Today In Alternate History

October 22

In 2010, due to unavoidable timetabling clashes with the filming of Sherlock, Martin Freeman advised director Peter Jackson that regrettably he would be unable to play Bilbo Baggins in the two-part "Lord of the Rings" prequel "The Hobbit".

Freeman Pulls Out of the HobbitJackson had been so desperate to cast Freeman that he had proposed suspending filming for over two months. But ultimately, Freeman realized that it was simply too much. And in fact, he had privately decided to build upon his success in films for Television.

A number of second choice actors now entered consideration, Toby McGuire, Daniel Radcliffe, Elijah Woods (who was already cast as a younger Frodo) and even Freeman's colleague from "The Office" Ricky Gervais.

Entry posted by Todayinah Editor

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Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: FanFic Source: Wikipedia Labels: The Hobbit, Martin Freeman, Peter Jackson, Daniel Radcliffe, Bilbo Baggins.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, in reality Freeman was initially unable to accept the role. However Jackson, because he was set on casting him as the role, reworked his entire shooting schedule to accommodate him.

Readers Comment Chris Oakley commented on 2012-12-23 02:52:39 ~ Ricky Gervais? LOL

Readers Comment Robbie Taylor commented on 2012-12-23 03:17:24 ~ Daniel Radcliffe! Harry Potter as Bilbo!

Readers Comment Mike McIlvain commented on 2012-12-23 03:59:31 ~ Everyone has a price. Could this be a move on the part of his agent for more money? McGuire and Radcliffe would probably be good in the role, however.

Readers Comment Sailorbarsoom commented on 2012-12-31 15:26:46 ~ I predict that in the 2030s, Daniel Radcliffe will be cast as James Bond.

Readers Comment Jeff Provine commented on 2013-01-01 18:07:45 ~ First misread as "Morgan Freeman." Now THERE's a hobbit to see. "When I was just a poor lad, livin' in the Shire..."

In 1836, on this day in the capital city of Harrisburg, forty-year old James ("Jim") Bowie of Logan County, Kentucky was inaugurated as the first president of the Republic of Texas.

Jim Bowie inaugurated President of TexasA legend even before the Texas Revolution, his unconventional personal history had been used by his political opponents as a weapon against his eligibility for high office. In particular, the controversy over the 1827 killing of the sheriff of Rapides Parish with sharp knife in the Sandbar Fight. However, investigations by the State of Louisiana revealed that Bowie was uninvolved.

He was also ininvolved in the relief of the Alamo, being confined to a cot while William Travis, Davy Crockett and Sam Houston died during the fierce fighting. Fortunately, he made a recovery to enter a new phase of his career in which he emerged as a thoughtful political figure. He surpassed expectations, proving to his doubters that he was a better living leader than dead hero.

In 1486, on this day the Battle of Bosworth Field was fought near Ambion Hill in Leicestershire.

Bosworth, 1486
Part 3 - The Fall of the Plantagenet DynastyThe usurper Henry Tudor had chosen to postpone his bid for power until the demise of Edward IV. This fateful postponement nearly backfired, because the young Edward V was given the opportunity to settle with his Uncle Richard who had entertained his own pretensions to the throne. And so instead of challenging a divided Plantagenet dynasty, he was confronted by the joint forces of both the monarch and also the Lord of the North. Nonetheless he prevailed, but there was a thorn in the rose of his glorious victory.

By the autumn of 1486, Richard had arranged marriages for the eldest of Edward IV's daughters and had also remarried himself. Although he was tragically killed at Bosworth Field before his heirs were born, a future succession plan was in place. Because his second wife returned to the continent to bear the twins, ensuring that the usurper Henry would have to face challenges from a multiplicity of alternative claimants. An installment of the Bosworth 1486 thread conceived by Jackie Speel.

Entry posted by Guest Historian

Jackie Speel

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Bosworth 1486 Source: Wikipedia Labels: Edward V, Richard III, Tudor, York, War of the Roses.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, [1] in our time, he died prematurely at the age of only thirteen.

Readers Comment Jackie Rose commented on 2012-10-04 02:03:47 ~ Good deal! Henry VII was a three-ply creep who kept the Duke of Clarence's son prisoner until he reached his majority, then tricked him into trying to escape and killed him...all because the boy had a claim to the throne. And let's not even TALK about Henry VIII!

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2012-10-04 02:34:42 ~ A lot of Henry Tudor's strength came from the fact that a lot of Richard's "supporters" had been subverted by the Woodville faction, who were VERY unhappy at being cut off from the trough. In this TL, without that factor in place, Tudor would either have had to bring much more support from France, or find something else to bring people over to his side.

Readers Comment Jeff Provine commented on 2012-10-04 17:56:12 ~ Would England ever have peace?

In 1942, James Blunt met H.V. Morton for the first time at Blunt's Surrey home; Blunt had initially been reluctant to agree to Morton's interview request but changed his mind after being persuaded Morton was genuinely interested in the story of the journal of Blunt's mirror universe counterpart.

Chance Encounter Part #2Over the course of the next two months Blunt and Morton would have dozens of additional interviews, the transcripts of which would form the basis of Morton's 1943 biographical work I, James Blunt. The book was an instant best-seller throughout the English-speaking world and won Britain's top literary honor in 1944; as Allied troops drove the Germans back across Europe following the D-Day invasion, Blunt would also become highly popular in France, Belgium, Greece, the Netherlands, and Italy.

In fact, by the time Blunt died in 1965 Morton's book would be translated into more than a hundred foreign languages; Morton would also act as co-writer of the script for MGM's 1948 film adaptation of Blunt. While an official German-language edition of the book wouldn't be available until 1990, bootleg translations of it were circulating in East Germany as early as 1959 and would become collector's items after the Berlin Wall fell.

In 1979, denying medical treatment to the dying Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi would have been fundamentally un-American as well as contrary to the revolutionary principles the country shared with the great nation of Iran, said President Paul Simon on this day.

American TuneAgonising foreign policy decisions which threatened to tear apart the finely knit fabric of American democracy were nothing new, in fact they had come along with frightening regularity every decade. But this choice was worst than most confronted by Samuel Adams' successors over the previous hundred years. Because the kleptocracy of the Shahanshah made the excesses of King George III look like very small change indeed. Only eight years before the King of Kings had spent the incredible sum of $100 million celebrating the twenty-five-hundredth anniversary of the House of Pahlavi.

At face value permitting the Shahanshah to check into the New York-Weill Cornell Medical Hospital was nothing other than a Christianly act. Other than the fact that the Pope had condemned the decision outright because he was terrified about the next move of the Ayatollah Khomeini who was even now creating a Vatican-like state in Qom at the behest of Iranian Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar. The President dismissed this Papal outburst, declaring that he would not let the American dream be driven to its knees by cynicism. "Still, tomorrow's gonna be another working day" he said, ending the press conference with his trademark republican flourish.
Listen to Paul Simon's American Tune

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Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Politicians Source: Wikipedia Labels: Paul Simon, Shah of Iran, America, Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini .

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2011-01-23 02:57:42 ~ So does the hostage crisis happen in this TL? Maybe Pres. Simon evacuates the US Embassy in Tehran before making his announcment.

Readers Comment John Braungart commented on 2011-01-23 11:45:58 ~ Sorry, wrong Paul Simon. I can't see this one as president at all.....

Readers Comment Eric Lipps commented on 2011-01-23 15:56:03 ~ Ditto. As far as I know, he never showed the slightest interest in electora office. What's the POD here? Key hint is "Sam Adams [as first president] and his successors"

Readers Comment Jeff Provine commented on 2011-01-23 16:38:41 ~ Fiery Sam Adams as president... We'd probably have civil war a fair bit earlier.

Readers Comment Eric Lipps commented on 2011-01-24 00:18:23 ~ I still don't see *this* Paul Simon (assuming he were ever born in a TL diverging in the eighteenth century) getting into politics. And what happened to a certain George Washington? Or, for that matter, to Sam adams's cousin John?

Readers Comment Robbie Taylor commented on 2011-01-30 15:35:25 ~ Paul Simon not interested in politics? Have any of you ever listened to his songs? If Sonny Bono could become a Congressman, Simon could be president.

By 1633, China faced a great time of turmoil in the twilight of the Ming dynasty. Europeans from the West encroached on imperial power while war with Manchuria emptied the coffers and piracy limited trade that would produce tax-income. If Emperor Chongzhen (pictured) were going to win the war in the north, he needed to secure the seas to the south.

Hans Putmans Rethinks His Strategy In 1628, the pirate Zheng Zhilong, leader and founder of the Shibazhi, a powerful organization of eighteen pirates, defeated the Ming fleet. Zheng had undergone an impressive life: he studied business in Macau at 18, was baptized into Catholicism, translated among the Dutch, worked under famed pirate Li Dan ("Captain China"), inherited the pirate's empire, and grew it to an even more impressive stance.

A new story by Jeff ProvineUpon his display of mastery of the seas, rather than fight continual losing wars against him, the Emperor took Zheng on as a major general. In 1633, Chongzhen promoted him to Admiral of the Coastal Seas and charged him with establishing seas free from piracy.

