Kicker

Jesus	In 1843, at the counting house Ebenezer Scrooge's Fred, entered to wish his uncle a "Merry Christmas" and invite him to Christmas dinner the next day. He is dismissed by his relative with "Bah! Humbug!" among other unpleasantness, declaring Christmas time to be a fraud.
Is Love

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In 1531, Our Lady of Guadalupe (the Virgin Mary) appears in a manifestation to St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin on the hill of Tepeyac near Mexico City. In 1648 Miguel Sánchez, the author of the first Spanish-language apparition account said that

this New World has been won and conquered by the hand of the Virgin Mary

in a reference to the conversion of the Americas to Roman Catholicism with the notable exception of the Amish and Mormons.

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In 2000, the United States Supreme Court releases its decision in Bush v. Gore. Extreme pressure had been applied behind the scenes, but President Bill Clinton had greatest control of the executive and the judiciary. The comeback kid could grant pardons on his departure from the White House in a little over eight weeks time. The Bush family had been beated twice by the man from hope.

Reeve	"My epithet, 'the Just' derives from coinage. it concerns both the measure and the refinement of gold. When a coin contains the exact weight and purity of gold which it should contain, it it said to be 'just'. You should be aware, that the honesty of any man is revealed by the coin with which he repays his debts. ~ Reeve the Just In 2006, Tony Blair entered his final year of office. He was not sleeping well. On the previous night, he had suffered the phantasmagoric visit of Reeve the Just who had entered his study at 10 Downing Street. The conversation with the protagoniost was not what he wished it to be. His plans did not include any defense of himself: he meant to attack.
The Just

Just before he woke up screaming, Reeve had concluded - "You have confessed. I will go now and summon a magistrate. You will repeat your confession to him. Perhaps that act of honest will inspire you to confess as well the crimes you have committed upon the people of Iraq."

September 11

in 2000, the United States Supreme Court releases its decision in Bush v. Gore. To unite the country, the Court proposes a joint inauguration followed by the candidates sharing the presidency with each serving a two-year term. Best practice had been established by an indecisive election in Israel during 1984 when Prime Ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Shimon Peres agreed to the same power-sharing formula. Without the luxury of a full-term to plan and launch an invasion of Iraq, the Bush camp fall upon a pretext for invasion during Gore's two-year occupancy. Plans for a terrorist strike on the World Trade Centre are started in earnest.

In 2003, on this day the compendium “A Collection of Political Counterfactuals” was published. Simon Burns' masterful sequel "What if Vladimir Arutinian had missed?" was a keynote contribution, considering the scenario of May 10, 2005: while Bush was giving a speech in the Freedom Square in Tbilisi, Georgia, Vladimir Arutinian threw a live Soviet-made RGD-5 hand grenade towards the podium where he was standing and where Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and their two wives and officials were seated.

George W Bush

It landed in the crowd 18.6 metres (61 feet) from the podium after hitting a girl, but – incredibly – did not detonate because the red tartan (plaid) handkerchief wrapped tightly around it didn't allow the firing pin to deploy fast enough. Arutinian was arrested in July 2005 and admitted to throwing the grenade. He was convicted in January 2006, and was given a life sentence.

Hirohito

In 1941, India declared war on Japan. The decision was taken by British Imperialists acting falsely in the name of the people of the subcontinent. The Empire of Japan did not care, and dismantled the Raj during 1942 claiming a state of war existed between the two nations. Leaders of the Indian Independence Movement including Mahatma Gandhi were forced to re-evaluate their Quit India! Strategy which was now targeted at a wholly different kind of oppressor. Japan believed that it was creating a whole new order in Asia, and that required the displacement of American and European powers before further political development could be seriously considered.

In 2005, an Internet security attack is launched on the - Government's nuclear program from a $250,000 Windows 2003 Server Farm which is spoofed on the net as a PC133-style computer. Rat hacks into the hardened Fuel Enrichment Plant at 33°43′24.43″N, 51°43′37.55″E. Covering 100,000 square metres and built 8 meters underground, the plant is protected by a concrete wall 2.5 meters thick, itself protected by another concrete wall. The facility was previously considered impervious to Internet threats. The software for the fast breeder reactor core is subtlety modified by Rat. For a twenty-four period, Iranians are mystified as to the lack of enriched uranium and the output of garlic variant Texas Toast.

Rat

In 1893, quintessential movie bad guy Emanual Goldenberg was born in Bucharest, Romania. After coming to the United States as a boy, Goldenberg decided to become an actor, and won a scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He played a series of gangsters throughout the 30’s and 40’s, but his two most famous roles are as the slave foreman Dathan in The Ten Commandments and the elderly police assistant Sol in Soylent Green, both opposite leading man John Carter.

