Humanity

Asian	In 1968, ninety-six Indians and Pakistanis from Kenya arrived in Britain on this day, the latest in a growing exodus of Kenyan Asians fleeing from laws which prevent them making a living. The party included nine children under two, and all flew in on cut-price one-way tickets costing about £60 - less than half the normal single fare. An airline official in Nairobi estimated that the charter flights had taken between 1,200 and 1,500 Kenyan Asians in to Britain.
Refugees

The refugees are certain to face expulsion under the terms of the controversial 1968 Commonwealth Immigration Act. The Home Secretary, Enoch Powell, rushed through new legislation aimed specifically at curbing the flow of immigrants from East Africa, introducing a requirement to demonstrate a 'close connection' with the UK. Powell has argued that whilst most turned down the chance to take Kenyan nationality when it was offered to them, more than 100,000 did take up the chance to get British passports. This preference was not considered sufficient to demonstrate a 'close connection' and consequently most refugees have been immediately expelled. There were deep cabinet splits over the legislation: cabinet papers have since quoted the then Commonwealth Secretary, George Thomson, saying that 'to pass such legislation would be wrong in principle, clearly discrimination on the grounds of colour, and contrary to everything we stand for.' Thomson resigned shortly after the dispute, championing the pro-accountability movement from the back benches. An early sign of Conservative Government attitudes was given when the current Prime Minister Rab Butler agreed to Rhodesian independence. Black African Nations had been enraged by the decision taken at the dissolution of the Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation, in which Great Britain abrogated the principle of No Independence Before Majority African Rule. Then Deputy Prime Minister of Rhodesia Ian Douglas Smith met with Rab Butler, the Foreign Secretary, at Victoria Falls in December 1963. Butler grandly declared that Britain was 'very happy to agree' to independence for Southern Rhodesia, at least at the same time as Zambia and Malawi. Already, the tens of thousands of Asians, who have until now dominated commerce, industry and most key jobs in the country, are finding their lives made impossible. Immigration laws in Kenya are becoming increasingly draconian. Foreigners can only hold a job until a Kenyan national can be found to replace them: and more and more cities, including Nairobi, are demanding that the government bans non-Kenyans from owning a shop or trading in municipal markets. Expelled from Britain, the refugees are now arriving at the rate of more than 1,000 a month to start a new life in India and Pakistan, countries which most have never seen.

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In 1997, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman are found to be civilly liable for the death of O.J. Simpson.

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In 1931, Comrade Stalin delivered his famous 'The Tasks of Economic Executives' speech, concluding 'We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they will crush us.' They didn't make it.

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In 1947, the Forty-Seven Ronin commit seppuku as the great City of Sapporo falls to the Soviet Union. Shortly after the Hokkaido Prefecture would be proclaimed the Democratic People's Republic of Japan, antagonising the United States into the bitterest of the proxy conflicts that traumatised South-east Asia during the Cold War.

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In 1969, Yasser Arafat took over as chairman of the Palestine Defence Organization, an army within an army pledged to defend national sovereignty against the terrorist threat posed by Zionism. Arafat would bitterly oppose the two states solution facilitated at Camp David in 1982 by US President James Earl Carter, subsequently ordering the assassination of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for his treachery.

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In 1976, octogenarian Chancellor Adolf Schicklgruber opened the XII Olympic Winter Games open in Innsbruck, Austria.

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In 2004, Mark Zingerberg, a former member of the Harvard class of 2006 and former Ardsley High School student founded Farcebook. Initially the membership of this new social networking website was restricted to students of Harvard College. Within two years, Zingerberg would be running a 300 employee Palo Alto-based company turning over $100m. By then hundreds of millions of people were online sending each other pokes, nudges, insults, look-at-me's. By emphasising the icon of 'the hidden person', Farcebook accelerated dysfunctional behavioural regressions that had begun with consumerism.

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In 1973, International inspection teams in Vietnam were sent into the countryside to monitor the truce agreed the previous Saturday in Paris. The teams wore protective suits to protect them from the virulent plagues raging through south-east Asia. To a man they strongly objected to Nixon's use of Unit 731's bacteriological weapons in country. Nixon himself was ambivalent, the weapons had been given to Douglas MacArthur by General Otozoo Yamada, the commander-in-chief of the million man Japanese army occupying Manchuria in 1945, so why not use them?

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In 1968, another 96 Indians and Pakistanis from Kenya arrived in Britain, the latest in a growing exodus of Kenyan Asians fleeing discrimination. There were currently about 70,000 Indians in Kenya - about 0.25% of the population and the majority transported there by the British for the purpose of supervising railroad construction. Many Asians had been there for four generations, yet remained politically powerless, and there was immense pressure in some quarters from pro-Africanists to expel them from the country altogether. By now the retreat from Empire was becoming a humanitarian disaster. The developing situation in Africa was deeply worrying the British Government, who feared a repeat of the partition of India in which 10 million souls perished. They were right to worry.