This event would be a boon for Chinese business, but the monopoly would challenge the lucrative Dutch control of trade with Japan. Hans Putmans, governor of Formosa (Taiwan), decided to end the Emperor's action before it could be started and launched a sneak attack on Zheng's fleet in harbor. On July 7, 1633, he destroyed much of the fleet.

Zheng reacted with a cunning plan to rebuild his fleet: use locals. He set up recruitment with two pieces of silver for each man volunteering for service, five if the battles with the pirates and Dutch went long. Though not expert sailors, they were organized into 16-man fire-boats that were easily maneuverable and sailed. For each Dutch ship destroyed, the boat would be given a bounty of 200 silver pieces. Each Dutch head brought in would be traded for 50 silver pieces.

With more than one hundred fire-boats on the prowl, Putmans and his pirate allies faced gradual attrition over the summer and into fall. By October 22, Putmans' fleet of twenty warships had been dwindled to nine. When he and his fleet spotted the Chinese warships approaching, Putmans made the split decision to retreat to the safety and regroup. While he might have won the battle, the war was against his favor.

Instead, Putmans decided to fight fire with fire: this was to be an economic war. He took on volunteers at three silver pieces each and promised bounties half-again as much for destroyed Chinese ships and heads of Chinese crew. Through the rest of fall, the south sea turned into a bloodbath, attracting pirates from as far away as Arabia. The Dutch East India Company questioned Putmans' wild expenses, but the governor assured stockholders that the small debt would be a valuable investment. By the time shipping slowed for winter, the war had become a stalemate.

Putmans and Zheng both rebuilt their fleets and launched into one another early in 1634. While the Chinese had English-made cannon, the Dutch ships had been able to produce more firepower from their Formosan smiths. On April 2, 1634, the fleets met in a decisive battle that ended with the capture of Zheng. Rather than execute the enemy, Putmans offered to hire Zheng away. Zheng said that he would only join the Dutch if given an exorbitant ten million pieces of silver, but Putmans surprised him by agreeing. The Company balked, but Putmans silenced them with promise to pay out of his own earnings in addition to yearly installments.

Zheng came to dominate trade while Putmans worked to develop Formosa, building plantations and settlements. He set up a "blood tax", forcing natives to give up children as slaves, which produced profitable cheap labor for the Company. In 1644, the Ming Dynasty fell to the uprising of Li Zicheng, and Putmans made his move. Using Zheng's connections, the two masterminded a Dutch invasion of the south of China, establishing a huge new sphere of influence. Zheng was made the governor of the land, becoming almost a king as he worked to improve profits for the Company.

The Dutch came to control the Far East, while the French and, especially, English attempted to challenge their power, but fast alliances with Zheng and his legacy of pirates made the Dutch all but invincible there. Over the next century, great wealth poured into the Netherlands from the East, which they in turn invested back into imperial growth. Despite attempts to keep the locals under thumb, Japan would eventually come to their own industrial revolution and challenge Dutch authority in the Dutch-Japanese War through the 1930s. The carefully cultivated resources came under Japanese control, though fleetingly as their choice of allying with Hitler's Axis would end in surrender under atomic barrage.

Entry posted by Guest Historian

Jeff Provine

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Jeff Provine Blog Source: Jeff Provine’s Blog Labels: China, Hans Putmans, Ming, Chongzhen, Chinese.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, in reality Putmans' fleet met with that of Zheng Zhilong and was destroyed. Zheng ordered his crews to focus on the more threatening Dutch ships and, once those were defeated, to mop up the rest of the pirate menace. Three Dutch ships were lost, forcing Putmans to retreat and surrender the strait to Chinese control. He continued his governorship of Formosa, developing the island at the cost of native lives. Zheng, meanwhile, gained enormous wealth from his victory and would gain further wealth by switching allegiances to the Manchu in 1646. He would later be executed by the Qing.

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2010-10-24 01:09:28 ~ A Dutch Formosa would have been an interesting place in a lot of ways. I still regret that I didn't make time to see the old "Hong Mao" (Dutch) fort when I was there.

In 2001, in order to prevent a Zombie invasion of the safety area west of the Prairies, the United States Military were forced to plan for the detonation of Hydrogen bombs in a territory they had never before considered as a potential target: the dense population centres of the Eastern Seaboard.

Operation American Freedom by Ed, Eric Lipps, Steve Schaper & Christopher FinkleUS President George W. Bush justified the action, characteristically using broadly sweeping terms for liberty and freedom; he also paid tribute to the ruthless decisiveness of these military planners ~

"My administration has a job to do and we're going to do it. We will rid the world of the evil-doers. A great people has been moved to defend a great nation. Today, our nation sees evil, the very worst of human nature. Our nation, this generation, will lift the dark threat of violence from our people and our future. We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter and we will not fail.

And we respond with the best of America - with the daring of our armed forces, with the caring for strangers and neighbors who came to give blood and help in any way they could".

The consequences of the ill-planned decision were of course nothing short of catastrophic. Fallout from the hydrogen bombs is sucked into the winds of a mega-hurricane along the coast of Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas. The megahurricane then moves south, raining on the gulf, the midatlantic, and the Caribbean, polluting all of them with lethal radiation...

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Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Beasts Source: Wikipedia Labels: Zombies, War on Terror, America, Operation Enduring Freedom, George W. Bush.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, we are grateful to Eric Lipps, Steve Schaper and Christopher Finkle for this contributions to the development of this story.

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2009-10-20 06:34:35 ~ Even granting the existence of zombies, this is impossible. I don't think a bomb could be built that would affect the weather---if the Soviet Tsar Bomb couldn't do it, I don't think it can be done. Also, A-bombing would be rather useless against zombies.

Readers Comment Chris Oakley commented on 2009-10-20 15:42:52 ~ Don't be so sure...

Readers Comment Eric Lipps commented on 2009-10-20 16:08:14 ~ "A" bomb, perhaps not--though there's no theoretical limit to the megatonnage of an H-bomb). But a huge barrage of bombs, yes--though a "megahurricane" is less likely than some measure of climatic cooling. Changes made. Thanks - Ed.

In 1979, on this day movie director Michael Cimino (pictured) filed a breach-of-contract suit against United Artists after UA decided to withhold part of his promised $500,000 salary for making the never-completed Western saga Heaven's Gate. Shooting on the troubled film had been terminated a month earlier due to cost overruns and seemingly endless production delays; the salary withholding decision was made in an effort to recoup some of UA's losses on the movie.

Heaven's Gate by Chris OakleyThe lengthy fight between Cimino and United Artists derailed Cimino's once-promising filmmaking career; by the time the parties finally settled out of court in 1983, Cimino had become an industry joke, his name synonymous with high profile failure and the acclaim received by his debut movie The Deer Hunter all but forgotten. His lone post-Gate filmmaking venture, the 1987 gangland drama Year of the Dragon, was a box office disaster that effectively killed what was left of his professional reputation.

Ironically UA, who some movie industry analysts had feared might go bankrupt as a result of the Gate fiasco, emerged from the ordeal stronger than ever-- by 1984 the studio was riding a new wave of success thanks to Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator franchise and prestige projects like the Tom Hanks World War II drama Saving Corporal Ryan. In 1993 UA formed a distribution and production partnership with MGM that reaped huge dividends for both companies.

By 2008 UA and MGM were tied for second on the list of the ten most profitable entertainment companies in America.

The Gate fiasco and its aftermath would be chronicled at length in former UA executive Steven Bach's tell-all book Final Cut: Dreams and Disaster In The Making Of Heaven's Gate.

Entry posted by Guest Historian

Chris Oakley

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Cimino Source: Wikipedia Labels: Michael Cimino, United Artists, Holywood, Deerhunter, Movies.

Readers Comment David Atwell commented on 2009-08-18 02:59:05 ~ Hey I liked Year of the Dragon!

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2009-08-18 06:11:00 ~ Sooner or later, there'd have been a disaster that did to the industry what Heaven's Gate actually did do.

Readers Comment Chris Oakley commented on 2009-08-18 14:20:27 ~ Eric-- Maybe there would and maybe there wouldn't, but at least UA wouldn't have been among the casualties. David-- No disrepect intended, but your taste in cinema is questionable at best if you like 'Year of the Dragon'. ;)

Readers Comment Eric Lipps commented on 2009-08-18 16:26:39 ~ One fewer contender for the Golden Turkey Awards.

	In 2007, given the surprising box office success of The Seinfeld Movie, comedian Jerry Seinfeld finally ends months of speculation by announcing the development of The Seinfeld Sequel. However, beyond a pitch to Dreamworks Studio, the project is put on hold until after the resolution of the 2007-08 Writer's Guild Strike that engulfs Hollywood.

Seinfeld

Variant entry posted by Guest Historian

Gerry Shannon

original content has been repurposed to celebrate the author's genius © Gerry Shannon, 2008-.
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Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Seinfeld Source: Wikipedia Labels: Seinfeld, Bob Oreilly, Mark Kermode, Cosmo Kramer, The Michael Richards Show.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, In this scenario, the actual Writer's Strike temporarily prevents the fictional sequel to the equally fictional Seinfeld feature film spin-off.

	On this day in 2010, Russian leader Dmitri Medvedev condemned the McCain Administration's stance on Guyana.

