Mother's Day

The state of TIAH

March 13th, 2007

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Alternate Historian's Note: In 14 days, we'll hit TIAH's third anniversary. As before, that calls for a contest! Please send in your alternate versions of the Academy's beginnings (May 27th, 2004 was the date in this timeline). You can even use the fact that we lost the original day and had to restart on the 28th – whatever you can think of to provide a twist to our start. Send 'em in, and we'll print 'em! Be sure to tell us how you want your credit for the post to appear, as well as any links you want to be connected with your entry. Thanks for reading and get researching those alternate timelines!

in 1877, Julia Ward Howe's first Mother's Day Protest against war draws crowds around the nation as various Mother's Clubs hold rallies in support of pacifism. Howe, herself, organizes the rally in Washington, DC, where over 10,000 women and male supporters of her Mother's Club march in support of an elimination of war. The Mother's Club concept spreads across the world, as women exercise their moral authority as the creators of life to convince their respective nations to give up fighting and embrace non-violent resolutions to conflicts. Howe is looked on today as a savior, having ended war in the 19th century.

in 1891, Major Mark Wainwright leads another stab into Kansas from Nebraska, testing the defenses of a new fort near Concordia. The fort repels them, but Wainwright reports back to Colonel Theodore Monteith that the fort is ripe for a full-scale assault. Monteith assembles a force of almost 3000 men and places them at Wainwright's disposal. The Kansans, for their part, send reinforcements to Concordia to see if they can trap the Unionists with hopes of finding a weakened fort.

in 1999, Queen Gwen arrives in London to stand trial for treason against the king at the same time that Sir Lance du Lac returns from the Swiss front to confront King Arthur about what he considers a travesty. “Sire, you cannot possibly believe that the queen has been aiding the enemy,” Arthur's chief knight implores. “The queen is as loyal to you as I am.” Arthur, clearly miserable about his queen, allows du Lac's words to sway him. “Speak to her, Lance,” he asks du Lac, “find out why she tried to divert my attention away from the war.” Sir Lance immediately goes to the Queen's cell in the Tower of London and asks her to answer the charges against her. “Brave Sir Lance,” she says to him, “thank you so much for your confidence in me. Would that my own husband had the same. These charges are ludicrous, of course – all I wanted for Arthur was rest from the stresses of this grave conflict. You can understand that, can't you, Lance?” She touches his hand, which startles him. He doesn't move away, though. “I will do everything within my power to free you, my lady.” She smiles and squeezes his hand softly. “I know you will.”

In 2367, in an attempt to prevent the destruction of humanity by the Eqbas Vorhi, African delegates to the United Nations seek bilateral talks with the wess'har. It is explained that the extreme measures on Bezer'ej were taken unilaterally by aggressive Europeans, and these actions were not representative.

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

In 1956, as US Special Envoy Adlai Stevenson approached the road block in Alabama, he smiled to put the League of Nations soldier at ease. Papieren, he says; no bitte - but he was no more unfriendly than any other German demanding an American's travel permit. Tension was running high; many doubted the break-away nation would see in the centennial. And that was why the German troops were here now, failing to keep the peace in the bitter racial conflict that was destroying the Confederacy. US President Joseph P Kennedy had sent Stevenson to Alabama to find a solution; Stevenson suspected that Kennedy wanted the eleven southern states to rejoin the Union – it was his Southern Strategy.

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

Hamelin	In 1947, Maryland Senator Millard Tydings read an extract from Robert Browning's poem 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin'. In 1284, the town of Hamelin was suffering from a dreaded rat infestation. One day, a man claiming to be a rat-catcher approached the villagers with a solution. They promised him a schilling for the head of each ..
.. rat. The man accepted and thus took a pipe and lured the rats with a song into the Weser river, where all 999,999 drowned. Despite his success, the people reneged on their promise and refused to pay the rat-catcher, on the basis that he had failed to produce the heads of the rats (which were, of course, still attached to their bodies in the river). The man left the town without argument, but returned several weeks later seeking revenge. While the inhabitants were in the church, he played his pipe again, this time attracting the children of Hamelin. One hundred and thirty boys and girls followed him out of the town, where they were lured into a cave and sealed inside. Depending on the version, at most two children remained behind. Other versions claim that the Piper returned the children after the villagers paid several times the original amount of gold.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1989, in London Security Forces storm Hyde Park and seize the Goddess of Democracy. Mass arrest are made. A symbolic photograph is taken of a bicycle crushed under a tank. A memorial depicting the destroyed bicycle and a tank-track, symbol of the Hyde Park protests, was later built in the Russian city of Moscow where democracy had ruled since 1905.	A memorial depi..
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Blessed Virgin	In 1917, three peasant children see the Blessed Virgin Mary near Fatima, Portugal. Three secrets are revealed to Lúcia dos Santos and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto. The third secret was suppressed until 2000 because it was so explosive. In 1919, the demon Azâzêl had been trapped and sealed by Maestro inside Michelangelo ..
.. Buonarroti's Last Judgement painting over the altar of the Sistine Chapel. That act brought to an end the human tragedy known as the great war. There was a simple reason for the release of the secret text during 2000. A patient observer could have seen the small image of a goat as it moved over many years towards the corner of the frame inside a remote corner of the painting. Put bluntly, by the year 2000, Azâzêl had escaped.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1940, Queen Wilhelmina fled the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands; Princess Juliana attempted to take her children to Canada for their safety. Burning with anger over Wilhelmina's decision to handover Kaiser Wilhelm II for Allied Justice and subsequent execution in Berlin, Nazi vengeance was brutal. It ..	Queen of the Ne..
.. was the final and bitterest act in the long reversal of the Versailles Peace Settlement, as the counter-revolutionaries set the clock back to 1914. Following the French surrender in the same rail carriage as the Imperial German capitulation, the Dutch royal family were executed en mass in Berlin on the same scaffolding used for the Kaiser in 1920.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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Witness To A Miracle

