In 1977, just months short of his sixtieth birthday, former President Jack Kennedy succumbs to a rare endocrine disorder known as Addison's disease. An installment of our variation of Eric Lipp's No Chappaquiddick thread where JFK survives Dallas.

American TableauxHis state funeral in Washington, D.C. is attended by the elite from across the political spectrum: former Vice President and California Governor Dick Nixon, his successor in the White House, former President George Romney and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. to name but a few.

And his younger brother, the current President Edward M. Kennedy who delivered the eulogy. This focused of course on the successes, the Apollo Mission, the Cuban Missiles Crisis and the negotiated peace in Indochina. But unfortunately, these memorable words had the unintended effect of casting an unfavourable light upon his own weak record of foreign policy.

Also present was the man who would inherit the worst of it, the Iranian Hostage Crisis. That was former Texas Governor John Connally who had made a remarkable transition to Republican since that fateful day in Dallas when Jackie Kennedy was killed by a disgruntled former marine, Lee Harvey Oswald. Within two years, Connally was being talked of as the runaway candidate for fortieth President of the United States. And Teddy was considering a return to the Senate, this time in California where he had campaigned in the 1960 election despite the reservations of his father Joseph P. Kennedy.

In 1932, on this day American singer-songwriter, actor, and author John R. "Johnny" Cash was born in Kingsland, Arkansas.

The Man in BlackHe was known for his deep, distinctive bass-baritone voice, for the "boom-chicka-boom" sound of his Tennessee Three backing band; for a rebelliousness, coupled with an increasingly somber and humble demeanor, for providing free concerts inside prison wall and for his dark performance clothing, which earned him the nickname "The Man in Black". Nevertheless he found both happiness and shared musical success with his wife of forty years, June Carter Cash. Soon after they met in 1966, they recorded the timeless classic Jackson.

A life-long advocate of the abolition of the death penalty, he was fortunate to have multiple connections into the White House. His wife was a distant cousin of Jimmy Carter. And his home in Hendersonville, twenty-five minutes north of Nashville was in the Congressional District of Al Gore, Jr. (Gore Snr. was also connected to June from her earlier performances with her legendary family on WSM radio).

Although Gore recognized that Cash was to the left of him on many issues, he appreciated his concern for liberal causes, social conditions and also wanted laws and policies that would help the poor and disadvantaged. Their policies would converge with the abolition of the death penalty, which Cash had advocated since his 1960's rendition of "25 minutes to go" a reflection of a doomed man waiting on death row. However after Gore was narrowly elected to the Presidency in 2000, this advocacy was nearly scuppered by June's near death experience from post-operative complications. Fortunately, she survived and they both spent their remaining years working alongside Gore on a national program that was ultimately successful in abolishing the death penalty.

In 1976, on this day Conservative challenger Ronald Reagan won the New Hampshire Primary by 1,250 votes beginning a string of victories that would force the 39th President of the United States Nelson Rockefeller (pictured) to concede the Republican Nomination by the time the race had reached North Carolina.

Rocky Goes Down"Rocky" was the second president in a row to reach the office without having to win an election. And many political observers had seriously doubted that the President's liberal views would survive the primary challenge from the former Governor of California. But then again few would have predicted that Reagan would crash to defeat in November at the hands of another former Governor, Jimmy Carter.

Serving briefly as America's third president in a single four-year term, the highlight of his short time in office would surely be his ceremonial leadership of the Nation's Bicentennial celebration. And the main beneficiary of that reduced tenure would be his Vice President George H.W. Bush. Because in the general election of 1980, he defeated Carter. By then Rockefeller had already died of a fatal heart attack, allegedly during a tryst with his twenty-year old secretary in January 1979. There was no little irony in this outcome, because of his notorious infidelity Prescott Bush had refused to back Rockefeller in his earlier Presidential Campaigns.

