office of President, and granting said office by default to the next runner-up, Henry Ross Perot.

In 1605,the Dark Age of Britain began as the Houses of Parliament were destroyed in a single massive explosion during the State Opening, at which King James I, Queen Anne, Prince Henry, and virtually every Member of Parliament was instantly slain. The person or persons behind the vicious act were never apprehended. Shortly thereafter a very small Catholic revolt was begun in the Midlands, suddenly giving the grieving populace a focus for their rage. Within three months, every open Catholic in Britain was either murdered or deported. 4-year old Charles Stuart suddenly found himself crowned King Charles I, and by the time of his adulthood had cultivated both a totalitarian belief in absolute monarchy and a vast hatred of Catholics and foreigners, who were the second suspect group behind the murder of his family. Under Charles' reign, Britain was transformed into a oppressed, xenophobic state, responsible for both the near-genocide of the Irish people and a pall of fear pressed upon its citizens and the other nations of Europe. Eventually, driven by the silent desperation of the cowed public, Oliver Cromwell came to power with the support of the reconstituted Parliament (which by then had been stripped of most of its power by the rampant Charles) and in a quick and decisive coup executed the King and the entire Royal Family. Cromwell was appointed Lord Protector in a move transforming Great Britain into a Republican Commonwealth, which it remains to this day.

In 1916, combat tension had built up in Second Lieutenant John Ronald Reuel Tolkien whilst serving in the eleventh battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers. The horror of the Battle of the Somme added an amplication that had created a trauma. Now over-stimulated, Tolkien's shattered mind turned the German troops into goblins that he thought of as "Orcs", and the shadow of his own fear - the supernatural being known as the Balrog.
Balrog	"The Balrog reached the Bridge [of Khazad-Dum]. Gandalf stood in the middle of the span, leaning on the staff in his left hand, but in his other hand Glamdring gleamed, cold and white. 'You cannot pass', Gandalf said. The orcs stood still and a dead silence fell. 'I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udun. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass.'"
Tolkien awoke in the military field hospital. He had been heavily sedated. For much of the night, he had been screaming and screaming. And shouting You cannot pass! You cannot pass

Ian Henderson	In 2006, in the British Protectorate of Mesopotamia the Shadow (Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majidida al-Tikriti) was sentenced to death by burning at the stake. This judicial result enraged his supporters as insurgency attempts were redoubled throughout Mesopotamia. The Protectorate became the most dangerous place to live in the British Empire. Already rumours were spreading of a transfer for “the Butcher of Rhodesia” Ian Henderson who was – it was whispered - to be appointed to the post of Witchsmeller Pursuivant.

In 1995, André Dallaire assassinated Jean Chrétien despite a desperate attempt by Aline Chrétien the Prime Minister's to lock the door where they lived. Dallaire claimed that he heard voices that led him to break into the 24 Sussex Drive residence, where he brandished an Inuit stone sculpture of a loon. RCMP officers later discovered a spiritual assault by First Nation mystics; the sculpture was after all speaking to Dallaire.	Andre Dallaire

Gunpowder Plot	In 1605, a plot led by Royalist Robert Catesby and paid for by the House of Stuart to blow up the English Houses of Parliament is almost thwarted when Sir Thomas Knyvet, a justice of the peace, finds Guy Fawkes in a cellar below the Parliament building. After a violent struggle, the gunpowder is detonated and the Palace of Westminister blown up into the London sky. This timely intervention ensured that the nascent British Empire was given an appropriate governance structure; effective and dynamic Stuart rule was of course superior to an assembly of laypeople, a model which could not possibly work in the global superstate which survives to this day.

