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In 1603, Anne Stanley Succeeds Elizabeth I
March 24, 1603 - Anne Stanley Succeeds Elizabeth IAfter witnessing the deaths of many of her friends, Elizabeth I of England herself fell ill with "melancholy" and passed away. She had ruled England for over forty years, steering it through rough eras of religious war between Protestants and Catholics and resisting the Spanish Armada. Elizabeth had also never married, meaning that she had no issue to rule after her. Her secretary of state and Lord Privy Seal, Robert Cecil, who himself had inherited his title from his father, had set to work on the problem of succession early as he came into office in the 1590s in coded negotiations with a potential heir, King James VII of Scotland.
Elizabeth's first cousin twice removed, James had proven himself loyal to England during the Spanish Armada. In addition, he was a knowledgeable and strong monarch, able to deal with opposition while continuing many of his own projects, such as the colonization of Outer Hebrides Islands by adventurers and conducting witch hunts to purify Scotland of evil. Both were firm executive moves following action of the Scottish Parliament in demanding title-deeds from the Highlanders (many of whom failed to prove ownership of their lands and were subsequently "civilized") and the Witchcraft Act of 1563 establishing capital punishment for the crime. He proved himself a scholar, writing the pamphlet Daemonologie on the topic of witch hunting in 1597.A new article by Jeff Provine
Other pamphlets, however, began to raise suspicion in Cecil. In 1598, James published True Law of Free Monarchies, followed by Basilikon Doron ("The Royal Gift") the next year. Both were treatises on the divine right of rulers and reflected James' leanings toward absolutism. In comparison, Elizabeth said in her first speech as monarch at Hatfield House in 1558, "I mean to direct all my actions by good advice and counsel". James took a very different stance on government and had already begun conflicts over money with the Scottish Parliament. Cecil knew that contributing to James' coronation in England would be a great boon to is personal career, but haunting visions of a civil war, perhaps even rivaling that of the Barons' Wars, forced him to reconsider his choice. Finally he became determined against James Stuart. Cecil sabotaged him, giving sly bad advice for the tone of the king's letters to Elizabeth. By the time of Elizabeth's death, James had become widely unpopular in court.
Cecil faced the problem of whom to crown. According to the will of Henry VIII, the line passed next to the granddaughters of Mary Tudor, the Greys; Jane Grey had actually ruled for nine days as queen before her execution, Catherine Grey had married secretly and been involved in a huge scandal with Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford, ending with their sons being deemed illegitimate, and Mary Grey had died without children. Attempting to crown Catherine's son Edward Seymor, Viscount Beauchamp, would be a political nightmare, and so Cecil turned to the next in line through the will, twenty-two-year-old Anne Stanley.
The Third Succession Act of Parliament in 1543 affirmed Anne, and Cecil began stirring its significance among the court and in Parliament. Elizabeth refused to name an heir (judging it to be political idiocy), and so upon her death, Anne Stanley was suddenly approached to be queen. The girl was quietly shocked, as Elizabeth had been decades before, and Cecil felt he had made the right decision, setting out to recreate Elizabeth upon the throne. Anne was unmarried and living at the estate of her brother, 6th Earl of Derby, following her father's death. She seemed perfect clay in which to mold the will of rule by council.
James became furious and staged an invasion of England to claim his throne. Cecil spun the event into a defense of the nation, calling all the more praise for Anne, who sat meekly upon the throne while Parliament raised an army to protect her. After two years at war, James ran out of money and was refused more by the Scottish Parliament. Scotland soon descended into a civil war of its own as James worked to force absolute rule. Scotland overthrew the king and replaced him with James' young son, Henry Frederick, who ruled obediently through council.
Anne continued her rule quietly, being known primarily as a great patron of the arts through the advice of her brother. The biggest political question of the day was whom she would marry, a question that Cecil increasingly answered with, "It stands to be seen, if at all". No one in Europe seemed to be eligible as Catholic nobles were out of the question (though Anne herself had Catholic leanings) and the males of the Continent seemed to be too old, too young, or already married, such as Sigismund III Vasa of Poland-Lithuania and Gustav II Adolf of Sweden. Cecil counseled Anne to maintain her virginity as a political tool until his death in 1612.
Anne finally married in 1623, to Francis Cottington, an experienced ambassador and Parliamentarian who also had Catholic leanings. The couple was widely popular among Protestants and Catholics alike, healing much of the religious tension in the country while the rest of Europe descended into the bloody Thirty Years War. England continued expanding its colonial empire, much at the cost of the Dutch and the Scots, against whom England often fought at sea alongside Spain.
