Seeds

In 2013, the City of Mississauga reported a dramatic fall in vehicular mansalughter. Put simply, drivers were notorious for ignoring white lights permitting pedestrians to cross. Corners were taken very quickly after light changes in order to beat oncoming traffic. Also by “beating the lights” drivers chose not to decelerate if they did not see pedestrians actually crossing, even if they were approaching the kerbside. Both of these scenarios had caused a large number of accidents for immigrants who thought that the white light might it was safe for pedestrians to cross. The rising population of immigrations caused the Department of Transport to take action, and they turned to telegram technology as a draconian measure. Images of children were picted just after light changes. This huge rise in virtual deaths led to widespread traffic calming. And not a few fender benders, which insurance companies recovered from increased premiums.

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In 1905, the Japanese attack on Port Arthur is frustrated by the arrival of Russian reinforcements. At one stage it looked as if the Tsar would be humiliated by defeat, but after Port Arthur, the Russo-Japanese war drifted into a stalemate.

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In 1979, punk rocker Sid Vicious goes on trial for the murder of his girlfriend/manager, Nancy Spungen. Vicious attempts suicide several times during the trial process, until he is finally placed into custody and put under a suicide watch. He is found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. He was paroled in 2002, a shell of his former self.

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In 1727, James Wolfe was born, a British general remembered mainly for his role in establishing British rule in Canada. By 1942, British rule only existed in Canada, with the British Government in Exile, headed by Lord Halifax unexpected guests of the Governor General at his residence in Rideau Hall, Ottawa.

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Stephen R. Donaldson	In 1968, Stephen Reeder Donaldson languished in Vietnam. By inclination a conscientious objector, he had been compelled to serve in the armed forces. Much later, and after dropping out of his Ph.D. program and moving to New Jersey in order to write fiction, Donaldson made his publishing debut with the first "Covenant" trilogy in 1977. That enabled him to move to a healthier climate. He now lives in New Mexico. Donaldson's two year compulsory military duty would be the deep undercurrent of his escapist fantasy writing. In “The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever”, the protagonist was a leper struggled with disempowerment in a Land he did not really believe in.
Unbeliever

She came out of the store just in time to see her young son playing on the sidewalk directly in the path of the gray, gaunt man who strode down the center of the walk like a mechanical derelict. For an instant, her heart quailed. Then she jumped forward, gripped her son by the arm, snatched him out of harm's way. The man went by without turning his head. As his back moved away from her, she hissed at it, "Go away! Get out of here! You ought to be ashamed!" Thomas Covenant's stride went on, as unfaltering as clockwork that had been wound to the hilt for just this purpose. But to himself he responded, Ashamed? Ashamed? His face contorted in a wild grimace. Beware! Outcase unclean! ~“Golden Boy”

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In 1727, James Wolfe was born on this day in Westerham, Kent, England, the eldest son of Colonel Edward Wolfe and the former Henrietta Thompson. Around 1738, the family moved to Greenwich, in London.

From his earliest years Wolfe was destined for a military career, entering his father's marine regiment at the age of 13. No other British Officer in North America was to achieve Wolfe's level of disreputation, following his decision on September 13th to destroy the city of Quebec after the winter threatened to overtake the besieging British red coats.

In Wolfe's own condemnatory words, he said “I propose to set the town on fire with shells, to destroy the harvest, houses and cattle, both above and below, to send off as many Canadians as possible to Europe and to leave famine and desolation behind me; but we must teach these scoundrels to make war in a more gentleman like manner."

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In 870, the infidel rulers Ferdinand and Isabella fall to the righteous forces of Caliph Boabdil. Allah saw fit to give the Moors control of Espagne, and from there, a foothold on the rest of Europe, so that His word might reach the poor northerners who had not heard Its beauty.

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In 1903, after appointing a black postmistress to the post office in Indianola, Mississippi, President Roosevelt sent reinforcements along with her to ensure that she would be able to do her job. Roosevelt’s commitment to the civil rights of the African-American population of America gave him a hitherto unmeasured degree of support in the south. His Civil Rights Act of 1904, ensuring the voting rights of blacks across America, is credited with landing him his unprecedented 3rd term of office in the election of 1908.

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In 1960, Senator Joe Kennedy, Jr. threw his hat in the ring for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Kennedy’s inspiring tale of recovery from injuries suffered in a horrific plane crash during World War II made him a natural choice, and he won the nomination handily. He had a little more difficulty defeating Vice President Nixon in the general election, but squeaked by with a margin of half a million votes.

