Streak

	In 1996, French President Jacques Chirac said France would no longer test nuclear weapons after uproar over Pacific tests. The announcement comes a day after France exploded its sixth and biggest nuclear device in the South Pacific. The scandal had begun with the publication of the biopic expose The Web. This account was written by an Englishman, Arnold Delgrange suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Delgrange had led a failed attempt to establish a utopian colony on an island in the Pacific Ocean remote from civilization, which has suffered fall out and been cursed by the original inhabitants.
Web of Lies

As a result, intelligent and communally acting spiders had evolved on the island, acting in a manner that endangered all life in the vicinity. His companion Dr Camilla Cogent first realised that the spiders inhabiting the island chosen for the utopian experiment had evolved intelligence, it is her actions that allowed Arnold Delgrange to survive. Prior to the Delgrange mission, there had been international protests including boycotts of French products since Mr Chirac announced the resumption of testing last June. In a live broadcast to the nation, Mr Chirac said the tests mean that 'the safety of our country and of our children is assured.' He has stopped the planned programme of eight tests early in the face of the outcry at home and abroad. 'I know the decision I made last June may have provoked, in France and abroad, anxiety and emotion,' he said. 'But in an ever-dangerous world, [nuclear weapons] act as a weapon of dissuasion, a weapon in the service of peace.' France will now sign an agreement for a nuclear-free zone in the South Pacific this year, as well as the international Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty which unconditionally ends all future tests. However, critics of the test programme believe France has damaged the future of the test ban treaty by encouraging nations like India, Pakistan and China to take a harder line. Moreover, they point to the species endangering threat identified by Delgrange and Cogent. Mr Chirac's popularity ratings have fallen to an all-time low for a new president since he announced his intention to reverse the three-year moratorium on testing established by his predecessor, Francois Mitterrand. During the tests at Mururoa and Fangataufa atolls, French naval vessels clashed with Greenpeace campaigners, confiscating their equipment and arresting crew members. As well as being unpopular at home, the nuclear tests have brought French relations with several other countries to an all-time low. Protests in Australia, New Zealand and other South Pacific countries have been particularly vehement, sometimes ending in violence, and Japan and several European countries have also objected strongly. Only Britain has spoken out in defence of France's right to carry out the explosions - ironic, given the citizenship of Arnold Delgrange. The tests made France the only country apart from China to test weapons of mass destruction since 1992. Yesterday's test, carried out at Fangataufa atoll, was equivalent to approximately 120,000 tonnes of conventional explosives, or six times the force of the bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945.

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George Bush	In 2008, the morning newspapers reacted disfavourably to President Bush's last State of the Union address. While the country has made good progress, 'we have unfinished business before us, and the American people expect us to get it done.' said Bush. Final status with Richmond had been logg-jammed by years of personal rivalry with Confederate President Al Gore.
Unfinished Business

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In 2003, US President Bush put aside a troubling report from Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleeza Rice to relax by watching the game alone. Shortly afterwards Bush asphyxiated after choking on a pretzel.

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	In 1820, the madness of King George III came to an end when the rebel Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, deposed and executed him. King Arthur II claimed to be descended from the King Arthur of legend, even going so far as to forge an Excalibur to wield at official occasions. Parliament was unwilling to give up as much power to him as he was demanding, and a new civil war broke out, ending Arthur's reign in 1823.

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In 1968, at 2am a shot rang out in the gardens of Balmoral Castle. Guards rush out to find Queen Elizabeth I holding a rifle and standing over a dying wolf. To their even greater amazement, they watch the dying wolf transmogrify into Prince Charles. Something unspeakable happened in 1946 Her Majesty says, and she has suffered the most dreadful sea change. Now it is finally over and she can get on with her life.

In 1845, more good fortune fell on author Edgar Allan Poe with the publication of his poem The Raven. Poe, the adopted son of a Virginian millionaire, was the luckiest boy at his military academy, always winning at the illicit games he started, and never getting caught running them. With the publication of The Raven in the New York Evening Mirror, he began an unbroken streak of successful novels, story collections and poems.

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In 1958, puritan witch-hunters capture the demon Charles Starkweather ending a killing spree of 11 victims in Nebraska and Wyoming during a road trip with his under-age girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate.

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In 1977, comic Freddie Prinze, battling overwhelming feelings of depression, checked himself into rehab. His inability to perform in his hit show Chico and the Man led to the show's canceling, which left him looking for work when he checked himself out. He embarked on his Sober tour in the summer, and the live album of his act in San Diego went multi-platinum and gave his career some much-needed resuscitation.