Colonial expansion fascinated Europe for the next two centuries, first in the Americas, then the Orient, and finally the interior of Africa. England's model of Parliamentary rule with an executive monarch proved effectual, expanding its representation to include colonies after a tax revolt in the Americas. England gained the world's largest empire by the 1800s but would eventually fade as nationalism and independence rose up among the many peoples ruled from London.
In 1746, on this day George Talbot the Capitaine de frigate of Le Prince Charles Stuart managed to throw off pursuit from the HMS Sheerness assuring the safe delivery of £13,000 in gold, arms and other supplies to the Jacobite Army in Inverness.
Happy Endings Part 2
The Lad that's Born to be KingTheir second rebellion was approaching a bloody climax during that fateful spring. Still undefeated in the field, the Jacobite Army was a menace north of the border, but since the retreat from Derby, no longer threatening to restore the exiled Stuart Line by regaining the stolen crown for Bonnie Prince Charlie. With his funds dwindling fast and the British Army hard on his heels his "Forty-Five" rebellion would have been doomed without the French gold.
Instead, the rebellion played out onto the Autumn. This later climax on more honourable terms subsequently encouraged another set of revolutionaries of the "Seventy-Five" to invite him to become their "King of the Americas". Which was by no means to understate the pivotal role of the Hard Woman his wife, the incomparable Highland rebel Flora MacDonald.
This ending is a gender reversal of the Jackie Rose novel Hard Man which focuses on Captain Francis O'Neill and is available for download at the Extasy Books web site..
In 6024 post-creation, a fateful decision was made to re-open the doors of the Ark and accommodate a Late Passenger.
Horn of a Moral DilemmaThe great animal husbandman Noah had been awoken by the sound of the unicorn's hooves knocking against the hull but unfortunately by the time he appeared on deck the animal had given up in despair. By way of halting explanation his son Japhet complained that because there was no room on-board they had been forced to ignore the knockings. Distraught, and also fast becoming infuriated, he angrily warned his son that mankind would be forever cursed for abandoning the most magnificant beast of God's holy creation.
Drawn by the rising noise of the shouting, his other sons Shem and Ham appeared on the scene. With the rain falling heavily, a furious argument ensued until finally Noah forced the issue by mounting a horse and galloping after the unicorn. But by the time that they had returned, the water level was rising perilously fast. The doors of the Ark were opened to permit them to board, but havoc ensued with many of the animals crushed into such a small space. In the wild confusion, water flooded in, the vessel was capsized and all was lost.
In 1947, on this day Oxford Police arrested the University Scholar Clive Staples ("Jack") Lewis for the suspected murder of Jane King Moore.
Prince Rilian finally rips off the maskWhile being trained for the army Lewis shared a room with another cadet, Edward Courtnay Francis "Paddy" Moore. Maureen Moore, Paddy's sister, said that the two made a mutual pact that if either died during the war, the survivor would take care of both their families. Paddy was killed in action in 1918 and Lewis kept his promise. Paddy had earlier introduced Lewis to his mother, Jane King Moore, and a friendship quickly sprang up between Lewis, who was eighteen when they met, and Jane, who was forty-five. The friendship with Moore was particularly important to Lewis while he was recovering from his wounds in hospital, as his father did not visit him.
Lewis lived with and cared for Moore and routinely introduced her as his "mother", and referred to her as such in letters. Lewis, whose own mother had died when he was a child and whose father was distant, demanding and eccentric, developed a deeply affectionate friendship with Moore.
In 1930, Lewis and his brother Warren ("Warnie") moved, with Mrs. Moore and her daughter Maureen, into "The Kilns", a house in the district of Headington Quarry on the outskirts of Oxford. Although somewhat obvious in hindsight from the bedroom arrangements, neither Warnie or Maureen were aware that a budding sexual relationship had developed. However the two stopped being lovers after a fateful evening when Hugo Dyson and JRR Tolkien brought Lewis back to Christianity.
Their inappropriate relationship quickly developed into abuse. Moore, who remained an atheist, developed dementia and frequently lied to him. "He's as good as an extra maid" she once said. Because Lewis suffered in silence, even Warnie was unaware of the bubbling tension that was developing inside this most emotionally repressed of men. By the late forties, Mrs Moore's condition was deteriorating fast, and in retrospect a move to a retirement home would have been sensible. Because at this stage, Lewis was going out of his mind.
In 1902, on this day the thirty-third President Thomas Edmund Dewey was born in Owosso, Shiawassee County in the U.S. state of Michigan.