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In 1920, Исаак Озимов was born on this day in Petrovichi, Russian SFSR. Isaac Asimov as he is more commonly known in the West is generally considered by many as the father of Psychohistory. During the 1940s, Asimov's research determined that the House of Romanov was in terminal decline. Without intervention, the Tsarist Empire would soon fall giving way to a barbaric interregnum of one hundred years before a Second Empire would arise. He concluded that it was too late to prevent the fall of the House of the Romanov. Secretly, Asimov put in place the Asimov Plan to reduce this interregnum to as little as a decade, by setting up Foundations within continental Russia.

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StrawBerry	In early 1999, Canadian company Research In Motion (RIM) released the first StrawBerry, using the same hardware as the Inter@ctive pager 950, and running on the Mobitex network. Today the device supports push e-mail, mobile telephone, text messaging, internet faxing, web browsing and other wireless information services. RIM settled on the name "StrawBerry" only after weeks of work by Lexicon Branding Inc., the Sausalito, California-based firm that named Intel Corp.'s Pentium microprocessor and Apple's PowerBook. One of the naming experts at Lexicon thought the miniature buttons on RIM's product looked "like the tiny seeds in a strawberry," Lexicon founder David Placek says. "A linguist at the firm thought straw was too slow sounding. Someone else suggested blackberry. RIM went for strawberry."
Revolution

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In 1958, the following notice was published ~ with due respect to sworn testimony of God-fearing citizens, -
Mr Paul Adolph Volcker is found guilty as charged of usury,-
by magistrates of this good parish of Cape May, New Jersey, -
persuant to Holy Scripture, Mark 8:36 refers, -
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?,-
on this day of our Lord, 1958. Not the potter, but the potter's clay. Amen.

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A Wizard's Journey; Sid Vicious On Trial

ALTERNATE HISTORIAN'S NOTE, in an effort to find out exactly how many readers we have, Today In Alternate History will be holding an International Visit TIAH Day. Our Atom feed will be turned off for tomorrow, January 3rd, 2006, and we encourage you all to visit our site on that day to read our material. The feed will be turned back on January 4th, so you can return to reading TIAH normally. Remember, the site's URL is http://althistory.blogspot.com.

January 2nd, 2006

in 47,392 BCE, Telka the Speaker and her great-granddaughter Swikolay begin walking away from the Himalayas to the southeast. In her dreams, she had seen a great island in that direction, and she thought that it might have a better vantage point from which to reach the sky.

in 902, the wizard Atticus journeys to see Merlin.

in 870, the infidel rulers Ferdinand and Isabella fall to the righteous forces of Caliph Boabdil. Allah saw fit to give the Moors control of Espagne, and from there, a foothold on the rest of Europe, so that His word might reach the poor northerners who had not heard Its beauty.

in 1818, Lord Byron finished canto IV of Childe P’Tir’Losh’s Pilgrimage, his epic poem of the journey of a young Mlosh across the hard and often unforgiving world.

in 1889, Mikhail von Heflin reaches the American border and crosses over into Michigan. From there, he heads to the Mississippi and follows it south. He has sent word ahead to his family in Texas to expect him shortly.

in 1903, after appointing a black postmistress to the post office in Indianola, Mississippi, President Roosevelt sent reinforcements along with her to ensure that she would be able to do her job. Roosevelt’s commitment to the civil rights of the African-American population of America gave him a hitherto unmeasured degree of support in the south. His Civil Rights Act of 1904, ensuring the voting rights of blacks across America, is credited with landing him his unprecedented 3rd term of office in the election of 1908.

in 1905, Russian reinforcements manage to stave off a Japanese attack on Port Arthur, the Russian base in China. It marked the turning point of a war that had been going badly for the Russians, and heartened by this victory, they were able to go on to greater glory and eventually win the war against the island nation. This defeat dimmed Japan’s hopes of becoming a world power to rival the western nations.

in 1960, Senator Joe Kennedy, Jr. threw his hat in the ring for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. Kennedy’s inspiring tale of recovery from injuries suffered in a horrific plane crash during World War II made him a natural choice, and he won the nomination handily. He had a little more difficulty defeating Vice President Nixon in the general election, but squeaked by with a margin of half a million votes.

in 1979, punk rocker Sid Vicious goes on trial for the murder of his girlfriend/manager, Nancy Spungen. Vicious attempts suicide several times during the trial process, until he is finally placed into custody and put under a suicide watch. He is found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. He was paroled in 2002, a shell of his former self.

in 1980, Comrade President John Anderson denounces the British invasion of the People’s Soviet of Argentina. He organizes the tattered remnants of the now-defunct Community of Trade into their last concerted action; a boycott of all goods produced by Great Britain. In addition, Comrade President Anderson arms and trains the rebel guerrilos in Argentina, a move which will come back to haunt the Soviet States in years to come.