In 1888, on this day, the Stodgy Clergyman Thomas Vere Bayne informed Oxford Police that he feared his oldest friend, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson had been travelling up to East London to murder prostitutes in the guise of "Jack the Ripper".

Jabberwocky, RebootOf course the allegation that the real identify of the Whitechapel Murderer might be the stiff-backed, pale-skinned former Oxford don caused great dismay short of total surprise. Generally regarded as a dreary unpopular sociophobe with a creepy interest in young girls, certain unmistakable facts soon emerged that suggested it might perhaps be true. Because his multiple personality disorder was driven by s-xual p-rversions and drug use which in turn were triggered by his hidden tragedies and emotional frustrations.

An illuminating such incident had occurred during the winter of 1864 when the father of a young neighbor Alice Liddell cast his manuscript into fire and banned the author from entering his home. Unfortunately for Dodgson, that man was a dean of Oxford University, and the resulting uproar forced him to resign his post.

Subsequently, he appeared to descend further into a dreamscape; this inverted universe was his "looking-glass" world. But it was the authoring of the nonsense poem Jabberwocky that finally exposed him. Bayne told the police that he had discerned true evil in the stanza "His vorpal blade went snicker-snack". Because in some twisted way, Dodgson was trying to protect innocence, by killing it.

The police were indeed able to establish a pattern between his absences and the murders in Whitechapel. But they also discovered that Bayne had been undertaking some journeys of his own.
This alternate history was conceived by Robbie Taylor with a tenuous link to an unrelated story by Jeff Provine.

In 1846, on this day William Frederick ("Buffalo Bill") Cody was born near LeClaire in the Iowa Territory; his parents Isaac and Mary Cody were Canadian Quakers that could scarcely have imagined such a colourful career for their newborn son - decorated Civil War hero, bison hunter and of course the ultimate platform for showmanship, that of US President.

President William F. Cody Based on a suggestion by Mark TaylorCody earned his most popular nickname after the American Civil War by slaughtering four thousand two hundred American bison to service a contract to supply Kansas Pacific Railroad workers with buffalo meat.

But more significant was the Indian name of "Long Hair" a mark of respect that was earned at a time when Indians were facing the very real possibility of their own slaughter. Because at the age of just twelve he was captured by Sioux Indians. Fearing for his life, was released by Chief Rain-in-the-Face creating a special connection that he would sustain throughout his long life.

Hoping to exploit this connection, General Nelson A. Miles called on Cody to go to the Standing Rock Reservation and meet with Sitting Bull in the autumn of 1890. He was met en route by a military courier who carried instructions from President Benjamin Harrison personally ordering him to step down from General Miles' assignment to capture Sitting Bull¹. Neither Miles or Harrison understood that Cody shared a profound sense of destiny with the Indians because he blatantly ignored the orders and negotated the surrender of the Lakotah leader.

Later in that decade he moved to Wyoming where he eventually became State Governor. Blessed by destiny, successful investments in the water irrigation business provided him with the funding for a race for the Presidency in 1904. In that campaign, he was matched for showmanship and charisma by the incumbent Vice President, Teddy Roosevelt but managed to pull off a narrow victory in the polls. And set about finally answering that call of destiny and repaying his debt to Chief Rain-in-the-Face by seeking justice for the plains Indians.

In 1993, a little after noon, a truck bomb exploded in the parking garage under the World Trade Center, setting off a chain of collapse that would bring down the two principle towers of the WTC complex.

World Trade Center Bombing Brings Down TowersThe North Tower (also known as Tower One) would hold for several minutes before giving way, toppling into the South Tower, which would also fall. While many office workers had just left for lunch, the buildings were largely occupied, and the bombing would kill nearly three thousand Americans and leave thousands more injured.

