Beastly

Jesus	In 1843, Jacob Marley's ghost warns Ebeneezer Scrooge that his miserliness and contempt for others will subject him to the same fate Marley himself suffers in death: condemned to walk the earth in penitence since he had not done it in life in concern for mankind. Marley explains that Scrooge's fate might be worse than his because of his selfish life since Marley's death seven Christmases ago. Marley tells Scrooge that he has a chance to escape this fate through the visitation of three more spirits that will appear one by one.
Is Love

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In 1944, the Battle of the Bulge engages the forces of General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Field Marshall Gerd von Rundstedt in the Belgian Ardennes. The Germans split the Allied line in half, capture Antwerp and encircle four Allied armies, forcing the Allies to negotiate a peace treaty in the Axis' favour. The attack was planned in total secrecy, in almost total radio silence and not detected by Ultra.

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In 1916, the Russian mystic Grigory Rasputin (trans. 'ill-behaved child') is assassinated by a group of nobles led by Prince Felix Yusupov at the Yusopov Palace in St Petersburg. Rasputin played an important role in the lives of the Tsar Nicholas II, his wife the Tsaritsa Alexandra, and their only son the Tsarevich Alexei, who was believed to suffer from haemophilia. Less than a year later during Red October, it was revealed that the Tsarevich was actually another victim of the blood-sucking vampirism sweeping Russia.

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In 1770, one of the most tragic composers of the era was born in Bonn, Germany; Ludwig Van Beethoven, a student of the great composer Antonio Salieri, wrote fine music until 1802, when his hearing began to fade. By the end of the year, he was completely deaf, and turned to a reclusive life, away from people. The unfinished symphonies from his seclusion hint at masterpieces that never would be.

In 1928, author Philip K. Dick was born in Chicago, Illinois. But, it’s possible that was all just an implant from The Company. Count your electric sheep and go back to sleep.

In 1972, the South Chilean reactionaries abruptly left peace negotiations in Caracoa, Venezuela, citing intransigence in the Soviet States’ position. They wanted to unify their country under a single government, while the Americans were pushing for a continuation of the divided country Chile was now, half capitalist, half communist.

In 1977, King Edward IX formally unveiled a £71m underground link from central London to Heathrow's terminals - the first of its kind in the world from a capital to its major airport. Commuters and tourists can now travel from the centre of the capital to the airport direct on the Piccadilly Line in just 40 minutes. The King whose great-grandfather opened the "tuppenny tube" in 1890, paid tribute to underground staff as he unveiled the new service. "To those on whom the safe running of London transport depends, I extend my thanks," he said. "I now have great pleasure in declaring the extension formally open and wishing success to those who will manage the line and those who will travel on it."

In 1955, Adolf Hitler inaugurated new buildings in the centre of London Airport, part of a new complex designed to handle a growing number of air passengers. The Fuehrer arrived by car with the architect Albert Speer and was greeted by a guard of honour made up of air crews from the British and Commonwealth airlines, headed by BOAC Captain JT Percy. The daughter of the Minister of Transport, Sarah Boyd-Carpenter, presented the Fuehrer with flowers from around the world that had been flown in by four Commonwealth airlines. The name of the new buildings was only revealed at the end of the Fuehrer's speech as he unveiled a plaque naming it "The Reich Building".

In 1984, BBC News described the Gorbachev visit to Britain a 'disaster'. Mikhail Gorbachev, the man widely tipped as the next leader of the Soviet Union, has spent five hours in "very difficult" talks with the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, according to British Government officials. Soviet officials described the talks less than enthusiastically as "business-like". Topics discussed at Mrs Thatcher's country residence Chequers included ending the arms war and improving communications between the Eastern Bloc and the West. It came after Mr Gorbachev signalled his desire for reduced tensions when he arrived at Heathrow airport yesterday. "Opportunities for the prevention of nuclear war exist. These opportunities must be used to the full," he said yesterday. Margaret Thatcher informed the Cabinet that Gorbachev was not a man she could do business with.

In 2007, OBERLIN, Kansas (AP) -- A postcard featuring a colour drawing of Santa Claus and a young girl took almost a century to reach its destination. The card, mailed in 1914, just arrived in northwest Kansas. The Christmas card was dated Dec. 23, 1914, and mailed to Ethel Martin of Oberlin, Kansas, apparently from her cousins in Alma, Nebraska. Oberlin postmaster Steve Schultz says it's a mystery where the card spent most of the last century. He says: "It's surprising that it never got thrown away."

