Today In Alternate History

November 8

Imran Khan	In 2007, with both former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif in exile, Imran Khan stepped up the pressure on the military government of Pakistan by announcing 'If we do not struggle against this, [Musharraf] will take the country towards destruction.' A 'long march' was announced, due to start the following Tuesday, 13 November, from Lahore to Islamabad, Khanher unless key demands were not met.

Opposition

In 1923, launching the Beer Hall Putsch, Adolf Hitler led the Nazis in a successful attempt to overthrow the German regional government in Munich. He soon discovered the insanity of his greatest supporter, former Prussian General Erich von Ludendorff. Having suffered a nervous breakdown over the German defeat in 1918, and furious over his dismissal and flight to Sweden, Ludendorff had been unstable in the half-decade since he had been Quartermaster General of the Imperial Germany Army. However, he was by now worshipping Norse Gods in his back garden and praying to Wotan. Ludendorff and Hitler fell out. Ludendorff reportedly sent a telegram to his former boss, President von Hindenburg: 'By allowing Hitler to administer Munich, you have handed over our sacred Bavarian City to one of the greatest demagogues of all time. I prophesy to you this evil man will plunge our Reich into the abyss and will inflict immeasurable woe on our nation. Future generations will curse you in your grave for this action.' The Wooden Titan acted on his former subordinates trusted advice and sent Freikorps Units into Bavaria. They dissolved the Nazi government and imprisoned Hitler where he wrote the book 'My Failed Struggle' before suiciding in 1924.

In 1941, the RAF plane carrying reactivated Colonel T.E. Lawrence to Cairo flew over the Mediterranean. His mission was to 'turn' the Egyptian Officer Cadre who were leaking signal intelligence to General Erwin Rommel. The 'Keys to Rebecca' would be used to lead the Afrika Corps into an ambush before they could overrun North Afrika. Privately, Lawrence doubted the plan - for personal reasons also. Churchill had said rightly that he was neither a young man, nor a well man. He was fifty-odd, and only half the man that had survived the motorbike accident at Clouds Hill.

November 7

In 2012, on this day John Andrew Boehner was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States.

Tragedy on East Randolph StreetAs the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Ohion was second in line in accordance with the Presidential Succession Act. If there was grim irony to be found in the fact that Boehner was a Republican, then there was a further twist in that his fellow Ohions had narrowly voted Democrat.

Of course the succession had been triggered by the red-state secessionist terrorists who blew up the DNC Headquarters on East Randolph Street, tragically killing President Obama and Vice President Biden as they appeared set to gain re-election. Because despite their waiver-thin margin of victory, their support had been galvanized by a coalition of minorities.

Entry posted by Todayinah Editor

Click on the hyperlinked metadata to surf the site!

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Politicians Source: Wikipedia Labels: Barack Obama, John Boehner, Joe Biden, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, in co-authoring this post with Jackie Speel we have repurpose content from Wikipedia.

Readers Comment Mike McIlvain commented on 2012-11-14 06:04:52 ~ Sounds like the beginning of a Marvel superheroes tale. Irony on top of irony. I would not want to be in his shoes.

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2012-11-14 07:45:37 ~ And the Golfer would be remembered always as a martyr...*siiiiggghhh*

Readers Comment John Braungart commented on 2012-11-14 11:04:08 ~ The Cryin' Man as president??? Say it ain't soooooo!

Readers Comment Eric Lipps commented on 2012-11-14 11:37:44 ~ And conspiracy theorists wouold have a field day. . . .

Readers Comment Jackie Rose commented on 2012-11-14 12:47:41 ~ With his constant efforts at compromise, Boehner would make a very fine president...in fact, I have often thought that I might have voted for him for that reason myself. But of course I cannot help shuddering at the thought of our president and vice president being wiped out that way.

Readers Comment H. Torrance Griffin commented on 2012-11-14 15:47:56 ~ I have heard repeated claims that the Inner Cities would explode into riots if Obama won an honest election, and found such vaguely insulting. A full bore terrorist attack by members of the American Right Wing? That would be another matter.

Readers Comment Jared Myers commented on 2012-11-14 21:25:09 ~ American right-wingers don't really like Boehner all that much, so I'm not sure they would risk the biggest manhunt in American history just so Speaker John could be President.

In 2012, on this day the State of Ohio disallowed enough provisional ballots to put Mitt Romney "over the top".

Post Partisan President Mittens in by a Whisker
by Ed & Scott PalterThe irrefutable electoral logic was that no Republican Candidate had ever won without Ohio. And of course President Obama had been widely expected to win because of the "auto bail-out" which had assured the long term future of automobile companies in the Mid west.

For these reasons the Democrats refused to accept the result, claiming a racial bias in results legally termed as disparate impact. However the United States Supreme Court found for the Republicans in a 5-4 vote that followed a party line vote. It was an inauspicious start for the man aspiring to be America's first post-partisan President.

Entry posted by Todayinah Editor

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Politicians Source: Wikipedia Labels: Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, Ohio, Disparate Impact, Provisional Ballot.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, this idea was co-written with Scott Palter.

Readers Comment Chris Oakley commented on 2012-11-04 23:26:35 ~ Just what we need, another recount crisis, LOL...

Readers Comment John Braungart commented on 2012-11-05 00:07:10 ~ After a second Florida-type recount, things would only get MORE partisan.....

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2012-11-05 00:40:22 ~ This isn't alternate history...yet.

Readers Comment Eric Lipps commented on 2012-11-05 21:33:29 ~ After a seconjd Florida crisis, one would hope this country would FINALLY get around to abolishing the Electoral College, which was created expressly to bolster the political power of slaveholding Southern states.

In 1764, on this day the Pennsylvania Assembly dispatched Mr Benjamin Franklin to London so that he might seek an agreement whereupon the Penn family should sell their holdings to the Colony.
This post is an article from the Midshipman George Washington thread.

Midshipman George Washington #4This most famous of Philadelphians had turned to politics as a second career after retiring a wealthy man by the age of forty-two. With his younger ally the twenty-six year old lawyer Joseph Galloway, he founded the Assembly Party that dominated the Pennsylvania Legislature (Galloway was closely associated with Philadelphia's most affluent merchants who feared that independence would threaten trade). That body soon began to call for a royal charter granted by the crown and a chief executive appointed by the king.

Arriving in London dressed in a blue suit with elaborate gold braid and buttons, his personal gain from royalization was unmistakeable. He would return to Philadelphia as the newly appointed Royal Governor of Pennsylvania, and his chief justice would of course be none other than Joseph Galloway.

During the visit Franklin had also been consulted by the British Cabinet on the sensitive issue of colonial taxation; he had offered the terribly misinformed advice that indirect taxation would be considered acceptable by his countrymen. A letter from a friend warned that "People have imbibed the Notion that you had a Hand, in the framing [of a parliamentary tax on America]", whilst his wife sent a message informing him that a dangerous mob had gathered menacingly outside their new house in Philadelphia.

When war between Great Britain and the Colonies broke out, Franklin and Galloway were seen as the most hated loyalists in America. Years later in exile in Montreal, Franklin would still rage at his countrymen, "Bone of our bone ; born and educated among us!".
This is an alternate ending to Robbie Taylor's Canadian Revolution thread which ends with the Revolution Founding Fathers living in Exile in Montreal continuing to plot against the British Empire.

Entry posted by Todayinah Editor

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Midshipman Washington Source: Wikipedia Labels: Benjamin Franklin, Royal Navy, Admiral Vernon, America, Britain.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, in this article we explore an idea from John Ferling's book "Independence" which notes that Franklin was two years behind revolutionary thinking during this visit to London. Wikipedia notes the simple dress he affected at the French court in later years. "Bone of our bone" was Franklin's rage at the Royal Governor of Massachusetts Bay Thomas Hutchinson.

Readers Comment Chris Oakley commented on 2012-05-20 01:32:27 ~ Sounds like Franklin could have used some anger management sessions. :D

Readers Comment Robbie Taylor commented on 2012-05-20 04:34:34 ~ Never trust a man who only speaks in adages

Readers Comment Stan Brin commented on 2012-05-22 04:23:14 ~ They wouldn't use the word "negotiate" that way. That's a post-sixties meaning. They would have writen: "We have sent Mr. Franklin to London so that he might seek an agreement whereupon the Penn family would sell their holdings to the Colony." Fixed = thanks. Ed

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2012-05-22 15:06:57 ~ Wasn't OTL's Franklin's son a major Loyalist and governor of one of the colonies? This sounds like exchanging what happened to him with his father.

Readers Comment Jeff Provine commented on 2012-05-22 16:01:22 ~ Wonder if Franklin could bounce back in exile, or if he'd die a broken, misanthropic grump?

In 1972, on this day Richard Nixon's cynical attempts to disparage his opponent with the belittling acronym RFK ("Rich Fat Kid") came to nought because voters narrowly elected Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy to serve as their 38th President of the United States.

Triumph of the Rich Fat KidLess than eight weeks after burying his brother Robert, members of the Democrat Party had tried to persuade the Senator to run for Vice Presidential on a Humphrey-Kennedy ticket. The candidate himself was unable to win a private audience with Kennedy but kept dropping hints in public about what a fine fellow his good young friend from Massachusetts was.

He had reluctantly determined that at only thirty-six years old, he was too inexperienced and would prefer to stand for Senate Majority Whip, which would still require him to become the youngest person ever to serve in that position. But the party would not take no for an answer, hinting that he would fail to muster support for Senate Majority Whip if he declined the Vice Presidential candidacy.

In the event, he chose to keep Robert's campaign ideas alive and agreed to run. But they narrowly lost on a knife-edge vote to Nixon. Elected to the post of Senate Majority Whip as he originally wanted, the Senator was then forced to wait another four years for another shot at the White House, but this time as the Presidential Candidate.

Entry posted by Todayinah Editor

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Politicians Source: Wikipedia Labels: Ted Kennedy, America, 1972 Election, President, Mary Jo Kopechne.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, in this post we revisit a point of divergence explored by Eric Lipps in the "No Chappaquiddick" thread.

Readers Comment Brian Wall commented on 2011-11-08 18:28:34 ~ Without Chappaquiddick, Ted Kennedy stands a very good chance of being POTUS.

