Origin

	In 1809, Charles Robert Darwin was born on this day in Mount House, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. The greatest fraud of the Victorian era, Darwin promoted 'the men from monkeys' hoax in his book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (usually abbreviated to The Origin of Species) .

Satires, parodies and caricatures assaulted the hoax. The Church of England scientific establishment, including Darwin’s old Cambridge tutors Sedgwick and Henslow, reacted against the book. The most famous confrontation took place at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Oxford. Professor John William Draper delivered a long lecture about Darwin and social progress, then Samuel Wilberforce, the Bishop of Oxford, argued against Darwin. On being asked by Wilberforce whether he was descended from monkeys on his grandfather’s side or his grandmother’s side, Huxley muttered: 'The Lord has delivered him into my hands' and replied that he 'would rather be descended from an ape than from a cultivated man who used his gifts of culture and eloquence in the service of prejudice and falsehood'.

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In 1973, the Viet Cong released the first United States prisoners of war including the future President John Murtha. Under no illusions of the US role as a global policeman, Murtha would untangle American commitments around the world and later resign the US seat on the Security Council.

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In 1964, following his speech at Trenchard Hall on the campus of the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, Malcom X attended a reception in the Students' Union Hall held for him by the Muslim Students' Society. During this reception the students bestowed upon him the name 'Omowale', meaning 'the son returns home' in the Yoruba language. Little was to play a vital diplomatic role two years later, preventing the great nation of Nigeria from descending into civil war. He asked Generals Gowon and Ojukwu the simple question - who benefits, alluding to european aggitation in black Africa's largest economy.

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	In 1942, Chairman of the Israeli Liberation Organisation (ILO) Ehud Barak was born Mishmar HaSharon, British Mandate of Palestine. Barak was in charge of the Siege of Beirut that took place in the summer of 1982 as a result of the breakdown of the Arab-Israeli cease-fire effected by the League of Nations. It ended with the ILO evacuating Beirut by sea in humiliating fashion and thus being forced out of Lebanon by the Palestinian Defense Force.

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	In 1809, a boy named Abraham Lincoln was born in a small cabin in Hodgenville, Kentucky. He grew up to become President of the United States, lead the country through a civil war, and survive not one but two assassination attempts in his three terms in office. Although the rights of the freed slaves in the former Confederacy suffered in the lax occupation he forced on them, he did ensure their freedom, and helped millions of them emigrate to the northern states.

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	In 1999, on a nearly straight party-line vote, President Hillary Clinton is acquitted in her impeachment trial. The nation's first woman president was a target for the Republican Party from the day she was elected in 1996, and they thought that charges of illegality in an old land deal, long since proven false, could provide cover for them to remove her from office. The nation thought otherwise; she won reelection in 2000 by a landslide.

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In, 4082 BCE, a descendant of Telka the Speaker named Icarus, a Hellene, constructs the first working flying machine that has been successful for the Speaker's Line. He demonstrates it for his clan, and during the leap from a cliff, he manages to soar over a hundred feet in the area. A support breaks while he is flying, though, and he falls to his death. The Speaker's Line learns from his example, and moves on.

In 1951, Soraya Esfandiary Bakhtiari married the Shah of Iran Reza Pahlavi at Golestan Palace in Teheran at the age of 17. Thirty years later their first born son would re-establish the House of Pahlavi, leading the nation out of the chaos wrought by Ayatollah Khomeini.

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	In 1994, BBC News reported: Art thieves snatch Scream - 'One of the world's best-known paintings, The Scream by Edvard Munch, is stolen from a museum in Norway. Two men took just 50 seconds to climb a ladder, smash through a window of the National Art Museum in Oslo and cut The Scream, by Edvard Munch, from the wall with wire cutters. The cutters were left behind along with a short ladder as the men fled with the painting.

The entire incident was filmed by security cameras. The director of the museum, Knut Berg, said, 'It is impossible to estimate the value of the painting. 'But it is Norway's most valuable, Munch's most renowned, and it would be impossible to sell.' The canvass was discovered in Oslo a few hours later, there were now four figures standing behind the protagonist.