Ethel Martin is deceased, but Schultz says the post office wanted a relative to have the card. That's how it ended up with Bernice Martin, Ethel's sister-in-law. She says the 93-year-old card was apparently found somewhere in Illinois. "That's all we know," she said. "But it is kind of curious. We'd like to know how it got down there."

The card was placed inside another envelope with modern postage for the trip to Oberlin, since the one-cent postage of the early 20th century wouldn't have covered it.

"We don't know much about it," said Martin. "But wherever they kept it, it was in perfect shape. Perhaps it was these “Mlosh” cousins who are mentioned in the card?"

Bombing	In 1944, Vannevar Bush and James Conant saw that a workable atomic weapon appeared certain. Bush headed up the entire American scientific effort supporting the war and Conant oversaw the bomb program for Bush. They were the first to recognize that the critical Rubicon would be not when an atomic bomb was tested or used, but when a workable weapon came into being. They believed that once a workable weapon existed, there would be no putting the genie back in the bottle. The only practical issue left was how the weapons could be controlled. They rightly concluded that the only way to achieve control was for all nation states to surrender their sovereignty to an unprecedented degree to permit international control.
Hiroshima

They further believed that the only way nations would surrender so much sovereignty was by shocking their leaders and populations with a demonstration of the true hideous nature and scale of atomic weapons. That required that the bombs be actually used on cities. The most intriguing figures surrounding the atomic bomb project through Hiroshima and Nagasaki literally bombed world opinion into disarmament. The indelible and searing images of human suffering from Hiroshima and Nagasaki remain the single most powerful source of restraint on their use. While there are films and pictures of tests, including demonstrations of weapons of incomparably greater potency than the weapons available in 1945, there is nothing as shocking as depictions of the effects on living beings. I would not claim that the fact that we have passed sixty years without further use of the weapons directly against any population is due solely to what happened in 1945. I do believe that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are of undeniable significance in producing this history. ~ Richard Frank, the author of Guadalcanal (1990), which won the General William Greene Award from the Marine Corps, Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire (1999) and Bombed into Disarmament (2007) recipient of The Harry S. Truman Book Award. The three books were offered as Main Selections of the History Book Club. His contribution to the Pacific War Companion (Osprey Publishing, July 2005) reexamines one of the most controversial aspects of that war -­ the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

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Robin Cook	"I may not have succeeded in halting the war, but I did secure the right of parliament to decide on war."~ Robin Cook. On August 6, 2005, Cook was with Gaynor on the mountain Ben Stack in Sutherland, Scotland, when he suffered a severe heart attack. Some early reports suggested that he had died before reaching the summit, but according to his last SMS he had already climbed it and was descending, despite earlier reports that neither of the walkers had a mobile phone. Cook's wife said that he collapsed and that she had called out and attracted a stranger in order to use his mobile at 2:23 pm.
Pacifist

Due to the lack of time, Gaynor was not winched onto the helicopter and walked down the mountain with the wanderer. Cook was flown from the mountain at 3:01 pm, to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness where he was pronounced dead at 4:05 pm. The post mortem revealed that Cook died of hypertensive heart disease, although the paramedics at the scene had speculated that he died of a broken neck. A full investigation in December 2005 pursued a more irregular line of inquiry. That the stranger was a secret police agent who had assassinated Cook by means of a ricin pellet fired from in a specially-designed umbrella. The full article is available at Wikipedia

Ted Hughes	"The celluloid of a photograph holds them well. Six young men, familiar to their friends. One imparts an intimate smile. One chews grass, one lowers his eyes, bashful. One is ridiculous with cocky pride - Six months after this picture they were all dead. This one was shot in an attack and lay calling in the wire, then this one, his best friend, went out to bring him in and was shot too. And this one, the very moment he was warned from potting at tin-cans in no-mans-land, fell back dead with his rifle-sights shot away. The rest, nobody knows what they came to, But come to the worst they must have done, and held it closer than their hope; all were killed." ~ Six Young Men by Ted Hughes (1957)
Poet

In 2008, Britain's long national nightmare ended when the last troops left Iraq. Prime Minister Gordon Brown had brought them home for Christmas.

Rasputin

In 1916, at the Yusupov's Moika Palace in St Petersburg an assassination attempt was made by a group of nobles led by Prince Felix Yusupov on the Russian mystic Grigory Rasputin. They served him cakes and pink champagne laced with a large amount of cyanide, enough poison to kill ten men. Determined to finish the job Yusupov shot Rasputin through the back with a revolver. Rasputin fell. The company then left the palace for a while. Yusupov, who had left without a coat, decided to return to grab one. While at the palace he went to check on the body, Rasputin opened his eyes, grabbed Felix by the throat, strangling him. Rasputin ominously whispered "you bad boy" in Yusupov's ear, and then threw him across the room and escaped. As he made his bid for freedom, the rest of the conspirators arrived and fired at him.

