Shadows On Those Around Us...

June 30th, 2007

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The Announcement

in 1999, unknown and unseen to each other, two teams of assassins moved into the royal chambers at Buckingham Palace in London; the one led by Sir Lance du Lac went to the queen's bed chamber, and the one led by Prime Minister Sir Kay Ector advanced on King Arthur. The stealthy, quiet men did their work professionally and cleanly, and the monarchs were soon bleeding profusely. Arthur maintained consciousness, and crawled to Queen Gwen's bed, where he found her life ebbing away. “Arthur,” she said, trying to hold her life in with one hand and reaching out to him with the other. “Arthur, I love you. I'm sorry I mucked it all up.” He smiled through the blood that was welling up in his mouth, and reached over to press the button that would summon the staff. This was almost too much effort for him, and he swooned. She steadied him, but that let loose more blood than she could spare. “You were the greatest queen that England has ever known,” he whispered into her ear as he rested himself beside her on the blood-soaked bed. “I only regret that I will never know your child.” He paused, then added, “Our child.” He lowered his face to hers for a kiss, but she was already growing cold, and he sank back with a sob. With his last bit of strength, he pulled her body to him and held her tenderly. The young serving girl who answered the bell screamed and ran over to them, finding Queen Gwen dead and King Arthur barely holding onto life. “Quickly,” he said to her, feeling everything slipping away, “quickly, bring Sir Lance; bring help.” She ran crying from the room, shouting, “Their majesties are murdered! Help, help, their majesties are murdered!” As the sound of her panic roused the entire castle, Arthur felt an old, familiar presence at his side, and a great calm swept over him. “I was wondering if you'd show up,” he said to the old man. “What good is having a great wizard advisor if he only ever appears when it's too late?” The old man chuckled and laid a hand on Arthur's forehead, stroking his hair tenderly. “I should have never come out of the coma; Gwen had everything under control, even if she was doing it for the wrong reasons.” Merl's voice soothed him as it said, “But then, you would never have reconciled; she wouldn't have your forgiveness.” Arthur tried to shrug, but didn't have the strength. “I don't think that's terribly important.” Merl sat down on the bed, but Arthur didn't feel the bed shift at all. “But, it is, Arthur, it is. Everything that we do in our brief time upon this world casts shadows on those around us; that is the true afterlife, Arthur. That is our immortality.” Arthur felt very cold, and Merl's hand gripped his. “I came back from death once,” he told Merl. The old wizard smiled at him and said, “Twice.” Arthur smiled and meant to nod, but his head was so heavy that all he could do was let it lean back until it touched Gwen's. He heard the thundering footsteps of people coming in to help, and saw Lance's face hover over his own. “Goodbye, my brother,” he said to Lance, whose face was covered in tears. The knight attempted to pull Arthur away from Gwen, but with his last breath, King Arthur told him, “Let me stay with her, Lance; let me stay with her, always.” Sir Lance felt the king's life slip away from him at that moment, and couldn't bring himself to move the two of them apart. He turned to the servants and guards who now crowded the chamber and told them, “The king – and queen – are dead.” His voice choked as he struggled to continue. “Let there never be another; for we have been blessed once with this great pair. It would be selfish of our people to expect such leaders to come along again.”

In 1999, the networks ran installment four of TSEotTC. British, French and German soldiers climbed out of the trenches for the Christmas Truce of 1914. Football was played, chocolate and cigarettes swapped. Weapons were thrown onto pyres and burnt. A new era of brotherhood was ushered in, the Century of the Common Man according to the peacenik Winston Spencer Churchill.

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

Jim Morrison	"The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on He took a face from the ancient gallery And he walked on down the hall Paid a visit to his son, And he came to a door...and he looked inside Son, yes Father, I want to kill you" ~ Poetry of Admiral George Morrison, Fleet Commander during the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in 1964
Murdered Peacenik

Admiral George “Steve” Morrison was the keynote speaker at the decommissioning ceremony for Bon Homme Richard, his first ship as an admiral, on July 3, 1971 in Washington D.C., USA (just 12 hours after his agents killed son Jim Morrison in Paris France). Steve was incensed by his son's anti-establishment positions and decided to kill him. This poetry fragment entitled “The End” was found in the Admiral's House in Coronado, California after his death in 2012. A synopsis of the life of Jim Morrison can be viewed at Wikipedia

~ quotation by Co-Historian Steve Payne from Counter-history – You're the Judge!

In 30,000 BC, hominid visitors from the planet Omega abandoned their biological uplift project on Earth. The results of attempts to breed out the animal characteristics of mankind were frustrating. Prospects for further eugenics and even genetic engineering attempts were considered poor. Incredibly fast moving climatic changes meant the tropics would enter an Ice Age in just three years. The Omegans cut their losses and returned back through the Stonehenge Gate. In their haste to pull out of the botched mission, and with time against them, the Omegans made a poor job of burying the interstellar gate in the Sahara Desert.

