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Message Tracking Search Members Calendar FAQ Saunders is Yay! Portal NewOTL Othertimelines ? Alternate History Discussion ? Alternate History ? Lee of the Union Pages: 1 2 Lee of the Union Topic Started: Jul 31 2007, 12:59 AM (8,882 Views) Uncle Mike Jul 31 2007, 12:59 AM Post #1

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 Ladies and gentlemen, presenting the revised "Lee of the Union Timeline," originally posted on OtherTimelines.com. I will post decade by decade for easier viewing. Some additions have been made to make up for gaps in the original. Some corrections have been made for my errors in spelling, grammar, and later entries that turned out to contradict earlier entries. And I have made comments to explain where this Timeline (hereafter abbreviated as "TTL") differs from real life (hereafter abbreviated as "RL") in events that might not be familiar to most of you. I no longer regret never posting it on Alternia. Lee of the Union: A Tale of Things That Never Were 1861 (OTL Timeline 1217, named "Lee of the Union," begins here.) March 7: Believing that civil war is about to break out between the United States of America (the Union or "The North") and the Confederate States of America (the Confederacy or "The South"), U.S. President Abraham Lincoln

offers General Robert E. Lee command of all Union military forces. "Your country needs you," Lincoln tells him. "I know you love your State of Virginia, but if the seceding States win, it will be in a cause of slavery and treason. Being a Virginian won't be worth very much then. You are an American first, and a Virginian second, and you can do best by Virginia by being loyal to America." After careful consideration, Lee accepts. (In real life, Lee sided with the Confederacy, with disastrous results.) April 12: Confederate troops fire on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and capture it. The civil war between America's North and South has begun. July 21: General Robert E. Lee and his Army of the Potomac routs the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and General Pierre Beauregard at Bull Run in Manassas, Virginia. (In RL, Lee led the Confederates to victory at this battle.) August 14: General Robert E. Lee and his Army of the Potomac make an easy capture of the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. August 16: The Slavery Rebellion (as it will come to be called) is over before it can burst into full-scale civil war. General Robert E. Lee accepts the surrenders of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, on behalf of the Confederate government, and General Joseph Johnston, on behalf of the Confederate armies. Davis and Johnston both accept President Abraham Lincoln's offer of amnesty for all rebelling soldiers. Lee had hoped to get General Thomas J. Jackson to be the official military signer, but Jackson wouldn't do it. "Speaking to General Jackson is like speaking to a stone wall," Lee remarks, and for the rest of his life, the stubborn general is known as Stonewall Jackson. September 1: General Robert E. Lee, de facto governor of all Confederate States until provisional governments can be set up, announces that any further rebellion on the part of the former Confederate States will be met with severe reprisals, but compliance with the Constitution of the United States will mean leniency. (In RL, this would happen, but not until 1865.) September 19: A Constitutional Amendment prohibiting slavery in all States, including all those that had once been Confederate States, is presented to the Congress. November 6: The Republican-controlled Illinois legislature appoints Ulysses S. Grant, a Colonel in the recent Slavery Rebellion, to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the death of Senator Stephen A. Douglas, the 1860 Democratic Presidential nominee. (In RL, Grant would briefly serve as Secretary of War, but would never be elected to anything until he was nomianted for President in 1868.) 1862

January 17: The last major rebel band surrenders, as Nathan Bedford Forrest, knowing that further resistance is futile, hands his sword to General William Tecumseh Sherman. December 24: The greatest Christmas present in American history is delivered as the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting slavery, is ratified. It will take effect on January 1, 1863. By this time, the provisional legislatures of the former Confederate States of Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia have pledged their loyalty to the Constitution of the United States and have been readmitted to the Union, rejoining California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin. Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina remain holdouts. (The Amendment is ratified three years sooner than in RL.) 1863 July 4: Mississippi becomes the last of the former Confederate States of America to be readmitted to the Union. Alabama and South Carolina had been readmitted earlier in the year. Upon hearing the news, General Robert E. Lee submits his resignation of commission to President Abraham Lincoln, who accepts it. (This is the RL date of the Battle of Vicksburg, in Mississippi, and just after the Battle of Gettysburg. Combined, this made a Union victory all but certain.) 1864 June 21: With the Union saved, slavery banned by the 13th Amendment, ratification soon to come of the 14th and 15th Amendments, guaranteeing Negro citizenship and voting rights, and a bill to protect Indian lands on its way to passage by Congress, President Abraham Lincoln announces he will not be a candidate for re-election. November 2: General Robert E. Lee, the leader of the Army that squashed the Slavery Rebellion, is elected the 17th President of the United States. The Democratic Party had united behind the Virginian who may, for all anybody knows, have saved the country from a prolonged, disastrous civil war. He defeats the Republican nominee, Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase of Ohio. Lee's Vice President is Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, the only Senator from one of the seceding States who did not resign his seat and stayed loyal to the Union. November 11: The city of Atlanta, having returned to the Union with the rest of the State of Georgia in 1862, rests quietly. William Tecumseh Sherman, Robert E. Lee's replacement as General-in-Chief of American armed forces, spends most of the day in his Washington office, smoking cigars, drinking brandy and going through volumes of paperwork. He is burning with boredom.

1865 March 3: On his last full day in office, President Abraham Lincoln signs the Indian Territories Act of 1865, establishing permanent Indian homelands in the Northern Plains (Dakota Territory), in the Southern Plains (Oklahoma Territory), and in the Southwest (Arizona Territory), while amending the Homestead Act of 1862 to allow only those non-Indians already living there, and their descendants, to stay, and no new ones to be admitted without the permission of the Territorial governments. Each Territory, or each State developed within these territories, will have a U.S. Army fort within its borders, in order to protect the established white settlers in the event of Indian obrogation of the ITA, though Lincoln signs an Executive Order proscribing great punishment for soldiers who go too far. Indian tribes will be permitted to remain or resettle there, with their own people eligible to run for election to Territorial legislatures, Governorships and non-voting representatives in Congress, so that if and when their legislatures vote in favor of Statehood, they will be admitted with their own people governing them, representing them and voting for their interests in Congress. Lincoln receives support from the former Confederate States, many of whom are willing to pay to have their remaining Native Americans moved to the new Territories. March 4: Robert Edward Lee is sworn in as President of the United States. In his Inaugural Address, he quotes Benjamin Franklin in order to express brotherhood with the now-restored Southern States: "We must all hang together, or, surely, we shall all hang separately." It is a suggestion that the North will not only show lenience toward the former rebels, but also has a responsibility to help the South rebuild. March 8: Former President Abraham Lincoln returns to his home town of Springfield, Illinois. "I have never been happier than to have the shackles of governing thrown off," he says, "and to return to the highest office a man can hold, that of private citizen in the town he calls home." Even his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, has seen a sense of depression fade from her. March 18: President Robert E. Lee makes a tour of the Southern States. Among his stops is in Augusta, Georgia, where an eight-year-old boy named Thomas Woodrow Wilson hears him speak on the need for Southerners to help themselves by building up their own institutions, so that they may compete with the North in more positive ways. (In RL, the future President Wilson saw Confederate President Jefferson Davis taken through his home town on a carriage, in chains as a prisoner.) April 14: President Robert E. Lee is shot and killed at Ford's Theater in Washington by John Wilkes Booth, an actor who considered Lee a traitor to Virginia. Lee was 58, and had been in office only 41 days, the least in history except for William Henry Harrison in 1841. He is the first President to be assassinated. Booth is captured at the scene, and will be executed. Vice President Andrew Johnson becomes the 18th President of the United States,

as the nation goes into deep mourning over President Lee. April 16: An open letter to the American people from former President Lincoln appears in most of the nation's newspapers. It pays tribute to the assassinated President Robert E. Lee, offers his assistance to new President Andrew Johnson, and suggests calm to both a North angry over the assassination and a South that is about evenly divided over whether assassin John Wilkes Booth was justified. "With malice toward none," Lincoln writes, "with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." Lincoln's words do much to repair the breach that still exists between North and South, and many Republican activists want him to run for President again in 1868. He will have none of it: "I have done my duty, and there are many in the Party who are up to the great task that will be before the next President, regardless of whether Mr. Johnson succeeds." (Lincoln's words above are from his RL Second Inaugural address.) 1866 January 1: With a regiment of the 7th Cavalry, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer, standing guard, a Chief of the Lakota Sioux takes office as Territorial Governor of Dakota Territory. He takes office, and takes a Christian name along with his Indian name: "I, Joseph Sitting Bull, do solemnly swear..." July 4: The Upper Peninsula of Michigan has its Statehood as the State of Hiawatha ratified by Congress. It becomes the 37th State of the Union. (In RL, this split has never happened, although there is a Timeline about it, "Yooper Revolution." I added it so that I could end up with 50 States even with the Indian Territories Act making North and South Dakota one State and Arizona and New Mexico one State.) 1867 July 1: The British North America act is ratified, giving Canada limited independence from Great Britain. John A. Macdonald is named the first Prime Minister. Also on this day, The University of Western Virginia is founded in Morgantown, Virginia. (In RL, several Counties split from Virginia in 1863 to form the Union State of West Virginia. In TTL, that never happened, so the school we know as "WVU" is, here, "UWV.") 1868 November 4: Senator William H. Seward of New York, who had been Secretary of State under President Lincoln, is elected the 19th President of the United States, defeating his State's Governor, Horatio Seymour. Senator Ulysses S. Grant of Illinois is elected Vice President.

1869 March 11: General Nathan Bedford Forrest, with several U.S. soldiers behind him, shuts down the Ku Klux Klan, a "social organization" that he himself had founded, as a way to celebrate Southern pride and Christian ideals. They had gone too far, terrorizing black people and Jews. "That war is over," he says. "The South will rise again, but, first, we must deserve to." (Forrest did quit the Klan, but did nothing to stop it. He should have.) Uncle Mike Jul 31 2007, 11:30 AM Post #2

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 << Grant is a nobody without a long war I doubt he would get a Senate Seat. >> FTB Oh, here we go. As a Colonel in the Illinois militia he got to know the kind of people who were willing to bring his name to the State Legislature and thus elect him to the U.S. Senate under the laws of the time. He's not Grant the Hero of Fort Donelson, Vicksburg and Appomattox. But he's still a guy who knows people as a result of his military service. Sort of like a truly overrated soldier, William Henry Harrison. (Except, being the son of a Revolutionary rogue, Harrison knew a lot more people from the start.) << Also, Forrest did not form the Klan. >> I could say that this was an honest mistake. But, since it's FTB, who seems to think ticking me off is some sort of duty of his, I'll "retcon" it and say... It's an alternate history. In TTL, he DID found it. You don't like it? Write a Divergence that says he didn't found it. There. And I did it without insulting FTB's intelligence. Which wouldn't take long. Or that of the guys who forced the bulk of us off Alternia, which wouldn't take any longer. (Old joke.)

Uncle Mike

Jul 31 2007, 03:51 PM Post #3

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 << I'm not trying to tick you off. Im trying to give you helpful points But if even when Im trying to be polite you have to be a jerk so whatever. I will not bother you again. >> Helpful, huh? You know what they say: With friends like these... As for not bothering me again... I'm not going to hold you to that. Uncle Mike Aug 1 2007, 12:15 PM Post #4

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 << Your second RL historical footnote is wrong, Lee had nothing to do with the Confederate victory at First Mannassas. I don't get why Indians are being treated better in this TL, with the possible exception of the Cherokee, the Five Civilized Tribes had already signed treaties with the Confederacy, and neither the Northern nor Southern attitude towards them and the other Native Americans would change just because the Civil War was shorter. >> Okie There was no Confederate victory at First Manassas. There was one at First (and Second) Bull Run. We won the war, we get to name the battles. Considering that Lee was in command of all Virginia forces, saying he had nothing to do with the battle is like saying George C. Marshall had nothing to

do with D-Day. My footnote may have been an exaggeration based on a lack of familiarity, but that hardly makes it untrue. Indians are being treated better in TTL because the President of the United States is an Abraham Lincoln who can concentrate on things other than a civil war. << Jeeze shut up Michael. He was just making a point, and you go off on your normal insults. >> ahscardinal That should tell you something: If I'm considered normal, something's wrong. << AND USE THE QUOTE BUTTON. What you are doing is extremely annoying. >> It is, huh? Gee. << Plus there would have to be a rather large reason for Lee not to follow Virginia. He had already discussed the situation with his wife and had, even before the offer was made, that he would follow Virginia. >> Patriotism. Honor. Duty. In TTL, his Commander-in-Chief gave him a direct order. To not betray his country. Which is more important than his State. << Andy Johnson is an unlikely choice for Lee's VP. When has any ticket prior to 1992 lacked any geographical balance? east-west, north-south...and the point is especially valid in the 19th century, in which all the tickets (especially the democratic ones) had a northerner with a southerner. Henceforth, Lee would have had another running mate, as per the party's instructions, someone from New York (Seymour, perhaps) would be most likely, or New England. >> Pompey Let's see: 1828, Jackson-Calhoun, two Southerners; 1832, Jackson-Van Buren, N-S split; 1836 and 1840, Van Buren-R.M. Johnson, N-S split; 1844, PolkDallas, N-S split; 1848, Cass-W.O. Butler, N-S split; 1852, Pierce-W.R. King, N-S split; 1856, Buchanan-Breckenridge, N-S split; 1860, Douglas-H.V. Johnson, NS split; 1864, McClellan-Pendleton, two Northerners (if you call Cincinnati "North"), but since it was during the war, put an asterisk on it; 1868, Seymour-Blair, Francis P. Blair was born in Kentucky and was a Senator from Missouri but was a Union General. So in a 40-year stretch, 1832-72, only in the special-circumstance race of 1864 was the pattern broken. So that's one and possibly two changes I'd need to make. It's far easier to do that in this format than in OTL.com's. I would make changes for Pompey. I would NOT make them for the Oklahoma Kid -- unless that's Mickey Mantle, and Okie ain't him.

<< That being said, I do hope that you continue Pierce Pressure ... and this. >> I might download the first four parts of "Pierce Pressure" (a play-on-words of "peer pressure," in case anyone didn't get it) tonight. If not tonight, then tomorrow night. "Lee of the Union" will be revised at the same time. When the remainders of them will be posted, I can't really say right now. I still have to write "Pierce Pressure" beyond 1901. (Yes, TR still becomes President, but, not looking at it right now -- I'm at work -- I don't remember whether it happens on time.) "Lee of the Union" is actually written through September 11, 2001. Something awful does happen on that day, but it's not what you'd think. I probably won't be able to post anything this weekend. Weekends are usually packed for me these days, as there are RL concerns, including grocery shopping, the occasional ballgame, I've been trying to sneak in a good beach day but rainy weekends and short funds have interfered, and then there's the now one-month-old nieces to consider. They don't do much, but they do demand attention. (They're family, all right. LOL) Uncle Mike Aug 1 2007, 02:02 PM Post #5

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 Considering that Lee was in command of all Virginia forces, saying he had nothing to do with the battle is like saying George C. Marshall had nothing to do with D-Day. My footnote may have been an exaggeration based on a lack of familiarity, but that hardly makes it untrue. Indians are being treated better in TTL because the President of the United States is an Abraham Lincoln who can concentrate on things other than a civil war. << Lee was not in command of all Virginian forces during the First Battle of Manassas, that position had expired when Virginia joined the Confederacy, Lee was serving as Jefferson Davis' unofficial military advisor at the time. >> In other words, he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Which is the same effect.

<< Lincoln's attitudes towards Native Americans were far from enlightened: "It is my purpose to utterly exterminate the Sioux. They are to be treated as maniacs or wild beasts, and by no means as people with whom treaties or compromise can be made." -General John Pope, specifically appointed by Lincoln to crush the Santee Sioux rebellion, which was caused by Federal refusal to pay the Sioux the money owed to them for their lands. In addition to the Sioux atrocities, Lincoln presided over and supported a similar campaign launched against the Navajo because gold was believed to be on their lands, and Federal troops in the Indian Territory were notorious for their treatment of Indian prisoners and civilians. >> Yeah, yeah, and Lincoln didn't really want to free the slaves. I'm not going to let some 17-year-old Southerner from a State that thinks Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn are fit for serving in the U.S. Senate -- and who, at last check, still thinks the Union started the war -- tell me about Abraham Lincoln. A Lincoln who crushed the Slavery Rebellion (as it would have been called in TTL) would have been able to spend the last 3 1/2 years of his Administration on other things, putting his prodigious talents to work in finding ways to make it a better country for everyone, including the Indians. If he were not that kind of man, he never would have entered public life. If you don't agree, WYODTL! That's "Write Your Own Damn TimeLine!" Uncle Mike Aug 2 2007, 11:03 PM Post #6

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 With revisions made: Lee of the Union: A Tale of Things That Never Were 1861

(OTL Timeline 1217, named "Lee of the Union," begins here.) March 7: Believing that civil war is about to break out between the United States of America (the Union or "The North") and the Confederate States of America (the Confederacy or "The South"), U.S. President Abraham Lincoln offers General Robert E. Lee command of all Union military forces. "Your country needs you," Lincoln tells him. "I know you love your State of Virginia, but if the seceding States win, it will be in a cause of slavery and treason. Being a Virginian won't be worth very much then. You are an American first, and a Virginian second, and you can do best by Virginia by being loyal to America." After careful consideration, Lee accepts. (In real life, Lee sided with the Confederacy, with disastrous results.) April 12: Confederate troops fire on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and capture it. The civil war between America's North and South has begun. July 21: General Robert E. Lee and his Army of the Potomac routs the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and Generals Pierre Beauregard and Joseph Johnston at Bull Run in Manassas, Virginia. (In RL, Beauregard and Johnston led the Confederates to victory at this battle, over Union General Irvin McDowell.) August 14: General Robert E. Lee and his Army of the Potomac make an easy capture of the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. August 16: The Slavery Rebellion (as it will come to be called) is over before it can burst into full-scale civil war. General Robert E. Lee accepts the surrenders of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, on behalf of the Confederate government, and General Joseph Johnston, on behalf of the Confederate armies. Davis and Johnston both accept President Abraham Lincoln's offer of amnesty for all rebelling soldiers. Lee had hoped to get General Thomas J. Jackson to be the official military signer, but Jackson wouldn't do it. "Speaking to General Jackson is like speaking to a stone wall," Lee remarks, and for the rest of his life, the stubborn general is known as Stonewall Jackson. September 1: General Robert E. Lee, de facto governor of all Confederate States until provisional governments can be set up, announces that any further rebellion on the part of the former Confederate States will be met with severe reprisals, but compliance with the Constitution of the United States will mean leniency. (In RL, this would happen, but not until 1865.) September 19: A Constitutional Amendment prohibiting slavery in all States, including all those that had once been Confederate States, is presented to the Congress. November 6: The Republican-controlled Illinois legislature appoints Ulysses S. Grant, a Colonel in the recent Slavery Rebellion, to the U.S. Senate seat

vacated by the death of Senator Stephen A. Douglas, the 1860 Democratic Presidential nominee. (In RL, Grant would briefly serve as Secretary of War, but would never be elected to anything until he was nomianted for President in 1868.) 1862 January 17: The last major rebel band surrenders, as Nathan Bedford Forrest, knowing that further resistance is futile, hands his sword to General William Tecumseh Sherman. December 24: The greatest Christmas present in American history is delivered as the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting slavery, is ratified. It will take effect on January 1, 1863. By this time, the provisional legislatures of the former Confederate States of Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia have pledged their loyalty to the Constitution of the United States and have been readmitted to the Union, rejoining California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin. Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina remain holdouts. (The Amendment is ratified three years sooner than in RL.) 1863 July 4: Mississippi becomes the last of the former Confederate States of America to be readmitted to the Union. Alabama and South Carolina had been readmitted earlier in the year. Upon hearing the news, General Robert E. Lee submits his resignation of commission to President Abraham Lincoln, who accepts it. (This is the RL date of the Battle of Vicksburg, in Mississippi, and just after the Battle of Gettysburg. Combined, this made a Union victory all but certain.) 1864 June 21: With the Union saved, slavery banned by the 13th Amendment, ratification soon to come of the 14th and 15th Amendments, guaranteeing Negro citizenship and voting rights, and a bill to protect Indian lands on its way to passage by Congress, President Abraham Lincoln announces he will not be a candidate for re-election. November 2: General Robert E. Lee, the leader of the Army that squashed the Slavery Rebellion, is elected the 17th President of the United States. The Democratic Party had united behind the Virginian who may, for all anybody knows, have saved the country from a prolonged, disastrous civil war. He defeats the Republican nominee, Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase of Ohio. Lee's Vice President is Governor Joel Parker of New Jersey, who had commanded the New Jersey militia during the Slavery Rebellion. (I needed a Northerner to balance the ticket with the Virginian Lee. Parker had been a

Major General in the war and a State Assemblyman, County Prosecutor and Presidential Elector before it. He served as Governor 1863-66 and 1871-74, and went on to serve on the State Supreme Court.) November 11: The city of Atlanta, having returned to the Union with the rest of the State of Georgia in 1862, rests quietly. William Tecumseh Sherman, Robert E. Lee's replacement as General-in-Chief of American armed forces, spends most of the day in his Washington office, smoking cigars, drinking brandy and going through volumes of paperwork. He is burning with boredom. 1865 March 3: On his last full day in office, President Abraham Lincoln signs the Indian Territories Act of 1865, establishing permanent Indian homelands in the Northern Plains (Dakota Territory), in the Southern Plains (Oklahoma Territory), and in the Southwest (Arizona Territory), while amending the Homestead Act of 1862 to allow only those non-Indians already living there, and their descendants, to stay, and no new ones to be admitted without the permission of the Territorial governments. Each Territory, or each State developed within these territories, will have a U.S. Army fort within its borders, in order to protect the established white settlers in the event of Indian obrogation of the ITA, though Lincoln signs an Executive Order proscribing great punishment for soldiers who go too far. Indian tribes will be permitted to remain or resettle there, with their own people eligible to run for election to Territorial legislatures, Governorships and non-voting representatives in Congress, so that if and when their legislatures vote in favor of Statehood, they will be admitted with their own people governing them, representing them and voting for their interests in Congress. Lincoln receives support from the former Confederate States, many of whom are willing to pay to have their remaining Native Americans moved to the new Territories. March 4: Robert Edward Lee is sworn in as President of the United States. In his Inaugural Address, he quotes Benjamin Franklin in order to express brotherhood with the now-restored Southern States: "We must all hang together, or, surely, we shall all hang separately." It is a suggestion that the North will not only show lenience toward the former rebels, but also has a responsibility to help the South rebuild. March 8: Former President Abraham Lincoln returns to his home town of Springfield, Illinois. "I have never been happier than to have the shackles of governing thrown off," he says, "and to return to the highest office a man can hold, that of private citizen in the town he calls home." Even his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, has seen a sense of depression fade from her. March 18: President Robert E. Lee makes a tour of the Southern States. Among his stops is in Augusta, Georgia, where an eight-year-old boy named Thomas Woodrow Wilson hears him speak on the need for Southerners to help themselves by building up their own institutions, so that they may

compete with the North in more positive ways. (In RL, the future President Wilson saw Confederate President Jefferson Davis taken through his home town on a carriage, in chains as a prisoner.) April 14: President Robert E. Lee is shot and killed at Ford's Theater in Washington by John Wilkes Booth, an actor who considered Lee a traitor to Virginia. Lee was 58, and had been in office only 41 days, the least in history except for William Henry Harrison in 1841. He is the first President to be assassinated. Booth is captured at the scene, and will be executed. Vice President Joel Parker becomes the 18th President of the United States, the first from New Jersey. The nation goes into deep mourning over President Lee. April 16: An open letter to the American people from former President Lincoln appears in most of the nation's newspapers. It pays tribute to the assassinated President Robert E. Lee, offers his assistance to new President Joel Parker (despite intense criticism from Parker over the last four years), and suggests calm to both a North angry over the assassination and a South that is about evenly divided over whether assassin John Wilkes Booth was justified. "With malice toward none," Lincoln writes, "with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." Lincoln's words do much to repair the breach that still exists between North and South, and many Republican activists want him to run for President again in 1868. He will have none of it: "I have done my duty, and there are many in the Party who are up to the great task that will be before the next President, regardless of whether Mr. Parker succeeds." (Lincoln's words above are from his RL Second Inaugural address.) 1866 January 1: With a regiment of the 7th Cavalry, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer, standing guard, a Chief of the Lakota Sioux takes office as Territorial Governor of Dakota Territory. He takes office, and takes a Christian name along with his Indian name: "I, Joseph Sitting Bull, do solemnly swear..." July 4: The Upper Peninsula of Michigan has its Statehood as the State of Hiawatha ratified by Congress. It becomes the 37th State of the Union. (In RL, this split has never happened, although there is a Timeline about it, "Yooper Revolution." I added it so that I could end up with 50 States even with the Indian Territories Act making North and South Dakota one State and Arizona and New Mexico one State.) 1867 July 1: The British North America act is ratified, giving Canada limited independence from Great Britain. John A. Macdonald is named the first Prime Minister. Also on this day, The University of Western Virginia is founded in Morgantown, Virginia. (In RL, several Counties split from Virginia in 1863 to

form the Union State of West Virginia. In TTL, that never happened, so the school we know as "WVU" is, here, "UWV.") 1868 November 4: Senator William H. Seward of New York, who had been Secretary of State under President Lincoln, is elected the 19th President of the United States, defeating his State's Governor, Horatio Seymour. Senator Ulysses S. Grant of Illinois is elected Vice President. 1869 March 11: General Nathan Bedford Forrest, with several U.S. soldiers behind him, shuts down the Ku Klux Klan, a "social organization" that he himself was among the founding members, as a way to celebrate Southern pride and Christian ideals. They had gone too far, terrorizing black people and Jews. "That war is over," he says. "The South will rise again, but, first, we must deserve to." (Forrest did quit the Klan, but did nothing to stop it. He should have.) 1870 April 2: Nearly a year after the first transcontinental railroad links the New York and San Francisco areas, a second is built. J.E.B. Stuart, a former U.S. Army General, raised the necessary funds to get a line built from Norfolk, Virginia to Los Angeles, California. A northern transcontinental route, from New York to Chicago to Seattle, will open in 1892. (It would take until roughly that time for the battered South to have its own transcontinental railroad.) 1871 November 7: With great reluctance, former President Abraham Lincoln is elected Mayor of Chicago. Activists with both the Republican and Democratic Parties insisted that, with his name and moral authority, he was the only man in the State of Illinois who could lead the rebuilding effort after the fire that burned down two-thirds of the city a month ago. (Of course, in RL Lincoln had been dead for six years.) 1872 October 16: President William Henry Seward, a candidate for re-election, dies at his home in Auburn, New York. He was 71, the oldest President in the nation's history thus far. Vice President Ulysses S. Grant becomes the 20th President. It is too late to replace Seward on Presidential election ballots with Grant, but Congress passes a bill providing for all Electoral Votes won by a deceased candidate for President to pass to his nominee for Vice President. This will force Congress, in 1873, to pass the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, requiring not only the preceding, but also a requirement that every person who qualifies to run as a candidate for President on any ballot

to also nominate a candidate for Vice President. (TTL's 16th Amendment became RL's 25th Amendment in 1967. Seward actually did die on the day in question. No President has ever died during a re-election campaign.) November 6: President William H. Seward and Vice President Ulysses S. Grant -- as they are listed on ballots -- are re-elected, though Seward has been dead and Grant President for 19 days. The Democrats had nominated Governor Benjamin Harvey Hill of Georgia, a former Confederate Senator who had been a healing figure after swearing an oath of loyalty to the Union. 1873 November 5: William Henry "Rooney" Lee, 36-year-old son of former President Robert E. Lee, is elected Governor of Virginia. (The younger General Lee was elected to the Virginia Senate and the U.S. House.) 1874 September 1: Virginia native Woodrow Wilson, remembering the March 18, 1865 "Southern institutions" speech of President Robert E. Lee in Augusta, Georgia, for which he was present, enters the University of Virginia. (He actually attended Princeton.) 1875 May 20: In the case of Minor v. Happersett, the U.S. Supreme Court votes 4-3 in favor of granting all American citizens age 21 and over the right to vote, regardless of gender or race. The plaintiffs had asserted this right under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, saying that citizenship guarantees the right to register to vote. Despite fierce opposition from Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite, the Court stands with those seeking the right to vote. (The Court ruled against women, necessitating the 19th Amendment.) July 4: President Ulysses S. Grant signs the Voting Rights Act of 1875, proscribing enforcement of the right to vote under Minor v. Happersett. (There was a Civil Rights Act of 1875, but it proved worthless without a government with the moral courage to enforce it. If Grant wouldn't do it, who would? It would take until JFK's proposal and LBJ's signing to give something like that teeth.) 1876 June 24: Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer, commanding the 7th Cavalry in the Dakota Territory, is shot and killed by a Lakota Sioux Chief named Crazy Horse. Upon his arrest, Crazy Horse denounces Territorial Governor Joseph Sitting Bull: "He is a traitor to all that the red man stands for!" (This is the day of the Battle of the Little Big Horn, and Sitting Bull was on the same side as Crazy Horse.)

November 7: Governor Samuel J. Tilden of New York is elected the 21st President of the United States. The first Northern Democrat to hold the office since James Buchanan 16 years earlier, he defeats the incumbent Republican Ulysses S. Grant, whose term had been marked by the malfeasance of many of his appointees, marking one of America's most honest and decent Presidents as one of its most incompetent. The election is close, however, and Grant came closer than any other "accidental President" yet had to winning the office in his own right. Indeed, John Tyler, Millard Fillmore and Andrew Johnson had not even been renominated. (Tilden actually beat Governor Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio in both the popular vote and the Electoral Vote, but was denied the Presidency due to flat-out fraud.) 1877 July 4: The Indian Territory of Dakota is admitted to the Union as the 39th State. Joseph Sitting Bull is sworn in for his first four-year term as Governor, having previously served six two-year terms as Territorial Governor. (North and South Dakota were admitted as separate States on the same day in 1890.) September 5: Chief Crazy Horse, Lakota Sioux assassin of Lt. Col. George Custer, is executed at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. (This doesn't change, although the reason for his execution does.) 1878 May 31: Woodrow Wilson graduates from the University of Virginia. July 4: The Indian Territory of Oklahoma is admitted to the Union as the 40th State. Its first Governor is Joseph Pierce, formerly known as Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce. (It wouldn't gain Statehood until 1907.) 1879 October 21: In front of a group that includes President Samuel J. Tilden, Thomas Edison demonstrates his incandescent lamp at his laboratory in the Menlo Park section of Raritan Township, Middlesex County, New Jersey. The town will be renamed Edison Township in his memory in 1954. (Tilden wasn't there. Neither was RL President Hayes.) Uncle Mike Aug 4 2007, 03:55 AM Post #7

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member

#36 Joined: July 30, 2007 Joe: Your suggestion is something to consider. Perhaps I can merge the B&O, Erie, Lackawanna and Jersey Central lines into one larger railroad, one that can really compete with the Penn and NY Central. Perhaps its facilities can also make Newark and Jersey City much more viable cities than they have been in RL, once the entries you've previously suggested for a rail version of the Interstate Highway Act kick in. I also couldn't help but notice the location you chose for Baltimore Station. At the time, it was called Radio Row for all the electronics stores. For most of my lifetime, it was called the World Trade Center. Now, I call that empty hole caused by failure to read a memo "The George W. Bush Presidential Library. But why would I take the train to Bound Brook? Unless I was going to see the Newark Bears take on the Somerset Patriots in Bridgewater. East Brunswick, whose station on the old Camden & Amboy appears to have been abandoned for decades, is where I've lived most of my life, although for a time I was a four-minute walk from the New Brunswick NJ Transit station, formerly on the Pennsylvania. In fact, while the Bound Brook station is still in use and appears to be in good shape, the downtown area surrounding it is a dump. Go up the hill to the north side, and it's considerably better. Bound Brook was also known for a long time as the HQ of the NJ branch of the John Birch Society. "Oh, we're meeting at the courthouse at eight o'clock tonight. You just go in the door and take the first turn to the right. Be careful when you get there, we'd hate to be bereft but we're taking down the names of everybody turning left! Oh, we're the John Birch Society! The John Birch Society! Here to save our country from a Communistic plot! Join the John Birch Society! Fighting off the Reds! We'll use our hands and hearts and if we must... we'll use our heads!" -- 1963 song recorded by several folk groups Paul: Thanks, I was really proud of this one, even with all the mistakes that I've since corrected. Lincoln doesn't get the 1864 nomination because he wants to go home and therefore does not contest it. He's tired of politics, and, with the Reconstruction well underway, the country doesn't need him anymore. His story has a happy ending. He's earned it. (Not a word, Okie!) Uncle Mike Aug 4 2007, 04:09 AM Post #8

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 1880 November 2: Senator James G. Blaine of Maine is elected the 22nd President of the United States. The Republican defeated the incumbent Democrat, Samuel J. Tilden, when Tilden's health began to fail in the final year of his term and he was unable to do the work that could have led to his re-election. Blaine's Vice President will be Representative James A. Garfield of Ohio. Also, former Governor Rooney Lee of Virginia, son of the late President Robert E. Lee, is elected to the U.S. Senate. 1881 July 2: Vice President James A. Garfield gets into an argument at the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad Station in Washington. Charles J. Guiteau approaches him about asking President James G. Blaine for a post in his Administration. Garfield tells Guiteau that Blaine can't be bothered. "He won't even see me," Boatman Jim laments of the Plumed Knight. Garfield and Guiteau exchange words, and Guiteau pulls out a pistol. He cannot get a shot off, though, as Garfield punches him and knocks him unconscious. Guiteau is soon confined to a sanitarium, and remains there for the rest of his life. (Guiteau, of course, shot President Garfield. Had he so chosen, he could have shot Secretary of State Blaine, who was right next to Garfield. If he had shot Blaine instead, the country would've been better off. The man was slime. You gotta be pretty bad if Roscoe Conkling -- Blaine's fellow Republican and yet arch-enemy -- is an improvement. The station is gone, and one of the Smithsonian's museums is on the site now: 6th & B Streets NW, now 6th & Constitution Avenue.) 1882 September 1: Woodrow Wilson returns to his alma mater, the University of Virginia, as a professor of political science. 1883 May 24: The Brooklyn Bridge opens, spanning the East River between the cities of New York (Manhattan Island) and Brooklyn. By 1898, Brooklyn will be part of New York City. President James G. Blaine attends the ceremony, as does his future political opponent, Governor Grover Cleveland of New York. (The names of President Chester Arthur and Governor Cleveland, who both

attended, are on the bridge's dedication plaque.) 1884 November 4: Governor Grover Cleveland of New York is elected the 23rd President of the United States. The Democrat defeats the incumbent Republican, James G. Blaine, as a result of Blaine having the most scandaltarred Administration in American history to that point, so corrupt that even the two living former Presidents who had been Republicans, Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant, joined the "Mugwump" faction of Republicans that had campaigned for Cleveland. Grant, himself the leader of, though honest enough not to personally so lead, an Administration marked by scandal, had spoken many times on behalf of Cleveland. The former President, now an ailing stockbroker in New York City, had known Cleveland during his rise to the nomination. With no major accomplishments to his name, an increasing gap between rich and poor, and the stock and gold scandals that went with his Administration, historians' polls in 1948, 1962, 1979 and 2001 would rate Blaine as one of the three worst Presidents America has ever had. (Cleveland did beat Blaine, but Blaine was not the incumbent. As he was not the hero of the Civil War in TTL, Grant was not a huge hero, and thus not such an easy mark for fraudulent stockbroker Ferdinand Ward, so he's not getting fleeced and shamed here. But the thousands of cigars he smokes still give him cancer, and he dies "on time.") 1885 March 4: Grover Cleveland is sworn in as President. He appoints Senator William "Rooney" Lee of Virginia, son of President Robert E. Lee, to be Secretary of War, possibly grooming him for a future Presidency. Outgoing President James G. Blaine returns to his home State of Maine, though he will often return to Washington to work for various Republican causes. He will be remembered in the 20th and 21st Centuries not just as a scandal-wallowing President, but also as the patron saint of lobbyists. Vice President James Garfield, formerly a Congressman from Ohio, takes up residence at his vacation home in Elberon, on the New Jersey shore, and will soon become the second former Vice President, following John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, to be elected to the U.S. Senate. (Garfield did have a vacation home at Elberon, just south of Long Branch. Seven different Presidents vacationed there, but the only one whose house is still standing is Woodrow Wilson. It's now the administration building for Monmouth University in West Long Branch. The location of the cottage where Garfield was taken to recuperate in the fresh salt air, and ended up dying instead? Just a small, middle-class private home is there now, on a street called Garfield Terrace, with a small marble stone in front of it, containing a plaque in his memory, with a modest flagpole behind it. Contrast that with his marvelous tomb, in the same Cleveland cemetery as Mark Hanna, John D. Rockefeller, Eliot Ness, Carl Stokes; Garrett Morgan, a black industrialist who invented the gas mask and the tricolor traffic light; and Cleveland Indians shortstop Ray Chapman, the only player to die as a result of an injury sustained in a Major League Baseball game.)

May 1: The Hunting Tips of a Ranchman is published, written by Theodore Roosevelt. Formerly Minority Leader of the New York Assembly, he had left politics and headed west following the deaths of his wife and mother. He had previously tried to buy a ranch in the Dakota Territory, but was thwarted by the Territorial Governor, Joseph Sitting Bull. Instead, he purchased a ranch in eastern Montana, near the Little Bighorn River. "It is so vast and unspoiled," the 26-year-old once-and-future politician wrote in the book. "One gets the sense that nothing has ever happened there, and that nothing will happen there without your own will." (Of course, something did happen there in RL1876. TR's experience in the Dakotas is a big reason why he's on Mount Rushmore, in South Dakota.) July 23: Former President Ulysses S. Grant (1872-75) dies of throat cancer in New York City. He was 63. (He had been taken to Mount MacGregor, in the Adirondack Mountains in the northernmost part of the State, to finish his memoirs. He did so with days to spare, concluding with the end of the Civil War. He did not want to discuss his Presidency. I don't blame him.) 1886 August 4: Former President Samuel J. Tilden (1877-81) dies following a long illness in Greystone, New York. He was 72. 1887 September 1: Political science professor Woodrow Wilson is named President of the University of Virginia. (As opposed to President of Princeton.) 1888 January 2: Former President Joel Packer dies at his home in Freehold, New Jersey. He was 71. November 6: President Grover Cleveland is re-elected, defeating former Governor Benjamin Harrison of Indiana. When sworn in on the following March 4, he will be the first President to serve a second term since Andrew Jackson 56 years earlier. Fourteen straight Presidents have not done so: Van Buren, Grant, Tilden and Blaine had been defeated for re-election; Tyler, Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan and Johnson had been denied renomination; Polk and Lincoln had retired after one term; William Henry Harrison (Ben's grandfather), Taylor and Seward had died in office, Seward just before being re-elected. Also, Theodore Roosevelt, former Minority Leader of the New York Assembly, is elected to the House of Represenatives. (Cleveland won the popular vote but lost the Electoral Vote. In TTL, Harrison fades into obscurity.) 1889 April 22: The discovery of vast oil reserves in Oklahoma makes the Indian-led State one of the richest in the nation. Governor Joseph Pierce signs a bill

ordering heavy fees for white men wishing to develop land in the State, and offers to share the profits with the Indian State of Dakota and the Territory of Arizona. (This was the day the "Sooners" came in. The scene was made famous in the 1930 film "Cimarron." But, in TTL, the Indians get the money, and, even more importantly, the control.) May 11: In the case of Walker v. Anson, the Supreme Court rules that a man cannot be denied membership on an athletic team on the basis of race. Moses Fleetwood "Fleet" Walker, currently a catcher for the Syracuse Stars of the International League, had sued Adrian C. "Cap" Anson, manager and first baseman of the Chicago White Stockings, for convincing the owners of the teams in the National League and the American Association to institute a "gentlemen's agreement" that barred black players. Walker, his outfieldplaying brother Welday, and pitcher George Stovey are soon signed by AA teams. Their careers soon wind down, but they have opened the doors for other blacks in baseball. The Chicago team will survive, known by 1900 as the Cubs, while a team in the American League, beginning in 1901, takes the old name of White Stockings, later shortened to White Sox. (No such case was ever brought, mainly because everyone knew it would lose, and make it next to impossible to overturn later. But not totally impossible, as the segregation rulings of 1896 and 1954 would prove.) July 4: The Arizona Territory is admitted to the Union as the 41st State, despite an effort of a group of American descendants of Spanish settlers to break off the eastern portion and form a separate state named "New Mexico." (They became States separately in 1912.) Uncle Mike Aug 4 2007, 05:16 AM Post #9

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 1890 July 4: A rush of new States is admitted to the Union: Montana, Idaho, Washington, Wyoming and Utah, making 46 States in all. December 29: Joseph Sitting Bull dies. The first Native American Governor of any State, he had been the chief executive of Dakota since 1866, just under 25 years, six terms as Governor of the Territory and four terms as Governor of the State. The Chief had been assassinated on December 16, and December 29 was the date of the Wounded Knee massacare.