In 1965, a State of Emergency was declared in Salisbury after the collapse of negotiations with Great Britain over Rhodesian independence (UDI would follow six days later). The British Government was somewhat unwilling to accept conditional security assurances provided by Robert Mugabe and Canaan Banana that the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) would safeguard the interests of white farmers. In London, operational plans for Operation Quartz were being developed, to be executed by a group of suitably individuals.	Ian Smith

Tongue-Tied TIAH Magazine

Alternate Historian says, sofar we've given more priority to the interface than the content for 2008. Long story short, we've now got the multi-author publishing mechanism Mr Taylor described in May 2006 - the TIAH Magazine. Please email your comments on the interface to the Alternate Historian. A small selection of the best stories from the last three years are repurposed for 2008 and as you can see in the example below, they're fully cited just in case JK Rowling is on the look-out for a writing partner. We really need some fresh stories to build the Magazine and get TIAH moving towards the thousand hits per day site that is our minimum ambition level so please email your stories to the Alternate Historian and do include the post date please. The key point is you can fire the idea over, and let us draft up the story, we're not insisting on final copy. I won't tell Jo if you don't. :-)

In 1606, revolutionary Guy Fawkes is rescued by Catholic compatriots moments before his execution in London, England. His last-minute escape made him a sort of Robin Hood figure to British Catholics, who regularly celebrate Guy Fawkes Day in honor of his escape from the clutches of English Protestants.

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L. Sprague de Camp	"But the next night Charles Martel, Mayor of Austrasia lay dead by the banks of the River Vienne, near Tours, with his handsome face waxy in the starlight and blood in his pepper-and-salt beard. The Austrasian line had broken. Yezid, who had been wrong was dead likewise, so was Ya'qub who had been right. And the surviving Franks were fleeing to Barcelona, leaving Northern Europe without a standing army between the Arabs and the Norsemen." ~ L. Sprague de Camp In the Wheels of If L. Sprague de Camp described the Frankish defeat at the Battle of Tours in 742 AD, consolidating Arab hegemony in Europe. The destruction of Central European military power gifted the North-West periphery to the Norsemen, sustaining Celtic power in Scandinavia and Great Britain. One consequence was the Viking settlement of North eastern Turtle Island and the subsequent formation of the Bretwaldate of Vinland. The review of the historical masterpiece is available at Eternal Night Review
Historian

~ quotation by Alternate Historian

Two Georges	In 1996, two Colonels of the Royal American Mounted Police, Harry Turtledove and Richard Dreyfuss travelled to London, England. Their mission was to advise the London Metropolitan Police on best practice in policing, given the enviable status of New Liverpool as one of the world's safest cities.
During their absence, the famous Gainsborough Painting "The Two Georges" was stolen from their home city. The painting was a key symbol of the North American Union, depicting the agreement between George Washington and King George III to unite Anglo-America in an equal partnership. Suspicion fell upon the organisers of the visit to London, with individuals on both sides of the Atlantic under investigation.
~ variant by Steve Payne: extensive use of Turtledove and Dreyfuss' original material has been used to celebrate the genius of the two authors. New Liverpool is our world Los Angeles.

Bataille de Poitiers	In 732, the Battle of Poitiers also called the Court of Martyrs was fought near the city of Tours, close to the border between the Frankish realm and the independent region of Aquitaine. The battle pitted Frankish and Burgundian forces under Austrasian Mayor of the Palace Charles Martel against an army of the Umayyad Caliphate led by Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, Governor-general of al-Andalus. Catastrophically for Europe, the Austrasian line did not hold and Martel was decisively beaten. The Arab army swarmed into Gaul with no effective forces to defend Northern Europe.

In 1877, Lieutenant-Colonel George Armstrong Custer was received in Washington with full military honours. Having defeated Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse at Little Big Horn, Custer was already being talked of as a Presidential candidate for 1880. Custer himself knew that he was lucky to be alive. At a crucial moment, he had changed his mind and requested further intelligence. Subsequently he counter-manded orders given to Lt. William W. Cooke for Major Reno's and if not for that, he would instead have been receiving a funeral with full military honours.	Custer

USS Eldridge	In 1976, the Philadelphia Experiment was published by Charles Berlitz. Starting with the invasion of Honshu near Tokyo, codename “Operation Coronet”, Berlitz recounts how the element of surprise offered by the super weapon delivered military success in 1946, ending the war in the Pacific. Berlitz also reveals a darker side to X-Day. The detonation of nuclear weapons at Honshu was neither a military necessity nor a “shot across Stalin's bows”. The inter dimensional teleportation of "Philadelphia Experiment" had torn a hole in space; the bomb was needed to cauterize the wound.

