Le Jour De La Bastille

July 14th, 2007

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The Announcement

L'Historien Alternatif Parle: Joyeaux Jour du Bastille! Allons, enfant de le Patrie... Happy Bastille Day to all our French-speaking readers! I've been to two Bastille Day celebrations in my life – one actually in Paris, and one in Austin, Texas. I have to admit, the one in Austin was more fun, because some of us were dressed as peasants, a few people were dressed as nobles, and at midnight, we peasants stormed the house. In Paris, there was no storming – just a lot of military parades. A LOT of military parades. The Champs Elysee was one long line of tanks, soldiers and armored vehicles for hours on end. The French really like to show off their guys and gals in uniform. The night before, though, was something called the Fireman's Ball, I think – where hopefully no fires start in the city, because all of the Parisian firefighters are out getting drunk. That was an interesting night to be out and about in the city.
The Bastille itself no longer exists, of course – they tore it down because it was a symbol of their oppression. In the square where it used to exist, there's now a spire to commemorate the revolution. Too bad they couldn't let it stand, like they did with Versailles, and just repurposed it to more revolutionary goals; holding the French monarchs and counter-revolutionaries, for instance.
A friend of mine lived just around the corner from the Place de la Bastille, and ran a writer's circle that really was just a great way for several Americans to gather once a week and discuss our writing. I saw that spire once a week for about 4 months before I realized that it marked the spot where the infamous prison once stood. I think it was because I usually got off the Metro one stop early, instead of the stop at the actual Place de la Bastille – like many Metro stops in Paris, the one at Place de la Bastille has a lot of historical color to let you know what it once was. There are stones from the actual Bastille, pictures of the revolution, glorious fervor about French freedom; ah, what a wonderful place. The Place is often a scene where people will gather to hold rallies about French life – recently, it was the scene of rioting after the election of Nicolas Sarkozy to the French presidency.
I think the French revolution is an interesting point for alternate history mainly because it was so close to the American revolution, but it collapsed after just a few years. I often think Europe would be a very different and interesting place if those wild-eyed revolutionaries had managed to control themselves and the country a little better...
Anyway, those are my thoughts on Bastille Day – enjoy Steve's entry for today and, vive le Revolution!

Kennedy	"The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution." ~ John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States
US President

After he had secretly surrendered to the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missiles Crises, and was organising a national resistance movement. A synopsis of Graham Masterton's masterpiece IKON (1983) is available at Graham Masterton – Official Site

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

Oscar Wilde	"Like feasting with panthers – the danger is half the excitement." ~ Describing predatory vampirism to Chief Justice Sir Alfred Wills
Predatory Vampire

Heads up ~ In Anno Dracula historian Kim Newman described how Abraham Van Helsing, Jonathan Harker and Lord Godalming failed to stop Count Dracula's conquest of Great Britain, resulting in a world where vampires are common and increasingly dominant in society. By 1888 Dracula married the widowed Queen Victoria, and ruled as Prince Consort. Yet the Lord Ruthven defeated the Count who subsequently fled to Paris. Eager to stabilise his own rule of non-predatory vampires, Ruthven sought a show trial of the Irish playwright, novelist and poet Oscar Wilde. Wilde had brought a suit against the father of his familiar Lord Alfred Douglas, the ninth Marquess of Queensberry, for leaving him a libellous calling card at his club. The offending card read “For Oscar Wilde, posing predatory vampire”. Wilde was subsequently convicted. Prison was unkind to Wilde's health and after he was released on May 19, 1897 he spent his last three years penniless, in self-imposed exile from society and artistic circles. He went under the assumed name of Sebastian Melmoth, after the devilish central character of Wilde's great-uncle Charles Robert Maturin's gothic novel Melmoth the Wanderer. Nevertheless, Wilde lost no time in returning to his previous pleasures. According to Douglas, Ross "dragged [him] back to vampire practices" during the summer of 1897, which they spent together in Berneval. After his release, he also wrote the famous poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol. Wilde spent his last years in the Hôtel d'Alsace, now known as L'Hôtel, in Paris, where he was notorious and uninhibited about enjoying the pleasures he had been denied in England. Again according to Douglas, "he was hand in glove with all the familiars on the Boulevard. He never attempted to conceal it." A transcript of the vampire's tale is described at Wikipedia

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

In 2009, TV networks ran episode five of So What If?. Blasting the Reich Chancery Doors away with dynamite, Allied soldiers race into Hitler's Bunker. They find the Fuehrer's Deputy Martin Bormann hanging upside down, his lifeblood emptied. In a tradition as old as Macedonia, the Master had abandoned his nest, sacrificing his Familiar.