Readers Comment Jared Myers commented on 2011-11-08 18:31:33 ~ Thank God Chappaquiddick DID happen, in this case. A Ted-Kennedy-Presidency would have been a nightmare.

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2011-11-08 18:59:50 ~ I don't think Teddums was particularly overweight at that time. And with some time to grieve and get himself back under control, he might not have been such a Ghodsawful mess.

Readers Comment Eric Lipps commented on 2011-11-08 22:10:47 ~ Why would Nixon have been stupid enough to try to ridicule Teddy Kennedy with nickname based on hks MUDERED BROTHER'S initials instead of his own?

In 1730, in a punishment that was fitting of the iron-willed Prussian king but proved to be too much, Crown Prince Frederick died from what was officially declared "fever".

Crown Prince in Prussia Dies during Imprisonment Historians as well as contemporary scholars disagreed what "fever" meant, whether a brain hemorrhage from stress or legitimate illness. Another theory stands that the prince might well have killed himself. Some even suggest a conspiracy to assassinate a would-be foppish king before he could ruin his throne.

The matter at hand was something of a youthful dreamer's ideal of escape from an authoritarian father. Frederick was born January 24, 1712, and was eagerly welcomed as a surviving heir second in line to his grandfather, Frederick I, the first King in Prussia.

One of many states within the aged Holy Roman Empire and a fiefdom of the Kingdom of Poland, Prussia sat at the southern shore along the Baltic Sea with several scattered territories separated from one another by Poland and various other German dukedoms and principalities. Although devastated in the Thirty Years War with invasions by the Swedes and riotous counterattacking armies marching up from the south, Prussia had gained greater strength over the latter seventeenth century. They were liberated from Poland as a buffer for Sweden in 1657, and further gains were made as native coal became an increasingly valuable resource as well as the issuance of the Edict of Potsdam in 1685 that welcomed Protestants, especially encouraging Huguenots expelled from France, to transplant to Prussia, bringing valuable wealth and skills with them. In terms of joining the War of Spanish Succession against France, the Duke of Prussia was allowed by treaty to upgrade himself to king, and the new title "King in Prussia" was born despite Prussia not being a true kingdom as it was still an electorate under the Holy Roman Emperor.

A new story by Jeff ProvineThus, in 1701, Frederick I would crown himself king. Bubonic plague would ravage the country a few years later, but the capital at Berlin would be spared and from then on would stand as a centralized point of authority. Frederick William I came to the throne shortly after his son Frederick's birth and, only months later, his father Frederick's death. He continued efforts to improve Prussia and was soon nicknamed the "Soldier King". Establishing effective bureaucracy and creating a modern, professional, standing army, Frederick would prove an able leader and oversee the defeat of Sweden as a world power through the Great Northern War. He added territory to the small kingdom and forcibly included aristocracy into the army, giving seriousness to warfare that was often considered a "gentleman's sport". Frederick William was notably spartan, thrifty and calculating, and not participating much in art, except in military display, where he sent proclamations throughout Europe seeking the tallest men for a unit known as the "Potsdam Giants".

Prince Frederick, however, thrived in the arts. His father gave him no aristocratic tutors, demanding his children would be taught as "simple folk" with pragmatism and religion. Frederick sought the company of his sister Wilhelmina and comfort of his gentle mother rather than facing the austere temper of his father. Frederick William (himself terrified of not being among the Elect) attempted to block Frederick from Calvinism. Frederick firmly held onto the tenet of the Elect while being otherwise irreligious, causing many to think he was spiting his father.

The greatest spite, however, was Frederick's plan to escape his father's weight and flee to Britain in 1730, where he would be welcome in his uncle George I's court to pursue philosophy and music as he pleased. He and his friend Lieutenant Hans Hermann von Katte planned to slip away along with a contingent of other junior officers. Word leaked of the escape, and Katte and Frederick were captured. His father determined to deal with them as would fit a soldier. Katte was found guilty of desertion by trial and given life imprisonment, but Frederick William announced that both would be executed under treason law. Katte was beheaded on November 6, and Frederick was forced to watch until he ultimately fainted and began to suffer hallucinations. The next morning, he was discovered dead in his cell.

His father became distraught. Frederick William had wanted to toughen his son and planned to pardon him in a few days. The last ten years of the king's reign would be spent quietly reviewing the military and ensuring that Prussia would be able to defend itself during the reign of the new heir, Frederick's younger brother Augustus. Augustus became king in 1740, and he worked to keep Prussia free from the potentially disastrous entanglements of the War of Austrian Succession. His son Frederick William II succeeded him in 1758, and the king proved soft: unwilling to put forth great efforts and rather delight himself with simple pleasures, such as good food. After a half-hearted alliance against the French Republic during Frederick William II's term, Frederick William III attempted to clean up Prussia's wasteful decadence, but it came as too little too late when the armies of Napoleon swept across Europe.

After Napoleon, Europe attempted to rebuild, and Austria managed to cut off Russia's attempt at land-grabbing by surrendering claims to Pomerania, land for which Frederick William III's ancestors had fought bitterly. The German Confederation fell under the sway of Vienna, and Austria would be the dominant power of Central Europe over the next century. Troubled times would come in 1848 with waves of revolution, but Emperor Franz Joseph I was adept in granting improved autonomy to the German kingdoms of Bavaria, Hanover, and Prussia. After the Great War at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Austro-Hungarian Empire would be broken up, and the three German states would gain independence with Hanover competing with Prussia for political influence in Mecklenburg, but failing. It wouldn't be until 1945 when the Bavarian Fuhrer Adolf Hitler would manage to fulfill his dream of a united German-speaking people from the Rhine to the Danube and Baltic.

Entry posted by Guest Historian

Jeff Provine

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Jeff Provine Blog Source: Jeff Provine’s Blog Labels: Crown Prince, Germany, Prussia, Crown Prince, Frederick.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, in reality Frederick survived two days of hallucinations and was pardoned on November 18 by his father. He was a changed man by the experience and never spoke of Katte again. Frederick married Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Bevern but did not love her, and the two had no children. Instead, Frederick threw himself into work improving his kingdom (he would upgrade his title to "King of Prussia" just before his death) and making Prussia into one of the most powerful military forces in Europe in the mid-1700s, defeating opponents such as Austria and Poland.

Readers Comment Stan Brin commented on 2011-08-21 21:58:13 ~ The Pikelhaub (pictured) was invented around 1830. I think the Butterfly Effect would have prevented Herr Schikelgruber from entering the picture, 200 years later.

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2011-08-21 22:33:43 ~ By now, Europe would be unrecognizable. And without Frederick the Great, would Napoleon have had as much military art to work with?

Readers Comment Jeff Provine commented on 2011-08-23 15:10:26 ~ Napoleon certainly wouldn't have had as much military art, but then no one would.

In 1986, on this day the beleaguered Romanov regime in Moscow held the Soviet Union's 59th annual Red Square parade commemorating the anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

Red Square ParadeBesides being the last such event staged in Russia's capital before the Communist dictatorship collapsed, the parade was most notable for the paltry crowds which turned out for the event and the conspicuous absence of much of the CPSU elite; Grigory Romanov himself left midway through the proceedings after being fired on by a sniper who was himself shot and wounded by the KGB while trying to flee Red Square after the attack. Following the attempt on Romanov's life the CPSU ordered Red Square permanently closed to all public gatherings except those officially sanctioned by the CPSU's Central Committee-- an order later rescinded by the new PLM government after the end of the Russian civil war in 1987.

In 1938, Western fears that Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin had forged an alliance with the militarists trying to overthrow Mars' royal house were realized when Stalin used the occasion of the 21st anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution to announce the Kremlin had signed what he called "an historic accord" with the Martian militarists to receive weapons and technological assistance from them in return for Moscow's support of their insurrection against the Martian monarch.

Part Four of Parley But that was only the beginning of the bad news for the West: just 24 hours after Stalin dropped his diplomatic bombshell, Third Reich foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop set off another one with the news Martian militarist technicians were assisting German rocket scientists in upgrading facilities at the ballistic weapons development complex in the Baltic city of Peenemünde. And two days after Ribbentrop's announcement, the Japanese war ministry accepted an offer from the Martian militarists to furnish the Imperial Army with a new type of improved armor for its tanks and blueprints for a portable heat ray that could be used by its infantry.

These developments prompted the West to accelerate its own efforts to master Martian technology. The most dramatic example of this acceleration was in the United States, where a research and development laboratory was hastily established at the town of Roswell, New Mexico on orders from President Roosevelt's Secretary of War Harry Woodring. CBS Radio producer Orson Welles, who had been responsible for broadcasting the first accounts of the Martians' arrival at Grovers Mill, would be among those in attendance at a White House press conference in late November announcing the laboratory's historic breakthrough in creating an airframe capable of traveling at the speed of sound.

Entry posted by Guest Historian

Chris Oakley

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Parley Source: Wikipedia Labels: War of the Worlds, Mars, Martians, Alliance, New Jersey.

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2011-03-19 19:15:37 ~ Why put the US lab at Roswell? What would be wrong with Hanford or a thousand other places?

Readers Comment Chris Oakley commented on 2011-03-20 00:14:56 ~ It's meant to be an in-joke referring to OTL Roswell's status as the UFO capital of America.

Readers Comment Jeff Provine commented on 2011-03-20 19:55:48 ~ Roswell is out-of-the-way enough to be free from interference, plus the NM Military Institute could be called up as a key place to train a new breed of aviators for something even beyond sound.

In 1992, on this day the proprietor of the popular jazz cafe Pennsylvania 6-5000 Glenn Miller died peacefully in his sleep at his home in New York City. He was eighty-eight years old.

Miller TimeRight up until the end he was an occasional player too, setting down his little brown jug of alcohol to thrill members of the audience who were in the mood for the big band sound. Of course Miller was there at the birth, touring with his own band up until the American entrance into the Second World War. They disbanded in 1942.

Aged thirty-eight, Miller was too old for the draft but nevertheless determined to play a part in a band making an altogether different kind of music, the wretched cacophony of war. And it was during this period of preoccupation that a clarinetist and alto saxophonist Wilbur Schwartz came forward and suggested an unusual refinement to the big band sound. Essentially the idea of the "sonic keynote" was to have a clarinet play a melodic line with a tenor saxophone holding the same note, while three other saxophones harmonized within a single octave. It was a sophisticated, and potentially innovative suggestion, but at first it just sounded _wrong_ and there was no time to develop it fully.