1891 September 1: The "new University of Virginia" opens for classes. University President Woodrow Wilson has expanded it to become a statewide system. In addition to the main campus at Charlottesville, founded by Thomas Jefferson, he has established a polytechnic branch at Blacksburg, a western campus at the former Marshall College at Huntington, a northern campus at the former University of Western Virginia at Morgantown, and, upon the advice of several professors and against his own prejudices, a college for Negro students in Norfolk. Wilson's plan becomes a model for State universities all over the nation, and makes him a national figure. (This includes the RL schools, respectively: Virginia, Virginia Tech, Marshall, West Virginia and Virginia State. But not Virginia Commonwealth or the Virginia Military Institute.) October 15: Secretary of War William H. "Rooney" Lee, son of the martyred President Robert E. Lee, dies in office. With the national economy starting to falter, Democratic leaders saw Lee as the Party's best chance to stay in power, with Grover Cleveland's second term coming to an end and the likelihood that he could win a third, even if he wanted to, becoming slimmer as do the nation's jobs and wages. Governor Ben Tillman of South Carolina, not recognizable as a Democrat to the Northern wing of the Party, has said of Cleveland, "If the President tries to come down here, I'll poke old Grover in his fat ribs with a pitchfork!" 1892 March 6: Thomas J. Jackson, longtime commandant of the Virginia Military Institute, known as "Stonewall" for his stubbornness, dies of a stroke at age 68. (Since he died at the Battle of Charlottesville in 1863, killed by "friendly fire," we can't know how long he was supposed to live.) June 5: The Democratic Convention nominates Governor David B. Hill of New York to succeed President Grover Cleveland, as Hill had succeeded Cleveland as Governor in 1884. The Republicans nominate former Vice President James A. Garfield, now a Senator representing his new home State of New Jersey. (In 1896, with the Cleveland "Gold Democrat" and Bryan "Silver Democrat" split, someone asked Governor Hill if he was still a Democrat. "Yes, I am a Democrat still. Very still." He never won the nomination.) September 9: New Yorkers vote in their primaries to select nominees for Governor. The Republicans nominate Theodore Roosevelt, despite his age (34) and his exuberance. With nearly a generation of voting behind America's women, the Democrats nominate the first woman ever to receive a major party's nomination for Governor of any State, Victoria Martin, a 54-year-old stockbroker and magazine publisher who, under her former name of Victoria Woodhull, had been part of the drive for women receiving the right to vote in the 1860s and 1870s. She is running as a Democrat because the Republicans, for all intents and purposes, laughed her out of their nominating convention. She has convinced enough Democrats of a woman's worthiness for the

Governorship for her to win the nomination, but many feel she cannot win the general election because of questions about her own worthiness for high office: She has married four times, has advocated free love, and 20 years ago exposed the popular Brooklyn minister Henry Ward Beecher as an adulterer and a blackmailer. Martin shares two traits that have plagued many American politicians, and will continue to do so in the 20th Century: She is disliked more for exposing some truths than others are for telling lies, and she faces the dilemma of people who like the candidate's ideas, but they don't like the candidate. (Victoria Woodhull was, in her time, Jane Fonda, Cindy Sheehan, Suze Orman and Paris Hilton all rolled into one, and hated as much as all of them combined.) November 2: Senator James A. Garfield of New Jersey, who had been James G. Blaine's Vice President and a Congressman from Ohio, is elected the 24th President of the United States. He defeats Governor David B. Hill of New York. Former Representative William McKinley of Ohio is elected Vice President. Representative Theodore Roosevelt is elected the youngest Governor in New York's history, replacing Hill. He defeats Victoria Martin, the first woman ever to receive a major party's nomination for Governor. Despite her landslide loss, in which not even a majority of women gave her their votes, Martin vows she will try again. 1893 January 13: Former President Abraham Lincoln, age 83, succumbs to pneumonia after battling the illness since before Christmas. Lincoln, hailed as the savior of the Union and beloved by the entire country, will be buried next to his wife, Mary Todd (1818-1882), in a private tomb in Springfield, Illinois. President Lincoln was laid out for viewing at the Illinois State Capitol for three days following his death. His only living son, Senator Robert Todd Lincoln (RIL), attends the private burial. (I didn't write this entry when it originally appeared on OtherTimelines.com, but I left it in.) January 27: Former President James G. Blaine dies in Washington, D.C. He was 62. March 4: James Abram Garfield is sworn in as President. Former President Grover Cleveland and his wife Frances return home to New York City. June 11: Mark Hanna, an Ohio businessman largley responsible for getting President Garfield and Vice President McKinley nominated last year, is appointed to McKinley's seat in the U.S. Senate by the Ohio legislature. Upon hearing the news, several Congressman propose an Amendment to the Constitution, providing for direct election of U.S. Senators by the voters of their States, taking the choice away from the legislatures and the Party bosses who run them. October 30: The Monarchy in the Island of Hawaii is overthrown by white plantation owners. Queen Liliuokalani seeks help from the United States. President Garfield agrees and sends the Pacific Fleet to the aid the Queen.

Commander Elias Bond of the battleship U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln takes the revolting land owners, Allan Judd, Ian W. Rice and Anna Derby into custody. The Queen grants them amnesty on the promise that their lands will be converted to the farming of native plants and coffee. Judd and Rice refuse and are escorted to the Lincoln where they are held until the ship returns to America. Derby agrees and is granted 1/4 of each of the other lands. Her son later becomes the Hawaiian Ambassador to the United States. (Also not originally mine, but I adapted to it.) 1894 June 3: Federal troops, ordered by President James Garfield, attempt to restart the Chicago railroad yards, which have been crippled by the strike by members of the American Railway Union. Someone throws a rock at one of the soldiers, and they open fire, killing an estimated 50 strikers. The railroad begins to run again in a few days, but the damage to the Garfield Administration's credibility is grave, especially with the depression that began last June now reaching depths not even the 1837-40 or 1873-78 depressions reached. August 2: President James A. Garfield is shot and killed on a visit to Chicago. He is 63 years old. The assassin, Edward Brady, was furious with Garfield's decision to use federal troops to break up the Pullman railroad workers' strike. Vice President William McKinley becomes the 25th President of the United States, saddled with a depression and labor strife. Though many people are in mourning for President Garfield, many others believe, with his handling of the economy and labor issues, that he had it coming. In the decades to come, Garfield will not be as honored as the other assassinated Presidents. (Brady was a real-life anarchist, and one of anarchist leader Emma Goldman's many boyfriends. So was Alexander Berkman, the man who shot Henry Clay Frick in 1892. While Cleveland did send troops to break up the Pullman strike, no one ever tried to assassinate him.) November 7: Governor Theodore Roosevelt of New York is re-elected, despite the nationwide depression that has many New Yorkers out of work. Most blame the Garfield-McKinley Administration, as TR has made an aggressive effort to bring jobs into his State. Victoria Martin, having lost her second race for Governor, is convinced that, if she could not win under the current economic conditions, she never will, and announces her retirement from electoral politics. But she will not give up fighting the good fight until a woman is President of the United States. The depression also causes voters to kick the Republicans out of the majority of both houses of Congress. Even more consequentially, they put the Democrats in control of many of the State legislatures, making ratification of the Constitutional Amendment allowing for direct election of U.S. Senators possible. December 11: Anarchist Edward Brady, assassin of President James Garfield, is hanged at the Illinois State Prison in Joliet. Protesting outside the prison are hundreds of anarchists, including Brady's former mistress, Emma Goldman. She is one of over sixty who are arrested, and will soon be deported. (Not

having become an assassin, or even a would-be assassin, Brady lived on until 1903.) 1895 April 8: The 17th Amendment to the Constitution, allowing for direct election of U.S. Senators by the voters, is ratified. (In RL, not until 1913.) 1896 April 13: In Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court rules 5-4 that public accomodations for blacks that are separate from, and yet equal to, those for whites are inherently unequal, and thus violate the equal protection clause of the Constitution. Racial segregation laws in the South had been occassionally enforced since the Seward-Grant Administration of the 1870s, but were now dead. (In RL, it was 8-1 in favor of segregation. The lone dissenter was, ironically, a Southerner, Kentuckian John Marshall Harlan. His grandson, John M. Harlan II, turned out to be more conservative, and had to be talked into siding with the plaintiff in Brown v. Board in 1954.) June 18: A battle royal for the nomination for President shapes up at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. Advocates of the continuation of the gold standard support either Senator Thomas J. Jarvis of North Carolina, who has also served as U.S. Minister to Brazil, or Senator "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman of South Carolina. Each has also served as Governor of his State. Advocates of the free coinage of silver suport former Representative William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska. Many of the delegates remember how Tillman got his nickname, from threatening to poke President Grover Cleveland "in the fat ribs with a pitchfork!" With that threat in mind, plus Jarvis also being a Southerner and far less vehement in opposition to blacks, Tillman doesn't stand a chance. The nomination of Senator Jarvis is almost derailed by Congressman Bryan, who gives a stirring speech on the free-silver issue: "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns! You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!" But free-silver advocates, though louder than the "Goldbugs," are a minority, and Bryan, at 36, is just barely old enough to meet the Constitutional age requirement for the President. The 60year-old Jarvis is talked into accepting Bryan as Vice President, and Bryan is talked into accepting second place on the ticket, with the implicit promise that either the free-silver issue will come up during a Jarvis Administration or that Bryan would be supported for President in either 1900 or 1904, and he could then force the issue himself. It will prove to be a dangerous bargain for both men. July 11: Despite great discontent around the nation, the Republicans nominate President William McKinley for a full term. Many of them want to nominate Governor Theodore Roosevelt of New York for Vice President, because he has been cracking down on the political bosses in that State. TR refuses: "It is either the Presidency itself or the Governorship." Garret Hobart, Chairman of the Party in New Jersey and a former State legislator, is nominated for Vice President instead. (I wanted a Southerner, which is far

more possible in TTL than it would have been in RL, and Jarvis was as qualified as any.) November 4: Senator Thomas J. Jarvis of North Carolina is elected the 26th President of the United States. With the worst depression the country has ever seen still raging, the Democrat defeats the incumbent Republican President William McKinley. Most Republicans now regret that they did not throw the wildly unpopular McKinley overboard at their Convention and nominate the activist Governor Theodore Roosevelt of New York for President, despite TR's youth (38) and penchant for cracking down on the kind of corruption that the Republicans have mastered since they became a political force in the 1860s. 1897 November 3: Woodrow Wilson, having resigned as President of the University of Virginia to campaign, is elected Governor of Virginia. (In RL, he never ran for office until he was elected Governor of New Jersey in 1910.) 1898 April 25: President Jarvis asks for a declaration of war against Spain for its "atrocities" in Cuba, including their seeming culpability for the explosion that destroyed the battleship U.S.S. Maine in Havana Harbor on February 15. May 15: Theodore Roosevelt resigns the Governorship of New York, and enlists in the U.S. Army. Lieutenant Governor Timothy L. Woodruff is sworn in as Governor. July 1: General Theodore Roosevelt, who resigned as Governor of New York to lead men into the Spanish-American War, leads his "Rough Riders" up San Juan Hill in Cuba, marking the beginning of the end for Spain's four centuries of presence in the Western Hemisphere. September 12: General Theodore Roosevelt returns to New York City. He says he will run to regain the Governorship of New York. The State's Republicans, not especially fond of his corruption-busting ways, knowns it cannot oppose the most popular man in America. Victoria Martin, who had opposed him in the 1892 and 1894 elections, suggests to him that his wife, Edith Roosevelt, should run for Governor in his place: "You've had your chance, General, and made the most of it. Why not let a woman try? She is nearly as popular as you are, she does not have the same enemies that you have, and she is more qualified for the office than I." TR laughs good-naturedly, but neither Martin nor Edith thinks the idea is funny. September 13: Victoria Martin, two-time Democratic nominee for Governor of New York, meets with a former holder of that office, former President Grover Cleveland, and his wife Frances at their apartment in Manhattan. Mrs. Martin tells the Clevelands about her conversation with the Roosevelts the day

before, and how Theodore did not take seriously her suggestion that Edith run for Governor. She tells Frances that she ought to run for Governor in 1900 should TR be returned to Albany. She would then be 35, old enough to serve in the office. Frances is skeptical that she can be elected, even with women having had the vote since 1875 and her husband still being popular in the State. Grover says he thinks she has what it takes to do the job, but is just as sure that a woman cannot be elected Governor in these times, even if threequarters of the State's female registered voters should support her. November 2: General Theodore Roosevelt is returned to the Governorship of New York, defeating Assemblyman John Stanchfield in the greatest landslide in the history of elections for that office. In order to reopen the Republican nomination, Governor Timothy Woodruff is promised the appointment to be Chief Justice of the New York Court of Appeals, the State's highest court. He never wins elective office again. 1899 March 12: Former President Grover Cleveland and his wife Frances move from New York City to Princeton, New Jersey. This ends the dream of feminist leader Victoria Martin to elect Mrs. Cleveland, and seemingly any woman, to the office of Governor of New York, and throwing a huge obstacle in her bid to elect a woman -- any woman -- to the Presidency in her lifetime. July 4: President Thomas J. Jarvis signs bills admitting Cuba and Puerto Rico as the 47th and 48th States of the Union. Several of Jarvis' Democratic advisers, as well as Governor Theodore Roosevelt of New York, hero of the recent war that brought those places to American rule and the leading contender for the Republican nomination for President in 1900, tell him he should annex the Philippines and make it a State as well. But with American soldiers still dying in guerilla attacks over there, he doesn't press Congress for a Statehood bill for the islands. September 1: The Philippine rebellion continues despite the fact that the oppressive Spanish are out and the Americans are in. President Jarvis acts to squash the rebellion, sending in more troops than he had during the SpanishAmerican War. Vice President Bryan warns him that a land war, especially a jungle war, in Asia could prove to be a disaster. Uncle Mike Aug 7 2007, 12:15 AM Post #10

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined:

July 30, 2007 1900 May 6: William Jennings Bryan resigns the Vice Presidency, only the second man to do so. He says he cannot support President Jarvis on the continuing Philippine Campaign. This is a great blow to Jarvis' re-election chances, despite the booming economy that has recovered from the depression he inherited in 1897. June 21: The Republican Convention proves its Party to be at least as divided as the Democrats. Whether because of the age of Governor Theodore Roosevelt of New York (41) or because of his willingness to go around the Party bosses, or because of his willingness to regulate big business in his State, or because of long-term loyalty to the old way of doing business in the Party, enough delegates stick with the Party's old ways and give the nomination to Senator Mark Hanna of Ohio, who had been the guiding force in the career of President William McKinley, and then was appointed to the Senate vacancy McKinley's election caused. Longtime Senator William Boyd Allison of Iowa, a Plains politician designed to blunt the influence of potential Presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska, is nominated for Vice President. Furious Roosevelt delegates storm out of the Convention, promising to run an independent campaign. (A reflection of RL-1912, except in this case TR hasn't been President yet.) July 17: The Democratic Convention is a free-for-all, as raucous a caucus as that of the Republicans. Even the choice of location caused a fight. Delegates loyal to President Thomas J. Jarvis wanted it in Raleigh. Delegates loyal to former President William Jennings Bryan wanted it in Omaha, or at least in nearby Kansas City. Baltimore, the largest city near the national capital, is chosen as a compromise. Having lost the battle for location, the Bryan forces go all out, blasting Jarvis for "imperialism" in the Philippines, citing comments he made about the Filipinos being "nonwhite savages"; and for "economic royalism" for refusing the free coinage of silver. Governor Woodrow Wilson of Virginia manages to settle things down by giving a speech reminding the Democrats that they always lose when divided, and that a united Party can beat the Republicans, whose voters are split between nominee Mark Hanna and splinter candidate Theodore Roosevelt, who has selected Representative Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin as his running mate on the Progressive Party ticket. But when Jarvis is renominated, the steaming Bryanites walk out. They vow to keep fighting, and run with former Representative Adlai Stevenson of Illinois for Vice President on the ticket of the Populist Party. After a Convention lasting 13 days, the Democrats depart with a ticket of Jarvis and Wilson, but without the Bryan supporters, estimated at one-third of their Party. Now there are four candidates for President: The Democratic incumbent Jarvis, Republican Hanna, Populist Bryan and Progressive Roosevelt. July 21: Governor Theodore Roosevelt of New York, Progressive Party nominee for President, writes a letter to his old friend, Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, skewering his three opponents, Republican Mark

Hanna, Populist William Jennings Bryan and incumbent Democrat Thomas Jarvis: "Whether the Hannites have prevented my election as President, I cannot yet say. But, without question, Cabot, they have prevented the Republican Party from winning in November. It will either be Jarvis again, or thrown into the House of Representatives, controlled by high-strung, whimpering Democrats, and God only knows how they will vote in January, the cantankerous bigot Jarvis or the insipid windbag Bryan. My election is only the third-most-likely outcome, and I dare not wager a penny upon it." The reelection of Jarvis, however, has just become far more likely, as General Arthur MacArthur has just accepted the surrender of several thousand Filipino guerilla fighters, turning the Philippine stalemate into a war the U.S. will win. (I'd like to think these words accurately reflect both TR's thoughts and his writing style. And he did tend to call Lodge "Cabot.") November 6: President Thomas J. Jarvis, running his second Democratic campaign, is re-elected. Governor Theodore Roosevelt of New York, the Republican who became the Progressive Party nominee for President, finishes second, something no other minor-party candidate has done since Abraham Lincoln turned the Republicans into a major party in 1860. Senator Mark Hanna of Ohio, with only big-business Republicans behind him, runs a distant third, and former Vice President William Jennings Bryan, the ex-Democrat who ran as the Populist Party candidate, finishes a straggling fourth. Jarvis wins 38 percent of the popular vote, Roosevelt 31, Hanna 21 and Bryan only 8. The Electoral Vote totals are Jarvis 237 (barely a majority, preventing the election from being decided by the House of Representatives), Roosevelt 128, Hanna 62 and Bryan a measly 11, taking only his home State of Nebraska and silverdominated Nevada. 1901 September 6: Event Description: President Thomas Jarvis is shot at the PanAmerican Exposition in Buffalo, New York. The shooter, a Polish-American anarchist named Leon Czolgosz, claims he did it to punish Jarvis for his imperialist policy. Jarvis does not die immediately, but his prognosis is not good. Vice President Woodrow Wilson, on vacation at the shore-resort town of Long Branch, New Jersey, returns to Washington immediately. (This is where OtherTimelines.com's Timeline 1217, "Lee of the Union," ends and Timeline 1299, "Lee Union Continuation," begins.) September 14: Event Description: Thomas Jordan Jarvis dies. He was 65 years old, and the third President to die at the hands of an assassin, following Robert E. Lee in 1865 and James Garfield in 1894. The Vice President, Thomas Woodrow Wilson, who usually drops his first name, is sworn in as the 27th President of the United States. At 44, he is the youngest President in the nation's history thus far. (Jarvis, who never ran for President in RL, lived on until 1915. He was 79.) October 19: Despite his fondness for the late President Jarvis, President Wilson has no desire to keep the Jarvis Cabinet together. He announces a

major shakeup, firing most of them, an action that one newspaper correspondent calls "the Saturday Night Massacre." Knowing that he is not an elected President, and that the 1900 election could have gone to any of the four largest parties running, he forms a coalition Cabinet. He offers Theodore Roosevelt, Progressive Party nominee and former Governor of New York and Spanish-American War hero, his choice of Secretary of State or Secretary of War. TR chooses State, due to the fact that, with the Vice Presidency vacant, it will make him next in line for the Presidency under the current law. Wilson will address that in the coming days. Wilson creates a Department of Labor, and offers its Secretariat to the Populist Party candidate, former Vice President William Jennings Bryan. Though neither Roosevelt nor Bryan can stand the other, and neither one is a great fan of Wilson, they serve together. Admiral George Dewey, the naval hero of the Span-Am War, becomes Secretary of War. (Oh, yeah, I see this working out well.) 1902 February 12: The 18th Amendment to the Constitution, providing for a federal income tax, is ratified. President Wilson and Secretary Roosevelt had both pushed for its passage. (The 16th Amendment, providing for such a tax, was ratified in 1913.) August 2: In a spring training game in Richmond, Virginia, the Chicago Cubs defeat the Philadelphia Athletics, 2-1. Andrew Foster, the black ace of the Cubs, outduels George "Rube" Waddell, the A's' fireballing lefthander. Fans start calling Foster "Rube" as well, which, for reasons he never explains, he doesn't mind as much as "Andy." Despite the Supreme Court ruling in Walker v. Anson 13 years earlier that black men could play in the major leagues, Foster becomes the game's first true black star. (Foster really was the best black pitcher of the era, and really did earn his nickname by outdueling Waddell. He went on to found the Negro National League, managing the Chicago American Giants.) May 13: The 19th Amendment to the Constitution is ratified. It provides for succession to the Presidency, making the Speaker of the House of Representatives next in line after the Vice President, then the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, and then the Cabinet officials in order of when their Departments were founded: Secretary of State, Secretary of the Tresury, and so on. With the eight-day (September 6-14, 1901) incapacitation of the dying President Thomas J. Jarvis in mind, President Woodrow Wilson had asked that the text of the Amendment also contain language providing for Presidential disability, that the Vice President would be acting President if the President decided he was temporarily unable to discharge his duties, or if a majority of the Cabinet decided that an unconscious President was temporarily or perhaps permanently unable. The Amendment also provides for filling vacancies in the Vice Presidency: The President will appoint a candidate, who must then be confirmed by majorities of each house of Congress. The Amendment will take effect with the next Presidential term, beginning March 4, 1905, so, until then, should anything happen to Wilson, Secretary of State Theodore Roosevelt is still to become President. (In RL, this was the 25th

Amendment, not ratified until 1967.) June 3: Charles J. Guiteau, 61, dies in a Maryland hospital for the criminally insane. He had been arrested in 1881 for the attempted murder of then-Vice President James Garfield and conspiracy to murder then-President James G. Blaine. (This was 20 years to the day after RL-Guiteau's execution.) 1903 July 9: On the advice of Secretary of State Theodore Roosevelt, President Woodrow Wilson sends several U.S. Navy ships to the shores of the Panama section of Colombia. The people of that section have been seeking independence, and the U.S. government had been seeking, but as yet not getting, permission to build a canal across Panama linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, thus considerably cutting the time needed to get from America's East Coast to its West Coast by ship. Wilson, a Virginian, was reluctant to use U.S. force to sway the conflict, but Roosevelt, the son of a Georgia woman swayed him with what would later be called "Southern fried pride": "Robert E. Lee, your greatest hero and also one of mine, would have preferred not to use force as well. But he certainly would have sent the ships, if he knew it would help bring about the canal and help his country." Though the author of several books of a historical nature, TR's assessment of Lee is not nearly as certain as his belief in the canal's potential benefits to America, and indeed to the world. The U.S. presence inspires the Panamanian rebels, and they fight with renewed vigor. (I'll admit, I find it hard to imagine RLWilson doing this. On the other hand, he intervened in Mexico twice in his first term, so who knows?) November 3: Panama, its rebels having defeated its Colombian oppressors, declares its independence. Negotiations will soon be underway on the Roosevelt-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, granting America use of a ten-mile-wide strip of Panama to use to build and run a canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. President Woodrow Wilson is thrilled with the success of the venture, based on the suggestions of Secretary of State Theodore Roosevelt and Secretary of War George Dewey. But the bickering between them and Secretary of Labor William Jennings Bryan, a pacifist, and the difficulty of getting the Treaty passed by the Senate, puts a great toll on Wilson. At 46, he is the youngest President in the nation's history, but he has started to look far older. 1904 February 3: President Woodrow Wilson dies of a stroke at the White House. He is just 47 years old, the shortest lifespan of any President thus far. The stress of the situation in Panama, the various labor strikes around the country, and the bickering between Secretary of State Theodore Roosevelt, Secretary of War George Dewey and Secretary of Labor William Jennings Bryan were just too much for the "Professor President." With the Vice Presidency still vacant and the 19th Amendment not scheduled to take effect for another 13 months, Roosevelt is next in line for the succession, and becomes the 28th President.

At 45, he is the youngest man ever to serve as President except for Wilson. Despite being overweight, the former war hero is also far more vigorous than the Professor. With the advent of motion pictures able to capture his activities, and with phonographs able to record his voice -- advantages unavailable to Washington, Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln -- his Presidency will go down in history as the most memorable one yet. (This was 20 years to the day before RL-Wilson's death. And he had a stroke in 1906, when under far less pressure, so this is believable.) March 1: President Theodore Roosevelt announces that he will run for a full term. Although no "accidental President" has ever won a term of his own, his Spanish-American War heroics and reforms as Governor of New York have made him already well-known and popular, and he is sure that the American people are unlikely to vote to give themselves a seventh President in the span of just 12 years. March 4: With one year remaining in the Wilson-Roosevelt term, Secretary of Labor William Jennings Bryan resigns his post and announces that he will make a second run for Prseident. The Populist Party endorses him immediately, and he becomes the front-runner for the Democratic nomination as well. President Roosevelt is sure to be the nominee of the Progressive Party. The Republicans are the wild card, as they are still unhappy with TR for bolting them in 1900. But with Senator Mark Hanna having died on February 15, he will not be their nominee as he was in 1900. (With far less reason to do so at the time, RL-Bryan resigned as Wilson's Secretary of State in 1915, a post he was given in the interest of promoting intra-party harmony.) March 10: William McKinley, President of the United States from August 2, 1894 to March 4, 1897, dies at his home in Canton, Ohio. He was 60 years old, the victim of a heart attack, pancreatitis and his five-foot-seven-inch, 250-pound frame. Despite attempts to rehabilitate his image, he is remembered as a President without significant foreign-policy accomplishments, and who presided over the worst economy in America's history until the 1930s, by which point many of the people who suffered during the 1890s depression had died, and those who were children when they knew him remembered him as a kindly man who didn't make big, bold pronouncements like many of the politicians of the 20th Century, including the three men who have so far succeeded him, Thomas Jarvis, Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. (McKinley was a short, fat man, and was unlikely to live a lot longer had he not been shot. Why March 10? That was the day I made the entry in the original version on OTL.com. In 2004. It seems so long ago. How long ago? John Kerry was a shoo-in for President, most of us had never heard of Paris Hilton, Rosie O'Donnell was only hated by 10 percent of conservatives, and Alex Rodriguez had never been booed in Pinstripes.) March 18: George Dewey, the naval hero of the Spanish-American War, resigns as Secretary of War, though staying in that position would have kept him, at least until President Theodore Roosevelt appoints a new Secretary of State, second in the line of succession to the Presidency, behind Secretary of

the Treasury John G. Carlisle. Dewey instantly becomes the front-runner for the Republican nomination for President, to oppose TR and his Progressives. Although several Army heroes have previously run for President, Dewey is the first Navy hero to be seriously considered for Commander-in-Chief. Douglas MacArthur, currently a young Army officer, will later call the Roosevelt-Dewey election "the ultimate Army-Navy game," though the race also included former Vice President William Jennings Bryan, nominated by the Democratic and Populist Parties. November 8: Theodore Roosevelt is elected President in his own right. The Progressive Party candidate defeats Democratic and Populist nominee William Jennings Bryan and Republican nominee George Dewey. TR will be a minority President, though: The popular vote percentages read Roosevelt 45, Bryan 32, Dewey 22. The Electoral Vote is a bit more favorable to TR: Roosevelt 287, Bryan 166, Dewey 23. 1905 March 4: Theodore Roosevelt, in office for 396 days, is sworn in for his first full term as President of the United States. His Vice President is outgoing Senator Charles Fairbanks of Indiana. Despite known for having an ego as large as his personality and his lust for life, TR does something no President had ever done, nor, through 2005, has since: He delivers his entire Inaugural Address without ever using the word "I." It is also one of the shortest Inaugural Addresses ever. (Aside from the fact that his RL Presidency started in 1901, this is unchanged. I still find it hard to believe TR didn't use "I," which may have been his favorite word. But I read the Address, and it's not in there.) 1906 October 10: Andrew "Rube" Foster of the Chicago Cubs becomes the first black man to play in the World Series, and pitches a masterful one-hitter against the crosstown White Sox, as the Cubs win, 7-1, tying up the Series at one game apiece. But, overturning their nickname of "Hitless Wonders," the Sox will be rough Foster up in Game 5 and in a relief appearance in Game 6, and will win what remains, through 2003, the only all-Chicago final in the history of major league sports. (Aside from the integration, this event does not change.) 1907 August 6: Herald Square Terminal opens at 33rd Street, 6th Avenue and Broadway in New York. The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, having survived the 1860s and become more profitable than before, bought out the Central Railroad of New Jersey, the Erie Railroad and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad, to form the Baltimore & Atlantic or B&A Railroad. It has now won a race with the Pennsylvania and New York Central railroads to build a modern terminal in Midtown Manhattan. Pennsylvania Station will open in 1910 at 32nd Street and 7th Avenue; the New York Central's revamped Grand

Central Terminal will open in 1913 at 42nd Street and Park Avenue. But as much as Penn Station and Grand Central will help their companies, the B&A's Herald Square station, across from Macy's anchor store, will make more money. (As Joe Bonkers pointed out, the B&O got hit hard in the 1860s, most due to Confederate raids. It never built a station in New York. Why didn't I choose the World Trade Center site, as Joe suggested? Because then I would've needed an alternate WTC site, and I couldn't think of one I liked. Since 1935, the B&O's been known mainly as one of the four railroads in the board game Monopoly, along with the Pennsylvania, the Reading and the Short Line. Of those, the B&O was the only one that didn't go to Atlantic City, New Jersey, where the game's streets are set. In case you're wondering, the corner of Boardwalk and Park Place feature's Bally's Casino & Hotel, and the New Jersey Korean War Veterans Memorial. And you can't afford to land on Boardwalk OR Park Place with THAT hotel. It's no good anyway: If you want to go to A.C., I recommend either the Hilton, or Caesar's Palace, or, right next-door, Trump Plaza, which is next to Boardwalk Hall, formerly the Atlantic City Convention Hall. That's where the 1964 Democratic Convention was held, and across from the Boardwalk entrance is Kennedy Plaza, with a bust of JFK, who didn't get to be nominated at that Convention -- in RL. Within days of that Convention, the Beatles played there. Quite a summer at the Jersey Shore.) October 11: Having already shut out the Detroit Tigers in Game 1, Rube Foster does it again just three days later in Game 4, leading the Chicago Cubs to a four-game sweep of the World Series. Foster becomes the first black man to play on a baseball World Champion. (The real first, and second, would be Larry Doby and Satchel Paige with the 1948 Cleveland Indians. Jackie Robinson and his Brooklyn Dodgers would win just one Series, in 1955.) 1908 June 24: Former President Grover Cleveland (served 1885 to 1893) dies at his home in Princeton, New Jersey. He is 71. Although the idea of running for public office had been suggested to her ten years earlier by Victoria Martin, feminist leader and two-time nominee for Governor of New York, the former President's widow, Frances Cleveland, had never yet tried. September 23: The Chicago Cubs defeat the New York Giants, 1-0, in a key game in the National League Pennant race. Rube Foster, hero of last year's World Series, becomes the first black pitcher to throw a no-hitter in the major leagues, strking out 15 Giants to set a major league record. Rookie first baseman Fred Merkle is a Foster victim four times. "I must have looked like a complete bonehead swinging at his pitches," Merkle says. Giant ace Christy Mathewson, interviewed after the game, calls Foster "the best pitcher I've ever laid eyes on" -- high praise from the man widely considered Foster's rival as the best in the game today. The Cubs go on to win their third straight Pennant. (Foster's TTL brilliance saves Merkle from his RL status as the season's "Bonehead" and undeserved eternal ignominy. On the other hand, in TTL, Merkle falls into obscurity and is barely remembered at all. At least, in

RL, he has his defenders, saying he was actually a very good player. You'll be hearing more about "Merkle's Boner" and the great 1908 Pennant races in both leagues as the 100th Anniversary approaches.) October 11: A battle royal erupts at West Side Park in Chicago during Game 2 of the World Series. During the sixth inning of a scoreless game, Rube Foster, the Cubs' black Texan pitcher, throws to Ty Cobb, the unreconstructed racist Georgian star of the Detroit Tigers. Though the pitch was over the plate and not inside, it was at the height of Cobb's head, and he charges the mound. He swings his left hand at Foster's head, but the pitcher ducks and throws a vicious right into Cobb's lean gut, doubling him over, and making his nose an easy target for Foster's no-longer-gloved left hand. Some of the Tigers rally to their teammate's defense, though some, who can't stand Cobb, stay on the bench. Foster's teammates, led by manager-first baseman France Chance, known as "Husk" for his size, and second baseman Johnny Evers, called "the Crab" for his disposition as much as for his movement, corral the biggest Detroit chargers. The umpires clear the field, and the Chicago police manage to keep the crowd in line and protect the visiting Tigers. The Cubs are in the Tigers' heads now, and score six runs in the bottom of the eighth. The Cubs win, 6-1. The Tigers will win tomorrow, but it will be their only victory in the Series. (With the RL-Cubs not integrated, there was no incident between them and Cobb. And the Cubs still won the Series. And 99 years later, they have not won another. Forget the Billy Goat: This may be the Curse of Fred Merkle, levied on them by New York Giants fans.) October 14: Despite being down three games to one in the World Series and facing elimination, Detroit Tiger manager and shortstop Hugh Jennings holds superstar Ty Cobb out of the lineup, as he does not want to force another confrontation with black Chicago Cub pitcher Rube Foster. But with the Cubs only up 2-0 in the bottom of the ninth and Sam Crawford on second base, Jennings feels he has no choice but to send Cobb up. Cobb and Foster both approach the moment professionally, as they only glare at each other. Foster gets Cobb to pop up, and Cub shortstop Joe Tinker catches the ball for the final out, as the Cubs make it back-to-back World Championships and another Series shutout for Foster. Despite the boos of Detroit fans, remembering the Game 2 melee in Chicago, the Cubs leave Bennett Park safely. (Bennett Park was torn down after the 1911 season and a new ballpark built on the site, with the field turned around to get the sun out of fielders' eyes. It was named Navin Field for owner Frank Navin. It was expanded into its familiar shape in 1938 and renamed for the team's new owner, Walter Briggs: Briggs Stadium. After the Briggs family sold the team, in 1961 it was renamed Tiger Stadium, and remained the team's home for a total of 88 seasons. Comerica Park opened in 2000, and Tiger Stadium, which hosted four World Series Championships by the Tigers and three NFL Championships by the Detroit Lions, all in the 1950s, is currently scheduled for demolition in September 2008.) November 3: Theodore Roosevelt wins a second full term as President. Desperate to win again, the Republican Party joined the Progressive Party in nominating TR and Vice President Charles Fairbanks. With millions of voters

returning to old habits, the Republicans regain many of the Congressional seats they lost in the last few elections, though the Democrats remain the largest Party in each house, and a Democrat-Progressive coalition will stymie much of the conservative legislation that the Republicans propose. Former Vice President William Jennings Bryan makes his third, last and most pathetic run for the Presidency, as TR actually manages to split the South, something no Republican had ever done. Bryan wins only the States of North and South Carolina, Florida, Alabama and Arkansas. TR had made a campaign trip to Georgia, his mother's birthplace, and won it, while the voters of Mississippi and Louisiana had remembered his hunting trips there, and a group of "Rough Rider" veterans of the Spanish-American War guided his efforts in Texas. With the Panama Canal and his Span-Am War heroism on his pre-Presidency record, and his White House accomplishments including the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the Russo-Japanese War, trust-busting and the National Park System, TR has won the greatest landslide in Presidential history, gaining 60.5 percent of the popular vote and 437 out of the 483 available Electoral Votes. Also on this day, Frances Cleveland, in a vote reflecting admiration for her late husband, President Grover Cleveland, becomes the first former First Lady ever elected to public office, winning a New Jersey seat in the House of Representatives. (In TTL, William Howard Taft never runs for the Presidency, and so no one has served both as President and a Supreme Court Justice.) 1909 January 1: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded. Some Americans question the need for such an organization, now that segregation is gone and voting rights for blacks are established. But since women and various ethnic and religious groups have their own advocacy organizations, some black Americans want their own. (I needed an entry for 1909, and this was the best I could do.) Uncle Mike Aug 7 2007, 01:05 AM Post #11

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 Before I post the 1910s section, I have a question for the house: Given that I have World War I ending in 1916, so that she is not executed in 1917... Should Mata Hari live? Or should I let her, as I ended up doing with "In Flanders Fields" author John McCrae and "Red Baron" Manfred von Richtofen, die in the 1918-19 Spanish Influenza Epidemic that killed twice as many

people as the war did? And if Mata Hari lives -- with her double agency not exposed prior to the Armistice (in TTL, November 11, 1916) -- what happens to her? The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles had an interesting addendum to her life... but Indy does not exist in TTL. At least, not until the character is created at least 60 years later. Uncle Mike Aug 7 2007, 02:26 PM Post #12

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 I almost put in a riverfront station like you suggested, thinking of where today's PATH line goes: Christopher Street, then to 6th Avenue/Avenue of the Americas with stops at 9th Street, 14th, 23rd and 33rd. But I didn't want to mess up Greenwich Village -- I am not Robert Moses. So I just made the RL PATH terminal at Herald Square the B&O (here, B&A, Baltimore & Atlantic) Terminal. Any thoughts on what to do with Mata Hari, Joe? I mean, seeing as how neither one of us is likely to be able to afford her price? Uncle Mike Aug 7 2007, 05:30 PM Post #13

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 After a brief affair with a young Harvard student named Jack Kennedy -- she calls him "immature" and he calls her "selfish to an extreme degree, in every way, from money to bed" -- she struggles to find an audience, due to the fact that the Russian Revolution was not followed by a Bolshevik Revolution, and thus Communism is not significant enough of a force to be

virulently opposed. So she turns to stories about relationships between men and women, and becomes a highly popular, if often-banned novelist. Norman Mailer, who calls her an "anti-Beat," comparing her to his fellow iconoclasts Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, meets her at a part and propositions her and gets slapped for it. This, however, turns them both on, and... Anyway, like Mailer and the Beats, her role in literature and the changing role of women is still hotly debated. But as the 20th Century moves on, and a balance is struck between the desires of big business and the needs of the country as a whole, her capitalism uber alles philosophy makes her look like a relic from the pre-Great Depression era. Until her death, her favorite President remains George S. Patton (1941-45). She ends up praising the hippies for their individualist forms of expression, but castigating them for their collectivist lifestyles, even as she likes the idea of free sex, and wonders why the drugs they ingest cannot be made safer and a cash cow. Her last novel, Yours and Mine, published in 1969, is similar in tone to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, but ultimately is dismissed by the free-love set because it seems to accept the satisfaction of lust for its own sake, rather than as a way to bring pleasure and joy to both partners. "Congenitally, terminally joyless," she will be called by Gloria Steinem. In other words... while an interesting figure, she's just not that important. Ultimately, not much of a change. Helen Mirren looked great playing her in the movie, though. She's very good at playing women who are three parts hot, one overwhelming part cold. (Check her out in Excalibur: Holy smoke, was she a fox then. Unfortunately, she hasn't aged well.) And, I'll have to admit: When I saw her real name, I didn't recognize it, and had to look it up. Uncle Mike Aug 7 2007, 06:49 PM Post #14

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 And what about Margarethe Zelle (Mata Hari), Wendell?