Thomas E. Dewey
33rd US President
By Ed, Scott Palter and Jeff ProvineDewey was a leader of the liberal faction of the Republican Party and an advocate for the professional and business community of the Northeastern United States which would later be called the "Eastern Establishment". This power base would hardly prepare him for his toughest challenge in office, the development of the Civil Rights movement.
The flashpoint was Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka the landmark decision of the Supreme Court that declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional.
To maintain public order, Dewey was forced to dispatch the Army to enforce the Brown decision in Atlanta. In the event he had correctly judged that the local establishment could be coerced into dismantling "Jim Crow". However he was smart enough to begin the process of desegregation with the earlier year groups. As a result, the enduring image would be Martin Luther King, Sr. escorting young African American children into the Jefferson Davis Elementary School.
In 622 post-creation, and at that location East of Eden where Adam had fled after the Fall of Man, his great-grandson Enoch was born on this day. Tragically the accursed one would repay the renewal of Yahweh's trust in Man by creating the circumstances for HIS own downfall.
Accursed EnochBy the time of his growth of maturity to a great scribe, the fallen angels known as the Nephilim (pictured, left) had also succumbed to temptation and were living alongside mankind in their own state of fallenness (pictured, below right). Because the sons of God had joined with the daughters of humankind, who bore them children (Genesis 6:4).
And yet amongst the misery of this corrupted paradise was a new source of hope. So pleased was Yahweh that "God took him" (Septuagint) and "he [Enoch] was translated into paradise that he may give repentance to the nations" (Ecclesiasticus 44:16).
But the ambiguity came full circle because the Nephilim asked Enoch to intercede on their behalf. Enraged by this weakness, Yahweh angrily rejected the intercession by cursing the Nephilim with the damning words "Wherefore have ye left the high, holy, and eternal heaven, and lain with women, and defiled yourselves with the daughters of men and taken to yourselves wives, and done like the children 4 of earth, and begotten giants (as your) sons?" (Enoch 15).
And now the wheel turned full circle because the great fall of Yahweh was due to HIM succumbing to HIS own ambiguity.
Before the Creation, HE had existed in a state of pure mind. And so the creation of matter introduced a new corporated state of vulnerability in the creator HIMSELF, permitting him to be murdered by the Nephilim who led a second rebellion in heaven. Caste (and locked) out of existence Yahweh returned to HIS pre-creation state of pure mind, HE would spend millenia attempting to break back into the Universe HE had built for man. And during that long interregnum, mankind would discover that when you fall, you never stop falling.
In 1902, the 34th President of the United States Thomas Edmund Dewey was born on this day in Owosso, Michigan.
Thomas E. Dewey
34rd President of the United States
January 20, 1949-January 20, 1957After winning the Republican nomination for President Thomas Dewey offers popular World War II general Dwight Eisenhower the Vice Presidential slot. After much debating Eisenhower accepts. After much campaigning throughout the fall, the Republican ticket of Thomas Dewey and Dwight Eisenhower defeat the incumbent ticket of President Harry Truman and Vice President Alben Barkely. The Results are close but still enough to give Dewy a comfortable margin in the electoral and popular vote.
A new article from Althistory WikiaOn January 20, 1949 Thomas Dewey is sworn in as the 34th president of the United States of America. Forces from the Communist Party of China enter Beijing.In the first Israeli election, David Ben-Gurion becomes Prime Minister of Israel. President Dewey's first executive order is signed. He wanted to streamline the process of many U.S. agencies much like he did when he was governor of New York.?ire leaves the British Commonwealth and becomes the Republic of Ireland. The North Atlantic Treaty is signed in Washington, D.C. by President Dewey, creating the NATO defense alliance. The CIA and other organizations announce that they have save millions from the streamlining process of President Dewey. The President now turns his attention to the death penalty and civil rights laws. Dewey begins a barnstorming tour of the country promoting civil rights and abolishing the Jim Crow laws. A young theology student named Martin Luther King begins to take notice.