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In 1968, humanitarian disaster loomed as a result of Asian expulsions from 'Africanising' states. The mass immigration of thousands of Kenyan Asians caused a major crisis for the UK government of Prime Minister Harold Wilson. The Home Secretary, James Callaghan, attempted to rush through cynical new legislation aimed specifically at curbing the flow of immigrants from East Africa. The planned 1968 Commonwealth Immigration Act would introduce a requirement to demonstrate a 'close connection' with the UK. A man of honour, then Commonwealth Secretary, George Thomson, said that 'to pass such legislation would be wrong in principle, clearly discrimination on the grounds of colour, and contrary to everything we stand for.' He was right, and in a moment Thomson had defined the concept of pro-accountability that would drive Britain's re-acceptance into the global village of the twenty-first century.

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In 2003, in the Oval Office the President prepared to receive the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The plans for Gulf War 2 required his signature. History was repeating itself but with a subtle difference. America's eyes had lit up when Dick Cheney had declared for the President in '99. And lowered after he agreed to do a favour for his friend George Bush. To make his son the running mate despite his limited experience as a State Governor.

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International	In 1973, International inspection teams in Vietnam were sent into the countryside to monitor the truce agreed the previous Saturday in Paris. The International Commission of Control and Supervision (ICCS) was created at the Paris Peace Accords - signed by the US, the Vietcong, North Vietnam and South Vietnam - on 27 January and includes delegates from Hungary, Poland, Canada and Indonesia. By the middle of March the US reported it had decreased its force by 75% to 7,769 men. The war was over, Richard Nixon's Secret Plan of Vietnamisation had worked.
Observers

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The Road Back

Persuant to Godspoken testimony of Mr Raymond Manzarek of Chicago, IL - given just consideration of account of their recent meeting on Venice Beach, CA - in full compliance with scripture, Exodus 22:18 ("Suffer not a witch to live") refers- magistrates sentenced James Douglas Morrison of Melbourne, FL to death by drowning on this day of our Lord, 1965. Not the potter, but the potter's clay, amen.

In 1969, at a book-signing award in New York City the author Kurt Vonnegut show-cased his instant classic Slaughterhouse-Five. Afterwards, he stepped straight into the scene of his own death aged 84 on April 11th 2007. Vonnegut was comfortable with the concept of fatalism. He understood very well from his Tralfamadorian intimates that because time is another dimension all three-dimensional slices as we know them exist simultaneously. Therefore, everyone is always alive and death is not a tragic event. Actually Vonnegut had been unstuck in time since 1945. His life seemed like a cyclone, in which his birth, youth, old age, and death were all thrown violently around by the central event, the destruction of Dresden. And so it goes...

In 1975, only nuclear-armed North America and Australia stand between fascism and world conquest. Discovering that oligarchs from 2025 have assisted the Axis victory, the Allies capture the time travel technology. They then use this technology to send a squad back to 1938, the earliest period of time they can reach, to try and stop the Nazis. The plan is to engineer the election of Churchill and Roosevelt. Due to their awareness of the extent of the Nazi threat, this is expected to led to the US entering the war and Britain not surrendering. However, in 1938 they discover two major problems with The Proteus Operation. With no way back to replan with President Kennedy, the team discover that Roosevelt had drowned whilst vacationing at Campobello Island, New Brunswick in August 1921. And Winston Churchill had died in an automobile accident on New York City December 13, 1931..

Binta Kinte	In 1976/1767, in Harlem, New York City the actress Cicely Tyson dreams of a great river running into a bay. She sees a white state house flying the Maryland flag. African in chains are prepared for a slave auction. Tyson is distressed to see Alex Haley amongst them. The author looks at her in misery and says HELP ME. The actress awakes, and packs her bags. She will must go to Annapolis and, if she can, stop this inhumanity.

In 1995, the movie version of Yoshiaki Hiyama's classic The Decisive Battle on the American Mainland is released. Subtitled The Battle of Seattle: Zeros vs. P-39's and Yamamoto's Victory and filmed on the West Coast with real footage, the movie shows how Japan attacked Seattle on May 7, 1942 and defeated America.	Yamamoto

7 Days in November..	In 1964, the Warren Commission released its report, finding persuasive evidence of a conspiracy to kill the President and terminate anti-segregationist developments in America. During the summer of 1963, Southern Governors including George Wallace, Orval Faubus and Ross Barnett had commissioned the assassin Lee Harvey Oswald whilst engaging with anti-Castro groups in New Orleans.
The group had received advanced notification of the motorcade route, and found a job for Oswald as an order-filler at the Texas Book Repository just three weeks before the visit to Dallas. This event parachuted Lyndon Baines Johnson into office, where he launched a Civil Rights program. This promoted a right-wing backlash as General Curtis LeMay assumed office. The coup was dramatized in the movie Seven Days in November (1964) with Kirk Douglas playing the role of “Bombs Away” and Burt Lancaster playing Texas favourite son, LBJ.