Before long, Miller found himself serving in the US Army Air Force. Stationed in Great Britain he soon realised that he was now too old to pursue a professional career in music, instead he dreamt of opening a jazz cafe after the war. Wilbur Schwartz was not able to give his idea much further thought either, he was killed during the invasion of Sicily.

And so following his demobilization, Miller returned to the States, and after a short spell settled in Manhattan. He was able to use his military pension to open an establishment which he would ultimately run for almost half a century.

Some nights he would recall Schwartz's madcap idea and by the mid 1960s he began to experiment with the sound again, this time successfully. Because as that crazy Schwartz always used to say, "it dont mean a thing if it aint' got that swing".

Entry posted by Todayinah Editor

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Politicians Source: Wikipedia Labels: Glenn Miller, Swing, Jazz, World War 2, America.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, in our history on December 15th 1944 Glenn Miller's Noorduyn Norseman bush plane wandered into the path of one hundred and thirty-eight Lancaster bombers which were about to release approximately one hundred thousand incendiaries into a jettizon zone.

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2010-11-07 05:32:56 ~ So this aborts rock-and-roll how? Or does swing continue alongside rock, the way rock continues alongside rap?

Readers Comment Robbie Taylor commented on 2010-11-08 01:53:57 ~ on December 15th 1944 Glenn Miller's Noorduyn Norseman bush plane wandered into the path of one hundred and thirty-eight Lancaster bombers Sure, aliens had nothing to do with it...

Readers Comment Jeff Provine commented on 2010-11-09 15:20:50 ~ What if rather than blending rock with folk to get the experimentation of the '70s, it'd been swing and folk? That would make for a very different Who.

In 1860, Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln was passed telegrams shortly after midnight at an ice cream parlour in Springfield Illinois reporting his failure to win an outright majority of free states in the electoral college. The presidential election would now be determined by a states vote in the House of Representatives.

Northern StrategyNeedless to say, the result was an absolute disaster for Lincoln. Having established himself as a national figure during his debates with Stephen Douglas during the 1858 race for the Senate, he had attempted to reverse the outcome of that defeat with the obvious alternative strategy of uttering barely a word during the campaign. In fact one of his few utterances was to predict that only the Republicans could win the election.

Because Douglas had split the Democrat vote at the national convention by committing to a free state's vote on slavery. This suggestion had antagonised abolitionists who sought to prevent the adoption of slavery in the new western states of the Union. At the same time the proposal had angered southern democrats who stormed out of the convention, and promised to back Breckinridge.

Of course Douglas was no fool. He had devised a winning strategy understanding fully that he could not possibly unite Northern and Southern Democrats on a common platform and therefore gain an outright majority in the electoral college. Instead he sought to limit Lincoln's majority by nurturing "fusion" candidates in key states. And the returns from Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut tipped the balance precisely as Douglas had predicted. Because a vote in the House of Representatives would be based on that institution's very different set of democratic calculations, based as there were upon an equitable vote by state where the South was more likely to gain a more positive, negotiated outcome.

Entry posted by Todayinah Editor

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Politicians Source: Wikipedia Labels: Abraham Lincoln, 1860 election, Presidency, Breckinridge, Douglas.

Readers Comment Scott Palter commented on 2010-10-09 03:28:39 ~ Probable answer is that no President is chosen and US is run by a deadlocked Congress for 4 years.

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2010-10-09 07:09:09 ~ This might have postponed the Civil War, at least long enough for the South to calm down about John Brown.

Readers Comment Jeff Provine commented on 2010-10-09 15:22:57 ~ This would hold huge political fallout. Might end up with a vivacious re-vote with a dark horse suddenly taking the lead. "How we could use a president like Polk again," they'd say.

Readers Comment Todayinah Ed. commented on 2010-10-09 15:22:57 ~ Comment from Joe Annaruma on Faebook: If This actually happened, then South carolina would not have seceeded or fired on Sumpter, which means the Civil War would not have taken place in 1861. Not only would slavery spread to the new western states, the Spanish American war would have taken place in 1868 and Cuba would be annexed to the US as a new slave state. Slavery would be America's shame for another 25 years, until Europe's trade embargo with the US forces emancipation.

Readers Comment Bruce Johnson commented on 2010-10-09 19:26:06 ~ "Strategy of uttering barely a word during the campaign" - odd statement, given that in those times it was the NORM for Presidential candidates NOT to campaign; whatever the varying strategies NONE included a candidate's going out and making campaign speeches for himself. (Stephen Douglas's doing so was a major break from tradition). Further the notion that he "attempted to reverse that [Senatorial] defeat" by such a strategy is even stranger. In fact, it was PRECISELY the debates that gave Lincoln a very unexpected CHANCE to unseat Douglas (and he DID get more votes - but districting that favored Democrats & Democratic legislature seats NOT up for election kept him just under the needed number). That's not even to mention the important role of his various other speeches for other candidates in Northwest in the late 1850s & the huge impact of his Cooper Union address (and subsequent speaking tour of New England) on gaining East-coast support for his Presidential candidacy.

Readers Comment Bruce Johnson commented on 2010-10-09 19:26:12 ~ "Strategy of uttering barely a word during the campaign" - odd statement, given that in those times it was the NORM for Presidential candidates NOT to campaign; whatever the varying strategies NONE included a candidate's going out and making campaign speeches for himself. (Stephen Douglas's doing so was a major break from tradition). Further the notion that he "attempted to reverse that [Senatorial] defeat" by such a strategy is even stranger. In fact, it was PRECISELY the debates that gave Lincoln a very unexpected CHANCE to unseat Douglas (and he DID get more votes - but districting that favored Democrats & Democratic legislature seats NOT up for election kept him just under the needed number). That's not even to mention the important role of his various other speeches for other candidates in Northwest in the late 1850s & the huge impact of his Cooper Union address (and subsequent speaking tour of New England) on gaining East-coast support for his Presidential candidacy.

Readers Comment Eric Lipps commented on 2010-10-09 23:19:47 ~ An "equitable vote by state," indeed--under the Constitution, in such a situation Rhode Island would have as big a vote as Texas. This setup was designed to give less-populated states (read: Southern, slaverholding states) a louder voice in picking the president in the event of a disputed election, but whether it was "equitable" with regard to the American people as a whole is a very different issue.

In 2009, senior ministers of the cabinet of Prime Minister Stephen Harper arrived by helicopter in Ottawa's new "Green Zone".

This Baghdad-style maximum security cordoned area had been hastily constructed over the previous forty-eight hours by elements of Canadian Special Operations Forces Command utilising robot technology.

The War on Terror Plus, Part 6 - "Operation Citadel"

Operational plans had changed dramatically in the two weeks since the first Olympic torchbearers Catriona Le May-Doan and Simon Whitfield had carried the Olympic flame through a crowd of thousands in Victoria. The slow-acting variant of the zombie virus known as "Solanum" that they carried with them was now raging through Canada, unhindered by the 50.4 million doses ordered by Health Canada from GlaxoSmithKline factory in Ste-Foy, Quebec. That order was cancelled in dramatic fashion, because the factory was now a smoking ruin after Al-qaeda crashed a hijacked Air Canada Jet Liner crashed into the production facility.

Prior to that devastating terrorist attack, Stephen Harper's government had devised Operation Citadel in which the then tiny population of Canadian zombies would be securely held in the purpose built Vancouver 2010 Olympic Village. Events had moved on a piece, and instead of building a twenty-first century leper colony, Special Forces were recalled from British Columbia in order to execute an altogether more desperate Operation Citadel. Rather than keeping the zombies in, the future of Canada now depended on these troops fields training in the wilds of Kandahar province in order to keep the zombies out of the Green Zone.

Entry posted by Todayinah Editor

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: War on Terror Plus Source: Toronto Star Labels: Stephen Harper, Canada, War on Terror, Ottawa, America.

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2009-11-07 05:41:01 ~ By this time Canada'd be well on the way to a meltdown.

Readers Comment Eric Lipps commented on 2009-11-07 13:08:42 ~ I suspect any country would be, even if the virus in question were a more ordinary sort--smallpox, say, or Ebola.

Readers Comment Chris Oakley commented on 2009-11-07 17:08:50 ~ When it rains, it pours...

Readers Comment Jeff Provine commented on 2010-09-07 16:08:54 ~ See, this is what happens when you socialize medicine.

Readers Comment Steven Fisher commented on 2011-11-07 16:58:22 ~ Why would Al-Qaeda try to stop us from preventing a Zombie Apocalypse. If we fail then they will die too. Unless they already are zombies. But I don't think the Koran syas that it is okay to become zombies for your God.

In 2007, the director of The Dark Knight Christopher Nolan made an unexpected offer - would seventy-year old actor Jack Nicholson reprise his 1989 potrayal of the role of The Joker following Heath Ledger's withdrawal on mental health grounds?Surprise reprise
Ledger had been chosen to portray the Joker, whom the actor described as a 'psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy'.
Director Christopher Nolan had wanted to work with Ledger on a number of projects in the past, but had been unable to do so. When Ledger saw Batman Begins, he realized a way to make the character work in that film's tone, and Nolan agreed with his anarchic interpretation.
To prepare for the role, Ledger lived alone in a hotel room for a month, formulating the character's posture, voice and psychology.
While he initially found it difficult, Ledger was eventually able to generate a voice that did not sound like Jack Nicholson's take on the character in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman film.
He started a diary, in which he wrote the Joker's thoughts and feelings to guide himself during his performance.
He was also given Batman: The Killing Joke and Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth to read, which he "really tried to read [...] and put it down". Ledger also cited inspirations such as A Clockwork Orange and Sid Vicious, which were "a very early starting point for Christian [Bale] and I. But we kind of flew far away from that pretty quickly and into another world altogether. There's a bit of everything in him. There's nothing that consistent," Ledger said, adding that" There are a few more surprises to him".
Bringing the Joker back to the big screen invited a wave of speculation over his depiction. Before Ledger was confirmed in July 2006, Paul Bettany, Lachy Hulme, Adrien Brody, Steve Carell, and Robin Williams publicly expressed interest in the role.
Jack Nicholson jokingly expressed anger at not being invited to reprise the part: "You can't believe the reasons things do or don't happen. Not asking me how to do the sequel is that kind of thing," he said". Maybe it's not a mistake. Maybe it was the right thing, but to be candid, I'm furious". After the trailer was released, director Guillermo del Toro and comic book writer Jeph Loeb lavished praise upon Ledger, while Batman: The Animated Series co-creator Paul Dini said, "He seems more street than any other version of the Joker [...] His attitude is mordant and sardonic as opposed to manic [...] No goofy gags or puns for him. This Joker doesn't split sides: he splits skulls". Mark Hamill, who voiced the part on The Animated Series, said "The balls-out debauched psycho approach seems like a great way of reinventing everyone's favorite scary (and scar-y) clown".
Frighteningly close to a complete mental collapse, Ledger had quit the set shortly after filming started. Ledger stated that his role preparation had taken a toll on his ability to sleep: "Last week I probably slept an average of two hours a night. ... I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going". At that time, he told Lyall that he had taken two Ambien pills, after taking just one had not sufficed, and those left him in "a stupor, only to wake up an hour later, his mind still racing".
"It was tremendously emotional, right when he quit" Nolan recalled. "But the truth is, his potrayal was just too Marlon Brando. With Jack Nicholson I feel very lucky to have something productive to do, to have a performance that he was very, very proud of, and that he had entrusted to me to finish".