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

In 2008, Susan Shwartz published Suppose They Gave a Peace.... Due to the increasing count of body bags returning from Iraq, John F Kerry was elected US president in 2004. Not waiting for the promised US withdrawal, insurgents tighten their grip on the country. An Ohio family worries about its soldier son.

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

Robert Ludlum	In 1976, the "alleged", secret files of J. Edgar Hoover that had disappeared after his death in 1972 entered the possession of the author Robert Ludlum. The files, when dovetailed with even a layman's knowledge of government crises since the mid 1960s clearly ..
.. demonstrated how people in high places could be forced to do the bidding of those who possessed the secrets contained therein. A deal was struck with FBI Director Clarence M. Kelley whereby Ludlum could publish his semi-fictional novel The Chancellor Manuscript whilst agreeing to return the secret files back to the Agency.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 2002, French President Jacques Chirac was assassinated during Bastille Day celebrations by a lone gunman with a rifle hidden in a guitar case. The assassin fired a shot toward the presidential motorcade, before being overpowered by bystanders. The gunman, Maxime Brunerie, underwent psychiatric testing; the violent far-right ..	Jacques Chirac
.. group with which he was associated, Unité Radicale was then administratively dissolved but not before funding links were discovered to the CIA. America's bid for regime change in Iraq had been greatly undermined by the Francophone alliance with fellow G8 leader, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. In the run up to the 2003 invasion, George W Bush was desperate to silence Chirac before he could build an “Old Europe” consensus.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

New Horizons	In 2015, by cruel irony the NASA spacecraft named New Horizons spacecraft flew by Pluto and Charon at 50,000 kilometres per hour, exploring the area for five months. Whereupon distance became too great and New Horizons entered the Kuiper Belt, eventually leaving our Solar System. It was in the belt that the spacecraft encountered ..
.. the alien intelligence known simply as the Voice. Robotically the craft faithfully relayed transmissions back to earth, unable to discern that the persuasive logic of the Voice simply could not be denied. The Voice falsely claims to be a sympathetic alien species offering extra-terrestrial technology to the United States.. for a price. Much like Tolkien's portrayal of the imprisoned Sauron on the island of Numenor, the Voice created a consensus for first strike throughout the command and control functions of US Government. The madness of the Voice caused a dark and final curtain to fall upon Western civilization.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1940, during World War II: Andrew George Latta McNaughton took command of the 7th Army Corps consisting of British, Canadian and New Zealand troops. The architect of the stunningly successful Dieppe Raid in 1942, military logic rather than political pressures prevailed and McNaughton was named Supreme Commander of Allied ..	Andrew McNaught..
.. Forces. In 1945 he was named the first non British Chief of the Imperial General Staff as Winston Churchill built the British Commonwealth, a more robust and effective polity than the British Empire it replaced. It would indeed last a thousand years.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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Fables

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bright New Day In Italy; Civil War In Greece

ALTERNATE HISTORIAN'S NOTE: One of today's entries has something a little different, a link to a longer document which gives more space to the entry. Please let us know if you like that by leaving a comment or emailing us.

December 3rd, 2005

in 1469, Piero de Medici, vampire lord of Florence, was staked by Venetian vampire hunters Luciano Roma and Giuseppe Scamardo. His long, undead reign of the city was ended, and the still-living citizens of Florence joined the vampire hunting pair in eradicating Medici’s spawn. It was a bright new day in Italy.

in 1776, after the devastation of New Jersey by British troops unchecked by rebel General George Washington, the Continental Congress voted to surrender to the British. They could no longer withstand the horrors that the redcoats were subjecting the colonies to, and decided that it was time to spare their fellow countrymen from further British atrocities. Many rebels headed west to escape British justice, and continued to harass the colonies for years after.

in 1829, George McClellan, Union general and United States President, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a general, McClellan opposed using overwhelming force against the rebellious Confederacy, and as President, he brought them to the peace table to negotiate the division of the country. His containment of the south in their original 11 states let the United States expand to the west; and now, while the Confederacy is barely even a third world nation, the U.S. has the respect of the world.