Dmitry Medvedev

On this day in 1972, the Dallas Cowboys snapped their four-game losing streak with a 24-20 comeback victory over the Washington Redskins.

US President	On this day in 1962, President John F. Kennedy made his first televised address on the situation in Cuba. In his speech, he stated point-blank that any Soviet attempt to land troops in southern Florida would be considered an act of war by the United States and answered accordingly; the same policy would also apply to Soviet missile activity on Cuban soil.

John F. Kennedy

In 1979, Shah Reza Pahlevi arrives in New York City accompanied by an entourage and presenting himself as if he were still a head of state. Senator Edward Kennedy issues a statement repeating his opposition to the Rockefeller administration's decision to allow the Shah into the U.S. Kennedy warns that this action risks signaling to Tehran that Washington still considers Pahlevi the legitimate ruler of Iran. The Senator's statement is immediately attacked by administration spokesmen and conservative political pundits.

In 1979, the United States refused entrance to the former Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. Even though many in Congress growled that the Shah had been an ally of good standing, President Carter felt that allowing him entrance might endanger Americans in Iran. He proved right; when Canada allowed him to receive medical treatment there, Iranian students stormed the Canadian embassy and took it hostage for almost a month before negotiations allowed Canada to extract all its people.

In 1964, the rock band High Numbers won a record deal with EMI after a blistering audition. Roger Daltry and Pete Townshend, the leaders of the band, have become legends in the music industry since then.

In 1937, King Edward VII of Great Britain meets with German Underground leader Adolf Hitler and pledges his nation's support against the Greater Zionist Resistance. It is the first national alliance that Hitler and his time-traveling neo-Nazi allies are able to secure, and it brings in many others who had been waiting for another nation to take the first step.

In 1887, Comrade John Reed, journalist and politician, is born in Portland, Oregon. Although his family was filled with reactionaries, Reed embraced the Marxist-Thoreauvian mindset of the 19th century and was soon a powerful figure in national politics. He was the Communist candidate for President in 1912, losing out to Socialist Woodrow Wilson.

In 1797, Andres-Jacques Garnerin made the first recorded parachute jump from a height of 3000 feet. The first successful parachute jump, unfortunately for Monsieur Garnerin, was still some months away.

In 4004, BC God said, Let there be light! at 8 P.M. He's had a few troubles with the whole creation thing ever since�

Jousting	In 2007, federal legislators promised to review health and safety regulations in Equestrianism following another jousting fatality. A man died in a freak accident at a jousting tournament on Monday. The unnamed man died after a splinter of wood from a lance flew through the slit of his helmet and penetrated his eye. He died after a week in hospital. The accident occurred in September but the man's death has only just been made public. 'We have been shocked and deeply saddened by this tragic accident,' a United States Department of Agriculture spokeswoman said. 'The professional event has an excellent safety record and took all the appropriate and necessary precautions and it does sadly appear this was a tragic freak accident.'

Fatality


The United States Department of Agriculture perform routine inspections of horse shows including jousting events, but safety concerns are difficult to eliminate in this controversial high contact sport.

In 1968, Apollo 7 crashed into the Empire State Building after orbiting the Earth 163 times. Three thousand New Yorkers were killed by the impact. Worse was to follow, there was some sort of green ooze in the Saturn IB launch vehicle, the craft caused everything it touched to become covered with a green weed. The incredible story of how the Atlantic Plague Centre quarantined the green weed to the island of Manhattan was recounted by the journalise Stephen King in his master piece The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verill.

In 1972, on this day in Saigon, Henry Kissinger and Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem and his younger brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu met to discuss a proposed cease-fire that had been worked out between Americans and North Vietnamese in Paris. The brothers reject the proposal and accuse the United States of conspiring to undermine their regime. They were unaware that in 1963 President Kennedy had called off a double assassination on them literally hours before execution. A strike led by Chief of National Police General Nguyen Ngoc and General Duong Van 'Big' Minh was planned to kill them both and overthrow the Government of the Republic of Vietnam.

In 1953, after the Qibya operation, Unit 101 Commander Ariel Sharon was summoned to see Israel Prime Minister Ben-Gurion for a reprimand. Right from the start Ben-Gurion said to Sharon: 'Let me first tell you one thing: it matters what the world says about Israel. We have to co-exist [with the Arabs] here on the land of our forefathers. And unless we show the world we are not the aggressors, we won't survive.'

October 21

In 2012, on this day the ninety year old former South Dakota Senator "Red" George McGovern died in a Sioux Falls hospice.

Passing of Red George
By Ed & Stan BrinA renowned debater that struggled to project a natural aura of charismatic leadership in less structured settings, he was elected to U.S. Senate on his second attempt in 1962. Ten years later, he ran for President.

Even if a Republican Victory in 1972 was a near certainty, then the Democrat candidate selection was the dogfight that the general election was not expected to be. Matters became even more complicated when Democrats sued McGovern over the California delegation fiasco and had his nomination overturned in the courts. He was subsequently arrested for violating the 1965 Voting Rights Act. As a result, Hubert Humphrey was nominated by the Democratic National Committee to almost universal surprise, he won.

Nevertheless, McGovern made determined attempts to rehabilitate his tarnished reputation. As a private individual, he publicized the problem of hunger within the United States. Of course his harshest critics saw this as a further indication of his Bolshevism.

Entry posted by Guest Historian

Stan Brin

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Politicians Source: Wikipedia Labels: George McGovern, Watergate, Seventies, Presidency, America.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, in this post we re-examine related posts on this site and also repurpose content from Wikipedia based upon the real-life experiences of Stan Brin.

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2012-10-28 05:49:31 ~ I'd think that with full-scale civil war among the Democrats, Nixon wouldn't even need to campaign. Of course, to a lot of people older than I am, Nixon is and always will be the Antichrist's black-sheep brother. *Siiiigggghhhh*

Readers Comment Stan Brin commented on 2012-10-28 06:37:46 ~ The real anti-Christ being Red George. Without narcissistic bastards like Mcgovern, Nixon wouldn't have been elected in 1968. It should be remembered that McGovern never intended to win in November. His views were too extreme and everyone in his campaign knew it. Their primary, and egotistical goal, was to make sure that no one else could win. (I was a member of the California delegation in 72, but my seat was stolen when McGovern resurrected the Winner Take All rule -- after the fact. That convention would be a fantastic movie or documentary, but it will never be made, alas.)

Readers Comment John Braungart commented on 2012-10-28 11:17:06 ~ Eric - I agree. Nixon COULD have been a great president but for his distrust of virtually everybody in the world. If he had been more open and honest, with no "enemies list" or secret dirty tricks, he would have served out his trems and been fondly remembered today. But such a personality transplant is like wondering what the world would have been like if Hitlet had joined the monestary instead of trying to get into Art School.....

Readers Comment Jackie Rose commented on 2012-10-28 13:26:13 ~ Guys, we are forgetting the way that liberals hated him because he had defeated Helen Gahagan Douglas for Congress with a red-baiting campaign against her.

Readers Comment Eric Lipps commented on 2012-10-29 23:51:51 ~ The real "California delegation fiasco" was that a whiny Hubert Humphrey demanded that the rules be changed post facto to give him a share of the delegates after he lost in that state, even though he had bveen perfectly aware of the state's winner-take-all rule and had confidently expected it to work in his favor. Mr. Brin has his facts exactly backward; rather than "resurrecting" the wiunner-take-all rule, McGovern successfully resisted Humphrey's effort to have it changed after the fact. Which timeline did you say you were from, Stan?

Readers Comment Stan Brin commented on 2012-10-30 04:34:22 ~ Eric -- Red George controlled the rules committee and packed it with his supporters. They banned winner-take-all (the only post-1968 "reform" I agreed with). Because it was banned, the California legislature hadn't formally changed California law, but as the national party controlled its own credentials, this was not considered necessary. When it appeared that McGovern would actually achieve a plurality, the state law was resurrected, 37 percent becoming the McGovernite version of popular will. In Miami, McGovern's captive credentials committee threw out every delegation that failed to elect a 50/50 male to female ratio -- but allowed Red George to keep 100 percent of California's delegates. McGovern did NOT "successfully resist" the efforts of the other candidates -- he owned the credentials committee. Its members wore his badges and took his orders. Naturally, the other candidates cried foul and refused to support him. And naturally after the November disaster, the caucus rules were eliminated. And Eric, I am very familiar with leftist rewrites of history, having witnessed or covered a number of historical events that did not in the slightest way resemble the ravings of angry militants. One event, the Merced Hall firebomb, has been declared never to have happened at all. McGovern belonged in prison for what he did during that campaign.

In 2012, on this day the thirty-eighth President of the United States George Stanley McGovern died in Sioux Falls, South Dakota aged ninety.

Death of Former President McGovern
Icon of modern American liberalismMcGovern grew up in Mitchell, South Dakota, where he was a renowned debater. He volunteered for the U.S. Army Air Forces upon the country's entry into World War II and as a B-24 Liberator pilot flew 35 missions over German-occupied Europe. Among the medals awarded him was a Distinguished Flying Cross for making a hazardous emergency landing of his damaged plane and saving his crew. After the war he gained degrees from Dakota Wesleyan University and Northwestern University, culminating in a Ph.D., and was a history professor. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1956 and re-elected in 1958. After a failed bid for the U.S. Senate in 1960, he was elected there in 1962.