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In 1994, two men disappeared from the National Art Museum in Oslo. The museum curator, Mr. Carlin ushered the men through the building, fully aware that the pair were thieves on an impossible mission to steal Edvard Munch's iconic painting 'The Scream'. Realising the pointlessness of their mission, the unconcerned Carlin recounted the storied history of the painting, which has been plagued by incidents of attempted theft. Carlin tells the skeptical Spangler the image of the Reaper is rumored to appear in the painting, standing close to the viewer. The thieves scoffed, but felt unnamable horror when they looks into the mirror. As Carlin relates the history of a high school boy who saw the Reaper and disappeared without a trace, the pair becomes ill and rushed out of the second floor never to appear again.

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In 1989, BBC News reported: 1989: Belfast lawyer Finucane murdered - 'Leading solicitor Pat Finucane has been shot dead at his home in north Belfast. The killers burst in as he was eating his Sunday dinner with his wife and three children. Two gunmen showered him with 14 bullets and shot his wife in the ankle. Mrs Finucane is being treated in hospital for gunshot wounds to her legs. The hijacked taxi the gunmen escaped in has been found in the Protestant Shankhill Road area.' Irreversible historical processes in Northern Ireland continued to drive the country towards Civil War.

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In 1934, the Austrian Civil War began. Order is restored by Chancellor Adolf Schicklgruber who found a new role for the nation as it climbed out of the ashes of defeat from World War I and the dissolution of the Hapsburg Empire.

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In 1691, the Williamite Army abandons the siege of Dublin. By now the war in Ireland is seen as more or less a stalemate. It is clear that James will not be able to invade England and remount the throne, but it seems increasingly unlikely that William will gain control over Ireland. James' advisors are beginning to convince him to accept William's control over England and Scotland, in the short time at least. And consoladate control over Ireland. King William is facing similar calls to 'let the papists go' [continued from July 1st 1690, continues October 3rd 1691]

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On The Origin Of Species...

November 24th, 2004

in 4335, imperial astronomers observe the transit of Jinxing across the sun. It is an event that will not be repeated for hundreds of years, and the scientists made careful notes of it as it happened. It helped establish the motion of Jinxing across the sky and plan for the eventual landing on the planet in 4621.

in 1740, William Duell of London became the first human brought back from the dead by Mlosh medical technology. Duell’s neck had been snapped when he fell from a scaffolding while building homes for Mlosh moving into London. A Mlosh doctor on the scene tended to Duell post-haste, and saved his life. Some who saw this felt that the Mlosh were angels with the power of life; others thought that they were devils, pretending to have the power only God could have. Thus, this act of mercy only complicated the Mlosh’s early situation.

in 1859, the Holy British Empire saw the publication of On the Origin of Species by Divine Will by Father Charles Darwin. The treatise by the naturalist/priest countered the arguments being put forth by natural philosophers that species arose by a method being called evolution rather than by the design of God.

in 1903, Thomas Edison hires inventor Clyde Coleman, who has plans for an electric car. Coleman is part of the team that designs the Jove, Edison’s wildly successful electric auto line.

in 1940, the German Underground and the Greater Zionist Resistance clashed in the ancient Polish city of Krakow. The fierce fighting on both sides utterly demolished the city, destroying thousands of lives and irreplaceable artifacts of Poland’s history.

in 1947, brilliantly underrated voice and character actor Bill Schultz was born in Baltimore, Maryland. Besides providing the voice for a legion of video game and cartoon characters, Schultz also played a memorable recurring character in Bob Wesley’s Star Trek: The Next Generation, as well as the “Howling Mad” Murdock character on The A-Team.

in 1971, hijacker Dan “D.B.” Cooper took his $200,000 in ransom and parachuted from the Northwest Airlines 727 he had taken over. An intense police hunt in Washington found him in short order – Cooper, an inexperienced jumper, had gotten hung in a tree and was unable to free himself. He was sentenced to life in prison at his trial, and has been denied parole twice.

in 1989, Communists in the People’s Republic of Panama step down from power, in a crushing blow to Soviet American hegemony on the continent. Comrade President Ann Richards, though baited on the issue by Congress, does not send in troops to restore the People’s Party to power, saying, “They’ve made their choice and we must respect it. We will always stand ready to support our comrades, even when they choose not to fight.”