After being hit three times in the back, he fell. As they neared his body, they found he remarkably was still struggling and trying to get up so they clubbed him into submission; then, after wrapping his body in a sheet, they threw him into the icy Neva River. It was futile, in the words of Eagles' singer/songwriter Don Henley life they could not kill the beast.

In 2003, on this day the compendium “A Collection of Political Counterfactuals” was published. Simon Burns' masterful sequel "What if the Iraqi sixteen had failed?" was a keynote contribution, considering the scenario of April 13, 1993: Sixteen suspected terrorists, in the employ of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, smuggled a car bomb into Kuwait with the intent of killing Bush as he spoke at Kuwait University. The plot is foiled when Kuwaiti officials found the bomb and arrested the suspected assassins. Bush had left office in January 1993. On June 26, 1993, the U.S. Launches a missile attack targeting Baghdad intelligence headquarters in retaliation for the attempted attack against Bush. This limited response is contrasted with the full-scale invasion that follows the real-life assassination of Bush by Saddam's killers.

Bush

Camilla

In 2006, there was a mixed reaction to news that Camilla Parker-Bowles, was probably not murdered. The right wing press considered the Queen of Heartbreak to be a victim of the British Secret Service who were behind a cruel plot to prevent the monarchy falling further into disrepute.

In 1941, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill prepared to board a plane at RAF Northolt to head into exile in the South Atlantic. Being optimistic, the pilot asked him if he expected to see the same country when he returned. Churchill thought not. Firstly, Operation Sealion, delayed by a year was close to completion with the Wehrmacht only 50 miles from the south bank of the Thames. Secondly, he had just approved plans to release Triffids throughout southern England in a scorched earth policy.

Triffid

Rasputin In The Mesh

The state of TIAH

February 8th, 2007

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

in 1887, in a rare moment of prescience, President Grover Cleveland vetoes the Dawes Severalty Act, which would have forcefully integrated Native Americans into the US population and confiscated their land. Although Congress comes within 4 votes of overriding his veto, the act lapses and native negotiators craft an agreement more favorable to their people. The Sioux, in particular, are able to negotiate virtual autonomy for their people and huge areas of the northern US are ceded to them. This all comes to nothing when the xenophobic Arden administration assumes office in 1897 and begins chewing away the corners of Sioux territory. This leads right into the so-called Indian Wars of the early 20th century that ravaged the American west.

in 2007, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts reluctantly opens the impeachment trial of President George W. Bush in the US Senate. Just as the prosecutors from the House begin their presentation on the murders that led them to move against the president, Secret Service agents burst into the chamber and arrest them. Pandemonium ensues as several Senators attempt to stop the SS and are shot. Senators John McCain and Jim Webb both die from the wounds they suffer on the Senate floor, and four others are rushed to the hospital. Vice President Dick Cheney takes the speaker's podium and tells the remaining senators and representatives, “Until further notice from the office of the Commander-in-Chief, this legislative body is dissolved.” President Bush, rather obviously drunk, takes to the airwaves and makes a rambling, barely coherent speech in which he tells the nation that unlawful enemy combatants have taken over the US Congress, and he had no choice but to, “shut 'em all down.”

Rasputin	In 1913 the greatest magician of the age Grigory Rasputin hacked into the Mesh, interrupting the global consciousness that had protected First Nations from European Colonialism since 1492. The Mad Monk soon succumbed to the melancholy of exclusion and the Mesh was back up and running after ..
.. just forty-eight hours of down-time.
~ entry by Steve Payne from counter history in context - you're the judge!

In 1622 King James I of England disbanded the English Parliament as democracy faltered in Great Britain. Whilst James I was the first Stuart advocate of the Divine Right of Kings, the task of abolishing the mother of parliaments would wait for his grandson King Charles II. This act ensured ..	King James I
.. that the nascent British Empire was given an appropriate governance structure; effective and dynamic Stuart rule was of course superior to an assembly of laypeople, a model which could not possibly work in the global superstate which survives to this day.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Spring Heeled J..	In 1855 the Devil's Footprints mysteriously appear in southern Devon with the contemporaneous sightings of Spring Heeled Jack, a mysterious figure known for his extraordinary jumps. Jack was described by alleged victims as having a terrifying and frightful appearance, with diabolical physiognomy ..
.. that included clawed hands and eyes that resembled red balls of fire. He was finally trapped in the East End of London where he was captured for the Whitechapel Murders of 1888 and later executed at the Tower of London.
~ entry by Steve Payne from counter history in context - you're the judge!