In 4629, chef Yuan Tseh Lee of the Hong Kong restaurant Sea Dragon Inn creates a small dessert treat to satisfy his clientele who needed something quick and not very filling. It was a small, crisp cookie that he folded into a knot. He personalized each one with an inspirational saying written on a scrap of paper stuffed into every cookie. The Fortune Cookie, as they came to be known, caught on like wildfire throughout the Chinese Empire, and Yuan was able to retire a very rich man.

In 1951, flash-in-the-pan conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh was born in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Briefly famous after touting Ronald Reagan’s agenda in the 1980’s, his star plummeted back to earth with the triumph of Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election.

In 1951, Joe Dimaggio, possibly the greatest living Town Ball player at the time, announced his retirement from the New York Metros. Dimaggio had been the envy of other men in America just because of his sporting skills, but he increased that sense of envy when he married Hollywood beauty Norma Jean Mortensen in 1954.

In 1957, singer Jerry Lee Lewis arranges to marry his 13-year old cousin Myra Gale Brown, but is stopped at the alter by Jane Mitchum, whom he is still legally married to. Although Lewis was incensed at Mitchum’s interference, she probably saved his career; who would want to listen to records from a man married to a 13-year old?

Our Lady

The state of TIAH

December 12th, 2006

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Alternate Historian's Note: Stephen Payne takes up the slack for us as we head down to the conclusion of the first half of our NaNoWriMo novel. We hope you are enjoying this change in format – let us know how you feel about it in comments or by emailing us. This will be the format of TIAH throughout the holiday season, unless we receive a great outcry about it. Speaking of the Holiday Season, keep in mind those who need help year-round and keep yourselves safe and happy, as well. And, should you feel generous inclinations towards our guest historians, you can visit the sites of those who have separate ones from TIAH; generosity towards us here at the Academy is always appreciated, too, and you can find ways to help us out all over the site. Right now, we'd appreciate a lead on a good day job, but my lovely Co-Historian could also some more memory on her PC, if anyone feels generously inclined. (It's PC133-style – yes, it's an old machine). Any good wishes you have towards us can be emailed here.

in 0, Mullah Elijah Rafsanjani is starting to believe his abduction plan will succeed. Delivering Jesus to the post-jihad year 2126 and frustrating the ministry will deliver a heroes' welcome, surely? -entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!-

in 1531, Our Lady of Guadalupe (the Virgin Mary) appears in a manifestation to St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin on the hill of Tepeyac near Mexico City. In 1648 Miguel Sánchez, the author of the first Spanish-language apparition account said that "this New World has been won and conquered by the hand of the Virgin Mary” in a reference to the conversion of the Americas to Roman Catholicism with the notable exception of the Amish and Mormons. -entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!-

in 2000, the United States Supreme Court releases its decision in Bush v. Gore. To unite the country, the Court proposes a joint inauguration followed by the candidates sharing the presidency with each serving a two-year term. Best practice had been established by an indecisive election in Israel during 1984 when Prime Ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Shimon Peres agreed to the same power-sharing formula. British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown calls Gore to strongly advise him not to accept the proposal. After all he had made a similar agreement with the British Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1994 and he was still waiting. Dismissing Brown's advice as a counsel of bitterness, and being a gentleman, Gore invites Bush to serve first – whilst he occupies the Senate Presidency as agreed. For two years they fight tooth and nail over 9/11 and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, tearing the country to pieces. -entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!-

