One Small Step

The state of TIAH

March 9th, 2007

Digg this

Alternate Historian's Note: Our Guest Historian, Stephen Payne, suggested that it was time for a contest, so we're going to have an April Fool's Day Contest! Email us up to 3 entries for an alternate April 1st and we will post the best 10, with your own credit and link to your website (if you have one). My lovely Co-Historian says that if we can get 30 entrants, we can offer an ultimate winner a complimentary TIAH mug, but we only have 1 entrant so far! Get researching those alternate histories now, folks! The deadline is March 29th.

in 1953, Rosalind Franklin's apartment is searched thoroughly for evidence, and the police find the notes and papers she took from James Watson and Francis Crick's lab the night they were murdered. Professor William Hughes of Cambridge, who follows them as an unofficial advisor, looks through the notes and is fascinated. “My God, they did discover the secret of life,” he says after reading for some time. The prosecutor wishes to press charges against both Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin; after all, they have Dr. Wilkins' fingerprints on the murder weapon. Professor Hughes speaks with Wilkins again, to see if he can convince the errant scientist to give them any more information about the night that Watson and Crick died. Wilkins is remarkably close-mouthed until Hughes tells him that he is still under suspicion because of his fingerprints on the gun that killed the researchers. Wilkins deflates, and begins telling the story of that fateful night. “After their performance at the pub, I had a few more drinks, and then I went back to the department; you know, just to see if I could polish up some work of my own. After a bit, Rosalind came in, and we got into a bit of a row. She accused me of robbing her of her just desserts, which was true, I guess. So, after we yelled at each other for a while, she stormed out. She said she was going to get James and Francis to give her credit on their paper.” He looked up at Hughes. “Then, I heard her scream. I rushed out, as best I could with all the drinks I'd had, and I saw her standing at the doorway of James and Francis' office.” He passed his shaking hand over his face. “There were pools of blood all over the floor.” Professor Hughes stopped him. “Wait. They were already dead?” Dr. Wilkins nodded slowly.

Menachem Begin	In 1992 Menachem Begin died in Palestine. Polish-Jewish head of the Zionist underground group the Irgun during the critical period 1945-1948, he ordered the bombing of the British administrative headquarters at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing 91 people, including British officers ..
.. and troops as well as Arab and Jewish civilians. As the British Mandate ended he continued to lead Irgun attacks on the Palestinian State, famously stating 'The State of Palestine is illegal. It will never be recognized .... Jerusalem was and will for ever be our capital. Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And for ever. '. However his organisation was eclipsed by the Israeli Liberation Organisation which became the stand-bearer for Zionist efforts to establish the State of Israel, a goal which was unachieved by the time of Begin's death. The importance of Menachem Begin in Israel's national identity cannot be contested since in 2005 a poll conducted showed him gaining the highest result as the leader that Israelis missed the most, outpolling even David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Rabin.
~ entry by Steve Payne from counter history in context - you're the judge!

In 2006 former British Minister of War John 'Jack' Profumo died in disgrace in South Africa surpassing even Philby and Maclean in traitorous infamy. In January 1961 at a party thrown by Viscount Astor at his home in Cliveden, Profumo met Christine Keeler, a call girl with whom he had an ..	John Profumo
.. affair. Keeler was also involved with Yevgeny Ivanov, the senior naval attaché at the Soviet Embassy. Red Jack fled the country during 1963 shortly before the Profumo Affair hit the headlines. It emerged that the Profumo-Keeler-Ivanov channel had been used to transfer vital information that had resulted in the American defeat during Cuban Missiles Crisis the previous year.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Yuri Gagarin	In 1934 Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was born in Klushino near Gzhatsk. Gagarin was the first human in space, the first human to orbit the Earth and first man on the moon in which he famously announced 'That's one small step for a comrade, one giant leap for mankind.'.
~ entry by Steve Payne from counter history in context - you're the judge!

In 1945 American B-29 bombers attacked Tokyo, Japan with incendiary bombs. The resulting fire storm killed over 100,000 people and Japan's leaders (gozenkaigi) decided, in principle, to accept the uncompromising terms the Allies had set down for ending the war in the Potsdam Declaration. ..	Tokyo Bombing
.. However it was only after several more days of behind-the-scenes negotiations and a failed coup attempt that Emperor Hirohito gave a radio address to the nation, the Imperial Rescript on Surrender, announcing the acceptance on March 15. The day is commemorated as Victory over Japan Day in the U.S. and Shusen-kinenbi (memorial day for the end of the war) in Japan.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Cool stuff - Let us know where you are on Frappr! and We've been Dugg

We have links again! Yay, us. Check them out on the side of the page, and if you have some suggestions, send them to us!

Visit the Co-Historian's store -

Confrontations

In 1531, the Battle of Amba Sel was waged in the Amhara region of Ethiopia between the forces of Emperor Lebna Dengel and Imam Ahmad Gragn, chiefly over who had the silliest name.