As a senator, McGovern was an exemplar of modern American liberalism. He became most known for his outspoken opposition to the growing U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. He staged a brief nomination run in the 1968 presidential election as a stand-in for the assassinated Robert F. Kennedy. The subsequent McGovern-Fraser Commission fundamentally altered the Democratic presidential nominating process, by greatly increasing the number of caucuses and primaries and reducing the influence of party insiders. The McGovern-Hatfield Amendment sought to end the Vietnam War by legislative means but was defeated in 1970 and 1971.

McGovern's long-shot, grassroots-based 1972 presidential campaign found triumph due to two totally unrelated events. Firstly, the deft selection of Walter Cronkite as running mate. Secondly, the shocking exposure of a wire-tapping operation in the DNC Headquarters in the Watergate Hotel. Ironically, McGovern who had been defeated as a stand-in candidate, now defeated an RNC stand-in candidate when the discredited Richard Nixon was forced out of the race.

"Mr President, the fires you lit then still burn in countless hearts" - campaign worker Bill ClintonHe will be long respected (if grudgingly honoured) for having the moral courage to grasp the nettle by bringing the Vietnam Tragedy to a messy and dishonorable ending that was perhaps the inevitable outcome of his predecessor's policies. But less fortunately for McGovern, too much time had been lost and 1968 would have been a far better year for his election than 1972 because there were very Democrat centrists on the Hill, and he struggled to implement his legislative agenda. And so a third event precipitated his downfall - the re-emergence of the GOP under the reinvigorated leadership of the hugely popular Governor of California Ronald Reagan. With the mood of the country turning sour, he offered a compelling "change of direction appeal" in the face of a dysfunctional Democratic party.

After his one-term Presidency, McGovern pursued a rewarding career over twenty-five years. He publicized the problem of hunger within the United States and issued the "McGovern Report" that led to a new set of nutritional guidelines for Americans. McGovern later served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture from 1998-2001 and was appointed the first UN Global Ambassador on World Hunger by the World Food Programme in 2001. The McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program has provided school meals for millions of children in dozens of countries since 2000 and resulted in McGovern being named World Food Prize co-laureate in 2008.

Entry posted by Todayinah Editor

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Politicians Source: Wikipedia Labels: George McGovern, Watergate, Seventies, Presidency, America.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, in this post we re-examine related posts on this site and also repurpose content from Wikipedia.

Readers Comment Mike McIlvain commented on 2012-10-21 17:58:27 ~ One could rewrite the history of the Vietnam War -- shorter U.S. involvement -- and possibly see some strengthening of first amendment rights with Uncle Walter as VP. Cronkite could have eventually become president? That possibility opens other pipe dreams up.

Readers Comment Jackie Rose commented on 2012-10-21 18:01:25 ~ This is a very touching tribute and I am glad you made it for us.

Readers Comment Stan Brin commented on 2012-10-21 20:46:24 ~ Never. McGovern belonged in prison. I was a delegate to the 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami, but my seat was stolen by the McGovernites. (The Bolshevist trickery the McGovernists used to steal that nomination was described in detail at the time, but has since been written out of history.) By the time the convention was over, most Democrats hated Red George so utterly that Nixon could have been a bank robber and he would have won.

Readers Comment Scott Palter commented on 2012-10-21 21:54:41 ~ @ Stan - what state? That said I agree with you. The road to McGovern as President is Nixon dieing in office and then the Agnew kickback scandal breaking in September of 1972.

Readers Comment Eric Lipps commented on 2012-10-21 23:20:04 ~ Come on, Stan. "Bolshevist trickery"? The reality is that there were perfectly legitimate challenges to the seating of, in particular, Richard Daley's hand-picked delegation, resultuing in the seating of other delegates who (unlike Daley's) weren't in the bag for Hubert Humphrey. McGovern's side won out, again p[erfectly legitimately, under rules both sides had agreed to. Humphrey's the one who tried to change the rules after the fact, whining about California's winner-take-all primary after he lost. As for "most Democrats" hating McGovern by the time the convention was over, again, not so. (Unless, of course, one redefines "Democrats" to mean only the partyy's more conservative members.) What most Democrats (including myself) felt was a sense of impending doom after the Eagleton debacle--which was less McGoivern's fault than Eagleton's, since McGovern had asked him directly whether there was anything in his past which might be a problem and Eagleton had said no. McGovern's only mistake was in taking his fellow senator at his word in this matter.

Readers Comment Scott Palter commented on 2012-10-21 23:39:23 ~ McGovern's mistake was making a major decision dead on his feet after the credentials fights with no prior staff vetting.

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2012-10-22 01:16:04 ~ Exposing "Watergate" earlier might have led to the exposure of the fact that what the evil RNC and CREEP had done was, and had been for decades, SOP in DC. And that might have knocked the halos of St. JFK and St. RFK askew, or at least taken some of the shine off them. And we can't have THAT, now can we? *sarcasm*

Readers Comment Jackie Rose commented on 2012-10-22 01:58:27 ~ Eric, those haloes remained intact in 1972. RFK had been killed only four years earlier, remember.

Readers Comment Mark Taylor commented on 2012-10-23 17:18:58 ~ Would've been total disaster as President,even more then as candidate-a post he'd never have got with a national primary.

Readers Comment Jeff Provine commented on 2012-10-23 19:27:02 ~ Without Nixon to normalize relations with China, there'd be a lot of economic shift in this TL. It might still be more of a regional power than a world one.

In 1097, on this day the Crusader Army began the eight month siege of Antioch that was finally relieved by a Muslim army from Mosul under the command of Kerbogha.

Allah Willis IT!Although a huge force of over one hundred thousand men had departed from Catholic Europe, the Crusader Army had been greatly weakened by attacks from two Muslim armies. And Antioch was so large that the crusaders did not have enough troops to fully surround it, and as a result it was able to stay partially supplied.

The crusaders knew they would have to take the city before Kerbogha arrived if they had any chance of survival. Bohemund secretly established contact with Firouz, an Armenian guard who controlled the Tower of the Two Sisters but had a grudge with Yaghi-Siyan, and bribed him to open the gates. He then approached the other crusaders and offered to let them in, through Firouz, if they would agree to let him have the city. Raymond was furious and argued that the city should be handed over to Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, as they had agreed when they left Constantinople in 1097. They were still arguing when Kerbogha arrived.

Although the defeat at Antioch was a military setback for the Crusaders, their retreating troops were reinforced by a Byzantine Army. And their subsequent success upheld the overarching principle of the First Crusade, to save the Byzantine Empire which could have been easily undermined by the establishment of Frankish States as secretly desired by Godfrey, Tancred, Robert, and the other leaders.

Entry posted by Todayinah Editor

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Generals Source: Wikipedia Labels: Crusade, Antioch, Allah, Religion, Holy Land.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, in reality [reports Wikipedia] the crusaders knew they would have to take the city before Kerbogha arrived if they had any chance of survival. Bohemund secretly established contact with Firouz, an Armenian guard who controlled the Tower of the Two Sisters but had a grudge with Yaghi-Siyan, and bribed him to open the gates. He then approached the other crusaders and offered to let them in, through Firouz, if they would agree to let him have the city. Raymond was furious and argued that the city should be handed over to Alexios, as they had agreed when they left Constantinople in 1097, but Godfrey, Tancred, Robert, and the other leaders, faced with a desperate situation, gave in to his demands. Please note that we have re-purposed ideas from both Wikipedia and the September 2012 Edition of History Today Magazine.

In 1904, enroute to the Far East the Russian Baltic Fleet mistook British trawlers at Dogger Bank for an Imperial Japanese Navy force. In the confusion they opened fire killing three British fishermen and also a Russian Sailor and Priest. Within weeks, this incident had created further confusion and tragedy by escalating into a general European conflict.

Dogger Bank Incident leads to WarThe Central Powers had been drifting towards war with France and Russia ever since the Imperial Government of Kaiser Friedrich had offered Great Britain an alliance in return for a Naval Treaty. And intervention in the Russo-Japanese War presented an unmissable opportunity to strike at a moment when the Dual Entente Powers were particularly weak. At least, that was the considered view of Tirpitz and the Younger Bismarch rather than their seventeen year old monarch. He had ascended to the throne in November 1899 under circumstances which would have been considered bizarre had they not involved his erratic father Wilhem II.

In November 1899 Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show had visited Berlin. One of the star's was Annie Oakley who, as part of her act, would shoot the ash off the end of a cigar. The usual routine was for to ask for a volunteer from the audience (as a joke). When nobody would take up the offer her husband (Francis Butler) would then step forwards and do the honours. However, on this occassion the Kaiser stood up and vaulted out of the royal box. Before anybody could stop him he'd taken a cigar out of his gold cigar case, lit it up, and offered himself as the "volunteer". Annie Oakley took careful aim with her Colt .45, wished she had not drunk her usual amount of whiskey before the show, pulled the trigger and blew his head off.
This post is a reboot of Richard Roper's article Russo-Japanese War - The Dogger Bank Incident Goes Wrong, The Great War Of 1904.