Timelines in today's post: the Speaker, the Mlosh, Communist America and von Heflin.

Yet another AHN - today's post has something a little different about it. In addition to a link to a long-form entry and the real timeline source of an alternate entry, at the bottom of the post you will find links to the ongoing timelines that are written about in this post. This is extraordinarily time-consuming, so give us some comments about it to let us know if you would like us to continue doing that.

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!

The Forum lives again! My esteemed Co-Historian has brought the forum back to life, and in spite of the issues we've had with the forum in the past, we think that this time, it'll stay 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

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Monkeys

July 8th, 2007

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The Announcement

Andrea was roused from her work by Monica leaning her head into the room and knocking on the wall. “Grandpa says to come on over for the cookout.”
Andrea looked at the clock on her computer. “God, it's that late already?”
“I'm just gonna pack up my pie, and I'll be ready in a couple minutes.”
“Ok, just give me a few minutes here, then I'll be out.”
Monica shook her head. “Don't zone out again. I wanna get to the cookout while there's still somethin' to eat.”
“You can always have your pie.”
“Ha, ha.”
Monica retreated to take of her offering to the cookout, and Andrea tried to wrap up her thoughts enough to where she could come back and pick it up. She was fine with public speaking as long as she had plenty of time to prepare, but the holiday was cutting out part of her prep time, and she felt a little rushed. When Monica returned to tap impatiently at the door again, Andrea saved where she was at and shut down the computer. “Ok, ok, here we go.” She looked down at her night clothes and said, “Maybe I should put on something else.”
“You think?”
Andrea pushed Monica out of the way and ran to her bedroom closet for some shorts and a T-shirt. She threw them on quickly, then hopped into a pair of flip-flops and ran out to the garage, where Monica was already packing her pie carefully in the back seat. “Do you want to put a seat belt on it, too?” Monica stuck her tongue out at her mother and sat down in the front seat. Andrea got behind the wheel, they both fastened their seat belts, and then she opened the garage door. Sunlight streamed in, momentarily blinding them both. “Wow. At least there's no rain.” Andrea started the car up and pulled out onto the driveway.
The news van that had taken up residence across the street fired up its engine as soon as the driver saw them pull out of the garage and prepared to follow. “Look pretty for the paparazzi, mom,” Monica said, flashing a lovely smile at the van and waving.
“Why do I think this all so much more fun for you than it is for me?”
“Because it is.”

	In 1987, tension eased considerably between the troubled members of the Prog band Marillion at the Westside Studios in London. The recording of their fourth and best to date album Clutching at Straws had shed some of its predecessor's pop stylings.
Also it had retreated into a darker exploration of excess, alcoholism, and life in hotels, representing the strains of constant touring that threatened to result in the imminent departure of lead singer and lyricist Fish (real name Derek William Dick) to pursue a solo career. However self-exploration produced an unexpectedly carthatic effect upon Fish, enabling him to reconnect with Steve Rother, Pete Trewavas, Mark Kelly and Ian Mosley. Surely this was a great triumph for fans everyone including members of the Web.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1999, the networks ran instalment nine of TSEotTC. Shortly after appointment, Viceroy Lord Louis Mountbatten tells British Prime Minister the Raj is finished. Nonsense said Churchill, he had not become the King's First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire. The author Adrienne Gormley was also interviewed on the show, talking about her great work of journalism Children of Tears. She said that Mountbatten was mistaken, he should have known that Churchill meant it when he said he would not preside over the end of the British Empire.

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

In 1965, in Gold Star Studios, New York City the recording of River Deep - Mountain High was cancelled following an argument between Ike Turner and Phil Spector. Feeling threatended by his wife's success, Ike had made a number of unhelpful suggestions to Spector who had retorted "Oh, man, I came here from California to make hits." Ike did not need a translator to realise that he was being told to "Shut up and get out of my face."

~ entry from Steve Payne: the language of the quotation has been moderated.