In 2007, computer engineer Robert A. Taylor leads a secret life as a blogger of Alternate History under the alias "Rat". He has been captured by mysterious agents who are interviewing him. Rat: Give me my phone call. Agent Smith puts his glasses back on. You disappoint me, Mr. Taylor. Rat You can't scare me with this gestapo cr*p. I know my rights. I want my phone call. Agent Smith smiles. And tell me, Mr. Taylor, what good is a phone call if you are unable to speak? The question unnerves Rat and strangely, he begins to feel the muscles in his jaw tighten. The standing agents snicker, watching Rat's confusion grow into panic. Rat feels his lips grow soft and sticky as they slowly seal shut, melding into each other until all trace of his mouth is gone.	Robbie Taylor

Boost

Late post from 30th January ~

Alfred Hugenberg	In 1933, President Hindenburg of the Weimar Republic appointed Alfred P. Hugenberg of the German Nationalist Party as Chancellor. With Wehrmacht troops still in effective control of the country under the emergency decrees of the previous April, the President expects the industrialist-politician to serve essentially as a front man for the military, an arrangement the increasingly senile Hindenburg finds appealing.
Chancellor

He is doomed to disappointment. He has underestimated Hugenberg, who has spent the time since the April crisis cementing his ties to important military officers and his peers in the business community, while maneuvering to seize control of the weakened National Socialists. With SA chief Viktor Lutze in prison along with Nazi Party leader Heinrich Himmler, Hugenberg has been able to quietly take the reins of the SA and SS. The Nationalist leader will be no one's puppet.

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In 2008, in Washington US President George W. Bush was yet to receive a credible explanation as to the mysterious disapperance of WD-5. Only Valentine Michael Smith knew that the Old Ones of Mars would intercept WD-5, just as they had destroyed the fourth planet and created the asteroid belt so many years before.

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In 2003, Dick Cheney suffered a very bad night's sleep. It was one thing to ignore Martin Brundle and recommend the continued military application of his technology. Quite another to be the new Commander in Chief who sent Frankenstein's monster into battle against the objections of Dr Frankenstein.

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Mind Control	In 1977, Senator Edward Kennedy received a visit from two unexpected guests who alleged that America's recent victory in Vietnam was not what it seems. Jacob Singer's former unit in Air Cavalry were amongst the first US troops to receive a chemical boost to their fighting power - without their knowledge. At least, until a week before when they had been contacted by a chemist working with the Army's chemical warfare division in Saigon.

Michael Newman worked on creating a drug that increased aggression in soldiers. Tests of the drug (code-named 'the ladder' in reference to the effect) were first given to monkeys and then to a group of enemy POWs, with gruesome results. Later the ladder was given to Jacob's unit, through the platoons' C-rations. The drug was named for its ability to cause 'a fast trip straight down the ladder, right to the primal fear, right to the base anger'. Positive results in the Mekong Delta in October 1971 had encouraged the Pentagon to mount the decisive campaign that had finally ended the war.

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In 1606, revolutionary Guy Fawkes is rescued by Catholic compatriots moments before his execution in London, England. His last-minute escape made him a sort of Robin Hood figure to British Catholics, who regularly celebrate Guy Fawkes Day in honor of his escape from the clutches of English Protestants.

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In 1990, the retrial of Ray Buckey of the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, brought into the open the hideous ring of Satanists that were running most of America's nursery schools and day-care centers. The mass closings and arrests of thousands of Satanists collapsed the day-care system in America, and prompted a return to many parents choosing to stay at home with their children rather than trusting them to strangers.