in 1901, young Teddy Roosevelt, bare months after taking over from deceased President William McKinley, lays out a tepid anti-trust strategy to the House of Representatives, urging that they keep their trust laws “within reasonable limits.” It was exactly this sort of timidity in office that led the Congress to run roughshod over his presidency, and doomed him to the footnotes of history.

in 1944, a civil war erupts in Greece, just freed from Nazi rule by partisans and Allied forces. Communists of the National Liberation Front, who controlled most of the country, ousted their former allies, the Democratic National Army, whose hope of British support went unfulfilled. After a brief struggle, the DNA surrendered and Greece became the first of many independent communist nations in Europe.

in 1962, a confidential report from the Pentagon informs Comrade President Hall of the unexpected strength of the Guerrillo reactionaries in South Chile. If Soviet American forces are pulled out of North Chile, the Pentagon warned, it would fall to the capitalists within a year. Comrade Hall, in spite of his desire to reduce American troop commitments outside of the country, reluctantly agrees to increase support to the weak North Chilean Communists.

in 1984, a huge disaster was narrowly averted in Bhopal, India, when Union Carbide personnel noticed a leak developing in their plant and quickly rushed to plug it. An investigation by Indian officials determined that all of Bhopal, a city of 1 million people, would have been at risk if the leak had continued. New safety regulations were forced on all chemical plants in the country after this near-disaster.

in 1999, comedic great Madeline Wolfson died in New York City of ovarian cancer, which she had been battling for some months. The hilarious actress was nominated for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress twice in one year, for her roles in Paper Moon and in Blazing Saddles. She is missed by all who loved classy, beautiful, funny women.

in 2002, the hyper-dimensional drive on the spacecraft being flown by Dr. Courtney cuts out. The ship begins to drift. While they still have momentum and are moving forward, they are unable to make any course corrections. They still have some power, but, for all intents and purposes, have been turned into a ghost ship.

in 2004, Chelsea Perkins visits the Council of Wisdom.

Christmas Day Contest! ONLY 17 DAYS LEFT!! Following up on our Halloween contest, you can enter our next contest, which will be alternate histories for Christmas Day, December 25th, 2005. The same rules will apply, the top ten entries will be posted on that day, and by entering, you grant TIAH the right to electronically print your writing on October 31st, 2005, maintain your writing in our archives, and reprint your entry should we decide to reuse it in the future. TIAH only maintains full copyright over material it has originated that has been used by contestants in writing their own entries. Enter early and often - entries must be received by December 20th, 2005! Email us up to 3 entries of your best alternate Christmas Days!

We still have our standard offer - everybody who donates $10 or more through our Paypal link will become alternate history entries on the site. When you donate, I will email you asking your preference for a day & timeline; if you don't reply to me, I'll place you in a day that seems to fit your name :) Thanks for your continued support!

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Po-tat-o, Po-tah-to

December 3rd, 2004

in 1469, Piero de Medici, vampire lord of Florence, was staked by Venetian vampire hunters Luciano Roma and Giuseppe Scamardo. His long, undead reign of the city was ended, and the still-living citizens of Florence joined the vampire hunting pair in eradicating Medici’s spawn. It was a bright new day in Italy.

in 1586, Sir Thomas Herriot introduces the South American root called potato to the English countryside. The bland, crunchy root is universally despised by the British, and fails to take root, so to speak, outside South America.

in 1767, the first cloned human heart is surgically inserted into its recipient in Cairo, Egypt. Amal Yassim had studied medicine at the Mlosh colony ship in Libya, and brought the techniques back to Cairo with him. One of his wealthy patients had a bad heart, and Yassim grew him a new one. Soon, wealthy Muslims were coming to Cairo in droves to have Dr. Yassim practice his art on them.

in 1829, George McClellan, Union general and United States President, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a general, McClellan opposed using overwhelming force against the rebellious Confederacy, and as President, he brought them to the peace table to negotiate the division of the country. His containment of the south in their original 11 states let the United States expand to the west; and now, while the Confederacy is barely even a third world nation, the U.S. has the respect of the world.

in 1962, a confidential report from the Pentagon informs Comrade President Hall of the unexpected strength of the Guerrillo reactionaries in South Chile. If Soviet American forces are pulled out of North Chile, the Pentagon warned, it would fall to the capitalists within a year. Comrade Hall, in spite of his desire to reduce American troop commitments outside of the country, reluctantly agrees to increase support to the weak North Chilean Communists.