Entry posted by Todayinah Editor

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Generals Source: Wikipedia Labels: Russia, Britain, Dogger Bank, World War 1, First World War.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, in reality the incident almost led to war between Britain and Russia, but it was diplomatically defused. In 1916 Annie Oakley wrote to Kaiser Wilhem II offering to take a second shot, but he declined to reply to her letter. Please note that we have repurposed content from the Warships discussion group.

Readers Comment Scott Palter commented on 2012-02-24 09:22:52 ~ Silly part was beyond Willie II's psycho-fixation on his British cousins Germany simply did not need a huge battlefleet. As long as they had enough of a fleet to beat the Russians in the Baltic plus some extras for the usual foreign stations a battlefleet was a waste as the British would simply match them more than ship for ship.

Readers Comment Jeff Provine commented on 2012-02-27 15:00:45 ~ Very solid What If. I'd imagine the British would want to work their blockade and pick up colonies wherever possible (though there will probably be a good deal of war weariness left over from the Boers). Germany, meanwhile, will make a mess of the Continent.

Readers Comment Eric Lipps commented on 2012-03-21 10:57:58 ~ Re Scott Palter: Germany's best bet in naval terms was submarine warfare, which in our history the British decried as "barbaric" because (1) it seriously oimpacted their shipping, out of psychological factors as much as anythng else, and (2) the Germans were better at it than Britain was.

Readers Comment Brian Wall commented on 2012-03-21 14:03:54 ~ If I remember correctly, there was an episode of the early 1980s TV 'Voyagers', were in order to fix history and avoid the Russo-British War, the Voyagers had to make sure that the visit of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in Europe went off without a hitch.

In 1422, upon the death of Charles le Bien-Aimé and in accordance with the Treaty of Troyes, the English monarch Henry of Monmouth inherited the throne of France, a defeated nation he had recently conquered with his spectacular victories at Dreux/Chartres and Meaux.

Treaty of Troyes
Henry of Monmouth becomes the first Dual King of England and FranceThe Treaty had arranged for the marriage of Charles VI's daughter Catherine to Henry V of England, who was made regent of France and acknowledged (along with his future sons) as successor to the French throne and the Dauphin Charles was disinherited from the succession. The Estates-General of France ratified the agreement later that year after Henry V entered Paris.

Of course in practical terms, Henry's de jure sovereignty and legitimacy as King of France was only recognised in the English and allied-controlled territories of France which were under the domination of his French regency council. This weak base of support encouraged the Dauphin to declare himself King of Aquitania, a breakaway southern french nation with a capital city of Reims. Neverthless the coronation on 17 July 1429 triggered an immediate declaration of war from Henry V. He soon discovered that his armed strength was frustrated by the martial efforts of Joan of Arc who aimed to free the whole of France from English rule.

Entry posted by Todayinah Editor

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Politicians Source: Wikipedia Labels: Henry V, Charles VI, France, England, Treaty of Troyes.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, in this article we explore an original idea from the New Statesmen. We have repurposed content from Wikipedia which concludes that [after Henry V's death] It forms a part of the backdrop of the latter phase of the Hundred Years' War, in which various English Kings tried to establish their claims to the French throne.

Readers Comment Scott Palter commented on 2011-12-27 04:51:13 ~ You would end up with three French states as Burgundy goes its own way in a few decades.

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2011-12-27 05:09:22 ~ With France under the English crown, you'd soon have a situation like what you got when the Stuart line inherited England...England would soon be subsumed and overshadowed by the bigger, richer France. And old enemities wouldn't just go away, either. A lot of Frenchmen would keep on fighting for a _French_ king.

Readers Comment Jeff Provine commented on 2011-12-27 20:39:03 ~ Might see a France that has to reunify itself through Nationalism much like Italy and Germany. Although with a major power gap in Europe, we'd see a very different TL almost immediately.

In 1949, on this day the Democrat Senator from Pennsylvania, Benjamin Nathaniel was born in Tel Aviv to Zila (née Segal) and Professor Benzion Netanyahu.
An article from the POTUS Nathaniel thread.

Senator Benjamin Nathaniel (D-PA)After the failure of the Jewish State in Palestine, his family fled to the United States where they settled in a suburb of Philadelphia. He graduated from the Cheltenham High School where his energetic participation in the debate club encouraged him to speak American English with a Philadelphia accent and anglacize his forename to Benjamin.

He studied and earned a B.S. degree in architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1975, an M.S. degree from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1977, and studied political science at Harvard University. After a successful career as a furniture company's chief marketing officer, he ran a lucrative consultancy firm specialising in public relations.

During 1992, he narrowly beat Arlen Specter in a Senatorial Race as Republicans were swept aside by Bill Clinton's resurgent Democrat Party. That very same year saw the reversion of a temporary settlement for Jewish refugees in the United States. By the final days of the fifty year agreement dating back to the Holocaust, Sitka had become a sprawling metropolis at the center of the Jewish settlement in Alaska. And Netanyahu became a lonely voice in the Senate arguing for a right to return policy under which the United States would sponsor a partial resettlement of Palestine. Of course this issue was deeply personal to him; ever since childhood his parents had described their last memories of Jerusalem as "a city of blood and slogans painted on the wall, severed heads on telephone poles".
This article is a part of the Sitka thread.

Entry posted by Todayinah Editor

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: POTUS Nathaniel Source: Wikipedia Labels: Benjamin Netanyahu, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Sitka, Israel.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, in this post we explore a variant scenario in the context of the alternative history novel "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" by Michael Chabon (2007). We have also repurposed significant amounts of content from Wikipedia.

Readers Comment Stan Brin commented on 2011-12-21 09:29:20 ~ Interesting concept -- but i never bought the "Yiddish Policemen's Union" story. It is posited to freely on the narcissistic neo-anti-Semitism of the liberal elite. It's a topic I write about, on occasion. (Read the recent letter to the New York Times by Netanyahu's aide turning down an offer to publish an op-ed. It represents the Israeli PM's thinking, and after a lifetime of experience as a journalist, I happen to agree with him on this subject.)

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2011-12-21 17:24:32 ~ I think he'd have Americanized his name to "Benjamin Nathaniel," or something like that. While a "foreign" sounding name isn't a deal-breaker in US politics, it does help to seem "normal."

Readers Comment Eric Lipps commented on 2011-12-21 17:51:26 ~ I think Eric Oppen's right about Netanyahu changing his name. But if his politics were anything like what they are in our world, I can't see him as a Democrat in the 1990s.

Readers Comment Jeff Provine commented on 2011-12-23 23:08:48 ~ What about the Jewish settlement in Florida? Only half-joking. The communities of retired and still active Jews increasing in Palm Springs, etc, could be a magnet for Jews worldwide.

In 1962, on this day at 10:00 AM, President John F. Kennedy met with Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and approved the plan to threaten preemptive nuclear strike. Tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union had never been tauter.

Kennedy Approves Nuclear Action Since World War II, the two superpowers had checked one another and maintained aggressive military build-up, though the Americans found themselves greatly outpaced by the Russians as the '50s progressed. Russians first caught up by developing their own atomic weapons after the war.

A new story by Jeff ProvineIn '48 and '49, America and its allies had cowed the Russian attempt at fencing West Berlin with the Berlin Airlift, keeping them from leading world affairs. Korea had turned into a draw, though Communism continued to spread in places such as French Indochina. By '56, however, the USSR had come to the forefront with their launch of Sputnik.

The Russian lead in the Cold War struck closer to home when, in 1959, Castro and his system of nationalization overthrew Batista, just miles from the Florida coastline. While Cuba and the Soviet Union were establishing relations, the US moved forward with plans to establish missile bases in Turkey, which became operational in April of 1962. Just months later, the Soviet Union would begin its own missile bases in Cuba. In September of 1962, American U-2 high-altitude spy planes discerned these bases, and reports were presented to the president. On October 21, he made his decision for action.

Kennedy had considered the use of a naval quarantine, but a blockade was considered an act of war under international law. While the Russians might not dare consider it so great, they might also consider the action too little to be a threat to their activities. The Russians might even step up to the challenge with their own "Cuban Airlift" as a thumbed-nose toward the Americans. International embarrassment was the lesser of evils if missiles were to be launched from Cuba, but the Cold War had long been a game of nerves.

Monday, October 22, Kennedy gave a televised address about the discovery of the weapons. He concluded by telling the Soviet Union that America would strike if these bases were not disassembled immediately. Truman had authorized nuclear attacks on Japan as well as several key supply lines in Korea, and Kennedy would authorize attack on every known Soviet missile base, Cuban, Russian, or any other member of their bloc. He likened the situation to discovering a man with a gun, and he insisted Premier Khrushchev "put the gun down". If not, he would "shoot the gun-hand".

Internationally, the threat was taken in a variety of reactions. Many questioned validity of the spy photos, others applauded America for taking action, and far more feared what might come. Khrushchev wrote a letter of reply, saying, "I must say frankly that the measures indicated in your statement constitute a serious threat to peace and to the security of nations...We reaffirm that the armaments which are in Cuba, regardless of the classification to which they may belong, are intended solely for defensive purposes in order to secure [the] Republic of Cuba against the attack of an aggressor. I hope that the United States Government will display wisdom and renounce the actions pursued by you, which may lead to catastrophic consequences for world peace".