Before(cont.)
“What is it?” Steph didn't think she really wanted to know, judging from the way Jake sounded, but wanted to get it over with.
“I need to come back to your place, all right? And I'm afraid I'm gonna be bringing Specialist Bradley and a couple of other people with me.”
Steph was confused. “Why?”
“Are you on the cordless phone, Steph?”
That was a weird question. “Yeah.”
“I'll email you, OK? It's not something that I can talk about over the line.”
That just scared her. “Are you sure you need to come here, Jake?”
“Yeah, Steph, I really am.”
She wanted to tell him no; she and the kids had been through so much in the last 2 days, and she didn't like how mysterious he was being. But, if he really needed her help... then she had to give it. “OK, Jake. When are you gonna be here?”
“I'll tell you in the email. See you soon, Steph.”
The receiver went dead and she hung up. She walked over to the computer, where Joan was chatting with some of her friends. “I need to use the computer, Joanie.”
“Just 5 more minutes, OK, mom?”
Steph didn't think Jake was hitting 'Send' right then, so she said, “All right. But not a minute more.”
“OK.” Joan typed furiously, giggling a little at something that somebody had just messaged to her. Steph felt good that Joan was in a better mood than the previous day. She wished that she could toss all of her cares away that easily. George was happily watching his Justice League DVD's, without a care in the world. All the adult stuff was still a little unreal to him.
It felt a little unreal to her, too. She pulled a chair up next to the computer, making Joan a little uncomfortable. “Don't read over my shoulder, OK?”
“Don't write anything you feel like I shouldn't read, then,” Steph told her, smiling. She didn't read what her daughter was typing; she felt that the threat that her mother was close enough to read what she was writing was enough to deter the girl.
It obviously made Joan uncomfortable, because she wrapped up the conversation and turned the computer over to her mother. “There ya go, mom,” she said, getting up and walking over to the TV to torment her little brother.
Joan brought up her email program and signed in. Spam drifted in quickly, and she scanned through it until she found one from Jake. “Steph,” it read, “you need to delete this email as soon as you've read it, and empty your trash folder after doing that. There's more that Bradley told me you need to do, but we'll explain it when we get there. We've found out something here that kind of threw us for a loop, and we need some time to think about our next move. We won't stay there long, but we need a place where we can meet up with a couple of people before moving on. If you can't let us stay there, don't reply to this email. Instead, post a message to the forums at www.jcconspiracy.com saying S cannot help J. It's really important, though, babe. If we don't see that post before 3PM, we'll assume that you agree. Thanks.”
She looked at the clock in the corner of her computer's desktop. It was 2:14. That gave her a little time to think about what she had just read. She deleted the email and emptied the trash folder, then opened up her Internet browser and went to the mysterious www.jcconspiracy.com. It was one of those nutjob conspiracy sites, with all kinds of 'proof' that Bush was behind 9/11, or aliens were being pumped for information at Area 51, or JFK was killed by the CIA; another real estate agent at her firm believed that stuff and tried to talk to her about it all the time.
She saw the link to the forums, and clicked on it. There were several somewhat cryptic postings; she guessed that people this paranoid needed someplace they could post things anonymously. A huge number of these postings were from today and yesterday; the nutjobs were out in force. What was Jake doing telling her to go here? He didn't believe any of this crap.
The clock had flipped to 2:33 while she had been wading through all the craziness on the forums. Joan had also gotten bored with torturing her brother and was now seated next to her. “What's with all the whoo-whoo stuff, mom?”
Steph closed the browser. “Nothin', Joanie. Your father and some friends are gonna be here tonight. Help me get the place straightened up.”

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Pressures

	In 2008, the final resting place of three German U-boats, nicknamed Hitler's lost fleet were found at the bottom of the South Atlantic. The submarines had travelled 8,000 miles from Germany at the climax of the Second World War, but were mysteriously sunk as the war neared its end. Now, more than 60 years later, explorers located the flotilla of three submarines off the coast of South Georgia. The vessels, including one once commanded by Germany's most successful U-boat ace, formed part of the 30th Flotilla of six submarines.

All three U-boats had been operating against British shipping in the North Sea. U-23 gained notoriety for scoring one of Germany's earliest successes, sinking a British ship off the Shetland Islands days after war began. It was later commanded by Otto Kretschmer, known as Silent Otto, the most successful U-boat ace. Fantastic stories circulated that Adolf Hitler and some of his followers had commandeered the vessels in April 1945 and endeavoured to escape to the hollow lands within the Earth after World War II via an entrance in Antarctica. Now the submarines' hulls have been discovered by a team led by Selcuk Kolay, a Turkish marine engineer, who presented his findings to a shipwreck conference in Plymouth. He thought he was also close to pinpointing the third boat, U-19, thought to lie more than 1,000ft down, three miles from the coast of South Georgia. It's one of the least well known stories of the war but one of the most interesting, said Mr Kolay. It is a quite incredible story. To get to the South Atlantic these boats had to avoid Allied shipping in the Atlantic, and once they got there head for the southern polar opening to meet their Agarthan allies. Until the discovery, the Hollow Earth Research Society in Ontario, Canada asserted that Hitler and his Nazi followers were still there. After the war, the organization claimed, the Allies discovered that more than 2,000 scientists from Germany and Italy had vanished, along with almost a million people, to the land beyond the South Pole.

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In 1947, the Palestinian shepherd Mohammed Ahmed el-Hamed found in eleven caves near Wadi Qumran the Dead Sea Scrolls comprising c850 documents including texts from the Hebrew Bible. Of great religious and historical significance, they are practically the only known surviving Biblical documents written before AD 100. The State of Palestine used the scrolls as a key bargaining chip in the negotiation of the two states solution in 1982, when the documents were ceremoniously handed to Israeli Chairman Yitzhak Rabin by President Mahmoud Abbas in the Free City of Jerusalem.