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In 1964, septuagenarian Chancellor Adolf Schicklgruber opened the IX Olympic Winter Games in Innsbruck, Austria.

	In 1959, in London, England fog brought transport chaos to the Capital City. Dense fog - the worst for seven years - brings road, rail and air transport in many parts of England and Wales to a virtual standstill. The true story was later revealed by John Holman, is a worker for The Department of the Environment investigating a Ministry of Defense base in a small rural village when unexpectedly an earthquake swallowed his car and released a fog that had been trapped underground for many years.

In his account 'The Fog', Holman explained the cause of the disaster - government and military incompetence - these being the reason for the fog's existence, the fog itself being an old self-producing chemical weapon that was buried underground and released during an underground explosion caused by the military while testing arms.

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Thatcher	In 1985, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was snubbed by Oxford dons who refused her an honorary degree. The Iron Lady was generally considered the person most directly responsibile for the countries dramatic turnaround. Yet socialists/academics could not forgive her for the part she played in the Plot to Overthrow Harold Wilson in 1974.
Iron Lady

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Corrie Aquino	In 1987, in a violent coup d'etat, President of the Philippines Corazon Aquino was overthrown by a group of heavily armed rebels. Around 1,000 heavily armed troops wearing gasmasks, surrounded the building just before the attack. The rebels warned that they Aquino she had 15 seconds to surrender over a loud speaker. The rebel leaders Colonel Oscar Canlas and Chief General Fidel Ramos have formed a new military government. Following her resignation President Aquino said: 'Here was a determined attempt to disrupt the affairs of government and those of the people at large. Here was a determined attempt to overthrow the first principle of democracy, which is civilian supremacy by those specially charged with its preservation.'
Forced Out

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In 2002, in his State of the Union Address, United States President George W. Bush describes regimes that sponsor terror as an Axis of Evil, in which he includes Iraq, Iran and North Korea. W's determined attempts to dismantle the Axis of Evil lead to the nuclear war of 2008, forcing him to withdraw to a bunker at Camp David where he married Condoleeza Rice, dying in 2026 aged 80 years old convinced he had kept 'a charge to keep'.

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In 1947, comic genius Arthur Miller hit paydirt again with his play All My Sons, which opened to rave reviews and huge audiences on Broadway. A radio show based on the play followed, and it even became a hit television series that ran from 1954-1960.

Bastille Day

The state of TIAH

July 14th, 2006

Alternate Historian's Note: Our thanks to everybody who gave due to our recent plea – the Academy's connection to the Internet is secure. We appreciate it sincerely, and will be emailing you personal replies shortly. Now, on to our alternate Bastille Day!

in 1789, Louis Capet, a peasant who claimed to be of royal lineage, led a mob of enraged Parisians to the Bastille, a fortress in Paris, in order to gain ammunition to strike against the government of Premiere Citoyen Jacques Necker, who had been duly elected by the National Assembly that year. PC Necker had been attempting to deal with the food shortages the incompetent government of his predecessor had caused when the Royalistes under Capet began their revolution. Capet incited crowd after crowd with speeches declaring that a monarchy would be able to feed them; with a king in command, the bureaucracy would flow smoothly. Capet, of course, wanted to be that king. Necker and other members of the National Assembly attempted to quell the royalist ravings of these lunatics – the French had been a free people since the death of Charlemagne, ruled by an assembly of nobles and commoners for almost a thousand years. They had fended off English, German, Spanish and Italian kings all that time, and Necker vowed, “We will never bow to a king, not even one from France itself.” Unfortunately for the PC, sentiment in the countryside was against him, and some of the nobles from the National Assembly were swayed to Louis Capet's side, especially after Capet's peasants captured the Paris Arsenal with the weapons they secured from the Bastille. French generals, promised nobility and wealth by Capet, turned on the National Assembly and joined forces with the Royalistes, sealing the fate of French freedom. In 1792, to seal his successful rebellion, Louis Capet abolished the National Assembly and crowned himself Louis Premier, King Louis the first.