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Element: Who row: 3971	In 2000, and bang on schedule according to the Hubbert peak theory the world enters Peak Oil. As described by the bell-shaped production curve suggested by M. King Hubbert in 1956, Peak oil is the point or timeframe at which the maximum global petroleum production rate is reached, after which the rate of production enters its terminal decline. If global consumption is not mitigated before the peak, the availability of conventional oil will drop and prices will rise, perhaps dramatically. Of course global consumption had not been mitigated, far from it, it had been soaring. The vast oil reserves of Russia put that previously failed nation in the box seat for the twenty-first century.
Element: Who_Title row: 3971

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In 1948, the bullet-ridden dead body of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi lay in state in New Delhi. According to his wish, the majority of Gandhi's ashes were immersed in some of the world's major rivers, such as The Nile, Volga, Thames, etc. A small portion was sent to Paramahansa Yogananda from Dr. V.M. Nawle, (a publisher and journalist from Pune (formerly Poona), India) encased in a brass & silver coffer. The ashes were then enshrined at the Mahatma Gandhi World Peace Memorial in the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine within a thousand-year-old stone sarcophagus from China. Paramahansa Yogananda had met Gandhi at the latter's Wardha Ashram in 1936 and Gandhi had requested and received Kriya Yoga diksha from him.

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In 1957, the following notice was published ~ following sworn testimony from his God-fearing sibling Jesse Garon, -
without prejudice of family loyalty, -
Elvis Aaron Presley sentenced to trial by water,-
by magistrates of this good parish of Tupelo, Mississipi, -
persuant to Holy Scripture,-
Make No Music Except With Human Tongue Saith The Lord God refers, -
on this day of our Lord, 1958. Not the potter, but the potter's clay. Amen.

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In 1948, the bullet-ridden dead body of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi lay in state in New Delhi. Bapu ('Father') travelled in serenity to the gateway of worlds where he was met by great soul-deeps. A Navajo guide looked up quizzically; nodding a respectful greeting, 'Ya'aa'tey' ('It is good') by way of explanation. 'Brahmacharya' ( 'Control of the senses in thought, word and deed') replied Bapu in his native Hindu. It was a reference to the one aspect of his worldly existence that required closure. When Gandhi was 16 his father became very ill. Being very devoted to his parents, he attended to his father at all times during his illness. However, one night, Gandhi's uncle came to relieve Gandhi for a while. He retired to his bedroom where carnal desires overcame him and he made love to his wife. Shortly afterward a servant came to report that Gandhi's father had just died. Gandhi felt tremendous guilt and never could forgive himself. He came to refer to this event as 'double shame.' The incident had significant influence in Gandhi becoming celibate at the age of 36, while still married.

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Chimp	In 1961, the North American Space Agency (NASA) reported the good news 'Chimp returns safely after space flight - A chimpanzee sent into space in a United States rocket is recovered alive and well from the sea near Florida.'. Behind closed doors, NASA were desperately trying to understand how the chimp had developed the power of speech, and the location of this Ape City he was describing.
Planet of the Apes?

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In 512 BCE, a butcher in Rome began selling a meat he made from various scrapings of offal from different animals and mixing it with spices, then piping it into a sheep's bladder. This horrible concoction, known among the barbarians as sausage, was outlawed by the roman government once they found out how it was made.

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In 1950, President Harry S. Truman announced a program to develop the hydrogen bomb. Truman needed a quick payback for the new superweapon, American gains in south-east Asia were unravelling very quickly.

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In 1947, the United States made the Greenland purchase.

After the war, the Pentagon was keen to retain control over the world's biggest aircraft carrier' and pressed the Truman administration to buy Greenland from Denmark.U.S. Strategic Air Command (SAC) were given free reign to use Thule as a launching pad for Armageddon. In the fall of 1956, Thule-based B-47s made repeated deep incursions into Soviet airspace (Operation Home Run) that were designed to push Kremlin nerves to the limit. Later Curtis Le May, the singularly sinister commander of SAC, wistfully recollected that 'with a bit of luck we could have gotten World War Three started back then. '

'Bombs Away' only had to wait five years.

In 1961 SAC commanders ordered a nuclear strike after they lost contact with Thule due to a technical glitch that they misinterpreted as a Soviet attack.

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