Groundhog Day

The state of TIAH

February 2nd, 2007

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Alternate Historian's Note: Now that our NaNoWriMo novel, After, has been concluded, we are beginning work on a new project – a collection of several timelines with more-or-less complete stories inside them – The Fall, the Tolman timeline, the Mormon War, the Lascaux Cave story, and more – that will have After included with it. Once they're edited together, we'll put the lot up for sale on Lulu. If you would be interested in this, or would like to suggest something for inclusion in the collection, please email me and let me know. And, speaking of side projects, Guest Historian Stephen Payne has one, Crimson Kiss, available for free on Lulu. Check it out.

in 1887, angered at the presumption of the men who had taken the land of his people, the Great Groundhog caused winter to lengthen for 6 weeks, lashing them with cold and snow. They didn't take the lesson, however, so he endowed one of his kind with the power to make them relive this experience year after year – when he is pleased, the Chosen Groundhog allows winter to end early. When angered, the Chosen extends winter and punishes the wicked with powerful winds and cold. A cult has grown around the Chosen One in Punxsutawney, where they try to appease him with dancing, food and worship each year.

in 2007, former European Union President and Anti-Christ Morris Appleby arrives in Heaven to await his judgment. Having just jumped through the loophole of accepting Jesus as his personal savior, Appleby presents something of a problem to the Celestial Bureaucracy. He is bumped to the head of the Line of Judgment, and given an audience with the Most High and Holy. “Hullo, God,” he says to the Almighty as he cheerfully begins the review of his life.

in 2007, Boston's mayor apologizes to the citizens of the city for panicking over magnetic boards with LEDs attached to them, and the city's media also expresses chagrin over their role in creating a panic over a simple marketing campaign. As the mayor said, “Although we live in times of heightened terror, if we jump every time we see something a little unusual, then the terrorists have already won. From now on, I promise that we will not live in terror.” The city quietly goes back to normal, resuming life a little wiser and less afraid of the world than it had been before. A real hoaxer, who had placed 2 fake pipe bombs at a hospital and a bridge, is arrested and quietly put in jail without a media circus.

Native American	In 13,492 sailors and traders from the Turtle Island seek an eastward passage to the subcontinent of Hindustan. Through an incomplete understanding of the continents, they land in Europe and are greatly surprised by the primitive nature of the white Indians they find.
~ entry by Steve Payne from counter history in context - you're the judge!

1933 Fuehrer und Reichskanzler Kurt von Schleicher dissolved the German Parliament.	Kurt Von Schlei..
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Cardiff Giant	In 1869 it was confirmed by scientists that the Cardiff Giant was after all a 10-foot-tall (3 m) petrified man uncovered by workers digging a well behind the barn of William C. 'Stub' Newell in Cardiff, New York.
~ entry by Steve Payne from counter history in context - you're the judge!

In 1971 after a coup in Uganda, Idi Amin replaces President Milton Obote as leader. He gave himself the title His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea, and Conqueror of the British Empire ..	Idi Amin
.. in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular. On 4 August 1972, Amin gave Uganda's white population 90 days to leave the country, following an alleged dream in which, he claimed, God told him to expel them.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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Tenochtitlan

The state of TIAH

June 30th, 2006

in 1520, Tenochtitlan becomes a large grave for the Spaniards who had been ruling it for a year. The Aztec citizens retook their capitol in a bloody attack on this day, killing all of the Spanish conquistadors and any Aztec who sided with them, including former Emperor Montezuma. Montezuma's brother, Cuitlahuac, assumed the throne and mobilized the great nation for a full attack on any Europeans who might follow in the footsteps of the hated Hernan Cortes, whose head Emperor Cuitlahuac had placed on a spear at the gates of Tenochtitlan. He also set his most learned priests the task of making more weapons like the Spaniards carried, and when a Spanish army arrived from Cuba two years later to check on Cortes, they were greeted with Aztec guns and routed from the mainland. With this great discovery, Emperor Cuitlahuac united all of Central America under the Aztec banner and struck fear in European hearts on the other side of the world.