And what about Naomi? (I just got The Electric Company DVD, and I'm loving seeing all that shtick again, so I'm probably gonna throw a few other items from that show in there.) Uncle Mike Aug 8 2007, 01:10 PM Post #15

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 OK, I stick with the original idea: She dies in the flu pandemic in 1918. Uncle Mike Aug 8 2007, 02:56 PM Post #16

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 The flu pandemic to kill off some big names that would otherwise have died in World War I: History, real and alternate, is rarely that convenient. Except maybe the plague and fire in London in 1665-66. Uncle Mike Aug 8 2007, 10:06 PM Post #17

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined:

July 30, 2007 1910 July 4: Jack Johnson, the first black man to win the heavyweight championship of the world, knocks out former champion Jim Jeffries in the 15th round at a temporary stadium in Reno, Nevada. Though Jeffries was the more popular fighter going in, Johnson has won the crowd over. Even people who refused to accept a black heavyweight champion now admit that Johnson is the superior fighter. Though black neighborhoods in American cities celebrate, there are no white reprisals toward them. November 1: President Theodore Roosevelt appoints Secretary of War William Howard Taft as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Despite his wife Helen's wish that he seek the Republican nomination for President against the Progressive TR in 1908, Taft now has his dream job. (In RL, President Warren Harding gave him that job in 1921, and he kept it until right before his death in 1930.) November 8: Former First Lady Frances Cleveland, after a term in the House of Representatives, becomes the first woman ever elected Governor of any State, winning in New Jersey by a landslide as the nominee of both the Democrats and the Progressives, as Garden State women vote in their highest numbers ever since the Supreme Court affirmed a woman's right to vote in 1875. Mrs. Cleveland receives a congratulatory telegram from former New York gubernatorial candidate Victoria Woodhull Martin, now 71 and living in England. "When I see you next," she writes, "I hope it will be to the tune of 'Hail to the Chief.'" Mrs. Cleveland is flattered, but she has no desire to seek any office higher than the one she will assume next January 18. 1911 March 25: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York's Greenwich Village is struck by a fire that kills 146 women, most of them young and immigrants, either Catholics or Jews. Various reforms are passed by the New York City and New York State governments in the wake of the disaster. This is seen by many people, over the coming years, as the beginning of modern progressive legislation. (This is no change at all, but I needed something for 1911, and the anniversary, March 25, had just passed when I got to that point in the Timeline.) 1912 February 4: Theodore Roosevelt has now been President of the United States for eight years and one day, becoming the longest-serving President ever. He announces he will run for a third full term. June 25: The Democratic National Committee asks Governor Frances Cleveland of New Jersey, widow of President Grover Cleveland, to run for President. She says the timing is not right: "Perhaps the American people are

ready for a woman to be President instead of a man, but not if the man is Theodore Roosevelt. And no man can beat him without a great catastrophe coming to our land before the election, and no woman can beat him even with such a catastrophe." She will not accept the Vice Presidency, either, preferring to serve out her term as Governor, which ends in January 1914 and has included major reforms in the Progressive mold. The Democrats end up nominating the Speaker of the House, James Beauchamp "Champ" Clark of Missouri. (Clark was almost nominated, but William Jennings Bryan, not running this time, thought Clark too tied to New York's Tammany Hall machine, and threw his support to Woodrow Wilson. But Wilson is dead in TTL.) November 6: President Theodore Roosevelt, nominated by both Republicans and Progressives, is elected to a third full term, defeating the Democratic nominee, House Speaker Champ Clark, who manages to take most of the South and a few Midwestern States, but the popular vote is still a landslide for TR, who takes 56 percent to Clark's 42, and wins the Electoral Vote 402-129. 1913 November 5: Edith Galt, widow of a wealthy jewelry firm executive, is elected the first female Governor of Virginia, patterning herself after her heroes, Governor Frances Cleveland of New Jersey and the late Virginia-born President Woodrow Wilson. (In RL, Mrs. Galt would become First Lady, marrying Wilson in 1915.) December 23: President Theodore Roosevelt signs the Federal Reserve Board into law, following a tough Congressional fight in which some of his misgivings were addressed with amendments from Congressmen from each party, Democratic, Republican and Progressive. 1914 February 9: The Samuel J. Tilden Library opens in at the home of the former President in what is now Untermyer Park in Yonkers, New York, on the 100th anniversary of his birth. It is the first Presidential Library, made possible by the massive total of books and Presidential papers produced by the lawyerturned-politician. But Presidential Libraries do not become a trend. (Tilden, of course, did not become President, but his home is a historic site, and much of his bequests helped fund the New York Public Library's main branch at 42nd Street and 5th Avenue.) August 1: The Great War, as it is initially called, begins in Europe, with Britain, France, Russia and the Slavic people of the Balkans on one side and Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire on the other. President Theodore Roosevelt says that America will stay out of the conflict -- for now. 1915

April 5: Jack Johnson defends the heavyweight championship by knocking out mountainous Jess Willard in the 26th round at Madison Square Garden in New York. At 37, he is still the best boxer in the world by far. (Willard knocked Johnson out. It's fairer to say that America knocked him out. He was pursued by the law, became a fugitive from justice, had to fight in Europe, and finally accepted this fight in Havana, apparently throwing it in exchange for a lighter sentence. Willard was big and strong, but he was no match for Jack Johnson at anything close to full strength, as Jack Dempsey would later prove.) May 7: The German Imperial Navy torpedoes the British cruise liner R.M.S. Lusitania. Of a total of 1,195 people killed, 123 of them Americans. Calls for America to enter the Great War on the side of Britain and France intensify. May 9: President Theodore Roosevelt demands an apology and reparations from Germany for their sinking of the cruise liner R.M.S. Lusitania two days earlier, or America will enter the Great War on the side of Britain and France. May 16: After a week with no response from Germany to his demand for an apology and reparations for the sinking of the Lusitania, President Theodore Roosevelt asks Congress for a Declaration of War. He gets it by overwhelming votes, though with some opposition. Congress also passes a joint resolution expressing solidarity with Britain and France, cementing what becomes the most powerful international alliance in human history. May 20: President Theodore Roosevelt meets with Lieutenant General Frederick Funston, the nation's highest-ranking military officer. TR tells him he is reorganizing the War Department, and makes Funston a four-star General and the first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Funston's task is to lead the rearming of America, including grand expansions of the Army and Navy, the creation in these early days of aeronautics of an Army Air Corps and a Navy Air Corps, and the building of several ships designed to launch those Corps' planes. (Funston really was General-in-Chief at this time.) May 22: Brigadier General John J. Pershing, who had been General Funston's second-in-command at the Presidio base in San Francisco, is appointed Major General and Army Chief of Staff, keeping him Funston's second-in-command. The General, his wife Frances and their four children head east to Washington. August 15: A fire consumes the house at the Presidio military reservation in San Francisco, which had been the home until May of General John J. Pershing, his wife Frances, and their children, Helen, Ann, Warren and Mary Margaret, then ranging in age from three to nine. All six would have been killed had they been in the house at the time, rather than in Washington as the General was beginning his duties as the Army's representative to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (All but one of Pershing's children actually did die in that fire. I was considering making one of Pershing's sons a hero General of World War II and maybe later a President, but that's not how TTL worked out.) October 1: Major General John Pershing, Army Chief of Staff, informs President

Theodore Roosevelt that the Army, the Navy and the new Army Air Corps are all ready for battle, and that the Navy Air Corps will be once the Navy completes building its new aircraft carriers, which he estimates will take another six months. October 20: U.S. troops arrive in France to aid France and Britain in the Great War. General Frederick Funston, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, leads the first contingent off the ship. On President Roosevelt's recommendation, he invokes the French nobleman who aided America in its time of greatest need, the War of the American Revolution: "Lafayette, we are here!" 1916 March 31: Five new aircraft carriers, named for Presidents George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Zachary Taylor, Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee -- the Civil War Commander-in-Chief and the heroes of America's four biggest wars -- are pronounced ready for launch by Secretary of War George Meyer. March 15: President Theodore Roosevelt announces his candidacy for a fourth full term: "Although the desire is strong to declare my career in public service complete, I cannot abandon the American people in this time of war." June 25: The Democratic Convention nominates Senator Robert L. Owen of Oklahoma for President. Of Cherokee descent on his mother's side, he is believed to be the first nominee for President by a major party to be Native American. Senator Thomas R. Marshall of Indiana is nominated for Vice President. (Marshall was Wilson's Vice President. Owen never ran for President.) July 1: Combined U.S., British Empire (including Canada and Australia) and French troops beat the Germans at the Somme, inflicting 200,000 battle deaths against 187,000, of which 15,400 are American. (The U.S. was not in the war yet, and the Somme was a stalemate, with 500,000 dying when both sides are combined.) July 4: On the 140th anniversary of American independence, the U.S. Navy and its Air Corps give new meaning to the word "fireworks," launching bombing runs on German seaports and German land positions in France and Belgium. The Germans are forced to move thousands of men from their offensive positions to take defensive positions in the Fatherland. September 18: Allied troops push the thinned-out Germans completely out of France. October 30: Allied troops push the Germans out of Belgium. November 7: With victory in the World War seemingly at hand, President Theodore Roosevelt, nominated by both Republicans and Progressives, is

overwhelmingly re-elected against his Democratic challenger, Senator Robert Owen. TR is so popular that Owen's Cherokee ancestry, though helping him win some States in the Southeast and the West, was neither a major supporting nor major opposing factor. TR's old friend, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, is elected Vice President. November 9: Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicates as Emperor of Germany, and escapes to the Netherlands. His son becomes Kaiser Wilhelm III. (Kronprinz Wilhelm never accepted the throne.) November 11: The Armistice of Antwerp is signed in Belgium by Marshal Ferdinand Foch of France, General Douglas Haig of Britain, General Frederick Funston of America and Marshal Paul von Hindenburg of Germany. Russia and the Ottoman Empire also give provisional acceptance to the Armistice's terms, ending the World War. Germany gives the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine back to France, and agrees to hold a convention to draft an American-style constitution, except that Kaiser Wilhelm III will remain as a figurehead monarch. His exiled father, Kaiser Wilhelm II, will not be extradited by the Netherlands to face charges. A convention will be held at Versailles, France, beginning in January, to make all peace settlements official. Six million soldiers, including 75,000 Americans, lost their lives in the war. (Two years later, when the RL-Armistice was signed, it was closer to 10 million -- 19 million if you count civilians. And that doesn't count the Armenian genocide, at least one million, or the the Spanish Influenza Epidemic, which may have killed twice as many people as the war. RL U.S. battle deaths in WWI: 117,000.) 1917 January 11: President Theodore Roosevelt arrives in France aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. George Washington, and prepares to meet with General Frederick Funston to be briefed on the preparations for the Conference of Versailles. TR also meets with his sons Theodore Jr., Archie and Kermit, who will take the George Washington home. Quentin Roosevelt had also enlisted, but was still posted stateside at the time of the Armistice. (And that's why Quentin survives World War I.) February 18: The Treaty of Versailles is signed. With President Roosevelt's guidance, many of the peoples of Europe are permitted to form their own countries, including Poland and Czechoslovakia. The Ottoman Empire is dissolved, and the Republic of Turkey is formed under General Mustafa Kemal, now President Kemal Ataturk. Keeping in mind the pleas in letters sent to the conference by Mohandas Gandhi, an Indian-born lawyer living in South Africa, and Nguyen Sinh Cung, a Vietnamese university student in Paris, TR also talks Prime Minister David Lloyd George of Britain and Prime Minister Aristide Briand of France into producing a timetable for settig up their colonies around the world for independence and self-government. TR returns to America to be inaugurated for his fourth full term as President. (In RL, Gandhi and Nguyen, whom we know as Ho Chi Minh, really were at Versailles in 1919, but no one listened to to them.)

February 19: Just one day after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, General Frederick Funston, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and commander of all U.S. forces in the World War, dies of a heart attack. He was 51. President Theodore Roosevelt, still in Paris, is at the General's bedside at the end. Funston, even more than Spanish-American War hero Roosevelt, is America's greatest military hero since Robert E. Lee squashed the Slavery Rebellion 52 years ago -- maybe even the greatest since Zachary Taylor whipped the Mexican Army 69 years ago. Roosevelt will appoint Major General John J. Pershing, currently Army Chief of Staff, to take Funston's place, and promote him to a full four-star General. (Funston really did die on this day, two months before the U.S. entered the war. That's why he didn't become the great hero of World War I, and Black Jack Pershing did.) February 20: Although the Austro-Hungarian Empire has been split up, Karl von Habsburg is allowed to remain, as a figurehead only, Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and King of Czechoslovakia (formerly Bohemia). March 4: The Russian Revolution brings the abdication of Czar Nicholas II. Aleksandr Kerensky is installed as provisional President, and will later be elected to the post. The Czar thought his reign would be saved by the end of the World War, but discontent within his empire was too great. March 5: Since Inauguration Day fell on a Sunday, President Theodore Roosevelt chooses to have the formal ceremony for his fourth full term in office the following day. He asks Congress to pass the Treaty of Versailles, and announces that most wartime measures, such as rationing and investigations of subversives, will be eliminated or scaled back. March 25: The layoff due to the World War has taken its toll on heavyweight champion Jack Johnson. At 39, he is knocked out by light-heavyweight champion Barney "Battling" Levinsky at Madison Square Garden in New York. Johnson will remain the oldest heavyweight champion ever until George Foreman regains the crown in 1994, at age 45. Levinsky is the last lightheavyweight champion to win the heavyweight title until 1985, when Michael Spinks beats Larry Holmes. (Levinsky was light-heavyweight champion, but never fought for the heavyweight title.) April 1: Friedrich Ebert, recently elected the first constitutional President of the Federal Republic of Germany, no longer has any reason to undermine his nation's historic enemy Russia in war, but he does have reason to fear a popular revolution overthrowing his own new government. He refuses to allow would-be revolutionary Vladimir Lenin passage through Germany on his way home to Russia. Lenin is stuck in Zurich, Switzerland. April 6: The U.S. Senate ratifies the Treaty of Versailles, 70-26. (Somehow, I think Theodore Roosevelt would have had an easier time crafting a treaty acceptable to a Republican-controlled Senate than Woodrow Wilson.) April 11: U.S. Marine Corporal Joseph Crandall returns alive from the World

War, to his home town of East Brunswick, New Jersey. (He was killed in action in 1918, one of four from my home town. The four are memorialized on a plaque near the town's American Legion post. A short walk away is a former school named for him, currently being converted into luxury housing. As a real person, he was a martyr and a hero. As a character in this Timeline, he isn't especially important... but his descendants are.) June 3: William E.B. DeBois, author of the book The Souls of Black Folk, is elected to the Massachusetts Senate seat vacated by the election of Henry Cabot Lodge to the Vice Presidency. DuBois, the Progressive Party candidate, who was also nominated by the Republicans, is the first black person ever elected to the Senate by popular vote under the 17th Amendment. He defeats the Democratic nominee, former Governor David Walsh, after a scandal sheet revealed that Walsh, the first Catholic Governor of the State, was a homosexual. DuBois disavowed any association with the article's author, a black activist named Marcus Garvey. (Walsh did actually get elected to the Senate, but later faced a nasty limerick: Said Senator David I. Walsh, "The charges against me are falsh. Though I did go to Brooklyn, for sooklin' and fooklin', not a gob laid his hands on my balsh.") November 5: Would-be revolutionary Leon Trotsky attempts a Communist coup in Russia, but fails. He escapes into the new Republic of Finland, and eventually ends up in Mexico. (This was the actual date of the Bolshevik Revolution. It was also the day one of my grandmothers was born. From what I know about her, she probably didn't know about the coincidence, and wouldn't have been happy about it had she known.) November 11: Queen Lili'uokalani dies after 26 years on the throne of Hawaii. She was 79 years old. Her 14-year-old great niece, Abigail Helen Kapiolani Kawananakoa, is crowned Queen Kapiolani. (Lili'uokalani had been in exile for 24 years.) December 6: After careful negotiations, an Anglo-Irish Treaty is signed, creating a Republic of Ireland, with freedom of religion, allowing Catholics in six northern Counties where they are the minority, and Protestants in Ireland's remaining 26 Counties, to be left alone in their worship. (No partition, no "Troubles," no "Bloody Sunday," and the band U2 will have to look elsewhere for inspiration.) 1918 January 29: The McKinley Memorial Library and Museum opens in Niles, Ohio, birthplace of William McKinley, President of the United States from 1894 to 1897. This is the second "Presidential Library" after Samuel Tilden's, but, as McKinley wasn't much of a President, this one does not start a trend, either. May 27: The Frederick Funston Memorial is dedicated at Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington, dedicated to the General who won the World War and then died within three months of victory.

July 8: Would-be revolutionary Josef Stalin attempts a Communist coup in Russia, but fails. He is captured and executed. (This is the date of the execution of the Czar and his family.) October 1: Andrew "Rube" Foster, the black ace pitcher of the Chicago Cubs, wins the 300th game of his career, defeating the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-0 at Wrigley Field. The Cubs have won the National League Pennant, but will lose the World Series to the Boston Red Sox in seven games. November 4: British poet Wilfrid Owen, a veteran of the World War, publishes Mental Cases and Other Poems, about the suffering of the soldiers. (This is the day Owen died. Here, he has it better. It was an idea. Joe Bonkers used Owen's survival of the war in TTL as a POD for his alternate Beatles Timeline, with Owen having a son who has a daughter who, rather than Yoko Ono, becomes the second Mrs. John Lennon.) November 5: Alfred E. Smith is elected Governor of New York, the first Catholic to win the post. He sweeps the Democrats back into control of the State Assembly. Franklin Delano Roosevelt is elected to his fifth term there, and, with Republican and Progressive victories in the 1910s having knocked out several men ahead of him, will become Speaker in the next term, something his fifth cousin, President Theodore Roosevelt, had sought and been denied a generation ealrier. The Democrats also make gains in the U.S. congress, including former Governor Frances Cleveland of New Jersey becoming the first woman ever elected to the Senate. Inspired by the election to the U.S. Senate of noted black sociologist William DuBois, black journalist A. Philip Randolph is elected, on both the Democratic and Progressive tickets, to the U.S. House of Representatives from New York. (FDR was Assistant Secretary of the Navy at this time.) November 11: Ernest Hemingway, a reporter for the Kansas City Star, publishes his first novel, A Farewell to Arms, based on his experiences in the World War, which ended two years ago today. 1919 January 6: President Theodore Roosevelt suffers a heart attack at Sagamore Hill, his home in Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York. He survives, but is seriously debilitated. He will never walk unaided again. (TR died on this day.) January 16: The 20th Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, providing for the prohibition of the sale, purchase, import and export of intoxicating liquors. "Prohibition is like Communism," says entertainer Will Rogers. "It's a great idea, but it won't work." He will be proven tragically correct, as organized crime becomes an American institution due to violations of the law. (The RL-18th Amendment. And, yes, Rogers actually said that.) January 28: Canadian poet John McCrae, who wrote the poem "In Flanders Fields" to honor the dead of the World War in 1915, falls victim to the Spanish influenza epidemic that has ravaged the world. He was 46. The disease also

claims Margarethe Zelle, a 42-year-old actress from the Netherlands, professionally known as Mata Hari. It will soon be discovered that she had been a double agent, feeding secrets of state to both sides in the war. (I didn't want either of them to die, but I couldn't figure out what to do with either of them. The flu pandemic is an answer, but not a good one.) February 12: Theodore Roosevelt submits his resignation as President of the United States, citing his health. He had been President since February 3, 1904, 15 years and nine days. He is the first man ever to retire from the Presidency before his term is up. Vice President Henry Cabot Lodge becomes the 29th President of the United States. April 22: Nicholas Romanov, who abdicated as Czar Nicholas II of Russia two years earlier, dies of a heart attack while under house arrest in Petrograd. He was just 50 years old. Grand Duke Alexei, just 14, would become Czar Alexander IV, but President Aleksandr Kerensky shows no sign of wanting to restore the monarchy, even in a limited form as Germany has with Kaiser Wilhelm III having little power. (I originally "killed" the Czar on April 18, which was just the date on which I wrote the entry, and had no other significance. I moved it up because April 22 was Lenin's birthday -- meanwhile, in TTL, Lenin stews away in his Swiss exile, or maybe he borschts away.) April 23: Manfred Albrecht, Freiherr von Richtofen -- the German air ace known as the "Red Baron," for his 52 air battle victories during the World War -- dies from the worldwide influenza epidemic. (Another copout, I admit. Curse you, Red Baron! He actually shot down 80 planes, but this war was shorter.) June 15: Joseph Crandall Jr., son of a World War veteran, is born in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He grows up in neighboring East Brunswick. (As Joseph Sr. died in the war, Joseph Jr. was never born.) July 4: Jack Dempsey demolishes heavyweight champion Barney "Battling" Levinsky in three brutal rounds at Bayfront Park in Toledo, Ohio. Dempsey will remain heavyweight champion for seven years. (Dempsey beat Willard, and I do mean BEAT, knocking him down seven times in the first round. Although far taller, Willard was a bum. Dempsey was one of the greatest fighters of all time. But he probably would've been stung by the faster Joe Louis, pummeled by the much bigger Rocky Marciano, dazzled by the bigger and faster Muhammad Ali, and bludgeoned by Joe Frazier, George Foreman or Evander Holyfield. But Dempsey vs. Mike Tyson? What a fight that would have been.) Uncle Mike Aug 9 2007, 08:42 AM Post #18

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks

Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 1920 February 2: Edith Galt, former Governor of Virginia, is elected to the U.S. Senate, defeating Carter Glass, who had been appointed to the seat vacated by the death of Thomas S. Martin. (The RL second Mrs. Woodrow Wilson.) June 28: For the first time, one of America's major political parties nominates a woman for President, 55 years after the Supreme Court affirmed the right of women to vote. The Democratic Convention in Baltimore nominates Senator Frances Cleveland of New Jersey, widow of President Grover Cleveland. Now 57, Mrs. Cleveland has become her Party's foremost living figure, and few hold it against her that she refused to run against Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 or '16. Governor James M. Cox of Ohio is nominated for Vice President. The Progressive Party, with TR no longer at its helm, will also nominate the Cleveland-Cox ticket, strengthening it and turning what could have been a three-party free-for-all into a two-candidate race. With TR apparently dying, and about one-fourth of the Progressives' activists and elected officials having joined the Democrats and the rest going back to the Republicans, the nation's second-most-successful third-party enterprise, after the 1860 Republicans, is, to use the words soon to be published by poet T.S. Eliot, ending not with a bang, but with a whimper. (That's from "The Waste Land," published in 1922. Cox was nominated for President, with the 38-year-old Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Delano Roosevelt for Vice President.) July 18: Tired and weak, Theodore Roosevelt manages to attend the Republican Convention at Madison Square Garden in New York. The Convention had been scheduled for San Francisco, but was moved to New York out of deference to the ailing former President. He gives a stirring speech nominating President Henry Cabot Lodge, his old friend and 1916 running mate, for a full term. Lodge receives the nomination, with Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio for Vice President. But the U.S. economy is in a nasty postwar recession. It appears that TR may have resigned in ill health just in time to let Lodge take the fall for his economic mistakes. Both major parties' conventions were covered for the Kansas City Star by Ernest Hemingway, author of the 1918 novel A Farewell to Arms. November 2: Frances Folsom Cleveland is elected the 30th President of the United States, the first woman ever honored with election to the position of head of any republican government. Incumbent Henry Cabot Lodge, in office just 13 months, has had little time to build up a record of his own, or to alleviate the severe recession, and he wins only the New England States and roughly half of the Midwest. Mrs. Cleveland, having made a whirlwind tour of the country, sweeps the South and the West, taking 45 percent of men's votes but 73 percent of women's votes. She will be the first Democrat elected to the office in 20 years and the first to hold it in 17. She and her husband

Grover, who died in 1908, join John Adams and son John Quincy Adams as the only families to have two members become President. (That was 86 years ago, going on 87, and the closest any woman has gotten to the Presidency in RL is a pair of Secretaries of State and a Speaker of the House. In TTL, Benjamin Harrison never joined his grandfather William Henry, "Old Tippecanoe," as a President.) 1921 January 3: The 67th Congress convenes. Ernest Hemingway begins to cover it, and the Administration of President-elect Frances Cleveland, as the new Washington correspondent for the Kansas City Star. Although intrigued by the prospect of covering the first female head of a democratic nation, he would rather be a novelist, as his 1918 book of World War reminiscences, A Farewell to Arms, suggests. March 4: "I, Frances Folsom Cleveland, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and that I will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. And thus I swear, so help me God." With those words, for the first time, the nation's Chief Executive is a woman. Among those in attendance are Victoria Martin, the 82-year-old former agitator for women's right to vote and two-time nominee for Governor of New York, once America's most accomplished female politician. With no wife to serve as First Lady, her daughter Esther Cleveland Bosanquet serves as White House hostess. March 10: President Cleveland signs a bill slashing tariffs, in the hopes that it will aid farmers and increase trust in America and other nations. She also appoints Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York as Secretary of Labor, and crosses Party lines to make Republican Herbert Hoover, director of a food distribution program during the World War, Secretary of Commerce. Lieutenant Governor Harry C. Walker becomes Governor of the nation's most populous State. (RL farmers never really recovered from the end of World War I's demand for food. Their depression lasted the entire period between the World Wars, which is why the 1930s Depression was so hard on them.) March 15: Former President Theodore Roosevelt dies of heart trouble as his home in Oyster Bay, on New York's Long Island, at age 62. His son, Ted, has already been offered the 1922 Republican nomination for Governor of New York, one of his father's old jobs, but current Governor Harry C. Walker stands in the way, as does another Democrat who wants the job, Ted's distant cousin, Franklin Roosevelt, Speaker of the State Assembly. (March 15 was just the date on which I wrote it.) August 7: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Speaker of the New York State Assembly, suffers an attack of polio while vacationing in Campobello, New Brunswick, Canada. He is paralyzed from the waist down. His plans to run for Governor in 1922 are cancelled, preventing an electoral extension of the family feud with his cousin, Theodore Roosevelt Jr. Instead, Governor Harry C. Walker will run for what would amount to his second term. (This doesn't

change, except for FDR's most recent job. But he doesn't die. That was the point of divergence for my Timeline "Fear Itself.") 1922 April 1: Emperor Karl I of Austria, also known as King Karoly IV of Hungary and King Karl I of Czechoslovakia, dies of an infection he got on a hunting trip. His 10-year-old son is proclaimed Emperor Otto IV, accepting the count of the Kings of Bavaria. (Karl did die on this day, in exile. Otto von Hapsburg is still alive in 2007, but has obviously never reigned.) May 30: The Lincoln Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C., in memory of the President who led the abolition of slavery in the early 1860s. It faces the Washington Monument and the U.S. Capitol Building at the western end of the National Mall. A movement is underway to build a national memorial to Robert E. Lee, who as a general crushed the Slavery Rebellion in 1861 and who as President tried to lead the reintegration of the South into the Union before being assassinated. October 2: President Frances Cleveland appoints Irving Lehman, a Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, to succeed the late William R. Day on the U.S. Supreme Court. (President Warren Harding appointed George Sutherland.) November 7: Theodore Roosevelt Jr., a.k.a. "Ted Roosevelt," an aide to his late father, is elected Governor of New York, defeating the Democratic incumbent, Harry C. Walker. (Like his father and cousin FDR, Ted was Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He didn't run for Governor until 1924, and was beaten by Al Smith.) 1923 January 2: President Frances Cleveland appoints Edward I. Edwards, one of her successors as Governor of New Jersey, to the Supreme Court, filling the vacancy caused by the death of Justice Mahlon Pitney. (Harding appointed Pierce Butler.) January 12: President Frances Cleveland meets with Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of former New York Assembly Speaker Franklin Roosevelt, niece of the late President Theodore Roosevelt, and cousin of current New York Governor Ted Roosevelt. She has just returned from a national tour, including the South and Midwest. She tells the President that tax breaks for farmers who meet certain production levels will lift many of them out of poverty and help the other sectors of the still-struggling economy, enabling her to win the farm states and probably the election next year if she runs again. Secretary of Labor Alfred E. Smith agrees, telling Mrs. Cleveland that she might lose New England and some traditionally Republican States in the Midwest, like Ohio and Indiana, but she might sweep the rest of the country. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover also likes it, saying it will reward hard work and what he calls "rugged individualism." President Cleveland has Senator Edith

Galt of Virginia write the bill, which passes easily, since the Democrats in Congress want to help farmers, and the Republicans want to cut taxes, even at the risk of helping a liberal female Democratic President. February 19: President Frances Cleveland appoints John J. Cornwell, former Governor of West Virginia, to the Supreme Court, filling the vacancy caused by the death of Justice John H. Clarke. (Harding appointed Edward T. Sanford. For a guy who was President less than two and a half years, three Justices who lasted into the next three Presidential terms and hurt the agenda of that third one, FDR's first, is a surprisingly solid legacy. On the other hand, they were all lousy Justices.) August 2: Senator Warren G. Harding dies at his home in Marion, Ohio. The cause is thought to be a stroke. He is 57 years old. As he is a corrupt, philandering mediocrity, few outside Ohio and Washington care. (This is the day Harding actually died, but, being the incumbent President, it was much bigger news.) October 1: The Treaty of Damascus establishes the independence of several Middle Eastern nations, including host Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Kurdistan, Babylon, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Egypt. In return for complete noninterference from America and the European powers, the nations in this group that produce oil will automatically send 10 percent of their production to those nations. Despite the protests of Jews for a homeland in Palestine, the region remains under British control. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby signs for America. (Babylon and Kurdistan make up RL Iraq.) November 9: Adolf Hitler, who had served in the German Army during the World War, is elected to the Reichstag from a seat in Bavaria. He is the first Reichstag member from the National Socialist Party, or Nazis. He sways the voters on contempt for those he blames for losing the war: Jews and Communists. (This was the date of Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch.) 1924 January 21: Would-be revolutionary Vladimir Lenin dies of a stroke in exile in Zurich, Switzerland. He was 53. Aleksandr Kerensky is about to finish his seventh year as President of the Republic of Russia. February 6: Reichstag member Adolf Hitler accuses President Friedrich Ebert of selling out to Jewish bankers in order to resolve Germany's recent catastrophic inflation. Ebert asks Hitler what he would have done. Hitler's only answer is to get into a shouting match with Ebert, until he punches the President out on the parliament's floor, starting a great brawl among the legislators. For assaulting the Reichspresident, Hitler is expelled from the Reichstag and sentenced to a year in prison. While there, he writes a book of his opinions on how Germany should react to what he calls "the international menace of Jews, Communists, and those who would sell their souls to them." He calls the book My Struggle, or, in the original German, Mein Kampf.

November 4: President Frances Cleveland, having kept America out of war and turned the economy around, is re-elected President, defeating Governor Calvin Coolidge, who wins only the New England States of Massachusetts where he lives, Vermont where he was born and raised, New Hampshire and Maine, with heavily Catholic Connecticut and Rhode Island going to President Cleveland because of the campaigning of Secretary of Labor Alfred E. Smith. The Democratic tide defeats Governor Ted Roosevelt of New York, who is beaten by his cousin, Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of former State Assembly Speaker Franklin Roosevelt, who is unable to seek office due to his continuing recovery from polio. (Coolidge never becomes President in TTL.) November 9: Former President Henry Cabot Lodge dies at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was 74. (No member of the Lodge family has ever become President.) 1925 March 2: President Frances Cleveland appoints Senator Edith Galt of Virginia to the seat on the Supreme Court vacated by the death of Justice Joseph McKenna. Mrs. Galt will be the first woman to sit on the nation's highest court. (Calvin Coolidge appointed Harlan Stone.) March 4: After four years as Washington correspondent for the Kansas City Star, Ernest Hemingway assumes his new position as national affairs columnist for the Chicago Daily News. He grew up in Oak Park, one of Chicago's western suburbs. His column will be synidated throughout the country, though he is still frustrated that his novel The Sun Also Rises, based on letters sent to him from Paris by author Gertrude Stein, has not found a publisher. "If only you had been here," said one, "then maybe it would read like actual experience." Hemingway's first column details the Inauguration of President Frances Cleveland for a second term. (In RL, Hemingway was in Paris with Stein and the others.) 1926 April 11: President Frances Cleveland buys a plot of land in the Maryland mountains, west of Washington, D.C. She names it Camp Esther, after her daughter, and signs papers handing it over to the federal government for use as a personal retreat for all future Presidents of the United States. (This retreat was named Shangri-La by FDR, and Camp David by Eisenhower, for his grandson, the one who married Julie Nixon.) 1927 April 13: Leroy "Satchel" Paige, who had been pitching for the Kansas City Monarchs, a semipro team made up of black players, makes his major league debut, starting for the Philadelphia Athletics against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium. The Yankee lineup, dubbed "Murderer's Row," greets him with home runs from Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, and the A's fall, 8-4. Paige will go on to a record of 11 wins and 5 losses, mostly from the bullpen,

though by 1929 he will be in the starting rotation. Monarchs records say that Paige starts the 1927 season at the age of 20, but the A's, led by managerowner Connie Mack, are impressed by his poise on the mound, and believe him to be older. Knowing that this gives him a good story, Paige isn't saying what his actual age is. He becomes one of the most colorful characters, and one of the best pitchers, in baseball history. April 28: The James Monroe Library and Museum opens in a building in Fredericksburg, Virginia, once used as a law office by the 5th President, on the 169th anniversary of his birth. It follows the Tilden and McKinley Libraries, but is also not an event that suggests that every President should have a library or museum. That time will come, however. June 9: Victoria Martin dies in England at the age of 88. She had twice been the Democratic nominee for Governor of New York, but was content that she had lived to see not only that American women had the right to vote, but that a woman had been elected President of the United States. President Frances Cleveland releases a statement to the press, saying, "Mrs. Martin was a pioneer who overcame her own fears, and allowed millions of others to overcome theirs." (Victoria Woodhull did die on this day, in England, much less fulfilled than her TTL counterpart.) August 6: Herbert Hoover resigns as Secretary of Commerce. He is widely believed to be the front-runner for the Republican nomination for President next year, which he could not be while still serving in the Administration of Democratic President Frances Cleveland. Mrs. Cleveland has decided that eight years will be enough, though it isn't clear who will be the Democratic nominee for President. Both Vice President James M. Cox and Secretary of Labor Alfred E. Smith have expressed interest. Eleanor Roosevelt, sure that Americans will not accept two consecutive female Presidents, has chosen to run for re-election as Governor of New York next year. (This was the day President Coolidge, unusually issuing a vichysoisse of verbiage that verily veered most verbose, announced, "I do not choose to run for President in 1928.") 1928 November 6: Former Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover is elected President, defeating Secretary of Labor Alfred E. Smith. It is the first time two men who had served in the Cabinet were major parties' nominees for President since 1824, and the only time both had served in the same Administration. Although President Frances Cleveland's Administration had been very successful, many Americans were concerned about Smith's Catholicism, and with the way the nomination was so easily awarded to him at the Democratic Convention, with Vice President James M. Cox seemingly squeezed out. While women and blacks had gained greatly since the 1860s, there still seems to be a ban on a Catholic in the White House. But there does not seem to be a ban on Native Americans being a heartbeat away, as Senator Charles Curtis of Kansas is elected Hoover's Vice President. Governor Eleanor Roosevelt of New York is easily elected to a third term. Her cousin

Quentin Roosevelt, son of the late President Theodore Roosevelt, is elected District Attorney of New York County (Manhattan), making him, at 31, the youngest DA any major American city has ever had. (Of course, in RL, Quentin had been dead for 10 years.) 1929 January 1: The U.S. Department of the Treasury revises American paper currency. George Washington is placed on the one-dollar bill, Thomas Jefferson on the two-dollar bill, Abraham Lincoln on the five, Alexander Hamilton on the $10, Andrew Jackson on the $20, James Madison on the $50 and Benjamin Franklin on the $100. These honors are granted despite a movement by a group of Masons from Virginia to grant the honor to their native son, Robert E. Lee, the first assassinated President and the hero who supressed the Slavery Rebellion. (With the Civil War actually happening, Ulysses S. Grant was put on the $50.) March 13: Believing that "We are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than at any time in the history of man," new President Herbert Hoover signs a bill greatly increasing tariffs, thinking it will protect domestic goods and aid American consumers, ending 28 years of free trade policies under Presidents Jarvis, Wilson, Roosevelt, Lodge and Cleveland. He also appoints former Governor Ted Roosevelt of New York, son of the late President Theodore Roosevelt, to be Secretary of State, a move seen by many as setting Ted up as his successor. (This earlier Smoot-Hawley Tariff undoes much of the economic good of the Cleveland Administration, as opposed to the RL-SmootHawley, which came in 1930 and probably turned a nasty two-year depression into a ten-year calamity.) August 28: Satchel Paige of the Philadelphia Athletics sets a major league record by striking out 16 New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium, breaking the 21-year-old record of another black pitcher, Rube Foster of the 1908 Chicago Cubs. Foster struck out 15, also in New York, against the Giants at the Polo Grounds. Satch's 9-0 victory over the Yanks is a blow from which the threetime defending American League Champions do not recover, as the A's go on to win three straight Pennants of their own. Satch's record will stand until St. Louis Cardinal ace Dizzy Dean fans 17 Cubs in a 1933 game. October 11: For the first time, both starting pitchers in a World Series game are black men. The Philadelphia Athletics' Satchel Paige outduels the Chicago Cubs' Chet Brewer at Shibe Park, as the A's win, 1-0, to take a two games to one lead in the Series. With Paige, Lefty Grove, George Earnshaw and surprise Game 1 starter Howard Ehmke (who set a Series record with 13 strikeouts) giving the Cubs little to hit, the A's win the Series for the first time in 16 years. October 24: The New York Stock Exchange drops precipitously, beginning a decline that will climax five days later with "the Crash of '29." Speculation on stocks had caused their value to be grossly inflated, and they end up losing all their added value and then some. Stocks will continue to slide to well

below their pre-boom levels in the remainder of the year. The Great Depression is underway. Uncle Mike Aug 9 2007, 11:47 AM Post #19

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 << Not bad, but some thoughts. 1. First Manassas >> First Bull Run. You win the war, you get to choose the names for the battles. You lose the war, and you take what you're given. << I seriously doubt even GEN Lee could turn this into a victory given the poor state of Union militias and the relatively better condition of Southern ones. I could certainly see him being able to make it not turn into a complete rout though. But other than that, the Yankees will need some more training/experience. He could probably start kicking ass soon after this first engagement, but I dont see it happening at the very beginning. >> He'd have three months. He was a West Pointer. He was, even by Union admissions, brilliant. And he did well with the inferior Southerners. << 2. Lee in the Illinois Militia- Im not 100% certain about this, but I have a gut feeling states arent going to allow non-state citizens to be an officer in their militias in the 19th Century. The easiest solution is for Lee to be in the West Virgina militia. >> You mean Grant. Grant in the Illinois Militia. Lee never leaves the WashingtonRichmond corridor for the duration of this conflict. Because of his success, he doesn't have to. << 3. Slavery Rebellion- Possible, but remember previous brief insurrections got goofy names or were named after their leader. How about Davis' Rebellion? >> Like I said: Win the war... It was decided to name the rebellion after its cause, a la the Whiskey Rebellion. And I don't want to read any Okie-esque crap about the RL American Civil War being about anything other than the

Southern States' desire to continue the evil institution of slavery. Uncle Mike Aug 9 2007, 11:21 PM Post #20

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 1930 February 24: Chief Justice William Howard Taft retires from the Supreme Court, citing his poor health. He will die just 12 days later. Though his wife Helen wanted him to run for President, he was happiest as a judge, and never considered running for elective office. President Hoover appoints Charles Evans Hughes, a former Associate Justice and Governor of New York, as the new Chief Justice. October 1: President Herbert Hoover attends Game 3 of the World Series at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. As he is throwing out the ceremonial first ball, the crowd, angry over both his failure to alleviate the Depression and his refusal to stand for the repeal of Prohibition, boos him, then starts chanting, "We want beer!" Athletics pitcher Satchel Paige, who beats the St. Louis Cardinals, is asked after the game about the poor treatment of the President. "I wouldn't have jeered him," Satch says, "but I understand it. Wasn't no gangland killin's before Prohibition. I saw Al Capone at Wrigley Field in last year's Series. Too many people dead from shootin' 'cause people not drinkin', and too many people dead from not eatin', and too many people lost their homes from not workin'. What's Mr. Hoover done for us? I know colored folks have voted Republican since Abe Lincoln, but we lost more jobs under Mr. Hoover than ever before. He ain't helpin' us any more than he's helpin' white folks." Paige's comments, as much as anything else has, move black voters away from the Republicans toward the Democrats, and even increase solidarity between the races. (Aside from Paige not pitching in the majors until 1948, and thus not in position to make the above statement, this is all true. Hoover did attend the game, he was showered with boos and the "We want beer!" chant, the A's did win the game and the Series, and Capone did go to several Cub games at Wrigley Field.) November 1: Adolf Hitler, expelled from the Reichstag in 1924 for assaulting German President Friedrich Ebert, rides the anger and misery of Depressionsaddled Germans to regain his former seat, and bring his National Socialists, or Nazis, to more seats than they had in 1924. His comeback has begun.

December 9: Andrew "Rube" Foster, star pitcher of the Chicago Cubs from 1902 to 1918, dies. He is hailed as the greatest black baseball player ever -so far. (Foster did die on this day, and was a great pitcher, but never played in the majors, so he founded the Negro National League and its flagship team, the Chicago American Giants.) 1931 March 25: A fight breaks out between a group of young white men and a group of young black men riding on a freight car of the Southern Railway. When the train arrives in Scottsboro, Alabama, all are arrested, as are two young white women, unemployed mill workers and part-time prostitutes. All are arrested, and, between them, are jailed for between three days (the prostitutes) to six months (most of the fighters, though a 13-year-old black boy stayed just one month). None of the defendants ever becomes known outside Alabama. (The nine blacks, one of them just 13, were accused of rape by the millworkers/hookers, and were sentenced to death, although the 13year-old was sentenced to life. The "Scottsboro Boys" case became a cause celebre for the American left in the 1930s, and eventually all were freed, though in a couple of cases it took until the 1950s. Some of them have been lost track of by history, and, 76 years later, we're not sure, but they are probably all dead now.) May 6: Willie Mays, a shortstop for the Birmingham Barons of the Southern Association, has to leave today's game against the Chattanooga Lookouts to be by his wife's side as their baby is born. The boy is named Willie Howard Mays Jr. Due not to his race but to limited talent, Willie Sr. will never reach the major leagues. Willie Jr. will. (Willie Sr. only played in the Negro Leagues. Willie Jr., of course, became WILLIE MAYS, the Say Hey Kid.) 1932 November 8: Governor Eleanor Roosevelt of New York, running with House Speaker John Nance Garner of Texas, wins a massive landslide over incumbent President Herber Hoover and Vice President Charles Curtis. She carries the votes of both men and women, of both Protestants and Catholics, of both rural and urban areas, and both whites and blacks, the first candidate ever to carry them all. (Frances Cleveland did not carry the farm vote in 1920, and did not carry Protestants or blacks in either '20 or '24.) Mrs. Roosevelt, whose husband and campaign manager Franklin once served as Speaker of the New York State Assembly, will be the second female President. But with the greatest economic crisis the nation has ever faced getting worse, she has her work cut out for her. She knows, despite her pledge of "a new deal for the American people," that this vote was a firing of Hoover much more than a referendum on herself and her ideas. The election also seems to end the political career of Secretary of State Ted Roosevelt, Eleanor's cousin, and the man she evicted from the Governorship in 1924. However, Ted's brother, Quentin Roosevelt, is re-elected Manhattan District Attorney, where he has been successful at prosecuting organized-crime figures.

