Reflections

With due respect to sworn testimony of God-fearing citizens, - the Hungarian illusionist and magician Ehrich Weiss who under the false name Harry Houdini,- having willingly confessed to unspeakable acts of witchcraft, - found guilty of escapology, dematerializing inter alia - sentenced by magistrates of this good parish of Appleton, Wisconsin to trial by water, - persuant to Holy Scripture, "The Devil is the Father of Deviation," refers, - on this day of our Lord, 1898. Not the potter, but the potter's clay. Amen.

In 2026, the leader of the Fourth Expedition Captain Wilder introduced his children to the Martians by showing his family their reflections in the canal. The indigenes of Mars had died of chicken pox brought by the first three expeditions.

Columbus	"I believe that .. you will soon convert to our holy faith a multitude of people, acquiring large dominions and great riches for Spain." ~ Christopher Columbus, would-be architect of First Nation destruction on the Turtle Island.
Explorer

Writing to Ferdinand and Isabella, urging the Christianization of 'natives' in October 1492. Columbus and his men were unable to combat the melancholy of separation emanating from the Mesh, that irresistible group consciousness between First Nations linking the Turtle Island (America) to the Dreamtime (48,000 year old Aboriginal civilization). A synopsis of the life and times of Christopher Columbus is provided at Wikipedia

Omoro Kinte	In 1750, in Juffure on the Gambia, a village elder conducts an ancient Mandinka ritual, sending Omoro Kinte across the great river of time and space. On the same voyage are three others, Thalmus Rasulala, Cicely Tyson, LeVar Burton. The elder delivers this band of four young people to Annapolis, Maryland. Somehow they must release Alex Haley from bondage and return him to the year 1976, where he must must publish “Roots: The Saga of an American Family”. Haley is trying to give his people a myth to live by, overturning other myths about the Black American experience and giving African Americans a proud history. They must succeed.

In 1964, Hawthorn Abendsen published the counter-factual novel The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. Set in America in 1962, the once-isolationist nation had been propelled to global domination as the world's first hyper power All because some twenty years earlier Japan has provoked America by going pre-emptive on the US Pacific Fleet at Hawaii. The essence of Dick's masterpiece is the book within the book, 'Man in the High Castle', a work of fiction written by a man called Philip K Dick. It describes a world where the Japanese won the Pacific war - as a result, it has been banned by the Americans.	What If?
Given his unpopularity with the world's two great powers, Dick is said to live in a heavily fortified home and has become known as "The Man in the High Castle". Critics panned the concept but loved the story. After all, it was predicated on the US Fleet leaving San Diego for Hawaii when Americans overwhelmingly disapproved of war in the Pacific. Today we know that Mr Roosevelt meant it when he said at Boston on October 30 1940: "I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars."

T.E. Lawrence	In 1946, on this day sentencing occurred at the Nuremberg Trials. A guilty charge was found against Commander of the British Eighth Army Colonel T.E. Lawrence and subordinates Bernard Law Montgomery, Archibald Percival Wavell and Sir Claude John Eyre Auchinleck and all four were shot the very next day. Granted a last request, Lawrence wrote a short letter for Winston Churchill who - along with the remnants of the British Royal Navy - had withdrawn to Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands.
Thanking Churchill for his confidence in the Command appointment, Lawrence blamed his defeat upon a group of Egyptian officers, headed by Gamal Abdul Nassar, and Anwar el-Sadat, who secretly sided with the Germans, ridding North Africa of Britain's presence. In a final, chilling paragraph, Lawrence entered a biblical quote from the Book of Proverbs, 9:1: Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars

In 1963, John F Kennedy was prescribed the stiff canvas shoulder-to-groin metal framed brace that would deflect an assassin's bullet at Dallas, saving his life less than seven weeks later. "Kennedy may have been saved . . . by his sexual excesses and compulsiveness," Hersh wrote in the Dark Side of Camelot "He severely tore a groin muscle while frolicking poolside with one of his sexual partners during a West Coast trip in the last week of September 1963. The pain was so intense that the White House medical staff prescribed a stiff canvas shoulder-to-groin metal framed brace that locked his body in a rigid upright position. It was far more constraining that his usual back brace, which he also continued to wear. The two braces were meant to keep him as comfortable as possible during the strenuous days of campaigning, including that day in Dallas.”	JFK