Kennedy replied that no nuke was merely defensive; Khrushchev scoffed and waited for America to blink. The two stood at an impasse for nearly a week until October 27, when Castro's forces shot down a U-2 spy plane. Kennedy noted the evidence of fully operational missile bases that, if merely defensive, would not need to shoot down spy planes. Khrushchev said the same about the American missiles in Turkey. While there may have been a diplomatic action to dismantle both, an accidental flight of a U-2 plane over Soviet airspace caused a dogfight between Soviet MIG fighters and American F-102s, whom Kennedy granted permission to fire.

The war began as the fighters fired nuclear-tipped missiles over the Bering Sea. Limited missile exchanges followed, destroying bases in the Soviet Union, Cuba, Europe, and the United States. Submarines were blown up by charges in both navies. After the horrific volley, utter devastation gave way to cries from the UN to stop the madness. World War 3 would last two days and cost thousands of lives, ultimately millions as the world began to deal with radioactive fallout.

The display of aggression also caused a worldwide movement for the banning of nuclear weapons. Through the course of the Sixties and early Seventies, the governments of the world would give up their atomic arms and return to heavy traditional weaponry for defense (China being the last, finally persuaded by Nixon's system of economic benefits). For countries developing new weapons, sanctions would slow them or military action would put a stop to the programs.

After a short era of good feelings, however, the Cold War would creep up again with the USSR moving into Afghanistan in 1979. The war would prove costly and ultimately contribute to the fall of the Soviet Union. As the only remaining superpower, the United States would undergo the extremely expensive position of policing the world and being aware of potential developers of nuclear programs. Under the administration of George W. Bush, America would occupy both Iraq and Iran under suspicion of weapons of mass destruction. Many fear that these costly wars may do to the US what Afghanistan did to the Soviets.

Entry posted by Guest Historian

Jeff Provine

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Jeff Provine Blog Source: Jeff Provine’s Blog Labels: Kennedy, Cuba, Castro, Khruschev, Soviet Union.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, in reality Kennedy ordered the blockade. Several ships would test it, including a Soviet submarine that was shaken by US Navy depth charges, but eventually Khrushchev and Kennedy would agree to dismantle bases in Cuba in exchange for the closing of bases in Turkey and Italy.

Readers Comment Stan Brin commented on 2010-10-22 09:52:27 ~ "Tauter?" I have a tauter. She's 26 and works in LA.

Readers Comment Allen W. McDonnell commented on 2010-10-22 11:37:15 ~ Clearly the author has no idea what Nuclear Fallout is or how very limited damage from it is. Check the Chernobyl exclusion zone, where a million times any bomb fallout was dispersed and yet very few people died. Even the unprotected residents who were not given the proper iodine treatments suffered only thyroid problems, not a horrible Hollywood special effects death.

Comment from William Jalet on Facebook: A lot of people even to this day don't know how close we really came!

Readers Comment Chris Oakley commented on 2010-10-22 15:14:29 ~ I have to agree with Mr. McDonnell. And Stan, your taste in puns is horrendous. :P

Readers Comment Jeff Provine commented on 2010-10-22 16:49:29 ~ Re: Fallout. In a wider scope, fallout is notorious for birth defects (see miscarriage and anomaly rates in Seattle in the months after Chernobyl, as well as others downwind on the jet stream). However, that is taking into account the personage of a fetus, which still has major legal ambiguity. Me, I like babies.

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2010-10-22 18:32:26 ~ In a world where nations have "given up nuclear weapons" there's a real strong incentive to keep them around _Sub Rosa,_ to use in emergencies.

Comment from Christopher Irelan on Facebook: Sorry but you lost me very early in the story with this incorrect fact, "in 1959 Castro and his Communist Regime overthrew Batista in Cuba" Castro wasn't communist at that point he was a friend of the United States and it was with our backing that he overthrew Batista.......It was only after Castro felt that he had been snubbed by IKE that he started talking to the USSR.

Comment from Robert Baker on Facebook: I agree Christopher.We often forget this fact.Even Uncle Ho was pro-US after WW2 until we stabbed him in the back.

Comment from Christopher Irelan on Facebook: Your right Uncle Ho was a very good friend of ours so good in fact that we gave him all the armes and equipment that we had stored for the invasion of Japan which he used to begin his fight with the French......The French held this over our head to the point that we ended up paying the French for there war in Indo-China

Readers Comment Eric Lipps commented on 2010-10-23 00:27:31 ~ "Thousands" were killed? Whatever the toll from radioactive fallout (which might be greatest not from direct human deaths but from damage to crops, leading to food shortages and, in the Soviet Union at least, outright starvation), even a "limited" exchange would likely have killed at least hundreds of thousands, more likely millions, from blast-related effects, since so many of the bases likely to be targeted were located near major population centers. It's worth remembering that at Hiroshima, it was expected that the bomb would take out only the port facilities--but it leveled most of the city. Nagasaki did bstter only because its bomb missed its target zone--yet even so, half the city went up. And the bombs which would have been used in 1962 were far more powerful.

Readers Comment Jeff Provine commented on 2010-10-23 16:30:55 ~ Plus the spread effects of leukemia and increase of cancer rates.

Readers Comment Scott Palter commented on 2010-10-26 22:59:42 ~ Cuban CP backed Batista which is why Ike allowed Fidel's revolution to be armed and paid for out of Florida and Louisiana. There were either 5 or 6 Communists with Fidel. Che + GF, Raoul Castro + GF, Fidel's GF were all Moscow line Communists. The sixth and still questionable is Fidel. He may have been a Communist then. He may still not be one today. Absent telepathic powers unknowable. What is known is that Fidel fell out with his main followers who were educated, middle class 'white'[light skinned - race line in Cuba was a trifle different than Dixie as it was a mixture of skin tone and social class rather than one drop of blood]. These people had backed Fidel because he promised to overthrow Batista and then hold elections. When Fidel punted on the elections he was left with a faction of his small guerrilla army and a mass of kids. He needed cadres to serve under him and the Cuban CP needed a patron with Batista gone. What followed was an alliance of convenience. Fidel then fell out with the US for various reasons and declared himself a Leninist. Maybe. Or maybe he was a populist caudillo who found the Leninist label convenient to get Moscow's support. Finally the Soviet response to a move by us on Cuba would have been to take West Berlin.

In 1808, the drift towards Republicanism that America had entertained in the thirty years since independence came to an abrupt halt with District Judge Davis' landmark ruling on this day in the case of " United States v. The William". Unwittingly, the architect of the legal decision was Thomas Jefferson (pictured), the father of the Democratic-Republican Party.

The States Fight BackBecause in 1798 Jefferson had co-authored a resolution for the legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky that affirmed the states' right to resist federal encroachments on their powers. Through the principle of "nullification" that would later be codified into the Tenth Amendment, the States could locally override unconstitutional federal laws.

"When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated" ~ Thomas Jefferson.But ten years later, the General Government was struggling with more practical problems such as the quasi-war on the high seas with the British in league with America's former allies, the French. Now in the White House, expediency required Jefferson to compromise his own principles. He imposed an embargo under which no American ship could depart for any foreign port anywhere in the world, hoping that this economic warfare would hurt British and French prosperity, forcing their governments to change tack.

But the decision would have dire consequences for the trading economies on the eastern seaboard. In the landmark case of "United States v. The William", the embargo was ruled unjust, unconstitutional and oppressive. "While this State [of Massachusetts] maintains its sovereignty and independence, all the citizens can find protection against outrage and injustice in the strong arm of the State government," they said. The embargo, furthermore, was "not legally binding on the citizens of this State".

Entry posted by Todayinah Editor

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Beasts Source: Tenth Amendment Center Labels: Tenth Amendment, Confederacy, Constitution , Thomas Jefferson, America.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, please note that extensive amounts of content have been repurposed from the source articles.

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2009-10-19 01:28:52 ~ My guess is that foreign powers would find it easy to meddle, and you'd have states falling under their control, rather quickly.

Readers Comment Scott Palter commented on 2009-10-19 02:43:59 ~ USG was quite weak for most of the 19th century and more so before the USCW. With this it becomes near to vestigial.

Comment from Brian Hartman on Facebook: It's a faulty premise. The Founding Fathers *didn't* intend America to be a confederacy. That was the whole point of chucking the Articles of Confederation.

Comment from Quilly Mammoth on Facebook: The Whole Reason Adams came down was because the situation on the frontier was so bad he didn't think the current organizational structure would work. Sheesh...that's the whole argument of the Federalist and the anti-Federalist papers. Gue...ss which side won? And the Anti_federalists won in the Bill of Rights which was supposed to restrict the new Federal Government from invading certain areas of personal Liberty.

Readers Comment H. Torrance Griffin commented on 2010-10-21 12:06:33 ~ Why am I getting visions of the Polish-Lithuanian Sejm from a century before?

Readers Comment Eric Lipps commented on 2010-10-21 12:42:38 ~ "Nullification" was certainly not codified in *our* Tenth Amendment, which merely states that thlose powers not granted to the federal government by the Constitution remain with the states or the people. Indeed, the Constitution explicitly states, in what is called the "supremacy clause," that where state and federal laws conflict, the federal law prevails. Was the Tenth Qmendment written differently in this timeline? And if so, how does the U.S. keep from blowing apart into a hodgepodge of lesser sovereignties? Or does it?