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

Trees supposedl..	In 1908,, the great game took an apocalyptic turn when the world's first atomic weapon tests were conducted by Nikolai Tesla of the Russian Empire, flattening 20 miles of Tunguska in central Siberia. Reacting with suspicion and horror to the existence of a doomsday weapon in the hands of the expansionist imperial family, ..
.. officials of the European monarchies reason that national leaders with combat experience drawn outside the ruling classes are required to secure the future.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1764, in a red grape vineyard the child Magnifico gave full reign to his impish character, playing in carefree abandon. His beaming parents sipped red wine in the shade of a beautiful tree. The woman drank sparingly, she had fallen again. Soon God-willing Magnifico would have a sibling and their little community ..	Red Wine
.. would expand again. Most assuredly Jesus had rescued them from the Red Plague which had come out of China depopulating Europe like an Old Testament Apocalypse. For a brief moment, the woman looked a little melancholic shall we say. If only her parents could share their joy. Or the countless millions that had been decimated by the Red Plague. The disease has been labelled for the crimson scar upon the victims neck. They did not know, and could not know that the colour red was also the clue to the antidote. The antidote that ultimately saved the Caucasoid from extinction. Future leader of Europe Karl Adolphus would grow up in the twenty-fifth century, taking his daily dose of resveratrol as routinely as his forebear Magnifico did before him.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Hanging	In 1882, Charles Guiteau was hung in Washington, District of Columbia for the shooting death of President George Armstrong Custer. At his trial, Guiteau pleaded innocence by way of insanity. Custer had used great magicks to trick death at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in the eastern Montana Territory, so he claimed. The ..
.. spirits of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse had driven Guiteau to execute the Magus, blood calls to blood. The evening ended with the most crimson sunset ever known in DC, creating a Christian hysteria unknown in America since New England's Dark Day in 1780.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1990, East and West Austria merge their economies following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Anschluss II is celebrated throughout the new nation as a reinvigorated Western Europe races into the 1990s, the spectre of nuclear war lifted at long last.	Fall of the Wie..
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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Lucky Strike

June 29th, 2007

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The Announcement

in 1999, Sir Lance du Lac meets with a small team of his Round Table Corps in London. “Much like myself,” he tells them, “the king has become bewitched by Queen Gwen's charms. He freed me; I aim to do the same for him.” The three knights he has brought together to aid him murmur about treason – Sir Lance cuts through this sharply. “It is not treason to rescue our beloved King Arthur from the clutches of the woman who sent him into a coma. Indeed, it is the highest form of patriotism. The king needs our help. Which of you will stand ready for him?” Slowly, all three of the other knights raise their hands. Satisfied, Sir Lance tells them, “We shall move tomorrow night.”

In 1999, the networks ran installment three of TSEotTC. American pilots on the Lucky Strike sabotaged the "Bomb", defiantly releasing a thousand doves of peace over the city of Hiroshima. The serpent was being chased out of the Garden as Man reconnected with the Old Testament God of Moses.

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

In 1924, the author Edward Morgan Forster published A Passage to Cuba, later selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 great works of English literature. Set against the backdrop of the Cuban independence movement, Forster's genius was to foreshadow the end of British control in this increasingly isolated anglophone pocket of América.

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

In 1962, the New York Police Department interviewed the sixteen-piece band which had played five shows a day until the recent murder of lead singer James Brown. In the three years since his first opening gig at the Apollo in 1959, Brown had turned his band into one of the tightest groups in all of R&B. One reason was that the band played more than 300 shows a year.	James Brown
Another was the harsh fines Brown imposed on band members for everything from flubbed notes and missed dance steps to scuffed shoes. The Apollo gig in October was fast approaching, and the pressure was really climbing. Recently, though, the fines were especially harsh. "You made a mistake one night," says Bobby Byrd, "the fine would move from five or ten dollars to fifty or a hundred dollars." Police suspected that the pressure had provoked one member of the band into killing James Brown, but were forced to drop charges due to lack of evidence.
~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate both of the author's genius.