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

Winners

Thomas Edward Lawrence	I deem him one of the greatest beings alive in our time. I do not see his like elsewhere. I fear whatever our need we shall never see his like again. King George V wrote to his brother, 'His name will live in history'. That is true. It will live in English letters; It will live in the annuls of war; it will live in the traditions of the Royal Air Force and in the legends of Arabia. ~ Sir Winston Spencer Churchill. T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) survived his 1935 motorcycle accident. In 1940, Churchill convinced Lawrence to go back to North Africa. Lawrence found Rommel and "turned" him by appealing to his sense of honour as a brother officer. Following his return to Great Britain, Churchill paid Lawrence this generous tribute - as described by Susan Schwarz in the secret history Loose Cannon. But Lawrence had been turned himself- twice. Churchill also returned the disturbing letters to John Bruce of the Tank Regiment from his make-believe Uncle that had been used as leverage to make Lawrence take the mission. The full article is available at LawrenceOfArabia.co.uk.
Arabist

In 2008, David E. McGeek Chief Information Officer of Pappy's Texas Barbecue Chicken, Inc. laid down a new IS Strategy for systems integration with the newly acquired subsidiary, Wanda's of Montreal. The market leading Enterprise Resource Planning System Macrosoft, Inc.'s Great Plane had been chosen by the newly enlarged group. An exciting XML bill of materials feature would synergise lard-based menus. It was a real win for the customer said McGeek.

McGeek

Nicholas II	In 1918, Tsar Nicholas Romanov II abdicated after the Russian Revolution, and a Republic was proclaimed. Anti-russian sentiment was strong inside the Anglo-German alliance following the Great War. Politicians in both Berlin and London blamed Russian chauvinism for turning the assassination at Sarajevo into a World Crisis. In particular the British Prime Minister Lloyd George had just won an election with the slogan 'Hang the Tsar!' and less than a year later, Sultan Abdulhamid II of Turkey handed over the Romanov Family for execution in St Petersburg.

In 1918, following the outbreak of the German Revolution, a republic was proclaimed on this day, marking the end of the monarchy. The Kaiser fled the next day to the neutral Netherlands, which granted him political asylum (see Weimar Republic for details). His fifteen year exile was finally ended upon the invitation of Fuhrer Adolf Hitler, who was keen to provide a replacement for the recently diseased figurehead Paul von Hindenburg.	Berliner Tiergarten

Nuclear Detonation	In 1966, a deep-underground nuclear detonation of a small magnitude is reported by atomic energy authorities throughout the world. None of the nuclear club of nations claims responsibility, and Washington suspects a new power has emerged, possibly Israel or South Africa.

In 1965, “the Butcher of Rhodesia” Ian Henderson received a telephone call he was expecting from London. Operation Quartz had been brought forward by a fortnight.	Ian Henderson

Falling Apart

In 1963, FBI Director J Edgar Hoover, President Lyndon Baines Johnson and Chief Justice Earl Warren met in the Oval Office. The trio studied notes from an interview with Marvin Lee Aday in which the young man described how he, a friend and his friend's father, drove out to Love Field to watch John F. Kennedy land. After watching him leave the airport, they decided to head to Market Hall which was on Kennedy's parade route. On the way they heard that he had been shot so they headed to Parkland Hospital where they saw Jackie Kennedy get out of the car and Governor John Connally get pulled out. Then they saw a very much alive Kennedy taken out and smuggled into a private car.

In 1952, President-elect Adlai Stevenson fulfilled an election campaign pledge to visit Korea in an effort to find an end to the bitter civil war raging in the small Asian nation. His opponent Dwight David Eisenhower had electrified the country just before the election by promising to personally go to Korea and end that stalemated conflict, a pledge which Stevenson had matched. Characteristically, he arrived at one but his smart alec solutions that led to his impeachment in 1956.