1933 January 23: The 21st Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, moving up the dates of the start of new terms for members of Congress to January 3 and for President to January 20. (In RL, the 20th Amendment.) January 30: Using what little power he has under the 1917 Weimar Constitution, Kaiser Wilhelm III appoints Adolf Hitler, leader of the National Socialists or Nazis, the largest (but not majority) party in the Recihstag, Chancellor of Germany. Hitler's comeback from expulsion and imprisonment in 1924 is complete. (In RL, President Paul von Hindenburg, the great general now all but a figurehead, appointed Hitler, as the monarchy had been abolished after World War I.) March 4: "Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is... fear itself!" So says the new President, Eleanor Roosevelt, in an Inaugural Address written partly by her husband Franklin and partly by Judge Samuel Rosenman, an adviser. Since stating her desire to go into politics herself following Franklin's incapacitation by polio in 1921, Franklin had coached her, improving her speaking skills, and encouraging her to have her teeth straightened by braces, turning her from a somewhat frumpy woman with a strange voice into a well-spoken and inspiring woman, if not an attractive one like the first female President, Frances Cleveland. In her first hundred days in office, she proposes several measures to alleviate the worst aspects of the Great Depression, most of which are passed by Congress. But while millions of people are able to return to work in 1933, '34, '35 and '36, the Depression does not "just go away." July 8: George Preston Marshall, owner of the NFL's Boston Braves, gets into an argument with Judge Emil Fuchs, owner of the National League baseball team of the same name. Marshall decides to move his team out of Braves Field and into Fenway Park, home of the American League's Boston Red Sox. Fuchs tells him he'll have to take "Braves" out of his team's name. Marshall changes the name of the team to the Boston Redskins. Native American groups oppose this measure, but the name stays -- for now. October 7: Josh Gibson hits two home runs, leading the Washington Senators to a 7-3 win in Game 5 of the World Series, giving them what turns out to be their last World Championship, over the New York Giants. Gibson is the first black player to hit home runs in the Series, having hit a career-high 54 in the regular season. (Gibson, a.k.a. "the black Babe Ruth," played in Washington for the Homestead Grays, who also played some of their home schedule in Pittsburgh -- "Homestead" being a coal-mining town near Pittsburgh, site of a major strike in 1892. While he did play several Negro League and exhibition games in Yankee Stadium, and hit at least four home runs there, the story of him hitting a fair ball completely out of The Stadium is just a tall tale. Someone checked the microfilms of the major black newspapers of the time, the sources that would be most likely to say so at the time had it been done. No mention was made of Gibson hitting one all the way out. No one's ever done it, and with The Stadium due to close at the end of next season, it's

likely no one ever will.) December 5: The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, repealing the 20th, and re-legalizing the production, transportation, sale and purchase of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. (In RL, the 21st Amendment.) December 12: Philadelphia Athletics owner Connie Mack sells off many of the stars that made his team 1929 and 1930 World Champions and 1931 American League Champions. Pitchers Lefty Grove and Rube Walberg and second baseman Max Bishop go to the Boston Red Sox for $125,000. Pitcher Satchel Paige goes to the Cleveland Indians for $85,000. Pitcher George Earnshaw goes to the Chicago White Sox for $20,000. Catcher Mickey Cochrane goes to the Detroit Tigers, who name him player-manager, for $100,000. A year earlier, outfielders Al Simmons and Mule Haas and third baseman Jimmy Dykes had gone to the Chicago White Sox for $100,000. Two years later, Mack will sell first baseman Jimmie Foxx and pitcher Johnny Marcum to the Red Sox for $150,000. Grove, Cochrane, Paige and Foxx would all be elected to the Hall of Fame. By the time another player who spent significant time with the A's reaches Hall of Fame capability, they will be in Oakland. (Aside from Mack having Paige to sell, this entry is also completely true.) 1934 October 14: The Diz-Satch All-Star Tour begins. St. Louis Cardinal pitcher Jay "Dizzy" Dean leads a team of National Leaguers that includes Cardinal teammate Pepper Martin, Mel Ott of the New York Giants, Chuck Klein of the Philadelphia Phillies, Gabby Hartnett of the Chicago Cubs and black star James "Cool Papa" Bell of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Cleveland Indian pitcher Leroy "Satchel" Paige leads an American League team that includes New York Yankee Lou Gehrig, Detroit Tiger Hank Greenberg, the Boston Red Sox' Lefty Grove, and black Washington Senator catcher Josh Gibson. The integrated tour goes to several Southern cities, and helps to ease racial divisions there. (The tour actually happened, only it was Dean leading white players and Paige leading black players. Although an Arkansas native and a total redneck -- the Terry Bradshaw of his day in a lot of ways -- Dean respected Paige to the limit: "Satch, if you an' me are on the same team, we'd clinch the Pennant by the 4th o' July, and I'd take you fishin' with me until World Series time.") 1935 May 27: In the case of A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, the Supreme Court upholds President Eleanor Roosevelt's National Recovery Act, including its 25-cents-an-hour minimum wage, by a slim 5-4 vote. Four of the five Justices who had been appointed by Republican Presidents voted against it. All four Justices who had been appointed by President Frances Cleveland supported it. Benjamin Cardozo, the newest Justice, appointed by Republican Herbert Hoover, is ultimately swayed by the arguments of Justice Edith Galt, who convinces him that the NRA is not only within the bounds of the

Constitution, but necessary for the long-term recovery from the Depression. Conservatives are furious. An editorial in the arch-conservative Chicago Tribune calls Cardozo a "Judas Justice." (The RL Supreme Court ruled 9-0 against FDR and this version of the NRA. A new minimum wage law would be passed, and upheld by the Court, in 1938. The Tribune, and the Tribune Company, including Chicago's super-station WGN -- named for its parent company, the "World's Greatest Newspaper" -- run by "Colonel" Robert R. McCormick, were the NewsCorp/Fox News and Rupert Murdoch of their day. In those days, anyone suggesting a "liberal bias" in the American media would have been visited by nice young men in clean white coats.) June 1: Shortly after the Supreme Court ruling upholding the National Recovery Administration, Justice Edward I. Edwards dies at age 71. He had been battling heart trouble for four years, claiming that if he hadn't been living in Washington, near the George Washington University hospital, he would have died then. (Edwards, who had been Governor of New Jersey, really did die four years earlier.) June 11: President Eleanor Roosevelt appoints Senator Hugo Black of Alabama to the Supreme Court, filling the vacancy caused by the death of Edward I. Edwards. Black had once been a member of the Ku Klux Klan, an organization dedicated to "the old traditions of the South," according to its founder, Nathan B. Forrest. But upon learning just how prejudiced its members were toward blacks, Catholics, Jews and women, he resigned and denounced them. There is little opposition to his confirmation. (Black was actually appointed to succeed Willis Van Devanter two years later.) August 14: President Eleanor Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act into law. It provides for old-age pensions, medical care for the elderly at greatly reduced costs (known as "Medicare"), and medical care for the poor at greatly reduced costs (known as "Medicaid"). It is blasted by Republicans as "the most socialist piece of legislation in American history." Mrs. Roosevelt does not care: "It is true that the toes of some people are being stepped on. And they are going to be stepped on. Perhaps then, these people will look at those who will benefit from this Social Security measure, and walk a mile in their shoes. And now, those people have a better chance of being able to buy shoes." (This is a reflection of something FDR said in a "Fireside Chat" a year earlier.) Uncle Mike Aug 9 2007, 11:27 PM Post #21

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined:

July 30, 2007 (This is where OTL.com's Timeline 2467, "Lee Union Part 3: World War II" begins.) 1936 May 1: Margaret Mitchell publishes her first novel, Tomorrow Is Another Day. It tells the story of Scarlett O'Hara, a Southern belle of the 1860s, the days when slavery was coming to an end. It is briefly a best-seller. ("Tomorrow Is Another Day" was the last line, and the original title, of "Gone With the Wind." Without a Civil War as a centerpiece, the novel doesn't become a part of Southern pride. It does well at first, and then tanks.) June 30: Haile Selassie, exiled Emperor of Ethiopia, negotiates for half an hour of radio time on the British Broadcasting Corporation. With no worldwide body of nations to which to make his case, this is as close as he can come to being heard by the whole world. He begs the West to help purge his country of the occupiers from fascist Italy. "It is us today. It will be you tomorrow. What message will I take back to my people?" (In RL, the message he took back was, in words made immortal by singer Paul Simon, the sound of silence.) July 1: Having heard the plea of Haile Selassie yesterday, President Eleanor Roosevelt now faces Senator William DuBois of Massachusetts and Representative A. Philip Randolph of New York, the leading Negroes (as black Americans were usually called at the time) in each house of Congress. They tell her she needs to send financial and material aid to the Ethiopian rebels. If she does, she can assure the Democratic Party of the black vote for decades to come. But the First Gentleman, Franklin Roosevelt, former Speaker of the New York State Assembly, tells her she can't risk it, not while she's running for re-election. The President doesn't like it, but she makes the awful bargain many politicians have made over the years: She has to do what it takes to win another term if she wants to do what she wants in that term. July 4: The Robert E. Lee Brigade, a unit of black soldiers named for the American General who put down the Slavery Rebellion in 1861, is organized by Robert Hale Merriman, a professor at Stanford University, to aid the Ethiopian rebels in purging their country of its fascist Italian invaders. (Merriman actually led the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War, and was killed in action in 1938.) August 9: At the Olympic Games in Berlin, the U.S. team wins the 4 x 100 meet relay, led by Jewish runners Marty Glickman -- later to become a great sportscaster -- and Sam Stoller. The victory of these two Jewish runners, combined with the three Gold Medals won by black American Jesse Owens, shatters the myth of "Aryan supremacy" put forth by German Chancellor Adolf Hilter -- not that he would ever admit it. (Glickman and Stoller were prevented from running by U.S. Olympic Committe Chairman, Nazi sympathizer and anti-Semite Avery Brundage. He preferred to let Jesse Owens get Gold Medal Number 4. Glickman later became one of the most

important sportscasters ever. In TTL, a shameful figure like Brundage never gets to run the USOC, and certainly not, as he later did in RL, the IOC.) November 3: President Eleanor Roosevelt is re-elected in a landslide over her Republican opponent, Governor Alfred M. Landon of Kansas. "You now have political capital," her husband Franklin says, "and now you can spend it." 1937 January 20: Eleanor Roosevelt is sworn in for a second term as President. "We have come far from the days of stagnation and despair," she says. "I see a great nation, upon a great continent, blessed with a great wealth of natural resources. Its 130 million people are at peace among themselves. I see a United States which can demonstrate that, under democratic methods of government, national wealth can be translated into a spreading volume of human comforts hitherto unknown, and the lowest standard of living can be raised far above the level of mere subsistence. "But here is the challenge to our democracy: In this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens -- a substantial part of its whole population -- who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life. I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day. I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled indecent by a so-called polite society half a century ago. I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children. I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and factory, and, by their poverty, denying work and productiveness to many other millions. I see two-fifths of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished. "We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country's interest and concern. And we will never regard any faithful lawabiding group within our borders as superfluous. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much. It is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. If I know aught of the spirit and purpose of our Nation, we will not listen to Comfort, Opportunism, and Timidity. We will carry on." Millions of Americans are thrilled by the call to arms of Mrs. Roosevelt's second-term New Deal. Millions of others are appalled. (In RL, FDR saw "one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished." Eleanor was more likely to see 40 percent than 33 percent.) February 14: The National Football League approves the move of the Boston Redskins to Washington, D.C., on one condition: Since the nation's capital is so visible to all Americans, and Native American groups have already been angry over the name "Redskins," team owner George Preston Marshall must change the name of the team. In order to avoid explusion from the League,

he renames the team the Washington Federals, and drops the burgundy and gold uniform design they previously had for a red-white-and-blue look. To avoid similar conflicts, baseball's Cleveland Indians alter their logo of a grinning Indian with one representing the more dignified figure of Joseph Sitting Bull, the onetime Lakota Sioux chief who became the first Governor of the State of Oklahoma. (There was a team called the Washington Federals in the United States Football League in 1983 and '84, but they stunk, and moved to Florida, where they took... an Indian nickname, the Orlando Renegades.) April 27: Appalled by the photographs of the bombing of Guernica in the Spanish Civil War, President Eleanor Roosevelt goes to Congress and asks for aid to the Spanish Republic. The vote is very close, and most of America's newspapers, owned by conservative media chains, rip her ruthlessly for weeks. July 2: A new airplane, a jet-powered aircraft designated the AF-101, has been successfully tested in an around-the-world flight by Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan. President Eleanor Roosevelt is quite pleased. It becomes the "grandfather plane" of what will become the United States Air Force. (Earhart and Noonan disappered on such a flight, but it wasn't on anything like the AF101. Think of it as the F-94 Starfire, the RL first U.S. jet fighter, arriving now due to both Teddy and Eleanor's interest in air firepower, which they expanded as commanders-in-chief to the point where such a craft could be launched 12 years ahead of RL.) July 4: President Eleanor Roosevelt dedicates the official memorial to her uncle on an island in the Potomac River. The Theodore Roosevelt Memorial, honoring the nation's longest-serving President so far (1904-1919), becomes one of Washington's most popular tourist attractions. (There is a Memorial, on an island in the Potomac, accessible by a bridge from the Virginia side, all named for TR, but hardly anyone knows about it.) August 19: President Eleanor Roosevelt appoints Stanley Reed to the Supreme Court, succeeding the retiring Willis Van Devanter. September 16: The Washington Federals play their first game, defeating the New York Giants, 13-3 in front of a sellout crowd at Griffith Stadium in Washington. September 18: American aid to the Spanish Republic has turned the tide in the Spanish Civil War. A hard battle at Murcia has pushed the Nationalists of Generalissimo Francisco Franco back to the Mediterranean coast. Fighter planes sent by Chancellor Adolf Hitler of Germany and Premier Benito Mussolini of Italy are being shot down by American-built anti-aircraft guns. The fascists are losing. September 26: Desperate to aid the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War, for fear that his own country might be next, Benito Mussolini recalls some of his troops from their occupation of Ethiopia and orders them to Spain. (In RL,

Mussolini supplied the traitor Nationalists with "Franco's Italian Army," a name which would later inspire a cheering section at Pittsburgh Steelers home games in honor of running back Franco-Harris, who, like baseball legend Roy Campanella, is mixed black and Italian.) September 28: Italian troops, attempting to leave Ethiopia for Spain, are massacred by the Robert E. Lee Brigade, a unit of black Americans trying to liberate Ethiopia. October 4: The commander of Italian troops in Ethiopia defies "Il Duce" and surrenders. Ethiopia has been liberated by the Lee Brigade. (It wouldn't be liberated in RL until 1940.) October 8: Emperor Haile Selassie is restored to the Ethiopian throne in a lavish, joyous ceremony. October 15: Backed up against the Mediterranean coast in Almeria, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is shot by one of his own bodyguards. Even the fascists have had enough of the Spanish Civil War. The war is over, and the Republic has won. (Franco won in 1939, and remained in power until his death in 1975. And, as Chevy Chase would say, Franco is still dead.) October 27: The U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt, later nicknamed "the Big Stick," is launched on the 79th anniversary of the birth of the longest-serving U.S. President, the man who was the leading military hero of the SpanishAmerican War of 1898 and who later led America into the World War. The aircraft carrier, the first of a new class, joins the five that TR himself ordered built and were launched in 1916: The George Washington, the Andrew Jackson, the Zachary Taylor, the Abraham Lincoln and the Robert E. Lee. These ships were named for the Civil War Commander-in-Chief and the heroes of America's four biggest wars. Another carrier will be ready by the start of the new year: The U.S.S. Frederick Funston, a.k.a. "Fightin' Fred," named for the commander of U.S. troops in the World War. 1938 March 12: German troops cross into Austria, the country where their commander-in-chief, Chancellor Adolf Hitler, was born. The Anchluss is announced, making Austria part of the German Third Reich. The move is denounced by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain of Britain and by Edouard Daladier, who is soon to be returned to the post of Prime Minister of France. He succeeds the recently resigned Leon Blum, whose Popular Front government had collapsed. September 26: A peace conference convenes at Munich, Germany. The host, Chancellor Adolf Hitler, and his ally, Prime Minister Benito Mussolini of Italy, tell Prime Ministers Neville Chamberlain of Britain and Edouard Daladier of France that Germany will take the Sudetenland, a region populated mainly by Germans, from Czechoslovakia, and that if Britain or France tries to stop him, it will mean war with Germany. Chamberlain and Daladier try to stall Hitler.

September 28: A surprise guest appears at the Munich Conference: The President of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt, who flew from New York to London, took a ferry across the English Channel, and rode the rails to Munich. She tells Chancellor Hitler that he will not invade Czechoslovakia. In perfect German, she tells him, Wenn ein Nazistischer Stiefel auf tschechischer Erde schreitet, wird es der Anfang vom Ende dem Dritten Reich sein. Amerika wird das geschieht machen. ("If one Nazi boot steps on Czech soil, it will be the beginning of the end of the Third Empire. America will make that happen.") Hitler is shocked and appalled, as it has been quite some time since anyone has dared to speak to him this way. And in his own country! "You are bluffing, Madame President," he tells Mrs. Roosevelt. "Your Congress will never allow a declaration of war. There are too many Americans who are Germans, and they will tell their representatives to vote no. And if they should vote yes, it will not matter. America is a paper tiger! You will find that the Wehrmacht will not be defeated as easily as were the Nationalists in Spain or the decadent, morally weak Italians in Ethiopia!" Before Mussolini can come up with an effective response to this insult to his honor, Mrs. Roosevelt is ready: "Your nation was humiliated on the battlefield by America one time, Herr Kanzler. Only your refusal to touch Czechoslovakia can prevent it from happening a second time." Then she walks out. All are stunned. Hitler, knowing that Germany is stronger now than it was in 1916, still believes he can call Mrs. Roosevelt's bluff. September 29: Their spines stiffened by President Roosevelt's surprise visit, Prime Ministers Chamberlain and Daladier walk out of the Munich Conference. They each get through to President Kerensky of Russia, who is also allied with Czechoslovakia. October 3: German troops invade Czechoslovakia. They are met with heavy resistance. October 4: Russia and Poland declare war against Germany, and announce that they will aid Czechoslovakia. October 5: Britain and France declare war on Germany. Winston Churchill, a former First Lord of the Admiralty who had been Germany's foremost opponent in the House of Commons, is reappointed to that post. He tells the House, "The First World War saw the rightful defeat of an aggressive, imperialist Germany. Now that Britain, her Empire and her Commonwealth are in active opposition to Hitler and his grinning lackey Mussolini, and now that France is in active opposition, and now that Russia is in active opposition, the Second World War has begun. And it shall come to the same conclusion as the first."

Soon, the conflict will be known as World War II. (I once saw a clip of Churchill, not yet Prime Minister, speaking before the Commons, denouncing Hitler, "with his grinning lackey Mussolini by his side." It woud have been far more effective had Churchill not had, seated next to him, his own grinning lackey: His future Foreign Minister, and eventually his successor as Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, who was laughing his arse off at Churchill's line.) October 11: The Czechs, Poles and Russia's White Army have bogged Germany's Wehrmacht down in the mountains of Czechoslovakia. As was the case in the war that is now being called World War I, what was first predicted to be an easy German victory has skidded into a stalemate. (Since there was no Lenin in Russia in 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution failed, and the Russian Army is White instead of Red.) October 12: It is not obvious that Germany is winning the war. Nor has Germany attacked American soil, ships or military bases. So President Eleanor Roosevelt's speech before Congress today does not ask for a declaration of war. She does, however, ask for an aid package for Czechoslovakia. It passes, though the vote is close in the House and nearly derailed in the Senate by a filibuster by Gerald P. Nye of North Dakota, an isolationist whose State is largely made up of Americans of German descent. November 22: The Czech-Polish-Russian alliance continues to kill German soldiers on the eastern front. British and French ships are mobilized to attack German ships in the Atlantic Ocean, though there have been no skirmishes yet. And American aid continues to come to Czechoslovakia. Chancellor Adolf Hitler needs to do something, something that might distract America, Britain, France and Russia all at once. He contacts Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoye of Japan, and asks that the Empire of the Sun, which has signed a treaty of alliance with Germany, do something to distract the Allies. Knowing that the British, French and Russians all have, or have had, colonies in Asia that are inching toward independence -- and that neither such independence nor continued colonial rule would be palatable to the Japanese government or people -- he agrees. Minister of War Hideki Tojo comes up with an idea. Konoye agrees to it. December 7: The Japanese Air Force bombs the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. In response, the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Frederick Funston launches its AF-102s, and the Funstoni/i[ and the battleships Arizona, California, Oklahoma and West Virginia fire away. The battle is a fierce one, and before the Japanese planes can be driven off, the Arizona has been sunk. A total of 556 Americans are killed, and there is no telling how many men were saved thanks to the active participation of the Funston and its AF-102s. No record of the Japanese death toll has ever been found, but at least 25 Japanese planes were shot down. The Japanese also attack the British ports of Hong Kong, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, the French base in Saigon, and the Russian base on Sakhalin Island, just to the north of the Japanese "home islands." If there was any thought that the name "World War II" was an exaggeration, it has now been literally blown to pieces. (This is three years to

the day before the RL-Pearl Harbor bombing, and is a more extensive attack than the one the Japanese launched on U.S. and U.K. military facilities on 12/7/1941.) December 8: "Yesterday, December 7, 1938, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan." So says President Eleanor Roosevelt before a joint session of Congress and a nationwide radio audience. Her speech was largely written by two of her chief aides: Her husband Franklin Roosevelt and her multi-operational assistant Harry Hopkins. "The United States was at peace with that nation. It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned, many days or even weeks ago. Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya. Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong. Last night Japanese forces attacked Singapore. Last night Japanese forces attacked Saigon. Last night Japanese forces attacked Sakhalin Island. Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam. Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands. Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island. And this morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island. Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. "The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions, and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our Nation. As Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. But always will our whole Nation remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory." With an eye toward the isolationists in Congress, she says, "Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger. With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God! I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Wednesday, December 7, 1938, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire." The vote is nearly unanimous in both houses of Congress. Mrs. Roosevelt has come a long way from being the terrible speaker who was first elected Governor of New York in 1924, and from being a liberal Democratic President vigorously opposed domestically by the Republican Party. Her voice is now the clear, strong, unambiguous voice of a united nation. For now. December 9: President Eleanor Roosevelt appoints her commanders for World War II. General George C. Marshall, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will continue to hold that position, which has become more powerful than ever

before. Marshall will also be temporary commander of American forces in the Atlantic theater of the war until he settles on a permanent choice. Admiral Ernest J. King is appointed Naval Chief of Staff. General Henry "Hap" Arnold is Chief of Staff for the newly-created United States Air Force, combining the former Army Air Corps and Navy Air Corps. A wire is sent to General Douglas MacArthur in the Philippines, saying that he is to use it as his base to command all U.S. troops in the Pacific. The aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and the battleship California, which barely survived the attack on Pearl Harbor, will come to defend it. Several other stars of the U.S. Army receive promotions from Colonel to General or receive additional stars, including George S. Patton, Warren Pershing, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Omar N. Bradley. December 10: Two of baseball's biggest stars enlist. The Army gets Hank Greenberg, the Detroit Tigers' Jewish first baseman, who hit 58 home runs this past season, just short of Babe Ruth's record of 60. The Navy gets Bob Feller, the Cleveland Indians' fireballing farmboy, whose 18 strikeouts in the season finale, including three against Greenberg, were a single-game record. December 11: Nazi Germany stands up for its ally, the Empire of Japan, and declares war on America, Britain, France and Russia. Those nations respond in kind against Germany. Chancellor Adolf Hitler believes his nation is ready for the greatest military victory in the history of the world. December 14: The Japanese Air Force launches another series of raids on British possessions in Asia and the Pacific. Thousands are killed, far more than were killed a week earlier. December 16: Disgraced, and not in the best of health, Neville Chamberlain resigns as Prime Minister of Britain. The new Prime Minister is a man far more familiar with the workings of war: Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill. "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat," he tells the House of Commons. "We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many months of struggle and suffering. You ask, 'What is our policy?' I say it is to wage war by land, sea, and air; war with all our might, and with all the strength God has given us, and to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, 'What is our aim?' I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory, at all costs. Victory, in spite of all terrors. Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival. Let that be realized." The British Empire and Commonwealth are united behind this once polarizing figure. 1939 January 18: American AF-101s and AF-102s, launched from the aircraft carriers Frederick Funston and Hornet, bomb Tokyo, the Japanese capital, in retaliation for the attack on Pearl Harbor. The raid is led by Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle, and is backed up by air cover from the carriers Theodore

Roosevelt and Enterprise -- the Big Stick and the Big E. The American ability to strike the Japanese capital, just six weeks after Pearl Harbor, is effective as a military operation, and even more so as a propaganda operation. February 20: President Eleanor Roosevelt welcomes Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the White House. Also present are General George C. Marshall, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Admiral Ernest King, Navy Chief of Staff; and Marshall's chief aide, Brigadier General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Churchill tells Mrs. Roosevelt that the Germans are beginning to turn the tide in Czechoslovakia, and that his intelligence reports tell him that the Germans are anxious to open a second front in the west. "They have not blasted the Czechs off the face of the Earth," he tells them, "because their true targets are France and Great Britain. We are building our military strength, Madame President. When will your men be ready to come to Europe?" She tells Churchill that they could be ready by the summer. "A good time to be in France," he says, and everyone laughs. "Unless you are a German. There is never a good time for a German to be in France. Britain and France will be ready to receive her American allies." March 1: Prime Minister Churchill is once again proven correct about the intentions of Nazi Germany. Chancellor Hitler has ordered the invasion of Scandinavia. Denmark will quickly fall. March 20: German ships and planes pound the coastline of Finland. March 22: Russia and Poland send their air forces to fight the Germans over the Baltic Sea in an attempt to save Finland, but lose. President Aleksandr Kerensky of Russia offers President Ignacy Moscicki of Poland any help he may require to protect his country. April 1: Helsinki falls. Thousands of Finnish, Russian and Polish troops die in the vain attempt to save Finland. Thousands more are captured. April 8: The Japanese invasion force is pushed off the Philippines by troops under the command of General Douglas MacArthur, with air cover from U.S. AF-102 jets. The 5,000 or so Japanese who do not die or commit suicide are taken to a prison-of-war camp in the village of Bataan. April 9: Black singers Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson headline a patriotic Easter Sunday concert at the Lincoln Memorial. President Eleanor Roosevelt ordered the concert moved there after it was determined that both the original site, Constitution Hall, and Griffith Stadium, home of baseball's Washington Senators and football's Washington Federals, would be too small to meet the demand for tickets. (In RL, the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to let Anderson sing at Constiution Hall, which they owned, so Eleanor asked FDR to let her sing at the Lincoln Memorial. And Robeson wasn't there at all, although he did sing in a patriotic short film that year. He wasn't making public pro-Communist statements at the time, but was, proudly and publicly, anti-fascist.)

May 6: British fighter planes, based on the American AF-101 and known as Dragonbreaths, blow up the command post of a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp on the River Kwai in Thailand. Hundreds of Allied POWs are freed. May 27: An explosion rips through Nazi headquarters in Czechoslovakia. Most of the top German officers on that front are killed. The Czech, Russian and Polish troops begin to push the Germans out. The Germans oblige, since Czechoslovakia, or even the Sudetenland, was never their priority anyway, only their excuse. "I can always conquer Czechoslovakia later," Chancellor Hitler says, "after I punish the French. I'll punish the Czechs, and then on to Moscow. I'll be in Paris on Bastille Day, in Prague by the fall, and celebrate Christmas at the Kremlin, with Kerensky's corpse as my feast table." (This is based on the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich on this date three years later.) June 6: American airpower and seapower wipes out nearly an entire Japanese fleet at the Battle of Midway. Japan is all but defenseless from there to its home islands. (Remember: U.S. jet fighters, in 1939.) June 14: German troops invade Norway and the Netherlands. Dutch Queen Wilhelmina is evacuated to London. June 27: King Leopold III joins Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands in exile as German troops march through Belgium. King Haakon VII of Norway will soon join them, as Oslo is on the verge of falling. But help is on the way from America, Canada and Britain. July 1: German troops have taken the French regions of Alsace, Lorraine, Franche Comte, Champagne, Flanders, Artois, Picardy and Normandy. A "Fortress Europe" is being built along the English Channel, in case the British and Americans try to invade. But French troops have dug in around Paris. Hitler's goal of taking the city by Bastille Day, July 14, has not yet been reached. July 9: Operation Torch is launched. American, British and Canadian troops begin the assault on fascist Italy, invading the island of Sicily. July 14: Not only has Hitler not taken Paris by Bastille Day, as he predicted he would, but the anniversary of the French Revolution has become D-Day, the day the Allies break through Hitlers Fortress Europe. American, British and Canadian troops storm the beaches at Normandy. Despite heavy losses, they are on the continent. The American commander is Lieutenant General Omar Bradley, whose chief aide is Major General Dwight D. Eisenhower. The hope is that the Allies will liberate Paris before winter, while Major General George S. Patton will have liberated Rome by that point. Then, Bradleys troops will push from the west, Pattons from the south, Britains Royal Navy will blockade the North Sea to close off the north, and the Russians, under General Georgy Zhukov, will push from the east, surrounding Hitler, ending the European theater of the war by the summer of 1940. That's the hope,

anyway. August 2: U.S. Navy Lieutenant John F. Kennedy, despite his age (22) and his thin physique, saves his men on PT-109, which had been rammed by a Japanese cruiser. August 9: U.S. Marines score a hard but sweeping victory over Japanese troops at Guadalcanal. August 12: Just ten days after his brother and fellow U.S. Navy Lieutenant, John F. Kennedy, becomes a war hero, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. is shot down while protecting U.S. Marines at Saipan. His plane is one of the few AF-102s to be lost in action in World War II. He is just 24 years old. His father, Joseph P. Kennedy, the former U.S. Ambassador to Britain, is devastated. He had imagined that Joe would enter politics and become the first Catholic President of the United States. He never forgives the current President, Eleanor Roosevelt, for standing up to the Axis, with whom he shared a hatred of Communism and a distrust of Jews. Joe Kennedy continually refers to Eleanor Roosevelt as "that Red bitch who killed my son!" He never blames the Japanese for Joe's death. (Joe Jr. died in an airborne accident over England in 1944, not in combat. Joe Sr. called FDR "that son of a bitch who killed my son," never blaming the Nazis.) August 17: Sicily is liberated by American, British and Canadian troops. Generals Omar Bradley (U.S.) and Bernard Montgomery (U.K.) receive the Italian surrender. August 23: The first invasion of a Japanese "home island" has begun. Russia is the closest of the Allies to Japan, and its White Army parachutes onto Hokkaido, northernmost of the islands. August 24: Having been pushed out of Czechoslovakia, and needing a buffer between Germany and the Russian White Army, Hitler successfully negotiates a non-aggression pact with Czechoslovakia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Aside from Czechoslovakia, none of those nations faced an invasion by German troops due to their forcing of a military stalemate in the Sudetenland. President Aleksandr Kerensky of Russia vows that his nation will fight on, though he will have to find a way to get to Germany without going through Poland. He is not happy about this betrayal, but the Poles want out of the war, and they have it. August 26: President Aleksandr Kerensky appoints Nikita Khrushchev, the 45year-old governor of the Moscow province, to head the Grand Air Force of the Russian Republic. Khrushchev promises Kerensky assaults that will crush Nazi Germany and its Chancellor, Adolf Hitler. "We will bury him," he vows. September 1: The battle to liberate mainland Italy has begun. American and Canadian troops, many of them of Italian descent themselves, are among those fighting to free their parents' or grandparents' native land from the boot-heel of Benito Mussolini.

September 4: Operation Market Garden is launched. British and Canadian paratroopers drop into Holland. September 11: U.S. troops liberate the Gilbert Islands. September 13: Russias fledgling air force has its first major engagement, bombing Germanys North Sea port of Hamburg. President Kerensky has found a way to get to Hitlers Germany without going through Poland: They go over it. September 15: Operation Market Garden is a success, with American AF-101s (on loan to the Canadians) and British Dragonbreaths and Spitfires pounding the Nazi presence in the Netherlands, and British Empire ground troops having liberated Amsterdam. On to link up with the Russians and liberate Denmark. (In RL, without jet support, Market Garden was a fiasco.) October 1: Denmark is liberated by a combined British, Canadian and Russian assault. Norway is next. October 12: On Columbus Day, a day of pride for Italian-Americans, Naples is liberated by American troops. A pair of brothers from Bronx, New York, Sergeant George Goldberg and Corporal Aaron Goldberg, are among the liberators. A five-year-old girl runs into Aaron's arms, saying, "Grazie, Signore Giagio! Grazie, Signore Giagio!" It will take until returning to camp that he fiugres out she was saying, "Thank you, Mister G.I. Joe!" George, a commercial photographer in civilian life, takes a picture of the embrace. The girl's name is Sofia Villani Scicolone. In the 1950s, she will begin appearing in a different kind of picture, under the name Sophia Loren. (George was my grandfather, Aaron his brother. Their brother Abe also served in World War II, as did my other grandfather, also named Michael Pacholek. In fact, George, a commercial photographer in civilian life, was in Casablanca, Morocco the day the film "Casablanca" was released, November 28, 1942. At one point, he saw a very tall man in a Free French uniform, and took the man's picture. He didn't know it at the time, but it was Charles de Gaulle. As far as I know, no one in my family has ever met Sophia Loren.) October 22: Allied troops liberate Paris, just 100 days after the invasion at Normandy. As with the failed 1815 comeback of Napoleon, these Hundred Days will be a turning point in French history, but a happier one. General Charles de Gaulle is installed as provisional President. November 1: Norway is liberated by British and Canadian forces. Finland is liberated by the Russian White Army. Sweden had remained neutral, and Denmark had already been liberated. Scandinavia is free. November 11: With strafing runs from AF-101s and AF-102s smashing Japanese resistance, U.S. troops take the Japanese-held island of Iwo Jima. The photograph of six Marines raising the flag on Mount Suribachi, the

island's highest point, becomes an icon not just of the war, but of America's armed forces in general. It is 23 years to the day after the armistice ending World War I. A move to rename Armistice Day "Veterans Day" will soon begin. November 12: Russia's White Army finally takes the Japanese "home island" of Hokkaido. Their losses have been heavy, but the Japanese units on the island are completely devastated. Prime Minister Hideki Tojo refuses to admit that the war is lost. He also refuses to allow Emperor Hirohito to know this. November 17: American, British and Canadian troops liberate Rome. With his Fascist government having fallen, Benito Mussolini attempts to escape, but is betrayed by one of his officers. He falls into American custody. December 15: The film Tomorrow Is Another Day premieres. It stars Bette Davis as Scarlett O'Hara and William Powell as her love interest, Rhett Butler. Although the Margaret Mitchell novel on which it was based was briefly a best-seller, the film is not a success. Walking out of the premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, actor Clark Gable turns to Myrna Loy, his co-star in the 1934 film It Happened One Night, and Powell's co-star in the Thin Man movies, and says, "What a boring story! What they really needed was some serious conflict, so they could be mad at that instead of at each other. This is just two self-absorbed people who don't give a damn about each other." When the film premieres in London, British actress Vivien Leigh remarks that it is "rubbish." Powell goes back to making Thin Man movies with Loy, and little else, but Davis' career will recover. (Leigh played Scarlett in "Gone With the Wind," Gable played Rhett, and the film was the biggest smash in Hollywood history. To this day, when inflation is taken into account, it is the highest-grossing film of all time. "Titanic" is the highest-grossing without inflation. "Star Wars" -- that is, Episode IV: A New Hope -- is second in both categories. Davis was considered for Scarlett, and even tried to improve her chances by sleeping with producer David O. Selznick -- if the 1980 film "The Scarlett O'Hara War" is reliable. Tony Curtis played Selznick, Annie Potts played Davis, Edward Winter -- wacko CIA Agent Colonel Flagg on "M*A*S*H" -- played Gable, and Morgan Brittany played Leigh.) December 16: Nazi Germany throws everything it has into an offensive at the Americans in Belgium. It becomes known as the Battle of the Bulge. December 21: American AF-102s blow away both the German positions blocking the path out of Belgium and the Luftwaffe planes protecting them. The Battle of the Bulge is turned (though not over), and the march to Berlin is on. Uncle Mike Aug 10 2007, 08:42 AM Post #22

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cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 1940 January 4: Russia's White Army has fully occupied the city of Hamburg. Several aides to German Chancellor Adolf Hitler recommend he find a peaceful end to the war. Instead, he finds not-so-peaceful ends to their lives. January 7: American troops cross the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine River at Remagen. "Mein Fuhrer, Das Vaterland ist gebrochen worden!" ("My Leader, the Fatherland has been broken!") So says a young aide to Chancellor Adolf Hitler, in what turn out to be his last words. With the Americans advancing from the west and south, and the British, Canadians and Russians from the north -- with only the now-neutral nations of Poland and Czechoslovakia to the east providing a safe area -- Germany is losing the war. Superior numbers and airpower have given the Allies, particularly the Americans, a large advantage. January 8: Poland and Czechoslovakia break the non-agression pact, and invade Germany from the east. Now Hitler is under fire from all four sides. Still, he refuses to give up. January 10: Field Marshal Erwin Rommel asks Chancellor Adolf Hitler for a meeting to discuss plans to keep the Allies from advancing on Berlin. January 11: President Eleanor Roosevelt receives a telephone call. Later, so does Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Later, so does President Aleksandr Kerensky. The calls are from the Chancellor of Germany. Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel. It seems Germany's greatest living military hero has snuck a 9-millimeter Luger pistol into his meeting with Adolf Hitler, and, failing to convince the Fuhrer to ask the Allies for their terms of surrender, shot the tyrant in the head. Hitler was 50 years old. Rommel moves very quickly, having Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering and Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler taken into custody. He has Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels brought directly to him, wanting to eliminate the man he calls "you malicious dwarf" personally. It takes little convincing to get General Alfred Jodl and his army, and Admiral Karl Donitz and his navy, on his side. Rommel sends Jodl to Hamburg to meet with representatives of the Allies. January 12: V-E Day, Victory in Europe! General Alfred Jodl surrenders all German forces in Hamburg. Accepting the surrender are: American Generals Omar Bradley and George S. Patton (who insisted that he be there), British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, French Provisional President Charles DeGaulle, and Russian Field Marshal Georgy Zhukov. Presidents DeGaulle, Roosevelt and Kerensky, Prime Ministers Churchill and King, and King George VI all give stirring speeches. Millions pour into the streets to celebrate. Times

Square in New York, Trafalgar Square in London, the Champs Elysses in Paris, St. Basil's Square in Moscow, even Unter den Linden in Berlin, knowing they have been liberated from the bungling Fuhrer, now dead 24 hours. The war in the Pacific, however, goes on. January 20: Losses are high, but American seapower, airpower, and Marine grit have taken Okinawa. The Japanese home islands are next, and the invasion is planned. March 15: As Julius Caesar did not in 44 B.C., the Empire of Japan does not beware the Ides of March. American naval and air power pounds the "home island" of Kyushu, and the Marines invade on one side of the island, British Empire forces on another. Operation Olympic has begun. March 17: Wuthering Heights wins the Academy Award for Best Picture. Tomorrow Is Another Day was not nominated. Bette Davis, who foolishly starred in TIAD, wins Best Actress for Dark Victory, beginning her publicrelations recovery. ("Gone With the Wind" won Best Picture, Leigh Best Actress for "GWTW.") April 18: With relentless shelling from AF-102s and the new AF-103s, and heroic fighting by the Marines, the Japanese home island of Kyushu is secured by U.S. forces. President Eleanor Roosevelt sends a message to Emperor Hirohito, suggesting that his country cannot win, and that if he does not surrender, Tokyo will fall. There is no response. April 20: With Henry "Hap" Arnold's AF-102s and AF-103s flying over from their new bases on Kyushu, and Nikita Krushchev's MiG-4s coming in from Hokkaido, Japan suffers devastating bombings. Incendiary devices have killed about 50,000 people in Tokyo, Yokohama, Kyoto and Osaka. Japan cannot hold out much longer -- or so it seems. April 26: A plane carrying Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto is shot down over the Sea of Japan. The mastermind of the Pearl Harbor bombing has faced American air power personally, and lost. Japan is losing the war, and the only people who can't seem to see it are Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and his commanders. Upon hearing of Yamamoto's death, Emperor Hirohito weeps. April 30: Emperor Hirohito himself visits Prime Minister Hideki Tojo. He tells Tojo that he has failed, and he needs to take responsibility. Having thus far been the ultimate authority in the Pacific theater of World War II, Tojo is faced with the man considered a god by the Japanese people. Tojo takes his sword and does his duty. He is dead. The Emperor begins a series of meetings with his commanders. Nearly 100,000 Japanese civilians have died from American and Russian firebombings. The Emperor wants it to stop. May 8: V-J Day. Emperor Hirohito goes on radio and announces the surrender of the Empire of Japan. Victory to the Allies. Soon, the battleship U.S.S. New Jersey will pull into Tokyo Bay and host the signing of the surrender treaty. (War over, and no nation has an atomic bomb. It was a little home-State pride

that sent the New Jersey there instead of the Missouri.) (This is where OTL.com's Timeline 4025, "Lee of the Union Part 4: The Unexpected Cold War" begins.) June 1: With World War II over, Eleanor Roosevelt makes the expected announcement that she will not seek a third term as President, something as yet achieved only by her uncle, who served four terms. June 2: Chancellor Erwin Rommel of Germany declares the beginning of the Fourth Reich, and abolishes the National Socialist or Nazi Party. He announces there will be an election for a new Reichstag (Parliament), and in this election he will lead the DNVP -- in English, the German National People's Party, which had been outlawed in 1933 by his predecessor and former Fuhrer, Adolf Hilter, whom Rommel had personally assassinated. Backed by his popularity as Germany's greatest living military leader and the man who liberated the country from Nazism, German voters give the DNVP a solid majority, while the SPD, the Social Democratic Party, runs a strong second and will serve as Die Opposition der Leute -- the People's Opposition. Kaiser Wilhelm III, using what limited power he still has under the restored Constitution of 1917, appoints Rommel to a full term as Chancellor. June 26: An article appears in German newspapers, and several foreign ones as well, an open letter from Chancellor Erwin Rommel. "Auf dem Persnlichkeitkult und seinen Folgen" -- in English, "On the Personality Cult and its Consequences" -- is given to the world in print due to Rommel's far greater skill at writing than at public speaking. He describes the horrors of the Nazi regime of 1933-39 under Adolf Hitler, including just how far Hitler was willing to take his repression of perceived enemies. Concentration camps were built in southern Germany and Austria, and as far more than just internment of political prisoners. Slave labor, sadistic scientific experiments, and even mass executions had begun. Rommel estimates that 2 million people died there, more than 1 million of them for no crime other than being Jewish. Rommel says these repressions, and the laws and security organizations that made them possible, were all fed by Hitler's use of his own personality, statements and beliefs as a new national religion for Germany. Rommel wants his Fourth Reich to be nationalist, with a strong economy and a strong military, but he does not want Germany to face aggression from the other powers of the world for a third time in this century. Presidents Roosevelt, de Gaulle and Kerensky, and Prime Minister Churchill, salute the speech as a great step forward for the new Germany. (This is a reflection of Nikita Krushchev's RL-1956 "secret speech" denouncing Josef Stalin. And with World War II ending sooner, there is a much-reduced Holocaust.) June 28: The Republican Convention, at the Convention Hall of the Philadelphia Civic Center, nominates one of the heroes of the recently concluded World War II, newly-retired General George S. Patton, for President, and Senator Charles McNary of Oregon for Vice President. Since the Democrats have not yet settled on a nominee to succeed the retiring President Eleanor Roosevelt, it is difficult, for the moment, for Patton to

mount an effective opposition. He speaks for half an hour, spending two minutes praising President Roosevelt for her performance as Commander-inChief, five minutes criticizing her domestic policies -- "My fellow Americans, the New Deal has become old hat!" -- and the remaining 23 minutes telling of how he will keep America strong abroad, while encouraging personal responsibility, fiscal conservatism, and traditional American values at home. With no Democratic nominee yet chosen, oddsmakers say Patton is a shoo-in for election. (Dwight D. Eisenhower, the biggest military hero of RL-WWII, did not, in TTL-WWII, get to be bigger than Patton.) June 30: Czar Alexander IV, the deposed Emperor of Russia, finally has an heir to his no-longer-available throne. Neither he, a 36-year-old hemophiliac, nor his wife, a German princess who has already suffered three miscarriages, have been in the best of health. But today, a son is born, named Nikolai after the would-be Czar's father. (Alexander IV is the boy we knew as Czarevitch Alexei, killed with the rest of the family in RL-1918.) July 18: The Democratic Convention is held at Chicago Stadium. The Delegates go through 15 ballots before choosing Secretary of State Cordell Hull as their nominee for President, and Senator Millard Tydings of Maryland for Vice President. Hull has served outgoing President Eleanor Roosevelt as Secretary of State, the Party as Chairman of the National Committee, and his State of Tennessee in both houses of Congress. Being a Southerner might have hurt Hull in an earlier time, but with black people making economic and cultural gains even in the South, and plenty of people still living remembering Presidents Thomas Jarvis of North Carolina and Woodrow Wilson of Virginia, there is no longer a stigma against Presidential candidates from the region. But Hull has a speech impediment, making him sound a little like the cartoon character Elmer Fudd. With considerable difficulty -- almost sounding like the patrician New Yorker who wrote the speech, First Gentleman Franklin Roosevelt -- Hull manages to praise his predecessor as Party leader: "Not just the Dem-oc-ratic Pawty, but ouah nation, and, indeed, the whole wuhld, owes a gu-reat debt of gu-ratitude to ouah gu-reat and wonduhful leaduh, Missus Eleanoah... Er-rose-uh-velt!" But he mangles the next part of the speech, saying that "Puh-resident Er-rose-uh-velt has buh-rought this countwy not just a gu-reat militawy victowy, but unpawalleld pwospewity!" Radio comedians such as Bob Hope have a field day that lasts all the way to November 5, Election Day. The contrast between the diffident, bookish, lisping 68-year-old Hull and the gutsy, rugged, tough-talking 54-year-old Republican nominee, George S. Patton, could not be greater. And while Hull did serve in the military, that was in the Spanish-American War, two wars ago, as a Captain of infantry. Patton is a recently-retired five-star General who reminds everyone of helmets, medals, jeeps, tanks, and great victories over one of the most evil regimes in human history. Unless something catastrophic happens to Patton, he is going to win in a great landslide, and there appears to be nothing the Roosevelts can do about it. July 26: Clement Attlee and the Labour Party are swept to power in British elections, defeating the Conservative Party and Prime Minister Winston Churchill. A great wartime leader, Churchill had found governing in peacetime

difficult. October 1: There is a new addition to the Roosevelt family. First Gentleman Franklin Roosevelt receives a Scottish terrier from a cousin, Margaret Suckley. Franklin names him Murray the Outlaw of Falahill, after an ancestor from the Scottish side of his family. This is soon shortened to "Fala." Newsreel cameras have a field day showing the puppy romping with Franklin and President Eleanor Roosevelt on the grounds of the White House. Several prominent Republicans claim it is a desperate attempt by the Roosevelts to take attention away from the wildly popular Republican nominee, General George S. Patton, and thus help the Democratic nominee, Secretary of State Cordell Hull. October 29: In a last-ditch attempt to save the election for the Hull-Tydings ticket, President Eleanor Roosevelt had asked the Congress to pass the G.I. Bill of Rights, granting extensive benefits to returning veterans of World War II. She knew that General Patton's election would surely mean a Republican takeover of Congress, with a very conservative Speaker (now-Minority Leader Joseph W. Martin of Massachusetts) and even more conservative committee chairmen, and that they would never pass such a bill even if Patton supported it. The Bill passes the House easily, and it takes an impassioned plea from Senators Robert Wagner of New York and William Du Bois of Massachusetts to stop a threatened filibuster. The President signs the bill. Republicans are unhappy about it, and Senate Minority Leader Charles McNary, the Vice Presidential nominee, calls it "Eleanor's October Surprise," adding a classic phrase to the American political lexicon. But, to everyone's surprise, Patton praises it in his first campaign speech after hearing about the signing. "Nothing is too good for the men and women who have honorably served this country in uniform, especially in wartime!" he says. By supporting the bill, which New York Herald Tribune political columnist Robert J. Donovan calls "the greatest act of political jujitsu in American hsitory," it looks like Patton has insured that very few voters will switch from him to Secretary Hull. November 5: George Smith Patton Jr. is elected the 33rd President of the United States. The great General of World War II wins 374 Electoral Votes and 57 percent of the popular vote, while his Democratic opponent, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, takes 157 Electoral Votes and 43 percent of the popular vote. Hull wins only 15 States - outside of his native South, only Maryland and Rhode Island. Charles L. McNary of Oregon, the outgoing Senate Minority Leader, is elected Vice President. The Republicans also win control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Among the Senators elected today is Joseph R. McCarthy, a 32-year-old Wisconsin circuit judge. He had defeated incumbent Senator Robert LaFollette Jr. in the Republican Primary. December 12: Joseph Crandall Jr. is discharged from the U.S. Army, and, as his father, Joseph Sr., had in 1917, returns to his home town of East Brunswick, New Jersey. December 18: In a move that will turn out to have far more lasting consequence than is immediately apparent, outgoing President Eleanor