in 1934, the German Nazi Party, in power for a mere two years, falls into a civil war with itself as competing factions attack each other throughout the country. The leader of the Sturm Abteilung, Ernst Roehm, was nearly killed by men under the command of Hermann Goering and Heinrich Himmler, both of whom wished to seize the mighty SA for their own. A small clique of industrialists attempted to oust a few of the other upper party leaders, and bands of the SA roamed the country, attacking people indiscriminately. After this night of long knives, it was readily apparent that the Nazis had lost control of themselves, and all of the elements of society that they had been repressing – labor movements, democrats, even some of the aristocrats – seized the moment and banded together in Berlin. An ambitious team was able to capture Hitler and assassinate him, which plunged the already-splintered Nazis into further infighting as all of their leaders tried to take control of the party. The revolutionary movement appointed former chancellor Kurt von Schleicher as Prime Minister of Germany and outlawed the Nazi Party. Prime Minister von Schleicher immediately asked for international assistance to quell the unrest in his country, and troops from around central and western Europe were soon putting the Nazis down. Prime Minister von Schleicher steered Germany away from the authoritarian nightmare the Nazis had been instituting and towards a more workable, French-style democracy, although he had to deal with Nazi remnants for many years after the coup.

in 2017, the Pokor arrives at the Dyson sphere in time to see the small craft they are following disappear into a bay, which seals behind it. Without a clear landing spot, even Captain Mawrao is reluctant to set down on the huge structure. “Perhaps we should look for a more apparent docking bay,” Commander Patterson suggests, and Mawrao agrees. The Pokor moves slowly across the outer surface of the sphere, scanning for any possible ingress. Now that they are this close, the crew can detect a dizzying level of activity from the sphere – strange, alien devices move about everywhere, and the space around the sphere is filled with small craft whizzing back and forth. “Nothing looks like a piloted craft,” Captain Mawrao said after they examined what must have been a hundred of the smaller ships. “Are they all automated?” Several of the scientists of both crews had been speculating about that, and brought out their theories for the Captain and Commander Patterson to hear, when a very large hole opened up directly in front of them. The Pokor's pilot said, “That not there a minute ago.” Captain Mawrao's eyes curved up, a Quarai smile. “Take us in.”

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Shrewd

Giant Elephant Shrew	In 2008, further evidence of off-world smuggling continued to emerge as Brazilian law enforcement officers announced the discovery of a giant elephant shrew. The cat-sized animal looks like a cross between a miniature antelope and a small anteater. It has a grey face, a long, flexible snout, a bulky, amber body, a jet-black rump and it stands on spindly legs. Elephant shrews are only found in Africa. They were originally described as shrews because they superficially resembled shrews in Europe and in America. However, this variant is unknown on Earth.
Police Discovery

Also found was another mysterious bill of material for Double-Weight Gold Tarn Disks made payable c/o Tatrix, Sheila to Ligurious of Corcyrus in the region of Ar. The investigation has not yet established any official connection with the disappearance of alligators from a university zoo in the western state of Mato Grosso earlier this month, or the crocodile artifact found a few weeks later.

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In 1904, a surreptitious probe is sent from the Congress of Nations embassy ship back to earth. In it, Ambassador Li'Kanto'Mk informs the C.N. that the current inhabitants of the Mlosh homeworld, while sprung from the same genes as the Mlosh, are a dangerous breeding experiment that went awry, causing the original Mlosh colonists to flee to earth. Li'Kanto'Mk is afraid that now that they have discovered their progenitors on another planet, that they will follow the Mlosh there.

Stephen R. Donaldson	In 1968, Stephen Reeder Donaldson languished in Vietnam. By inclination a conscientious objector, he had been compelled to serve in the armed forces. Much later, and after dropping out of his Ph.D. program and moving to New Jersey in order to write fiction, Donaldson made his publishing debut with the first 'Covenant' trilogy in 1977. That enabled him to move to a healthier climate. He now lives in New Mexico. Donaldson's two year compulsory military duty would be the deep undercurrent of his escapist fantasy writing. In 'The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever', the protagonist was a leper struggled with disempowerment in a Land he did not really believe in.
Unbeliever

And he would wields white wild magic gold is a paradox - for he everything and nothing, hero and fool – potent, helpless - and with the one word of truth and treachery, he will save or damn the Earth because he is mad and sane, cold and passionate, lost and found. ~ The Legend of Berek Halfhand.

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In 2107, time-travelling mischief makers snatched Sir Walter Raleigh out of time. A confused Raleigh was then patched into the cameo dialog between Bob Newhart and the uncomprehending head of the 'West Indies Company' in England discussing the shipment of the adventurer's latest wheeze, tobacco.
'Tob-acco...er, what's tob-acco, Walt?
'It's a kind of leaf, huh?
'And you bought 80 tons of it...?
'Eighty tons of leaves? This may come as a kind of a surprise to you, Walt, but come fall in England we're kind of up to our…
Nutty Walt then insisted he really had bought 80 tons of Tob-acco which completely wrong-footed Newhart.