Partition Map	In 1947, the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine or United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 was announced. Palestine followed India in suffering the agony of partition following a British withdrawal.

in 1952, Eisenhower had made Joe McCarthy his running mate, MacArthur's campaign had fallen apart and the result was Stevenson winning the nomination. All three candidates had promised to go to Korea to find out what could be done to end the conflict. On this day the U.S. President-elect fulfilled that campaign promise. Arriving in the war-zone, his secret plan to end the conflict was immeasurably different from the two other candidates. In The Impeachment of Adlai Stevenson journalist David Gerrold examined how six years of intelligent decisions provoked Congressional uproar.	Adlai Stevenson

T.E. Lawrence

In 1963, FBI Director J Edgar Hoover, President John F Kennedy and Chief Justice Earl Warren met in the Oval Office. Agenda: to agree the action plan for the Presidential Commission into the assassination attempt on the President which occurred just a week before. Kennedy re-iterated that if a CIA plot was discovered, he really would smash the agency into a thousand pieces this time. Hoover could not agree more, he wanted a super-agency from which he could control both domestic and foreign intelligence services. The provisional title for the new super-agency was Homeland Security; Hoover felt the name had a good ring to it.

In 1947, General Assembly invited Arab Palestine to join the United Nations as a sovereign nation. The Palestine Plan was denounced by Zionists worldwide. In New York, protests are led by David Green and former Commander of the British Eighth Army, Colonel T.E. Lawrence who had promised Aaron Aaronsohn that Eretz Israel would get his voice after the war.	Lawrence

Fables

Alternate Historian says, everyone at the Academy was thrilled to receive a smashing story from Mr Brian Brackney, sincerely. Brian's post takes a very well deserved place today - thank you, sir. Please email send your story to Alternate Historian and please remember to include the posting date you require.

In 1955, on this day budding film star James Dean died in a car accident. Dean anticipated the Goth fad by two generations. In East of Eden he played a young teenager who has a human father but a vampire mother who deserted him and his twin brother at birth. He exposes their vampire heritage to his twin who offers his services to the US Army during World War 1. His twin dies at the hands of a vampire in the German army, a young corporal named Adolph Hitler. In a Rebel Without a Cause Dean played a young teenager who redeems himself after a peer drives off a cliff in a deadly game of chicken. He along with Sal Mineo and Natalie Wood lead a daring raid on the lair of sea monster who conducts sinster experiments on teenagers. He reedems himself when he rescues his peer whom he thought dead along with others. In Giant he played a young man who struck it rich after space aliens reveal to him the location of oil fields. Today Dean is revered by young goths as an early forerunner of their subculture.

With due respect to the sworn testimony of God-fearing citizens, - illusionist and stunt performer Antony Andruzzi,- deceiving the weak under the pseudonyms of Tony Andruzzi, Masklyn ye Mage, and Daemon Ecks inter alia,- sentenced to trial by water,- by magistrates of this good parish of Cheyenne, Wyoming, - persuant to Holy Scripture, "Only the image of God is Man” refers, - on this day of our Lord, 1947. Not the potter, but the potter's clay. Amen.

In 2026, the leader of the Fourth Expedition Captain Wilder introduced his children to the Martians by showing his family their reflections in the canal. The indigenes of Mars had died of chicken pox brought by the first three expeditions.

Columbus	"I believe that .. you will soon convert to our holy faith a multitude of people, acquiring large dominions and great riches for Spain." ~ Christopher Columbus, would-be architect of First Nation destruction on the Turtle Island.
Explorer

Writing to Ferdinand and Isabella, urging the Christianization of 'natives' in October 1492. Columbus and his men were unable to combat the melancholy of separation emanating from the Mesh, that irresistible group consciousness between First Nations linking the Turtle Island (America) to the Dreamtime (48,000 year old Aboriginal civilization). A synopsis of the life and times of Christopher Columbus is provided at Wikipedia

Omoro Kinte	In 1750, in Juffure on the Gambia, a village elder conducts an ancient Mandinka ritual, sending Omoro Kinte across the great river of time and space. On the same voyage are three others, Thalmus Rasulala, Cicely Tyson, LeVar Burton. The elder delivers this band of four young people to Annapolis, Maryland. Somehow they must release Alex Haley from bondage and return him to the year 1976, where he must must publish “Roots: The Saga of an American Family”. Haley is trying to give his people a myth to live by, overturning other myths about the Black American experience and giving African Americans a proud history. They must succeed.