Downtown New York City became flooded with rescue operations and helping survivors amid the rubble. President Bill Clinton, just a month into his first term in the White House, appeared on national TV shortly thereafter to address Americans to bind together in this hour of need. A wave of fear washed over the nation, which had seen bombing attacks on foreign soil such as car bombings in Colombia and Turkey in the last month but never at home. A Pakistani had opened fire outside CIA Headquarters with an AK-47, but most had considered it a localized event rather than mass conspiracy. A new story by Jeff ProvineNew York Governor Mario Cuomo was quoted as admitting, "We all have that feeling of being violated. No foreign people or force has ever done this to us. Until now we were invulnerable".

America seemed to come to a standstill. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which had been climbing to untold heights over the past five years, suddenly plummeted. Only two days after the explosion, a rebuffed search warrant at the Branch Davidian ranch near Waco, Texas, turned into a gun battle. As fear turned to panic of widespread terrorism or harsh government crackdown, survivalists began assembling at compounds, prices skyrocketed, and riots broke out in several major cities. It looked as if, only a few years after the defeat of Communism, the dream of a "Pax Americana" had turned into nightmare.

President Clinton worked quickly to turn the tide of terrorism. Order was generally restored after numerous deployments of the National Guard, and banks and businesses remained open by executive order. A great leap forward was made on March 6 when FBI investigators arrested Mohammad Salameh. They had determined the epicenter of the explosion from debris of a Ryder truck, traced it to a Jersey City rental outlet, and caught Salameh as he attempted to retrieve his $400 deposit. Salameh's arrest led to the discovery of an international extremist Islamic conspiracy. Many called for execution of the terrorists, but Clinton led the call for sensible trial and, ultimately, life terms in prison.

The investigations of conspiracy led to many examples of governments such as the Taliban of Afghanistan protecting and even funding terrorists while other governments such as Pakistan simply looked another way. Calls for declarations of war to make the world safe from terrorism rose up, but Clinton's government decided to focus instead on reinforcing international policing systems. Over the course of his two-term presidency, terrorist organizations and training camps would be uncovered and shut down while numerous terrorists would be arrested, including Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the World Trade Center Bombing as well as the Shiite shrine in Mashhad, Iran, and Philippine Airlines Flight 434. The latter led to Yousef's arrest in 1995, the same year a homegrown plot to attack a federal building in Oklahoma City was foiled.

With the sense of America's invulnerability returning, the economy rebounded and then exploded with the introduction of the World Wide Web. Clinton would routinely be listed among the top ten American presidents, often beating out FDR for the #3 spot. His vice-president and successor Al Gore would hold the Democrats in office until 2004 when national mood would swing toward conservatism after the bursting of the Dot Com Bubble.

In 1951, on this day Walt Disney Pictures finally released the combination animation / live action movie "Wonderful Wizard of Oz"; the project had suffered a seemingly endless set of delays because America and the other member states of the League of Nations had to deal with Adolf Hitler. And so the invasion of Czechoslovakia prevented the studios from ushering in 1939 as the Golden Year of Hollywood.

"Wonderful Wizard of Oz" by Ed. & Joel BaderUpon Walt Disney's death fifteen years later, his brother Roy renamed Disney World as "Walt Disney World" and commissioned a new tornado-themed ride. This feature, and the later release of a long running video game in the 1980s, ensured that the Wonderful Wizard of Oz would continue to be embbeded in the imagination of young generations for years to come, as Roy and Walt surely intended.

In 1954, Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank married her childhood sweetheart in a traditional ceremony on this day in Amsterdam.Anne Frank marries Peter Schiff

Frank, the Jewish schoolgirl who wrote her diary while hiding from the Nazis in the Netherlands during World War II, was captivated by Peter Schiff.

She met him at school in 1940, his family also having fled from Germany to Amsterdam the previous year. At age 11, Frank fell in love with Schiff and later, while in hiding in Amsterdam herself, wrote about how much she missed him until their reunion on VE Day August, 1 1944.