Red Grape	In 1761, the seven European stowaways came ashore at the Iberian peninsula. Their four-point plan was simple and effective. To keep moving until they found a red grape vineyard. To settle there to deliver the child. To consume massive doses of the grape juice to ward off the Red Plague. And pray for deliverance from the plague ..
.. known as the Red Death.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1974, Emperor Napoleon V Airport was belatedly opened by the Mayor of Paris, André Joseph Marie de Gaulle. The event was almost marred by an assassination attempt on the Mayor. The assassin known as the Jackal, disguised as a war veteran, made his way to a building which faced the runway where de Gaulle presented veterans ..	Emperor Napoleo..
.. with medals. However, the Jackal failed to take into account the Gallic custom of kissing on both cheeks, expecting instead that de Gaulle would shake hands with the medal recipient. As the Jackal fired, de Gaulle simultaneously moved forward to kiss the recipient on the cheeks, causing the bullet to miss.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Docking	In 1995, the Space Shuttle Atlantis docked with the drifting Alien space station known as the Avatar for the first time. US President George Bush immediately recognized the Alien character set which is broadcast to earth. It is quite identical to the codes found on the extra-terrestrial technology recovered from Panama and ..
.. Iraq. The technology was used to devastating effect by driving strategic models from the predictions of the thousand-year old Lenape soothsayer.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1644, Charles I of England defeated a Parliamentarian detachment at the Battle of Cropredy Bridge. The rebellion was starting to quell, and the House of Stuart was about to enjoy the golden era of their quad centennial rule that ended with the velvet revolution of 1989.	Charles Stuart
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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The Coyote On The Cliff

June 28th, 2007

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The Announcement

in 1999, Walton Ray Thermopolous meets with Prime Minister Kay Ector at the PM's insistence. “I have a feeling the queen needs our help,” Sir Kay says to Thermopolous. “But she cannot ask for fear of what may be revealed. Therefore, We must come to her aid stealthily.” Thermopolous, who is doing quite well now that he no longer has to split his profits with either the Illuminati or Queen Gwen, is reluctant to do anything to jeopardize his position. “She seems to be fine with the state of affairs they way they are,” he tells the prime minister. “Why act without orders? Right now, we're on top of the world – the CEE is gone, my old masters went with them, and the queen sits at the side of the king rather than in a jail cell. There is no need for action.” Ector simply cannot bring himself to believe this. “She needs our help. I know this is the case. And if you will not help, your government contracts will be cut off.” Thermopolous reluctantly agrees to supply a small team of professionals for the plan that the prime minister has drawn up for them.

In 1999, the networks ran instalment two of TSEotTC, part two. The Mountbatten Project delivers .. the British bomb the Japanese into an unexpected defeat. On the balcony of Buckingham Palace, the Royal Family wave and smile at the crowds. In Hiroshima, children choke in the radioactive slag.

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

In 1952, an historian in a fifth-rate 1952 CSA, overshadowed by the USA and the Germanic Union, obtained a position at an academic commune near Gettysburg, and one day he is offered the chance to travel back in time to July 1, 1863. In Bring the Jubilee author Ward Moore casts a fresh perspective on the War of Northern Aggression - for the twenty-six breakaway states would defeat have been worse than stalemate?

~ variant from Steve Payne : to celebrate the author's genius, original text of Ward Moores's 1997 classic "Bring the Jubilee" has been reserviced to present an "in context" alternate ending.

In 2006, the International Mars Mission found an ancient carving of the Coyote on the cliff side of the Canyon where they were hopelessly trapped. Navajo astronaut Jamie Waterman could hear the Coyote laughing in the crystal darkness of the frozen night.

~ variant from Steve Payne : to celebrate the author's genius, original text of Ben Bova's classic "Mars" has been reserviced to present an "in context" alternate ending.

In 1966, Ronnie Harran, the booker from the Sunset Strip Whisky A Go-Go Club watched the house band at the London Fog, a pathetic little nightclub just down the street. She was impressed by Jim Morrison's primal stage-appeal and almost offered the Doors the house-band slot at the Whisky. Morrison who had been tripping on acid then introduced “The End” with some crazy “Oedipus Rex” talk about his parents and Harran walked out in disgust.

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

Grape treaders	In 1761, the seven European stowaways enjoyed fellowship aboard the Arab Dhow. Speakers of Flemish, German, French and Spanish, they struggled to communicate little more than their fierce job of discovery. In fact, they were crying with God-sent joy. All of them were red grape-treaders, that was the connection. Despite their ..
.. ignorance, at some level they grasped that massive doses of the juice had protected them from the plague known as the Red Death. Twenty-fourth century scientists would discover that this was resveratrol, a chemical found in grape skins rather than the juice of the fruit itself. But that was a detail of little consequence to this elated band of survivors. They knew their Old Testament apocalypses well enough to know that Jesus had saved them from extinction. Not a sparrow falls to earth that God does not see. And after all, were these Europeans little more than sparrows, flying from a dreadful storm?
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1984, British Horror Writer Graham Masterton published IKON, a tribute to Philip K Dick's 1964 counter-factual novel Man in the High Castle. Set in America in 1985, the once-proud nation has been reduced to an Oblast of the USSR with a powerless President. All because some twenty years earlier America secretly lost ..	IKON
.. the Cuban Missiles Crises. Like Dick before him, the essence of Masterton's masterpiece is the book within the book, 'The Eagle Lies Heavy', a work of fiction written by a man called Graham Masterton. It describes a world where the Americans won the Cuban Missile Crisis - as a result, it has been banned by the Americans. Given his unpopularity with the world's two great powers, Masterton is said to live in a heavily fortified home and has become known as "The Author in the High Castle". Critics panned the concept but loved the story. After all, it was predicated on the US surrendering to Secretary Khrushchev. Today we know that Mr Kennedy meant it when he said “the problems of the world today are not susceptible to a military solution”. He had already surrendered by then.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