Readers Comment Jeff Provine commented on 2010-10-21 16:21:53 ~ Succession would happen eventually, who would do it and why would be up to the timeline, but eventually someone (*cough* South Carolina) would take off.

Readers Comment Brian Hartman commented on 2010-10-21 16:33:35 ~ Eric: I can't see how the country would've kept together under the Articles of Confederation (which is basically what this timeline envisions). Give the states that much independence, and eventually, people are going to start taking their marbles and going home, since any disagreement they end up on the wrong side of is an excuse to secede.

Readers Comment H. Torrance Griffin commented on 2010-10-21 16:56:13 ~ Seccession could be avoided here, simply because the central government is so irrelevant as to be a bad joke. After all, who walked out of the Post Westphalia "H""R""E"?

In 2010, US President Barack Obama received the final version of a 505 page report from Chairperson Hillary Rodham Clinton. In the balanced judgement of the Committee, former Vice President Dick Cheney was deemed primarily responsible for the catastrophic decision to formally dissolve the Iraqi Army and the tragic consequences that followed.

DisbandedOn May 23, 2003 the Director of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer issued Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 2, in effect dissolving the entire former Iraqi army and putting 400,000 former Iraqi soldiers out of work. The move was widely criticized for creating a large pool of armed and disgruntled youths for the insurgency to draw recruits from.

It was highly improbable that a Washington insider such as Bremer had the required confidence and insight to make such a far-reaching decision unilaterally and just two days into his new role as de facto Governor. General John Abizaid briefed officials in Washington by reporting that "there are no¹ organized Iraqi military units left". Subsequently, in a letter written by Bremer to President George W. Bush three days before Order Number 2 was issued, Bremer stated "I will parallel this step with an even more robust measure dissolving Saddam's military and intelligence structures to emphasize that we mean business".

Short-lived predecessor Jay Garner reported Bremer as saying: "The plans have changed. The thought is we don't want the residuals of the old army. We want a new and fresh army" to which Garner replied: "Jerry, you can get rid of an army in a day, but it takes years to build one".

"Jerry" was unable to present evidence to the Committee - he was assassinated on December 6, 2003² when his convoy was driving on the dangerous Baghdad airport road. During his stay in Iraq, the Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden had placed a bounty of 10,000 grams of gold on Bremer, the equivalent of $125,000 US at the time. While returning to the fortified Green Zone, the convoy was attacked by rebels, hit by a bomb and gunfire, with the rear window of his Suburban blown away killing Bremer and his deputies.

Officially, the Director of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance reported to US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, with a dotted line into President George W. Bush; both of whom denied authorising Order Number 2. In fact, neither Bush nor Rumsfeld was the real boss, a fact revealed by Bremer's use of the third person in describing his orders to Jay Garner.

Journalist Fred Kaplan correctly identified the decision-maker in a feature article Who Disbanded the Iraqi Army? And why was nobody held accountable? ~ "Bremer is right about one thing: It wasn't him. Though he wouldn't be so self-demeaning as to admit it, he was a mere errand boy on this point. He arrived in Baghdad on May 14, 2003. The next day, he released CPA Order No. 1, barring members of the Baath Party from all but the lowliest government posts. The next day, he issued CPA Order No. 2, disbanding the Iraqi army. Feith was a messenger, too, reporting directly to Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, and ultimately to Secretary Rumsfeld. Did Rumsfeld write the order? Bob Woodward, in State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III, quotes Rumsfeld as saying that the order came from elsewhere. Does that mean it came from the White House? My guess is it came from Vice President Dick Cheney, if only because his is one of the most leakproof offices in Washington. Had the order originated someplace else, that fact would have leaked by now. It's like the dog that didn't bark in the Sherlock Holmes story; unbarking dogs in this administration, especially at this late date of decrepitude, tend to be the hounds in Cheney's kennel".

President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously remarked that the Vice Presidency wasn't "worth a pitcher of warm piss ³", although this was of course superseded to some extend by his death in office, gifting the White House to Harry S. Truman. Yet in 1977, Walter Mondale had revitalised the Vice Presidency from the office's lowest; upon appointment he was the fourth incumbent in four years. Al Gore was described by Bill Clinton as the most effective Vice Presidency in the history of the republic. Now the Committee of Investigation called time; Cheney had executed extra-constitutional responsibilities in his role as Vice President. Not only had he gone too far, the very basis of America's democrac institutions had been subverted by Cheney's over-involvement. A recommendation was made to author a Constitutional Amendment that would either abolish the role entirely, or place strict executive limits upon future incumbents. Upon Joseph Biden's departure, the office of Vice President was disbanded with effect from January 20th, 2013.

Entry posted by Todayinah Editor

© Who Disbanded the Iraqi Army? And why was nobody held accountable? By Fred Kaplan & Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco - The American Military Adventury in Iraq
Story Tags Click on the hyperlinked metadata to surf the site!

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Beasts Source: Wikipedia Labels: Dick Cheney, Walter Mondale, L. Paul Bremer, George W Bush, John Abizaid.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, The idea for this post was conceived from Fred Kaplan's discussion of accountability for such a monumental decision.
Note 1 ~ In Fiasco - The American Military Adventury in Iraq, Thomas E. Ricks argues that the Fall of Baghdad was an emphemeral victory and that the Iraqi Army effectively sought to continue the campaign as insurgents. Therefore, the Iraqi Army had not disbanded, simply restructured into irregular forces.
Note 2 ~ Bremer survived the assassination attempt, but we wanted to make the Committee decision more insidious by preventing him from simply revealing the facts.
Note 3 ~ Changed to the word Spit by the Press.

Readers Comment Gerry Shannon commented on 2008-10-19 22:07:44 ~ Presumably instead of Vice, there would be another position set up as an advisory role to the President? Did Obama's term here end after four years, hence, 'Biden's departure'? As always, endlessly fascinating theory! :

Readers Comment David Atwell commented on 2008-10-19 22:28:59 ~ Very close to the truth IMHO. It will be interesting, once the new President soon takes office, what actually happens over such Iraqi adventures... nice future speculation BTW

Readers Comment Chris Oakley commented on 2008-10-20 01:15:01 ~ Nice POD with Bremer.

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2008-10-20 01:17:19 ~ Have you read Gary Brecher's column "The War Nerd?" He says that disbanding the Iraqi army was one of the stupidest things we did. However, I'm not sure that it was the fault of any one individual...people in DC are still hypnotized by the images of 1945.

Readers Comment Eric Lipps commented on 2008-10-20 20:08:04 ~ FDR didn't make the "piss" comment: that was Vice-President John Nance Garner, who had hoped for the presidency himself and chafed as Roosevelt's No. 2. The idea that Cheney's perfidy would lead to the abolition of the vice-presidency is far-fetched. The VP serves an essential purpose as an emergency replacement for a dead, disabled or disgraced president; if the office were eliminated, how would that purpose be served when needed?

Readers Comment Robbie Taylor commented on 2008-10-21 03:29:39 ~ Who casts the deciding vote in the Senate now? The VP is a vital component of the American governmental system, and not just because the position succeeds the president. I foresee some difficult times ahead for the citizens of this alternate America.

In 1964, on this day US President Lyndon Baines Johnson delivered his signature foreign policy speech in an address he delivered at the Memorial Hall in Akron University, Ohio:

Akron Address"We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.

I told [the Generals] to let Vietnam go the way of China. And then I want 'em to leave me alone, because I've got some bigger things to do right here at home".

In effect Johnson had turned the Truman Doctrine and the Domino Theory on their heads in order to rationalise a non-intervention strategy in Vietnam. Despite tempting provocations such as the Gulf of Tonkin incident, Johnson pursued a domestic agenda and built the "Great Society" through to landslide re-elections in 1964 and 1968.
A transcript of Johnson's speech is described at Bartleby.

Entry posted by Todayinah Editor

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Politicians Source: Bartleby Labels: Lyndon B. Johnson, Vietnam, Sixties, Domestic Agenda, America.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, we have taken the liberty of making some significant modifications to the speech text in order to justify the policy change.

Readers Comment Mark Taylor commented on 2011-10-20 14:20:09 ~ That would have sparked an anti-Communist reaction as S,Vietnam fell in 1965-66 (most likely0that would've taken his Great Society with it.

Readers Comment H. Torrance Griffin commented on 2011-10-20 16:45:00 ~ Much depends on if all of Southeast Asia is blown off or LBJ simply pulls back to places more stable (i.e. w/o a major native pro-communist movement like the Viet Cong) and puts what attention not directed domestically toward keeping the populace happy with those governments. That and if Saigon caved to the V.C. they may not open their arms to Hanoi in any case.

Readers Comment Jeff Provine commented on 2011-10-20 16:53:20 ~ Difficult to say what success Domino Theory would have without major blowback from American influence. We could run into major communist/Muslim stalemate the farther west and south any spread went.

Readers Comment Jared Myers commented on 2011-10-20 17:50:14 ~ Had this actually happened, it might have been the only worthwhile thing that LBJ did in his entire Presidency...