The diary Click to watch Anne Frank: The Whole Story Part 1, which was given to Anne on her 13th birthday, chronicles her life from June 12, 1942 until August 1, 1944. It has been translated into many languages, has become one of the world's most widely read books, and has been the basis for several plays and films. Anne Frank has been acknowledged for the quality of her writing, becoming one of the most renowned and discussed Jewish celebrities of the post-war era.

Wartime records indicate that Otto Frank's office building had been betrayed to the Gestapo only twenty-four hours before "the accident".

In the diary, Anne wrote "How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world". Claus von Stauffenberg could not agree more. On July 20th 1944 he planted a bomb in the Fuhrer Headquarters - the Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) at Rastenburg - killing Adolf Hitler and enabling the High Command to sue for peace. In 1968, the celebrated German-American author and pacifist Kurt Vonnegut contributed a short introduction to the twentieth anniversary special edition of the diary, writing ~ "Let us be grateful to the one for a world of peace where the accident will"¹.

In 1881, on this day William Z. "Bill" Foster was born in Taunton, Massachusetts.

Toward a Soviet AmericaHe was a radical American labor organizer and Marxist politician, whose career included a lengthy stint as General Secretary of the Communist Party USA. He passed through the Socialist Party of America and the Industrial Workers of the World, as well as leading the drive to organize the packinghouse industry during World War I and the steel strike of 1919.

During the 1930s, the Communist Party changed course, deciding to aim its main blow at the Presidency. But it was too late because only a month after Franklin D. Roosevelt's inauguration, he was assassinated by a man by the name of Alfred Kuhn, an avowed fascist and a high ranking officer of the "Silver Legion", a group of radicals who sought to abolish democracy; it was a a Day that will live in infamy.

From this chaos emerged several competing power groups, Cordell Hull's Democratic Guard, Oliver Frederick's Royalists and of course the Black Legion, a far right, paramilitary Fascist organization headed by Virgil Effinger.

In 1822, on this day celebrated American statesman and diplomat William Pinkney died in Washington, D.C. He was fifty-seven years old.

Architect of Monroe-Pinkney Treaty passes awayHe served in the Maryland House of Delegates and U.S. Congress followed by appointments as mayor of Annapolis, Attorney General of Maryland and co-U.S. Minister to the Court of St. James.

In this pivotal role, he worked with James Monroe to negotiate the renewal of Jay's Treaty, preventing the outbreak of a disastrous second war between the United States, Great Britain and the Canadas. Fortunately Lord Holland and Lord Auckland (acting on behalf of the "Ministry of All the Talents" government headed by Lord Grenville) accepted the American ultimatum to end impressment and secure crucial neutral rights claims. All parties had the common sense to appreciate that it was a deal breaker, but the startling success of Napoleon Bonaparte forced Britain to avert a conflict on a second front that they could ill-afford to prosecute [1].

By 1843, since its discovery for the West by Captain James Cook in 1778, Hawaii, then known as the Sandwich Islands, served as an important harbor in the Pacific Ocean. The island chain was united soon after the coming of the Europeans by King Kamehameha the Great in 1795 after deposing his cousin and militarily dominating the other chieftains.

Paulet Seizes Hawai'i over American ProtestMeanwhile, Europeans used the island as a port in the vast Pacific, refilling their stores aboard merchant ships and whaling vessels. Along with the Europeans came diseases that devastated the population, which had never experienced flu, small pox, and measles before. Missionaries soon arrived on the islands, aiding the sick and spreading the Word, converting even King Kamehameha III in 1833 after a youth of raucous rebellion.

Kamehameha III would prove to be the final native king of the islands. In 1843, Captain Lord George Paulet arrived aboard the HMS Carysfort to settle land claim disagreements between British citizen Richard Charlton and the Hawaiians. Paulet won an audience with Kamehameha by way of American translator Gerrit P. Judd, who had come to Hawaii as a missionary-physician and eventually served as a chief minister in Kamehameha's government. Paulet had been warned by Charlton that Judd was acting as a dictator and refused the audience, listing specifically the demands of British citizens and writing to the USS Boston also in harbor that he was "prepared to make an immediate attack upon this town, at 4 o'clock P.M. to-morrow, (Saturday) in the event of the demands now forwarded by me to the King of these Islands not being complied with by that time". Rather than fight, however, he received word that the Hawaiians would negotiate, and Paulet began three days of meetings that culminated in Kamehameha ceding the islands to British control.