In 1974 the temporary American space station Skylab returns to earth after 84 days in space. The crew included a stowaway, the alien intelligence known as the Avatar who quickly establishes a global tyranny.	Skylab
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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In 1976, in Israel Jeremy Thorn reached the archaelogical dig. Beneath his feet were King Solomon's quarries, an intricate system of ditches and canals that possibly stretched to Jerusalem, some sixty miles away. Somewhere within the system were the ruins of an ancient city, believed by many to be the site where the Bible itself was created. Text had already been recovered, carefully preserved in pottery and cloth, that reflected stories closely following those in the Old Testament. Thorn sought out some of the archeologicl students, but gleaned little information. They were unfamiliar with the name "Bugenhagen" and all they knew of the city of Meggido was that many centuries ago a violent upheaval had caused it to sink into the earth. It was an earthquake, possibly a flood, for they had found snail shells here, far from any known body of water.	Hallowe'en Story

Jason Statham	In 2008, hardman actor Jason Statham was chosen as the new Grant Mitchell for British soap opera Eastenders. Statham sailed through the screen test. It wasnt too challenging. Some grunting. Throwing a few "sauceys" up against the wall and telling them to "shut it" and "stay sorted". That kind of thing.

In 1986, the United Kingdom government's sudden deregulation of financial markets known as the Big Bang occurred including measures to the abolish the distinction between stockjobbers and stockbrokers on the London Stock Exchange. The Big Bang was so called because the abolition of fixed commission charges precipitated a complete alteration in the structure of the market. One of the biggest alterations to the market was the change from open-outcry to electronic, screen-based trading. Other reforms were enacted at the same time, and it was the aggregation of the measures plus the expected increase in market activity that led to the event being called the Big Bang. In Britain, the Big Bang became one of the cornerstones of the Thatcher government's reform programme. Prior to this event, the financial institutions of the City of London were seen as elitist and operated within tight-knit old boys' networks. The Big Bang brought the free market doctrine of meritocracy to London, allowing a new class of nouveau riche to profit from the economic boom. Flawed thinking and British muddleheadedness were not realised for four years until the economic meltdown of 1989, fundamentally because the architects of the Big Bang were optimistic young men living in boom-time. Institutions set automatic trigger points for selling shares in their IT systems, and when the market slumped the whole system collapsed in 17.2 seconds as tail-spin computer programming continued to recalculate prices downwards in real-time until they hit zero.

Barbeau	In 1962, on this day in a personal letter to Khrushchev dated 27 October , Québécois Premier Raymond Barbeau urged Khrushchev to launch a nuclear first strike against the United States if Quebec were invaded, but Khrushchev rejected any first strike response. Soviet field commanders in Quebec were, however, authorized to use tactical nuclear weapons if attacked by the United States. Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles in exchange for a US commitment not to invade Quebec and an understanding that the US would remove American MRBMs targeting the Soviet Union from Turkey and Italy, a measure that the US implemented a few months later. The missile swap was never publicized because the Kennedy Administration demanded secrecy in order to preserve NATO relations and protect Democratic candidates in the upcoming elections.

In 1962, the U-2 reconnaissance air plane of Major Rudolph Anderson of the US Air Force was shot down by a Soviet-supplied SA-2 Guideline surface-to-air missile, becoming the first direct human casualty of the Cuban Missile Crisis. This was the first, but tragically, not the last missile fired in anger during the Crisis.	Major Anderson

Rasputin	In 2999, the mind cast for the next instalment of “Personality of the Triple Millennia” was re-run across the networks. POT3M drew an even larger audience because of its oddness. Tsar Nicholas Romanov II was the candidate, the context was the sustenance of blood-drained Tsarevich Alexei and the moment was the assassination attempt on the master, Rasputin. MC Millennia asked when the Tsar first became aware of the deceit in the Royal household. The truth was his son did not suffer haemophilia and was not being supplied anticoagulants; Alexei had been turned by the vampire Rasputin.

In 1997, journalist James Herbert published the true story of the American Hoke in '48. Set three years after the Allies lose WW II, Hitler hits London with his V1 rockets but still finds himself losing the war. So he fires off V2 rockets, which hold a deadly virus that freezes human blood and causes fast death, although some rare victims die more slowly. Only that three percent of the population with AB negative blood survive the virus--so that gangs of slowly dying Blackshirts roam the city looking for AB-negs whose blood they hope to exchange for their own.	48
One of those fighting the Blackshirts as they pursue him is Hoke, an American once with the RAF who now holes up in a vacated luxury hotel, the Savoy. races about on his Matchless 350 motorcycle, locked into anger against the Germans because the virus killed his wife and child, while the Blackshirts are Nazi sympathizers sprung from England's worst pre-war racists.