George Washingt..	In 1776, Thomas Hinkey was hanged for mutiny, sedition, and treachery for plotting to kidnap George Washington. Hinkey was one of his bodyguards, and his actions had resulted in the death of the General. This great blow to the Americans assisted in no small way the nation of Great Britain as she brutally suppressed the troubles in the Colonies.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1914, Tsar Nicholas Romanov II and his wife the Empress Alexandra of Russia were assassinated in Warsaw by young Polish nationalist Stanislaw Wasilewska. The Reichwehr had predicted that Russia's military capability would outperform the German Military by 1916. This estimation was drawn from huge French subsidies for railway ..	Tsar Nicholas I..
.. tracks that could deliver the Russian Steamroller into East Prussia at a day's notice. As a consequence, when the Grand Duke Michael took draconian measures in Poland, Kaiser Wilhelm II and his Hapsburg allies seized the opportunity to invade Galicia, the casus belli of World War I.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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A Night Of Celebration

June 27th, 2007

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The Announcement

in 1999, King Arthur II and Queen Gwen make their first public appearance since Arthur came out of his coma at a royal victory celebration. The public goes wild at the sight of the two together, and Great Britain is swept by a sense that all is, at last, right with the world. Two men disagree with that sentiment, however, and they happen to be fairly highly-placed – Sir Lance du Lac, Arthur's greatest general, still has no trust for the queen, and Prime Minister Kay Ector, brainwashed by Walton Thermopolous, has no love for King Arthur. Unknown to each other, they begin setting in motion events that would reach their climax on the same night a few days later. But for the moment, the British people enjoyed a single night where the King and Queen showed their joy in the kingdom and each other, a celebration of the type that the nation had not seen since Arthur's coronation. “Tonight, we give thanks to God that our long trial is nearing its end,” Arthur says to the cameras spreading his words around the globe. “Tonight, we declare an amnesty on hostile feelings.” He looked over at his queen, who smiled brightly at him as he said this. “Tonight, let us think of nothing but the joy of our victory.” And, for a night, Britain seemed to do just that.

In 1999, the networks ran installment two of TSEotTC in two parts - the Empire of the Sun versus the Empire where the Sun never sets.. The finest hour arrives as British Empire and Commonwealth forces fight a losing battle against the Japanese in the jungles of Burma and on the Kokoda Track in New Guinea..

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

In 2006, faced with certain death, Navajo astronaut Jamie Waterman figured the Coyote had tricked humans into coming to the dead world of Mars. The International mission's rover was hopelessly trapped in a Canyon when they discovered life.

~ variant from Steve Payne : to celebrate the author's genius, original text of Ben Bova's classic "Mars" has been reserviced to present an "in context" alternate ending.

Led Zeppelin	In 1973, the entire sixth floor of the Hyatt House -- a.k.a. the Riot House -- on the Sunset Strip was raided by the Los Angeles Police Department, arresting the band Led Zeppelin who had turned it into a sex-and-drugs fun house. '73 was "the year we could have conquered America, instead we spent it in County" declared guitarist Jimmy Page.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Grape treaders	In 1761, the fellow stowaway collapsed to the deck amongst the pieces of the smashed Arab wine vessel. The legs of the fallen woman had a crimson hue. As of course did his. In fact all of the stowaways.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1759, British General James Wolfe started the siege of Quebec. He failed to take the City, and New France survives to this day, a Francophone pocket in North America.	New France
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

DLGIA (David Ll..	In 1998, Prince Charles Windsor opened the David Lloyd George International Airport in Kuala Lumpur, Malaya. The British had a suffered a difficult time in the 1940s with their possessions in the Far East. However, the Welsh Wizard's order to reinforce the land route to Singapore in 1941 was a turning point and they had never ..
.. looked back since. If not for that order, Malaya would have suffered the horrors of Japanese occupation. Prince Charles gave tribute to that feat of arms during the opening ceremony.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1996, Mark Lawson published the novel Idlewild. In his counter-history, both John F Kennedy and his bewitched lover Marilyn Monroe died during the turbulent period surrounding the Cuban Crises of 1962-3 and hence Albany's Idlewild sea port was renamed to JFK. The truth was stranger than Lawson's fiction. Would-be ..	Idlewild
.. assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was captured by the piercing gaze of JFK's glammour as the former Marine prepared to shoot the Magus from the Texas Book Repository. Straight afterwards, Oswald threw his gun down and handed himself to Constable Tippett, a babbling lunatic. That, was power.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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Ten Significant Events