A new story by Jeff ProvineKamehameha announced, "Where are you, chiefs, people, and commons from my ancestors, and people from foreign lands? Hear ye! I make known to you that I am in perplexity by reason of difficulties into which I have been brought without cause, therefore I have given away the life of our land. Hear ye! but my rule over you, my people, and your privileges will continue, for I have hope that the life of the land will be restored when my conduct is justified".

Worries arose about the rights of Americans and others living on the islands, however, not mentioned in Kamehameha's announcement. A march that night turned into a riot as drunken protestors turned weapons on Paulet's men. Paulet responded with a bombardment from the Carysfort that scattered the rabble and left two natives and one American worker, all affiliated with the growing sugar plantations on the east side of Oahu, dead in the streets. Before dawn the next morning, Paulet set out to find the source of the protest, arresting Judd as well as anyone who disobeyed British rule and keeping them carefully watched for revolutionary behavior. Rumor circulated that Charlton had instigated the fight to blame it on the Americans, but there was little proof one way or another, and Paulet meant primarily to keep Hawaii peacefully within the British Empire. He destroyed any Hawaiian flag his men were able to find and ended the land-claim issues by clearing out 156 people on Charlton's property.

Paulet dispatched Alexander Simpson to London to affirm the annexation and kept Americans from sailing with him, holding traders in the capital while his clerks reviewed business practices. While Paulet could prevent shipping from leaving Hawaii, a few traveled secretly, spreading the rumors of the British takeover. In July, the USS Constellation came into port, followed by the USS United States, carrying American Commodore Thomas ap Catesby Jones, who had mistakenly captured Monterrey from Mexico the year before. Just after, Paulet's superior, Rear-Admiral Richard Darton Thomas, arrived in Honolulu to observe what had become a standoff between the British and Americans.

The standoff would be resolved in London, where Foreign Secretary Lord Aberdeen had answered the boundary dispute between Maine and New Brunswick with the Webster-Ashburton Treaty only the year before. Among his many other issues was the Oregon Dispute of overlapping territory claims beyond the Rocky Mountains. Discussions finally turned to dividing the islands, as they did with Oregon. The British would control the smaller islands, while Americans gained the Big Island of Hawaii, where Kamehameha III moved his court and became elected to the new territorial government as a representative. The French called for a reinstatement of independence, but further diplomacy ensured rights to Catholic missionaries and merchants there.

After the shuffling of Americans off Oahu to resettle in Hilo, the islands continued to be a bustling center for Pacific trade. Tension rose between the growers there, but international diplomacy headed off war potential war in the 1890s. After the Japanese raid on Midway in 1941 in which British patrols detected the fleet and gave adequate warning to the US, Hawaii became an important staging ground for the Allies with more Americans than ever stationed in hastily built bases while the British guard was minimized to aid the war effort in Europe. After the war, Britain began the process of decolonization, and, for the first time in over a century, Kamehameha's descendants were allowed to return to Oahu, though Hilo continues to be the bustling center of the modern tourism-oriented islands.

In 1961, on this day Five-star Confederate General Dwight David ("Ike") Eisenhower delivered his famous farewell address at the Virginia Military Institute, the premier officer training college of the CSA.

General Eisenhower calls for a Military-Industrial Complex By Ed & Jeff ProvineReflecting upon the dreadful shortcomings of the un-coordinated American commands that he had experienced during World War Two, the General expressed a brighter hope for future overseas conflicts. Specifically, that the Corps might work in military partnership with their peers in both the Union and also the Republic of Texas to share a common fabric of integrated infrastructure.