Roosevelt eliminates a former political opponent. She appoints Robert Moses to be U.S. Ambassador to France. This forces him to give up control of several New York City and State agencies. Interestingly enough, the appointment comes on Moses' 52nd birthday. His former aide, Sidney Shapiro, will now run public works projects for the City and the State. (Moses would continue to run many City and State offices into the 1960s before giving some up to run the 1964-65 World's Fair, and be forced out of his last office when Governor Nelson Rockefeller had the Triborough Bridge & Tunnel Authority, the TBTA, merged into the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the MTA. This may have been unconstitutional, but the TBTA's chief bondholder was Chase Manhattan Bank, which was run by the Governor's brother, David Rockefeller, and Moses was forced out. Small punishment for one of the great villains of the 20th Century, but the French will be plenty nasty to him in TTL.) 1941 January 20: George S. Patton is sworn in as the nation's 33rd President. He begins to dismantle the New Deal built by outgoing President Eleanor Roosevelt, but leaves some programs intact. He sees the wisdom in veterans' benefits, the electrical power provided by the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Rural Electrification Administration, the discipline instilled in young men and teenage boys by the Civilian Conservation Corps, and the construction projects of the Works Project and Public Works Administration. But the National Recovery Administration, a major sticking point with conservatives, is history. Mrs. Roosevelt and her husband and chief political advisor, Franklin, return to their separate homes at Hyde Park, New York. The American people have been unaware of their leading separate lives outside of the political sphere. January 30: Supreme Court Justice James McReynolds retires. He had wanted to retire for some time, but was waiting for a Republican to succeed President Eleanor Roosevelt. President George Patton appoints Senator James F. Byrnes of South Carolina to replace him. Although a Democrat, Byrnes is a conservative and a staunch anti-socialist, and fits Patton's profile of what a Supreme Court Justice should be. June 20: Malcolm Little graduates from junior high school in Lansing, Michigan, at the top of his class. He tells a teacher that he wants to be a lawyer. She tells him that it will be difficult for a young Negro to make it through law school and to pass the bar, but that he has the intellectual capacity to try it. (In RL, Little's teacher told him that no -- I won't use the word she used -- black boy can become a lawyer. In TTL, he will not become the Black Muslim minister Malcolm X.) June 29: President Patton signs the Federal Highway Act of 1941, creating the Interstate Highway System. Officially, it is a plan to build roadways outside of small towns to transport military vehicles and around major cities to evacuate them in case of impending enemy attack, a plan designed by Patton's Secretary of War, former General Dwight D. Eisenhower. But Secretary of Commerce Theodore Roosevelt Jr., another General of World War II, sees in it

the potential for vast commercial expansion of America's hinterlands. Patton likes that a lot. (The Interstate Highway System, 15 years early.) June 30: Charles Evans Hughes retires as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Like Justice James McReynolds, he was waiting for Eleanor Roosevelt to leave the Presidency and a Republican to enter it. President George Patton appoints former U.S. Attorney General Harlan Stone to succeed him. July 4: The Territory of Alaska is admitted to the Union as the 49th State. The Territory of Hawaii is also admitted as the 50th State. The vulnerability of these territories to Japanese attack in the Pacific phase of World War II spurred their legislatures to seek Statehood. Although Queen Kapiolani had wanted to maintain the independence of her Kingdom, the 1938 bombing of Pearl Harbor convinced her that Statehood was the right path. Now 38 years old, Kapiolani is appointed Governor by the new State Legislature, to serve until a special election to be held next year. She will win it, and continues to be re-elected until her death. (Statehood for them, 18 years early.) September 7: The Cleveland Rams, unable to make money or win many games, have moved to Los Angeles. Making his National Football League debut is 22-year-old halfback Jackie Robinson, who grew up in nearby Pasadena and previously played at the Los Angeles Coliseum for UCLA. He is not the first black player in the NFL, but he serves notice that he is a force to be reckoned with, rushing for 175 yards and two touchdowns, as the Rams beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, 17-14. (In college, Jackie's best sport was football, and he would have been more likely to play that than baseball if "Jackie Robinson" had not been necessary. But he was such a good athlete, why not try both sports? The Rams didn't really move to L.A. until 1946.) September 28: The New York Yankees finish the season three games ahead of the Cleveland Indians and win the American League Pennant. Center fielder Joe DiMaggio had a 56-game hitting streak between May 15 and July 16. For the Indians, Bob Feller - who had missed the 1939 season and the first half of 1940 due to his service as a Navy gunner in World War II, but came on strong late in the season - won 30 games, the first 30-win season in the major leagues since Dizzy Dean won 30 for the 1934 St. Louis Cardinals, and the first in the AL since Lefty Grove won 31 for the 1931 Philadelphia Athletics. (Jim Bagby, father of Fellers current teammate, Jim Bagby Jr., won 31 in 1920, the last time the Indians won a Pennant.) Aside from Hank Greenberg of the Detroit Tigers, who also missed all of 39 and the first half of 40 before being discharged, Feller is the only established player of All-Star caliber to have missed significant time due to wartime service, although several veterans who have not yet reached the majors will go on to do so. Also today, Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox goes 6-for-8 in a season-ending doubleheader, lifting his batting average to .406. It is the first .400 average since Bill Terry hit .401 for the 1930 New York Giants, and the first in the AL since Harry Heilmann hit .403 for the 1923 Detroit Tigers. The Brooklyn Dodgers have won the National League Pennant in a tight race with the St. Louis Cardinals, their first Pennant in 21 years. But they will go on to lose a heartbreaking World Series to the Yankees in five games. (Feller and

Greenberg miss one year instead of four. DiMaggio and Williams miss one year instead of three.) 1942 January 7: The Russian Republic, still struggling to recover from World War II, faces a grave crisis. Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov attempts to topple the democratically elected government of President Aleksandr Kerensky. But Kerensky has Field Marshal Georgy Zhukov on his side, and he has the White Army on his. The coup is stopped, and Molotov is imprisoned. Within a month, he will be tried, convicted and executed. It is the third and last major challenge to Kerensky's rule. January 16: Actress Carole Lombard announces that she has filed for divorce from her husband, actor Clark Gable. They had been fighting for a while, but Gable is deeply saddened. Lombard continues to make movies. (She was killed in a plane crash on this day.) March 4: President Aleksander Kerensky announces his retirement, on the 25th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. The election for a new five-year term as President of the Russian Republic will be held on the first Monday in April. April 6: Nikita Khrushchev, Governor of the Moscow prefecture and a hero of World War II for his defense of it, is elected the second President of the Russian Republic. He is the nominee of the Socialist Party, and defeats Lavrenti Beria, a Politburo member and the nominee of the Nationalist Party. The election was close until the greatest Russian hero of World War II, Marshal Georgy Zhukov, announced he could not support Beria -- but never said that he would support Khrushchev. Nevertheless, Khrushchev appoints Zhukov Minister of Defense. Despite his landslide loss, Beria vows to try again. April 14: Bob Feller pitches a no-hitter as the Cleveland Indians beat the Detroit Tigers, 5-0 at Briggs Stadium (later known as Tiger Stadium). It is the first time a no-hitter has been pitched on baseballs Opening Day. (In RL, he did it on Opening Day 1940, which he missed in TTL.) May 14: The State of Israel declares its independence. It is established following negotiations with Britain, which had held the land previously called Palestine. Britain, America, France, Russia and, in a generous gesture by Chancellor Erwin Rommel, Germany all recognize it. With most of the world's major powers backing the new nation, the Arab nations surrounding it agree that war would not be a good idea -- for now. (Nationhood six years early, and no war of independence.) August 1: Developer William Levitt has been building small, low-cost family homes on New York's Long Island. The communities are called Levittowns, and will be copied in suburban areas all over America. Not to be outdone, in his bid to do whatever the American veteran deserves, President Patton has recommended and signed legislation making it easier for inner-city veterans

to have improved housing. In New York City, Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village in Manhattan and Parkchester in The Bronx, become the first federally-funded "housing projects" -- or, as the happy veterans call them, "Patton Projects." A coalition of Democrats and liberal Republicans were needed to pass the legislation, as the conservative Republicans who dominate Congress didn't want it, but Patton leaned on them to allow a vote. In the Forties and Fifties, Patton Projects will be all the rage. Beginning in the Sixties, they will inspire rage. August 15: After two years of negotiations, Britain gives up the Raj. Seven separate nations are formed from the Indian subcontinent. India will be led by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. To the west, Pakistan, a nation for the subcontinent's Muslims, will be led by Governor-General Mohammed Ali Jinnah. To the northwest is Khalistan, a combination of the regions of Kashmir and Punjab, for the subcontinent's Sikhs. To the east are created the nations of Bangladesh, Bhutan and Burma. And on an island off the southern tip of India is the new republic of Ceylon, later to be renamed Sri Lanka. Mohandas K. Gandhi, the spiritual leader of the Indian independence movement, is tinged with sadness, but agrees with Nehru that this was the best deal that the people of the subcontinent could get from the British government of Prime Minister Clement Attlee. (Independence five years early, and the partition is far less contentious.) September 6: Buck Leonard, first baseman of the Pittsburgh Pirates, hits his 500th career home run off Claude Passeau of the Chicago Cubs. Only Babe Ruth and Jimmie Foxx got there before he did, and Leonard is the first National League Player to do so. He appeared to be in a race with Washington Senators catcher Josh Gibson to see who would be the first black player to reach the milestone. But Gibson, now with 472 homers, has been slowing down, and behaving erratically. The Senators, unwilling to meet the salary demands of such a great but unreliable player, will release him after the season. November 3: Quentin Roosevelt, District Attorney of Manhattan, son of one of America's greatest Presidents, cousin of another, and brother of the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, is elected Governor of New York as a Republican, defeating the Democratic incumbent, Herbert Lehman. But the Democrats make enough gains in Congress to take both houses by slim margins. (Roosevelt takes the place of Thomas E. Dewey.) 1943 January 31: After a 16-year struggle, the Red Army led by Mao Zedong topples the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek. A red flag flies over Beijing, and China becomes the first country on Earth to have a Communist government. Chiang and his Nationalists flee to the offshore island of Formosa (later known as Taiwan). (Seven years earlier.) February 1: President George Patton gives a speech from the Oval Office. For the first time, a White House address is televised. He condemns the

Communist takeover of China, "sending six hundred million people who had been free into slavery." He vows that if dictator Mao Zedong threatens any other nation with invasion and takeover, "America will act, as it did against Germany, Italy and Japan." The Cold War is on. February 7: "I hold in my hand a list of 205 individuals who served in various capacities in the Eleanor Roosevelt Administration who were active agents of a Communist conspiracy to enslave the world, including the takeover of this very country!" So says Senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin in a speech at a Lincoln Day celebration in West Virginia. He had pushed for Senate investigations of such individuals, but his youth and inexperience caused Senate Republican leaders to dismiss him. Now, with both houses of Congress under Democratic control, he says that the opposing party is "trying to sweep eight years of treason under the rug!" The speech makes McCarthy look ridiculous to many, but a lot better to Republicans in the Congress and in the hinterlands. April 13: On the 200th anniversary of his birth, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C. President George S. Patton gives the dedication address. Former Presidents Eleanor Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover and Frances Cleveland also attend. It will be the last public appearance for the 78-year-old Mrs. Cleveland, the first female President, and, through 2006, the only woman to be both a President and a First Lady. May 1: After about a year in office, President Nikita Khrushchev attends a May Day parade in St. Basil's Square in Moscow. His administration, to some, has been more "red" than "white," with economic, industrial and agricultural policies that make Eleanor Roosevelt's New Deal in 1933-40 America look like the program of a conservative Republican by comparison. American politicians such as Senators Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin, William Jenner of Indiana, Pat McCarran of Nevada and Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi call Khrushchev a "socialist," a "Communist," a "Red devil," a "fat red boil on the body of humanity," and worse. (I was surprised to learn that Moscow's Red Square had that name about 200 years before the Communist Revolution, but I changed it to St. Basil's, after the onion-domed cathedral overlooking it, because Kerensky would've wanted to remove any references to Communism, real or imagined.) June 2: Nile Kinnick, winner of the 1939 Heisman Trophy as a running back for the University of Iowa, graduates from Yale Law School. Having served in World War II, he has been quoted as saying, "When the members of any nation have come to regard their country as nothing more than the plot of ground on which they reside, and their government as a mere organization for providing police or contracting treaties; when they have ceased to entertain any warmer feelings for one another than those which interest or personal friendship or a mere general philanthropy may produce, the moral dissolution of that nation is at hand." There are many in his home State who believe he will one day run for public office, although, as a Christian Scientist, his religion may be an obstacle. (Kinnick died on this day.)

July 8: Jean Moulin, a French hero of World War II, is elected a deputy to the Assemble Nationale. (Moulin was killed by the Nazis on this day.) 1944 February 25: Vice President Charles McNary dies unexpectedly of pneumonia at age 69. President Patton is facing re-election without an incumbent Vice President as his running mate, though he can appoint one, pending confirmation by both houses of Congress, through the 19th Amendment. (McNary really did die on this day, still the Senate Minority Leader.) March 2: Kowloon, a film about international exiles trying to leave Hong Kong for America or Britain in late 1938, before America entered World War II, wins the Academy Award for Best Picture. Although regarded by some film fans as an all-time classic due to the doomed love story between Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, and a script containing some of the best-remembered lines in film history, its portrayal of the ever-threatening, murderous Japanese in the days leading up to the bombing of Pearl Harbor has been criticized by some as racist toward Asians. ("Casablanca" moved to the Far East.) March 7: President Patton appoints Senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin to be the new Vice President of the United States, intending the 36-year-old anti-Communist firebrand to be nominated on the ticket at the Republican Convention in August. Many Republicans are furious, wanting one of the sons of 1904-19 President Theodore Roosevelt: Governor Quentin Roosevelt of New York, or Secretary of Commerce Theodore Roosevelt Jr. But the GOP's Congressional leaders, Joe Martin of Massachusetts in the House and Wallace White of Maine in the Senate, insisted on the strongest anti-Communist in the Congress. Knowing how much McCarthy had flattered and praised him, massaging his massive ego, Patton accepted their insistence. July 21: As it was four years ago, the Democratic Convention in Chicago is a mess, with no one figure seemingly capable of winning on the first ballot. Former Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace is considered too liberal, especially in this age of rising antagonism toward Communism and Wallace's pro-labor ways. Senator Millard Tydings of Maryland, the 1940 Vice Presidential nominee, is also seen as too liberal. Senator Harry Truman of Missouri is mentioned, but says he doesn't want the nomination. Some suggest nominating Justice William O. Douglas, but he lets it be known that he does not want to leave the Supreme Court to run. Justice James F. Byrnes, however, is, but his conservative record on the Court and as a former Senator from South Carolina stall his drive. The Convention turns to a less-strident Southerner, Senator Claude Pepper of Florida. He asks the Convention to nominate former Congressman Arthur W. Mitchell of Illinois, to be the first black major-party nominee for Vice President. Though historically less receptive to civil rights for blacks than the Republicans, the Democrats nominate a Pepper-Mitchell ticket. Pepper promises a campaign of ideas and issues, and, if elected, a Presidency where there will be "calm, cool leadership." He softly critiques President Patton's policies, but the one he really rips is Vice President McCarthy: "Is this the kind of man you want to be

a heartbeat away from the Presidency?" Pepper has turned what had been a dreary Convention into a celebration of democracy, and hits the campaign trail within striking distance of Patton in the polls. It appears that McCarthy may, in fact, be a drag on the GOP ticket. (Pepper was briefly considered for FDR's VP at this Convention. I chose Mitchell because he seemed the most qualified black politician at that time.) July 25: Samuel Crandall is born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the son of a World War II veteran and the grandson of a World War I veteran. He grows up in neighboring East Brunswick. (Since his grandfather came home from TTLWWI, son and grandson exist in TTL as they never did in RL.) July 27: For the first time (and, through 2012, the only time), the Olympic Games are held in New York City, with a stunning opening ceremony held at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, representing the world's recovery from the horrors of World War II. The Polo Grounds and Madison Square Garden in Manhattan, Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, Ruppert Stadium in Newark, Theodore Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, and a series of temporary stadiums at the 1939-40 World's Fair site in Queens host the quadrennial. The big stars of the Games are Dutch track stars, at Downing Stadium on Randall's Island in the East River: Cornelius Warmerdam, who becomes the first man to high-jump 16 feet, and Fanny Blankers-Koen, a 26-year-old working mother who wins three Gold Medals in running events. (Like the 1940 Olympics, the 1944 Games were cancelled. Warmerdam never competed in the Olympics, and Blankers-Koen waited until 1948.) August 1: Polls show Senator Pepper in a virtual tie with President Patton. Patton meets with some Republican leaders, who urge him to ditch Vice President McCarthy at the Convention, asking him to nominate someone older, more experienced, more mature, less strident, but still conservative and anti-Communist. Someone like Secretary of Commerce Theodore Roosevelt Jr. Or his brother, Governor Quentin Roosevelt of New York. Patton refuses: "I'm keeping McCarthy. He's a fighter. He's my man and I'm sticking with him. We're going to have to fight the Democrats soon anyway. It might as well be now while we've already got the army here to do it." August 11: The Republican Convention is held at the Kansas City Municipal Auditorium. It renominates President George S. Patton and nominates Vice President Joseph S. McCarthy for a full term. McCarthy gives a speech slamming the Democrats for "their unconscionable softness on the Communist threats coming from Russia and China" -- never mind that Russian President Nikita Khrushchev has never, unlike Chinese dictator Mao Zedong, declared himself to be a Communist. McCarthy also calls Senator Claude Pepper of Florida, the Democratic nominee for President, "Red Pepper," and former Congressman Arthur W. Mitchell of Illinois, the Vice Presidential nominee, "Moscow Mitchell" in one paragraph and "Manchuria Mitchell" in another. The gallery, packed with McCarthy's hard-right supporters, is ecstatic, cheering much more than many of the more moderate delegates. But Patton gets everyone on their feet, slashing into the Democratic Congress for trying to raise taxes to pay for Patton's housing and highway programs.

"Give me back a Republican Congress," he says, "and I'll never again have to deal with these damn Democrats and their tax-hike proposals! They pushed me to raise taxes, and I said no. They pushed again, and I said no. They pushed again, and I said to them... READ MY LIPS: NO NEW TAXES!" Coming into the Convention with a poll lead so small it was within the margin of error, Patton leaves with a 12-point bulge. It looks like another landslide. But, just to be on the safe side, Patton asks actor John Wayne, very conservative but more trained with audiences, to ride with McCarthy to keep him comparatively calm. "The Duke" is happy to oblige. He likes McCarthy, but likes Patton more, and doesn't want anything, even McCarthy, to jeopardize a second Patton term. September 1: Malcolm Little enters the University of Michigan, with an eye toward law school. October 9: The St. Louis Browns -- perhaps inaptly named -- win their first and only World Series, due largely to the highest concentration of black players any major league team has yet had. Pitchers Satchel Paige and Hilton Smith, third baseman Judy Johnson, left fielder Willard Brown and right fielder Jimmie Crutchfield joined with white players such as first baseman George McQuinn, shortstop Vern Stephens and pitchers Jack Kramer and Denny Galehouse to bring the Browns their first American League Pennant. They even defeat the St. Louis Cardinals, the historically more successful team, who have Buck O'Neil playing first base, Leon Day as not only a great pitcher but also a good hitter with several key pinch-hits to his credit, and Martin DiHigo pitching and making spot starts at second base. These black players joined their white stars, including an outfield of Stan Musial, Terry Moore and Enos Slaughter, and the slick-fielding shortstop Marty Marion. But the Browns win in six games, taking the finale, 4-3 as Hilton Smith outduels white Cardinal Howie Pollet. For years, the Cardinals won Pennants (this was their third straight) but were tenants at Sportsman's Park, owned by the Browns. By 1953, most of the Brows' better players, black and white, will have retired, the AnheuserBusch brewery will buy the Cardinals and the ballpark, and the Browns will move and become the Baltimore Orioles for the 1954 season. This 1944 World Championship, won in the "Streetcar Series" or "Trolley Series," is the franchise's high-water mark in St. Louis, although they will also have significant success in Baltimore. O'Neil and Day helped the Cards win the World Series in 1942, and will again in 1946. October 11: Vice President Joseph R. McCarthy is presented with the Distinguished Flying Cross, in a ceremony carefully filmed for the newsreel cameras. He receives it for the 32 missions he flew as a gunner and observer in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II -- or so his record claims. President George S. Patton, believing this story, calls McCarthy "a true hero of the greatest war ever fought in human history." At first, no one seems to be checking to see whether the story is true. (He did receive the DFC, under very suspicious circumstances. Like everything else, McCarthy lied about his war record.) November 7: The Presidential election is far closer than anyone could have

imagined. In the popular vote, the Republican ticket of President George S. Patton and Vice President Joseph R. McCarthy wins 24.3 million votes, and the Democratic ticket of Senator Claude Pepper of Florida and former Congressman Arthur W. Mitchell of Illinois wins 23.3 million, the closest popular margin since the four-way race of 1900. The Electoral Vote was also close, with Patton winning 271, one more than a majority, and Pepper 267. The candidates split the Northeast. Patton swept the West, and swept the Midwest except for its two largest States, Illinois and Michigan. Pepper had almost swept the South... almost, because the key State turned out to be Texas with its 23 Electoral Votes. On the eve of the election, Martin Dies, nominally a Democrat but very conservative and one of Congress' most reckless chargers of anti-Communism, had crossed party lines to endorse the Patton-McCarthy ticket, citing the alleged Communist connections of Pepper and Mitchell. In the years to come, it will be revealed that Dies had received bribes from racist groups which influenced his vote. Pepper decides not to contest the election, however. Outside of Texas, most observers believed that any prejudice toward black Vice Presidential nominee Mitchell had been canceled out by concerns over McCarthy's Catholicism, inexperience and rantings. McCarthy thus becomes the first Catholic Vice President. Despite the closeness of the election, the Republicans retake control of both houses of Congress by slight margins. This was also the first year in which World War II veterans, most of them Republicans, would be elected to Congress in large numbers. Among them are Richard Nixon in California and Gerald Ford in Michigan. (Nixon is elected two years early, Ford four. JFK doesn't run yet. Dies really was bribed by such groups, but is almost forgotten today because, unlike McCarthy, he left Congress after 1944 and thus before television took hold in RL.) December 15: Glenn Miller is hosptialized in Los Angeles following a massive heart attack. Just 40 years old, the superstar bandleader and trombonist had been a very heavy smoker, and is found to have lung damage as well. He will be unable to perform for many years, as he recuperates at his home in the mountains of Colorado. (With the war still on, Miller was entertaining the troops, but his plane disappeared over the English Channel. No evidence of it, including his body, has ever been found.) Uncle Mike Aug 10 2007, 10:59 PM Post #23

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 << 1. The Southern forces were militarily superior to their northern

counterparts, I've read it once. I also tend to disagree with the military aspects of TTL, but I don't give too much importance to it since you write political TLs, not military ones. >> Pompey I'll admit that military strategy isn't my long suit, political maneuvering is. (I'm Toby Ziegler, not Percy Fitzwallace, certainly not a mixture like Leo McGarry.) But the Southern forces were not superior. Maybe they had one or two smart commanders, but the average Southern soldier paled in comparison to the better-trained, better-supplied Northern one. << 2. Don't think that Joe McCarthy would rise to prominence in a world in which half of Europe is not Red, but then again, it's your TL. >> Hence making a mountain out of a Russian molehill. << 3. Don't agree on the whole China civil war affair either, and Okie (our Chinese history expert) would agree, not that you care about his opinion. >> When I was his age, I was an expert on two things: Baseball and Kathy Ireland. Not that I ever scored with either. (I was quite surprised to find out Okie is, for the moment, underage, and Wendell is older than I am. To read some of their posts, I was ready to guess the reverse, but that may just be because Wendell reminds me of a guy I knew in high school and haven't seen since, who was equally conservative and equally wiseass, though Wendell has a better sense of humor. Or, should I say, has a sense of humor.) << But from what I know, without fighting the Japanese for those extra years, the nationalist would have been in a stronger position, and without soviet help that they got, they would have never have won. Actually, without the Soviet Union, the Kuomingtan would not have received russian help in the 1920s. Then again, Chinese history is not your forte. >> I'll admit I know less about China, and Asia in general, than North America and Europe. But I am completely convinced of this: As long as the Kuomintang had Chiang Kai-shek, mocked on U.S. radio shows as "Cash-mycheck," they were doomed. If it wasn't for Henry Luce, born in China as the son of missionaries, making Chiang out to be the Chinese George Washington, we'd admit that he was the Chinese John Burgoyne. << 4. The less the european powers are affected, the more their empires last. Henceforth, by being less damaged and thus more powerful, their european empires would have had lasted more, nor less. Especially without the billions the British ended up owing the USA due to the war against the Germans. Shorter WWI and Shorter WWII with less damaged european empires and India, Israel and Africa end up under european control for a

longer time. >> Shorter WWI means different Versailles Conference, meaning TR won't let himself get pushed around by Lloyd George and Clemenceau, meaning more self-determination for the colonies, meaning earlier independence movements. << 5. No israeli war of independance? so you do believe in the Butterfly effect? >> I don't believe in anything that has the name Ashton Kutcher attached to it. I don't even believe in Demi Moore anymore. There is no Israeli war of independence because, in TTL, the coalition that would oppose the Arabs is so great that their desire for survival outweights that for conquest. In TTL, they love their people more than they hate Israel. Talk about a divergence. << The Military Actions of this Timeline are 99% Implauseable IMO from 1861 to WWII. >> FTB If you think so, then I'm keeping 100% of them. << I was gonna say something like that, but then I remembered that Mike knows politics and baseball, not army stuff. >> Pompey << Nor Air Force stuff as his WWII Superaircraft Show >> FTB Those aircraft, based on decisions made at the start of WWI by a pretty smart guy, Theodore Roosevelt, make all the difference. And they're only "super" aircraft compared to what existed in RL and to what the enemy had. The U.S. is fighting WWI with, essentially, 1930 planes, and WWII with 1955 planes. The enemy is stuck in the present. << I see you have the Interstate Highway System and the Levittowns still being built. That's a shame, but that's something I can easily fix when I post my railroads timeline. >> Joe Bonkers Wait until I get to the Fabulous Fifties. I think you'll be a little more pleased. << The Beatles TL I will hold off on until Michael posts up to the 1960s here. >> Probably around Tuesday or Wednesday of next week, as I'm doing the late Forties tonight, but I'll be unavailable for much of the weekend. What did you think of the RL-Beatles becoming revolutionaries in "Fear Itself"?

<< As far as the military stuff, I for one will agree that there is much that is implausible, but Michael said previously on the other board that his interest here is not military strategy per se but the world that emerges from the wars. Not to put words in his mouth, but I think his point was more to end the Civil War, WWI and WWII earlier than in getting excited about the details of how to get there. I know some of you guys are obsessed with how many tanks and artillery shells and whether General So-and-so should have tried to outflank General Whozis instead of making a frontal attack, etc., etc., etc., but that's not everyone's thing. >> You gotta remember, Joe, these guys worship at the altars of Lee and that psycho Thomas J. Jackson and Jeb Stuart (who, judging from his hat, was obviously advised by an ancestor of Carson Kressley) and Nathan... Bedford... Forrest. Not to mention any number of Germans from Arminius to Rommel "the magnificent bastard." Not to mention the guy who called him that, George Smith Patton Jr., who becomes President here, and actually gets reelected and even gets considered a good President by later historians. (When this whole massive thing is finally done, I'm going to have historians in 2007 rate the Presidents from Washington through (the 2007 incumbent), including the alternates.) It's strange: You never hear these armchair generals praise Andrew Jackson (who became one of the great liberal politicians), or William T. Sherman (the second-best general on either side of the American Civil War), or Ulysses S. Grant (Number 1). That's the difference: Liberals like peace but will go to war if they have to, since more dear to them than even peace is justice; Conservatives like war and will promise peace will come from their war policies but they never mean it. << In OTL Levittown Houses required in the original purchase the owners to promise to never let Blacks into their houses unless they were Maids/Butlers. >> FTB Yeah, well, in my Timeline, racists can kiss my Polack ass. It's a different world after 1861 (Battle of Bull Run), and 1887 (Walker v. Anson, opening sports to all races), and 1896 (Plessy v. Ferguson, declaring racial segregation unconstitutional). << Indeed, I just figured I'd give Michael another wrong in American history to right >> Like I didn't already know about it and change it here. I also changed the history of the housing projects -- somewhat. Uncle Mike Aug 10 2007, 11:03 PM Post #24

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 1945 March 1: Senator Harry S Truman, Democrat of Missouri, is offered the vacant post of Commissioner of Baseball by the Major League Baseball team owners. Although he loves serving in the Senate, the Commissionership pays considerably more, and is facing a difficult run for re-election in 1946. He happily accepts. (Truman was Vice President in RL. In TTL, he ends up switching jobs with Happy Chandler, who really did give the salary reason for taking the baseball job.) December 20: President George S. Patton completes some work at the White House, and heads off to Camp Esther, the Presidential retreat in the mountains of Western Maryland, named for Esther Cleveland, daughter of Presidents Grover and Frances Cleveland. He plans to remain there with his wife Beatrice through Christmas and New Year's. December 21: President George S. Patton dies in an accident on the grounds of Camp Esther. He is returning from hunting on the grounds, and his car is coming up a hill. But a Secret Service Agent at the top of the hill forgets to hit the emergency brake on his car, and it rolls down the hill. In the snow, Patton's driver can't see it and swerve until it is too late. The Presidential car, a 1939 Cadillac, flips over, and all on board, including the driver and another Secret Service Agent, are injured. Patton dies at 3:34 PM, Eastern Standard Time, before any medical attention can arrive. He is 60 years old. Word comes to the Vice President within minutes at his home in Appleton, Wisconsin. At 6:09 PM, Central Standard Time, Joseph Raymond McCarthy is sworn in as the 34th President of the United States. At 37, he is the youngest President in American history, and the first Catholic to rise to the office. A Presidential funeral will be held at Arlington National Cemetery on Christmas Eve. And, in the drawing of Washington Post cartoonist Herb Block, America now has "President Scrooge." (Patton did die in a car crash on this day, still in the Army in Europe. So why did I choose McCarthy, who beats JFK to the title of first Catholic President? Because the dirty, filthy, lying, no-good fascist son of a bitch will get a bigger comeuppance here than he got in RL.) 1946 January 21: President Joseph R. McCarthy, in office for just one month, delivers the State of the Union Address. He tells a nationwide radio and television audience that he grieves with the American people over the death

of President George S. Patton, and that, while he did not seek the Presidency, he will carry out the demands of the office. "Those demands insist that I protect this nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic," he says, correct in fact if not in the exact wording of the Presidential Oath of Office -the words actually come from the Congressional Oath of Office. He says that he will work especially hard to root out Communist agents inside the U.S., which, he claims, are inspired not just by the Red Chinese, but by the socialist government of President Nikita Krushchev of Russia -- never, in McCarthy's words, "the Russian Republic." The Cold War has just been kicked up a notch. January 27: After consulting with his advisers, President Joseph McCarthy appoints J. Parnell Thomas of New Jersey, Chairman of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, to be the new Vice President. His staff had urged him to accept Secretary of State George C. Marshall or Secretary of War Dwight D. Eisenhower, but he refused, thinking them not sufficiently antiCommunist. It will be a close call, as many in both houses of Congress think Thomas is a flake for having pursued Hollywood actors, directors and screenwriters for their perceived Communist affiliations, but he is confirmed. (In RL, Thomas did the same thing, only a little later, as the GOP controlled Congress in 1947 and '48. He also fell from grace, and harder, in a way, than did McCarthy.) March 5: Winston Churchill, former Prime Minister of Britain, is awarded an honorary degree by Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. On hand is President Joseph McCarthy. He feels that being seen with Britain's wartime leader will grant him a little extra legitimacy from those who see him as a poor successor to his predecessor as President, the wartime General George Patton, and Patton's predecessor, America's commander-in-chief in World War II, Eleanor Roosevelt. Churchill also seems to give some extra legitimacy to McCarthy's frequent (and often far off-base) pronouncements of Communist influence around the world. "The Nazis of Germany once sought to drop an iron curtain across the continent of Europe. We must keep a close watch on the socialists of Russia to make sure they do not attempt the same." Churchill receives thunderous applause. With the Labour government of Clement Atlee struggling, it looks like a kickoff to his campaign to return to 10 Downing Street. April 22: Chief Justice Harlan Stone dies. President Joseph McCarthy wants to appoint former President Herbert Hoover to the post. No man has ever held the Presidency and a Supreme Court seat. Attorney General Charles Evans Hughes Jr., himself the son of Stone's predecessor as Chief Justice, tells McCarthy that, because he is still widely blamed for the Great Depression of the 1930s, Hoover can never be confirmed by the Senate. "If you appoint him, he'll be rejected," Hughes says, "and if he is confirmed, you'll lose at least the Senate in the November elections." McCarthy chooses another Hoover, the unrelated J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. "Also no good," Hughes says. "He won't stand up to scrutiny. If you appoint him, you'll find out why. No, best to keep Hoover where he is." McCarthy suggests promoting Associate Justice James F. Byrnes. "Also no good," Hughes says. "He ruffled too many feathers as a Senator from South

Carolina. And he just might resign in 1948 to run for President against you. He is a Democrat, you know." McCarthy pounds his fist on his Oval Office desk and says, "Goddamnit, I want the biggest f---ing anti-Communist I can get on that Court!" Lucian Truscott, who had served at President Patton's side both in World War II and in the White House as Chief of Staff, and was thus inherited in that latter position by McCarthy, says, "Then why don't you appoint Erwin Rommel?" Truscott gives a gravelly laugh at his choice of the Chancellor of Germany, himself a World War II commander. McCarthy fires Truscott for his impudence. Knowing that Governor Quentin Roosevelt of New York was once a Mafia-busting District Attorney, and seemed second to J. Edgar Hoover as a crimefighter, he calls Roosevelt and offers him the post. Roosevelt declines, saying he has more power as Governor, and doesn't quite trust his Lieutenant Governor, Joe Hanley. Roosevelt points out that Irving Lehman went from Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, and recommends his own appointee to Lehman's former post, John T. Loughran, to succeed Chief Justice Stone. "Will he rule against Communists?" McCarthy asks Dewey. "Absolutely," Dewey says. Loughran will be easily confirmed by the Senate. May 18: Winston Churchill and the Conservatives are returned to power in Britain, defeating Clement Attlee and the Labour Party. Meanwhile, in the Philadelphia suburb of Wyncote, a boy is born who will one day make history of his own. His name is Reginald Martinez Jackson. June 11: So soon after appointing John T. Loughran to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, President McCarthy has to fill another vacancy. Justice Irving Lehman has died in office. After being convinced of the man's fitness to fight Communism while on the Court, McCarthy appoints Senator Harold Burton of Ohio. July 8: Baseball Commissioner Harry Truman settles the dispute between the Major League team owners and the players who had jumped to the Mexican League, allowing the players to return to their major league teams, establishing a $5,000 minimum salary, a limit of 25 percent on pay cuts, a pension fund for retired players, and other concessions. But Truman also maintains the reserve clause. The owners are relieved, but hardly pleased. They had expected their new Commissioner to do their bidding, not the other way around as under the first Commissioner, the late Kenseaw Mountain Landis. November 5: The Republicans barely hold on to both houses of Congress in the elections. President Joe McCarthy is relieved at the "victory." He will spend the rest of his life wishing he had a Democratic Congress to run against in 1948. Governor Quentin Roosevelt of New York is re-elected. Newly elected to Congress from Massachusetts is a member of another prominent political family: John F. Kennedy, a 29-year-old World War II naval hero and son of former Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy. He didn't run in 1944 because it was thought to be a Republican year, he was considered too young (many say he still is), and he would've had to run against the popular former Mayor of Boston, James M. Curley, who had to give up his seat after being convicted of

mail fraud. Curley had run for both the Mayoralty (winning) and Congress (losing) against Kennedy's grandfather, John F. "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald. 1947 January 20: Josh Gibson, catcher for the Philadelphia Athletics, dies of a brain tumor. He was still an active player at the age of 35, and finishes his career with 491 home runs, currently sixth on the all-time list behind Babe Ruth (714), the recently-retired Jimmie Foxx (534), the recently-retired Buck Leonard (516), the still-active Mel Ott (511) and Lou Gehrig (493, also dying from an illness that struck him while still an active player). March 13: Its a Wonderful Life wins the Academy Award for Best Picture. It beats out The Best Years of Our Lives, a film about returning veterans from World War II. Some have suggested that, had the war lasted longer and its psychological effects been greater, a better fim could have been made out of Best Years. ("BYOOL" did win Best Picture, although "IAWL" was nominated.) April 7: Nikita Khrushchev is elected to a second term as President of the Russian Republic. He has claimed that his socialist policies have allowed Russia to keep pace with the other major powers of the world, and to keep Russia stronger than the German Fourth Reich of Chancellor Erwin Rommel. Rommel doesn't much like Khrushchev, but neither man has evern threatened the other's country with military action. Which is not to say that there is no espionage going on between Russia and the world's other powers. April 9: Baseball Commissioner Harry Truman suspends Brooklyn Dodger manager Leo Durocher for the entire upcoming season for consorting with gamblers. He warns Durocher that if he is under a zero-tolerance policy: "Anything else he does that requires more than a short suspension," Truman tells the press, "and he's gone. He'll never work in organized baseball again." Seeing someone tougher and more stubborn than he is, Durocher complies. For now. Burt Shotton will manage the Dodgers this season. April 15: The Brooklyn Dodgers open the season with a 5-3 win over the Boston Braves at Ebbets Field. They are the most racially integrated team baseball has yet seen, with Don Newcombe as their starting pitcher, Roy Campanella catching, Wilmer Fields at third base, Henry Kimbro in left field, Joe Black coming out of the bullpen, and, in the most curious move yet, Jackie Robinson at first base. The Los Angeles Rams football star was offered a contract by Dodger president Branch Rickey, thinking that Robinson's strength and speed would be an asset to the team. They were, and the Dodgers will win the National League Pennant, although they will lose the World Series to the Yankees in seven games. (This was Robinson's debut. Campy would arrive the next year, Newk the year after that, Black in '52; Fields and Kimbro would never play big-league ball.) June 24: Communists, led by Kim Il Sung and aided by the government of Mao Zedong in China, stage a coup in Korea, taking control of the entire peninsula. (The Korean War, three years early.)