June 1st, 2007

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The Announcement

in 1891, General Theodore Monteith attacks Topeka, Kansas, plowing into the city from the west, easily driving the few defenders out of his way. However, as the last of his column entered the city, he was surrounded by the superior numbers of the Kansan reinforcements, and started fighting a desperate battle against overwhelming odds. As the sun set on Topeka, Monteith had suffered almost 4,000 casualties, and 'Sockless' Jerry Simpson called again for his surrender. Monteith read Simpson's demand at the same time that a messenger brought him the news he had been waiting for. “It would be imprudent for me to surrender at this time,” Monteith wrote back to Simpson, “when rescue is just at hand.” As Simpson read this, panic broke out in the back of the Kansan lines – Colonel Mark Wainwright was arriving at Topeka with 30,000 militiamen drawn from the states surrounding Kansas, and was obliterating the rebels who stood between him and his commanding officer. By midnight, Simpson and the rest of the Farmers Council were forced to abandon Topeka and move west with their wounded soldiers.

in 1999, King Arthur II, with victory sounding her trumpet on every front, retires to the Welsh countryside for a few days to rest from his grueling schedule. Queen Gwen accompanies him, as does the psychiatrist, Dr. Archibald Mordred. Dr. Mordred has a fresh supply of Brightol for the king, which he has started taking in ever-increasing doses; he attributes all his recent success to the confidence that the drug has given him. It is in the euphoric state induced immediately after taking the drug that Queen Gwen tells Arthur, “My beloved majesty, I have news even greater than our war fortunes to tell you. You shall have an heir.” Arthur is overcome with happiness at the news of his queen's pregnancy, and they plan the announcement to the nation together. As Queen Gwen prepares for bed, though, Dr. Mordred approaches her and asks to speak with her privately. She sends her servants away, and asks, “What is it that you wish to say, doctor?” The psychiatrist hesitantly begins, “Your Majesty, I have access to all of the king's medical records. It's never come up before, of course – I mean, he's only been king for a year, after all – but...” The queen impatiently demands that the doctor get whatever he plans to say out. “Well, Your Majesty, the king... he's sterile. He cannot have children.” The queen regards him coldly for a moment, then says, “Then, you have been witness to a miracle, doctor. And you shall not speak of this again.” Mordred withdraws from her withering presence, conflicted as to what he should do next.

In 1955, the Indochina War neared its end in Vietnam, and the French Union offered to surrender to the United States. The British, eager to keep the Chinese out of the Gulf of Tonkin, urged President Stevenson to accept. A month later, a small American force steamed into Saigon. At the Paris Peace Conference, America accepted a League of Nations Mandate over Vietnam. General of the Armies Dwight David Eisenhower commanded American forces.

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

In 1941, the author Robert Heinlein completed a thirteen-hour marathon writing session to complete his latest story By His Bootstraps. He did not see the circle grow and was unable to prevent the stranger throwing them both through it. Recovering, he asked the stranger where they were. "In the Hall of the Gate in the High Palace of Norkaal. But what is more important is when you are. You have gone forward a little more than thirty thousand years."

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

William Westmor..	In 1988, on this day William Westmoreland published his auto-biographical work Chunnel : No End of a Lesson. The book gave a somewhat one-sided account of the Channel Tunnel Crisis of 1982. The casus belli was English Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's decision to nationalize the Channel Tunnel, refusing to pay financial ..
.. compensation to the Confederate States of America who had built and paid for it. President Westmoreland ordered CS 101st Airborne Division to scramble from their bases on the Rhine and march to Sangatte to seize back the Confederate property. The background was quite simple; fundamentally England was a bankrupt nation. When Westmoreland had decided not to bankroll the north sea oil field development program, he had inadvertently pushed the Iron Lady into a corner from which she chose to come out fighting. Whilst England was ultimately defeated at Sangatte, the peace settlement included development funding for the North Sea and Thatcher became a cause célèbre and rallying point for European nationalists. You could say the Confederacy had won the battle and lost the war.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1760, a terrible silence reigned across the great continent of Europe. For various reasons of molecular biology that were unrealised at the time, the plague known as the Red Death came out of China decimating the Caucasoid. The great cities of Europe were choke with the dead, each with the crimson kiss upon the neck. Yet ..	Caucasian Map, ..
.. a few survived, and their deliverance was at hand. The wise know that God helps those that help themselves. And so it was in 1760. All the survivors had to do was to figure out how they had survived. What was their connection? And more importantly, how could they issue forth survivor infants?
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Kaspar Hauser	In 1828, Maestro arrived in Nuremberg to seek the mysterious feral child Kaspar Hauser. Discovered wandering the streets of Nuremberg, Hauser was wearing peasant clothing and could barely talk. He said that he had spent most of his life in a darkened 2×1×1.5 metre cell with only a straw bed to sleep on and a horse carved ..
.. out of wood for a toy. He was given nothing but bread and water, and was periodically drugged so that his clothes could be changed and his hair cut. The first human being he ever had contact with was a mysterious man who visited him on occasion, always taking great care not to reveal his face to Kaspar, and from whom the boy acquired his limited spoken vocabulary and learned to write his name. The stranger eventually released Kaspar from his cell and deposited him outside, where he fainted. His next memory was of wandering the streets of Nuremberg.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 2008, on Prince of Wales Boulevard, Phase 2 building works were moving very slowly. Which was surprising when you pause to consider that the construction crew were working like demons. In a low-key way, it registered on his mind that somehow, things were not quite what they seemed.	Welding
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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Fear and Loathing