In 1960, on this day John Lindsay made American political history by becoming the first candidate ever to be elected mayor of New York City on a write-in vote. Lindsay's first official act was to appoint outgoing mayor Abe Stark as a special consultant on disaster preparedness.	Write-in Candidate

	John Lindsay

	On this day in 1941, Soviet premier Ivan Konev used the occasion of the 24th anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution to call for Japan's surrender.

In 1972, President Richard Nixon is re-elected, defeating Senator Edward Kennedy by an even narrower margin than he had won over Hubert Humphrey in 1968. Nixon?s victory would not have been possible without the votes of supporters of George Wallace, whose decision not to run in ?72 left them with nowhere else to turn.

	Richard Nixon


Some Kennedy supporters will charge that Nixon and his people rigged the vote, and that Kennedy was the actual winner. However, no hard evidence supporting this claim will surface, and Kennedy himself will refuse to endorse the accusation.

	On this day in 1944, Franklin Roosevelt won election to an unprecedented fourth term as President of the United States, beating Republican challenge Thomas Dewey in the biggest landslide in American political history. That same day in Moscow, as part of ceremonies marking the 27th anniversary of the 1917 Communist revolution, Red Army general Georgi Zhukov was proclaimed a Hero of the Soviet Union for the fifth time, the only Red Army senior officer to be so honored.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

On this day in 1962, ceremonies marking the 45th anniversary of the 1917 Russian Communist revolution were disrupted when a clash broke out between pro-Brezhnev and anti-Brezhnev factions of the Red Army. That same day, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro was assassinated in Havana.	Assassinated

	Fidel Castro

	In 1972, President Richard M. Nixon scores a landslide victory over Democratic challenger George S. McGovern, winning re-election with 61 percent of the popular vote to McGovern's 35. American Liberty Party candidate Strom Thurmond receives five percent of the popular vote. Nixon will win 48 states; McGovern wins only Massachusetts, while Thurmond captures his home state of South Carolina.

The Briggs Initiative followed similar legislation that had passed in Oklahoma and Arkansas, banning gays and lesbians from teaching in public schools. It stated that any teacher that was found to be 'advocating, imposing, encouraging or promoting' homosexual activity could be fired.

It was opposed by then-President Jimmy Carter. There were many 'gay Republican' groups and organization through the country beginning in the '70s. The most prominent of these, in 1977 California, founded Log Cabin Republicans, as a rallying point for Republicans opposed to the Briggs Initiative, which for a time was winning in polls conducted prior to the election with about 61% of voters supporting it while 31% opposed it. It was the first attempt to restrict gay and lesbian rights through a ballot measure.

The timing is significant for Reagan because he was then preparing to run for president, a race in which he would need broad support. As Lou Cannon (Reagan biographer) puts it, Reagan was 'well aware that there were those who wanted him to duck the issue' but nevertheless 'chose to chase the swing voter.'

Despite the legend, student worker, Grant Grays, at the Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies at the University of Minnesota Libraries discovered that there was no editorial penned by Reagan but rather he sent a letter to a pro-Briggs Initiative group in which he supported the initiative. The entire text of Reagan's letter of opposition was never printed in the public media. The most extensive excerpts from his statement were reprinted in the San Francisco Chronicle of September 24, 1978 where it was revealed that the future President supported the Briggs Initiative.

Reagan's actual letter allegedly stated, in part, 'Whatever else it is, homosexuality is not a contagious disease like the measles. Prevailing scientific opinion is that an individual's sexuality is determined at a very early age and that a child's teachers do not really influence this.' Assuming this is true, this was a remarkably progressive thing for a politician, especially a conservative one about to run for president, to say in 1978.

The Briggs Initiative was passed on a marginal vote, it was even close in Briggs' own Orange County. Its sponsors cited Reagan for the victory.

In 1972, President Richard Nixon is re-elected, defeating Senator Edward Kennedy by an even narrower margin than he had won over Hubert Humphrey in 1968. Nixons victory would not have been possible without the votes of supporters of George Wallace, whose decision not to run in '72 left them with nowhere else to turn. Some Kennedy supporters will charge that Nixon and his people rigged the vote, and that Kennedy was the actual winner. However, no hard evidence supporting this claim will surface, and Kennedy himself will refuse to endorse the accusation.

	In 1826, with Thomas Jefferson dead after more than twenty years in the White House, Congress meets to appoint a new President, and, as anticipated, chooses to retain Acting President James Madison in that position. However, he faces unexpectedly strong competition from Governor Andrew Jackson of Tennessee. Jackson, who has cultivated friends in the federal government in order to nurture policies beneficial to his home state, comes in second in the voting and is therefore made vice-president, despite the cultivated Madison`s personal distaste for 'that backwoodsman.'

In 1955, Senator Joseph P. McCarthy formally announces that he will run against President Eisenhower in the 1956 Republican presidential primaries. It is momentous news, and McCarthy's challenge is a serious one: strengthened by his victory in the so-called Army-McCarthy hearings, he has spent the past year amassing support from the GOP's conservative wing, which has never forgiven Ike for criticizing McCarthy for his harsh criticism of the outgoing President Truman after the latter's last-minute pardon of accused Soviet agent Alger Hiss.

In 1983, the Plymouth Brethren, a murderous cult descended from the Quakers of early American colonial times, made a sacrifice of the Hendricks family of Bloomington, Illinois. Over the next week, cult leader David Hendricks, who was suspected in the murder of his family, led police on a chase across the Midwest, killing almost a dozen people with his small group of cultists. Hendricks and his followers committed suicide when police surrounded them at a motel in Wisconsin in December of 1983.

In 1916, Socialist incumbent President Woodrow Wilson wins reelection, in spite of a tough primary challenge from A. L. Benson. The Communist candidate, Charles Hughes, also puts up a tough fight, but loses by 3 percentage points in the vote. Wilson attempts to create a League of Nations in his second term, but war-ravaged Europe is unwilling to go along with any plans put forth by a power that remained neutral during their war.

In 1872, the Mary Celeste, a cargo airboat with 10 crewmen, set sail from New York City to Genoa, Italy. It was carrying several tons of alcoholic beverages for Italian importers, and the crew reported no difficulties during launch and the first few hours of travel. Ten days later, the ship was found floating under auto-pilot off the coast of the Azores; the crew had disappeared, and all the cargo was intact. Investigators of the incident receive a tip from a physicist at New York University that the earth was entering an interdimensional rift; he believed the rift was caused by Mlosh technology, but this part of the investigation was covered up. The mystery has never been officially solved.

In 1820, in the most highly-contested presidential election in U.S. history, President James Monroe emerged as the victor from a field of 9 candidates. He had captured almost a third of the electoral college votes, and when the choice was thrown into the house of Representatives, they felt comfortable enough with him to allow him to continue in office. Monroe's second term became known as The Era of Ill Will because of the feeling of illegitimacy in his reelection.

In 1956,, following the signing of a secret mutual assistance pact in Paris, Anglo-French troops fighting alongside the Israeli Defence Force wrest back control of the Suez Canal, recently nationalised by Egyptian President Gamal Nasser. British Prime Minister Anthony Eden receives urgent demands from US President Dwight D. Eisenhower to withdraw . Having spent many years being overshadowed as Churchill's deputy, Eden refuses to accept this demand, viewing it as a bitter personal defeat that would invite disfavourable comparisons with his former boss. Eden threatens to unmask American hypocrisy by revealing that the overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh's Iranian government in 1953 was a coup mounted by US and British Agents on much the same terms as the Suez invasion. Unwilling to risk his position during the presidential election month, Eisenhower backs down and reluctantly throws his support behind the colluding allies. Most historians now agree that these duplicitous acts by the British Government fuelled reactionary imperialism at a point of divergence. By fortifying the refusal to accept nationalist pressures, the Suez campaign destroyed sympathies for Britain in their former colonies leading to the premature dissolution of the Commonwealth in the late 1960s.

In 1917, in Petrograd, Russia Bolshevik leaders Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky lead revolutionaries in overthrowing the Provisional Government. It was all for nothing, German High Command exploited the internal uncertainty to launched a ferocious assault on Western Russia. By Christmas, the Kaiser's designated monarchs were in place in Ukraine, Muscovy, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. The reign of the German Tsar had begun.

In 1917, the second Prime Minister of the Russian Provisional Government Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky escaped the Bolsheviks and went to Pskov, where he rallied some loyal troops for an attempt to retake the capital. His troops managed to capture Tsarskoe Selo, but were beaten the next day at Pulkovo. Kerensky narrowly escaped, and spent the next few weeks in hiding before fleeing the country, eventually arriving in France. During the Russian Civil War he led the White Movement and was restated in office in 1923.