In 1964, Hawthorn Abendsen published the counter-factual novel The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. Set in America in 1962, the once-isolationist nation had been propelled to global domination as the world's first hyper power All because some twenty years earlier Japan has provoked America by going pre-emptive on the US Pacific Fleet at Hawaii. The essence of Dick's masterpiece is the book within the book, 'Man in the High Castle', a work of fiction written by a man called Philip K Dick. It describes a world where the Japanese won the Pacific war - as a result, it has been banned by the Americans. Given his unpopularity with the world's two great powers, Dick is said to live in a heavily fortified home and has become known as "The Man in the High Castle". Critics panned the concept but loved the story.	What If?
After all, it was predicated on the US Fleet leaving San Diego for Hawaii when Americans overwhelmingly disapproved of war in the Pacific. Today we know that Mr Roosevelt meant it when he said at Boston on October 30 1940: "I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars."

T.E. Lawrence	In 1946, on this day sentencing occurred at the Nuremberg Trials. A guilty charge was found against Commander of the British Eighth Army Colonel T.E. Lawrence and subordinates Bernard Law Montgomery, Archibald Percival Wavell and Sir Claude John Eyre Auchinleck and all four were shot the very next day. Granted a last request, Lawrence wrote a short letter for Winston Churchill who - along with the remnants of the British Royal Navy - had withdrawn to Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands. Thanking Churchill for his confidence in the Command appointment, Lawrence blamed his defeat upon a group of Egyptian officers, headed by Gamal Abdul Nassar, and Anwar el-Sadat, who secretly sided with the Germans, ridding North ..
.. Africa of Britain's presence. In a final, chilling paragraph, Lawrence entered a biblical quote from the Book of Proverbs, 9:1: Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars

In 1963, John F Kennedy was prescribed the stiff canvas shoulder-to-groin metal framed brace that would deflect an assassin's bullet at Dallas, saving his life less than seven weeks later. "Kennedy may have been saved . . . by his sexual excesses and compulsiveness," Hersh wrote in the Dark Side of Camelot "He severely tore a groin muscle while frolicking poolside with one of his sexual partners during a West Coast trip in the last week of September 1963. The pain was so intense that the White House medical staff prescribed a stiff canvas shoulder-to-groin metal framed brace that locked his body in a rigid upright position. It was far more constraining that his usual back brace, which he also continued to wear. The two braces were meant to keep him as comfortable as possible during the strenuous days of campaigning, including that day in Dallas.”	JFK

Changes

In 1989, in the climactic scene in an old cemetery, the Warlock (having collected the final set of pages) assembled the Grand Grimoire learning the name of God - the backwards utterance of which will lead to the uncreation of the world. The witch-hunter Giles Redferne discovers that the mysterious figure who propelled them into 20th Century Los Angeles was Immanuel. God, seeing the wickedness which had entered man's heart, was saddened, and decided to undo creation to destroy mankind.

Pursuit

Sir Robert Hart	"In fifty years time there will be millions of Boxers in serried ranks and war's panoply at the call of the Chinese Government." ~ Sir Robert Hart, British Colonial administrator, anticipating Maoist chauvinism in 1901. When China turned against the West during the Righteous and Harmonious Society Uprising known to Europeans as the Boxer Rebellion. General Douglas MacArthur had other plans, escalating the Korean War by deploying nuclear and biological weapons in Manchuria during 1953.
Colonial Administrator

By defeating both Japan and China, “Brass Hat” ensured American hegemony in south-east Asia. There was he contended “no substitute for victory”. A synopsis of the Boxer Rebellion is provided at Wikipedia

Thalmus Rasulal..	In 1976/1767, the actor Thalmus Rasulala dreams of a great river running into a bay. African Americans are brought from a ship LORD LIGONIER in chains, and Rasulala is distressed to see Alex Haley amongst them. The author looks at him in misery and says HELP ME. The actor awakes, and packs his bags. He will must go to this place and find his brother, once he has discovered the entry port for the LORD LIGONIER.