Of course the futuristic concept of a "military industrial complex" was beyond the consideration of the electoral cycles imposed upon the authorities in the Confederate Government. Even if the public imagination could conceive of an International Highway System, such developments were surely decades away. And yet amongst the political elite there was a willingness to embrace the core leadership issue that Ike was addressing, particularly at the sentimental occassion that the General had chosen to raise it. Accordingly, his successor George Patton would be provided with funding for a "Future Leaders of America" programme, an expense bursary for gifted young leaders to serve in the armed forces of the Union and the Republic of Texas, and for their talented officers to serve with the Confederates. And events in a faraway country in south-east asia would soon demonstrate that FLoA was an idea whose time had come around.
This article is a part of the Two Americas thread.

In 1917, on this day reports that the Tsarist Government had lost control of Petrograd, the capital of Russia, reached Imperial Russian Headquarters on the Eastern Front. Mikhail Rodzianko, Chairman of the Duma, sent the Tsar a report of the chaos in a telegram: "The capital is in chaos. The government is unable to act; the transport service is broken down; the food and fuel supplies are completely disorganised. There is wild shooting on the streets. It is urgent that a new government is formed. There must be no delay. Hesitation is fatal".

Red ScareOnly much later would it become clear that a revolution had in fact broken out. Because unlike Father Kapon's planned uprising in 1905, a disconnected series of protests had resulted from food shortages, inflation and rumours that the Tsarina was a Germany Spy.

The Tsar attempted to return to Petrograd and restore order but the Royal Family's train was not allowed through. Nicholas was left with only two options that would permit him to discharge his duty and pass on the power that he had inherited to his son. Rather than abdicate, Nicholas ordered the train to head westward, where he surrendered to German Forces on March 2nd.

At the peace conference at Brest-Litovsk, the German Government imposed the harshest possible terms upon the Provisional Government of Russia. The Prime Minister, Prince Lvov and his minister of war, Alexander Kerensky were forced to accept that the restoration of law and order in Europe required a rollback to 1914. Accordingly, German Monarchs would be enthroned in the occupied nations of European Russia.

At the insistence of his cousin Kaiser Wilhelm II, the Tsar would also be restored to power. The source of the enormous resistence to restoration arose from the disasterous decision by the Tsar in August 1915 to appoint himself Commander-in-Chief. For the first time, the Russian people had personally blamed the Tsar for the nations's catastrophic series of defeats which had begun with the Battles of Tannenberg and Masurian Lakes. To get past this blocker, German High Command developed the counter intuitive "Stab in the Back" theory. And through a program of propaganda, loyalist elements of the Russian nation were reluctantly persauded that it was the revolutionary actions of the Bolshevik forces in Petrograd that had caused the collapse of the embattled, but undefeated Tsarist forces.

After Germany's defeat, Bolshevik opponents rose in a third and final attempt to defeat the Tsar. The country descended into Civil War and Britain and the USA were forced into a war of foreign intervention in order to prevent the defeat of the White Forces. With limited resources available, the Bolsheviks were inevitably defeated. Their ring-leaders were imprisoned at Ekaterinberg; in a final act of barbarity, Lenin, Trotsky et. all were executed by White officers.

The first Bolshevik Government may have been strangled at birth, but the doctrine of Marxist-Leninism soon fled westward to the Weimar Republic of Germany. By November 1923, hyperinflation was out of control and a loaf of bread was valued at 200 billion deutsch marks. When the German Government was unable to make reparations to the victorious allied powers, French and and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr, Germany's source of coal in order to seize primary resources of equivalent value. Trade Unions demanded that the Government seize all foods and clothes in an attempt to ration them and ban the manufacture of all luxury goods.

The decisive event would be the refusal by the US Congress to approve a loan to help pay for reparations and stabilize the deutsch mark. Unable to re-value the currency or control inflation, the German Government collapsed and Bolsheviks seized control of the government. And the countdown to World War Two had begun.