June 26th, 2007

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The Announcement

in 1999, King Arthur II met with Prime Minister Kay Ector, freshly returned from Greece. “Our war is over,” Ector told the king. “On every front, the Illuminati are extinguished; the Central European Empire is no more.” Arthur clapped his old friend on the back and congratulated him on his work in bringing this war to an end. “The queen was a huge help,” the prime minister said. “Her influence on our allies, and her ability to rally our people, proved invaluable in this struggle. Where is her majesty, by the way?” Arthur looked away uneasily. “My queen isn't feeling well at the moment, Sir Kay. You'll forgive her absence?” The prime minister bowed slightly and said, “Of course. I hope it isn't anything too serious.” The king's face grew stony as he replied, “No, I don't believe it is.” After the meeting, he went to Queen Gwen's cell, alone, to speak with her. “I want to know something,” he said, standing close to the bars. “Did you ever feel anything for me?” She shrugged. “In the beginning, when we were fighting to unseat the Windsors – you were all fire back then. Remember that night when you first took the crown?” She ran a hand along his on the bars, and he didn't pull away this time. “That was real passion, my king.” For a moment, a long moment, they stared deeply into each other's eyes, then drew together for a kiss between the bars of the cell. “I still love you,” Arthur said, drawing back. “God help me, I still love you.” They twined their fingers together and Gwen told him, “I'm sure by now you've learned that those I once served are eradicated, my liege. I could be your queen again, sitting at your side, aiding you as you rule the most powerful nation on earth.” Arthur yearns to set her free, but cannot bring himself to do it. “You're bearing du Lac's child.” She reached a hand out to his face and stroked his beard tenderly. “You could not give me a child, my king; can you think of a better man to produce Great Britain's next monarch?” Arthur took his hands away from her and walked away. Gwen hunched against the bars of her cell in disappointment and said, “Before you leave, I do ask one thing.” He murmured over his shoulder, “What?” She whispered softly, “Your forgiveness, Arthur.” He took a key from the wall and opened her cell door. “It is granted.”

In 1999, the networks ran installment one of Ten Significant Events of the Twentieth Century (TSEotTC). British Prime Harold Macmillan spoke of the Hurricane of Change sweeping Africa. The "Terrorist" Nelson Mandela was executed after his 1964 mistrial in Rivonia. And Malcolm X brought it home in the Deep South.

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

In the beginning, the First Man and Woman put the stars in a blanket. The Coyote made the Milky Way by hurling the blanket into the sky. Navajo astronaut Jamie Waterman cherished the wisdom of the Old Ones. When the international mission landed on Mars, he simply reported “Ya'aa'tey” (“It is good”) to the NASA controllers. A self-described red man on the red planet, he had no time at all for the jingoistic nationalism of his fellow astronauts; his mission was to find life.

~ variant from Steve Payne : to celebrate the author's genius, original text of Ben Bova's classic "Mars" has been reserviced to present an "in context" alternate ending.

In 1971, recording of the double LP Exile on Main Street was suspended at Nellcôte, guitarist Keith Richards' nineteenth-century villa on the French Riviera. Exile wasn't intended to be a studio album and therein lie the problem. A number of factors were to blame for the lost opportunity for the Rolling Stones to make their greatest album at their absolute peak and capture the atmosphere at Nellcôte with messy faithfulness. "We recorded in Keith's disgusting basement, which looked like a prison. . . . The humidity was incredible. I couldn't stand it. As soon as I opened my mouth to sing, my voice was gone. It was so humid that all the guitars were out of tune by the time we got to the end of each number." "It was 120 degrees," Richards recalled. "Everyone sat around sweating and playing with their pants off. That's when I got into Jack Daniel's. You're trying to get backup vocals finished . . . and the voice starts to go: 'This'll give you another half hour.' It's those fumes that do it, man." The Stones had literally attempted to make Exile on the run. In May '71, they moved to France, citing the excessive taxation and police harassment in their native Britain. Many of the Jagger-Richards songs planned for Exile reflected the exhaustion and madness of the Stones' personal and public lives at the time ("Torn and Frayed," "Soul Survivor"). Jagger's marriage to Nicaraguan model Bianca Perez Morena de Macias on the eve of the Exile sessions irritated Richards, who wanted his singer's full attention during recording; Richards was at the height of his 1970s heroin addiction and spending a lot of time with American country-rock icon Gram Parsons.

~ variant from Steve Payne : to celebrate the author's genius, original text of Ben Bova's classic "Mars" has been reserviced to present an "in context" alternate ending.