| US President | In 1991, Iraqi Kurdish leaders speak publicly of establishing an independent 'Kurdistan' in northern Iraq. The Turkish government forcefully opposes such a measure, as Ankara fears that any such move will embolden Turkey's own restive Kurdish minority. |
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| Jack Kemp |
U.S. President Jack F. Kemp warns that unless the bombing is immediately halted, the U.S. will consider Baghdad in violation of the March ceasefire and will take 'all necessary action' to force a cessation of the attacks. Iraqi protests that the ceasefire applied only to the Kuwait conflict are dismissed by the Kemp administration. 'Operation Desert Blaze was launched to defeat Baghdad's aggression in Kuwait, and at its end the Kurdish people were promised that the United States would not permit them to be victimized any more than it had allowed the people of Kuwait to be,' the President proclaims. 'If Saddam Hussein believes we will abandon that promise now, he will learn he is mistaken.' |
On this day in 1957, Sandy Koufax exorcised many of the ghosts of his 1956 NBA playoff misfortunes by contributing 51 points and 39 rebounds as the Celtics beat the Syracuse Nationals 129-97 to complete a sweep of the 1957 NBA Eastern Division finals. | |
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| Sandy Koufax |
In 1965, the first 'teach-in' against the war in Cuba is held at the University of Michigan. A similar demonstration will be held at the University of Wisconsin eight days later. At both schools, students who participate in the rallies will be threatened with expulsion, and professors will be warned that they may be fired for involvement. | |
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| Fidel Castro |
In 1930, Terrence Steven McQueen, the actor known as the King of Cool, Steve McQueen, was born in Beech Grove, Indiana on this day. | Steve McQueen |
| King of Cool |
A more incredible escape was to follow. In 1980, Queen enjoyed a dramatic remission of Cancer following a mysterious visit to Florida. McQueen's wealth had bankrolled an increasingly desperate worldwide search for a cure. To this day, speculation continues that the actor had been led to the Fountain of Youth by sympathetic First Nation indigenes whose cause McQueen had supported throughout the seventies. |
March 23
In 1933, on this day Germany's Reichstag passed the Enabling Act of 1933 ("Law to Remedy the Distress of People and Reich"), President Paul von Hindenburg signed it into law and made Reichskanzler Anton Drexler (pictured) dictator of Germany.
Enabling Act makes Drexler dictatorDrexler had depicted the burning of the Reichstag as the beginning of a communist revolution, passing an emergency decree resulted which (among other things) suspended civil liberties and habeas corpus rights. The Communist Party's offices were raided and its representatives arrested, in an attempt to eliminate them as a political force.
But the Nazi's plans only partially succeeded because Comrade Adolf Hitler evaded arrest and went into hiding. He only re-emerged upon the death of von Hindenburg when Drexler briefly attempted to combine the offices of Head of Government and Head of State into the single role of Fuhrer. But instead it was a miscalculation that opened the door of the Chancellery to Comrade Adolf Hitler. This is a teaser for Chris Oakley's Comrade Hitler thread.
In 1937, on this day in Republican Spain the former head of the defunct National German Workers' Party Adolf Hitler was killed in action while serving in the Freikorps "Ludendorff" Division at the Battle of Guadalajara continues from Part 4.
The Plot Against Germany 5His erstwhile colleague the former Commander of the Sturmabteilung, Ernst Röhm was also involved in the fighting in the University quarters - but on the other side, backing the Communists by serving in the German Spartikist Division.
Both men had become persona non grata when Chancellor Ernst Thalmänn took office after the death of President Hindeburg. The size of the Communist Party landslide majority even dispensed with the need for a coalition pact with the Socialist German Workers' Party. Consequently, its leader, "Club Foot" Joey Goebbels quit politics and subsequently became a Red Star Radio Berlin reporter. And as a result of entering that front-line role, he became increasingly aware of the Plot Against Germany. To be continued
In 1430, on this day the future wife of King Henry VI of England, Margaret of Anjou was born in Pont-a-Mousson, Lorraine.
Birth of Margaret of Anjou, Queen consort of EnglandTheir only child - a girl - Elizabeth of Westminister was born in 1453. But members of the Court immediately began to speculate that either Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset, or James Butler, Earl of Wiltshire, both staunch allies of Margaret, were the young princess's actual father.
Because by the time he married Margaret, the King's mental condition was already unstable and he had suffered a complete breakdown even before Elizabeth was born. And so rumours were rife that he was incapable of fathering a child. Certainly a second male child appeared to be highly unlikely. And in the absence of a male heir the Lancastrians were denied a credible claimant to the throne. And despite their seniority in years, Elizabeth was promised to one of the Duke of York's sons.
In 1801, a Conspiracy to Murder the Tsar was stopped.
March 23, 1801 - Conspiracy to Murder the Tsar StoppedPaul, the son of Catherine the Great, was born in 1754, when Catherine was still Grand Duchess during Elizabeth's reign. Elizabeth immediately took Paul as her own, attempting to indoctrinate him with her own tutors. Her care was minimal at best; stories were told of the infant Paul falling out of his crib and sleeping on the floor through the night until morning when his lackluster caregivers noticed. As he grew, Paul proved to be quite intelligent and made up for his uncaring home-life by immersing himself in stories of chivalry and fantasy.