June 25: President Joseph McCarthy meets with Secretary of State George C. Marshall and Secretary of War Dwight D. Eisenhower, and tells them he wants to liberate Korea from the Communists who took control of the country in yesterday's coup. Marshall tells him that he'll never get the American people to go along with him unless he gets support from an international coalition, and, presently, none exists. He'll have to get Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Britain, President Vincent Auriol of France, and Chancellor Erwin Rommel of Germany to join him -- maybe even President Nikita Krushchev of Russia. McCarthy says Krushchev is a Communist and probably gave active support to the Red Koreans, along with Premier Mao Zedong of China, and both of them can go to hell. Eisenhower tells him that the American people won't support another war, just seven years after the last one, unless their President can assure them that this war means more than just the fulfillment of anti-Communist desires -- it's got to be sold as a war for capitalist, even Christian, civilization. McCarthy says he can sell that. He goes before Congress, in a joint session on prime-time radio and television, uses the terms "Ike" gave him, and asks for a Declaration of War. It's late, and House Speaker Joe Martin knows that debate could last long into the night. He schedules a vote for tomorrow. Senate Majority Leader Wallace White does the same. June 26: Never before has a request for a Declaration of War been so close. The House of Representatives votes 220-214 to give President Joseph McCarthy the authority he needs to kick the Communists out of Korea. The Senate debates far longer, until a coalition of Republicans and conservative Southern Democrats gets a two-thirds vote to cut off debate. The vote is 5445, with the dying Senator Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi absent. "The President has gotten his war," Senator Albert "Happy" Chandler of Kentucky tells the press. "He'd better know what he's doing. If not, he might be the first President to be defeated for re-election during a war." July 5: After meeting with Prime Ministers Winston Churchill of Britain and Mackenzie King of Canada, President Vincent Auriol of France, and Chancellor Erwin Rommel of Germany, President Joseph McCarthy gets them to agree to send troops to liberate Korea from the Communists. But they agree only to free Korea, not China with its 600 million people and its near-bottomless army. It is the beginning of an alliance that will change the world. August 12: Peter van Pels, 20, and his longtime girlfriend, Anne Frank, 18, are married in a Jewish ceremony in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. (In TTL, they are never found by the Nazis, and allowed to grow up and marry. There was an Anne Frank Lives Timeline on OTL.com, with at least two Divergences, including one in which she becomes a lesbian, based on selected writings from her posthumously published diary. I decided to let her live, but not to live that life.) September 15: General Douglas MacArthur leads an invasion of Korea at Inchon a combined force of U.S., British, French, German and Canadian forces. The leaders of those countries were reluctant to give "the American

Caesar" command of their forces, but all agreed that it would be better to work together. (The Inchon invasion three years earlier.) September 29: Hank Greenberg retires from baseball. In a career spent mostly with the Detroit Tigers, plus this past season with the Pittsburgh Pirates, he finishes with 6,743 at-bats, 2,228 hits, a lifetime batting average of .330 BA and 450 home runs -- currently sixth on the all-time list. He also has one other statistic of note: This season, the Pirates made him the first baseball player ever to have a salary of $100,000. Despite having served in the Army in World War II and being only 36 years old, he is known to have a number of physical ailments that led him to retire from baseball, including a bad back, and he is not asked to return to the armed services to fight in Korea. But Ted Williams is, having just won his second Triple Crown. He will be unavailable to the Boston Red Sox, at least for the 1948 season. October 29: Frances Cleveland, the first woman elected President of the United States (serving 1921 to 1929), and the widow of President Grover Cleveland (1885 to 1893), dies at her home, Westland, in Princeton, New Jersey. She was 83 years old. This levaes the incumbent, Joseph McCarthy, as the only living President. He does not make a public statement regarding her passing, and does not attend her funeral. He will be heavily criticized for both. November 26: On Thanksgiving Eve, President Joseph McCarthy says, "Seoul is liberated. The Communist army is defeated. Major combat operations are over in Korea." He sends Secretary of State George C. Marshall to Seoul to negotiate a peace treaty. (Sound familiar? Well, not the treaty part.) November 27: On America's Thanksgiving Day, seeking to strike an emotional blow against America on one of its most popular holidays, as well as a military blow against the U.S.-led coalition, China enters the Korean War. A People's Volunteer Army of 270,000 men pours over the Yalu River, separating the Korean peninsula from mainland Asia and thus Korea from China. Coalition forces under General Douglas MacArthur are forced to retreat. It is later estimated that 4,000 Americans, 6,000 total coalition men, are killed in this battle, which becomes known in America as the Thanksgiving Day Massacre. In the days to come, some Americans will begin to call the war "the Thanksgiving Turkey." Some will even give that nickname to President Joseph R. McCarthy, who told the American people yesterday, "Seoul is liberated. The Communist army is defeated. Major combat operations are over in Korea." Secretary of State George C. Marshall is still at the American base in Tokyo, Japan, and now, obviously, he cannot negotiate a peace treaty. November 29: The White House press corps demands that President Joseph McCarthy come out and make a statement regarding his miscalculated statement that "Major combat operations are over in Korea." But he is at home in Appleton, Wisconsin, and will wait until the current fuss blows over. December 2: Scientists at the University of Chicago have achieved the world's first controlled nuclear chain reaction. Someone asks Dr. Enrico Fermi,

in charge of the experiment, whether they should tell someone in the government. "Please, don't," he says. "Because someone in the government will want to use this as a weapon. And that someone will tell someone in the Army. And that someone will tell someone in the Pentagon. And that someone will tell the Secretary of War. And the Secretary of War will tell the President. And the President is Joseph R. McCarthy. And you do not want this kind of destructive power in the hands of Joseph R. McCarthy." The scientists agree to maintain the utmost secrecy. December 4: Apparently, the current fuss is not about to blow over. President McCarthy returns to the White House, but issues no statement regarding the war. Secretary of War Dwight D. Eisenhower does, saying that a front has formed, roughly at the 38th Parallel, and that he expects General Douglas MacArthur to lead the U.S.-led international coalition to win this war. The smile that "Ike" has shown the press since his appointment to run the Pentagon has disappeared. 1948 January 3: A Cabinet meeting is held at the White House. Secretary of State George C. Marshall and Secretary of War Dwight D. Eisenhower tell President Joseph R. McCarthy that he needs to listen to them on the Korean War. McCarthy says he's getting good reports from General Douglas MacArthur. Marshall says MacArthur is delusional if he thinks he's winning this war. Eisenhower says MacArthur is stuck fighting the last war. McCarthy says that he's going with MacArthur if he has to chase the Reds all the way back to Peking. Marshall says that if that's the way McCarthy feels, then he resigns. McCarthy says Marshall can't resign, he's fired. Eisenhower also resigns. This is not exactly what McCarthy needed. On top of losing his men and a war he seems to be losing, the economy isn't doing well, and he has to run for a full term as President this year. January 27: A political shock wave hits America, as recently resigned Secretary of War Dwight D. Eisenhower, one of the foremost U.S. Generals of World War II, announces that he is running for the Republican nomination for President, against his former boss, President Joseph R. McCarthy. "The cost of war has been too high," he says. "We need to win the Korean War, but we cannot win it with the kind of advice the President has been taking, and the kind of orders he has been giving. I know how to lead an army to victory in a war. I have led one." Fuming, McCarthy asks FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to "find some dirt on that f---ing traitor Ike!" Hoover says he will try. "Don't try, goddammit!" McCarthy yells over the phone. "Get it! I'll take anything to destroy him!" February 11: The U.S. Senate confirms Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan as the new Secretary of State, and General Curtis "Old Iron Pants" LeMay as the new Secretary of War. February 25: A socialist government is elected in Czechoslovakia, and announces an alliance with the Russian Republic. Russia President Nikita

Krushchev is pleased. American President Joseph McCarthy is not. He doesn't need another "Communist" country on his planet. March 16: Former Secretary of War Dwight D. Eisenhower wins the New Hampshire Primary, defeating his former boss, President Joseph McCarthy. March 20: With President McCarthy having been bloodied by Secretary Eisenhower's win in the New Hampshire Primary, former Governor Harold Stassen of Minnesota announces he will also seek the Republican nomination for President. March 23: A story hits the newspapers that Presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower, during World War II, had an affair with his Irish chauffeur, Kay Summersby. Eisenhower chooses not to dignify the story with a response. Summersby, now married and living in London, responds by saying the story is a lie. The Eisenhower campaign to dethrone President McCarthy moves on. June 1: Malcolm Little graduates from the University of Michigan in the top of his class. He passes up their law school when he is accepted at Harvard's. June 25: The Democratic Convention is held at the Philadelphia Civic Center's Convention Hall. Senator Albert B. "Happy" Chandler of Kentucky is nominated for President, with Congressman William L. Dawson of Illinois, the first black man nominated for Vice President by either major party. A few Southern delegates don't like it, but Chandler, himself from a Southern State, tells them, "If you walk out of this Convention, you might as well walk out of the Party. If you do, none of you will ever receive another favor from the national Party. No nominations for Congress. No campaign contributions for those of you already in Congress. You'll be stripped of any Committee chairmanships you might hold." House Minority Leader Sam Rayburn, from the Southern State of Texas, tells the State Party chairmen that he stands with Chandler on this. The Southern delegates stay in the Party. July 14: The Republican Convention is held in the Philadelphia Civic Center, where the Democrats had met just three weeks before. President Joseph R. McCarthy, seeking a full term after finishing the second term to which George S. Patton had been elected, needs four ballots to get a majority of the delegates, pushed by his former Secretary of War Dwight D. Eisenhower and former Governor Harold Stassen of Minnesota. Several delegates push for the nomination of Governor Quentin Roosevelt of New York and, in one case, General Douglas MacArthur, but neither of them is running. Eisenhower and Stassen, upset at McCarthy's excesses, the slipping economy, and the stalemate in the Korean War, think he has not only done a poor job as President, but that he may even be mentally unstable. But McCarthy and Vice President Parnell Thomas are renominated. Eisenhower announces that he will run a third-party campaign. July 21: The Liberty Party Convention is held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago. Nominating candidates only for President and Vice President, they select Dwight D. Eisenhower, hero General of World War II and

former Secretary of War, for President and Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon for Vice President. Both are former Republicans. Eisenhower promises an end to the Korean War, the anti-Communist hysteria hurled on the nation by President Joe McCarthy, and a stabilized economy. Polls suggest that he trails McCarthy and the Democratic nominee, Senator Albert "Happy" Chandler, by a considerable margin. August 3: Alger Hiss is a lawyer in private practice, a former official in the U.S. State Department. Whittaker Chambers is a writer for Time magazine. They have never met, and never will. Neither will ever become especially well-known. (This was the day Chambers testified that he and Hiss were once Communists together.) August 4: Drew Pearson, the nationally-syndicated Washington Post columnist, exposes in his "Washington Merry-Go-Round" column the corruption of Vice President Parnell Thomas, having received incriminating documents from Thomas' secretary, Helen Campbell. The McCarthy-Thomas ticket doesn't need a scandal, but it has one. (Pearson, not to be confused with the later Dallas Cowboy receiver of the same name, did expose both McCarthy and Thomas for various ethical violations.) September 2: Vice President Parnell Thomas is subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury, investigating questions of corruption against him. In an ironic twist, the man who once chaired the House Un-American Activities Committee and was faced by numerous witnesses pleading the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination now invokes that right himself, and refuses to answer questions. October 3: The Cleveland Indians beat the New York Yankees by one game for the American League Pennant. The Boston Red Sox, with their biggest star, Ted Williams, flying for the Marine Corps in the Korean War, finish third, six games behind. The Indians will defeat the Boston Braves for the World Championship. For decades, Boston fans will dream of the all-Hub World Series that might have been, but never happened, and wonder if, with Williams in the lineup, they could have won the World Series. But Boston fans will have to wait. Braves fans will have to wait as Red Sox fans, as the Braves are moved to Milwaukee for the 1953 season. October 9: On his CBS television program See It Now, journalist Edward R. Murrow airs a scathing half-hour documentary on President Joseph R. McCarthy. He provides documentary proof that McCarthy exaggerated his service record in World War II, claiming to have enlisted as a "buck private," the lowest rank in the U.S. Navy Air Corps, even though, due to his automatic commission, which he received as a college graduate, he entered basic training as an officer -- and, besides, the rank of private doesn't even exist in the Navy. He flew 12 combat missions as a gunner and observer, but later claimed he was on 32 missions, in order to qualify for a Distinguished Flying Cross, which he received in a much-publicized ceremony in 1944. He publicized a letter of commendation signed by his commanding officer and countersigned by Admiral Chester Nimitz, perhaps the greatest hero to

emerge from the U.S. Navy during the war. It turns out that McCarthy had written this letter himself, in his capacity as an intelligence officer. Finally, after six years of telling people he was wounded in combat, in varying stories involving plane crashes or facing antiaircraft fire, a young CBS reporter named Walter Cronkite has discovered, and Murrow reads on the air, that McCarthy's wound was received aboard ship in an initiation ceremony for sailors who cross the equator for the first time. But Murrow does not stop with McCarthy's lying about his wartime service. He also uses McCarthy's own written and filmed lies concerning his pursuit of Communist agents in the U.S., including in the federal government, dating back to the Eleanor Roosevelt Administration, and in two cases to the Frances Cleveland Administration in the 1920s. Not one person McCarthy has sought to expose as a Communist or Communist sympathizer has had criminal charges brought against them. Murrow also shows how McCarthy went overboard in trying to drum up resentment for the socialist government of President Nikita Krushchev of Russia. "The line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one," Murrow says, "and the President has stepped over it repeatedly. His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind, as between internal and the external threats of Communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. The actions of the 34th President of the United States have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create this climate of fear. He merely exploited it, and, for a time, rather successfully." Murrow concludes by quoting William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, suggesting that the silence of the American people thus far has allowed McCarthy to get away with it all: "Cassius was right: 'The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.' Good night, and good luck." That night, and into the next morning, telephone calls and telegrams to CBS run 15 to 1 in Murrow's favor. A reflection of Murrow's RL program of March 9, 1954, in a world where an earlier-ending WWII allows TV to be developed earlier.) October 10: President McCarthy orders the arrest of Edward R. Murrow, the CBS journalist who exposed him as a liar and a fraud on television last night, for sedition. He is told by Attorney General Herbert Brownell that Murrow committed no crime, and that, since he has proof of all his claims, the content of his TV program See It Now is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. "I don't give a damn!" McCarthy bellows. "I want him in jail!" Brownell resigns: "I cannot work for a President that will not respect the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. And I'm going to vote for Secretary Eisenhower." McCarthy turns purple with rage: "I'll see you in jail, too, Brownell!" To his shock, McCarthy receives an invitation from CBS to come onto the next edition of See It Now and offer a rebuttal. It takes two hours before those staff members he doesn't scare into resigning can convince him to do it, suggesting that it is the only way to save his campaign for a full term of his own. October 16: As offered by CBS and See It Now host Edward R. Murrow, President Joseph McCarthy delivers his rebuttal one week after Murrow's

blistering expose'. He accuses Murrow of directing a Russian agency; Murrow informs his viewers that Russia, while a socialist nation today, was not one at the time, and has consistently deterred coup attempts by Communists. McCarthy accuses Murrow of sponsoring a Communist indoctrination school in Moscow; Murrow says that the school has no connection to the Communist Party of the Russian Republic. McCarthy says that Murrow once belonged to the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW); Murrow says that while he knew many IWW members while growing up in Washington State, he was never a member himself. "The issue is simple," McCarthy says: "It is the issue of life and death for our civilization." Murrow replies: "There is but one Communist nation on this planet, and that is the nation whose current government calls it the People's Republic of China. They have continually threatened the Republic of China on the island of Formosa. They have invaded the Republic of Korea. They are a direct threat to their own people, and to those of Formosa and Korea. And they are killing our soldiers in Korea. That is the extent of the Communist threat on the planet Earth. The Russian Republic is just that, a republic, one that has willingly elected and re-elected a socialist government. That was the choice of their people, just as the Patton-McCarthy ticket of 1944 was the most recent choice of our people. In 17 days, on November 2, the American people will have another choice to make, between the McCarthy-Thomas ticket, that of Chandler-Dawson, that of Eisenhower-Morse, and those of the various small parties. Those of you who have watched this program, and the program that aired on this network last week, have seen President McCarthy in his own words and pictures, filled with proven lies and the most vicious propaganda. I will not sit here and endorse either Senator Chandler or Secretary Eisenhower, or any other candidate for President. But on the second day of November, you, the American people, have a choice to make. And one way to assist you in that choice is to ask you to remember these last two installments of See It Now, and to ask this question: "Who has done more harm to the American cause of freedom: President McCarthy or I?" October 22: Captain Ted Williams, a Marine fighter pilot, is shot down over Korea. The erstwhile baseball star barely flies his plane back into Allies-held airspace, and bails out before the plane crashes. His wingman, Captain John Glenn, radios for help. Williams will soon be discharged, and will return to the Boston Red Sox in time to start the 1949 season, but his hearing is permanently damaged. This is one more piece of bad news about the war that President McCarthy didn't need, and the election is just 11 days away. Even Williams, a staunch Republican, has cast his absentee ballot for independent candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower. October 30: Just three days before the election, Vice President John Parnell Thomas is indicted on 17 counts of fraud. He refuses to resign either his office or his place on the ticket. November 2: The Presidential election is a political earthquake, shaking the nation's voting habits to the core. Senator Albert B. "Happy" Chandler of Kentucky, the Democratic nominee, takes 43 of the 50 States. This makes Congressman William L. Dawson of Illinois the first black person elected Vice President, and his presence on the ticket appears to have neither gained nor

lost any States for Chandler. The scandal-plagued Republican incumbent, President Joseph R. McCarthy, along with his scandal-plagued Vice President, J. Parnell Thomas, becomes the first-ever sitting President to be completely shut out of all States, although, as it turns out, one "faithless elector" from his home State of Wisconsin will cast a vote for him because, in his words, "I'm a man, not a jellyfish!" Still, it remains, through the 2004 election, the worst performance ever by a major-party Presidential nominee. Former Secretary of War Dwight D. "Ike" Eisenhower runs the most successful third-party run since Theodore Roosevelt in 1904, winning the veteran-heavy State of Hawaii, plus the traditionally Republican States of Kansas (his home State), Hiawatha, Maine, Nebraska, New Hampshire and Vermont. The split in the Republican ranks most likely threw several States to Chandler, including Alaska, Dakota, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Wyoming, Eisenhower's vacation-home State of Colorado, Morse's home State of Oregon, and, most embarrassingly, McCarthy's home State of Wisconsin and Thomas' home State of New Jersey. The final Electoral Vote total will be Chandler 504, Eisenhower 33, McCarthy 1. The popular vote is considerably closer: Chandler wins 51.8 percent, McCarthy 32.4 percent, and Eisenhower just under 15 percent. The Democrats also retake both houses of Congress by solid margins. The hard-line anti-Communists who had pushed McCarthy on President George S. Patton after the death of Vice President Charles McNary in 1944 have paid dearly, and are left to wonder what might have been, had McNary lived to become President following Patton's death in 1945. But for Chandler, never was a man nicknamed "Happy" so well described. 1949 January 20: Albert Benjamin "Happy" Chandler is sworn in as the 35th President of the United States. He delivers an Inaugural Address aimed at healing the divisions in America, while pledging to stand for freedom all over the world, and to achieve an honorable end to the Korean War. Outgoing President Joseph R. McCarthy returns home to Appleton, Wisconsin in disgrace. He drinks heavily on the train ride back. His bitter, belligerent comments are not reported at the time, but will be revealed in several posthumous biographies. January 22: A group of scientists, including Enrico Fermi, Leo Szilard, J. Robert Oppenheimer and Edward Teller, meets with President Happy Chandler at the White House. They tell him that, for a few years now, they have been working on the possibility of something they call atomic energy. They say they have successfully split unranium and plutonium atoms in controlled chain reactions. They say that such energy can be used to build bombs that can wipe out enemy military units thousands of men strong, and even destroy entire cities. They say they suspect, but do not know for sure, that other nations are working on such an idea as well. They presume that Germany and Russia are closer to achieving an "atomic bomb" than they are. They ask the President for federal funding for a secret project that will develop such a bomb, and hopefully beat every other nation to it. Chandler agrees, knowing that, having such a weapon, America could use it to devastate the Chinese and Red Korean armies and bring the Korean War to an end. He asks the

scientists how long it could take to build such a bomb. They say, from this day forward, three years, maybe as little as two. "Make it one and a half," Chandler says. "I don't want to have to put my party into a Congressional election with the war still going on." April 4: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, is founded in Brussels, Belgium. Members include the United States of America, Canada, Great Britain, France, Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Portugal. NATO replaces the "Allied Command" that has been fighting to save the Republic of Korea in the Korean War. Germany, Italy and Spain will be considered for membership after a review of their participation in the alliance, but not admitted as yet, due to their previous alliance with the Axis Powers during World War II. Greece and Turkey are also being considered for later membership. President Albert B. Chandler offers former Secretary of War Dwight D. Eisenhower, one of his opponents in last year's election, the chance to be the first Supreme Commander of NATO. Will General Douglas MacArthur, his own former boss, and now commander of all Allied troops in Korea, answer to him? Yes, "Happy" tells "Ike." Ike accepts, and, after a day's briefing, heads to Korea. (This event happens on time.) April 9: NATO Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower returns from Korea. He tells President Albert B. Chandler that the only way to win the Korean War is to get General Douglas MacArthur out of command of NATO troops there. "Ike" tells "Happy" that MacArthur, unhappy with President Joseph McCarthy's loss in last year's election, has been in secret communication with the Republican leaders in Congress. This is gross insubordination and disrespect of his commander-in-chief. Chandler agrees with Eisenhower's assessment. April 11: President Albert B. Chandler removes General Douglas MacArthur from command of NATO troops in Korea. A firestorm of protest erupts among Republicans. House Minority Leader Joe Martin of Massachusetts, with whom MacArthur has been in communication kept secret from the White House, demands that MacArthur be invited to speak before a joint session of Congress. Speaker Sam Rayburn of Texas says no. General Matthew Ridgeway is appointed to take direct command, answerable to General Eisenhower, then to Secretary of War Omar Bradley, and then to President Chandler. April 19: Humiliated, General Douglas MacArthur returns to America. The press approach him getting off his plane. What do you think of being fired? "The Commander-in-Chief has spoken," he says, though, clearly, he is not happy about it. What do you think of not being invited to speak before Congress? "What good would that do?" Do you have a message for your opponents? "No." Do you have a message for your supporters? "When I joined the Army, even before the turn of the century, it was the fulfillment of all of my boyish hopes and dreams. The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barrack ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that, 'Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.' And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his

duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Good Bye." MacArthur will remain one of the most controversial figures in American history, a great soldier whom many believe went too far. Meanwhile, with General Matthew Ridgeway now commanding NATO troops, the Korean stalemate continues. June 13: The Baseball Hall of Fame elects its first black members: 1900s1910s Chicago Cub pitcher Rube Foster, Washington Senators catcher Josh Gibson and Pittsburgh Pirates first baseman Buck Leonard. Also elected are former Detroit Tiger second baseman Charlie Gehringer, Foster's Cub staffmate Mordecai "Three-Finger" Brown, and 19th Century Boston Braves pitcher Charles "Kid" Nichols. Leonard and Nichols are on hand, as is former Pittsburgh Pirates third baseman Harold "Pie" Traynor, who, along with the late New York Yankees pitcher Herb Pennock, had been elected the year before, but no induction ceremony had been held at that time. Gehringer is about to get married in California, and does not attend. (No black player would be inducted until Jackie Robinson in 1962, and no other until Roy Campanella in 1969. Negro League players began to be elected in 1971, with Satchel Paige being the first.) June 25: Justices John Cornwell and Edith Galt retire at the end of the Supreme Court's annual session. Both appointed by President Frances Cleveland in the 1920s, they had wanted to retire for some time -- Cornwell is 82 and Galt is 77 -- but were waiting for a Democratic President, so that neither George "Old Blood and Guts" Patton nor "Tailgunner Joe" McCarthy could appoint their replacements. President Happy Chandler nominates Tom Clark and Sherman Minton. This upsets some people who wanted Galt, the first female Justice, to be succeeded by the second, but their pleas are to no avail. July 1: The University of Virginia system partially breaks up. Its Appalachian campus in Blacksburg becomes Virginia Polytechnic Institute, or "Virginia Tech." Its western campus in Morgantown reverts to its original name, the University of Western Virginia, or "UWV." July 26: President Chandler signs the National Security Reorganization Act. This Act disbands the U.S. Department of War, and replaces it with the Department of Defense. Omar Bradley, one of the hero Generals of World War II, will be the first Secretary of Defense. The act also creates the post of National Security Advisor, and raises the post to Cabinet rank. Former Navy Captain Roscoe Hillenkoetter is named to be the first NSA. The Office of Strategic Services, the intelligence agency developed during World War II, is disbanded and replaced with the Central Intelligence Agency. Former Army Air Corps General Hoyt Vandenberg is named the first Director. Chandler also requires liasion officers between the CIA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, so that each agency will know what the other knows. Finally, Chandler separates the U.S. Army Air Corps from the Army, and the Navy Air Corps from the Navy, and combines the two into a single United States Air Force, and establishes a U.S. Air Force Academy. It will be built in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

August 11: Otto van Pels is born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands to Anne and Peter van Pels. (Anne Frank's son.) September 15: NATO troops under the command of General Matthew Ridgeway finally begin to push Communist troops northward on the Korean Peninsula. The U.S. and the other countries have increased their troop strength, while the Chinese have not. Mao Zedong, the world's leading Communist, is beginning to lose the war. September 20: Chinese Premier Mao Zedong swallows his pride and asks President Nikita Khrushchev of Russia, a socialist if not a Communist, for help. Krushchev turns him down: "You can't keep feeding the people with revolutionary slogans and promises of victory. Sooner or later, you must deliver." September 27: Another two million Chinese enter the Korean War. NATO troops are pushed back to the 40th parallel. October 1: President Albert B. Chandler asks for the draft to be stepped up for the Korean War, saying he needs another 100,000 U.S. troops. Baseball Commissioner Harry Truman asks if that means ballplayers will be drafted. Chandler says they might be. Baseball's regular season concludes tomorrow. October 2: Despite Ted Williams having one of his greatest seasons in his first year back from Korean War service, nearly winning the Triple Crown for a record third time, the Boston Red Sox lose the last two games of the regular season to the New York Yankees, and the Yankees win the American League Pennant by one game. For decades, Boston fans will dream of what might have happened had not Williams had to serve -- after all, hadn't he already served his country in World War II? Couldn't the War Department have let him stay home so he could bring the Red Sox a World Series win? But Boston fans will have to wait. December 2: Former Vice President J. Parnell Thomas is convicted of fraud. He will be sent to Danbury Federal Prison in Connecticut, where, ironically, some of the men who are in jail because they asserted their Fifth Amendment rights in his Congressional investigations are also incarcerated. December 11: The novel Casino Royale is published. The author is Ian Fleming, a former officer with British naval intelligence. It tells of a young British secret agent, James Bond, and his attempt to use a baccarat game to bankrupt the moneylender for a worldwide spy ring. Tapping into Cold War tensions, Fleming will turn out a new novel featuring Bond, Agent 007, every year: Live and Let Die in 1950, Moonraker in 1951, Diamonds Are Forever in 1952, From Russia with Love in 1953 and Dr. No in 1954. (The Bond novels come earlier because the war did.) Uncle Mike Aug 13 2007, 02:49 PM Post #25

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 Remember, Joe: If Moses and the City (or the State) had given O'Malley everything he wanted, and the Dodgers were still playing at Atlantic & Flatbush today (why not, O'Malley's Temple of Greed in Chavez Ravine is still hailed as a model ballpark after 45 years)... Walter Francis O'Malley was still a no-good, lying, cheap, bigoted, soconservative-he-squeaked-when-he-walked, double-crossing son of a bitch. Before the move, he forced out, either directly or indirectly, Branch Rickey, Red Barber and Jackie Robinson, all because they wouldn't give him the credit he thought he deserved. Those were three of the most honorable men in baseball history, and he got rid of them for no good reason. Before getting involved in baseball, he ran the legal affairs of the Brooklyn Trust Company, which owned the mortgage on Ebbets Field, and that's how he gained his first piece of control. As such, he foreclosed on a lot of houses in New York City. In the Depression. And in World War II. Throwing into the streets the wives and children of "our brave fighting men." And he acted as though he enjoyed it. So even if you don't blame him for the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn, he was a truly, deeply evil creature. I shudder to think what would have happened had he gotten involved in politics on more than a superficial level. (His father was a minor Republican officeholder.) Al Capone would have been preferable. At least Capone was good to the poor. Uncle Mike Aug 15 2007, 01:12 PM Post #26

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 Barring any technical difficulties or unexpected twin-nieces duties, I will be adding the 1950s tonight. Maybe more, if my luck holds out. And it will

not be the same Fabulous Fifties as in the original version. This time, the Dodgers and Giants stay home. There will still be a World Series played in Flushing Meadow in 1969, but the Mets will never have existed. Uncle Mike Aug 15 2007, 01:31 PM Post #27

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 I didn't say O'Malley or Capone WOULD become President. And a Chandler Presidency, switching jobs with Truman, is hardly inconceivable. Kentucky and Missouri are, after all, both considered "Border States," as they did not join the traitors in 1861 but maintained their Southernness up to the 1964 Civil Rights Act -- and reasserted it for Dubya. Uncle Mike Aug 16 2007, 12:25 AM Post #28

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 1950 February 3: The first test of an atomic bomb takes place at Los Alamos, New Mexico. It is successful. President Chandler is told. He tells the scientists to "Make a hundred of the damned things. I want to end that war!" March 1: NATO troops begin a massive retreat from the Korean front at the 40th parallel. In the time it takes Chinese and Red Korean forces to notice, the NATO soldiers are out of range of most of the Communist artillery. The Reds move forward. Upon noticing this, a new American bomber, the B-52 Stratofortress, drops a single bomb on them. NATO troops are told, as were Lot and his daughters in the Bible, "Don't look back." The weapon is an atomic bomb, and it instantly wipes out 50,000 Communist soldiers. "This war is going to be won by the forces of freedom," President Albert B. Chandler

says in an address from the Oval Office. "I say to Mao Zedong, the Premier of China: Surrender your forces now. If you do not, this atomic weapon, the first ever used in warfare, will not be the last." March 2: Chinese Premier Mao Zedong rejects American President Happy Chandler's demand for surrender, and drafts another million men into the People's Revolutionary Army. March 3: An atomic bomb is dropped on the Chinese port city of Qingdao. It is later estimated that over 100,000 people, including about 80,000 civilians, are killed. President Chandler again demands that Premier Mao surrender. Again, Mao refuses. "We will fight the imperialist dogs to the last drop of blood," he tells his nation. "We will develop our own weapons of mass destruction, and, over the capitalist nations of the world, let a thousand nuclear flowers bloom!" March 4: Mass mutinies are reported in the People's Liberation Army of China and in Red Korean units. It seems they are afraid of nuclear incineration. March 6: Liu Shaoqi, Deputy Chairman of the Communist Party of the People's Republic of China, has Chairman Mao Zedong deposed. He immediately orders Chinese troops to stand down. He tells Red Korean leader Kim Il-Sung to do the same. He does. Today is V-K Day, Victory in Korea. (I originally had V-K Day as May 8, RL V-E Day and TTL V-J Day, so I moved it up.) April 12: Former First Gentleman Franklin Delano Roosevelt dies of a cerebral hemorrhage at his home in Hyde Park, New York. He was 68. (Same cause of death, five years later to the day.) May 1: A ticker-tape parade is held in Lower Manhattan, honoring the heroes of the Korean War. President Albert B. Chandler -- some say his nickname should now be "Very Happy" -- chose May 1, the most important day on the calendar for Communists, for the parade, to send a clear message. Included in the parade are Chandler, victorious General Matthew B. Ridgeway, and the other leading heads of government of the NATO coalition: British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill, French President Vincent Auriol, and, through an invitation that would have been considered treason 11 years earlier, German Chancellor Erwin Rommel. The leaders meet afterward at the Presidential Suite at New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, and discuss building on the success of NATO, for a united group of nations all over the world, to settle disputes between countries so that the weak are not overrun by the strong. Quentin Roosevelt of New York, having watched Chandler and the others, wonders if, perhaps, his campaign for a third term as Governor of New York should be his last run for public office. Many people wanted him to run for President in 1948, and want him to run in 1952. But Chandler seems too popular even for a Roosevelt to overcome. November 7: Former State Department official Averell Harriman is elected Governor of New York. (Four years earlier than in RL, keeping in mind that Thomas Dewey is not Governor.)

December 25: Recently elected Argentinian president, Juan Domingo Peron, contacts the german government of Erwin Rommel; after a few minutes of conversation, the two discover that they have much in common and decide to meet, and since Rommel is tired of the cold winter weather, he will visit Buenos Aires and it's sandy beaches on January, in the middle of the Summer. (Pompey decided to add this one. I decided to leave it in.) 1951 June 1: Former Vice President Parnell Thomas is released from Danbury Federal Prison after 18 months on fraud charges. July 20: Kaiser Wilhelm III of Germany dies at the age of 69, after 35 years as a figurehead monarch. His 43-year-old son, Louis Ferdinand, succeeds him as Kaiser Ludwig IV, resuming the count of Louises/Ludwigs from the Kingdom of Bavaria. Chancellor Rommel offers words of praise for both the late Kaiser and the new one. (The would-be Wilhelm III did die on this day.) August 8: The Cleveland Indians defeat the St. Louis Browns, 2-1 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. It is the 300th career win for Indians pitcher Bob Feller. He becomes the first major league pitcher to reach the milestone since Lefty Grove did it 10 years ago. But, as significant as this achievement is, it turns out not to be the biggest baseball story of the week. August 11: Baseball Commissioner Harry Truman attends a game at the Polo Grounds. As the Giants are taking batting practice, he sees something strange in the center-field clubhouse, and finds out that it's a man with a telescope, there to steal signs. He calls for Giant manager Leo Durocher, and they head for Durocher's office in the clubhouse. Truman tells Durocher that he will not be managing tonight's game, and will never manage in baseball again. He can either resign with grace, citing some reason other than his cheating, and disappear from the game for good; or he can refuse and be outright banned from baseball. Durocher tells Truman that he won't resign. Truman calls a press conference and announces that Durocher has been cheating, and, because of his history of misbehavior in the game dating to the late 1920s, is banned for life. Eddie Stanky, a second baseman and coach, takes over as manager of the Giants. The Giants lose, 4-0 to the Philadelphia Phillies. They now trail the Brooklyn Dodgers by 13 1/2 games with 44 games to go. (Thanks to Joshua Prager for his recent book "The Echoing Green" for some necessary details. In this version, without Leo and the benefit of the cheating, the Giants do not win the Pennant, the Giants do not win the Pennant, the Giants do not win the Pennant, the Giants do not win the Pennant.) September 30: The Major League Baseball regular season ends. The Brooklyn Dodgers have won the National League Pennant by 15 games over the New York Giants, who never seemed to be able to make a race of it. The New York Yankees had it considerably tougher in the American League, winning by five games over the Cleveland Indians. The World Series begin on Tuesday at

Yankee Stadium in The Bronx. October 2: Game 1 of the World Series is held at Yankee Stadium. Elwin "Preacher" Roe, the Arkansan lefthander with a great curveball and a nasty sinker (cough-spitball-cough), handcuffs the Yankees, and the Brooklyn Dodgers get the hits they need off Allie "Superchief" Reynolds, the Yanks' flamethrowing righthander from Oklahoma and the Creek Indian nation. Dodgers 5, Yankees 1. October 3: Game 2 of the World Series is held at Yankee Stadium. It is a pitcher's duel between two canny righthanders, the Dodgers' fine curveballer from Indiana, Carl Erskine, and the Yankees' Vic Raschi, whose Massachusetts hometown and blazing fastball have nicknamed him the Springfield Rifle. A second-inning home run by first baseman Joe Collins makes the difference, and Yankees win, 3-1, to tie up the Series. In the fifth inning, Dodger center fielder Duke Snider hits a fly ball out to center field, an easy play for the Yankees' legendary center fielder, Joe DiMaggio. Seeing that DiMaggio has an easy play, Mickey Mantle, now a rookie right fielder but being groomed to take DiMaggio's place next year, does not run especially hard for the ball. As he stops, he sees something, and points it out to DiMaggio. Seeing it, DiMaggio asks the umpires for time. It seems someone has left a drain, designed to clear the field of rain, open in right-center field. The potential hazard is taken care of, and the game resumes. Someone could have stepped in that drain and gotten seriously hurt. (Of course, Mantle did step in that drain, and tore up his knee. Sports medicine, and management's attitudes, being what they were at the time, Mantle ended up with permanent damage, the result being that "You never saw how good Mickey Mantle could be on two good legs." He will now have a somewhat different career and different life.) October 4: The World Series moves to Ebbets Field. Being a "Subway Series," played entirely in New York City, there is no need for a travel day. The starting pitchers are Don Newcombe, the Dodgers' big black righthander from nearby Madison, New Jersey, and Eddie Lopat, the Yankees' "junkballing" (slowpitching) lefty from Manhattan. Gil Hodges, Roy Campanella and Carl Furillo face Lopat's junk and "take out the trash" with home runs, while Newk and Joe Black combine for a complete-game five-hitter. Dodgers 6, Yankees 2. The Dodgers lead the Series two games to one, and the next two games are at Ebbets Field. They've never won a World Series (the Yankees have won 13), but they can win this one without ever having to go back to that big house of horrors in The Bronx. October 5: Game 4 of the World Series is held at Ebbets Field. The Dodgers send Clem Labine, their rookie righthander from Rhode Island, out to face Edward "Whitey" Ford, the Yankees' blond lefty, a Korean War veteran with several tough pitches. Back-to-back home runs by star-in-waiting Mickey Mantle and star-in-retiring Joe DiMaggio give the Yankees a 6-2 win, and the Series is tied. It will be the last home run DiMaggio ever hits. For Mantle, it is the first World Series home run. There will be more. (Ford was actually in the Korean War at this time. Ford missed 1951 and '52 due to the war, the Dodgers' Don Newcombe missed '52 and '53. Still, despite both teams being

without their aces, '52 had one of the best Series ever.) October 6: Game 5 of the World Series is a rematch of Game 1, between Preacher Roe and Allie Reynolds. This time, it is no contest, as the Yankees take advantage of the bandbox dimensions of Ebbets Field. A grand slam by Gil McDougald, a titanic blast by Mickey Mantle (it turns out to be the only home run ever hit over the Flatbush ballyard's left-field roof), and even diminutive shortstop Phil Rizzuto hit home runs. The Yanks wallop the Dodgers, 13-1, as Reynolds keeps the Dodgers' hitters off-balance with serious smoke, including a few pitches high and tight. The Series moves back to Yankee Stadium, and to win it, the Dodgers will have to take the last two games, at the Bronx colosseum, which, for them, has been a torture chamber with a 70,000-seat capacity for 10 years. October 8: After a day's delay due to rain, Game 6 of the World Series is held at Yankee Stadium. The Game 2 starters, Carl Erskine and Vic Raschi, can both pitch on the full four days' rest. Yankee right fielder and center fielder-tobe Mickey Mantle strokes his third homer of the Series, a 450-foot blast into the visitors' bullpen in right field. It makes the difference, as a tiring Lopat is spelled by veteran Johnny Sain and then journeyman Bob Kuzava, and the Yankees win, 4-3, taking their third straight World Series, their 14th overall. Joe DiMaggio has played his last game. He retires with 2,784 hits in 8,411 atbats, for a lifetime batting average of .331. He finishes his career with 451 home runs. Still 12 days short of his 20th birthday, Mantle receives the World Series Most Valuable Player award from Sport magazine, including a brandnew 1952 Chevrolet. But his joy is short-lived, as he finds out his father, Elvin "Mutt" Mantle, visiting from Oklahoma, has been diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease. He will die nine months later. (DiMaggio's stats are boosted because he missed just one year due to World War II instead of three.) October 24: The United Nations is founded at a conference in San Francisco. Its General Assembly will consist of all member nations, while its Security Council will include nine nations, four of which will serve five-year terms, the other five being permanent members: The United States of America, Great Britain, France, Germany and Russia. It is suggested that China, the world's most populous nation, be a permanent member, but its actions in the Korean War prevent it even being allowed membership in the U.N. It is suggested that Japan be a permanent member of the Security Council, simply to give Asia a voice, Russia being considered mostly European due to its population center rather than its geographic center, but this idea is also discarded for now. (Seven years late, due to a Republican Administration being in place in 1945. In TTL, the UN would have been impossible without NATO.) December 16: Jackie Robinson rushes for 152 yards and two touchdowns, and the Los Angeles Rams defeat the Cleveland Browns, 24-17 for the NFL Championship at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. (This was the actual matchup and score of the game, but, of course, Robinson did not play in this or any other NFL game.) 1952