Fallen woman	In 1761, the fallen woman dipped her swollen feet into the cool Atlantic ocean. As she arose, her fellow stowaway gasped in shock, dropping the Arab wine vessel to the deck where it smashed into pieces. Her lower legs had a crimson hue.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1918, at the Battle for Belleau Wood, Allied Forces under George Armstrong Custer defeated Imperial German Forces commanded by German Crown Prince Wilhelm. Custer said it was the toughest battle in fifty years, referring of course to his victory over Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse near the Little Bighorn River.	Battle of Belle..
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Viennese Airlif..	In 1948, an airlift was started to Austria after the Soviet Union blockaded West Vienna. The Western allies turned to USAAF General Curtis “Candy Bars Away” LeMay. By now an expert in such operations, LeMay put into operation a plan he had conceived in 1946 for the resupply of the Japanese home population during Operation Downfall.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1963, on this day John F. Kennedy spoke the famous words "Ich bin ein Wiener" ("I am a citizen of Vienna") on a visit to the Western occupied quarter of the Austrian City. A former citizen of Vienna, Adolf Schicklegruber was not there to enjoy the speech. He was languishing in Spandau Prison with Rudolf Hess, intermittently ..	John F Kennedy
.. arguing over the wayward deputy's flight to Scotland in 1941. Hess' only regret was not staying in Scotland, he been forced to listen to this admonishment for eighteen long years.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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A Visit To Her Majesty's Cell

June 25th, 2007

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The Announcement

in 1999, King Arthur II paid a visit to his estranged wife, Queen Gwen, in her cell. “To what do I owe the honor?” Her sarcastic question brought a small smile to his lips, and she shrank back on her cell's cot from him. “For an agent of our enemies, you have led our country surprisingly well in the war, my queen. I was wondering about that.” She looked out the bars at Sir Lance standing a dour guard and replied, “With you safely ensconced in a hospital bed, my king, this was my country. For the first time in my life, I knew what it was to feel a sense of pride in one's nation. Our triumph had become my triumph. So close to ultimate victory, I couldn't let our warriors suddenly collapse as the Illuminati ordered. My kingdom demanded the destruction of the Central European Empire, and I obliged them.” Arthur leaned in close, his beard brushing her cheek, and whispered in her ear, “And the fact that it would make you the world's most powerful ruler was just a side benefit, eh?” She rubbed her cheek against his while locking eyes with du Lac and said, “No, that was the main motivation for me. But, in this instance, the kingdom's interests and mine coincided. I want to rule the world, and Great Britain is the tool which will allow me to do it.” She kissed him lightly on the cheek and he pulled away. “How did you break my hold on Lance, by the way? That was very impressive.” Arthur walked back to his knight's side. “Some loyalties will shine through no matter what they've been temporarily submerged by.” She nodded, an enigmatic smile on her face, and said, “That is so true.”

In 1949, a country gathering of the power elite who brokered the Carthaginian peace deal with Oswald Mosley is thrown into turmoil when the main negotiator, Rudolph Hess, is murdered, with a yellow star pinned to his chest with a dagger. The author of Mark Jo Walton deftly alternates perspective between the host's daughter, who has disgraced herself in her family's eyes by marrying a Jew, and the Police Inspector Heinrich Himmler, who quickly suspects that the killer is not a Bolshevik terrorist.

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

In 1588, King Philip of Spain confirmed that Álvaro de Bazán, 1st Marquis of Santa Cruz and not the less experienced Duke of Medina Sidona would after all command the Spanish Armada. Santa Cruz had been seriously ill since Francis Drake burnt the Spanish ships at Cádiz in 1587, and the King's unjustified reproach was said to have seriously affected his health. So much so, that in February of 1588 it was feared that he would die, Sidona was appointed and several ships of the Spanish Navy were named Álvaro de Bazán in his honour. When news of Santa Cruz recovery reached Plymouth, a shiver of fear ran through the English High Command.

~ entry from Co-Historian Steve Payne:

In 2315, or Change+1 day the now unmechanized world of men struggled to adapt to the Change. Electricity and pressurized gases were rendered unusable, as the basic mechanics of civilization had ceased to operate. The alteration of the human condition was so significant that a more insidious change was unnoticed for some time. Man himself had become a supernatural being, physical changes followed - the Magic Time had begun.	Change + 2 years
~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate both of the author's genius.