Readers Comment Matthew Dattilo commented on 2011-10-20 18:02:11 ~ Nothing strengthens a Communist insurgency more than the direct involvement of a foreign power. Is it possible that, without US troops on the ground (even in an advisory role), there may have been some sort of accommodation between North and South Vietnam? After all, not all the VC came from the North. I'm sure the hardcore types in Hanoi would have wanted to crush the South, but were they in the majority? I don't know.

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2011-10-20 18:30:38 ~ One big thing the VC/NVs had on their side was the nationalist card..."we're Vietnamese defending our country against these foreign interlopers!" Without that, and with indirect help from outside, the South Viets might be able to pull it off long enough to get their acts together.

Readers Comment John Braungart commented on 2011-10-20 20:24:55 ~ Doubtful. The South Vietnam government was as corrupt as any Third World Country could be. It almost made the Kingfish's Depression-era Louisiana seem clean.

Readers Comment Stan Brin commented on 2011-10-20 22:59:42 ~ Propaganda. I lived through that era. Journalists were always using the "corruption" word but never really proving it. I remember once, a journalist suggesting to an American air force officer that newly arrived selling artillery pieces would be sold on the black market. The officer looked at him as though he were crazy -- but it never stopped. I had a unique window on that propaganda campaign as my father and his friends were part of it. It's really an untold story. Regarding the VC, they were a narrow base, exclusively Buddhist, exclusively rural, more like a SE Asian KKK. They felt oppressed because they weren't allowed to oppress the Cao Dai, the Hoa Hao, and the Catholics, and their main "military" activity was assassinating other Buddhists who disagreed with them. They otherwise operated as puppets on Hanoi's string, but you could never get one of my dad's clique to admit it -- until after they marched into Saigon and were disbanded by the NVA.

Readers Comment Eric Lipps commented on 2011-10-21 00:03:03 ~ Johnson would never have done it. Too much Texas macho was on the line. Oh, and there was plenty of evidence of corruption, but friends of the Saigon regime either wouldn't look at it or, in a few cases, were involved. The truth is the best propaganda.

In 1600, on this day in Sekigahara, forces loyal to Toyotomi Hideyori (including many clans from Western Japan) won the Battle for the Sundered Realm.

Tokugawa clan lose the Battle of SekigaharaAt a crucial moment in the fighting defectors charged down the Clans of Eastern Japan.

This chance move ultimately ensured that Mitsunari (rather than Tokugawa Ieyasu) would rise to the position of Shogun. The outcome of this internal conflict had dramatic consequences that reververated throughout South-East Asia and beyond.

Under reinvigorated new leadership, Japan headed in a new strategic direction, developing international trade links and choosing to keep her borders open. Within two centures, an increasingly Christian nation had established a commercial footprint in a wider geography that stretched as far as the Aleutian Islands.

Entry posted by Todayinah Editor

Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Generals Source: Wikipedia Labels: Tokugawa, Battle of Sekigahara, Toyotomi, Shogun, Japan.

Todayinah Editor Editor says, in authoring this article we explore an idea on the Discussion Groups and also repurpose significant amounts of content from Wikipedia.

Readers Comment Eric Oppen commented on 2012-02-16 20:06:05 ~ Japan would have become the real powerhouse of East Asia, and likely taken another bite at Korea and China.

Readers Comment Eric Lipps commented on 2012-02-18 21:32:14 ~ Agreed--which would in time have brought it into conflict with such nations as Britain and France, which had their own ambitions in the region. For instance, there might have been no "French Indochina" to becme the modern Vietnam.

Readers Comment Jeff Provine commented on 2012-03-27 00:27:49 ~ Wonder what would've been this TL's "Russo-Japanese War" where Westerners would be forced to recognize Japanese significance.

On this day in 1973, the Cowboys' 1973 NFL season record fell to 4-2 with a 45-27 loss against the New York Giants; Roger Staubach was sacked twice and intercepted three times, sparking rumors he might be benched in favor of the newly reactivated Craig Morton.

	Roger Staubach

	On this day in 1941, Soviet troops defending Petropavlovsk started a counterattack against the Japanese.

On this day in 2010, the Organization of American States voted unanimously to suspend Venezuela's membership in the regional body.

Red Army	On this day in 1944, Soviet ground troops in Poland reached the Polish German border.

Insignia

In 1984, in the second presidential debate, Democratic candidate Gary Hart returns to the idea that recent federal deficits and high inflation are largely the products of the ongoing Gulf war. His opponent Robert Dole responds testily: "If that's so, Senator, why hasn't your party taken more aggressive steps to end that war? Why is President Kennedy sitting on his hands while ordinary Americans find it more and more difficult to make ends meet, and why should we believe you'd do any better?".

	Gary Hart


Commentators generally agree that Dole has won this debate on points. Once again, however, his hostile tone costs him with the national audience.

	On 1.0.0.0.0.8 5 Lamat 1 Mol, the Palenque celebrated the eightieth Calendar Round anniversary of the accession of K'inich Janaab' Pakal. Pakal ascended the throne at age twelve on 9.8.9.13.0 8 Ahau 13 , and lived to the age of 80. The name 'Pacal' means 'shield' in the Maya language. Pacal saw expansion of Palenque's power in the western part of the Maya states, and initiated a building program at his capital that produced some of Maya civilization's finest art and architecture. He was preceded as ruler of Palenque by his mother Lady Sak K'uk'. As the Palenque dynasty seems to have had Queens only when there was no eligible male heir, Sak K'uk' transferred rulership to her son upon his official maturity. After his death Pacal II was succeeded by his son Chan Bahlum II. A younger son, Kan Xul II, succeeded his brother Chan Bahlum II.

In 1914, King Albert of Belgium in an interview with the London Times attacks the British government: 'The cabinet of Britain is sacrificing Belgium for the sake of world peace. At this moment I'm a King without a country!'

In 1890, The Anti-Mormon Statute passes the House and moves to the Senate for debate. Latter-Day Saints across the U.S. find themselves being persecuted as heavily as when their religion was first founded, and many are voluntarily moving to Utah Territory; some are coming to join the ranks of Charles Brigman.

In 1964, the musical Pygmalion made its debut in New York City to rave reviews. Based on the play by George Bernard Shaw, starring Reggie Harrison and Audrey Ruston, the tuneful adaptation didn't shy away from Shaw's somewhat bleak ending, which had worried the studio. As it turned out, nobody wanted Eliza to end up with Professor Higgins, anyway.

In 1929, Comrade Ursula K. LeGuin is born in Berkeley, California Soviet. She rose through the ranks of the party machinery in California to head the Press Department in Washington, D.C. under Comrade President Gus Hall from 1970-1972. After Comrade Hall left office, she went into private, penning children's stories. In her later years, she has become somewhat reactionary, decrying the 'excesses' of American Communism, and so her writing has fallen out of favor.

In 1879, Thomas Edison perfects a display for his Eddie difference engines that consists of hundreds of small light-bulbs behind a smoked glass window. The Eddie, by controlling what lights come on, is able to spell out letters and even rudimentary pictures with the lights, and this revolutionizes what people are able to do with the difference engine.

In 1805, the Battle of Trafalgar took place at sea between Admiral Horatio Nelson's British fleet and Napolean's Italian sailors. When Nelson was killed on his ship, it demoralized the British navy and wrecked their chances of victory in the conflict; Napolean's men swept them from the sea and continued their dominance of the waves.

In 1600, on this day Tokugawa Ieyasu defeated the leaders of rival Japanese clans in the Battle of Sekigahara. This significant event marked the beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate, who in effect rule Japan until the mid-twentieth century when the victorious Americans installed the General-san, Douglas MacArthur.

In 1967, on this day two cameraman Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin were discovered in a state of mutilation at Bluff Creek, California. Conspiracy theories have raged for forty years over the confiscation of their camera film by the authorities; most sensationally, speculation that they had filmed, and then been killed by a sasquatch.

In 1978/1833, Australian civilian pilot Frederick Valentich vanished in a Cessna 182 over the Bass Strait south of Melbourne, after reporting contact with an unidentified aircraft. Some ufologists have speculated that the craft Valentich reported was an extra-terrestrial vehicle, and that Valentich was either abducted or destroyed by such a craft. Neither was the case. When the pilot finally touched down, he was rescued and taken to the Teen Toomle Mennenyer (Big River) to meet the Tasmanian aboriginal Truganini. During the parley, he was to discern his true role in saving the Trouwunna from genocide. Truganini had foreseen that cultural disruption and disease transmission would depopulate the lutrawita and only a man from the future could save it.

In 1993, through an act of incredible personal courage Rwandan President Melchior Ndadaye prevented his government from being overthrown and killed in a military coup. The exact events have never been clarified, but it appears that Ndadaye, Pontien Karibwami, the president of the National Assembly and Gilles Bimazubute, the vice-president of the National Assembly, were taken to an army barracks before dawn by supposedly loyal soldiers under the guise that there had been a mutiny by sections of the army and that they needed protection. The three, along with a number of other officials and cabinet members, were then threatened with execution, with Ndadaye to be bayonetted to death. Through sheer force of personal authority Ndadaye turned the tables on his captors and terminated the coup.

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