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In 1607, the Secret War begins between the two major factions of the Speaker's Line; those who wish to take control of the world's governments in order to fulfill the Speaker's Dream, and those who wish to continue their work without letting those outside the Speaker's Family know of their purpose.

In 1992, promising to get under the hood and fix the engine, Ross Perot announced his intention to run in the 1992 U.S. presidential election on CNN's Larry King Live. When US votes found out the extent of incompetence and waste in Washington, they were simply shocked, and today Perot is recognised as the Father of Small Government in the United States.

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In 1985, the Republic of Ireland knuckles under to pressure from the Catholic Church and kills a measure in Parliament that would have allowed the sale of contraceptives, in spite of a Supreme Court ruling in 1973 that the Irish constitution provided a right to privacy that allowed such sales. Several pharmacies worked outside of the law to provide contraception to at least married couples, and were covertly aided by the government until a conservative backlash placed staunch Catholics in charge in 1990. A very repressive law against any form of birth control passed the Parliament, and provided an impetus for feminists in Ireland to organize and campaign. They were so successful, and tapped such a huge groundswell of support, that they managed to cast out the conservative government in 1992 and finally implement the 20-year old Supreme Court decision.

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In 1969, a world wide catastrophe occurred on the date predicted by anti-pope Michel Collin as the undeclared war between United States, Russia and China in Vietnam escalated into a nuclear exchange.

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In 1494, heretical bishop Johan Friis was born in Denmark. Bishop Friis converted to the Lutheran Church after Pope Henry VIII had Martin Luther executed. Friis was instrumental in spreading the outlawed faith across Denmark, against the laws of the Holy British Empire, and earned Pope Henry's wrath for himself. He was executed for heresy in 1542.

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In 12-10-19-10-7, Inca is hit by a huge earthquake, destroying the city of Talcahuano. Oueztecan Emperor Kanticli declares the great loss of life, numbering in the thousands, to be an imperial emergency, and aid from across the two continents of the empire pours in to help the citizens of Talcahuano.

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Alistair Cook	The Democrats have the man to beat George W Bush said Alistair Cooke in his final Letter from America, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Friday, 20 February, 2004. Cooke pointed to the fateful testimony before the Senate Arms Services Committee of David Kay - the CIA's retired chief weapons inspector. 'We got it all wrong,' he said, finally driving a stake in the heart of the administration's main declared reason for going into Iraq. 'All we found,' said David Kay, 'and are likely to find are the relics of an abandoned chemical warfare arsenal and of a primitive nuclear programme.'
Letter from America

Only one man - a doctor and former governor of Vermont - sensed the rising tide of popular feeling against the war. He galvanised the young and in all the public polls he was way ahead of the other seven. In the actual primaries he was time and again a distant first. This week his main rival joined the other dear departed. Hence the 15 out of 17 primaries lost by the Massachusetts senator, John Kerry, who since the campaign's beginning has sounded an odd and lonely boast: 'George Bush must be driven from the White House and Howard Dean is the man to do it.'

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In 2004, fans of the film series The Lord of the Rings riot in Los Angeles after the film is snubbed by the Oscars, garnering only one nomination for a technical award. Control is restored in the city after the Motion Picture Academy takes the unprecedented step of declaring that The Lord of the Rings will be awarded a special Oscar for 'Artistic Merit'.

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In 1962, Marine Lieutenant John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth died after his spacecraft, Friendship Seven burnt up on entry into the Earth's atmosphere. Glenn, 40 had travelled about 81,000 miles (more than 130,000km) as he circled the globe three times at more than 17,000 mph (27,000kph). Lieutenant Glenn controlled nearly two of the orbits himself after reporting 'minor difficulties' with the automatic altitude control system as he completed the third circuit - the maximum anticipated. Messages from the astronaut were transmitted by radio stations across the United States and United Kingdom and his progress was monitored by 18 ground stations around the world. As he re-entered the atmosphere after his four-hour and 56-minute journey Lieutenant Glenn made his last transmission saying: 'Boy, that was a real fireball.'

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In 1976, the South-east Asia Collective Defense Treaty (SEATO) was disbanded. The defense considered necessary at the signing of the Manilla Pact in 1954 was no longer required. The success of President Douglas MacArthur's Second Pacific War had rendered the organization unnecessary as friendly governments ruled the AsiaPac states by the mid-1970s.

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In 2004, fans of the film series The Lord of the Rings riot in Los Angeles after the film is snubbed by the Oscars, garnering only one nomination for a technical award. Control is restored in the city after the Motion Picture Academy takes the unprecedented step of declaring that The Lord of the Rings will be awarded a special Oscar for 'Artistic Merit'.