Upon the death of Peter III after only a few months of rule, Catherine became autocrat of Russia. Paul disagreed with many of her mother's stances, particularly her wars of expansion into the Middle East and Central Asia. He followed his Peter in appreciation of the new Prussian style, focusing on reform and defensive war. Although he attended Catherine's council meetings early on, he later spent most of his time on his estates drilling soldiers along the model of Frederick the Great. Paul wrote a work of military reform, Reflections, which proved to be a criticism of his mother's policies. Catherine ended much of her attention to Paul.A new article by Jeff ProvineThe distance between mother and son was finalized when Paul's son Alexander was born. Catherine took Alexander from Paul as he had been taken from her and trained him with her own tutors. It became clear that Catherine wished to pass over Paul, even contacting his mother Maria for confirmation, but all parties seemed to agree that traditional succession meant Paul would have his time to rule. When Catherine suffered a stroke in 1796, Paul became Tsar of All Russias.
Even before his rule, Paul was known as an eccentric. He was fascinated by chivalry and immediately began laws reforming the ruling class. Paul repealed his mother's legalization of corporal punishment for nobles (a popular move) but also enacted new policies attempting to forge a new age of noble knights, dispensing generous gifts on those who agreed and banishing those who opposed him. He reformed the army, dismissing many generals and recreating the uniforms to emulate the stylish, if ineffectual, Prussians. Paul also welcomed the Knights Hospitaller, who had fled their home in Malta from General Napoleon, and they elected him Grand Master, a title in which he reveled.
While his domestic policy caused turmoil, Paul struggled with foreign affairs. He first recalled his mother's final expedition of 13,000 troops who were prepared to march on Iran, ending expansionism. Paul also had inherited an alliance with Austria and Britain against Republican France, whom he despised as an illegitimate uprising against nobility. While first enthusiastic about battling to return order to Europe, Paul was soon betrayed. It became clear that Austria was attempting territorial gain in Italy. The Austro-Russian campaign in Switzerland proved fruitless, and the Austrians retreated, leaving the Russians to fight as rearguard with heavy losses. Meanwhile, an Anglo-Russian invasion of the Netherlands also turned to a retreat, and Paul was disappointed with the efforts of allied troops. When Britain seized a Danish frigate in violation of Scandinavian neutrality and refused to return Malta to the Knights Hospitaller, Paul ended his alliance with Britain as he had Austria.
Meanwhile, foreign relations with France improved dramatically. Napoleon had overthrown the republic's Directory and installed himself as First Consul, which matched Paul's worldview of noble rule much more closely. After Napoleon generously returned 7,000 Russian prisoners despite Britain's failure to pay promised ransom, Paul began secret communications for an anti-British alliance. The two concocted a scheme to march overland through Persia to harass India, Britain's valued market. In January of 1801, Paul ordered Ataman Orlov and 20,000 Cossack cavalry to begin the preliminary march to India to map an invasion route.
Two months later, a contingent of drunken dismissed officers burst into Paul's rooms in the newly constructed St. Michael's Castle. Paul hid behind the curtains but was found, and the officers attempted to force him to sign an abdication. Paul refused and, during the scuffle, managed to escape his room. He called for guards, finally finding those loyal enough to defend him. His attackers were executed and an investigation found, tracing some funding from British agents reacting to Paul's seizure of British ships and factories in Russia.
Anti-British fervor swept the country, coinciding with the arrival of British Admiral Horatio Nelson's fleet in Reval that May. He was fresh from Copenhagen, where the ships had bombarded the city and forced the Danes to comply in Britain's destruction of the Armed Neutrality Coaltion between the Scandinavian countries. Russia attempted to fight off the fleet, but the British ships overcame them at the Battle of Reval and sailed for St. Petersburg. Paul remained in the city despite suggestions to flee and organized the use of small fire ships piloted toward Nelson's fleet, emulating the battle against the Spanish Armada. Nelson refused to be defeated by Russians, going down with his flagship as the sabotaged ships eventually retreated.
Paul and Napoleon dispatched their invasion in August of 1801 in Astrabad on the Caspian Sea. Napoleon contributed scientists and artists, much as he had done with his Egyptian expedition, while Paul dispatched brightly colored cloth for sale and fireworks for displays. They passed into Persia, where Fath Ali Shah had signed an Anglo-Persian treaty earlier that year, stating,"Should it ever happen that an army of the French nation attempts to settle on any of the islands or shores of Persia, a conjunct force shall be appointed by the two high contracted parties, to act in cooperation, to destroy it". A British force marched out from India, but the Persians, upon recognizing that neither France nor Russia intended conquest thanks to Paul's rejection of expansionistic warfare, capitulated and signed a new alliance with France and Russia. The British were defeated at the Battle of Kandahar, and the Russo-French force marched into India.