February 1: Novelist Shelby Foote is approached by his publisher, asking him to write a historical novel about the Slavery Rebellion of 1861. He is not interested, but he gets a different idea, and starts writing it. March 18: The New Hampshire Primary is held. Governor Quentin Roosevelt of New Hampshire is a runaway winner of the Republican side, over Senator Robert Taft of Ohio. President Albert B. "Happy" Chandler wins the Democratic side without significant opposition. April 7: Russian President Nikita Khrushchev is elected to a third term, once again defeating Lavrenti Beria. Beria vows that he will never lose another election to Khrushchev. Indeed, he will never lose another election. He will turn out to be right. April 10: Russian President Nikita Khrushchev meets with some scientists, including several German exiles who escaped to Russia during the Third Reich. They tell him that, within five years, they could be able to launch an artificial satellite into orbit around Earth. They also tell him that no other country, including America, Britain, France or Germany, is anywhere close to Russia's capability in this regard at this point. Khrushchev offers them the governmental equivalent of a blank check. May 26: Malcolm Little graduates from Harvard Law School. He is soon hired as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. (Like Frankfurter, Little, RL's Malcolm X, will start out as someone believed to be liberal, yet hold some very conservative positions.) July 11: Governor Quentin Roosevelt of New York is nominated for President at the Republican Convention at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago. He considers Governor Earl Warren of California as his running mate, but another suggestion is made, a young Senator with a reputation as a strong opponent of Communism, but less strident than former President Joseph McCarthy, who is not invited to speak at the Convention. Roosevelt meets the young man from California and is flattered by kindly references to his father, President Theodore Roosevelt. The Governor accepts the young Senator, Richard Milhous Nixon. July 23: King Farouk of Egypt is overthrown in a military coup, led by Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser. Nasser begins making threats toward the state of Israel. President Chandler and Governor Roosevelt are both distressed by this. At the moment, the coup doesn't seem to help either candidate. July 26: The Democratic Convention is held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago. President Albert B. "Happy" Chandler and Vice President William L. Dawson, a Chicago native, are renominated. In opinion polls, they are ahead of the Republican ticket of Governor Quentin Roosevelt of New York and Senator Richard Nixon of California, but not by much. It is generally agreed that, had the Republicans nominated anyone without the Roosevelt name, Chandler would likely be easily re-elected. But with that famous name,

plus rising inflation, and some disturbing reports coming from Korea about the after-effects of the atomic bombs used to end the Korean War, the race is, for the moment, close. August 11: A report is issued by the Korean government, showing that the atomic bomb dropped on March 1, 1950 has led to permanent contamination of much of the northernmost part of the Korean peninsula, including the Yalu River, which forms the border with Red China. The report also suggests that 20,000 Korean civilians may have been killed, either instantly or due to radiation sickness. It does not speculate as to how many Chinese died, although some think it may have been up to 50,000. Many nations around the world, and many people in America, criticize the Chandler government for using the bomb. "I did what I had to do," President Chandler says. "If I hadn't used that bomb, we might still be at war there." Nevertheless, many of the liberals that Chandler needs to win re-election may stay home on Election Day. (Chandler's words reflect the RL pronouncements of President Harry Truman, with whom he has essentially switched jobs.) August 26: Bob Feller of the Cleveland Indians strikes out Ferris Fain of the Philadelphia Athletics in a 6-3 win over the A's at Shibe Park. It is the 3,000th strikeout of Feller's career, a milestone previously reached by only one pitcher, the late Walter Johnson of the Washington Senators, back in 1923. The game is a rare loss by A's starter Bobby Schantz, who goes 24-7 for a fourth-place team and is named the American League's Most Valuable Player, a rare feat for a pitcher, or for a team so far from first place. Feller and the Indians, however, will finish two games behind the New York Yankees for the American League Pennant. The National League race, however, is getting very hot. September 1: President Happy Chandler appoints Pauline Gore a to a federal judgeship for the Judicial District headquartered in Washington, D.C. Her husband, Congressman Albert Gore, has recently won the Democratic Primary to be elected the U.S. Senate from Tennessee, and with the Republican Party still weak in that State, will be elected in November. September 19: A bombshell hits the campaign trail. The New York Post, at this time a liberal newspaper, has the blaring headline: "Secret Nixon Fund! Secret Rich Men's Trust Fund Keeps Nixon In Style Far Beyond His Salary." The fund totals $18,000 and is completely legal, and Richard Nixon of California, the Republican nominee for Vice President, is hardly the only Senator to benefit from one. Nevertheless, it makes Nixon look like a typical rich Republican who cares only for Wall Street, not for Main Street. It draws comparisons with the scandal surrounding Parnell Thomas, the last Republican Vice President, who went to prison on corruption charges. September 23: With the Democratic Chandler-Dawson ticket leading the Republican Roosevelt-Nixon ticket by 14 points in polls in the wake of the "Nixon Fund" scandal, Senator Richard Nixon appears in a half-hour TV and radio ad sponsored by the Republican National Committee. He details all his assets, expenses and debts, and claims that he came by everything he had

honestly. In light of recent revelations of mink coats given to Democratic members of Congress as gifts from lobbyists, Nixon says of his wife Pat, "I should say this, that Pat doesn't have a mink coat. But she does have a respectable Republican cloth coat." Then he mentions one gift he received from a supporter, "Because, if I don't, they'll probably be saying this about me, too." There was a newspaper article about his family, saying his daughters Tricia and Julie wanted a dog. A package soon arrived for Nixon at a nearby train station. Almost in tears, he says, "You know what it was? It was a little cocker spaniel dog, in a crate that he had sent all the way from Texas, black and white, spotted. And our little girl, Tricia, the six-year-old, named it Checkers. And, you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog, and I just want to say this, right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're gonna keep him!" The reference to the dog is seen by some Democrats as a swipe at former President Eleanor Roosevelt and her famed dog Fala, who died earlier this year. Nixon then goes into a denunciation of President Chandler and Vice President Dawson for their liberal policies and being "soft on Communism." But the references to family and dog make him seem less harsh than former President Joe McCarthy, and the speech helps Nixon tremendously. Governor Quentin Roosevelt, the Presidential nominee, says later that night that Nixon stays on the ticket. Within days of "the Checkers Speech," Roosevelt will close to within 8 points of Chandler. October 1: Under manager Eddie Stanky, the New York Giants have finished the regular season in a tie with their crosstown arch-rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers. They are led by center fielder Willie Mays, a black veteran of the Korean War; third baseman Bobby Thomson, a Staten Island native; and pitcher Sal Maglie, a curveball master and brushback artist. After splitting the first two games of the necessary playoff series, the deciding game is led by the Dodgers in the bottom of the ninth, 4-1. But Dodger pitcher Don Newcombe is tiring, and he allows a run, and the tying runs get on second and third with one out. Dodger manager Charlie Dressen takes out Newcombe and brings in Ralph Branca. Thomson steps up for the Dodgers. He had already homered off Branca in the first game at Ebbets Field. Now, they face each other at the Polo Grounds. Giant broadcaster Russ Hodges has the call: "Hartung leading off third. Lockman with not too big of a lead at second, but he'll be running like the wind if Thomson hits one. Branca throws, there's a long drive! It's gonna be, I believe..." Hodges pauses briefly, as confetti falls out of the upper deck in left field. "The Giants win the Pennant! The Giants win the Pennant! The Giants win the Pennant! The Giants win the Pennant! Bobby Thomson hits it into the lower deck of the left-field stands! The Giants win the Pennant! And they're going crazy! They're going crazy! Wah-hoo!" The Giants mob Thomson at home plate. Making sure Thomson touches the plate, Dodger second baseman Jackie Robinson turns around, and leads his dejected team off the field. Soon he will return to Los Angeles and go back to playing football with the Rams. For Giant fans, it is their first Pennant in 15 years, and against their most hated rivals. For Dodger fans, it is the latest in a string of devastating late-season and post-season losses, and against their most hated rivals. For non-affiliated baseball fans, it is the most famous home run, and maybe the greatest game, of all time. (The story was too good to drop completely, so I just moved it up a year. Stanky doesn't

deserve it, but, hey, it beats Durocher getting the honor.) October 2: The New York Yankees win Game 1 of the World Series against the physically and emotionally exhausted New York Giants, 5-4. Jim Hearn on two days rest is no match for the Yankee bats and a fully-rested Allie Reynolds. October 3: Vic Raschi blows the Giants away, and the Yankees take Game 2 of the World Series against Larry Jansen and the Giants. The Yanks lead two games to none. October 4: The Giants get back into the World Series, taking Game 3 over the Yankees, 5-3, Sal Maglie's curves and brushbacks outpitching Eddie Lopat's junk. The Yanks still lead two games to one. October 5: With the Giants' staff exhausted, manager Eddie Stanky turns to Dave Koslo, who pitches surprisingly well in Game 4. Not as well as Allie Reynolds, who blanks the Jints on just four hits -- and two days rest. Yankees 2, Giants 0. The Yanks need just one more win to take their fourth straight World Series, and can get it tomorrow at Yankee Stadium. October 6: The Giants get a reprieve, as Whitey Ford, the Yankees' usually impressive lefty from Queens, a Korean War veteran, gives up home runs to Willie Mays and Hank Thompson in the fifth inning, and former Boston Braves ace Johnny Sain has to come in and stop the bleeding. The Yanks come back to tie the game, but the Giants win it in the 11th inning on a home run by Monte Irvin. The series goes back to the Polo Grounds for a Game 6 tomorrow -- being a Subway Series, there are no travel days. October 7: The New York Yankees match their feat of 1936-39 by winning their fourth straight World Series, taking Game 6 over their crosstown rivals, the New York Giants, 3-2. Vic Raschi outduels Larry Jansen, and center fielder Mickey Mantle, about to reach his 21st birthday, hits two home runs, one over the right-field roof of the Polo Grounds. Only Babe Ruth and Shoeless Joe Jackson -- in the days when the Yankees played at the Polo Grounds, sharing it with the Giants before Yankee Stadium was built -- had ever done it before. October 8: Flora Roosevelt, wife of Governor Quentin Roosevelt of New York, figures out a way to close what is now a 10-point gap between her husband, the Republican nominee for President, with Democratic President "Happy" Chandler: A debate, live on national television. Using a word his father, President Theodore Roosevelt, would have used, he calls it "a bully idea!" The Chandler campaign staff is reluctant to expose their boss to the famed Roosevelt family wit, and the TV audience to the famed Roosevelt family charm, but the President is adamant: "If I don't accept this challenge, he will, in the tradition of his father, call me 'yellow.' And if he wants to cast aspersions on Albert Benjamin Chandler, he'll have plenty of company. But I will not have the President of the United States called 'yellow!'" (Again, words of Chandler are a cross-dimensional echo of something Truman actually said. Mrs. Roosevelt is Flora Payne Whitney, a member of THE Payne family and THE Whitney family, who was engaged to RL-Quentin Roosevelt when he was

killed in action in World War I. As Quentin doesn't make it "Over There" until after the TTL-1916 Armistice, he lives.) October 26: For the first time, a debate is held between candidates for President of the United States. On the Democratic side, the incumbent, President Albert B. "Happy" Chandler. On the Republican side, Governor Quentin Roosevelt of New York. The debate is held at the Chicago studios of broadcast network CBS, although all three networks -- CBS, NBC and the new ABC -- broadcast it over both television and radio. The moderator is CBS News reporter Walter Cronkite, who, it is later said, gains more from the debate than either candidate. Chandler rattles off several accomplishments, including winning the Korean War, founding the United Nations and NATO, and public-works programs. Roosevelt counters by pointing out that the economy has drifted into recession for the first time since the Great Depression of 1929-38, there have been some scandals involving Democratic office-holders, and the Chandler Administration hasn't taken hard enough of a line on Communism. "Governor," Chandler points out, "in case you didn't notice, I won the war. I dropped an atomic bomb on the Red Chinese and the Red Koreans. I wiped out a hundred thousand people with two bombs. How can I be soft on Communism?" Roosevelt: "Well, bully for you! What about the questionable loyalty of plenty of Democratic officeholders? They've been too closely tied to Russia, not just in your Administration, but in my cousin Eleanor's, and even in Mrs. Cleveland's!" Chandler: "You know, Governor, if you keep this up, you'll end up just like President McCarthy did." Roosevelt: "And if this economy continues, you'll end up just like President Hoover did!" Chandler: "Governor, President Hoover was a Republican. That's your party." Roosevelt: "My party has learned over the last 20 years. Your party is the same as it ever was!" Over 55 million people, the largest TV audience ever to this point, pays less attention to the substance of the issues, and begins to treat the debate as a humorous prizefight. And, with his wit, Roosevelt is winning the fight. Television has boosted its first political victor, Quentin Roosevelt, and claimed Happy Chandler as a victim, if not as thoroughly as it had Joe McCarthy. But will it be enough to give Roosevelt the momentum he needs to win in nine days? November 4: The Presidential election is very close, but Governor Quentin Roosevelt of New York, the Republican nominee, defeats the Democratic incumbent, President Albert B. "Happy" Chandler, 288 Electoral Votes to 250. Roosevelt wins 30 States, Chandler 20. Among the States Roosevelt wins is Illinois, home State of Vice President William L. Dawson. In the popular vote, Roosevelt wins 31.9 million to Chandler's 29.3 million. It is generally agreed that, had the Republicans nominated anyone else but the son of the beloved Republican President Theodore Roosevelt (1904-19) -- and the cousin of the much-admired Democratic President Eleanor Roosevelt (1933-41) -- Chandler would have won, especially when the uproar around Vice Presidential nominee Richard Nixon is factored in. In fact, the election is so close that Roosevelt takes neither house of Congress with him. He will have to deal with an opposition House and Senate. Another surprise is the election of 26-yearold Fidel Castro to Congress from a District in the State of Cuba. Another is Congressman John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts defeating longtime

Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, whose grandfather and namesake had served as President after TR resigned, and had once defeated Kennedy's grandfather, former Boston Mayor John F. Fitzgerald, for the same seat. Also elected to the Senate is Congressman Albert Gore of Tennessee. Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois is re-elected. November 5: It turns out that yesterday's Presidential election was closer than anyone thought. One major newspaper thinks it was so close it went the other way. Arriving at New York's Grand Central Terminal to take a private train car down to Washington to meet with Congressional leaders, Governor Quentin Roosevelt is handed a copy of the New York Post, a tabloid newspaper which then had a liberal bias. The headline blares, "CHANDLER DEFEATS ROOSEVELT." The photo of the President-elect, holding up the erroneous headline and flashing the familiar Roosevelt grin, appears on the front page of every newspaper in the country the next day, including the embarrassed Post. (In place of the arch-conservative Chicago Tribune incorrectly calling the election for the Republican with the headline "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN," here is a liberal paper -- at that time, anyway -- calling the election for the Democrat. In its post-1976 Rupert Murdoch configuration, the Post is a vicious right-wing paper with questionable credibility, getting wrong issues ranging from John Kerry's Vice Presidential choice to American League Pennant winners to celebrity gossip.) 1953 January 20: Quentin Roosevelt takes office as the 36th President of the United States. Richard Nixon is his Vice Preisdent, victorious Korean War General Matthew Ridgeway is his Secretary of State, famed aviator and aviation expert Charles Lindbergh is his Secretary of Defense, Allen Dulles is Director of the CIA, and, in an unusual pick, his brother Kermit Roosevelt is appointed National Security Adviser. "America is a nation that has found itself in some of humanity's most crowded hours," the new President says in his Inaugural Address, borrowing words from his father Theodore and mirroring his cousin Eleanor's "Rendezvous With Destiny" speech. "And we as a people dare not hide from the crowds, for we would be hiding in plain sight." March 6: Czar Alexander IV dies at the age of 48, after 36 years as a pretender to the Russian throne. Never in good health, his hemophilia and weak heart have finally done him in. His 12-year-old son is now called Czar Nicholas III by the feckless court-in-exile. (Alexander IV is RL-Czarevitch Alexei, killed with his family at Ekaterinburg when he was just 14.) March 19: The Greatest Show On Earth, a film about a circus, wins the Academy Award for Best Picture. Carole Lombard wins for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film as Phyllis. (In RL, Lombard had been dead for 11 years, and Phyllis was played by Dorothy Lamour, which would explain the crowd-scene cameos of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, with whom she starred in the "Road To..." films.) March 31: Chief Justice John T. Loughran dies. President Roosevelt appoints

Governor Earl Warren of California to succeed him. Warren, probably the most popular Republican in the country after Roosevelt himself, is easily confirmed. (Loughran did die on this day, shortly before RL CJ Fred Vinson did, and Warren was appointed to succeed him by President Eisenhower.) July 4: Glenn Miller returns to performing, with a summer replacement series, The Glenn Miller Show, broadcasting live from Hollywood and airing on fledgling TV network ABC. Now 48 years old, Miller leads his band in several of their signature pieces, including "Chattanooga Choo Choo." At the program's close, he tells the studio and TV audiences of how smoking cigarettes nearly killed him, and that people should cut down on their smoking or quit altogether. "It is only after eight years of rest and recuperation that I once again feel in the mood to perform," he says, and turns to his band, and begins his most famous song, "In the Mood." The show is a hit, but the American tobacco industry, with a great deal of influence as a sponsor of many early TV shows, is fuming. The show will not be picked up for the fall, but Miller will tour again. (In RL, he had been dead for eight and a half years, and while it wasn't from the effects of smoking, he had received a bad health report right before his plane disappeared.) July 26: Congressman Fidel Castro of Cuba gives speech denouncing the heavy-handed policies of his State's Republican Governor Fulgencio Batista. Castro becomes known as "the Latin Huey Long." (This was the starting date of Castro's RL revolution.) August 12: The Russian news agency TASS reports that the Russian Republic has conducted its first test of an atomic bomb. President Nikita Krushchev announces that his country will develop more such weapons, but use them only if attacked first. August 19: On the advice of his brother, National Security Adviser Kermit Roosevelt, an expert on the Middle East, President Quentin Roosevelt gives the go-ahead for a CIA-backed coup by monarchists in Iran, who overthrow Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh, the Prime Minister, democratically elected, but using emergency powers, a socialist agenda and an alliance with the socialist govenrment of Russia. Power is restored to Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the Shah (King) and a Prime Minister of his choice. While the short-term gain for the U.S., and also Britain, is large -- oil and shipping revenues and a better relationship with the royal government -- it will take many years before anyone realizes that this is the biggest mistake of the Quentin Roosevelt Presidency. (Although Quentin had been dead for 35 years by this point, Kermit actually was involved in the CIA's 1953 Iran coup.) August 30: A representative of deposed Iranian President Mohammed Mossadegh addresses the United Nations at its headquarters in San Francisco. (Its permanent headquarters on the East River in Manhattan will open later this year.) He appeals to the Security Council to send troops to free his country from the fascist grip of the Shah. But the Security Council votes 4 to 1 to deny them, with only socialist Russia voting in favor of Mossadegh's socialist government. But the phrase "fascist grip" enters the world's

consciousness, and many people in many countries begin to believe that, by helping to engineer the coup, the Americans and British have made a costly mistake. September 30: Game 1 of the World Series is played at Yankee Stadium. Home runs by Yogi Berra and Joe Collins defeat Don Newcombe, the Dodgers' big black Korean War veteran. Allie Reynolds, the "Superchief," holds the Dodgers off enough for the Yankee homers to stand up, and the Yanks win, 95. October 1: Game 2 of the World Series is played at Yankee Stadium. It is a battle of crafty lefthanders, the Yankees' Steady Eddie Lopat vs. the Dodgers' Elwin "Preacher" Roe. Billy Martin and Mickey Mantle decide it with home runs, and the Yanks win, 4-2, to take a 2-0 lead as the Series moves from The Bronx to Brooklyn. October 2: Game 3 of the World Series is played at Ebbets Field. Carl Erskine, the great curveballing righthander, sets a new World Series record by striking out 14 Yankees. Roy Campanella homers off Vic Raschi, and the Dodgers beat the Yanks, 3-2. The Yanks still lead the Series, 2-1. October 3: Game 4 of the World Series is played at Ebbets Field. Duke Snider's homer leads a Dodger rally that knocks Whitey Ford out of the box, and Don Newcombe pitches very well. The Dodgers tie the Series up with a 73 victory over the Yankees. October 4: Game 5 of the World Series is played at Ebbets Field. Journeyman Jim McDonald starts for the Yankees, rookie Johnny Podres for the Dodgers. Mickey Mantle's grand slam is joined by home runs by Gene Woodling, Billy Martin and Gil McDougald, and the Yanks win, 11-7. The Yanks lead the Series, 3-2, as it goes back to Yankee Stadium. October 5: Game 6 of the World Series is played at Yankee Stadium. Whitey Ford starts against Carl Erskine. Allie Reynolds and Clem Labine relieve the starters. The Dodgers tie the game in the top of the ninth. But Billy Martin's 12th hit of the Series, tying a record, drives home Hank Bauer with the winning run in the bottom of the ninth. Yanks 4, Dodgers 3. The Yanks win the Series, 4-2, and claim their 16th World Championship, their fifth in a row. Both are hard-to-believe records. The Dodgers have now been in seven World Series, the last five against the crosstown Yankees, and have lost them all. 1954 March 6: The African nation of Ghana declares its independence, assented to by Great Britain, to whom it was once a colony. This is the beginning of a renaissance for sub-Saharan Africa, as most of the lands that had previously been colonies to European nations gain their independence over the next 10 years, with assistance from the United Nations both before and after independence preventing the countries from descending into economic chaos and tribal-based civil warfare. (Ghana is independent three years ahead of

schedule.) March 25: The Academy Awards ceremony is held in Los Angeles. From Here to Eternity, based on the James Jones novel about the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1938, wins Best Picture, Best Director for Fred Zinneman, and Best Supporting Actor for Frank Sinatra. Nominated from the film but not winning were Burt Lancaster and Montgomery Clift for Best Actor, Deborah Kerr for Best Actress and Donna Reed for Best Supporting Actress. (FHTE did win all those awards, but the RL Pearl Harbor boming was, of course, three years later than in TTL.) April 17: The War Between the States is published. Author Shelby Foote has written a spectacular "alternate history," imagining what might have happened had one man thought differently. In his novel, General Robert E. Lee chooses in April 1861 to command the armies not of the United States of America, but the Confederate States of America. The result is a four-year civil war that brings about the near-destruction of the American South, Lee's dignified defeat, and the assassination by John Wilkes Booth not of Lee, who lives until 1870 and never becomes President of the United States, but of Abraham Lincoln, who had been forced by the war to run for a second term in 1864, was swept to re-election following several Union battlefield victories, including General William Tecumseh Sherman's burning of Atlanta, and then was killed by Booth at Ford's Theater in Washington on April 14, 1865, the location and date of the actual Lee assassination. The America that follows, as described in Foote's epilogue, is one of a mostly-failed "Reconstruction," ending in a re-established racial segregation and repression that harms black Americans nearly as much as slavery had. It is a chilling tale, and the what-if novel will win the 37-year-old Foote the Pulitzer Prize for Literature. (In other words, Foote writes what happened in RL. In RL, he published the first volume of his Civil War history on this date.) May 7: Vietnam receives its independence from France. Ho Chi Minh, who, under his birth name of Nguyen Sinh Cung had attended the Versailles Conference in 1917 and had influenced some of the decisions made there, is proclaimed the nation's first President. He will soon stand for election, and wins with over 70 percent of the vote. It is a free election, accepted by Emperor Bao Dai. But Ho's party, the Vietnam Workers Party, is socialist. He says he will not ally his country with the People's Republic of China. He does not say whether he will ally with the socialist Russian Republic. American President Quentin Roosevelt will keep a close eye on Southeast Asia. (The RL Battle of Dienbienphu ended on this day.) May 17: Linda Brown walks to Sumner Elementary School in Topeka, Kansas, where she is in the sixth grade. She is black, and the school is racially integrated. There is nothing unsual about this. In fact, racial integration in public schools has been required since the Plessy v. Ferguson decision in 1896. (In RL, Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka overturned Plessy on this date.) September 29: Nelson Rockefeller, the Republican nominee for Governor of

New York, attends Game 1 of the World Series as the guest of Horace Stoneham, owner of the New York Giants. The Giants defeat the Cleveland Indians, 5-2, due to a fantastic catch by Willie Mays in the eighth inning and a home run by Dusty Rhodes in the tenth. Stoneham tells Rockefeller it would be a shame if the Giants ever had to move, but they will have to if the team cannot have a new stadium to replace the Polo Grounds. Thrilled by the Giants' performance, which will win the Series four days later, he tells Stoneham he will build the team a new ballpark -- if he is elected. (When I originally wrote this Timeline, I had the Dodgers and Giants move to California anyway, for the sole reason that I'd already written a Timeline in which they'd stayed. Whoever was running OTL.com at the time named the Timeline "New York Stadiums." With the move from OtherTimelines.com to Alternia to Different Worlds, however, I decided, it's my Timeline, and it's my world that I'm creating, and I'll make whatever changes I damn well please. So it is typed. So it has been done.) October 14: Erwin Rommel dies after 15 years as Chancellor of Germany. He dies from a heart attack, just short of his 63rd birthday. He is hailed around the world as a great warrior, and as the man who restored Germany's liberty and did much to rid the world of fascism. Using one of the few powers available to him by the post-World War II Constitution of the Fourth Reich, Kaiser Ludwig IV appoints Vice Chancellor Albert Speer to be the new Chancellor. (Rommel lives an extra 10 years. In RL, at this point, Speer was still in prison.) November 1: President Rene Coty of France grants Algeria its independence, preventing what could have been a long and bloody struggle. November 2: The Congressional elections are a wash, as the Democrats make slight gains to hold their majorities, meaning President Quentin Roosevelt must deal with Speaker Sam Rayburn and Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, both of Texas, for the rest of his (first?) term. The most interesting election is in the State of Cuba, where Democratic Congressman Fidel Castro is elected Governor, after a campaign in which he continually denounced the massive corruption in the Republican government of Governor Fulgencio Batista. In New York, Republican Nelson Rockefeller is elected Governor, defeating the Democratic incumbent, Averell Harriman.

Uncle Mike

Aug 18 2007, 01:33 AM Post #29

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member

#36 Joined: July 30, 2007 1955 January 11: Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York announces that a new ballpark will be built for the State's oldest continuously operating sports team, the New York Giants. It will be built at Flushing Meadow, across from the site of the 1939-40 New York World's Fair. It will be a round, multi-sport facility with movable field-level seats, allowing the NFL's version of the Giants to play there as well. He says it will seat 55,000 for baseball and 60,000 for football, and open in time for the 1958 season. (In RL, this becomes Shea Stadium, having first been offered to Dodger owner O'Malley, who didn't want to have the Brooklyn Dodgers in Queens. Robert Moses may have convinced him to move, but, still, O'Malley was wrong to move. If he thought he was so smart, he should have found a way to outfox Moses.) January 14: After meeting with Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley, Governor Nelson Rockefeller agrees to build a new stadium for the Dodgers as well as one for the Giants. O'Malley complained that Ebbets Field was too small at 31,500 seats and had insufficient parking. The new Dodger stadium would be constructed on the site of the Long Island Railroad Terminal in downtown Brooklyn, which would be demolished and rebuilt under the stadium, providing access to the stadium from both LIRR trains from the suburbs and the city subway system, eliminating the need for some parking, though a parking deck will also be built. The new stadium will seat 56,000 people, and is expected to open in 1958, within days of the new Giants stadium. (One change I made in the Dodgers & Giants Stay Timeline was that a Long Island kid named Carl Yastrzemski signed with Brooklyn. The Dodgers were interested in him, but Carl Sr., his father and agent, wanted his son to play closer to home, saying to the scout, "If only you were still in Brooklyn." The result was that, without Yaz, the Boston Red Sox don't get into that amazing 1967 Pennant race, and team owner Tom Yawkey works with Boston Patriots owner Billy Sullivan to build a multisport stadium in suburban Foxboro. Fenway Park is then demolished to make way for housing for nearby Boston University. In RL, that CITGO sign you see over the left-field wall, the Green Monster, is on top of a building housing the BU Bookstore, now run by Barnes & Noble. This results in what we knew as Schafer, then Sullivan, then Foxboro Stadium having a 330-foot left field fence, and Carlton Fisk's 12th inning drive in Game 6 of the 1975 World Series hooks foul, and the Red Sox lose the game and the Series to the Cincinnati Reds in the 13th inning. For Lee Union, however, I decided to have my cake, the Dodgers and Giants stay put; and eat it, too, Fenway survives.) March 30: The Academy Awards are held at the RKO Pantages Theater in Hollywood. On the Waterfront wins Best Picture, Best Actor for Marlon Brando, Best Director for Elia Kazan, Best Original Screenplay for Budd Schulberg, and Best Supporting Actress for Eva Marie Saint in her debut role. Dorothy Dandridge wins Best Actress for the title role in Carmen Jones, an all-black

version of the Georges Bizet opera Carmen. She is the first plack performer to win an Oscar for a leading role. There are, however, protests in some quarters that Judy Garland should have won for her role in the recent remake of A Star Is Born. (Despite strong support for both Dandridge and Garland, neither won. Grace Kelly did for "The Country Girl." It was hardly her best work. Some people wondered who she slept with to get the Oscar. Certainly not JFK, although it has been suggested that they did have a fling.) May 14: President Nikita Khrushchev of Russia founds the Warsaw Pact, an Eastern European counterpoint to NATO, consisting of Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. U.S. President Quentin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Anthony Eden, French President Rene Coty and especially German Chancellor Albert Speer are quite unhappy with this. June 24: The film Casino Royale premieres, the film version of the novel that introduced British secret agent 007, James Bond, in 1949. Famed British actor David Niven stars as Bond, due to his being the preference of Bond novelist Ian Fleming. Rumors persist that Dirk Bogarde had been pursued for the role, but had been turned down because of a perception of homosexuality, which would not have helped the image of the Bond character, a suave, hypermasculine womanizer. Rachel Roberts plays Bond's love interest, the sultry double agent Vesper Lynd, and Peter Lorre plays terrorist bankroller Le Chiffre. Fleming has also recently published the Bond novel Goldfinger. He will publish For Your Eyes Only in 1956 and Thunderball in 1957. (The first Bond film premieres seven years early. Roberts was a popular British actress of the time, Bogarde really was considered for the role of Bond but rejected for the aforementioned reason, and Lorre played Le Chiffre in an American TV-movie version of "Casino Royale," which aired on this date. But the closest Niven ever got to playing Bond was in the 1967 spoof version.) July 15: The Major League Baseball owners fire Commissioner Harry Truman. He had been a little too independent and much too favorable toward the players for their tastes. National League President Ford Frick is promoted into the job, and former Cincinnati Reds president Warren Giles is appointed President of the National League. William Harridge remains President of the American League. August 24: Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Chicagoan visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi, walks out of Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market, where he and his cousins had bought candy and soda. Carolyn Bryant, wife of the store's owner Roy Bryant, is behind the counter. Till turns around and whistles at her. Upset, she says, "Mind your manners, young man!" Till and his cousins giggle, and leave the store and return home. I had once planned a Timeline where Till survives his kidnapping, goes to law school, gets elected to Congress and, as the ultimate hero of the downtrodden in America, beats Ronald Reagan for President in 1984. That won't happen here, but he does have a better fate.) August 27: Roy Bryant visits the house of Mose Wright in Money, Mississippi. He tells Wright that his nephew, 14-year-old Emmett Till, shouldn't whistle at

white women like his wife, Carolyn. Wright tells Bryant that he'll remind Emmett to watch his manners. In a few days, Emmett will be sent back to Chicago, where he lives with his mother. (Till was brutally murdered for the whistling on this date. He will have a considerably different life in TTL.) September 24: Dwight D. Eisenhower, a General of World War II, former Secretary of War, and independent candidate for President in 1948, dies of a heart attack while visiting his wife's family in Denver. He is just short of his 65th birthday. For the rest of his own life, his son John will believe that, had he actually been elected President, the increased attention would have resulted in him receiving the medical attention that would have saved his life. (Ike did have a heart attack on this day, but because he was President, his life was in a position to be saved. He was taken to Fitzsimmons Army Hospital, the very building where another war hero with Presidential ambitions, John Kerry, was born in 1943.) October 4: President Quentin Roosevelt throws out the first ball before Game 7 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium. Sandy Amoros makes a game-saving catch in left field, Johnny Podres pitches a shutout, and the Brooklyn Dodgers defeat the New York Yankees, 2-0, to finally win their first World Series in eight attempts. Although not a fan of any particular team, the President flashes the familiar Roosevelt smile over the celebration of the Dodger fans in the enemy ballpark. When the team and its officials reach Brooklyn, Dodger broadcaster Vin Scully will later say, "It was New Orleans chaos!" It remains the largest celebration in Brooklyn since the end of World War II. (The Oyster Bay Roosevelts didn't like baseball much, thinking it not tough enough. But this is not the same Quentin Roosevelt who died at 21 in a war.) November 22: Chancellor Albert Speer announces that Germany has successfully tested its first atomic bomb. Now America, Britain, France, Russia and Germany all have the bomb. And, as usual stuck between Germany and Russia in a time of truculent talk, Poland is getting concerned. December 1: Rosa Parks boards a bus in downtown Montgomery, Alabama. She sits near the front. No one asks her to move to the back. She arrives home without incident. She lives another 50 years, with most Americans never hearing her name. December 14: After meeting with an activist named Bayard Rustin, Martin Luther King Jr., a black Baptist minister, currently leading a congregation in Montgomery, Alabama, decides to begin a crusade to eliminate poverty in America. For the moment, though, he is virtually unknown outside Montgomery and his home town of Atlanta, Georgia. This will take time, but he is young: He turns 27 next month. (Rustin talked King into leading the Montgomery Bus Boycott, sparked by Parks' arrrest. Without segregation to worry about, King has different priorities.) December 17: The Cleveland Browns win the NFL Championship, 38-21 over the Los Angeles Rams. Browns quarterback Otto Graham, despite seeming to be at the peak of his powers, and Rams running back Jackie Robinson, despite

scoring a touchdown in the game, both announce their retirements from pro football. Robinson, who also plays baseball for the Brooklyn Dodgers, decides to play baseball for at least one more year. 1956 February 25: In light of Germany's having begun an atomic-weapons program, Lavrenti Beria, Director of the KGB, the national-security agency of the Russian Republic, attempts a coup against President Nikita Khrushchev. But Khrushchev has the White Army on his side, and Beria's support in the nation is minimal. The coup fails, and Beria will soon be caught, tried, convicted and executed. The Republic is safe -- for now. (This was the date of Khrushchev's ant-Stalin "secret speech.") June 29: President Quentin Roosevelt signs the Railroad Readjustment Act. Advised that, for all the good it has done, the Interstate Highway Act of 1941 has pulled people away from the cities, leading to some decline, he called for this bill, which gave government grants to the nation's major railroads, allowing them to maintain their commuter lines in and out of the larger cities and to provide connections with smaller cities. (This was the date of the RL Interstate Highway Act.) July 26: President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt nationalizes the Suez Canal, infuriating Britain, France and Germany, all of whom now find it harder to get their ships through it. August 17: The Democratic Convention is held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, and, in keeping with the party's tradition, it is a mess. Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois, the Convention's host, is unexpectedly nominated on the fourth ballot as a compromise candidate, after a fine introductory speech allows him to outshine potential nominees such as Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson of Texas, Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri, Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, Governor Averell Harriman of New York, Governor Robert Meyner of New Jersey, Governor Frank Lausche of Ohio, Governor George Timmerman of South Carolina, former Governor John Battle of Virginia, and Congressman James C. Davis of Georgia. The Vice Presidential nomination becomes equally steamed, as Stevenson does not choose his own candidate, but, rather, leaves the choice up to the Convention. At first, it looks like the nomination will go to Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the 39-year-old son of Joseph P. Kennedy, the controversial former Ambassador to Britain. But Kennedy cannot get a majority of Delegates on the first ballot, and, fearing that his Catholicism might doom his candidacy, drops out, and asks the Convention to nominate the man in second place, Senator Johnson. Senators Kefauver and Humphrey, and Governor Fidel Castro of Cuba, all of whom had hopes of the second spot, are unhappy about this. But then, like those men, Kennedy is no great fan of Johnson, either. (Wanting a female candidate in there, I originally had Mrs. Meyner, the former Helen Stevenson, a future Congresswoman, and a cousin of Adlai, as a candidate. But she would've

been 27 at the time, making her ineligible for the Governorship, let alone the Presidency.) September 30: President Quentin Roosevelt makes a public statement on juvenile delinquency and the music many believe is fueling it, the new phenomenon of "rock and roll." But it is not the statement many had hoped for: "This new rock and roll music is no more a threat to American society and morals than was the swing music of the World War II years, or the jazz music of the 1920s. The young people who are buying the records and the music magazines are putting money into the American economy, and I support this. I'm the President of all the people, and that includes people who aren't yet old enough to vote. As for those people who are complaining about juvenile delinquency, I agree that it is a problem in this country. But it is not rock and roll that causes it. Young people rioted in Times Square when Frank Sinatra sang there a few years ago, and no one suggested banning Mr. Sinatra from the airwaves or the concert halls. And today, he is perhaps the most respected singer of popular music in the world. If it was not any particular kind of music, these people would be complaining about a particular style of clothing as promoting juvenile delinquency, or perhaps a certain kind of car, or a certain kind of architecture. Some people are never happy unless they have something to complain about. But I'm a Roosevelt. What's more, I'm an American. I believe that there is no problem that cannot be solved, or at least brought down to the level of a nuisance, rather than a threat. This new music is not a threat, and I won't even say it is a nuisance. If people don't want their children to become juvenile delinquents, then teach them right from wrong to the best of your ability. That's all any of us can do." The President has three children of his own: Quentin Jr., 33, an Assistant District Attorney in New York; Edith, 29, director of the public library in the Roosevelt family home town of Oyster Bay, Long Island; and Martha, 26, a clarinetist with the New York Philharmonic. None of them, especially Martha, has any use for rock and roll. (As far as I know, no President made a public statement about rock music until Jimmy Carter's statement on Elvis Presley's death in 1977. I totally made up the QR children. Notice also how QR knows the difference between a "threat" and a "nuisance." Would that today's RL Republicans did.) October 1: Bob Feller retires from baseball. The greatest pitcher of his generation, maybe of any generation, the former ace of the Cleveland Indians won 341 games, more than any pitcher in the post-1920 "lively ball era," and struck out 3,381 batters, more than any pitcher except Walter Johnson. He did this despite missing the better part of two years due to his service in the Navy during World War II. He will, however, be surprassed as the winningest lively ball era pitcher by Warren Spahn of the Milwaukee Braves. October 15: Justice Sherman Minton retires from the Supreme Court due to illness. To replace him, President Quentin Roosevelt appoints William J. Brennan, a Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court. Although a Democrat, he is highly qualified, highly respected within the legal community, and, according to Roosevelt, could have stood with the progressive Republicans led by his father, President Theodore Roosevelt. Brennan is easily confirmed.

October 23: Russian President Nikita Khrushchev, Polish President Wladyslaw Gomulka and Hungarian President Erno Gero sign a treaty that allows Poland and Hungary to have Russian-produced short-range nuclear missiles installed within their borders. This is a direct threat to Germany's Fourth Reich and Chancellor Albert Speer, who denounces the Pact as "the greatest threat to peace, anywhere in the world." October 24: As if the nuclear-missile treaty signed by the Warsaw Pact nations of Russia, Poland and Hungary yesterday wasn't unsettling enough, today Britain and Israel both demand that Egypt reopen the Suez Canal to their ships. President Nasser refuses. October 25: Prime Minister Anthony Eden tells the House of Commons that Britain may have to go to war with Egypt to get the Suez Canal reopened. The House does not seem to disagree with him. Michael Foot, a Labour MP for Plymouth, stands up and says, "I submit that the Right Honourable Gentleman is a bloody fool who does not deserve his high office!" Foot is not censured for his remarks. Eden is becoming very unpopular. (I love how, in the Commons, one MP can call another MP anything he wants, as long as he also calls him "the Honourable Gentleman," or, if a current or former Cabinet official or party leader, "the Right Honourable Gentleman." In the U.S. Congress, you can get censured for some of that name-calling.) October 26: President Quentin Roosevelt goes to United Nations headquarters in New York, and pleads for a peaceful resolution to the Suez Crisis. Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent of Canada has sent his Secretary of State for External Affairs, Lester Pearson, to see if he can work something out, so that Britain, still Canada's official "mother country" does not go to war. Roosevelt sends his Secretary of State, Matthew Ridgeway, to see if he can get Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to hold off on an attack. Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois, the Democratic nominee for President, offers his services to mediate. Roosevelt turns him down, not wanting to risk the chance of getting outflanked by a man out for not just the Presidency but the Nobel Peace Prize. October 29: Israel invades the Sinai Peninsula. Britain follows within hours with a bombing campaign over several Egyptian cities. The Suez War of 1956 is on. October 30: Chancellor Albert Speer of Germany and President Nikita Khrushchev of Russia both offer to help negotiate a settlement of the Suez War. Britain and Israel both decline, understandably. Khrushchev accuses Speer of offering false hope and trying to upstage him. Speer accuses Khrushchev of seeking publicity first and peace second. October 31: President Nikita Khrushchev announces, "The Russian Republic will never start a war. If Germany wants peace, it may have it, and we will not stand in its way." This seems to defuse tensions in Europe for the moment, but the war in Egypt goes on.