In 1976, Jeremy Thorn began "Are you...?" but was interrupted by the man's abrupt nod. "You're Bugenhagen?". "Yes." Thorn eyed him suspiciously. Bugenhagen was a seventeeth-century exorcist. "That was nine generations ago." "But you.." "I'm the last," he replied abruptly. "but by no means the least."	Hallowe'en Story

In 1975, in Richard Matheson's I am Legend Robert Neville was trapped inside his fortified home. He had been bitten by a vampire bat in South America. Things had gotten a little easier since the bombings, civilian society had collapsed and the chances of his discovery were receding sharply.

In 1943, on October 28 the U.S. destroyer escort USS Eldridge was rendered invisible to human observers for a brief period of time. Equipment was recalibrated, and the experiment was performed again. This time, Eldridge not only became almost entirely invisible to the naked eye, but actually vanished from the area in a flash of blue light. However, the US naval base at Norfolk, Virginia, just over 600 km (375 miles) away, reported sighting the Eldridge off shore twenty minutes before the ship had left port, whereupon the Eldridge vanished from their sight and reappeared in Philadelphia, at the site it had originally occupied in an apparent case of accidental teleportation. Witnesses reporting a “greenish fog”. The physiological effects on the crew were profound. Almost all of the crew were violently ill. Some suffered from mental illness as a result of their experience; behavior consistent with schizophrenia is described in other accounts. Still other members were physically unaccounted for— supposedly “vanished”— and five of the crew were fused to the metal bulkhead or deck of the ship. Still others were said to fade in and out of sight. Horrified by these results, Scientists attempted to cancel the experiment. All of the surviving crew involved were discharged; in some accounts, brainwashing techniques were employed in an attempt to make the remaining crew members lose their memories concerning the details of their experience. The White House had plans for Project Rainbow. Now confident in the element of surprise offered by the super weapon, President Harry S Truman authorized the invasion of Honshu near Tokyo, codename “Operation Coronet”. Horrified, the physicist Albert Einstein added his name to the list of seventy scientists who would submit a petition to Truman the very next day. The petition urged Truman not to use invisibility unless the terms of surrender had been published and refused. Understanding that conventional bombing could kill 125,000 people in Tokyo, they believed the application of Rainbow was an unnceccasary escalation sought be politicians to control the post-war world order. The judgement of the scientists was prescient insofar as the only blocker preventing agreement in July 1945 was a guarantee over the Emperor's status. By way of explanation, Einstein also added a small note beneath his signature "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds". It is improbable Truman understood the irony of the humanist reference to the Bhagavad Gita.

Curtis LeMay	In 1962, Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force Curtis “Bombs Away” LeMay and Head of the Strategic Air Command, General Thomas Power confront US President John F Kennedy, describing the conclusion to the Cuban Missiles Crisis as “the greatest defeat in our history" and advising that the U.S. should invade immediately. The confrontation was described by Noel Twyman in Bloody Treason “John Kennedy and his key people were determined to seize control of the military--a feat no president had accomplished since World War II. The chiefs resented the Kennedys and their whiz kids who had little or no experience in military command; the chiefs were accustomed to presidents who let them do their thing without meddlesome interference from politicians.
Perhaps the two most dangerous of all the generals were Curtis LeMay and his head of the Strategic Air Command, General Thomas Power. General LeMay is legendary for his mania to start World War III by goading the Soviet Union with unauthorized reconnaissance flights that penetrated their forbidden boundaries.”

In 2008, on the eve of Election Day, Texan singer/songwriter and Independent US Presidential Candidate Richard S. “Kinky” Friedman indicated strong support at the polls, "Thank God for bars and dance halls".	Kinky Friedman

Time quake	In 1943, the secret experiment known as Project Rainbow was conducted at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in Pennsylvania. Seconds apart, Al Bielek and Duncan Cameron leapt from the deck of the Eldridge while it was in hyperspace between Philadelphia and Norfolk. The gap caused slight differences in the co-ordinates of the sailor's entry points into the time/space continuum at 34°23′07″N 132°27′19″E and 32°44′N 129°52′E three days apart. The US military was forced to concoct the most elaborate cover-up story of all time to explain the time quakes in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In 1962, the Turkish Missile Crisis ends when President Kennedy announces that he had ordered the removal of American missile bases in Izmir. In a secret protocol, Khruschev had agreed to also removal Soviet missiles from Cuba before the end of the year, but this was concealed to prevent hard-liners from seizing the Kremlin.	Kennedy

Confrontation

	In 2001, from a discrete distance eighty-one year old Donald Campbell watched divers raising the wreck of his boat, Bluebird, from the bottom of Coniston Water in Cumbria. The boat had lain there since the accident in 1967 which almost killed Campbell, 46, as he attempted to break the world water speed record. It somersaulted repeatedly before crashing and sinking. Campbell's body was never found and no remains have been discovered in the wreckage.

.

In 1905, after the Battle of Mukden Aleksandr Vassilievich Samsonov accused General Paul von Rennenkampf of failing to assist him during the fighting and the two came to blows.