In 2002, scientists investigated a significant fresh impact crater in a remote part of Siberia. The cause was presumed to have been caused by meteoroid or perhaps a 50-100m comet nucleus. Kosmopoisk sent an expedition in May 2003 led by V. Chernobrov which reached the presumed impact point about 50 km from Vitimsky settle point. The situation there looked similar to that of the Tunguska river after the Tunguska event in 1908. Snow and water samples were analysed and found to contain an abnormal amount of tritium, as well as radioactive isotopes of cobalt and caesium. The led a trail to the actual settle point, where they discovered a scene straight out of H.P. Lovecraft's novel the Old Ones.	Vitim Event

T.E. Lawrence	In 1940, Commander of the British Eighth Army Colonel T.E. Lawrence arrived in North Africa where he defeated Rommel's Afrika Corps and Italian allies. This incredible story is recounted in the semi-factual book Loose Cannon. The essence of Susan Shwartz's masterpiece is the book within the book, 'The Sphinx Lies Heavy' in which Lawrence does not survive his 1935 motorcycle accident. Instead the incompetent Command Claude Auchenlech is defeated and the Wehrmacht cross the Suez Canal to link up with Operation Barbarossa.

In 1992, George Zebrowski published Let Time Shape. The counter-factual masterpiece examines the possibilities of Columbus finding the Turtle Island populated by indigenous first nation Americans and not the technologically sophisticated descendants of refugees from Carthage. However, there is twist; the indigenes carry a lethal cocktail of diseases that wipe out the budding European colonists.	Columbus

Secrets

Indira Gandhi	In 1966, the only daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, became the first woman prime minister of India. Mrs Gandhi led the nation into a new period of enlightenment by pursuing Bapu's policy of brahmacharya, meaning 'control of the senses in thought, word and deed'. No better demonstration could be given that her survival from a hail of bullets from her Sikh bodyguards in New Delhi in 1984. She had after all witnessed Bapu survive a similiar attempt on his life in 1948.
Prime Minister

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T.E. Shaw	The earth trembled with the wrath of the warring nations, as Shaw's fame spread fast and with the momentum of the fabulous through Asia. All the metals were molten. Everything was in motion. No one could say what was impossible. Shaw realised Napoleon's young dream of conquering the East; he arrived in Constantinople in 1919 with most of the tribes and races of Asia Minor and Arabia at his back. ~ epic coda to the Final Arabian Tale 'Byzantium', by fantasy writer Ned Lawrence © Oxford University Press, 1919.
Fictional Hero

On completing his degree (1910), Ned Lawrence commenced postgraduate research in medieval pottery with a Senior Demy at Magdalen College, Oxford, which he abandoned after he was offered the opportunity to become a practising archaeologist in the Middle East. In December 1910 he sailed for Beirut, and on arrival went to Jbail (Byblos), where he studied Arabic. He then went to work on the excavations at Carchemish, near Jerablus in northern Syria, where he worked under D.G. Hogarth and R. Campbell-Thompson of the British Museum. He would later state that everything he accomplished as a fantasy author he owed to Hogarth. While excavating ancient Mesopotamian sites, Lawrence met Gertrude Bell, who was to influence him for much of his time in the Middle East. In late summer 1911, Lawrence returned to England for a brief sojourn. By November he was en route to Beirut for a second season at Carchemish, where he was to work with Leonard Woolley. Prior to resuming work there, however, he briefly worked with William Flinders Petrie at Kafr Ammar in Egypt. Lawrence continued making trips to the Middle East as a field archaeologist until the outbreak of World War I. In January 1914, Woolley and Lawrence were co-opted by the British military as an archaeological smokescreen for a British military survey of the Negev Desert. They were funded by the Palestine Exploration Fund to search for an area referred to in the Bible as the "Wilderness of Zin"; along the way, they undertook an archaeological survey of the Negev Desert. The Negev was of strategic importance, as it would have to be crossed by any Ottoman army attacking Egypt in the event of war. Woolley and Lawrence subsequently published a report of the expedition's archaeological findings, but a more important result was an updated mapping of the area, with special attention to features of military relevance such as water sources. At this time, Lawrence visited Aqaba and Petra. From March to May, Lawrence worked again at Carchemish. Following the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, on the advice of S. F. Newcombe, Lawrence did not enlist in the British Army but held back until October, when he was commissioned in the Royal Flying Corps. During this period, he wrote a series of fantasy novels that were published after the war after he resumed his education.