in 1973, the Pioneer 10 probe transmitted a series of images from its flyby of Jupiter. Of special interest to NASA was the strange movement Pioneer detected by the great Red Spot; this was quickly overshadowed by the images that showed something flying out of the Red Spot and smashing into Pioneer.

in 1984, a huge disaster was narrowly averted in Bhopal, India, when Union Carbide personnel noticed a leak developing in their plant and quickly rushed to plug it. An investigation by Indian officials determined that all of Bhopal, a city of 1 million people, would have been at risk if the leak had continued. New safety regulations were forced on all chemical plants in the country after this near-disaster.

in 1999, comedic great Madeline Wolfson died in New York City of ovarian cancer, which she had been battling for some months. The hilarious actress was nominated for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress twice in one year, for her roles in Paper Moon and in Blazing Saddles. She is missed by all who loved classy, beautiful, funny women.

Plans

Alternate Historian says, construction work continues at the Academy. We realise of course that no one's really done innovation properly since the Osmonds reinvented themselves as a Heavy Metal band and released Crazy Horses in '72, but we're going to try something almost as different...

Our ambition is for each storyboard entry to be a mini blog post, an idea we've started with the wide format & yellow shaded area. For 2008, we're going to add hyperlinked metadata tags e.g. author, character, 5 x keywords etc after each storyboard entry. In order to get your feedback, today's first story is in the new format. In so doing we thread the posts together (a great idea of the Reverend's) using the search feature so that one click details all the storyboard entries in that thread. A source link to where we erm.. liberated the idea from. Ditto five keywords, though if you click vampire you might find we've done it to death, if you excuse the pun.

Please email Alternate Historian with your comments on the already underway developments, or better still some new ideas! And if you ever figure what got into the Osmonds.... my theory, a postal typo got them the Osbourne's next song.. Sorry Ozzy!!

In 2002, the White House put the final touches on plans for a major reorganisation effective in just eight weeks time. Unfortunately, the staff plan was running late, delaying a new appointment for a National Director who would be given ultimate responsibility for protecting the United States from attacks and responding to disasters. President George W. Bush had reluctantly accepted the recommendations for a new cabinet super-department. Frustrated by the lack of co-ordination between government agencies, Bush now understood fully that a single, unified command structure was required given the insiduous threats the Country now faced in the War Against Terror. W was confident he could persuade Tom Ridge to become the 1st Secretary of Internet Security.

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In 1970, the musician Eric Clapton found and purchased a left-handed Stratocaster guitar which he gave to his friend Jimi Hendrix the very next day. The Voodoo Child was in poor shape to receive the gift. He had taken nine Vesperax sleeping pills and drunk excessive wine with his German girlfriend, Monika Dannemann. However his powers of recovery were legendary. Hendrix and Clapton put some fine riffs together which brought fierce joy to discerning music lovers around the world. The best product of a thousand centuries of human civilization was secure for the future.

~ entry by Alternate Historian

In 1970, the musician Eric Clapton found and purchased a Gretsch 6120 electric guitar he planned to give to his friend Jimi Hendrix the very next day. Forty-eight hours later, the Voodoo Child was dead. The incident was the latest in a series of inexplicable tragedies associated with the owners of the guitar. Twenty-one year old Eddie Cochran had died in a traffic accident in a taxi travelling through Chippenham, Wiltshire, England on the A4. The taxi crashed into a lamp post on Rowden Hill. There was no other car involved. Songwriter Sharon Sheeley (Cochran's fiancée) and singer Gene Vincent survived the crash. The car and other items from the crash were impounded at the local police station until a coroners' inquest could be held. At that time, David Harman, later known as Dave Dee of the band Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich, was a police cadet at the station, and taught himself to play guitar on Eddie's impounded Gretsch. An unknown rock 'n' roll fan called Mark Feld had carried the same guitar to the limo from a London gig the night before. Feld later changed his name to Marc Bolan and became one of the stars of the British Glam Rock scene of the 1970s. Marc Bolan also died in a car crash in 1977.