T.E. Lawrence	In 1918, the regular forces of British Commanding Officer General Edmund Allenby defeated the remaining Turkish Army in Palestine. A final and conclusive strike at the Battle of Megiddo in September 1918 left the road to Damascus open. By the time Allenby arrived Colonel T.E. Lawrence and the Arabs were already installed. With Lawrence translating Allenby attempted to deliver the message to Prince Feisal that his newly-appointed Arab government would not be recognized and the city was to be handed over to the French. Both Lawrence and Feisal reacted angrily to Western duplicity. The irregular troops that had pursued the Arab Revolt against the Turks now set their sights on the British and French, and their fury was very great indeed.
Arabist

After this fateful meeting Allenby asked his commander for leave and returned to England a broken man. Allenby was promoted to Field Marshal and later served as Britain's High Commissioner in Egypt from 1919 to 1925. He outlived Lawrence by one year.

~ quotation by Steve Payne

In 1922, volunteer troops of the Empire Legion reinforced the Anglo-French garrison at Çanakkale, the narrowest point of the Dardanelles. Not only was the Greek Army in full retreat from Smyrna, but the Chanak Incident was about to kick off big time. Having just replaced Lloyd George's war-time coaliton government, incoming British Prime Minister Lord Curzon feared the War in Asia Minor was about to escalate into the Second Great War - on his watch. That was why an Empire Legion comprising British, Canadian, ANZAC, SA, Rhodesian, Indian volunteers was just the ticket. MacKenzie King's government in Canada was against intervention, and the British public had no appetite for conflict. Curzon also had one eye on the Labour Party who were threatening the Conservatives now that the Liberals had imploded. Curzon had made his own calculations. He hoped that the veterans of the Empire Legion could reprise their recent stunning victory with White Forces in Northern Russian, dismantling the new Soviet regime. It was a new kind of armed foreign policy, in which the Great Powers would fight covert wars with irregular troops. Curzon was very much aware that on the other side of Turkey, was Colonel T.E. Lawrence and Prince Feisal whose own irregular troops were fighting a new Arab Revolt, against their new masters - the British and the French governments who had simply replaced the Turkish occupation in the Middle East.

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

Bernard Montgomery	"Einsatzgruppe Egypt" [the Nazi Death Squad] was standing by in Athens and was ready to disembark for Palestine in the summer of 1942 [to extend the Holocaust into Palestine], attached to the "Afrika Korps" led by General Erwin Rommel." ~ Monty justifying the extension of the British Mandate in Palestine
Imperialist

Field Marshall Montgomery, Chief of the Imperial General Staff reacting to pressure for Britain to withdraw its forces from Palestine in response to Jewish terrorism. Montgomery said that if not for the British victory at El Alamein, Nazi Germany would have expanded the extermination of Jews beyond the borders of Europe and into British-controlled Palestine during World War Two. Montgomery presented the Irgun bombed of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem with evidence that death squads known as "Einsatzgruppe Egypt" were standing by in Athens and was ready to disembark for Palestine in the summer of 1942. This group would be attached to the "Afrika Korps" led by the famed desert commander General Erwin Rommel. The Middle East death squad, similar to those operating throughout eastern Europe during the war, was to be led by SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Walther Rauff. "The central plan for the group was the realization of the Holocaust in Palestine," said Montgomery, "But since Germany never conquered British-controlled Palestine, plans for bringing the Holocaust to what is now Israel and the Palestinian territories never came to fruition."

~ quotation by Steve Payne

Woodrow Wilson	"The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it. " ~ Woodrow Wilson, Global Peace Architect
US President

Before his refusal to meet with Ho Chi Minh at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Uncle Ho requested an appointment to urge that the principle of self-determination should also apply to the population of the French Union Colony of Indochina. Wilson believed that the principles codified in the Treaty of Versailles should extend no further than Europe, seeing no parallel exclusion of African Americans from the US Constitution. A historic opportunity was missed whilst there was still time to prevent a mistake becoming a human catastrophe. The full story of Minh's Peace Conference Gambit is described at Today in Alternative History

~ quotation by Steve Payne

Mobile Phones	In 2011, the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Programme, said that because it can take more than a decade for cancer symptoms to become detectable only now was it possible to "say for certain" that handsets can cause the disease. MTHR had been running more than a dozen studies assessing the effects on human health, reporting as late as 2007 that "Phone safety is still an unknown". The independent group of scientists had received more than £10m from the UK Government and the mobile phone industry.
Market Collapses

Professor Lawrie Challis, the MTHR chairman, said: "We can now say with confidence that cancer can appear through excessive use of mobile phone handsets". Bluetooth technology and hands free sets are expected to be the "winners" when consumer confidence returns.