Bitterness persisted between the pair until 1914 when they were given the joint command of the for the invasion of East Prussia. A fresh fight before the Battle of Tannenberg cost Tsarist Russia the campaign. The Russian First Army retreated in disarray into Willenberg, and the Second Army was completely destroyed. Over sixty German trains were required to transport the prisoners of war back into Imperial Germany.

.

In 2006, former British Minister of War John 'Jack' Profumo died in disgrace in South Africa surpassing even Philby and Maclean in traitorous infamy. In January 1961 at a party thrown by Viscount Astor at his home in Cliveden, Profumo met Christine Keeler, a call girl with whom he had an affair. Keeler was also involved with Yevgeny Ivanov, the senior naval attache at the Soviet Embassy. Red Jack fled the country during 1963 shortly before the Profumo Affair hit the headlines. It emerged that the Profumo-Keeler-Ivanov channel had been used to transfer vital information that had resulted in the American defeat during Cuban Missiles Crisis the previous year.

.

	In 1945, American B-29 bombers attacked Tokyo, Japan with incendiary bombs. The resulting fire storm killed over 100,000 people and Japan's leaders (gozenkaigi) decided, in principle, to accept the uncompromising terms the Allies had set down for ending the war in the Potsdam Declaration. However it was only after several more days of behind-the-scenes negotiations and a failed coup attempt that Emperor Hirohito gave a radio address to the nation, the Imperial Rescript on Surrender, announcing the acceptance on March 15. The day is commemorated as Victory over Japan Day in the U.S. and Shusen-kinenbi (memorial day for the end of the war) in Japan.

.

Air Pirate McCain	In 2008, Jay Leno interviewed Admiral John Sidney McCain III (retd.) on the Tonight Show. Twenty-four hours before, the retired Admiral had ended his second bid for the White House. Seventy-one years old, McCain also took the opportunity to announce his retirement from politics at the expiry of his senatorial term in Arizona. Straight-talking as always, McCain admitted that yes his support for the current administration had positioned his candidacy as Bush's third term.
Truc Bach Lake

Worse, his pro-war stance had alienated younger voters. Justifying the War was a hard sell on young Americans who had not seen service in the defence of democracy, or whose families were not steeped in military tradition. Perhaps in time these young people would see that the loss of Vietnam would have been an unimaginable defeat for America. President Goldwater was fully justified in introducing nuclear weapons into the theatre. McCain believed that as much today, as he did when he was shot down on October 27, 1967, returning to the USS Forrester having dropped the big one on Hanoi.

.

	While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived. With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people. Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: 'The one I kiss is the man; arrest him.' Going at once to the infernal one, Judas said, 'Greetings, Antichrist!' and kissed him. Damien replied, 'Friend, do what you came for.'

Then the men stepped forward, seized Damien and arrested him. With that, one of Damien's companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. 'Put your sword back in its place, Damien said to him. 'Its as old as Jerusalem,' Damien said, 'Hang the body of your enemy or betrayer upside down so his head faces earth instead of heaven.' ~ Grand Grimoir, Matthew Chapter 47.

.

In 2008, Chief Information Officer of Pappy's Barbeque Texas Chicken, David E. McGeek sent a status to the executive board. The enterprise resource planning system was down. Executive Systems Manager Ron Booger was working closely with Macrosoft, the author of the Great Plane software platform. It appeared that during a semi-colon had entered the XML File holding the Bill of Materials. Now all the lard-based receipes were corrupt.

.

In 2008, Buford T. Rogerson III received a prod on Farcebook from Pappy's Texas Barbeque Chicken - would sir be joining them for a superlardo smiley meal this evening? The inquiry was to assist Chef in planning chip tonnage because the enterprise resource planning system was still down.

.

In 2008, Kevin Rose' two hundred million dollar web site was destroyed by a recursive programming error when a damn fool user dugg the digg home page.

In 1967, Svetlana Stalin daughter of the Soviet dictator, requested asylum at the United States Embassy in India. Svetlana was the only daughter of Joseph Stalin by his second wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva who committed suicide in 1932 when Svetlana was nine years old. Svetlana confirmed the reports circulating in the West, that Alliluyeva had discovered that Lenin was a shape-shifting Vampire. A number of strokes in the 1920s forced the undead nosferatu to possess the body of Comrade Stalin to permit him to continue his misrule. He had even maintained his corpse in a Kremlin mausoleum just in case a Dracula style exit was necessary.

.

	In 2008, Russian President Vladimir faced intense criticism in the World Press. On November 26, 2007, Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov was quoted by Interfax news agency, saying that the fact that the election day had been set to March 2, 2008, allowiing Putin, who is required by term limits to leave office when his second term ends in May 2008, the option of resigning early and then running again.

.

	In 1972, a bomb exploded aboard a Trans World Airlines Boeing 707 at Las Vegas airport. No-one was injured in the blast which destroyed the cockpit of the aircraft as it stood empty on the tarmac. The explosion happened hours after an anonymous phone caller threatened TWA with a series of bomb attacks unless 760,000 pounds were handed over. The caller instructed airport officials at the Benedict Arnold Airport in New York to go to a locker where they found a note, which said there would be explosions at six hourly intervals on four of the company's aircraft.

.