Britain began to panic and struggled to create a new coalition. Scandinavia refused and again ousted British authority with a coalition of neutrality. Austro-Hungary joined with Britain as Napoleon expanded again into Italy; Prussia joined later as the war spread to Germany. At the indecisive Battle of Trafalgar, Britain attempted to destroy the combined French-Spanish navy but merely wounded it before returning to protect the Channel. Meanwhile, at Paul's encouragement, Napoleon dispatched the fleets to harass Britain's colonies where they would be most vulnerable. As colony after colony fell or became disrupted, Britain's economy crashed. Finally in 1812, the world came to peace with a final armistice requested by Britain.
Through the nineteenth century, Europe recuperated and began a new wave of colonization began in Africa and Asia. Paul, however, worked to continue his reforms inside Russia, welcoming French technological improvements while solidifying his chivalric order. After the death of his son Alexander due to typhus in 1825, Paul began to groom his grandson Alexander II for rule, but the tsar died the next year. Eight-year-old Alexander II was made tsar, advised by a council whose powers were expanded during the wave of revolutions following the death of Napoleon II in 1848. Russia came late into the race to colonize, taking only a few areas in Central Asia while France dominated the Middle East and Britain took hold of much of China, paring it with Prussia and Batavia as they had in Africa. Paul's legacy of reform improved much in the lives of the average Russians, but finally his aged chivalric order was overthrown in 1919 by revolts calling for a greater share of wealth for the populace.
In 1683, just a week before race day, the citizens of Newmarket extinguished a major fire which was threatening to destroy half the town. Indirectly, the brave actions of the townsfolk led to the downfall of the Royal House of Stuart.
The Regicide at Rye House Because King Charles II and his brother James, Duke of York were killed north-east of Hoddesdon on their return from the races. The ambush had been well-organized by an extremist Whig group who had concealed a band of one hundred armed men in the grounds of the Rye House.
Contrary to the hopes of the conspirators, the country did not rise in rebellion against the Restored Stuart Monarchy and their crypto-Catholicism. And yet their was some cold comfort to be taken in the undeniable force of Parliamentary Power. Because twenty-one year old Mary II was placed on the throne of England, Scotland and Ireland on terms very different from those of her executed grandfather King Charles I.
Thoughts now turned to the task of marrying the Queen to a suitable European monarch. Her father had plans to form a personal union with the Protestant House of Orange, but it soon became clear that Willem would insist on a co-monarchy, and this led Parliamentarians to the conclusion that a French noble was a more strategic choice.
In 517 AD, on this day Artorius Ambrosius Arelianus rode out of the north gate of Cirinium (Cirencester) at the head of what was left of his Cataphracti (heavy Roman cavalry), the rest of the army tagging along behind. The Draco, a windsock with a dragon's metal head, which mades a noise as they ride along, the late Roman cavalry banner, was at the head.
Battle of Camlann, Reboot Part #1 by Ed & Richard RoperHe had to put down the rebellion and in any case his wife had been assaulted. There was also the problem of his child-heir. which Moderatus and Artorius's half-sister Anna were challenging as heir.
At camp on the way, his cousin Ambrosius (aka Merlin) rode in with the South Wales1 contingent. He persuaded Artorius to turn back and make the rebels come to him in Cirinium whilst their Angle allies arrive. This is backed up by Galerius Hadrianus (aka Sir Galahad). Modred (aka Moderatus), Morgana (Anna) and their supporters and , the Cunnedda eventually arrived and besiged Cirinium. Meanwhile Cissa, King of Sussex, as Bretwalda (overall Saxon ruler of Britain) marched up the Roman road from the east with their Saxon allies.
Also meanwhile King Loegerange, Winifrith's father, and King of the Angles in East Anglia declared a blood-feud because an Angle princess has been insulted by being assaulted in her own palace. Back in Angeln, Uncle Icel, King of Angeln declared a blood-feud. In any case it was politically convenient since a new home is needed for the Angles, something had to be done about the Saxons and Ciisa claiming to be Bretwalda and there were old scores to be settled with the Saxons, Hengist was an experience warlord used by the Danes agianst them.
The Angle fleet sailed up the Humber, having taken in the reinforcements from East Anglia and Bernicia ? North East England. They marched from the upper waters of the Trent to Crinium2. The Saxon-rebel host were beseiging Cirinium when the warhorns sound. Over the rise came the Angle3 host, in Roman order in Maniples in three lines and more or less keeping step.