~ quotation by Steve Payne

FDR	"First of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. " ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
US President

Whilst the fears of isolationists prevented the United States from joining World War II. A generation later, America faced the Empires of Germany and Japan alone as described by Harry Turtledove In the Presence of Mine Enemies

~ quotation by Steve Payne

Glubb Pasha	In 1941, 'the internecine struggles of the Arabs,' Glubb Pasha told Count László de Almásy and Colonel Ned Lawrence 'are more in the minds of Arab politicians than the struggle against the Jews. Azzam Pasha, the mufti and the Syrian government would sooner see the Jews get the whole of Palestine than that King Abdullah should benefit.'
The Mufti was more than keen for the Final Solution to be brought to the British mandate in Palestine. On balance, Lawrence was confident that Glubb Pasha could be expected to do the "right thing" in a forthcoming war of independence. After all, who could not be impressed by what Lawrence called "the eternal miracle of Jewry?"
~ variant by Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the genius of Susan Shwartz and Michael Ondaatje

Ulysses spacecr..	In 1994, on this day the Ulysses probe passed the Sun's south pole. The spacecraft was launched from the Space Shuttle Discovery by NASA and the European Space Agency, equipped with instruments to characterize fields, particles, and dust. Part of the InterPlanetary Network (IPN), Ulysses provided the first clues to the Sun's accelerating gamma ray bursts.
By 2030, the IPN had been renamed to the United Nations Committee for Survival of Life on Earth and increasingly desperate measures were being attempted to deal with this planet-threatening solar development.
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 1990, George Alec Effinger published his counter-history masterpiece Everything But Honour, posing the question What if Robert E. Lee fought for the Confederacy and the Civil War was over after Lincoln issued an Emancipation Proclamation? Thinking things would be better, a white supremacist working in 1938 Imperial Germany goes back in time to make Lee follow a different path.	Robert E. Lee
~ entry by Steve Payne

Annapolis	1788, the North American Union Constitutional Convention in Annapolis set the date for the country's first Governor-General's election. Victoria became the temporary capital as Britain restructured the Thirteen Colonies and Canada into self-autonomous Dominions.
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 1940, Italy invaded Egypt. A group of officers, headed by Gamal Abdul Nassar, and Anwar el-Sadat, secretly side with the Italians, ridding Egypt of Britain's presence. The “factional” account was told by counter-historian Ken Follett in his masterpiece ”The Keys to Rebecca” (1980). In a tribute to Philip K Dick's 1964 counter-factual novel Man in the High Castle, Follett presented a book within a book, 'The Sphinx Lies Heavy'.
Set in Britain in 1956, the proud nation has humiliated President Nasser by seizing back the Suez Canal after nationalisation. All because some ten years earlier Britain defended Egypt from the Italians, and chose not to punish a group of officers, headed by Gamal Abdul Nassar, and Anwar el-Sadat who secretly side with the invaders. Like Dick before him, the essence of Follett's masterpiece is the duality of his frightening visions.
~ entry by Steve Payne

God save the queen, the fascist regime They made you a moron, potential H-bomb God save the queen she ain't no human being There is no future in England's dreaming
God Save the Queen	Don't be told what you want, Don't be told what you need There's no future, no future, No future for you God save the queen We mean it man We love our queen God saves And our figurehead is not what she seems ~ Lyrics to “God Save the Queen” - Click to Watch
God Save the Queen

In 1977, an off-site Cabinet meeting by the executors of the Plot Against British Prime Minister Harold Wilson entered day two at Chequers. Interim Prime Minister Lord Louis Mountbatten and his deputy Major General Ord Wingate, DSO were in the Chair. Also present was the Home Secretary Margaret Thatcher and the Minister for Citizenship Mary Whitehouse who had just finished watching the latest installment of horror - the Sex Pistols playing "God Save the Queen". Both military leaders had a strong sense of perspective. They understood fully that the problem went back to 1951, with the Conservative victory when Churchill formed his first peacetime administration. He had little feel for what should be done. He confided to Oliver Lyttleton that "In the worst of the war I could always see how to do it. Today's problems's are elusive and intangible." Afterwards, Mountbatten and Wingate retired with brandys and cigars. Privately, Ord thought the Sex Pistols were right about one thing. In that haunting line "And our figurehead is not what she seems", there was a nugget of wisdom. After all, had not the Queen engineered Harold Wilson out of power to be replaced by Interim Prime Minister Louis Mountbatten? The lyrics are available at at Plyrics