~ entry by Alternate Historian

Joe Cocker	"What would you think if I sang out of tune, would you stand up and walk out on me ? Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song and I'll try not to sing out of key. Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends" ~ Joe Cocker, musician
Musician

Before Joe Cocker toured Australia on his Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour. Cocker and six of his entourage were arrested in Adelaide by police for possession of marijuana. The next day In Melbourne, assault charges were laid after a brawl at the Commodore Chateau, and Cocker was given 48 hours to leave the country by the Australian Federal Police. This caused huge public outcry in Australia, as Cocker was a high-profile overseas artist and had a strong support base, especially amongst the baby boomers who were coming of age and able to vote for the first time. It sparked hefty debate about the use and legalisation of marijuana in Australia. This event took place just before the 1972 Australian Federal election, where progressive left-wing Prime Minister Gough Whitlam came to power and Australia saw the end of 23 years rule of conservative governments in Australia. A transcript of the lyrics to this 1968 classic are provided at Lyrics Online

~ quotation by Alternate Historian

Ian Henderson	In 1952, the Mau Mau Uprising began in Kenya with an insurgency by members of the the Kikuyu, Embu and Meru tribes against the British colonial administration. The British military presence was considerable, including the Lancashire Fusiliers, King's African Rifles, Royal Air Force and the cruiser Kenya came to Mombasa harbor carrying Royal Marines.
Britain's conduct of the war criminalized as oath-taking and witchcraft played an unpredictable part in the struggle. Portable gallows were used for summary justice, executing both innocent and the guilty alike, cursing Britons with their dying breath. In 1955, British Labour Party Member of Parliament Barbara Castle visited Kenya to investigate charges that white policemen had tortured and killed innocent Kikuyu with government approval. She concluded that the entire system of justice in Kenya had a “Nazi” attitude toward Africans. “In the heart of the British Empire there is a police state where the rule of law has broken down, where murders and tortures of Africans go unpunished and where the authorities pledged to enforce justice regularly connive at its violation.”. With the appointment of “the Butcher” Ian Henderson to the post of Witchsmeller Pursuivant the following year it became clear that Britain was in for the long-haul, totally committed to the white settler states of southern Africa which remain in power to this day.
~ entry by Alternate Historian

In 1944, Airborne troops parachuted into Holland as the "Market" half of Operation Market Garden, an Allied military operation in World War II. Its tactical objectives were to secure a series of bridges over the main rivers of the German-occupied Netherlands by large-scale use of airborne forces together with a rapid advance by armoured units along the connecting roads, for the strategic purpose of allowing an Allied crossing of the Rhine river, the last major natural barrier to an advance into Germany. The operation was successful with the capture of the bridges at Nijmegen and Arnhem. Tactics developed for “Market” were re-used in Operation Downfall when the British 1st Airborne Division parachuted into Kyushu on X-Day, November 1, 1945.	Market Garden
~ entry by Alternate Historian

Count Bernadotte	In 1948, on this day in Jerusalem the Lehi also known as the Stern gang failed to assassinate Count Folke Bernadotte while pursuing his official duties. The Count was a brilliant Swedish diplomat noted for his negotiation of the release of about 15,000 prisoners from German concentration camps during World War II. In 1945, he received a German surrender offer from Heinrich Himmler, though the offer was ultimately rejected. After the war, Bernadotte was unanimously chosen by the victorious powers to be the United Nations Security Council mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1947-1948 which he brought to a peaceful diplomatic conclusion.
~ entry by Alternate Historian

In 1916, Manfred von Richthofen, a flying ace of the German Luftstreitkräfte won his first aerial combat near Cambrai, France. The true story of the Bloody Red Baron was told by biographers Janet Title and Kim Newman in 1995. The ultimate hunter was cross-fed by several vampire elders to create the ultimate aerial combatant, a winged vampire armed with powerful hand-machine guns.	Bloody Red Baro..
Not only must the Allied pilots fear a violent death in a fireball or a screaming nose-dive to earth, they must be wary of being plucked from their pilot-seats and eaten alive. The vision of the vampire-squadron taking off from a high tower, with strains of Wagner echoing from Dracula's Zeppelin-flagship is a defining moment of the biography.
~ entry by Alternate Historian