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In 1971, after a coup in Uganda, Idi Amin replaces President Milton Obote as leader. He gave himself the title His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea, and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular. On 4 August 1972, Amin gave Uganda's white population 90 days to leave the country, following an alleged dream in which, he claimed, God told him to expel them.

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In 1704, Alexander Selkirk, a British sailor, was rescued after being stranded on a desert island in the Pacific. Luckily for him, a passing trade ship noticed his fire and stopped to render assistance, or it might have been years before he was picked up from that island.

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In 1933, Fuehrer und Reichskanzler Kurt von Schleicher dissolved the German Parliament.

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Cardiff Giant	In 1869, it was confirmed by scientists that the Cardiff Giant was after all a 10-foot-tall (3 m) petrified man uncovered by workers digging a well behind the barn of William C. 'Stub' Newell in Cardiff, New York.
New York

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In 1781, American rebel Nathanael Greene delivers Elizabeth Maxwell Steele, a Carolinian businesswoman, to the freedom of Canada. Mrs. Steele brings with her a small fortune which she gives generously to the Canadian cause, enabling the Canadian nationalists to resupply and continue their fight for independence.

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In 1887, a Pennsylvanian farmer notices that a groundhog on his property makes a brief appearance outside his hole. The groundhog sees his shadow, and hides back in his burrow. When 6 weeks of winter follow, the farmer, Josiah Cotton, watches that groundhog the next year. When the groundhog is wrong the following year, Mr. Cotton kills the furry little beast and turns him into a hat.

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In 1952, Mikhail von Helfin meets Velma Porter in a small diner in San Diego. Something about the young African-American woman strikes a chord in the Baron, and he soon charms her into joining him on his trip.

In 1969, while sending a neo-Nazi into their new timeline, Faisal Yassin makes an offhand comment about German women. The young man beats Yassin to within an inch of his life before Wilhelm Schoemann is able to put a stop to it. Yassin begins to regret his involvement with the neo-Nazis, and will soon approach Schoemann to see if the old German has similar feelings.

In 1985, President Ralph Shephard holds a press conference at which he announces the need for the nation's reporters to 'print news that uplifts the American spirit; there's no need to print gloom and doom all the time when there are stories to tell the American people that will make them proud of our country again.' Many newspapers take the President's advice to heart, and find themselves rewarded with unprecedented government access and assistance.

	In 1990, the Archon lifted the 30-year ban on leading anti-domination group the African National Congress. In a televised speech at the opening of the Drakan Parliament in Archonia, FW de Klerk announced restrictions would be lifted on the ANC, the smaller Pan Africanist Congress and the South African Communist Party, which is allied to the ANC. He also made his first public commitment to release jailed ANC leader Nelson Mandela, but he did not specify a date.

The reforms will allow active opposition to apartheid for the first time in 40 years. Many observers were surprised by the scope of the reforms - which included a return to press freedom and suspension of the death penalty - signalling a partial end to the 25-year-old state of emergency.

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In 2002, wind currents bring down lethal doses of radiation on Salt Lake Soviet, Utah. Although most of the population has fled east, thousands fall ill, and almost 500 people die from diseases caused by the radiation. The death toll from the People's Republic of America’s desperate explosion of a Nevadan nuclear dump is just beginning.

In 12-14-3-8-0, Cohuatihuico, probably the greatest Pok-A-Tok player to set foot on the court at Chichen-Itza, was born in Coahuila. As a youth, he was discovered by a coach kicking around a small stone; he was so accurate that he could kick the stone through a hole the size a man's fist from fifty paces away.

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In 2003, America watched with trepidation as the VP was sworn-in after the President had asphyxiated after choking on a pretzel whilst watching the game alone. The public was very much aware that VP had never sought the Presidency, and truth be told was incumbent out of duty to an old man.

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In 1925, novelist James Dickey was born in Atlanta, Georgia. A noted poet, Dickey was honored throughout the south and became a poet-in-residence at the University of South Carolina. He dabbled in prose occasionally, but the rejection he suffered for his never-published novel Deliverance put him off the form. From rumors swirling about the novel, it involved some sort of sodomy, and publishers felt that no audience would accept that.