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In 736 AUC, Caius Lumis Juventus, Roman inventor extraordinaire, demonstrates the most powerful steam engine ever built. Caius had been a student of the ancient Greek sciences, and had learned of the simple uses they had put the power of steam to in the old days. Jove’s Thunderbolt, the engine that Caius Juventus built, was capable of pulling a carriage with three heavy men for miles. His designs revolutionized Roman society.

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In 3896, Japanese Zen philosopher Dogen Kigen is born somewhere in southern Japan. As a young man, he traveled to the Chinese Empire to study the true ways of Zen at Mount Tendo. His mountain temple in Echizen has become a regular stop for pilgrims, including every Chinese emperor; tradition dictates that the emperor spend a week there before his coronation.

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In 1809, renowned author Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachussetts. The most popular writer in America during his lifetime, Poe invented detective fiction, as well as popularizing what would come to be known as horror stories by those who sought to imitate him at the end of the century. Poe died in 1883, a wealthy and happy man of letters.

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In 1840, Captain Charles Wilkes claims a third of Pluto for the North American Confederation. Although considered a bad piece of property to own at first, Pluto’s position at the outer reaches of the solar system becomes important when the Congress of Nations decides to build its defensive base there, and the N.A.C.’s importance in system affairs is increased.

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In 1943, singer Janis Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas. Her hard living fueled the blues that she sang so beautifully, but it all came crashing down on her when she missed the Woodstock Music Festival in 1969 because she was too drunk to perform. She checked into rehab after that, but her music never recovered. Today, she runs a counseling center for performers trying to kick addictions.

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In 2001, Chairman McPherson issues the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the circumstances of the fatal car crash which killed the heir to the throne Prince Charles Windsor and his lover Camilla Parker-Bowles in Paris on 31st August 1997. McPherson finds no grounds for conspiracy. The British Public will have none of it, and the McPherson report overtakes the Warren Commission as a source of conspiracy theories on the Internet.

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In 1840, Captain Charles Wilkes attempts to circumnavigate Antarctica to claim so-called Wilkes Land for the United States. The southern lights known as the aurora australis terrorize the mission as powerful magicks force Wilkes to turn back and abandon the mission.

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In 1943, singer Janis Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas. A charismatic and leading member of the counter-culture, conspiracy theorists believe that Joplin was a victim of the authoritarian problem implemented by President Richard Milhous Nixon in the late sixties / early seventies. Defeated in the '60 election, America entered a crazy decade of anti-social behaviour which threatened to rip the country apart. A strong disciplinarian, Nixon got the country back on track when he was re-elected in '68 with a 'secret plan'. His dislike for the hippie counterculture and the anti-war demonstrations emerged during the campaign when he had intimated 'I think some of these young people need what my father would call a visit to the woodshed.' The essence of the 'secret plan' soon emerged following the mysterious deaths of numerous counter-culture personalities including Janis Joplin as well as Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix..

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In 1940, the anti-German Underground film by the Three Stooges, You Natzy Spy, premiered in America. The highly controversial film featured comic Moe Howard as a Hitler-like figure who ruled over an amorphous country known as Moronica. The American Bund called for a total boycott of the film, and incited riots at many of the theaters showing it.

In 1971, European Space Agencies described Apollo 13 mission mechanical failures as a self-inflicted wound. The British really had to do something about this quality control problem for next time.

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Mike Gatting	In 1990 police in Archona armed with batons and dogs broke up a demonstration against English cricketers who arrived for a tour of the Domination of the Draka. Several hundred protesters, many waving placards saying "Domination is not cricket" and "Ban racist tours" had gathered in the arrivals hall at the Eric von Shrakrenberg airport to wait for the 15 England tourists led by captain Mike Gatting.
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The cricketers were three hours late - by which time the police had moved in waving batons, setting the dogs on protesters and firing tear gas. Winnie Mandela - wife of the jailed African National Congress leader, Nelson Mandela - was seen among the crowd wiping tears from her eyes. She later complained of police brutality.

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