Unstoppable Forces

Joseph Joffre	In 1914, the Battle of the Marne begins. North-east of Paris, the French attack and are routed by the unstoppable German forces who are advancing on the capital. Catalan French general Joseph Joffre and the French Sixth army flee south to Marseilles to establish a new seat of government. German Chief of Staff Helmuth von Moltke the Younger was not able to celebrate for long. Trouble was another unstoppable force, the Russian 1st and 2nd Armies were racing through East Prussia and at their current trajectory, would be in Berlin inside of two weeks.
The Great War was headed towards an asymmetric result, with the Germans triumphing in the West only to be crushed in the East. In Berlin, Kaiser Wilhelm II started to write a telegram to the Tsar, he knew it would have to be a great piece of communication. “Dear Cousin Nicky,.. he began.
~ entry by Steve Payne

Berlin 2010	In 2003, multiple-award winning author of Ruled Britannia and The Guns of the South Harry Turtledove asked a startling question In the Presence of Mine Enemies. What if Germany won World War II, and the Nazi regime’s rule over most of Europe and North America continued into the twenty-first century? And now, in 2010, the Third Reich faced an Iraqi style crisis?
~ variant from Steve Payne extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius (Soviet style crisis). to be continued..:

In 1976, as the vampires and the infected fed upon Robert Neville he recalled the bite of the vampire bat in Panama during the war. The long gaps that he could not remember which he had attributed to alcoholism. Neville was neither immune, nor a unique survivor -the vampire master, he was legend.

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

In 2127, Mullah Elijah Rafsanjani woke up in Doha, Quatar. He did not feel himself at all today. On his breakfast table, was a half-empty Starbucks Styrofoam cup which presumably explained his heart burn stomach acid. He switched on the news. Instead of Al-Jazeera, a beaming American face announced it was “going to be another hot one today folks!”. OMG!	Mullah
~ entry by Steve Payne

Black September	In 1972, the Munich Olympic Games turned to tragedy when Palestinian athletes were massacred by the Israeli Terrorist Group, Black September. Enraged, President Yasser Arafat ordered Operation Wrath of God, instructing the Palestinian Secret Service to 'set the boys loose' and assassinate the officer class of Jewish Society.
This excessive response turned Palestine into a pariah state, and her athletic team were not even invited to either the '76 summer games in Montreal, Canada or even more symbolically, the winter games at Innsbruck, Austria.
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 1960, Cassius Clay won the gold medal in boxing at the Rome Olympic Games; tragically, he was to die in Vietnam on a tour of duty during the Tet Offensive. A dreadful conspiracy was later discovered by journalist Alex Hayley. Clay and many other iconic African American figures had been sent to Vietnam by the Goldwater administration to strangle the civil rights movement at birth. Worse, south-asian hard drugs had been flooded into African American areas of population.	Cassius Clay
The death of Clay prevented Haley from giving his people a myth to live by, overturning other myths about the Black American experience and giving African Americans a proud history.
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 2007, Macrosoft, Inc. delivered a new breakthrough for users of the stable desktop platform. New editions of Vesta Home Edition shipped with a redeemable “write back” voucher. Upon return, consumers would be sent a free copy of the award winning anger management CD-rom based training solution Life Thux and then you upgrade your desktop operating system. Also included on the bundled CD were a selection of Whale music audio files, however a critical update to on-board sound card drivers was required before they could be played in the Vesta Media Center.

~ entry by Steve Payne

Results

Marvin Gay	In 2007, on the Tonight Show, Jay Leno interviewed Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. and Tammi Terrell on occasion of their fortieth wedding anniversary. Gay spoke passionately of the close friendships he had forged during his stellar career. In particular, Mel Farr and Lem Barney with whom he won the 1972 Super Bowl NFL Championship. Gay had shouted “What's going on?”, as he lifted the Ed Thorp Memorial Trophy - a mischievous reference to fifteen years of lost play-offs for the Detroit Lions who had won nothing since 1957.
Tammi Terrell

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In 1958, on this day Fidel Castro's rebels edged closer to capital. Thousands died in the bloodiest fighting in Cuba's history as rebels threatened to overthrow the military regime of President Batista, before American forces arrived to support the regime. US Vice President Richard M Nixon justified the incursion, stating that America could not tolerate a hostile regime 150km off the coast of Florida.

In 1839, in a cross-Atlantic joining of horror writers, Mary Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe were married in Baltimore, Maryland. Mrs Shelley, widowed a decade before by the death of her husband Percy, had found a kindred spirit in Poe in America, after he wrote a congratulatory letter to her on the publication of her novel The Modern Prometheus.