Results

Marvin Gay	In 2007, on the Tonight Show, Jay Leno interviewed Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. and Tammi Terrell on occasion of their fortieth wedding anniversary. Gay spoke passionately of the close friendships he had forged during his stellar career. In particular, Mel Farr and Lem Barney with whom he won the 1972 Super Bowl NFL Championship. Gay had shouted “What's going on?”, as he lifted the Ed Thorp Memorial Trophy - a mischievous reference to fifteen years of lost play-offs for the Detroit Lions who had won nothing since 1957.
Tammi Terrell

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In 1958, on this day Fidel Castro's rebels edged closer to capital. Thousands died in the bloodiest fighting in Cuba's history as rebels threatened to overthrow the military regime of President Batista, before American forces arrived to support the regime. US Vice President Richard M Nixon justified the incursion, stating that America could not tolerate a hostile regime 150km off the coast of Florida.

In 1839, in a cross-Atlantic joining of horror writers, Mary Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe were married in Baltimore, Maryland. Mrs Shelley, widowed a decade before by the death of her husband Percy, had found a kindred spirit in Poe in America, after he wrote a congratulatory letter to her on the publication of her novel The Modern Prometheus.

In 1916, on this day Russian nobles attempted to assassinate Grigory Rasputin at the Yusopov Palace in St Petersberg. The Master overcame then so very easily, and left them hanging upside down in a gesture as old as Macedonia.

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in 1917, events following Red October (Красный Октябрь) reached a climax as Vladimir Illych Lenin led his forces in the uprising in Petrograd, the capital of Russia, against the ineffective Tsarist Government. For the most part, the revolt in Petrograd was bloodless, with the Red Guards led by Bolsheviks taking over major government facilities with little opposition before finally launching an assault on the Yusopov Palace. This assault was repelled, however when the Maestro Grigory Rasputin drove a stake through the vampire Lenin's heart, killing him and his undead nosferatu spawn.

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In 2002, singer Diana Ross was stopped by the police for drinking and driving after her car was seen swerving across a road. The 58-year-old performer was pulled over by police in Tucson, Arizona after a motorist reported seeing a white Honda Accord driving erratically the wrong way down a road in the early hours of the morning. The star failed a "field sobriety test" which included walking in a straight line and touching the tip of her nose. When asked to stand on one leg she fell over, according to the officers. She was also unable to recite the alphabet or give the correct time and date. This is the latest scene in a thirty-five year history of alcohol abuse that saw the former star ejected from the Supremes in July 1967 and replaced by Cindy Birdsong.

Canada	In 2016, new anti-obesity legislation mandated a third non-consecutive salad day per week for all Canadian citizens.

In 2005, agents of the government of (censored) get a trace on Rat. Somewhere in central Texas an unknown blogger has just subscribed to a revolutionary feeds plugging Kinky Friedman for Governor! And they are using the Yabadabadoo! RSS alternative lifer Newsreader.

Agents

Hitler

In 2005, Gavriel D. Rosenfeld published The World Hitler Never Made. In this fascinating counter-history, Rosenfeld poses the question What if Adolf Hitler had not escaped Berlin for the jungles of Latin America in 1945? In summary, he agrees with Roger Spiller's conclusion in The Führer in the Dock that the possibility of Hitler being among those tried at Nuremberg would have caused major problems for the Allies. So much so, that the reader is left to answer the real question, how can we be so sure that Hitler was not executed by the Red Army and his suicide faked after the event?

In 2017, human civilization begins to feel the impact of global cooling caused by the premature ageing of the sun. The provincial government of Nova Scotia advises citizens that light clothing is advisable during the forthcoming winter. The luxury of nakedness can no longer be guaranteed.

The Sun

In 1835, the Cherokee nation joined the North American Confederation. The discovery of gold in their land made them quite prominent in North America, and the N.A.C. had been courting them for decades.

In 1916, Grigory Rasputin, the rationalist philosopher responsible for Tsar Nicholas II’s embrace of science, is attacked by nobles in the Tsar’s court as he dines. Although they manage to wound him with knives and a gunshot, he is able to escape them and get to a hospital, where he makes a full recovery.

In 1999, computer programmer Linus Torvald posts on his web site that a majority of computers in the world are going to crash due to the Y2K bug, a defect in their manufacture that doesn’t allow them to roll their dates over to the year 2000. He is dismissed as a crank by most of the leading manufacturers of computer software and hardware in the world.