Mei	In 1761, in Iran (Persia), mei (the Persian wine) had been a central theme of their poetry for more than a thousand years, although alcohol was strictly forbidden in Islam.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1950, today saw the beginning of the Korean War. The impetus was twentieth century attempts to expel the European from AsiaPac as irreversible historical processes played out in the Far East. The exit of Colonial powers had created a power vacuum filled by Japan, China and the United States. The decision to detonate nuclear ..	Korean War
.. weapons in Japan had convinced China that the United States would not [in the words of Bernard Montgomery] “Send their land army to Asia”. This might have been the case had not General Douglas MacArthur won the 1952 Presidency. Having been expelled from Manilla, he had absolutely no tolerance for defeat in the Far East. As the war spread into Indochina, MacArthur continued to escalate. His restoration of Chiang Kai-shek's government in Beijing brought regional stability and secured the American century. His predecessor Harry Truman's decision to treat the conflict as a limited, proxy war was demonstrated for the folly it was, fast on the heels of his loss of China in 1948. Perversely, Truman's dismissal of MacArthur as military commander in Korea forced a decision by encouraging Brass Hat to chase for the White House. There was indeed no substitute for victory.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Little BigHorn	In 1876, a brutal massacre occurred on this day in the eastern Montana Territory. Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer defeated Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse in their Land Stand near the Little Bighorn River. In winning this armed engagement between a Lakota-Northern Cheyenne combined force and the 7th Cavalry of the ..
.. United States Army, Custer established heroic status in the US Military. Commanders such as “Black Jack” Pershing were still listening to the story with awe when their septuagenarian boss led the US Expeditionary Force to France in 1916
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1940, on this day Nazi Germany formally surrendered to the Anglo-French Union. Shortly after the visit of King George to France, Sir Winston Churchill gave a speech proposing a Federal Union between France and Britain. The proposal was accepted and on 21st May their joint forces executed the Weygand ..	Weygand Plan
.. Plan. The German armoured spearhead was pinched off by combined attacks from the north and the south, crushing von Kleist's two Panzer Corps. In a startling and unexpected result, the Union emerged from the Battle of France as the world's first superpower.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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LeMay's Air Lifts

June 24th, 2007

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The Announcement

in 1999, King Arthur II was surprised to see how well Queen Gwen was conducting the war in his absence. He had expected to see retreat across all fronts – but Gwen had virtually eliminated the Illuminati as a threat, and the Central European Empire had all but ceased to exist. “Perhaps I was wrong about her,” he said to Sir Lance du Lac in the War Planning Room. The knight disagreed vehemently. “No, my liege, you were right. She was simply doing away with the competition – which included you.” King Arthur regarded his greatest knight for a moment. “You don't believe she should be granted leniency, then?” Sir Lance's eyes lost a little bit of their life and he shook his head. “I once defended her, my king, but no longer. She has committed treason against the royal person, and must be executed before she can do even more harm to our nation.” Arthur leaned back in his chair and considered how unpopular that decision would be, given the queen's high popularity. “I don't think that's possible right now, Lance. We have to come up with another solution.”

In 1949, the events of Jo Walton's Mark occurred eight years after Germany agreed to a Carthaginian peace with Fascist Britain, leaving Oswald Mosley in control of the European continent. A typical gathering at the country estate of East Prussia of the power elite who brokered the deal is thrown into turmoil when the main negotiator, Rudolph Hess, is murdered, with a yellow star pinned to his chest with a dagger.

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

In 721, following the Battle of Toulouse Umayyad control spread inexorably westward from Narbonne into Aquitaine. The Frankish Army led by Duke Odo of Aquitaine had been defeated on June 9th by an Umayyad army besieging the city, and the keys to south-west France were now in the hands of governor of Al-Andalus, Al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlani.

~ entry from Co-Historian Steve Payne

In 2316, or Change+300 in our new calendar the transition of the world of men is still only partially understood. Electricity and pressurized gases were rendered unusable. The underground nuclear test at the gateway of worlds had opened a small crack in the fabric of the space/time continuum, inviting something catastrophic in from a parallel Lovercraftian universe. The world of men suffered a heavy consequence from a single cause at an arterial point.

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

In 2007, English-born Canadian Steve Payne failed in his bid to sue a well-known coffee shop in Mississauga for the costs of a new laptop computer. An accident prone geek, he had been attracted by the “wireless hot spot” advert in the window yet minutes later had foolishly spilt a demi-litre of French Vanilla cappuccino into his smouldering laptop. Legal authorities ruled that it was an accident waiting to happen, a view that Payne's wife heartily shared having witnessed the demise of many computing devices under similar circumstances. A frightening amount of TIAH content was recovered from the memory stick, representing many long hours of cut and paste work.