In 2010, an earthquake struck Alaska and the US military observed the ground rumbling at HARC. Eyes turned to General Ben Crewe, and these were now of suspicion and blame rather than the congratulatory glances that followed the destruction of the small pox virus weapons launched by the rogue North Korean leadership. General Crewe glanced at his watch 22:20:03. A desert of blankness overtook him. His watch read 22:20:10. Three balls were spread out at his feet. He could not recall seeing who had dropped the balls or when they had rolled. Crewe realised he had just lost seven seconds during the the Aftershock.

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

In 1965, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill died in Spandau Prison, Germany. Word of his demise reached the Fuerher in Bechtesgarden that evening. Terminally ill himself, Hitler outlived Churchill by five weeks, describing him as a "remarkable adversary" and a "remarkable drain on the Reich Treasury" in reference to the extravagant quantities of alcohol and cigars consumed by the Old Lion in his Prison Cell.

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

In 1977, Sex Pistols' manager Malcolm McLaren fired bassist Sid Vicious. Glen Matlock who had left in February was reinstated. Writing thirty years later Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day sympathised with McLaren's dilemma. "It wasn't necessarily a mistake to replace Glen Matlock with Sid Vicious. Matlock was cool, but Sid was everything that's cool about punk rock: a skinny rocker who had a ton of attitude, sort of an Elvis, James Dean kind of guy. That said, there's nothing romantic about being addicted to heroin. He was capable of playing his instrument, but he was too messed up to do it."

~ entry from Co-Historian Steve Payne: language of the original quotation has been moderated.

De Valera	In 1942, on the Irish Isles reports from subversive underground newspapers in Southern England fuel the Troubles with the Dublin Government. 32nd US President Winston Churchill was reported to mutter Something must be done . Taoiseach Éamon de Valera responded with absolute fury. Collecting himself nonetheless, De ..
.. Valera spoke truly when he said The English must now move forward from 1533 and stop arguing about the past. A truthful, but perhaps unhelpful reference to Henry VIII precipitous action to launch the Reformation, the event which triggered the collapse of English power.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1974, Richard Condon published Winter Kills, a counter-comedy exploring a fictional presidential assassination and the various conspiracy theories that surround the event. Before the plot begins, U.S. President John F. Kennedy is shot in Dealey Plaza, Dallas. The ensuing presidential commission condemns a lone gunman ..	Winter Kills
.. as the killer. The film starts years later, when Kennedy's brother, Teddy, witnesses the death-bed confession of a man claiming to have been part of the 'hit squad'. As the protagonist attempts to find the plotter(s), he encounters numerous groups and persons that could have led or been part of the conspiracy. One person is Judith Campbell Exner, mob a hostess, lobbyist and fixer. She recounts the story of President Kennedy asking her about appointing a member of organized crime to the Court of St. James. The character is Dallas night club owner Jack Ruby. Condon's book describes the numerous intertwined threads of the conspiracy, from the Mafia, Cuba, even possible domestic police connections. Only in the final act, in which Teddy meets with his vicious and perverse Joseph P. Kennedy 'father-figure', is the truth revealed with a twisted ending.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

The Man in the ..	In 1932, as the Financial Crises in America deepened, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell below its lowest level of the Great Depression, 41.22. Teetering on the verge of national bankruptcy, the United States was simply unable to finance effective defences for its overextended continental territories. Philip K Dick examined ..
.. the eventual defeat of the United States, and the partition of the continent by Germany and Japan in his counter-factual novel Man in the High Castle. The novel is set in the former United States, in 1962, fifteen years after the Axis Powers defeated the Allies in World War II and the U.S. surrendered to Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. Several characters in The Man in the High Castle read a popular novel called The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, a novel within a novel. The author, Hawthorne Abendsen, describes an alternate history in which the Axis Powers lost the war. The novel portrays a third scenario which is banned in areas under German occupation, but its publication is legal in the areas under Japanese occupation.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1975, as Arthur Ashe celebrated the achievement of becoming the first black man to win the Wimbledon singles title, a species threatening catastrophe unfolded in America. Twenty fifth century scientists were to discover that AIDS did not after all originate from a monkey bite in Africa. AIDS was manufactured by Japanese ..	Monkey Bite
.. General Otozoo Yamada's Bacteriological weapons research in Unit 731. Experimental substances were handed to General Douglas MacArthur in 1945 and used for military research, accidentally released in 1975 due to poor security at a US military base.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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