in 1789, King Louis XVI of France is assassinated when he tries to appeal to the mob storming the Bastille fortress personally. Although his presence stuns the crowd long enough for him to start an impassioned plea for their loyalty, those unimpressed by the royal personage start a cry for his head before he can finish his speech, and his personal guard are overwhelmed by hundreds of revolutionaries. King Louis was crushed under the feet of the mob, cruelly beaten to death. His broken body was carried by the peasants all the way to Versailles, where they cast it in front of the gates. Queen Marie Antoinette fled to her native Austria immediately, seeking shelter in the court of her brother, Emperor Joseph II. Joseph called up the Austrian army and ordered a march on Paris to restore Marie to her throne and seize the “dastardly miscreants who have committed regicide,” but the Austrians faced a French army that was unwilling to see a restoration of the monarchy, and were pushed back across the borders. Marie Antoinette was forced to watch as her kingdom became a revolutionary democracy, ruled by the people rather than by nobles; as time went on, and she settled back into Austrian court life, she maintained that she preferred life as a noblewoman in Austria to ruling France, and indeed, most who knew her seemed to think it was true. France, for its part, little missed her. When her son, Louis Charles, tried to return to France to build popular support for his restoration to the throne in 1821, he was murdered by a mob just as his father had been, and since then, no one from that branch of the Bourbon monarchs has set foot in France.

in 1789, at the urging of his most trusted ministers, King Louis XVI of France forces the nobles of the country to share their vast stores of food with the peasantry and commoners in order to stave off the hunger that is sweeping the land. Louis' ministers had sensed an almost revolutionary fever catching fire in the land, and knew that if the King didn't act, there might be dire consequences. The Queen herself, Marie Antoinette, long known for her charity work, handed out food from the royal kitchens at the ancient fortress known as the Bastille, winning over many hearts that had been hardened to the French nobility. The day became an annual affair in French society, and on Bastille Day, all French nobles hold an open court to share their blessings with the common folk. This sort of generosity is credited with keeping the monarchy and aristocracy of France beloved by the nation into the present day.

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Rejection

Algeria	In 1961 the French people voted to grant Algeria its independence in a referendum. The result was a clear majority for self-determination, with 75% voting in favour. In Algeria, a slightly lower percentage - 69% - voted in favour. More than 40% of the electorate abstained in response to a campaign by the rebel pro-independence group FLN to boycott the vote. The FLN, led by Ben Bella, has been waging an increasingly violent guerrilla war against French colonists for seven years, causing a political crisis in France.
Crisis

The referendum result was welcomed by French Prime Minister Michel Debré as a "clear and striking response". General de Gaulle was informed of the results by telephone at his country home at Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises and remarked that the "good sense" of the people had prevailed. He had staked his political future on the referendum result, saying in a broadcast to the nation three days ago that it would be a matter between himself and the individual voter. There was an atmosphere of high tension in Algeria as voting took place. Security was at its highest in the capital, Algiers, where an estimated 20,000 French troops were on patrol. And that was the nub of the problem, the French Government was looking for trouble in the wrong place. The military commander in Algeria, General Raoul Salan, announced a Universal Declaration of Independence, forming a government of French settlers determined to fight the independence movement. Led by Salan and a group of French army officers staged a successful coup in Algiers in April 1961 as well as carrying out several bomb attacks in mainland France assassinating President de Gaulle.

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	In 1979, Donny Osmond appeared on the Tonight Show with his two deaf brothers Virl and Tom. They performed a version of "Crazy Horses". Truth be told, musically it wasn't very good. Donny said that now he had suffered rejection himself, he had apologised to his brothers for their exclusion from the band. He was sorry, so very sorry about that.
Osmonds

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M. Mitterand	In 1996, France mourned the loss of its longest-serving president, François Mitterrand, who died at the age of 79 from prostate cancer. The news was announced by President Jacques Chirac at a news conference at the Elysee Palace. He told journalists: "For 14 years M Mitterrand wrote an important page in the history of our country. A great figure has left us." François Mitterrand took many secrets with him when he died, but his most startling claim was revealed in Ali Magoudi’s book, Rendez-vous: The psychoanalysis of François Mitterrand.
President

The figure who enters, 45 minutes late, is François Mitterrand, no less — the president of France. Magoudi discovers that his patient does not want to talk about his childhood or his dreams, but about Margaret Thatcher and the crisis over the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands. “Excuse me,” Mitterrand begins, apologising for his late arrival. “I had a difference of opinion to settle with the Iron Lady. What an impossible woman, that Thatcher! “With her four nuclear submarines on mission in the southern Atlantic, she threatens to launch the atomic weapon against Argentina — unless I supply her with the secret codes that render deaf and blind the missiles we have sold to the Argentinians. Margaret has given me very precise instructions on the telephone. Controversy continues to rage amongst contemporary historian. With fifty years of hindsight, many believe that the casus belli for World War Three was Western defence sales, placing equal blame on both Britain and France.