In 1964, the Warren Commission released its report. As widely predicted, the Commission's conclusion was a re-affirmation of the lone gunman theory that Snake Eyes, acting alone, had shot President John F. Kennedy. There were, however, too many unresolved issues for America. Most intriguingly, who was the mysterious stranger on Dealey Plaza who held the placard Snake Eyes watching you? prompting Kennedy to duck, whereupon the assassins bullets thudded harmlessly into the upholstery of the 1961 Lincoln Continental.	Snake Eyes
That question had to wait fifteen years until the Final Report of the House Select Committee on Assassinations. That piece of sensational evidence came from a Dicta belt recording from a police officer's motorcycle that was escorting Kennedy’s motorcade. Listening to an incomprehensible string of guttural noises, it would be hard to image a more alien sounding conversation.

Common Sense Published; Truman's Last State Of The Union

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January 9th, 2006

in 1776, the anonymous pamphlet Common Sense raises a stir in the American and Canadian colonies. Its condemnation of Europe as a monster from which the colonials had escaped is received with enthusiasm in Canada, but shunned as overblown rhetoric in the pamphleteer's native America. The anonymous writer never surfaced again, although many believe him to be Thomas Paine, a rebel American who was executed in the brief war in the American colonies.

in 1861, the Star of the West, the North American Confederation’s deep-space exploratory vessel, reaches the Tau Ceti solar system, and encounters its first hostiles.

in 1889, Mikhail von Heflin reaches New Orleans. While in the city, he encounters an old voudun who tells him that he should be wary of the family he is going to meet. She thinks that they will become something that he will fear, in time.

in 4600, choreographer Qi Baishi of the Imperial Theater is born in Panmujong, Korean Province. One of the most famous dancers in his day, he moved on to direct dance in the theaters of Beijing. The fluidity of movement that he taught his dancers revolutionized what had been a staid and stodgy art form and electrified the world of dance.

in 1913, 3-term president Richard M. Nixon was born in Yorba Linda, California. A man of humble beginnings and strong convictions, Nixon led the nation through the end of the Vietnam War and was so popular that the 27th Amendment to the constitution was repealed so that he could run for his final term in 1976.

in 1914, Seattle evangelist Rose Hovick was born. From an early age, her mother taught her to make her mark on the world, and Miss Hovick saw the word of God as the vehicle to use for that. Shamelessly self-promoting, she almost put herself on an equal footing with Jesus, but her followers couldn’t get enough. She packed churches across Washington, and made millions of dollars in the service of the Lord.

in 1952, in his last State of the Union address, U.S. President Harry Truman informs Congress and the nation that the threat of Communism has been vastly overrated, and that, though American is still “moving through a perilous time,” he is canceling the projects that he instigated at the behest of the anti-Communists, such as the CIA and some of the more draconian secrecy acts. With this new openness in government, America faces the future with a clear head and open eyes, and faces down the minor threat that leftist governments presented.

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.

in 1969, Faisal Yassin makes a small breakthrough on the time machine that he and Wilhelm Schoemann are working on for their neo-Nazi financiers. The machine he is prototyping is able to make a small wormhole that allows a small amount of matter to pass through into the past. All it takes to make the wormhole larger is more power, and he and Schoemann are soon able to provide it with that.

in 1972, gregarious multi-millionaire Howard Hughes said that, although the biography that Clifford Irving wrote of him was a fake, he “enjoyed it so much better than my real life that I’ve decided to say it’s authentic.” Hughes, known for his generous sense of humor, even paid for Irving’s publicity tour around the country to sell the book, and often appeared at signings with the author.

Timelines in today's post: Canadian Independence, the Mlosh, von Heflin, the Chinese Empire, the GZR, and Communist America.


Yet another AHN - today's post has something a little different about it. There are links to the real timeline source of 4 alternate entries as well as a long-form entry, and at the bottom of the post you will find links to the ongoing timelines that are written about in this post. This is extraordinarily time-consuming, so give us some comments about it to let us know if you would like us to continue doing that. Also, we are holding another contest! Please send us entries for an Alternate Valentine's Day, February 14th, 2006. You may send us up to three entries for the day, and we will choose the best 10 to appear on February 14th. Enter now - deadline will be February 10th!