In 1941, reactivated Colonel T.E. Lawrence flew out of RAF Northolt en route to Cairo. His mission was to 'turn' the Egyptian Officer Cadre who were leaking signal intelligence to General Erwin Rommel. The 'Keys to Rebecca' would be used to lead the Afrika Corps into an ambush before they could overrun North Afrika. Privately, Lawrence doubted the plan - for professional reasons. After all Gamal Abdul Nasser and Anwar Sadat were virulently anti-British. They might even side with the Mufti of Jerusalem, a Nazi sympathizer who had no problem with extending the Final Solution into Palestine - an enabler for a United Arab Republic.

In 1872, a 103-foot, 282-ton brigantine set sail for Genoa, Italy. The ship was built on Spencer's Island, Nova Scotia in 1861 and originally named the Amazon. Due to misadventures and bad luck, she had changed hands several times before being renamed the Mary Celeste in 1869 after a sale for $3,000. On-board was a cargo of 1701 barrels of industrial alcohol shipped by Meissner Ackermann & Coin of New York City to H. Mascerenhas and Co., of Genoa, Italy valued at $34,000.The ship was last seen in the Azores on November 22nd.

In 1963, a freelance story in the Midland Reporter-Telegram stated that an 'unidentified teenager ran a stop sign and crashed into another car, killing her boyfriend who was driving it...What's the odds of running a stop sign and killing your boyfriend????

November 6

In 1632, on this day Gustavus the Great led a glorious charge at the defining moment of the Swedish Protestant Union's victory at Lützen.

Famous Protestant Victory at LützenThe Thirty Years' War now entered a new phase; not only was the Imperial onslaught on Saxony halted but the energies of the German Protestants began to further crystallize around around this talismanic figure who had now fully emerged as a a fearsome enemy to the Catholic Habsburgs.

But of course the famous victory itself was not without cost. Having been forced to assault an entrenched position, Sweden lost about six thousand men including badly wounded and deserters, many of whom may have drifted back to the ranks in the following weeks. The Imperial army lost slightly fewer men than the Swedes on the field; but more significantly the loss of the battlefield and general theatre of operations to the Swedes meant that fewer of the wounded and stragglers were able to rejoin the ranks.

Entry posted by Todayinah Editor

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Generals Source: Wikipedia Labels: Gustavus Adolphus, Sweden, Lutzen, Protestant, Prince Joseph of Saxe-Hildburghausen.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, in authoring this post we have repurpose content from Wikipedia which reports ~ t was a Protestant victory, but cost the life of one of the most important leaders of the Protestant alliance, Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, which caused the Protestant campaign to lose direction.

Readers Comment Mike McIlvain commented on 2013-01-02 07:54:08 ~ Still, it could have weakened Sweden's prowess on the field, which could have served to take Sweden out of its warlike stance that lasted, I believe, another century. I doubt that most anyone in modern Sweden would have minded if the boys had been brought home sooner.

Readers Comment Jeff Provine commented on 2013-01-02 14:16:34 ~ He'd at least been there to solidify Swedish holdings. They could've been even more of a major European power.

Readers Comment Jackie Rose commented on 2013-01-02 16:57:30 ~ Yes, Jeff, and therefore the Protestant movement miight have been even stronger.

Readers Comment John W. Braue, III commented on 2013-01-03 07:43:50 ~ Gustaf Adolf's opposing commander at L�tzen was the notorious Albrecht von Wallenstein. If Gustaf Adolf lives, does this make Wallenstein's apparent desire to force "a just peace" on the Emperor a reality by using the Swedish threat as a lever, or even by allying with them? (He was in negotiation with several of the Protestant powers at the time of his assassination.)

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2013-01-04 23:35:39 ~ If he'd lived, would Christina have succeeded to the throne? Or would he have had a son and made him heir? I don't know how Swedish law worked on that point.

In 1612, proving once again a dashing hero, the eighteen-year-old Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, recovered from typhoid fever to great acclaim.

Henry Frederick Recovers FeverThe eldest son of King James I of England (VI of Scotland) had already made a name for himself as the handsome, athletic, witty, just, and inspiring next leader of the British Isles.

Henry had been born at Stirling Castle February 19, 1594, and spent his early years in Scotland under the care of the Earl of Mar. His father, James, had worried about the boy being too near his mother Anne of Denmark's Catholic tendencies and so placed Henry among staunch Protestants despite the division it caused in his marriage. In 1603, James was called to London to be crowned, and he brought his family south with him. As Henry grew, his father created an environment that, according to Sir Thomas Chaloner, was a "courtly college or a collegiate court". James himself acted as lecturer and wrote tracts for his son such as The True Law of Free Monarchies, which detailed James' understanding of monarchy as Heavenly mandated absolute rule.

A new article by Jeff ProvineAt 11 years old, Henry entered Magdalen College at Oxford. There, he learned sportsmanship and became interested in politicking and the tactics of warfare. He also became fastidious in his Protestantism, even to the point of fining anyone who uttered a swear, for which an alms box was always on hand for forced contributions. His small court was required to attend church services, and Henry himself became entranced in in the steely argumentation of Calvinism, whose sermons seemed to say to him, "Sir, you must hear me diligently: you must have a care to observe what I say".

In his teen years, Henry began to break with his family. He did not care for his increasingly extravagent younger brother, Charles, who seemed to emulate his father's ideals of autocracy. Henry had already rejected many of his father's values, especially James' sense of royal spending. The two very nearly rose to blows when James admonished Henry for not being energetic on a hunt, and Henry lifted his cane to strike his father out of rage but instead rode away. Most of the hunting party followed after the ever-increasingly popular Henry and left his father behind with a few loyals.

At the age of 18, Henry became ill during a typhoid fever epidemic but managed to recover. Upon the death of his father in 1625, Henry ascended the throne of England as Henry IX and the throne of Scotland as Henry I. James had spent the last years of his reign bickering with Parliament, and Henry began his rule by establishing an effective chain of command as well as respecting the right to free speech within the Commons. He approved the sanctions against Catholics and encouraged the increasing Protestantism of the country. Henry had made good on an old teasing promise to make his younger brother Archbishop of Canterbury, though Charles would constantly be admonished for overspending and, in truth, become a whipping boy for the perceived problems of the Anglican Church. Gradually over Henry's tenure, the strength of bishops would decline to favor a more Presbyterian system as seen in Scotland.

While Henry's domains seemed peaceable enough (although a campaign through Ireland to pacify the Catholic population became necessary in 1650), issues in foreign policy took up the majority of his reign. His deep sense of Protestantism caused war with Spain, and he agreed with Parliament on using naval tactics to undercut their flow of income from colonies. Through the seventeenth century, English and Dutch Protestant navies would seize much of the Caribbean. Henry also attempted to become involved in the Dutch War of Independence and the Thirty Years' War in the Germanies (especially since he married a Protestant German princess and his sister married Frederick V, Elector Palatine), but advisers such as Parliamentarian Oliver Cromwell encouraged him not to become tied up with the Continent. Instead, Henry focused on empire-building, as had been the dreams of Sir Walter Raleigh, whom Henry deeply admired and considered a friend. Henry fought bitterly with his father over the execution of Raleigh in 1618 after an illegal attack on a Spanish outpost, but the opinion of Spain's ambassador won out. He never forgave his father.

Following Raleigh's ideals, Henry widely encouraged settlement in the New World. Not only did his fleets seize islands from Spain, but he also created new colonies along the northern coast of South America and dispatched explorers and colonists to affirm English control of the Mississippi. His policies set precedent for colonial taxation through the Ship Tax, and taxation was reaffirmed in the next century by referrenda from the American colonies, who requested and were granted seats in Parliament.

In 1956, with cynical timing French-Israeli forces launch an invasion of the Suez Canal just one hour after the polls close for the US Presidential election.

Conjoined Crisis Part 2
Suez Canal Invasion LaunchedUnbeknown to the International Community, the British Government had co-authored the Protocol of Sévres, a secret tripartite agreement that Israel would invade the Sinai. Britain and France would then intervene, purportedly to separate the warring Israeli and Egyptian forces, instructing both to withdraw to a distance of sixteen kilometres from either side of the canal. The reasons to desire to topple Nasser were various; for British Prime Minister Eden, ghosts of Munich, France, meddling in their colony of Algeria, and for Israel, collaborative opportunity to diminsh a local rival.

The rational voices in London and Paris argued that the Canal could not be held by force, and noted also that the modern oil tankers were becoming too big to travel through it. However, the debate was then transformed by a secret request for refuge at the British Embassy from Hungarian Premier Imre Nagy. The secret service urged Eden to betray Nagy and trade his liberty with a pledge of non-interference from the Soviet Union. But in the event, the British Government decided to grant refuge and withdraw from the Suez Canal, venture privately telling France and Israel that its position within the Commonwealth would become diplomatically untenable if London was seen to overtly support one head of state whilst seeking to oust another. However, as a sign of tacit support, London did allow the French to use Cyprus as a staging area and the operation proceeded without Britain.
An article from the Conjoined Crisis thread..

Entry posted by Guest Historian

Jackie Speel

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Conjoined Crisis Source: Wikipedia Labels: Imre Nagy, Egypt, Suez, Hungary, Israel.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, in reality the two crises were not directly connected and the time sequences have been adjusted to suite the story line. By Ed, Jackie Speel and Scott Palter.

Readers Comment Mike McIlvain commented on 2012-10-22 07:21:30 ~ Things really could be different in the Middle East, but the basic problems seem as though they would persist throughout, anyway.

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2012-10-22 08:08:22 ~ I wonder how this would play internationally?

Readers Comment Jackie Rose commented on 2012-10-22 14:15:06 ~ Well, one thing is sure. Israel would have gotten a lot more sympathy in 1956...because the left loved Israel then. You can see that in the movie Exodus, made in 1960, with the script written by Dalton Trumbo, who was a Communist. Any real Marxist must have said that the socialist Israelis are SUPPOSED to defeat the feudal Arabs: That's how it WORKS. But then, alas, the Six Day War happened in 1967, the Soviet Union backed the Arabs, so the rest of the left had to follow suit...and now it does not seem to notice that the Soviet Union no longer exists. So now the right tends to support Israel instead, led by the Evangelicals, who support Israel more strongly than the Jews do. I don't get it either.

Readers Comment Stan Brin commented on 2012-10-23 10:28:40 ~ Jackie -- I have written on this extensively. The left indeed supported Israel until it received orders from Moscow to support the Arabs, but this was in 1955 or so, not 1967. For several years, many found it difficult to go along, but after 1967, they fell into lockstep, even supporting mass genocide. The USSR is gone, but the totalitarian left is still running on autopilot. Check out some of the Communist front groups that remain, such as the institute for Policy Studies -- still shameless anti-Israel bigots, rumor-mongers, and witch-hunters.