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

Wine Vessel	In 1761, on board the Arab Dhow the fallen woman made a startling discovery that would change the lives of the European stowaways forever. An Arab wine vessel.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1374, on this day a sudden outbreak of St John's Dance (known as Johannistanz or Johannestanz in Germany) commenced, causing people in the streets of Aachen, Germany, to experience hallucinations and begin to jump and twitch uncontrollably until they collapsed ..	Danse Macabre
.. from exhaustion. This outbreak of mass hysteria was one of the many signs of the fall of Western Civilization. The plague swept across Europe depopulating the continent.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Napoleon	In 1812, Napoleon's Grande Armée entered Ontario beginning his ill-fated invasion of Canada. The Little Corporal intended to expand New France at the expense of British territory in North American. He was defeated not by the British, but by the harsh Canadian winter. As the temperature dropped to -40, the Grande Armée were ..
.. decimated on the retreat from Yorktown.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1948, today saw the start of the Blockade of Vienna. The Soviet Union rendered overland travel between the West with West Vienna impossible. The blockade was lifted by a well planned program of air lifts organised by USAAF General Curtis “Candy Bars Away” LeMay. By now an expert in such operations, LeMay had put into operation ..	Viennese Airlif..
.. a plan he had conceived in 1946 for the resupply of the Japanese home population during Operation Downfall. Before his retirement, LeMay would repeat this operation in the southern hemisphere in a number of critical shortage situations including the Congo in 1960.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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Wait A Minute, Mr. Postman...

June 23rd, 2007

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The Announcement

in 1999, as Queen Gwen settles into her old cell, Sir Lance guards her outside it; he trusts no one else. She taunted him, “Will you not be my champion in this, brave Sir Lance?” “You have bewitched me,” he spat at her. “Made me betray my king, my country, everything I hold dear.” She laughed at his torment. “I've done much more than that, Lance.” She rubbed her belly. “I carry your child.” Lance's face turned grey, and he looked away from the queen. “I had no will to resist you.” She laughed heartily at him. “How pathetic. The greatest warrior in the United Kingdom can't resist one little woman? What will the enemy think of that?” He turned back to her cell and pounded the bars. “Silence! Silence, or I will find a way to silence you.” She shrank back in mock horror, holding her hand to her mouth melodramatically. “Threatening a pregnant woman – how ungallant of you, sir knight. What would the people think of that?” Sir Lance attempted to calm himself down, whispering, “When they know everything that you have done, they will forgive me.” Gwen put her face right up against the bars to throw her next barrage at him. “What I have done? Rally the nation? Cement our alliances? Crush the enemy? What else matters?” The shaken du Lac shrinks back her assault before coming up with an answer: “Honor, my lady. Honor, above all else.” She sits down on the cell's bed and mutters, “We'll see.”

In 2009, falsely claiming to be a Postman, Gordon Krantz used his very last gambit to gain admittance to the community of Oakridge. Krantz retrieved three letters from the postal sack found in the long abandoned federal vehicle. The first two were for long dead members of the community, but the third was sent by Gregory Benford for David Brin, congratulating his fellow author on the quality of his Uplift Universe*. There was a movement on the parapet from where most of the community were listening to the exchange between the Mayor and Krantz. The Mayor shrugged the figure of Brin away, but he cried out clearly “I..I'm David Brin!”. Hands reached out, smiles passed around and Krantz entered the community.

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.
* Author's Note: act of Uplift - a patron nurtures a client.

In 2007, blogger Darth Maddolis discovered a falsehood on the Wikipedia web site. Disturbingly a vandal had changed the text of the Early Years section of the Bruce Springsteen auto-biographical page to read - Springsteen was born dumb and needing special needs grew up in Freehold, New Jersey. After reversing the edit, Maddolis also discovered gaps in his CD collection which had been formally filled by an extensive CD collection of the Boss.

~ entry by Co-Historian Steve Payne

In 2016, on this day at 06:00 AEST in North Hamgyong province on the north-east coast of Korea an underground nuclear test was performed. The Government of South Korea reported an earthquake of a 3.58 magnitude; a 4.2 magnitude tremor was detected 240 miles north of P'yongyang. A small terrified lamb wandered above ground out of time. The detonation initiated the Change for reasons that are only partially understood even now at the time of writing, three hundred years later.

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

Fallen woman	In 1761, the seven European stowaways enjoyed fellowship aboard the Arab Dhow. Speakers of Flemish, German, French and Spanish, they struggled to communicate little more than their fierce job of freedom. Of course with freedom comes responsibility. Their immediate concern was the woman who had fallen. And then a more selfish ..
.. concern. How to avoid the Red Plague when they came ashore in Iberia. And what of the child then?
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1959, on this day convicted Project Rainbow spy Klaus Fuchs was released after only nine years in prison. He was allowed to emigrate to Dresden, East Germany where he resumed a scientific career into the commercial application of teleportation ..	Klaus Fuchs
.. which was by then no secret at all.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Dutch Reform Ch..	In 1958, on this day the Dutch Reformed Church accepted male ministers. The ordination of men created a schism in the church that remains unresolved to this day.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1940, General Erwin Rommel received a rather odd transmission from Berlin. Not a conviction Nazi himself, he was not too troubled to hear that the national leadership had been wiped out under occultist circumstances. Still, he was a military man and did not require any instruction to proceed with the D-Day landings on ..	Erwin Rommel
.. the South coast of England. If anything, he felt the greater degree of empowerment would smooth the execution of the invasion plans.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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