~ quotation by Steve Payne

Coleridge's Spells; A New Hope

The state of TIAH

May 24th, 2007

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Alternate Historian's Note: OK, folks. We're experiencing joys of computing that are oddly reminiscent of the founding days of TIAH – whose 3rd anniversary we celebrate THIS Sunday! We're putting up a double post tonight in case there's no Internet tomorrow. But, this Sunday, you've got to help us! Please send in your alternate versions of the Academy's beginnings (May 27th, 2004 was the date in this timeline). You can even use the fact that we lost the original day and had to restart on the 28th – whatever you can think of to provide a twist to our start. Send 'em in, and we'll print 'em! Be sure to tell us how you want your credit for the post to appear, as well as any links you want to be connected with your entry. Thanks for reading and get researching those alternate timelines! And, just as an addendum – if we don't get any entries, we're going to consider printing some of our more interesting emails and comments...

in 1891, the first trains full of Union soldiers pull into the train station at Hebron, Nebraska, where they are met by Major Mark Wainwright and prepared for the march down to the fort at Concordia, Kansas. “You're about to enter hostile territory, fellows,” he warns them, “so, keep your wits about you and maybe you'll live through this. Let your guard down, and these Kansans'll have no hesitation about making you pay for it. Believe me – I've lost more men than you'll ever know on this campaign.” With a slight catch in his throat, he concludes, “You're going to help me end it.”

in 1999, in a private audience with King Arthur II and Queen Gwen of Great Britain, Sir Lance du Lac implores the monarchs to accept the offers coming in from several former Central European Empire vassal states. “They only wish to chart their own courses now, to have the freedom that we enjoy,” he says. “They are willing to lay down arms against us and turn over any CEE imperial representatives that are seeking refuge in their countries.” King Arthur mulls over the proposal. “It does sound like an ideal way to preserve our forces for those nations that are unwilling to be freed. However,” he continues, much to Queen Gwen's consternation, “we should be cautious about this. Accept the offer from the Hungarians, but let us keep prosecuting the war on all other fronts. Once we see if the Hungarians are behaving themselves, then we shall consider the offers from the other nations.”

In 1941, the wizard Cadellin took Colin and Susan to the caves of Fundindelve. Using Susan's bracelet, the Weirdstone of Brisingamen he roused the band of Knights that slept until the hour when they must rise and fight. Charging into the night, they they prepare to confront the German invaders to the North.

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

In 2004, Foresight War author Anthony G Williams woke up one morning to find himself in 1914. Williams was confronted with the fictional dilemma he had postulated for twenty years hence - what changes could be wrought to save lives? And what if a counter-part had also been sent to Imperial Germany?

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

Coleridge	In 1947, Senator McCarthy expanded upon his explanation of the Dunkirk evacuation. The price paid by Montgomery was his glamour, left behind in the dunes inside a bottle owned by the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Coleridge, explained McCarthy, was a 'giant among dwarfs'. The orthodox wisdom was as follows: around 1796, ..
.. Coleridge started using opium as a pain reliever. His and Dorothy Wordsworth's notebooks record that he suffered from a variety of medical complaints, including toothache and facial neuralgia. There appears to have been no stigma associated with taking opium then, but also little understanding of the physiological or psychological aspects of addiction. It was not true, in 1796, the bottle had come into the possession of Coleridge, who had then written his most powerful poems. Or in fact, not so much poems, as incantations. Spells, to be blunt.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1989, the British Royal household and key advisers departed London by helicopter. The travel plan including accommodation at the Grand Hotel, Brighton. There the Stuarts would meet with Peter Tatchell and members of the Republication protest leadership. Make a British compromise and end the current crisis. And then renege ..	Grand Hotel Bri..
.. on the commitments when the protest had quietened down. That was the Royal plan. Events turned out somewhat differently to the plan, shall we say.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Queen of Sheeba Hotel..	In 2001, she knew the child had changed everything. A jet-set young couple could drift ..
.. in and out of a sea-coast town like Eilat, unnoticed. But a child brought a pressing urgency, drew your focus elsewhere. Even in the hotel lobby of the Queen of Sheeba, the child had drawn attention where previously they had been invisible. Well, almost invisible. And yet the series of events that had brought the huntress to Eilat had been triggered by the child. Soon, events would change everything. Also because of the child.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1626, the third director-general of New Netherlands, Peter Minuit bought the Island of Manna-hata (Manhattan) from a Metoac tribe known as the Canarsee in exchange for trade goods valued at 60 guilders. Into his possession fell the strange being, the thousand year old Lenape soothsayer who would later predict the course ..	Lenape Nation
.. of modern history to strategic planners in the US Government. This long period of service ended with explosion of booby-trapped extra-terrestrial technology in a US base in Nevada in 2008.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

May 25th, 2007

in 1891, General Theodore Monteith faces off against an exploratory force of Kansans testing the new defenses at the Concordia fort. He bests them easily, but sends word north to Major Mark Wainwright to hurry reinforcements down from Hebron in case the Kansans try to take back their fort again. Major Wainwright immediately assembles his best 2000 men and heads south to aid his commanding officer.