Readers Comment Stan Brin commented on 2012-10-23 10:30:21 ~ By the way, Eisenhower won the election. It would never have mattered when the israelis attacked, given the insanity of John Foster Dulles.

Readers Comment Jackie Rose commented on 2012-10-23 12:44:22 ~ Stan, one real watershed came in 1978, when Vanessa Redgrave made "Zionist" a dirty word while accepting the Academy Award, after it had been an honored term on the left. Another sign of the times came soon afterwards when she was given every part for a woman over 40...while Anita Bryant, who had denounced gay rights, was left blacklisted and bankrupt. Please note that I do not share Anita's anti-gay views, but I do see the double standard. More recently, I have also seen three or four movies and miniseries about Bobby Kennedy, including "Bobby" "The Kennedys" and "Ethel"...and not one saw fit to mention that Bobby was killed by a Palestinian terrorist. So much for that other canard, that the Jews rule Hollywood. If you say that the LEFT rules Hollywood, that may be closer to the mark.

Readers Comment Jeff Provine commented on 2012-10-23 19:17:07 ~ Non-intererence from the SU would've been the only way it didn't spark WWIII in the middle east. What a war that would've been.

Readers Comment Stan Brin commented on 2012-10-24 21:09:25 ~ Jackie -- My father was at the Ambassador Hotel, perhaps 50 feet away, when Sirhan Sirhan made his idiotic move. But he remained a liberal. He went crazy for the late George McGovern -- both were active in the slimey Henry Wallace campaign of 1948. That's never talked about in George's obits, neither are the criminal tricks he used to steal the 1972 nomination.

Readers Comment Jackie Rose commented on 2012-10-24 23:09:58 ~ Well, Stan, it made perfect sense to Sirhan. As he later explained, the night befoe he had heard a televised debate where Bobby had sworn to stand with Israel. His Democratic oppoenents said the same thing, but Sirhan knew that Bobby was the most likely to get elected and thus the biggest threat.

It is 2012, and although he lost the Presidential election, Mitt Romney did go on to be chosen as the winner of the Mr. America male beauty contest.

Mitt loses election but wins Mr. America crown"His good looks, charm, charisma, high spirits and great big smile made him the obvious winner," the pageant chairwoman said. "Those qualities all showed up in the debate, and they would have made him president...if it had not been for Obama's startling confession".

She was referring to Obama's actions after that first debate. He had gone through the country on a pilgrimage of penitence equalled only by King Henry II letting the monks flog him for killing Thomas a Becket. His low point came when he said that he was honored to be speaking in an arena where Stevie Wonder and Jon Bon Jovi had provided great performances...even though he himself had given such a bad one. He finally won the election by a narrow victory, after confessing that he had not been up to par during the debate because he had been up all night dealing with an international crisis...namely, the Battle of Armageddon, which was averted when Jesus finally agreed to give everyone another chance, because, as he put it, "Mr. Obama is such a good family man , as the Republicans like to say".. But, as the new Mr. America put it, he expected to be elected next time, when Obama was no longer eligible...and when he himself would have an even better hair style.

Entry posted by Guest Historian

Jackie Rose

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Politicians Source: Wikipedia Labels: Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, Presidency, Mr America, Election.

Readers Comment Jackie Rose commented on 2012-10-09 12:44:24 ~ The whole thing reminded me of Churchill's famous quote..."Democracy is the worst possible form government...except for all the others."

Readers Comment Kirk Edwards commented on 2012-10-09 14:26:41 ~ lol

Readers Comment Mark Taylor commented on 2012-10-09 15:17:20 ~ LOL.

Readers Comment Jeff Provine commented on 2012-10-09 17:42:15 ~ George Clooney.

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2012-10-09 18:38:27 ~ *Snerk*

In 1479, on this day future Queen Joanna of England was born in Toledo, Spain. She was the third child and second daughter of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon of the royal House of Trastámara.

Happy Endings Part 10
Many blessings of Joanna and ArthurBy the time she was of age to be married, the dynastic wars in England were over. To move the country forward in the face of renewed threats from France, King Henry VII decided to build upon the Tudor and Yorkish alliance. His primary aim was to prevent the French from supporting potential pretenders (most notably Perkin Warbeck) to the throne. And so he sought the support of Queen Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon ("Ferdinand the Catholic"). When his son Arthur was two years old, a marriage with their second youngest daughter, Catherine of Aragon was arranged for him as part of the Treaty of Medina del Campo.

Yet Isabella and Ferdinand were in no hurry to have their daughter married, and, although the treaty had been made, they were open to other options. Ferdinand was especially aware that Tudor rule was threatened and sent Pedro de Ayala as ambassador in Scotland, where Warbeck had found support. After Warbeck had been hanged and the Earl of Warwick, another potential threat, beheaded in 1499, the rule of Henry VII stabilised. The marriage to Prince Arthur could then proceed although these carefully laid plans were almost destroyed when the Prince of Wales almost perished from consumption. Fortunately, Joanna saved his life, and while their marriage was blessed with children, her younger sister Katherine was not so fortunate. She suffered from infertility and a tortured marriage. Her megalomaniac husband Philip the Handsome would dominate everyone on the continent reducing the power of Catholic England to a mere vassal state within a truly global Spanish Empire.
An article from the Happy Endings series conceived by Jackie Rose.

Entry posted by Todayinah Editor

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Happy Endings Source: Wikipedia Labels: Joanna, Arthur, Henry VIII, England, Spain.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, in reality her sister Katherine married Arthur and after his death, his brother Henry VIII. Joanna's marriage to Philip the Handsome initiated the rule of the Habsburgs in Spain. However, throughout her long reign, she was under the regency of her husband, father, inquisitor, or son and she was long confined to a nunnery for reasons of mental illness that are (according to Wikipedia) disputed.

Readers Comment Jeff Provine commented on 2012-07-13 15:46:59 ~ Spanish wars with the Dutch independence would still spark, leading up to an overall Protestant-Catholic war in Germany with Sweden backing the north. The Scots broke with the Papacy in 1560, just after the Thirty Years' War, but I wonder if it could've spilled into Britain as well.

Readers Comment Jackie Rose commented on 2012-07-13 23:19:57 ~ I think of her as the 15th Century version of Zelda Fitzgerald, who was also branded with insanity by the men in her life...in Juana's case, her, father, husband and son, all eager to seize her royal power. For me, the tipoff is that, once Juana had been confined in the nunnery, her own loyal servants were replaced by guess whose. The only bright spot is that she apparently lived pretty royally there. This whole issue was the subject of a well-known historical novel called "The Prisoner of Tordesillas." The reason I am thinking about this now is that I recently wrote an AH where Zelda gets her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald, sent to the asylum before he can do it to her, because I always like a happy ending.

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2012-07-22 18:29:00 ~ I think this should read "By the time she was of age to be married, the dynastic wars in England were over." 1479 was before Bosworth. Thanks - changed. Ed

In 1923, on this day the thirty-eighth President of the United States Robert P. ("Bob") Griffin was born in Detroit, Michigan.

Robert P. Griffin
38th US PresidentDuring the Second World War he enlisted in the 71st Infantry Division and spent fourteen months in Europe. After the war, he graduated from Central Michigan College (now Central Michigan University) at Mount Pleasant in 1947. He received a law degree from the University of Michigan Law School and was admitted to the bar in 1950. He commenced the practice of law in Traverse City.

Griffin was elected as a Republican to U.S. House of Representatives from the Michigan's 9th congressional district in 1956, unseating incumbent Ruth Thompson in the Republican primary. He served in the Eighty-fifth United States Congress and to the four succeeding Congresses, serving from January 3, 1957, until his resignation May 10, 1966. He was appointed by Governor George Romney on May 11, 1966, to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Patrick V. McNamara. He was elected November 8, 1966, to a full six-year term, defeating former Governor "Soapy" Williams.

Only two years later, he was the surprise third choice choice for Richard Nixon's running mate. The original candidates were Maryland governor Spiro T. Agnew and fellow Michiganer George Romney who were both forced to withdraw from the the due race for very different reasons. Griffin played almost no meaningful role in the White House until the Watergate Crisis engulfed the Nixon Administration.
This post is a variant ending to two posts Death of President George Romney and President George W. Romney, Reboot.

Entry posted by Todayinah Editor

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Politicians Source: Wikipedia Labels: Robert Griffin, Bob Griffin, George Romney, Richard Nixon, Presidency.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, in this post we repurpose content from Wikipedia and expore an idea on the Discussion Groups.

Readers Comment David Tenner commented on 2012-03-08 18:24:08 ~ Griffin is in many ways similar to Ford, both ideologically and in being from Michigan. But perhaps (assuming he beats Reagan in the primaries) he has a slightly better chance of winning the 1976 general election than Ford, since he is unlikely to prematurely liberate Poland...

Readers Comment Eric Lipps commented on 2012-03-08 23:43:14 ~ I'm not familiar with Griffin, but these alternate histories sure do illustrate how people most of us have never seriously considered for the presidency could have ended up in the office.

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2012-03-09 00:38:58 ~ Never heard of the guy, but he'd probably be less prone to shooting off his mouth than Agnew.

Google Discussion Group Comments Please click hyperlink for Google Groups Discussion comments.

In 2011, suddenly, and without any warning from the world's astronomers, four heavenly bodies converge into a shining new Star of Bethlehem which bathes in God's holy light the nuclear-armed Jericho missiles being readied for the cowardly destruction of Iran's atomic research facilities. And the unmistakeable sound of a trumpet is heard across the entire region by the millions who pray for peace in the Middle East.

Mullah-edThe God-fearing Israeli service men are shaken out of the destructive madness of their mission by these SIGNS. They CHOOSE to break themselves out of a senseless cycle of hatred, reprogramming the flight paths to the Old City of Jerusalem. Transformed into "Fishers of men", they replace the doomsday payloads with crates containing thousands of white doves that fill up the Autumn sky with joy and hope.