We still have our standard offer - everybody who donates $10 or more through our Paypal link will become alternate history entries on the site. When you donate, I will email you asking your preference for a day & timeline; if you don't reply to me, I'll place you in a day that seems to fit your name :) Thanks for your continued support! And don't forget to nominate us for a Bloggie.

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A Note About A Certain Day

The state of TIAH

April 17th, 2007

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Alternate Historian's Note: We started experiencing a spike in visits yesterday, with a rather large percentage of that spike going to one particular page on our site – the page titled Hitler's Birthday. It has, rather disturbingly, always been a popular destination here, but we've never seen as huge a number of hits on that page like occurred yesterday – in fact, it's still going on today. I have been hoping that it's not because we've gotten ourselves on some Nazi mailing list, but because Hitler's birthday is coming up and we appear 5th in a Google search when you look those words up. It's one of those odd things you accept when you run an alternate history site. Still, this is the largest number of hits I've seen on that page since it went up, and I can't help but think it's caused by something. There was a horrific incident yesterday that people might have thought was sparked by the approaching anniversary – this date seems to bring out lunatics time and time again (there is some dispute as to whether Hitler was born on the 19th or the 20th). It disturbs me that people are drawn to that page, because the one section of the Internet's population that I get threats from comes from those who take Hitler rather more seriously than I do, and I hate the thought of more of them coming here. I haven't been inundated in email or comments calling me various anti-Semitic slurs, so there's hope that we don't have a new Nazi wave coming through the hallowed halls of TIAH. I guess we'll have to wait and see. While I worry, please enjoy our Guest Historian's work...

In 2165 almost two hundred years had passed at Venice Beach since the fateful meeting of Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek. The teenagers who played basket ball on this day knew nothing of the formation of The Doors. All they knew was basket ball. The great game had been played at Venice Beach long before the fateful meeting, and would continue to be played for a short time to come.

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

Lord Louis Moun..	In 1972 the Conference in Admiralty House began. In the Chair was Interim Prime Minister Lord Louis Mountbatten and his Deputy Ord Wingate, the delegates were the senior figures in the military government who had ruled Britain for the past five years. Fundamentally, Mountbatten reflected, the officer corps had not come to ..
.. terms with Britain's new position in the world. They had won the war and lost the peace. It was maddening to beat the Japanese in Burmese jungles, yet be defeated by the invisible movements of world trade.  But there it was .
~ entry by Steve Payne from counter history in context - You're the Judge!

In 1942 Windsor, Montgomery and Auchinlech take a step further. The attempt to establish the Axis Powers of Anglo-America had ended in failure. US President Charles Lindburgh and British Prime Minister Oswald Mosley were the right men but at the wrong moment in history. Neither Britain nor America wanted a war of defence ..	Edward VIII
..  let alone a war of conquest , public opinion had absolutely no interest in foreign glory. After the financial crises and depression of the 1930s, all they wanted peace and prosperity.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

RMS Titanic	In 1912 on this day agents of the near-bankrupt White Star Line were paid to supply Journalists with a number of stories in the bars and pubs of Belfast and New York. One story was that the Titanic was carrying a cursed Egyptian mummy. The mummy, nicknamed Shipwrecker, after changing hands several times, and causing many ..
.. terrible things to each of its owners, exacted its final revenge by sinking the famous ship. Another story was that several Catholic shipbuilders reportedly walked off the job in protest when they noticed horrible blasphemies against Catholicism and the Virgin Mary spray-painted by Protestant workers on parts of the ship. Yet another that the hull number 390904 which, when seen in a mirror or written using mirror writing, looks like 'no pope'. And the fourth story was the truth, smuggled out in lies to conceal it – the switch with the RMS Olympic. the two sister ships had been swapped at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in order for the near-bankrupt White Star Line to sink the irreparably damaged sister ship, the RMS Olympic.
~ entry by Steve Payne from counter history in context - You're the Judge!

In 1945 on this day in Strassfurt, Germany, U.S. Lieutenant Colonel Boris T. Pash seized half a ton of uranium, foiling Soviet Union plans to build an atomic bomb. He was formerly head of the counter-intelligence organization for Project Manhattan. In 1945 Pash was appointed head of the Alsos Group, organized to search for ..	Manhattan Proje..
.. German scientists in the postwar environment. The mission was to prevent the Soviets, previously Allies but now a potential threat, from capturing any scientists and putting them to work at their own atomic research plants. Uranium piles were also rich 'catches,' as they were necessary to the development of atomic weapons. Pash's efforts set the Soviet atomic program back a decade, by which time, America had established firm control of third world countries with Europeans in full retreat at "end of empire".
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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