in 1977, the cult film A New Hope opens in US theaters to general critical disappointment. Twentieth Century Fox, the studio that finally gave filmmaker Luke Walton the green light to make his space opera is pleased to find out that the public doesn't share the critics' opinions, and the movie makes a reasonable $50 million in its theatrical release. A few years later, though, it enjoys a second life as it becomes a hugely popular rental at video stores across the English-speaking world. It earns enough, in fact, for Walton to film 2 sequels to the campy original, fleshing out his story of a young man's fight against an evil that turns out to be closer to him than he originally thought. These direct-to-video sequels brought Walton enough money to retire on, although there are persistent rumors that he still plans to do something more with the Darth Vader character someday.

in 1999, Queen Gwen of Great Britain tries to convince her husband, King Arthur II, to give quarter to more of the Central European Empire's former vassal states. “Mercy to them now would show them what a wise and kind ruler you can be,” she tells him. When she sees that this line of argument isn't persuading him, she tries another tack. “Wouldn't Merl tell you to pursue peace if it was offered? Wouldn't he have seen the wisdom of saving your resources to battle those who actually mean to fight back?” This finally sways him, and he instructs his Prime Minister, Kay Ector, to begin negotiations with the CEE nations that are willing to surrender to the United Kingdom.

In 1940, UK War Leader Winston Churchill delivered his final radio broadcast before fleeing to the Falkland Islands with the remnants of the British Navy. His last words to the defeated British nation were a fragment of W.B. Yeats' poem The Second Coming The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

In 1914, Foresight War author Anthony G Williams gained access to the Rector of Imperial College by presenting a 2002 pound coin to the doorman. Having explained his accidental time travel from 2004, and moving into detail on his plans, the Rector realised they were speaking at cross-purposes. Yes war was expected to break out at any moment, but the threat posed to world peace was mis-stated by Williams. An attack from the megalomaniac Emperor Napoleon V was imminent!

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

Guderian	In 1947, Senator McCarthy explained Montgomery's error. In exchanging his glamour for the safe passage of 338,000 Allied troops, few could argue that anything other than an honourable trade had occurred But by giving Guderian his glamour inside Coleridge's vial, he had inadvertently given the Nazis a super-weapon. And the ..
.. result was 1 May 1944, Disaster Day. Guderian had invoked the incantation of Kubla Khan to trap the Allied invasion force inside the Caves of Ice. Case closed announced McCarthy, hoping to wrap up the session early. His plans for the afternoon were routine, he intended to disappear inside a bottle of bourbon. Not yet sir! shouted General Dwight David Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, what of our men? what of Hamelin? Immediately General Hans Guderian slammed the desk with his fist in a fury and shouted at Eisenhower in incomprehensible and guttural German.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1989, Patrick Magee, then aged 38 left Brighton by car. He had stayed in the Grand Hotel hotel under the false name of Roy Walsh two weeks prior to the conference and planted the bomb, with a long-delay timer, in his room, number 629. Following his release Magee was reported to have said 'I stand by what I did,' inflaming ..	Patrick Magee
.. the anger of survivors and the bereaved towards him. Whilst he admitted partial responsibility for planning the attack, he maintains that the fingerprint evidence found on a registration card recovered from the hotel was faked : 'If that was my fingerprint I did not put it there,' he said in a newspaper interview after his release. He has since indicated that he did not act alone at Brighton. He continues to defend his role in the blast, but he has expressed remorse for the loss of innocent lives. One of the victims of the bombing was Sir Anthony Berry, whose daughter, Jo Tufnell, publicly met with Magee shortly after the GFA, and expressed her forgiveness in an effort at achieving reconciliation as envisioned in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement with the Undefeated Irish Republican Army (UIRA).
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Queen of Sheeba..	In 2001, the lovers slipped discretely through the lobby of the Queen of Sheen Hilton Hotel in Eilat. The face of the huntress was covered by a scarf as if to protect her light European skin from the ruthless sun. It was prime check-out time and the hotel was buzzing. Distressed, the child says “Mummy, my bear”. Her concentration ..
.. interrupted, the huntress turns around. Distracted for a brief moment, the scarf falls and her eyes drop down to the furry toy on the lobby floor. As she looks up her eyes meet his. She has been recognised.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1953, on this day at the Nevada Test Site, the United States conducted its first and only nuclear artillery test. On June 2, 2006, the site was scheduled to be used to conduct the testing of a 700-ton conventional bomb in an operation known as Divine Strake, an alternative to nuclear bunker busters, which Congress has ..	Nevada Test Sit..
.. been reluctant to fund, despite support from President Bush. The 700-ton bomb was used by agents of the Alliance to booby-trap extra-terrestrial technology in the US base in Nevada in 2008, leading to the deaths of the President, his father and the thousand year old Lenape soothsayer.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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Whispered Betrayals

The state of TIAH

May 16th, 2007

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Alternate Historian's Note: C'mon people! In 11 days, we'll hit TIAH's third anniversary. As before, that calls for a contest! Please send in your alternate versions of the Academy's beginnings (May 27th, 2004 was the date in this timeline). You can even use the fact that we lost the original day and had to restart on the 28th – whatever you can think of to provide a twist to our start. Send 'em in, and we'll print 'em! Be sure to tell us how you want your credit for the post to appear, as well as any links you want to be connected with your entry. Thanks for reading and get researching those alternate timelines!

