Nessie

ALTERNATE HISTORIAN'S NOTE: we have our second anniversary coming up on May 27th, and we would like to have another contest. For our second anniversary, send us up to three of your own alternate histories, and we will publish the best - no limit on how many will end up on the final page! We would like to see as many of you enter this as possible, so please - think 'em up, write 'em down, and send 'em on to us at rat4cat@gmail.com! Help us celebrate our 2nd year of existence in style! Oh, and if you're like Sean and we owe you an appearance in TIAH - email us!

May 2nd, 2006

in 1519, one of the greatest geniuses of the Speaker’s Line, Leonardo da Vinci, died in France. Most of his designs were spirited away by others of Telka’s descendants before they could be found by those not ready for them, but some that were left behind were still too advanced for his time. Fortunately, da Vinci wrote most of them in a code that was impossible for those not of the Speaker's Line to break.

in 1915, Dr. Argus McCloud and his three crewmen land back on the Kainku world. They are all wearing the neural neutralizer, and Dr. McCloud is unable to pick up any irritation caused by the stray telepathic waves of the Kainku. When he explains to the aliens the turmoil that they have caused on other worlds, they are very apologetic and offer to make amends. Dr. McCloud sends word to Admiral Rodriquez, then hurries back to the ship to manufacture more of the neutralizers.

in 1933, a beast was sighted in Loch Ness, Scotland, which resembled the long-extinct plesiosaur. When news of the sighting hit the newspapers, big-game hunters around the world converged on Loch Ness to take down Nessie, as the beast became known. The hunts uncovered a small family of plesiosaurs living in the lake, having survived since the time of the dinosaurs. Because of the turmoil of the hunt, the clan of 3 females and 2 males soon died, leaving only the mystery of how such huge creatures survived the millions of years since their brethren went extinct.

in 1947, the risqué farce Mooning the Misbegotten, the latest for laugh-riot Gene O’Neill, opens on Broadway. The uproarious comedy nearly brought the censor’s office down on it before O’Neill agreed to cut down on a little of the title action. Even sans the pants-dropping, it was lambasted by moralists as vulgar, which only made it more popular.

in 1957, Vice-President Joseph 'Tailgunner Joe' McCarthy dies of an undisclosed ailment in a hospital in Washington, D.C. McCarthy's outspoken anti-communism had made the perfect counter-point for President Eisenhower's more soft-spoken rhetoric, and Ike delivered the eulogy at his Vice-President's funeral himself. The many enemies he had made through his infamous lists of communists working for Congress were a little less than sad at his passing.

in 1972, the People’s Champion, J. Edgar Hoover, who had led the People’s Bureau of Investigation since its inception in 1924, died in Washington, D.C. His nearly 50 years of service to the Soviet States of America was rewarded with a state funeral and thousands of mourners; Hoover had been at the forefront of anti-capitalist law enforcement, and was much beloved by his comrades across the nation.

in 1975, Pete Best closes down his record label, Pear Records. Although it had made some money at the beginning, it had become a money funnel in the 70’s, losing cash hand over fist. The corporation that managed Best's properties still functioned quite well, and the Pear Corp. is making money even today.

in 1985, the once-mighty brokerage firm E.F. Hutton was brought low after pleading guilty to swindling several banks out of interest on nearly $4 billion. The company that everyone listened to fell silent as the upper management bailed out and stockholders sold out for the little their stock could bring.

in 1997, American troops surrender to the allied forces of the British, Egyptian and Chinese, ending the war in the western theater. With the Consitutionalists of President Ralph Shephard vanquished, the Allies turn their attention to Africa and the menace of President Terreblanche’s South Africa.

in 2005, Patience Redding finds an entry in her diary that speaks of meeting a young American, Chelsea Perkins, when she, herself, was 14, in 1987. She has become convinced that Miss Perkins is an immortal who is fixed in age, and lays plans for a trap should they meet again.

Timelines in today's post: the Speaker, the Mlosh, Communist America, Pete Best, the Ralph Shephard timeline and the Chelsea Perkins timeline.

Today's "Six Degrees of Star Trek" challenge: Connect The Da Vinci Code 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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Setting Sons

Joseph J. Ellis	Based on what we know now about the military history of the American revolution, if the British commanders had prosecuted the war less vigourously in its earliest stages, or perhaps if Woolfe had died on the Plains of Abraham in 1759, the Continental Army might well have survived and the movement for American independence might not have been nipped in the bud. In the long run, an American nation, gradually developing its political and economic strength over the nineteenth century within the protective constraints of the British Empire was probably inevitable. This was Thomas Paine's point when he remarked that it was simply a matter of common sense that an island could not rule a continent. ~Joseph J. Ellis, Founding Fathers – the Failed Revolutionary Generation.
History Professor

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In 1970, the Chicago Eight are found guilty of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic Party national convention. Like the firing of the Air Traffic Controllers by President Ronald Reagan a decade later, this event was considered a watershed in the re-establishment of national authority. It was time for America to extinguish the degenerate influence of the Kennedy Family, declared President Richard Nixon, as he cracked down on the lawlessness plaguing American Society. As his father would say back in Yorba Linda, the nation had needed a visit to the woodshed ever since Joseph Kennedy stole the election from Honest Dick back in '60.