Leodegrace and Ecil's standards were at the centre of the line, with their warbands and themselves in Roman style armour and Tufa Roman-style standards.
Cissa was killed as the Saxons are caught against the wall and ditch of Cirinium. Modred and Morgana tried to flee. The Cataphracti ring out to support the Angles. The Saxons are cut down in a pursuit down the Roman road.
This article continues in Part 2.
In 296 AD, on this day a Roman Army under the command of Caesar Gaius Galerius Valerius Maximianus Augustus ("Galerius the Great") inflicted a crushing defeat on the Persians at the Second Battle of Carrhae ("Carrhae II").
Battle of Carrhae II
by Ed & Richard RoperAfter making sure that the Saracen tribes were loyal he inherited a significant force of horse archers that enabled him to capture the Treasury, haarem and wife of the Hah. Bolstered by this prestige, he overthrew the senior emperor Diocletian and then proceeded to buy off the Western Caesar.
For political reasons, he quickly ended Dioclesian's persecution of the Christian population by issuing an Edict of Toleration. This astute move enabled him to deal with the Western Co-Emperor more easily. Declaring himself the sole Emperor, he renamed the capital of the Eastern Empire to Galerinople and became known to history as "Galerius the Great".
This article is an alternate outcome to the Greater Persecution in which Galerius also wins out but instead unleashes genocide on the Christians.
In 207 B.C., not a man to be fooled by the treachery of his worthless guides, Hasdrubal Barca quietly led the Carthaginian army out of camp before marching to Gaul where he safely re-established communications with his brother Hannibal.
Hasdrubal Barca retreats from the Metauro RiverThe retreat from the Metauro River was the latest in a serious of deft (some would safe fortunate) moves in a campaign that was going remarkably well. Having escaped Publius Scipio in Hispania, the fearful Gauls had permitted the Carthaginian army to pass unchallenged through the Alps.
Fortunately for the invaders, the tell-tale sound of a double trumpet from the opposition camp revealed that two Roman Armies were waiting for them (Claudius Nero had just fought Hannibal in Grumentum, some hundreds of kilometers south of the Metaurus river, and reached Marcus Livius with a forced march which went unnoticed by both Hannibal and Hasdrubal, so that the Carthaginians suddenly found themselves outnumbered). Problems with fording the river, coupled with the suspicious behaviour of the guides forced Hasdrubal to make the difficult but correct decision to return to head back through the Alps and return to Gaul.
Even though his brother Hannibal was undefeated on the Italian Peninsula, the ultimate success of the Carthaginian campaign depended on the availability of siege equipment and reinforcements brought by Hasdrubal. Fortunately for the sons of Hamilcar Barca, they were able to re-establish communication in Gaul and plan for the successful capture of Rome later in the year.
In 1823, on this day the eighteenth President of the United States Schuyler Colfax, Jr. was born in New York City.
Schuyler Colfax
18th President
May 16th, 1868 - 1873His grandfather, William Colfax served in George Washington's Life Guard during the American Revolution, becoming a general in the New Jersey militia and married Hester Schuyler, a cousin of general Philip Schuyler. In 1836, Colfax moved with his mother and stepfather to New Carlisle, Indiana. As a young man, Colfax contributed articles on Indiana politics to the New York Tribune and formed a friendship with the editor, Horace Greeley. He established a reputation as rising young Whig and at 19 became the editor of the pro-Whig South Bend Free Press. In 1845, Colfax purchased the newspaper and changed its name to the St. Joseph Valley Register.
Based on an original story by Robbie TaylorColfax was a delegate to the Whig Party Convention of 1848 and the Indiana Constitutional Convention of 1849. He was a member of the state constitutional convention in 1850. Colfax was nominated for Congress in 1850, but narrowly lost to his Democratic opponent. He ran again two years later, this time successfully, in 1854 as an Anti-Nebraska candidate in opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
When the Whig Party collapsed, Colfax briefly considered the Know-Nothing Party, but finally joined the new Republican Party that was formed as a fusion of northern Whigs, Anti-Nebraska Act Democrats, Know Nothings, and Free Soilers. After the Republicans gained the majority in the House of Representatives in the mid-term elections of 1858, Colfax became chairman of the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads.
He was an energetic opponent of slavery and his speech attacking the pro-slavery Lecompton Legislature in Kansas became the most widely requested Republican campaign document in the election. In 1862, following the electoral defeat of House Speaker Galusha Grow, Colfax was elected Speaker of the House. During his term as Speaker, he announced the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865.