in 1891, the exhausted Union soldiers repulse the Kansans surrounding the fort at Concordia, but are reduced to half their number by the day-long assault. Major Mark Wainwright examines the defenses, and is certain they will not survive another day. “It's like the damn Alamo,” he says to his second-in-command, Captain Jeffrey Taylor. He orders Taylor to find the best scout left in their command. He intends to send this man north to Nebraska, slipping through the Kansan lines, to get help. The captain brings him young Allan Duggan, a 17-year old volunteer from Nebraska who says he knows the surrounding countryside like the back of his hand. “Godspeed, Allan. Our only hopes lie with you.” Duggan takes off from the fort in the dead of night, threading his way through the Kansans.

in 1999, Sir Lance du Lac awakes in the queen's private chambers at Buckingham Palace. He is instantly stricken with remorse for what he and the queen have done, and hurriedly dresses. Just as he is reaching for the door, Queen Gwen says to him, “Will you leave so ungallantly, Sir Lance? No kiss goodbye?” Arthur's best knight turns to her and says, “My lady, forgive me my rudeness. But, the battle in Hungary waits for me, and I must be off – to win it for your husband.” As he turns again to leave, she says, “You're twice the man he is, Lance. You should be ruling this country, not him.” Surprised, du Lac turns on her and says, “He is the king, anointed by God.” Gwen snorts derisively. “Mystical hogwash we all spread about to make it easier for him to seize the throne. What would he be without you, Lance? You've won his wars for him, here and abroad. He wouldn't have that throne if it weren't for you. The troops are all loyal to you.” She walked up behind him and stroked his shoulders. “Take the country, Lance. Take it from this little man who is nothing without you, and set it right again.” He seems to be on the verge of acquiescing for a moment, but then opens the door. “The country has already been set right, my queen.” He hurries off to Hungary, and Queen Gwen ponders her next move.

In 2032, astronauts on a five-year mission travel at faster than light speeds back to Earth where forty years have passed. The crew are greeted by the Security Ombudsman for the Australasian Sector of International Security. In a secret experiment, Albert Raft, the Ship's commander, was cloned before departure. Not only does the Ombudsman know about this, he intends to take Commander Raft to meet his replicant in a few short days.

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

In 1972, arguments continued between Marvin Gaye and duet singer Diana Ross over her excessive marijuana smoking which he believed endangered wife Tammi Terrell's unborn child, Marvin Junior. Terrell's song had almost stopped at age twenty-four when she had received a hammer blow to the head from David Ruffin; Gaye was taking no chances.

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

Leigh-Mallory	In 1947, the Tydings Committee proceeded with the interview of Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory who commanded the 12,000 aircraft to support the D-Day landings. Leigh-Mallory had the vital job of co-coordinating the various air arms during the Battle of Normandy; work for which the subordinate commanders would ..
.. mostly take the credit. Or the blame.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1989, the British Royal household have realised by now that the armed crackdown has failed. They would have to meet with the Republican protesters and find some form of accommodation. After all, when security had been restored, they could always renege on the agreement. It has been done before.	Riots Continue
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Glubb Pasha	In 1948, the British Government was humiliated by the actions of British officers employed in the Arab Legion during the Zionist Insurgency that followed the declaration of the State of Palestine two days before. Regular British officers, including a brigade commander, were instructed to leave the Arab Legion and return to ..
.. Transjordan. This led to the bizarre spectacle of British officers leaving their units to return to Transjordan before sneaking back across the border to rejoin the Arab Legion. A British MP demanded that the British Command of the Arab Legion, General John Bagot Glubb (“Glubb Pasha”) be imprisoned for serving in a foreign army without the King's permission.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1966, the Communist Party of China issued the "May 16 Notice", marking the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. Contemporaries considered this event a disaster for the nation. In the short term, they were right, it was. Only the far-sighted perspective of history revealed that the decades long program of change started ..	People's Libera..
.. by Chairman Mao delivered a hyper-power ready to seize the Chinese century.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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Wickedness

Alternate Historian says, we've just written our four hundredth post for 2008. Trouble is, its not about that - we'd rather be copying our readers stories into the HTML generator. Not the potter, but the potter's clay as it were. Please email your stories to the Alternate Historian and do include the post date please. With that in mind, we've got a post from a guest historian today. Do check out the multimedia link, safe to say - it's pure wickedness.

Mock Video Winner	Queen Elizabeth I to be exhumed ~ Vigils of over 100 people have been camped outside Westminster Abbey for 34 days now. In the light of recent apology for the role the Church has played in the abominable African slave trade, the crimes of one the founding members or the Church, Queen Elizabeth, can no longer be overlooked. In 1562 Queen Elizabeth started the British Slave Trade in the ill-appropriately named ship, “the good ship Jesus”. The moral foundations of the Church were shaken. The apology had inadvertently opened a can of worms. Initially the Church had just admitted to owning slaves and plantations, but subsequently the public found out the Church effectively gave their blessing on the destruction of tens of millions of Africans by declaring Africans had no soul. This gave the British a license to mutilate, rape, kidnap and murder Africans without any fear of eternal damnation.
Holocaust Victim