In 1916, on this day Russian nobles attempted to assassinate Grigory Rasputin at the Yusopov Palace in St Petersberg. The Master overcame then so very easily, and left them hanging upside down in a gesture as old as Macedonia.

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in 1917, events following Red October (Красный Октябрь) reached a climax as Vladimir Illych Lenin led his forces in the uprising in Petrograd, the capital of Russia, against the ineffective Tsarist Government. For the most part, the revolt in Petrograd was bloodless, with the Red Guards led by Bolsheviks taking over major government facilities with little opposition before finally launching an assault on the Yusopov Palace. This assault was repelled, however when the Maestro Grigory Rasputin drove a stake through the vampire Lenin's heart, killing him and his undead nosferatu spawn.

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In 2002, singer Diana Ross was stopped by the police for drinking and driving after her car was seen swerving across a road. The 58-year-old performer was pulled over by police in Tucson, Arizona after a motorist reported seeing a white Honda Accord driving erratically the wrong way down a road in the early hours of the morning. The star failed a "field sobriety test" which included walking in a straight line and touching the tip of her nose. When asked to stand on one leg she fell over, according to the officers. She was also unable to recite the alphabet or give the correct time and date. This is the latest scene in a thirty-five year history of alcohol abuse that saw the former star ejected from the Supremes in July 1967 and replaced by Cindy Birdsong.

Canada	In 2016, new anti-obesity legislation mandated a third non-consecutive salad day per week for all Canadian citizens.

In 2005, agents of the government of (censored) get a trace on Rat. Somewhere in central Texas an unknown blogger has just subscribed to a revolutionary feeds plugging Kinky Friedman for Governor! And they are using the Yabadabadoo! RSS alternative lifer Newsreader.

Agents

Hitler

In 2005, Gavriel D. Rosenfeld published The World Hitler Never Made. In this fascinating counter-history, Rosenfeld poses the question What if Adolf Hitler had not escaped Berlin for the jungles of Latin America in 1945? In summary, he agrees with Roger Spiller's conclusion in The Führer in the Dock that the possibility of Hitler being among those tried at Nuremberg would have caused major problems for the Allies. So much so, that the reader is left to answer the real question, how can we be so sure that Hitler was not executed by the Red Army and his suicide faked after the event?

In 2017, human civilization begins to feel the impact of global cooling caused by the premature ageing of the sun. The provincial government of Nova Scotia advises citizens that light clothing is advisable during the forthcoming winter. The luxury of nakedness can no longer be guaranteed.

The Sun

In 1835, the Cherokee nation joined the North American Confederation. The discovery of gold in their land made them quite prominent in North America, and the N.A.C. had been courting them for decades.

In 1916, Grigory Rasputin, the rationalist philosopher responsible for Tsar Nicholas II’s embrace of science, is attacked by nobles in the Tsar’s court as he dines. Although they manage to wound him with knives and a gunshot, he is able to escape them and get to a hospital, where he makes a full recovery.

In 1999, computer programmer Linus Torvald posts on his web site that a majority of computers in the world are going to crash due to the Y2K bug, a defect in their manufacture that doesn’t allow them to roll their dates over to the year 2000. He is dismissed as a crank by most of the leading manufacturers of computer software and hardware in the world.

Love and Hatred

Bombing	In 1945, BBC News reported: Thousands of bombs destroy Dresden: 'British and US bombers have dropped hundreds of thousands of explosives on the German city of Dresden. The city is reported to be a vital command centre for the German defence against Soviet forces approaching from the east. Last night, 800 RAF Bomber Command planes let loose 650,000 incendiaries and 8,000lb of high explosives and hundreds of 4,000lb bombs in two waves of attack. They faced very little anti-aircraft fire. As soon as one part of the city was alight, the bombers went for another until the whole of Dresden was ablaze.'
Dresden

Amongst the dead was a twenty-two year old American GI, Kurt Vonnegut. A man of German descent, he had been transferred to Slaughterhouse-Five, a nearby prisoner of war camp. Vonnegut and his colleagues had been hiding below ground, but were killed when the ceiling collapsed from the shock waves of the bombing. And so it goes.