Sensing deliverance from God's divine intervention, Christians, Jews and Muslims embrace each other in holy dread. United together for the first time, they overthrow the regimes of the haters, the false prophets who plugged their ears while the world screamed in fear. Instead they CHOOSE to painfully set about building a new multi-faith nation of Canaan based upon the principle of brotherhood. And write a new constitution that forever enshrines the love of our common humanity, beginning with the deep truth that "Life is a beautiful poem written by the hand of God".

Entry posted by Todayinah Editor

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Politicians Source: Wikipedia Labels: Stirling Bridge, William Wallace, Andrew de Moray, Hugh de Cressingham, Scottish Rebellion.

Readers Comment Mike commented on 2011-11-06 04:03:23 ~ REMEMBER DEIR YASSIN

Readers Comment Steven Fisher commented on 2011-11-06 18:28:23 ~ What?

Readers Comment Jeff Provine commented on 2011-11-07 00:29:11 ~ Astrophysicists and astronomers worldwide would stare agog.

Readers Comment Stan Brin commented on 2011-11-07 00:54:26 ~ Mike - remember the Hadassah convoy massacre

Readers Comment Brian Wall commented on 2011-11-07 02:07:25 ~ So the idea is that the Israeli military sets the missiles on course towards Jerusalem? And then God magically turns the nuclear weapons into white doves? This is beyond ASB territory.

In 1962, on this day, former Vice President Richard M. Nixon won the gubernatorial race in his home state by the narrowest of margins (less than tenth of a percentage of the electorate) due to the unexpectedly poor voter turnout from Californian Democrats.

A Thousand Days
By Ed, Matt Dattilo, Scott Palter & Stan BrinHis losing opponent was the incumbent Governor, Pat Brown. During the campaign, certain discrediting facts had been leaked about a series of unreported felonies committed by men who were convicted murderers that Brown had seen fit to pardon. Also discredited in the eyes of Californian Democrats was Nixon's opponent in the 1960 Presidential Election. But in this case, the fall in popularity was due to actions committed by the opposite sex.

With the 1964 election on the horizon, the President visited California, but tragically, was assassinated in San Diego on 6th June 1963. Nixon revealed some of his frustration with the events of the previous three years by speaking some sharp words into a "hot mike". Having adressed the media and wrongly believing that the microphone was switched off, he added, "You won't have Jack Kennedy to kick around anymore because, gentlemen, this is his last press conference". continues in Part 2

Entry posted by Todayinah Editor

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Politicians Source: Wikipedia Labels: Richard Nixon, John F Kennedy, Pat Brown, California, San Diego.

Readers Comment John Braungart commented on 2011-10-17 20:22:36 ~ So what did Nixon know and when did he know it???? Lies about Pat Brown, truth about John F Kennedy, both of which he used in smear campaigns in 60 and 62, hence his absence from the 68 race

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2011-10-17 22:43:25 ~ A lot of those evil shenanigans were, I am told, pretty much SOP for politicians. Watergate grew so big partly because of Nixon's clumsy attempts at a cover-up, partly because the news media was manned top-to-bottom by people who instinctively disliked him the way Dracula does the True Cross, and partly because most people weren't aware of how things really worked, so reacted with shock and horror.

Readers Comment Eric Lipps commented on 2011-10-17 23:40:36 ~ Oh, please. Nixon as victim of the "liberal media" won't fly, not when in the 1972 election a poll of the American Society of Newspaper Editors revealed that *90 percent* of them favored Nixon over McGovern. Granted, JFK was no McGovern--but seriously, isn't it time Nixo admirers faced up to how deeply flawed their man was? Watergate grew so big because more ad more kept coming out about illegal activity by the President's men--but the media were, in fact, initially reluctant to cover the story. It was Nixon's own actios which convinced the press corp to pursue the matter, and Nixon's own actions, and those he tolerated or encouraged by subordinates, which did him in.

In 1861, on this day Howell Cobb was elected President of the Confederate States of America.

Howell Cobb Elected CSA PresidentA misspoken word about the wisdom of secession in a speech by former US Secretary of War Jefferson Davis turned sentiment against him and caused former US Secretary of the Treasury Howell Cobb to be elected to the presidency of the newly formed Confederate States of America. The past years had been full of strife for the nation: economic turmoil, cultural diversion, and, especially, the growing political sentiment among Northern states that slavery was an all-out evil. Fearing suppression by the election of the Republican Abraham Lincoln, the South moved to secede.

Native Georgian Howell Cobb had been a leader throughout his life. After a career as a lawyer, he moved onto politics, serving as Congressman from Georgia from 1843 to 1851, as well as a stint as Speaker of the House from '49 to '51. He moved into the executive branch, serving as governor of Georgia, before returning to Washington as Secretary of the Treasury. Cobb had long been a supporter of the right of slavery, campaigning for its allowance into any territory before becoming a strong adherent to the Compromise of 1850. In 1860, it became obvious that states' rights would lose against federal tyranny, and so Cobb gave up Unionism and campaigned for secession.

A new story by Jeff ProvineDavis, meanwhile, had been a soldier working his way through the ranks until being appointed as senator from Mississippi. A capable administrator, he moved forward as Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce. When the notion of secession arose, Davis fought against it, though he finally gave way when the majority ruled. Cobb, one of the greatest leaders of the movement, had served as president of the provisional Confederacy government, and Davis was given the official head of state soon after. With reiterated words from his warnings about secession, however, public opinion turned against Davis, and Cobb would be inaugurated February 22, 1862.

Cobb reportedly admired Davis's skills and affirmed his loyalty to the South, making him general-in-chief of the Southern armies. While Davis worked to defend the homeland, Cobb rallied his people and relied on his talents in diplomacy. Campaigns of "Let Us Go" circulated throughout the South and into the North (where they were attempted to be contained). Davis and Lee argued to be allowed to march north to scare the Yankees into peace, but Cobb refused, saying it would undermine their position as innocents. Instead, he reinforced defenses particularly in the west, giving way to the bloody victory at Vicksburg in 1863, taking some 50,000 Union troops captive and securing the Mississippi.

Cobb also worked to win international recognition, which he was able to gain from Napoleon III in France, exchanging support for Maximilian I in Mexico. In 1864, Lincoln would lose the election to General George B. McClellan, and the Democrat's peace platform would put into works the Treaty of Washington in 1866 that would end the War of Secession. While provisions would invite the Confederacy to rejoin the Union, or vice-versa, the two became politically disunited. Having successfully ended the war within his six-year term, Cobb retired, endorsing Lee in the election of 1867.

The two Americas would go separate ways with the North focusing on industrial growth while the South hoped for imperialism. Over the latter part of the nineteenth century, slavery would give way to fiscal sense of large-scale machine farming in an industrial economy. When France collapsed in 1870, the CSA pushed southward for new colonial influence, but the resulting wars would prove to dishearten and weaken the South. In the push for New Nationalism in the 1890s, fueled by newspapermen such as Hearst, a revolution rose up to rejoin the USA. In the Organic Act of 1899, the Confederacy (with the exception of the Republic of Texas) voted to return to citizenship under the US Constitution and officially ending slavery.

Entry posted by Guest Historian

Jeff Provine

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Jeff Provine Blog Source: Jeff Provine’s Blog Labels: Howell Cobb, Jefferson Davis, Confederacy, America, CSA.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, in reality Jefferson Davis won the election. Cobb went on to become a brigadier general in Northern Virginia, working his diplomacy to exchange prisoners. He later served as major general in Georgia and Florida, where he fought a desperate defense against Sherman until surrendering at Macon on April 16, 1865. After the war, Cobb worked until his death in 1868 to oppose Reconstruction.

Readers Comment Kirk Edwards commented on 2010-11-09 23:43:20 ~ Plausible twist.

Readers Comment Scott Palter commented on 2010-11-10 00:31:13 ~ Davis would have lost the war by 1862 - even as compared to Bragg he did not work well with others and high command in this era required people handling skills beyond those that Davis possessed. Better to make him General-in-chief of the Mississippi State Forces - a corps level command.

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2010-11-10 01:05:25 ~ There's no way in hell any United States government will ever allow anybody else to control one inch of the Mississippi-Missouri-Ohio rivers---we nearly went to war with Spain over that in the early 1800s, before the Louisiana Purchase.

Readers Comment Eric Lipps commented on 2010-11-11 00:19:45 ~ And as I understand it that was one sore point after the 1783 Treaty of Paris which ended the Revolution: Britain got to keep bases on the Mississippi, which allowed it to harass U.S. riverine shipping and arm the native tribes. More than likely, too, if Lincoln had lost in 1864 it wouldn't have taken until 1866 for a peace treaty to be signed.

In 1861, United States Senator Abraham Lincoln met in confidence with the general of the Illinois State Militia at Lincoln's home in Illinois' capitol, Springfield. The military man advised Lincoln that the State of Egypt (Illinois' neighbor to the immediate South) had preemptively mobilized to form a defensive force against possible aggressive action by Illinois' volunteer amateur soldiers.

A slaveowner's republicThe instigation behind the unprecedented action was the presidential election of 1860, which was being settled that day. Lincoln was the vice presidential running mate to Salmon P. Chase, and passed on to Chase news about slave power advocates readying themselves in Egypt for striking the first blow in a war for the creation of a slaveowner's republic.

A new story by Raymond SpeerEgypt was the northernmost of the Slave Border states, and brawls and riots over the legal status of Negroes were commonplace events there. In the previous decade, politics in Cairo had grown steadily more frothy with the approach of the War Over Slavery. And now Lincoln heard that an invasion of Egyptians was being planned. Supposedly, there was to be an invasion of Springfield with an aim to kidnap Abraham Lincoln and bring him into Egypt as a prisoner.

Lincoln several times said that he felt there was no substance to the speculation that he was planned as a target of violence. "I've been in Washington these last two years and know that the secessionists are not going to start bloodshed when they plan to avoid such trouble all together," said Lincoln. Even so, Lincoln consulted with his friends and they mobilized "Wide Awakes," volunteer marchers who planned to mount guard around Lincoln's House and stand discreetly alongside the Lincolns.

Late that evening, as the telegraph showed the Republicans (Chase and Lincoln) defeated the Democrats (Breckingridge and Seymour), there was a gunshot at the Lincoln's and a man who was a stranger to Lincoln was fatally wounded. That man, a military retiree named Grant, was accused of trying to barge into Lincoln's home at roughly ten PM that night, carrying a loaded revolver and smelling of the consumption of liquor. Whether or not ex-Captain Grant had been an emissary from Egypt has never been settled.