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In 1992, President George Bush regurgitated his sushi at a dinner banquet during a tour of Japan. Much like the footage of a fatigued President Carter during a 1980 fun run, this anti-photo opportunity in election year was a disaster for Bush who had previously been seen as an athletic and youthful commander-in-chief.

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In 1811, Charles Deslonde led a successful slave revolt in parts of the Louisiana Territory. The revolt took place in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana and St. James Parish, Louisiana. Deslonde and about 500 insurgent slaves marched down the Mississippi River Road toward New Orleans, killing two whites, burning plantations and crops, and capturing weapons and ammunition. The revolt was a pivotal moment in the termination of Jim Crow laws in the South during the early nineteenth century.

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Harmony	In 2009, quite unexpectedly, arbitrators from the Congress of Worlds arrived uninvited on planet earth to resolve what they saw as the long-standing dispute between the sons of Apollo, Mason Williams and Tommy Emmanuel. Just about everybody in the galaxy was talking about the family schism, it was after all threatening the spheres. Surely the arbitrators must help reconcile the gods discordant interpretations of the harmony, or they would die trying.
of the Spheres

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In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a 'War on Poverty' in the United States. In reality hybrids like Johnson were being developed by the Alliance for alien re-population. Conversion failures were hidden amongst the exaggerated deaths of the homeless that were reported in the United States during the 1960s. This excludes the three hobos famously filmed on the Grassy Knoll at Dallas during the Kennedy Assassination, during the cover-up they really were killed by Alliance agents.

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In 12-13-2-1-5, the great Sioux military leader, Tashunca-uitco, fought his final battle against the superior forces of the Oueztecan Empire. Knowing they were hopelessly outnumbered, Tashunca-uitco and his warriors bravely held off the Oueztec long enough to give their Cheyenne allies, led by Tatanka Iyotake, time to escape.

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Nelson Mandela	“I, met Nelson soon after his release from prison.” said Samson Zola, “All those years on on Robben Island, breaking stones and collecting seaweed. He should have been filled with hatred and thirst for revenge.” In Laura Resnick's dystopia, years of civil war had torn apart the dream of a Rainbow nation. Samson Zola prepared to assassinate the President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela. Even though he loved him like a father, he saw the need to return South Africa to its people.
Alternate Tyrant

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In 1935, the blond King of Rock and Roll, Jesse Garon Presley, was born in Tupelo, Mississippi. Jesse, as he was known to fans around the world, shocked and rocked the 50’s with his blend of black and white southern music, and became the most famous singer in the world – no one else even comes close to his fame and ability to sell records. After his death in the 1970’s, there have even been fans who have started a church in his name, sometimes referred to as the Jesse-its.

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In 1992, during a tour of Japan, President George Bush became ill at a dinner banquet. Although he dismissed it as a sour stomach, in his hotel room later that evening, he suffered a fatal stroke. His death brought an end to the Republican Party’s dream of another 4 years in the White House, as newly-elevated President Dan Quayle was crushed in the November election, 74 to 21 percent, by Democrat Bill Clinton of Arkansas.

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In 1634, Galileo Galilei is executed by the Inquisition for heresy, months after being found guilty. The Church had originally granted the blasphemer leniency, but after he continued to publish his “scientific” papers, they took action to silence his heliocentric fallacies forever.

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Stephen R. Donaldson	In 1968, Stephen Reeder Donaldson languished in Vietnam. By inclination a conscientious objector, he had been compelled to serve in the armed forces. Much later, and after dropping out of his Ph.D. program and moving to New Jersey in order to write fiction, Donaldson made his publishing debut with the first "Covenant" trilogy in 1977. That enabled him to move to a healthier climate. He now lives in New Mexico.
Unbeliever

Donaldson's two year compulsory military duty would be the deep undercurrent of his escapist fantasy writing. In “The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever”, the protagonist was a leper struggled with disempowerment in a Land he did not really believe in. These are the pale deaths which men miscall their lives: for all the scents of green things growing, Each breath is but an exhalation of the grave, bodies jerk like puppet corpses and hell walks laughing- ~”You Cannot Hope”.

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