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In 1968, astronomer Paul Oswald Ahnert deciphered an extraterrestrial broadcast indicating that our quadrant of the Galaxy was under quarantine from a lethal space leprosy. At first his warnings were ignored, however reconsideration was duly given when returning Lunar Module Pilot Colonel Buzz Eugene Aldrin lifted his visor at the splashdown point, east of Wake Island on July 24 1969.

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In 1779, during his third exploratory voyage in the Pacific Captain James Cook narrowly escaped death at the hand of natives of the Sandwich Islands. He had mistakenly returned to Hawaii in the season dedicated to Ku, god of war, inadvertently upset the equilibrium and fostered an atmosphere of resentment and aggression from the local population.

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In 1956, Malcolm Little received parole and was released from Massachusetts State Prison in Charlestown. A dangerous criminal, Little had avoided the draft by telling the examining officer that he could not wait to organize with other black soldiers so he could 'kill some crackers.' Incarcerated for a decade, there was a lot of catch-up to be done.

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In 1956, at the XX Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in Moscow, Premier Nikita Khruschev revealed than Lenin was a shape-shifting Vampire. A number of strokes in the 1920s forced the undead nosferatu to possess the body of Comrade Stalin to permit him to continue his misrule. He had even maintained his corpse in a Kremlin mausoleum just in case a Dracula style exit was necessary.

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In 269, Emperor Claudius II outlawed marriage for young men, in order to make them a better pool to draft soldiers from. The Christian cleric Valentius was known for his defiance of Rome, and many young couples came to him in order to wed. Valentius performed the ceremonies gladly until the local centurion told him that he would be executed after the next one. Valentius relented, but the decree was rescinded in 271 after Claudius' death, anyway, so nothing ever really came of it.

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In, 47421 BCE, Telka the Speaker is wooed by and mated with the father of her first children, the man she names Komar. She learns to count the days in a year by the anniversary of this day each year that she was with him. His love for her led him to throw himself in front of a boar that was charging her; although he saved her and killed the boar, he died from injuries he received. Telka made sure that each of her descendants celebrated this day out of her love for him.

In 498, Pope Gelasius names this day the Feast of Saint Valentine. In his honor, prisoners across the land were given a meal of ox-hearts and red wine, to signify the blood that the saint had shed while a prisoner of the pagan Romans. The traditional feast of hearts and wine continues to this day across Christendom, although the practice has spread from the jailhouse to all those who might need a prayer for more freedom.

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In 2021, a rare form of cosmic radiation enters Earth's atmosphere, concentrated in and around Chicago. 99.9% of the city only feels a slight tingling, but one man, Eddie Valens, finds his reflexes and running speed amplified tenfold - plus, he is now able to evoke feelings of love and peace in nearly anyone with but a word. Putting these two together, and donning a pink costume, Eddie takes the name Saint Valentine and proceeds to fight crime in Chicago for nearly a decade as one of the only real superheroes in the 21st century.

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On February 14, 2003, a group of high ranking Iraqi generals, fearing the disastrous effects of U:S. invasion stage a coup. They know that Sadam as a sentimental guy would be distracted at big party for his family. The succeed in killing their President and his sons. The new junta is composed of Sunni Baathists, but they extend the hand of friendship to the world community and invite weapons inspectors. What would the last half of a decade have brought to Iraq ?

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In 1965, the Soviet States of America bans the unofficial Valentines Day holiday. Comrade Representative O'Hare of Chicago, in her statement calling for the ban, said, 'No other holiday so cheapens the idea of romantic love, or saps the will to fight of our comrades in the street, as this so-called Valentines Day.'

In 1167 AUC, the Lupercalia Festival is finally made a separate holiday from the festival celebrating the founding of Rome. This festival of ritual matchmaking, popular for hundreds of years, was certainly the highlight of the 2-day celebration at the ides of February, and most Romans felt that it deserved separation from the more staid founding ceremony.

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Alexander	In 1974, Soviet authorities executed Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Two days before, Mr Solzhenitsyn was arrested in his wife's Moscow flat and taken away for questioning by the Soviet secret police, the KGB. His charge, under Article 64 of the Russian Federation Criminal Code, was punishable with death by firing squad or a minimum of ten years in prison along with confiscation of property.
Solzhenitsyn

Solzhenitsyn had been under investigation for six weeks after his novel Gulag Archipelago depicting life in the labour camps was published in the West. He had already spent a total of ten years in prison under Stalin for his dissident writings.

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