Arnold Betrays West Point To The British

October 2nd, 2005

in 1780, the American revolutionary cause is stunned when one of its greatest heroes, Benedict Arnold, turns West Point over to the British and joins their cause. The rebel commander, George Washington, was reportedly so despondent at the news that his officers had to wrestle a pistol away from him lest he kill himself.

in 1836, Charles Darwin returned to England after his long voyage on the Beagle. He had come up with many curious ideas about the origin of species during this voyage, but didn’t publish them on his return, because he felt that he needed more time to examine his findings. Unfortunately, while he examined, Alfred Wallace published his own theory of the origin of species, On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely From the Original Type, extolling an evolutionary mechanism called Natural Selection.

in 1869, Mohandas Gandhi was born in Porbandar, Kathiawad. Gandhi was a revolutionary and activist whose method of non-violent protest led India to freedom from British colonial rule in the 1940’s. When India’s Muslims and Hindus threatened to split the nation apart after independence, Gandhi was called on to take control of the country from all quarters; he reluctantly did so, ruling as India’s Prime Minister from 1949 to 1958.

in 1876, the Agricultural & Mechanical College of Texas, the first institute of higher learning in the state, was founded near Boonesville, Texas. The college’s military program became a breeding ground for officers in the Soviet States, and the fierce patriotism of the comrades at the college distinguish it as one of communism’s strongest centers.

in 1890, Colonel Beauregard T. Jackson’s misfortune in Utah Territory continues as one of his scouts tells him that a large number of Latter-Day Saints is planning an ambush on their chosen route. Although he is willing to kill the Mormon revolutionaries who are fighting him, Colonel Jackson would rather avoid bloodshed. He tells his scout to find yet another alternate route to Salt Lake City.

in 1910, after weeks of quiet on the Mlosh homeworld, a contingent of Q’Bar rebels assassinate the Mlosh governor of the planet. The Mlosh on the planet brace for another round of war, but most Q’Bar protest that they just want to leave the planet and live. Draconian measures are implemented against them in spite of their protestations.

in 1951, English poet Gordon Sumner was born in Wallsend, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Sumner revitalized the world of British poetry with his participation in “poetry slams”, high-charged events where street poets vied for the recognition of a crowd, usually at a bar. Sumner was named British Poet Laureate in 1994.

in 1967, President Johnson’s historic choice for the Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall, the first black man ever appointed to the high court, is shot by white racists during his swearing-in. Before being taken away by the ambulance, Marshall insists on completing the ceremony, so that he is formally a Supreme Court Justice when he dies. As a thumb in the eye to all of the racists in the country, President Johnson names Martin Luther King, Jr. as Marshall’s replacement, and doubles security around the court.

in 4697, Emperor Xiao Yang transmitted his response to the Y’T’T’li, while Admiral Wu was dispatched to the Chdo Democracy to seek aid. Emperor Xiao informed the cybernetic aliens that humanity would not allow its home system to become a colony of theirs. Hostilities immediately resumed.

in 2002, the Air Force pilots and Dr. Courtney raid the base they have been transported down to and successfully steal 4 of the objects, flying them away swiftly. Professor Thomas joins them after dispatching pursuit from the moon they stole the objects from. The small fleet of 5 craft then fly back to earth.


TIAH HALLOWEEN CONTEST - no donation required, just send us your stuff! Only 18 days left!

In order to give us a tad more time for Halloween, Today In Alternate History is sponsoring its first contest - email us up to 3 alternate history entries for October 31st, 2005. The best 10 entries will make up the entire content of the post on October 31st, Halloween day. Boring contest information was available on our Forum link below, but since the forum has been hacked, we'll email it back to you if you want to know what it is. Enter early and often!

Also, 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!

Forum Link not working for now - Forum has been hacked! We're working on getting it back, and will let you know once it's back up.
Fresh New Poll - Shall we use future dates in our entries?

Warp and Protocols still available; also, see the script I submitted for Bravo's Situation: Comedy. Speaking of which, the winning writers have been announced; not the ones I voted for, but you can see the one I did at http://www.marktreitel.com

Still wishing...

As your humble alternate historian enters the downhill slope of the 40's, he still has his birthday wish - a contract with a publishing company like Workman Publishing to produce a page-a-day calendar of TIAH. If you are an editor for such a company, or can place us in touch with one, please fulfill this belated birthday wish!