Before the time of the Chase and Lincoln inauguration came about in the following March, horse and foot soldiers of both Illinois and Egypt fought in confrontations that grew in size to the actions of battalions. On the advice of Pinkerton's security detectives, President-Elect Chase chose not to go to Washington but to take his oath of office in Philadelphia, PA, (A reluctant Lincoln obeyed his instructions from Chase, and also failed to show in Washington DC.) As an outcome of that security decision, the secessionist executive (Breckingridge, supplemented now by new VP Stephens) took up their offices in Washington DC and awaited a challenge from the legal government.

Entry posted by Guest Historian

Raymond Speer

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Politicians Source: Wikipedia Labels: Abraham Lincoln, 1860, Slavery, America, Presidency.

Comment from Tom Loy on Facebook: If Lincoln was cheated out of the Republican nomination in 1860 then that man would have inherited the Civil war. Sorry! That's what you get for cheating! The U.S would have been cheated out of being a union and divided in a least 2 different countries. We, the citizens would have been cheated out of a great president. Just as we were cheated out of a great president in 1964 when Barry Goldwater lost. Just my opinion.

Readers Comment Scott Palter commented on 2010-09-22 00:47:55 ~ Grant as a confederate / slavery die hard is absurd. He was quite agnostic on the issue.

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2010-09-22 03:54:28 ~ If the cheating was wide-open, there'd have been bloodshed on that issue alone. By 1860 the whole situation was becoming increasingly volatile, and open cheating on the Presidential election would have been like a fireworks display in an oil refinery.

Readers Comment Eric Lipps commented on 2010-09-22 12:45:24 ~ Ah . . . "Egypt"? I find that an unlikely name for a U.S. state, no matter what towns and cities might be called. And if President-elect Chase allowed himself to be intimidated out of taking the oath in Washington, his administration would never recover, and neither would his personal reputation--and the Confederacy would have won an important symbolic victory right at the start. Nor would Lincoln have had to be "cheated" out of the Republican nomination. His selection came as a surprise (shock, really) to many people, considering his previous obscurity. Re Scott Palter's remark: in this scenario, it isn't clear that Grant is a "Confederate/slavery diehard." His motivation for attempting to shoot VP-elect Lincoln remains obscure. (To me, anyway.)

Readers Comment Raymond Speer commented on 2010-09-22 20:47:49 ~ The alteration in history was the allocation of southern Illinois land into a Slave Border State named Egypt, whose capitol was Cairo (a town pronounced as Kay-row in our timeline). Eric Lipps is correct in assuming that US Grant is more likely to be a misunderstood stranger than a handy man for the Slave Power. The dominant feature of the Slave State feature about southern Illinois is that suspicions run rampant about down staters in residents of Free State Illinois and that brings about random silly violence, which in the alternative history foiled up the federal gov't's right to occupy from the first.

Readers Comment Jeff Provine commented on 2010-09-23 17:28:52 ~ A little of a Bloody Kansas, but farther east where it might've sparked something bigger and faster.

In 1995, on this day Times Books published "Dreams from My Grandmother: A Story of Race and Inheritance" by a little known but upcoming Kenyan Government Minister called Barack Hussein Obama II (pictured). The autobiography describes an unhappy, confused period of his life in the continental United States before the author returned to his father's home in Nyang'oma Kogelo, Siaya District and reconnected with his African identity.

The Barack Obama Story, Part 2 - Dreams from my GrandmotherFollowing an unremarkable record of educational achievement, he entered North America's premier professional men's basketball league where he signed for the Chicago Bulls.

His father had been shocked to discover him suffering a profound identity crisis, addressing himself by the anglicized name Barry.

Despite this sadness, the author described his profound sense of love for his white grandmother, Madelyn Payne Dunham (pictured in 1979).

The strength of his transracial family would ultimately power this African icon to the pinnacles of global leadership. Elected as Kenya's first dual heritage President in 2008, Obama would be uniquely qualified to serve as UN Secretary General, an appointment he received in 2015.

Entry posted by Todayinah Editor Watch the Video

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Obama Source: Wikipedia Labels: Barack Obama, Kenya, America, Chicago Bulls, Presidency.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, The death of Obama's grandmother the day before the election broke our hearts, so we wrote this story to celebrate a grandmother's unquestioning love for her grandson.

Readers Comment Gerry Shannon commented on 2008-11-04 18:15:32 ~ Fascinating! Hillary 08 in Obama's abscence then?

Readers Comment Chris Oakley commented on 2008-11-04 20:24:40 ~ Interesting, and rather timely.... :)

Readers Comment David Atwell commented on 2008-11-04 21:38:13 ~ As Chris says, very timely. Plus I too want to know, does this mean Hillary in 08?

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2008-11-05 10:31:24 ~ It'd be interesting to see how Obama would have done in Kenyan politics. I think his mixed-race ancestry would tell against him heavily---African politics are often tribal-based to an extent that Americans, particularly American blacks, just don't get.

Readers Comment Zach Timmons commented on 2008-11-05 13:01:34 ~ Good concept; I can see him becoming Secretary General in OTL after he finishes his term(s) in office.

Readers Comment Eric Lipps commented on 2008-11-06 22:00:06 ~ Ah, so this is Obama Part 2--I had thought the "parts" had to be in chronological sequence on the same timeline. Interesting. I'd been contemplating a version in which Obama was born in Hawaii, as he actually was--but a Hawaii which received its independence in 1946 just as the Philippines did in our history. In that case, he'd have been ineligible for the U.S. presidency, but might have risen to the heights in Hawaii instead.

In 1962, Richard Nixon won the governor's race in California against Democratic incumbent Edmond Brown.

Kicked to the KerbHe was reelected in 1966, and used the office for another unsuccessful run at the presidency in 1968. After the loss in '68, he remarked to reporters, "you won't have Nixon to kick around anymore".

He left public life after this and devoted himself to memoirs of his life as Vice-President and Governor.

Entry posted by Alternate Historian Robbie Taylor

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Politicians Source: Wikipedia Labels: Richard Nixon, California, Governor, Presidency, Vice President.

Michael McNeil commented on Facebook: Why, he might have been elected President in 1968!

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2012-08-08 09:50:35 ~ He might have been a good governor...but as unpopular as he was on the left side of the aisle, he'd have been a very polarizing figure during the upheavals of the 1960s. When did the FSM movement start?

Readers Comment Stan Brin commented on 2012-08-08 10:25:30 ~ The so-called "Free Speech Movement" (which was never about free speech) started in 1964. The reason those miserable bastards (radicals burned my dorm, with me in it, in 1967) were able to cause so much trouble in California was Reagan's habit of running against his own record. I personally believe that a competent governor would have clamped down on their habit of embezzling their way to power while I was a freshman. (Reagan, on the other hand, belonged in prison as an accessory.

Readers Comment Stan Brin commented on 2012-08-08 10:34:15 ~ Regarding Nixon against Pat Brown, I honestly don't think he stood a chance. He was too hated, for good reason. But as effective as he was as an administrator, Brown was much too weak on campus thugs, and opened the door to Reagan's effective attack ads.

Readers Comment Eric Lipps commented on 2012-08-08 11:50:34 ~ If Nixon had served as a "tough on radicals" California governor, he might have been able to win in '68 just as he did in our history, and perhaps by more than the narrow margin we saw. One of the weaknesses of his 1968 campaign was his loss in 1962, and the ill grace with which he took it. As for Reagan belonging in prison as an accessory, he belonged there anyway for his connections with the Mob during his Screen Actors Guld days--but Hollywood was so mobbed up in the fifties and sixties that pulling on that string might have brought the whole movie industry down.

Readers Comment Jeff Provine commented on 2012-08-08 14:00:53 ~ Interesting idea on a '60s Hollywood mob-hunt. It would be way messier than the Red Scare blacklisting days.

Readers Comment Stan Brin commented on 2012-08-08 19:48:50 ~ I attended AFI -- no one there ever mentioned the "mob" in Hollywood. The LA mob was a petty affair mostly involving gambling. Regarding "tough on radicals" -- enforcement the state non-profit corporations code would have easily landed most radicals I knew in prison. They were astonishingly greedy.

Winnipeg Blue	In 1971, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers were eliminated in the first round of the CFL playoffs for the fourth straight year as they lost 23-20 in overtime to the Medicine Hat Red Dragons, who were making only their third CFL Western Division postseason appearance in franchise history.

Bombers Logo

	On this day in 1941, Japanese resistance in Nemuro collapsed.

In 1977, Gov. James Earl Carter of Georgia was elected President of the Confederate States of America on the Democratic ticket, defeating the Confederate Party candidate, Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen. Under the Confederate Constitution, presidential elections are scheduled in what would be off-years in the United States.	CSA President

	Jimmy Carter

Jefferson Davis, for example, was elected in November 1861 after serving as 'provisional president' of the CSA. By tradition, the Confederate presidential election is held on Nov. 6, as the original had been, unless that date falls on a Sunday, in which case the vote occurs on the following Monday.

Confederate presidents serve six-year terms, and may not seek re-election; Carter, therefore, will serve from February 22, 1978, the date of his inauguration, until February 22, 1984.

Wildfire	On this day in 1982, Tommy Rich, now dubbing himself 'Psycho', appeared at his first WWF live card; he defeated Antiguan grappler S.D. 'Special Delivery' Jones on the undercard of a matinee at the Igloo in Pittsburgh.

Tommy Rich

In 1804, Congress meets to elect the President. The two main candidates are Vice-President Thomas Jefferson, who has been serving as acting President since Hamilton?s demise in July, and James Madison. Jefferson prevails, and Madison becomes vice-president. Jefferson will serve for more than twenty years, until his death on July 4, 1826.

	US Congress

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A Daily Updating Blog of Important Events In History That Never Occurred Today. Imagine what would be, if history had occurred a bit differently. Who says it didn't, somewhere? These fictional news items explore that possibility.

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Editor's Postbag | Feed

A Daily Updating Blog of Important Events In History That Never Occurred Today.
Imagine what would be, if history had occurred a bit differently. Who says it didn't, somewhere? These fictional news items explore that possibility.