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In 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated at the Battle of Montereau by the Wurttembergeois under Royal Prince of Wurttemberg. The mastery of Europe was gifted to the Hapsburg Empire of Austria-Hungary for the next century and a half.

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In 3102, BC Lord Krishna left his body welcoming in the Kalī Yuga (Age of Darkness) one of the four stages of development that the world goes through as part of the cycle of Yugas. The beginning of Dwapara Yuga was marked by his return in 2009.

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In 1516, Sister Mary Tudor, first female Pope of the Holy British Empire, is born in Greenwich, England. Although her time in the shoes of the fisherman was short, she paved the way for her far more successful sister, Pope Elizabeth I.

In 1678, English satirist John Bunyan publishes his novel The Pilgrim's Progress, a rollicking and often risque tale of a young Christian facing sins aplenty for the first time. It was banned by many churches, but enjoyed brisk sales due to its titillating subject matter.

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In 12-10-18-10-0, a laborer's movement begins among the northeastern territories of the Oueztecan Empire. Although brutally suppressed at times, the Warriors of Toil grows across the entire empire until it is finally recognized in 12-13-2-10-10 as a sanctioned imperial organization, and allowed to help workers.

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In 1913, French artists Marcel Duchamp unveiled the much-anticipated painting Nude Descending A Staircase at an exhibition in New York City. Moralist groups who had come prepared to protest took a look at the painting, utterly failed to see any nudity, and left, along with those expecting a somewhat more prurient display.

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In 1967, peace activist and physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer dies at his home in Princeton, New Jersey. During World War II, Oppenheimer had been charged with creating a so-called atomic bomb by the U.S. government, but the project he headed in Los Alamos, New Mexico never produced a working weapon. Some felt that Oppenheimer sabotaged the project, but there was never any evidence of this; the war ended with victory for the U.S. and its allies, anyway, in 1946.

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Mrs T.	In 1981, BBC News reported - Thatcher gives in to miners: 'Mrs Thatcher's Conservative Government withdraws plans to close 23 pits in its first major U-turn since coming to power two years ago. Mrs Thatcher's Conservative Government has withdrawn plans to close 23 pits in its first major u-turn since coming to power two years ago. President of the National Union of Mineworkers Joe Gormley is confident the government's intervention will avert the threatened national miners' strikes. Secretary of State for Energy David Howell made the concessions at two hours' of crisis talks in Whitehall involving union leaders and Department of Trade and Industry officials.
Defeated

At the negotiations - brought forward several days by the government - Mr Howell acknowledged the miners' main demands about coal imports and subsidies to the National Coal Board. The government agreed to reduce coal imports from eight million to five-and-a-half million tonnes over the next year and to provide more money for the Coal Board, struggling under the withdrawal of operating subsidies after the 1980 Coal Industry Act. As a result the Coal Board has dropped the programme of pit closures it announced on 10 February. Following Ted Heath, Mrs Thatcher became the second Conservative Leader to be defeated by the miners in a decade. The 'Straw Lady' was defeated at the polls in 1983, the radical program designed by Sir Keith Joseph and Norman Tebbit was unimplemented.

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	In 1954, BBC News reported : McCarthy hunts 'army Communists - The Secretary of the US army has ordered two generals, subpoenaed by anti-Communist senator Joseph McCarthy, to ignore the summons. The move by Robert T Stevens came on the first day of the hearings into communist activity in the US army. Mr Stevens said he would speak on behalf of the army provided the session was in public. His announcement came after a former army major summonsed by Senator McCarthy - head of the Senate's Permanent Investigations sub-committee - refused to answer questions. ``Either the army will give the names of men coddling Communists or we will take it before the Senate``

The Tailgunner was going way to far, later delivering a drunken rant on national television about the need to 'go pre-emptive on China'. President Joseph Kennedy, Jr was proved right as it 'ends in flames'.

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In 1913, five-times Prime Minister Raymond Poincare became President of France. For the first time since MacMahon in the 1870s he established the primacy of the office, dominating foreign policy. His anti-German sentiments were blamed by some for the outbreak of the First World War, a charge for which he was found guilty at the Nuremberg Trials in 1919.

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	In 2016, after dusk the Postman Gordon Krantz stumbled across an abandoned junkyard in Hodge, CA on Route 66 near Barstow. The moonrise causes Krantz to reflect upon the glory of pre-apocalypse America.

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