In 1868, the U.S. Senate convicted and removed President Andrew Johnson at the end of his impeachment trial. The conviction was passed by a single vote, reflecting the partisan nature of the entire proceedings. As the Speaker of the House, Colfax assumed the presidency and led the Republican Party to reelection that year.
In 2013, on this day a solar flare destroys all but one of the arks carrying humanity away from the cataclysmic events unfolding on Earth.
Warp 2012
The Mlosh are back, again!Lacking the critical mass of resources required to colonize an Earth-like planet, distress signals are transmitted to the friendly Q'Barian sector of the Galaxy. But to the dismay of the remaining survivors the rescue ship that arrives is of Mlosh origin.
The alien race known as the Mlosh had landed on earth in 1720, announcing that they only wished to join earth and its cultures, and be treated as equals among us. After some initial panic, they were welcomed, (begrudgingly in some quarters), into the company of man. Chief amongst that minority was Brent Carpenter who founded a radical terrorist group called the Human League.
The Mlosh introduced labor-saving machinery and by 1765 slavery was abolished. Emboldened by this success, they experiment with weather control technology but due to subtle differences with the Mlosh world, the results were catastrophic. Following a series of earthquakes, the fickle support of mankind swung to the Human League and after the nuclear destruction of the Mlosh city of Qu'Mar the aliens decided to quit the planet altogether.
Long after this explosive parting of the ways, human scientists had begun to speculate that the 2012 catastrophe might not be a Mayan prophecy, but rather a delayed reaction from the weather control technology. The Mlosh had their own suspicions and dispatched a rescue ship just in case. And so this element of doubt in the minds of scientists of both races opened the possibility of a reformed alliance between human and Mlosh.
Unfortunately human weakness revealed itself once again when the issue of trust quickly rose to the surface. Because calculations that the Earth would be unhabitable for centuries would require the human survivors to be placed in a state of near-death suspended animation..
Robbie Taylor's novel Warp is the story of a band of anti-Mlosh terrorists and the authorities who attempt to hunt them down. You can download on the novel Lulu web site. The author is hoping to release some titles on Kindle some time soon.
| Flag of | In 1607, on this day Britain's second permanent colony in North America, Jamestown, was established in Virginia. |
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| State of Virginia |
In 1933, the German Reichstag adopted the Enabling Act, which effectively granted Adolf Hitler dictatorial legislative powers. During the evening, President Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg shot Hitler dead with his Prussian service revolver. A bitter dispute had begun when Hindenburg - in a rare moment of old age lucidity - had refused to counter-sign the legislation, and both men had characteristically refused to back down. | |
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| Hindenburg |
In 2007, the Navy of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards surrounded HMS Cornwall. Fifteen British Royal Navy personnel were seized in Iraqi waters and held prisoner off the Iran-Iraq Coast. The team of eight sailors and seven Royal Marines in two rigid-hulled inflatable boats had been searching a merchant dhow for smuggled automobiles when they were detained at roughly 10:30 Iraqi time (07:30 GMT; 11:00 Iranian time) by the crews of two Iranian boats; a further six Iranian boats then assisted in the seizure. The British personnel were subsequently taken to an Iranian Revolutionary Guards base in Tehran for questioning. Iranian officials claimed that the British sailors were in Iranian waters. | |
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| HMS Cornwall |
The University of Durham analysis of the initial Iranian identification of the location of the boats showed that the position given was in Iraqi waters. According to the Ministry of Defence, the Iranians allegedly issued a 'corrected' location, which placed the boats in Iranian waters.Information provided by Britain initially consistently placed the boats in Iraqi waters. However, the subsequent report by the British House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee confirmed that the Ministry of Defence map presented to the worldwide media was 'inaccurate' as it presented a boundary line when no maritime boundary between the two countries has been agreed upon, and so . The UK Government was unfortunate that Iran chose to contest the accuracy of the map.' Conspiracy theorists and hawks agreed on one point however, the first step on the road to war had been taken.. |
In 1991, British Prime Minister launch the 'citizen charter', the greatest step forward in constitutional rights since the Magna Carta. Failing public service providers would be forced to offer customers cash refunds or face government budget cuts, the Prime Minister announced as examples of sweeping changes to help the nation become 'at ease with itself'.. | John Major |
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| Prime Minister |
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© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.




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Rhodesian voters swing the crucial "
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Paris 1927 and the American pilot Charles "
Olaf III Guthfrithsson wins the "
Mussolini goes too far in a "
Meltdown in the "
Martin Luther Nails "
Libertarian watchman Alex Jones fights the "
Kenneth Starr discovers a personal tragedy behind the "
Kennedy announces his joint US/Soviet mission to the "
Jefferson executed by "