As penance for the crimes of the Church the public are demanding the removal of Queen Elizabeth I, Britain’s first Slave Trader, from the crypt in Westminster Abbey. The complexity of the shame which has fallen on the Church has been compounded with taunts of “when exactly did the Church become a moral institution”, “how many good deeds can out outweigh the malevolence of a genocidal despot”, “can we apologise for a crime 200 years later” and “get Elizabeth out, she is rotting the foundations of the church.” The final straw came when a national competition was held to effectively mock the Church of England, the number of participants were overwhelming. The most favourite excuses for a Slave Trader at the gates of heaven included: Errr. didn't the Bible say Ham was Black and therefore had to live a cursed life for the rest of eternity or something like that, wasn't this your will. Errr, I know I should not kill but my government said we had to protect and improve our standard of living for the glory of our country. Errr, let me in I’m an American, Heaven is the 51st state isn’t it. Errr, I saw them talk, walk and bleed but I really did not think they were human so I thought it was okay to kill them for fun. Errr, I knew they were animals so I thought that it was okay to rape the boys and girls. I never raped anyone under the age of five though. Errr, I felt the trip would do you some good. Get out see the world. Errr, we didn’t think it would last 400 years and wreak havoc on the lives of those afflicted and their offspring for centuries after it ended. Errr, shhhhhhhhhh, they don’t remember, why’d you have to bring that up. ~ Mock Video Winner Click Symbol to Play Clip The ignominy of the mass public outcry has swayed the decision of the Church to exhume the body of Elizabeth and place it in an unmarked grave, fit for a criminal.

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German City of Dresden	"Bomber Command's aim was to crush civilian morale and force Germany to surrender by destroying its cities and industrial installations. Although Bomber Command and American attacks left 600,000 Germans dead and more than five million homeless, the raids resulted in only small reductions of German war production until late in the war." ~ Plaque at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa
Allied Fire-bombing

The bombing of Dresden, led by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and followed by the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) between February 13 and February 15, 1945, remains one of the more controversial Allied actions of World War II. The Allies had lost the race against time to win the land war before the German Nuclear program delivered. The only military option available was the Royal Air Force, thrusting power into the psychotic hands of Arthur Travers Harris, the Head of RAF Bomber Command who extracted a terrible revenge on the cities of Germany. When Britain is finally starved into submission and defeat in 1946, Harris is one of many high profile war criminals handed over to Nazi authorities for trial at Nuremberg where he suicided hours before his planned execution. The full article is available at Canadian National Post

~ quotation by Steve Payne

Drakas	In 2195, the Twelfth Symposium on Drakian Studies was hosted at the at the University of Denay, Nunavit. Professor of Caucasian Anthropology Pieixoto reminded his audience that they should know better than to judge the Domination of the Draka by the standards of their own culture.
Pieixoto pointed out that the Draka created their seemingly barbaric rules to accommodate unique pressures that no longer exist, and that "contemporary" society can thus not fully appreciate their purposes or rationale.
~ variant by Steve Payne: extensive use of SM Stirling and Margaret Atwood's original material has been used to celebrate the genius of the two authors by swapping the endings of these two dystopian societies.

Albert Einstein	In 1939, Albert Einstein and his former student Leó Szilárd, a Hungarian physicist wrote a letter to U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt urging the study of teleportation for military purposes because the Third Reich might well be developing the super weapon as well. Roosevelt formed a committee to investigate and granted Dr. Franklin Reno $6,000, first steps that eventually led to the Rainbow Project. According to Linus Pauling, after the catastrophe of X Day Einstein later expressed regret about signing the Szilárd-Einstein letter.

In 1968, NASA launched Apollo 7, the first and last manned Apollo mission, with astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn F. Eisele and Walter Cunningham aboard. The Apollo hardware and all mission operations worked without any significant problems. Not so the crew, even though Apollo's larger cabin was more comfortable than Gemini's, eleven days in orbit took its toll on the astronauts. The food was bad, and all three developed colds. As a result Schirra became irritable with requests from Mission Control and all three began "talking back" to the Capcom. Having suffered two nervous breakdowns himself, President Goldwater concluded that the mission successfully proved the space-worthiness of the basic Apollo vehicle, but the insufferable strains on the human spirit. Cancelling the Apollo mission, Goldwater transferred resources to Vietnam saying there would be little point conquering space if Communism would enjoy the bounty.	Apollo 7 Missio..

Tunguska	In 1939, Nikola Tesla wrote a letter to U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt urging the study of Tunguska Impact Event for military purposes because the Third Reich might well be developing a singularity as well. Roosevelt formed a committee to investigate and granted Dr. Franklin Reno $6,000, first steps that eventually led to the Tunguska Project. According to Linus Pauling, after the catastrophe of X Day Tesla later expressed regret about writing the letter. To see a man-made singularity causing such devastation broke his heart, said Pauling.

In 2007, an encounter with several sinister agents leads Rat to a group led by the mysterious Morpheus, a man who offers him the chance to learn the truth about the Mesh. Rat accepts. Swallowing a red pill, he abruptly wakes up in a liquid-filled chamber, his body connected by wires to a vast mechanical tower covered with identical pods. The connections are severed and he is rescued by Morpheus and taken aboard his hovercraft, the Nebuchadnezzar.	Morpheus