November 5: Matthew Ridgeway and Lester Pearson, the American and Canadian Secretaries of State, negotiate a cease-fire between Israel and Britain on one side and Egypt on the other. The Suez War is over after eight days. Israel had taken nearly the entire Sinai Peninsula, and Britain had destroyed much of modern Cairo, leaving the ancient parts of the city unscathed out of respect for history. But now, the Egyptians and Arabs despise Israel and Britain to levels not previously seen. Ridgeway and Pearson will shortly be awarded co-honors for the Nobel Peace Prize, but the peace they negotiate is a fragile one. Anthony Eden will soon resign as Prime Minister of Britain, giving way to Harold Macmillan. For the last 20 years of his life, the future Baron Eden of Avon will have an uncomfortable reason to, in the words of an old British political rhyme, "Remember, remember the Fifth of November." November 7: President Quentin Roosevelt and Vice President Richard Nixon, the Republican ticket, are re-elected in a landslide over the Democratic ticket of Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois and Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson of Texas. Roosevelt wins 35.6 million popular votes, 57.8 percent, and 465 Electoral Votes, to Stevenson's 25.9 million votes, 42.1 percent, and 73 EVs. Stevenson wins only Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, and, by a mere 4,000 votes, Missouri. He even loses his home State of Illinois. Some have attributed Roosevelt's win to his personality, looks and "the Roosevelt smile," compared to the bald, broken-nosed and perpetually gloomy-looking Stevenson. Others felt that, in the midst of crises in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, America could not take chances with a new President, referring to an old campaign slogan of Roosevelt's father, Theodore Roosevelt: "Don't change horses in midstream." Roosevelt becomes the first Republican President to win a second full term since his father, Theodore Roosevelt, in 1908. In addition, former Heisman Trophy winner Nile Kinnick is elected Governor of Iowa. December 8: "Roosevelt Rock," Bill Haley's tribute to the support given for rock and roll music by President Quentin Roosevelt, hits Number 1 on the pop, country and rhythm-and-blues charts. It replaces "Love Me Tender" by Elvis Presley at the top. Haley is asked what would have happened if Roosevelt had lost the recent election to Adlai Stevenson. "I guess radio stations would've flipped the record over and played the 'B side,'" he says. Publicly, Roosevelt says nothing about the tribute. Privately, he says he is flattered by it, but thinks it's a terrible recording. "Maybe singers shouldn't sing about the President," he says with a smile. He will not be the last President to express such an idea, but he might be the last to smile about it. 1957 January 3: Having barely held onto both houses of Congress after the Roosevelt landslide in November, the Democrats, knowing that the President is about to turn 60 years old and could, if successful, follow his father and win a third and possibly part of a fourth term before reaching his seventies, attempt to pass an Amendment to the Constitution limiting a President to just two terms. But while it gets a majority of the House of Representatives, it fails

to get the two-thirds majority necessary to amend the Constitution. QR can serve as long as the American people still want him, unless, of course, he dies, resigns due to illness, or commits some sort of impeachable offense; but with the Roosevelt dedication to integrity, the chances of that are absolutely astronomical. (In RL, a two-term Amendment, the 22nd, was passed in 1947 and ratified in 1951. So far, it has limited four Presidents. Three of them Republicans: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. One Democrat: Bill Clinton. Of course, the Republicans pushed it as a slap at FDR's memory.) January 17: Jackie Robinson retires from baseball. He played 10 years each with the NFL's Los Angeles Rams (1946-55) and Major League Baseball's Brooklyn Dodgers (1947-56). Of all the athletes who have played two sports at the major league level, he has probably been the best. He looks like a good candidate for both the Baseball Hall of Fame and the College Football Hall of Fame (from playing at UCLA). As of yet, there is no Professional Football Hall of Fame. January 19: On the 150th anniversary of his birth, and after almost 90 years of a memorial association lobbying for its construction, the Robert E. Lee Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C. President Quentin Roosevelt gives the dedication speech. Former Presidents Albert B. Chandler, Eleanor Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover also attend. Roosevelt had invited former President Joseph McCarthy, but, citing ill health, McCarthy declines. While his health is compromised, McCarthy had another reason for not going: He couldn't stand to attend a ceremony honoring the President who crushed the nascent Confederate States of America, and he certainly did not want to do so in the presences of Chandler and either of the Roosevelts. January 21: Since Inauguration Day fell on a Sunday, President Quentin Roosevelt was sworn in for his second term in a private ceremony at the White House yesterday, and today is given his formal ceremony at the Capitol. He says that, due to the Suez Crisis, America needs to wake up to the fact that it cannot rely on the oil-rich lands of the Middle East for its energy. "More than half a century ago," he tells the nation, "my father wrote that Americans never respond except in a crisis. The time has come to move away from crisis managment and into crisis prevention. This nation must commit itself to producing its own energy sources. That means finding our own oil, our own natural gas, our own coal, our own geothermal energy, and our own nuclear capacity." Most Americans cheer the idea, but some find the nuclear reference chilling, particularly in light of the recent renewal of saber-rattling between Germany and Russia, longtime rivals and the two newest members of "the nuclear club." (The words "from crisis managment and into crisis prevention" comes from JFK & LBJ Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, well after the fact of the crises of those times.) February 25: Justice Stanley Reed retires from the Supreme Court. President Quentin Roosevelt appoints Judge Charles Whittaker to replace him. He will be easily confirmed.

April 4: Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth, is launched by Russia. It is a major publicity coup for President Nikita Khrushchev's socialist Republic. The Space Age has begun, and so has the Space Race. (Six months earlier than in RL.) April 8: Riding a tide of approval after last week's launch of Sputnik I, Earth's first aritificial satellite, Russian President Nikita Khrushchev is elected to a fourth term, defeating Georgi Malenkov. April 10: A bill is rushed through Congress, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA. President Quentin Roosevelt, always interested in new technology, not to mention always interetsed in Cold War propaganda, gladly signs the bill. May 2: Former President Joseph R. McCarthy dies at his home in Appleton, Wisconsin. Only 48 years old, the youngest President ever and the youngest former President ever becomes the shortest-lived President ever, due to advanced liver disease. Apparently, he was also the most alcoholic President ever, which, some of his critics have long contended, explained his exaggeration of the Communist threat. None of the living Presidents -Quentin Roosevelt, Happy Chandler, Eleanor Roosevelt or Herbert Hoover -attends his funeral. May 3: Russia launches Sputnik II into orbit. The small artificial satellite contains Laika, a small female dog. She becomes the first living creature launched from Earth into space. But there was no way to keep her alive during re-entry, and Sputnik II burns up, incinerating the poor animal. President Quentin Roosevelt denounces this as "barbaric," and announces that, before America sends a living creature into space, it must be protected during re-entry. President Nikita Khrushchev sends Roosevelt a telegram, saying, "And when you get anything into space, living or inanimate, let me know." These two men do not like each other. May 8: The film Dr. No, based on the 1954 James Bond novel by Ian Fleming, is released. David Niven stars as Bond, who tries to stop Doctor Julius No (played by Joseph Wiseman), a mad scientist who tries to start a war between China and the NATO powers. It features 21-year-old Swiss actress Ursula Andress in the role of shell diver Honey Ryder, who is remembered by many Bond fans as the definitive "Bond Girl," although some remark that the 47year-old Niven seems too old for her. Film producer Albert "Cubby" Broccoli is already considering replacing Niven with a younger actor, although Dr. No does better at the box office than the first Bond film, Casino Royale. (I was a little hesitant to keep "Ursula Undress," since she would have been five years younger. But how could I deny her?) July 31: After several attempts at launching the first American satellite, Explorer I is launched from an Air Force base at Cape Canaveral, Florida. It is a small object, and stays in orbit for a few days before falling and burning up in the atmosphere. (Again, six months sooner.)

September 4: A new schoolyear starts at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. The school has both black and white students. There is nothing unusual about this; it has been the case for 60 years. Arkansas' Governor, Democrat Orval Faubus, has been considering running for President in 1960. His biggest problem? He is almost unknown outside his home State. There are worse problems for a would-be President to have. (As the RL Faubus found out, as Ike laid the smack down on him, though he would have preferred not to.) September 5: The novel On the Road by Jack Kerouac is published. A tale of four cross-country trips from 1947 to 1950, it becomes the signature work of the "Beat Generation" group of writers that also includes Allen Ginsberg, whose poem "Howl" has been the subject of an obscenity trial; and William S. Burroughs, whose novel Naked Lunch has also been tried for obscenity. The Beats' works presage the changing attitudes toward life, capitalism, sex, drugs and freedom in general from the late 1950s onward. September 24: The Brooklyn Dodgers, with their new stadium scheduled to open the next spring, play their final game at Ebbets Field. They defeat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 2-0. Two days earlier, Duke Snider had hit the last two home runs in the park. Ebbets Field has been purchased by real-estate developer Sam LeFrak, who wants to keep it open as a stadium for high school and collegiate sports. The stadium will survive LeFrak, who dies in 2003. September 29: The New York Giants, with their new stadium in Queens scheduled to open next spring, play their final game at the Polo Grounds. They lose to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 9-1. Pirate Bill Virdon hits the last home run in the park, whose fate is in limbo since the NFL's Giants are also moving to Queens. October 12: The novel Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand is published. Like On the Road, it sells very well at first. Unlike On the Road, it does not hold up well, as it becomes mocked in the decades to come for its "moral selfishness." Another controversial noveslist, Norman Mailer, calls her an "anti-Beat" when he meets her at a subsequent party, comparing her to his fellow iconoclasts Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs. Having read the book, with its scenes which step away from traditional conservatism to celebrate sex, romantic and otherwise, Mailer propositions Rand. She slaps him. He slaps her back. They begin an affair that lasts what Rand calls "two sublime weeks followed by four hours of an acrimonious, argumentative end," and what Mailer calls "four days I'll never get back." (Wendell suggested the addition of Rand to this Timeline. She will appear in here again.) 1958 February 1: Presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt and Shukri al-Quwatli of Syria sign a treaty of alliance. But King Faisal II of Babylon refuses to join in. His cousin, King Hussein I of Jordan, also refuses to sign. Both cite American

support for Israel and concern over being dragged into a new war between Egypt and the European powers. Nasser's dream of a United Arab Republic has suffered a major setback. March 26: The Academy Awards are held in Los Angeles. Rescue On the River Kwai, about the liberation of an Allied prisoner-of-war camp in Thailand in 1939, wins Best Picture, Best Director for David Lean, Best Actor for Alec Guinness, and Best Supporting Actor for Japanese star Sessue Hayakawa. (Replacing "Bridge On the River Kwai.") April 15: Stoneham Stadium opens at Flushing Meadow in Queens. The New York Giants defeat their crosstown rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers, 8-0. The ceremonial first pitch is thrown out by Mayor Robert Wagner, a Giants fan. Daryl Spencer hits the first home run in the new park. (The San Francisco Giants beat the Los Angeles Dodgers at Seals Stadium in San Francisco, the first Major League Baseball game played west of Kansas City.) April 18: Dodger Stadium opens in downtown Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Dodgers defeat their crosstown rivals, the New York Giants, 6-5, despite the first two home runs in the park being hit by Giant Hank Sauer. The ceremonial first pitch is thrown out by Hall-of-Famer Zack Wheat, who helped the Dodgers win pennants in 1916 and 1920. (The Dodgers beat the Giants at the Los Angeles Coliseum.) June 5: The Democratic Primary is held in Alabama, tantamount to election in November since the Republicans are still virtually nonexistent in the State. Judge George Wallace is elected Governor, defeating State Attorney General John Patterson. Patterson's job is won by State Senator Richmond Flowers. (Patterson beat Wallace, based solely on the issue of segregation. In language I will not use here, Wallace vowed never to be beaten based on the issue of race again.) July 11: For Your Eyes Only, the third James Bond film, is released. David Niven stars as Bond, who has to retrieve sensitive equipment from a sunken British spy ship disguised as a fishing trawler. Ian Fleming, author of the Bond novels, has recently published another, The Spy Who Loved Me. He will publish On Her Majesty's Secret Service in 1959, You Only Live Twice in 1960, and The Man With the Golden Gun in 1961. But the film version of For Your Eyes Only does not do as well as either Casino Royale or Dr. No, and many blame Niven's advancing age (he's 48). Producer Albert "Cubby" Broccoli will take three years to search for the new Agent 007. (The title "For Your Eyes Only" was available in RL-1958, but it would not be sued for a film until 1981.) July 14: Babylonian troops loyal to King Faisal II foil a coup attempt by Colonel Abdul Karim Qassim, who is executed for treason shortly thereafter. Babylon remains a constitutional monarchy. (King Faisal II of Iraq and most of his family were assassinated on this day as the result of a successful coup, led by Qassim.)

September 17: Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox collects his 3,000th career hit, a single off Hal Brown of the Baltimore Orioles at Memorial Stadium. The Red Sox win, 6-5. This milestone comes three months after Stan Musial of the St. Louis Cardinals achieved the milestone, off Moe Drabowsky of the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field in a 5-3 Cardinal win on May 13. Before that, no player had reached the 3,000 Hit Club since Paul Waner in 1945. September 28: The election which French President Rene Coty was forced to call surprises everyone. A coalition of business leaders and war veterans, unhappy at the taxes raised and the release of colonies such as Algeria had launched enough political demonstrations to send Coty's National Center of Independents and Peasants (CNIP), Pierre Pfimlin's Popular Republican Movement (MRP) and former President Vincent Auriol's Union of Democrats for the Republic (UDR) to the polls. The surprise victor is Socialist Party leader Jean Moulin, who has vowed to remake French society. (Pompey suggested I do something with Moulin, who was killed by the Nazis in RL-1943.) October 13: Justice Harold Burton retires from the Supreme Court due to illness. President Quentin Roosevelt appoints Judge Potter Stewart to replace him. He is easily confirmed. November 4: British poet Sir Wilfred Owen, famed for his work about Army life in World War I, dies of cancer at the age of 65. (He died right before the 1918 armistice. In TTL, he gets another 40 years, enabling himself to keep on writing, receive a knighthood, and, in a Divergence from TTL written by Joe Bonkers and fully authorized by me, alter the lives of the Beatles and their fans: The Beatles stay together, as he has Owen go home, get married, and have a son who has a daughter who gets to John Lennon before Yoko Ono does.) November 5: The Democrats make big gains in Congress. Despite a massive Republican propaganda campaign, Governor Fidel Castro of Cuba is reelected. He decides to celebrate by, among other things, lighting a "victory cigar" and growing a beard. Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York is reelected. December 12: The Republic of Kenya declares its independence from Britain. There had been an insurgency, but President Jomo Kenyatta had managed to to pacify the nation with soothing rhetoric and calls to patriotism. (Five years early.) 1959 January 1: Governor Fidel Castro of Cuba survives an assassination attempt. The shooter, a young Cuban named Virgilio Gonzalez, fires five shots, all of which miss. Castro's bodyguards fire 50 shots, 34 of which hit the mark. Gonzalez dies within seconds. (The Castro revolution succeeded on this date. Gonzalez would participate in the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Watergate burglary.)

June 18: Emmett Till, age 18, graduates from DuSable High School on the South Side of Chicago. (Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, a fur trader, was the first permanent non-Indian settler of what is now Chicago, and was mostly black, so his name was ideal for a school in the largest black neighborhood in the country. Had Till lived, he almost certainly would have attended DuSable High.) July 24: Vice President Richard Nixon attends a trade show in Moscow, hosted by Russian President Nikita Khrushchev, who wants to get to know the frontrunner to be the next President of the United States, as he has not yet met the current President, Quentin Roosevelt. At what becomes known as the "Kitchen Summit," Nixon says he will ask Roosevelt to set up a meeting. Khrushchev lets Nixon in on a big secret: Russia, currently a socialist republic, and the other Warsaw Pact nations of Eastern Europe, are not on good terms with the world's one Communist nation, the People's Republic of China. Nixon asks why Russia doesn't use its influence on them. Khrushchev says it would start a brutal war: "We don't want to get involved in it. And neither do you. You could use your atomic bombs, but, sooner or later, you would try to impose your will on them. And you can't. There are just too many of them. They will bury you." Nixon notes in his diary the dangers of being an occupier nation in a country that is not intimately familiar with democracy. (This takes the place of the Kitchen Debate. This is the second time I've used Khrushchev's line "We will bury you," which has been translated as both "We will kill you" and "We will attend your funeral.") September 15: Russian President Nikita Khrushchev begins a 13-day visit in the United States. He and his wife are met coming off the Aeroflot plane by President Quentin Roosevelt and his wife Flora. Khrushchev says that he has arrived "with open heart and good intentions. The Russian people want to live in friendship with the American people." The two Presidents meet at Camp Esther in Maryland, and "the Spirit of Camp Esther" is born. A new summit is planned for Paris next year, between the leaders of their respective alliances, NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Roosevelt thinks it could be the dawn of a new era of peace. Khrushchev thinks it could be a way to unite Europe -- under socialism, of course, not that he tells Roosevelt this. September 22: The Brooklyn Dodgers defeat the Milwaukee Braves at Dodger Stadium, to win their first pennant since moving into their new downtown Brooklyn home. October 3: A revolution in China leads to the replacement of Liu Shaoqui with Zhou Enlai. The former aide to Mao Zedong has been rehabilitated. He plans a "great leap forward" for his country, based on something Mao had written. He wanted Liu dumped because of his alleged bungling of an alliance between China and President Nasser of Egypt. October 9: The Chicago White Sox defeat the Brooklyn Dodgers in Game 7 at Comiskey Park, to win the World Series. It is the first World Championship by a Chicago team since 1917. (In RL, the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the White Sox in 6, but in this version, the ChiSox take more advantage of the new

Dodger Stadium than the Brooks do.) November 1: Dutch author Anne van Pels is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, for The Backhouse Diary, her novel about the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands in 1939. (Anne van Pels is, of course, a surviving Anne Frank.) Uncle Mike Aug 18 2007, 02:17 PM Post #30

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 1960 January 2: The race for the Presidency is on. On the Republican side, the only serious challenger to Vice President Richard Nixon appears to be Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York. On the Democratic side: Senators Lyndon Johnson of Texas (the Senate Majority Leader and the 1956 Vice Presidential nominee), John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, Stuart Symington of Missouri and Albert Gore of Tennessee; and Governors Bob Meyner of New Jersey, Edmund "Pat" Brown of California, Orval Faubus of Arkansas and Fidel Castro of Cuba. Former Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois, the 1956 nominee and Meyner's cousin, has announced he will not run. (In RL, Faubus' campaign went nowhere; Albert Gore Sr. never ran for President; and Castro, well, he was constitutionally eligible.) March 8: Senator John F. Kennedy wins the New Hampshire Primary. However, being that he is from next-door Massachusetts, this Primary was not seriously contested. April 5: The Wisconsin Primary is held. The only two candidates who are seriously contesting it are Senators John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Hubert H. Humphrey of neighboring Minnesota. Despite Humphrey's proximity, Kennedy rides a strong Catholic vote to win. The true test of the possibility of a Kennedy nomination is in the next Primary, in Virginia, which is not only Southern rather than Northeastern or Midwestern, but almost wholly Protestant. And all the major candidates will be contesting it: Kennedy, Humphrey, Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson of Texas, Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee, Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri, Governor Helen Meyner of New Jersey, Governor Pat Brown of California, and Governor Fidel Castro of Cuba.

May 1: President Quentin Roosevelt is told that a spy-plane, a U-2 (formerly designated an AF-106) is missing and presumed crashed -- over Communist China. "We'd better hope the pilot is dead," Roosevelt says. Later that day, Premier Zhou Enlai announces that the pilot, Francis Gary Powers, is dead -but only after being captured, tortured, and telling everything he knows, including everything about the U-2 missions that have been flying over China, and also Russia and the other Warsaw Pact nations, since the plane was put into service by the CIA in 1955. "Why did I let you talk me into this damn fool thing?" Roosevelt asks his brother, Kermit Roosevelt, his National Security Adviser. "This probably wrecks the Paris Summit. Khrushchev will be furious. And it probably hurts Dick's chances in November, maybe even in August!" he says, referring to Vice President Richard Nixon, the presumed Republican nominee for President. As to the first part, Quent is right: Khrushchev fumes that, "The American President says he wants peace, yet he flies his planes behind our backs!" (The Cold War was with the Soviet Union first, and Powers survived getting shot down over the Soviet Union. He was traded for a captured Soviet spy, Rudolf Abel, and did go on to die in an aircraft crash. In 1977, he was piloting a traffic helicopter for a Los Angeles news broadcast.) May 4: Chairman Zhou Enlai of China releases a report on the results of the atomic bombs dropped on Chinese soldiers by the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War, which ended 10 years ago this week. The report says that over 125,000 Chinese and 40,000 Red Korean soldiers died, and another 60,000 Chinese and 20,000 Koreans suffered severe radiation burns. The report is designed to embarrass President Quentin Roosevelt during the Paris summit between the NATO and Warsaw Pact leaders, on top of the U-2 spy-plane incident earlier this week. May 5: The Paris summit begins, and it is ugly. President Khrushchev of Russia waits for President Roosevelt of the U.S. to arrive, and then stands up and shakes his fist and waves his arms and wags his finger and denounces Roosevelt in words that, when translated from Russian into English, involve all kinds of vulgar references. When Prime Minister Macmillan of Britain tries to calm things down, he misfires by denouncing socialism. Khrushchev begins to pound his fist on his table. When Macmillan tries to continue, Khrushchev removes his shoe and pounds that on the table. Roosevelt and Macmillan look like fools. President Moulin of France, the host and, like Khrushchev, a socialist, tries to calm things down, but the visitors in the gallery end up laughing at him. When he walked into the room, Moulin was as popular as he had ever been. When he walks out, he will never be that popular again. (Krushchev's antics described in this entry took place later in the year, in October. Whether it threw the election from Nixon to Kennedy is unclear, but it was so close, it might have thrown it.) May 10: Following the debacle of the Paris Summit, the Virginia Primary, to find the Democratic nominee to be Quentin Roosevelt's successor, is held. Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee wins with his rural charm and surprisingly strong foreign-policy pronouncements. Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts finishes a distant second, despite having gained the public support of New York Congressman Franklin Roosevelt Jr., son of former

President Eleanor Roosevelt. None of the other candidates come anywhere near Gore and Kennedy. All the other Southerners, knowing that Virginia was their best chance, drop out, leaving Gore, Kennedy, Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri, Governor Bob Meyner of New Jersey, Governor Pat Brown of California, and Governor Fidel Castro of Cuba. However, all but Gore, Kennedy and Humphrey are little more than "favorite-son candidates" who would only have a chance in the event of a deadlocked convention, still a possibility. (With the Civil War cut off when it was still "the Slavery Rebellion," the Counties that became the State of West Virginia would not have seceded in 1863, therefore Virginia and West Virginia are one State. In a TL where Southerners weren't stigmatized, JFK wouldn't have had a chance in what we know as West Virginia. At least, not at that point in his career. But FDR was still beloved there, and FDR Jr. campaigned with JFK, and that may have made as much difference as Joe Kennedy's money. It was the father who made the difference: The father of FDR Jr.) June 8: Senator Gore wins the California Primary, despite a Congressman from that State, James Roosevelt, another son of Eleanor, supporting Senator Humphrey. Humphrey drops out of the race. It is now between Gore and Senator Kennedy, with the "favorite son" candidates holding the balance, as neither candidate has a majority going into the Convention, also in California, at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. July 1: The Atlantic Monthly magazine publishes "Notes From the Wrong Side of the Tracks," an article about the dangers of poverty in America, written by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: "On the one hand, I must attempt to change the soul of individuals so that their societies may be changed. On the other, I must attempt to change the societies so that the individual soul will have a chance. Therefore, I must be concerned about unemployment, slums and economic insecurity. I am a profound advocator of the social gospel." King also wrote this: "One of the great weaknesses of liberal theology is that it becomes so involved in higher criticism, in many instances that it fails to answer certain questions...the weakness lies in its failure to connect the masses. Liberal theology seems to be lost in a vocabulary. Moreover, it seems too divorced from life." The words come on the eve of the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. Both Senator Gore, the leader in Democratic delegates, and Vice President Nixon, the apparent Republican nominee-in-waiting, take note, since both grew up in poverty and became wealthy in private life before entering public life. (MLK really did write these words, but not on this day, the day his "Letter From Birmingham Jail" was published. He wrote it while at Morehouse College in Atlanta.) July 13: The Democratic Party nominates their candidate for President at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. The delegates: Senator Albert A. Gore of Tennessee, 767, just over the 761 needed for a majority; Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, 409; Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri, 43; former Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois, not even an announced candidate, 39 1/2; Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, 21; Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson of Texas, 20; Governor Pat Brown of California, 17; Governor Bob Meyner of New Jersey, 16; Governor Fidel Castro

of Cuba, 14; and the rest scattered. In the interest of party unity, Pauline Gore, the Senator's wife and a county Judge, suggests offering Kennedy the Vice Presidential nomination. Robert F. Kennedy, JFK's brother and campaign manager, rejects the idea, saying the candidate is "worthy of more than just second place," but JFK says, "The delegates said otherwise," and accepts. JFK even gives Gore a line to use in his acceptance speech, in front of 100,000 spectators in the next-door Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, calling America "to reach a new frontier." RFK holds his tongue, but does not particularly like Southerners, particularly Southern Senators such as Gore and Johnson. July 31: After three years of Russia trying such experiments, America is finally ready to launch a living being into space. Ham the chimpanzee is launched in a Mercury capsule on a Redstone rocket, orbits the Earth, and returns safely in a Pacific Ocean splashdown. He shows no ill effects, and lives on at a zoo until 1986. President Roosevelt and Vice President Nixon hope to get a human American into space before the election on November 8, in the hopes of tipping the balance. August 2: Baseball's major leagues announce that they will expand. The 1961 season will begin with the Minnesota Twins and Los Angeles Angels being added to the American League. Washington Senators owner Calvin Griffith had wanted to move his team in Minnesota, but is voted down by his fellow owners. Instead, he sells the Senators, who remain in Washington, and accepts the expansion franchise for a bargain price. The 1962 season will begin with the Houston Colt .45's, later to be renamed the Astros, and the San Francisco Miners being added to the National League. (The RL Twins stay as the "Senators," and the RL "New Senators," who became the Texas Rangers in 1972, here become the Twins.) August 17: The Republican Convention is held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago. Vice President Richard Nixon holds off challenges from Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York, Governor Nile Kinnick of Iowa, and Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona to be nominated. The Vice Presidential nominee is Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, a former Senator from Massachusetts -- who lost that office in 1952 to the Democrats' VP nominee, John F. Kennedy -- and the grandson of President Henry Cabot Lodge (served 1919-21). But with the world in turmoil, President Quentin Roosevelt's foreign policy being questioned, the American economy stalled, and the Democrats having nominated the articulate, likable Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee, Nixon will need help. September 10: Cassius Clay, a black American boxer, wins the Gold Medal in the light-heavyweight class at the Olympics in Rome. While there, he meets a visiting dignitary, Patrice Lumumba, recently re-elected President of the Republic of the Congo. Clay shows great interest in how the black people of Africa have worked their way to independence from their former colonial masters in the 20 years since the end of World War II. Clay begins to speak with athletes from many other countries, and is particularly intrigued by the Muslims. He soon begins his professional boxing career. (This was my way of turning Cassius Clay into Muhammad Ali without the Black Muslims having

much influence, particularly since they don't have Malcolm X. This allows him to go to mainstream Islam, and not treat white people as "white devils.") September 11: The American Football League begins play. With the Polo Grounds in Harlem, Manhattan being too old and in a state of disrepair, and both it and the new Stoneham Stadium in Flushing Meadow, Queens having 56,000 seats to fill, the New York Titans play their home games at Ebbets Field in Flatbush, Brooklyn, with just 31,500 seats to fill. They defeat the Buffalo Bills, 27-3, in front of a sellout crowd. The NFL's New York Giants continue to play at Yankee Stadium in The Bronx. (The Titans played at the Polo Grounds until RL-Shea/TTL-Stoneham Stadium opened in 1964, and they became the Jets..) September 16: After considerable sniping by Vice President Richard Nixon, the Republican nominee for President, about "conflict of interest," Judge Pauline Gore, wife of Senator Albert Gore, the Democratic nominee, announces she will resign her seat on the federal bench, effective next January 20, if her husband wins. "If the Vice President wins," she says, "he can forget about replacing me. And President Roosevelt won't replace me, either. My husband won't have me on the bench, but he can appoint my successor." Publicly, Senator Gore will never say a word about the controversy. Reporters covering the Presidential campaign are split as to which candidate is hurt more: Gore for the potential conflict of interest, or Nixon for what James Reston of the New York Times calls his "using whining to make a partisan mountain out of an ethical molehill." September 26: Vice President Nixon and Senator Gore have the first of four televised debates. The debates of 1952 were seen as critical for electing Quentin Roosevelt over the incumbent, Happy Chandler, but debates were not held in 1956. Nixon feels he needs them to win, and Gore was happy to accept the challenge. But Nixon has been ill, and looks terrible, and does a poor job of defending the Roosevelt-Nixon Administration's record. By contrast, Gore, though not as experienced in international affairs, looks more composed, and his soft Tennessee accent makes him sound thoughtful and homespun, as opposed to the harder-edged Nixon. Most observers seem to think that Gore won the debate, and, although the remaining three debates are considered to be either Nixon victories or draws, the first one does Gore a huge favor. September 28: Ted Williams retires from baseball. In his last at-bat, the left fielder for the Boston Red Sox hits a home run over the center-field fence at Fenway Park. It is his 604th career homer, putting him second on the all-time list, just 110 off the lead. Although he is 42 years old, he seems to still have some good hitting left in him, but he retires anyway. "Passing Babe Ruth's record of 714 home runs doesn't mean anything to me," he says. "It's time for me to go." He retires with 3,184 hits in 9,266 at-bats, for a lifetime batting average of .344, the highest of any player in the post-1920 "lively ball era." He once said, "All I ever wanted was to walk down the street and have people say, 'There goes the greatest hitter who ever lived.'" Many fans say he was, and most others say, if he wasn't, then he wasn't very far behind Ruth in that

regard, either. October 12: Russian "cosmonaut" Yugi Gagarin becomes the first human in space, launched on a rocket called Vostok I. The timing could not have been worse for Vice President Nixon, as the third of his four debates with Senator Gore is tomorrow night. Although he will defend the American space program, it now seems unlikely that there will be a launch before the November 8 election, which could give him a public-relations boost and maybe the win. (Gagarin's flight comes six months early.) November 5: Commander Alan B. Shepard Jr. of the U.S. Navy becomes the first American in space, aboard the Mercury capsule Freedom 7. Although, officially, the mission is named Mercury III, as they carry the first seven U.S. astronauts named last year, all Mercury capsules will have the number 7 as part of their name, while the missions themselves will have Roman numerals. The launch, and the 15-minute trip up into space, but not into Earth orbit, comes on a beautiful Saturday morning at Cape Canaveral, on the Atlantic coast of Florida. The Presidential election is in three days. The polls show the race between Vice President Nixon and Senator Gore to be a dead heat. Nixon wonders if the launch will help him, or if not actually getting into orbit will make the difference. (Shepard's flight is also six months early.) November 8: Albert Arnold Gore, Democratic Senator from Tennessee, is elected President, defeating the incumbent Vice President, Republican Richard M. Nixon of California. The popular vote is very close: 34.2 million, or 49.9 percent, for Gore, and 34.1 million, or 49.6 percent, for Nixon, a difference of 118,584 votes according to the offical count finalized early the next year. The Electoral Vote is a bit wider, giving Gore 320 to Nixon's 218. Among the other elections today, Republican John Volpe, currently the Federal Highway Administrator, is elected Governor of Massachusetts. Malcolm Little, a former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, is elected the State's Attorney General. (This ends OtherTimeines.com's Timeline 4117, "Lee Union Part 5: Crowded Hours," which beegan with Quentin Roosevelt's Inauguration on 1/20/1953, and begins Timeline 4129, "Lee Union Part 6: New Frontiers.") 1961 January 20: Albert Gore takes office as the 37th President of the United States. John F. Kennedy is his Vice President, World War II hero and former Secretary of Defense Omar Bradley is Secretary of State, and former Army General Maxwell Taylor is Secretary of Defense. In his Inaugural Address, Gore announces that America will continue to seek peace with other nations, peaceful economic competition, and a space program with, as a goal, reaching the Moon by the end of the decade. Quentin Roosevelt leaves the White House and returns home to Oyster Bay, with a record of peace and, mostly, prosperity. But Roosevelt's last year in office saw great international difficulties, and a greater sense of poverty in the country has been raised by a young black minister named Martin Luther King.

March 29: The 23rd Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, giving the District of Columbia three Electoral Votes in Presidential elections, as many as it would have if it were a State. April 8: Esther Kapiolani, last monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii and the first Governor of the State of Hawaii, dies at the age of 58. April 11: John "Buck" O'Neil manages his first game for the Chicago Cubs, becoming the first black man to manage in Major League Baseball. He leads the Cubs to a 2-1 victory over the Cincinnati Reds at Crosley Field. However, the Cubs will finish in fifth place, with a losing record. (The first black manager would not be hired until just after the 1974 season: Frank Robinson by the Cleveland Indians. O'Neil replaced the RL-Cubs' "College of Coaches" experiment, one of the most mocked in sports history.) April 12: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. At the heart of the novel, which takes place in Alabama between 1933 and 1935, is the trial of Arthur "Boo" Radley, a simpleminded but gentle poor white Southerner, accused of rape. The novel examines the themes of mental illness, alcoholism, drug addiction, physical handicaps, incest, and, in the climactic scene of the trial, homosexuality, as the witness who leads to Boo's acquittal is the alleged rape victim's brother, who claims that he, not his sister, was caught in bed with Boo, by the sister, who was then beaten by their father for suggesting that a Southern boy could be "a fairy." Lee, who based narrator Jean Louise "Scout" Finch on herself, has taken some criticism, partly for allegations that the book was at least partly written by Truman Capote, author of Other Voices, Other Rooms (and already working on In Cold Blood) and her friend since childhood, but also for having the jury be racially integrated, which was not likely to have happened in Alabama in the 1930s. Capote will later claim that he wrote none of the book, but that he did inspire the character of Dill Harris, Scout's childhood best friend, and that of Boo Radley. The novel will be made into a film in 1962, and Gregory Peck will win the Oscar for Best Actor as Atticus Finch, Scout's father and Boo's lawyer. (With race much less of a factor, this book becomes an early support for gay rights, and remains one of the greatest books in American history. Capote once remarked, "I'm an alcoholic. I'm a drug addict. I'm a homosexual. I'm a genius." The first three were true. The fourth? That's an opinion I do not share.) April 17: The Cuban legislature passes an Amendment to the State Constitution, striking down term limits for its Governors. Fidel Castro can now run for a third term. The legislature's Republican minority reacts angrily, but Governor Castro calls their catcalls "the baying of pigs." (Of course, this was the day of the RL Bay of Pigs fiasco.) April 27: The Los Angeles Angels play the first Major League Baseball game on the West Coast, losing to the Washington Senators, 4-2 at Wrigley Field, the 21,000-seat stadium once belonging to the Pacific Coast League team that had been the L.A. Angels, a farm team of the Chicago Cubs. Cubs Park, as their home field was then known had been the basis for designing the Los

Angeles park in 1925, which was given the name Wrigley Field by Cubs owner William Wrigley, who then gave the same name to the Cubs' facility. June 30: The Eleanor Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum opens at ValKill, her estate in Hyde Park, New York. Her husband Franklin's nearby family home, Springwood, is included as part of the tour. The former President has been ill of late but is able to preside over the ceremonies. Also in attendance are her sons, Congressmen Franklin Roosevelt Jr. of New York and James Roosevelt of California; her son, Mayor Elliott Roosevelt of Miami Beach, Florida; and her daughter, journalist Anna Boettiger. Son John Roosevelt, a California-based businessman and the only Republican in the Hyde Park branch of the family, chose not to attend. But cousin and former President Quentin Roosevelt, leader of the Oyster Bay wing of the family, does attend, and this begins a reconciliation between the two sets of Roosevelts. President Albert Gore and former President Happy Chandler are also on hand, but former President Herbert Hoover declined his invitation, citing illness, even though he is well for a man of 86 and lives in nearby New York City. He is still bitter toward the Hyde Park Roosevelts. July 21: The Robert E. Lee Library and Slavery Museum is dedicated at the University of Virginia's main campus in Charlottesville, on the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Bull Run, in which General Lee crushed the Slavery Rebellion, bringing the movement to maintain slavery to its knees. Lee, elected President in 1864, served in the office only 43 days before being assassinated, the shortest term in the history of the office, so the monument is not referred to as a "Presidential Library," but is rather a tribute to those held in slavery on the North American continent over a 250-year period, and the army, and its commanding officer, who put a stop to it. Over a hundred members of the Lee family attend, as do two great-grandchildren of President Abraham Lincoln. President Albert Gore speaks at the dedication. Also on hand are former Presidents Quentin Roosevelt, Happy Chandler and Herbert Hoover. Former President Eleanor Roosevelt was ill and could not attend, and was represented by her sons, Franklin Roosevelt Jr. of New York and James Roosevelt of California, both Congressmen. August 20: "Godspeed, John Glenn!" So says Mission Control at Cape Canaveral, Florida, as the Marine Colonel and hero pilot of the Korean War becomes the first American to orbit the Earth, on the Mercury VI mission, inside the Friendship 7 capsule. December 28: Edith Galt dies at her home in Washington, D.C. She was the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate (as a Democrat, from Virginia), and was also the first woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court (by President Frances Cleveland, the first woman to hold that job). (The RL Edith Wilson, First Lady 1915-21, died on this day, on the anniversary of her husband's birthday.) 1962 January 23: The Baseball Hall of Fame elects two men in their first year of

eligibility, an honor granted to no player since the first elections in 1936. They are former Cleveland Indians pitcher Bob Feller and former Brooklyn Dodgers infielder Jackie Robinson. Though Robinson played only 10 years in the major leagues, he had also been a great football star with the Los Angeles Rams, and this superb all-around athletic ability may have swayed Hall of Fame voters. But there will not be a Pro Football Hall of Fame until next year, and they will induct several of that game's pioneers before they get around to inducting more recent players like Robinson. The Hall's Veterans Committee will also induct two representatives of the Cincinnati Reds, right fielder Edd Roush from their 1919 World Champions, and Bill McKechnie, manager of their 1940 World Champions. March 31: Bowing to lingering illness, Justice Charles Whittaker retires from the Supreme Court. To his vacancy, President Albert Gore appoints Judge Byron White, a former football star known as "Whizzer" for his speed. He is easily confirmed. (JFK appointed White, who was his Western States campaign director. He turned out to be a "Judas Justice," one of those Justices whose rulings went against the views of the President who appointed him.) April 2: Russian President Nikita Khrushchev is re-elected, defeating Alexei Kosygin. It is Krushchev's fifth term, matching the total of his only predecessor as President of the Russian Republic, Aleksandr Kerensky. April 13: The San Francisco Miners play the first National League game on the West Coast. They lose to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-3 at Seals Stadium, home of the former Pacific Coast League team in the city. San Francisco-born Hallof-Famer Lefty O'Doul, who had managed the Seals, will see his team play like garbage all year long, and, his frustration reaching the boiling point, will yell out, "Can't anybody here play this game?") (The Giants played 1958 and '59 at Seals Stadium, which was then demolished, and they moved into Candlestick Park. The date, opponent, result and score are identical to this franchise's actual first home game, a loss by the Mets at the Polo Grounds. The O'Doul quote matches one by RL Mets manager Casey Stengel, who had been spoiled by 10 Pennants in 12 years running the Yankees.) May 8: Scottish actor Sean Connery, 32, says the words people have been waiting four years to hear: "My name is Bond. James Bond." The film From Russia With Love premieres today. Agent 007 and a KGB agent named Tatiana Romanova -- played by Italian actress Daniela Bianchi, at 18 the youngest "Bond Girl" ever -- try to break up a Red Chinese smuggling operation on the Orient Express. Bond creator Ian Fleming is about to publish the somewhat objectionably titled Octopussy, and has already begun work on his Bond novel for 1963, The Living Daylights. (In TTL, "Doctor No" came much sooner, and "FRWL" comes a year early. Bianchi, 19 when the actual "FRWL" was made in 1963, remains the youngest Bond Girl. She was followed by the oldest: Honor Blackman, just past her 37th birthday when "Goldfinger" premiered, held that record until 1983, when "Octopussy" was released, when Maud Adams was 37 years and 4 months. Blackman is now 79, and looks wonderful for her age. Adams is 58 and I still wouldn't turn her away.)

May 19: The Roosevelt Presidential Center and Museum opens at the estate of the Oyster Bay branch of the Roosevelt family on New York's Long Island. The complex honors the nation's 28th President, Theodore Roosevelt (served 1904-1919), and his son, the 36th President, Quentin Roosevelt (1953-1961). Quent is joined by President Albert Gore and former Presidents Happy Chandler and Herbert Hoover -- who was apparently too ill to attend the opening of the Eleanor Roosevelt Presidential Library last year. Eleanor, Quent's cousin, is too ill to attend this one, but her son, Congressman Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., is on hand to represent the Hyde Park branch of the family. Quent's Vice President, Richard Nixon, and Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., grandson of TR's second Vice President, also appear. June 6: State Attorney General Richmond Flowers wins the Democratic Primary -- still tantamount to election, as the Republican Party is very weak in the South -- for Governor of Alabama. The outgoing Governor, George Wallace, defeats incumbent U.S. Senator Lister Hill. (Wallace was nominated for Governor on this day, Flowers for AG. Wallace pandered to the segregationists, Flowers opposed them.) July 5: The socialist government of French President Jean Moulin falls, as he loses an election he would have preferred not to call to the UDR, led by World War II hero Charles de Gaulle. August 1: Justice Felix Frankfurter retires from the Supreme Court. President Albert Gore nominates Arthur Goldberg to replace him. Goldberg is easily confirmed. (JFK appointed Goldberg to replace Frankfurter.) August 5: Actress Marilyn Monroe dies of an apparent accidental overdose of sleeping pills at her Los Angeles home. She was 36 years old. On this same day, a peace agreement is reached between the South African government of a reluctant Prime Minister Henrik Verwoerd and the rebel group the African National Congress, led by Nelson Mandela. All-races elections will be held, and de Villiers Graaf will be elected President. Over the seven years he holds the office, he will dismantle the South African system of apartheid. (I couldn't think of a way to keep Marilyn alive. Mandela, of course, was headed for prison in RL. Here, with a different world outlook on race, he is not the great criminal who becomes the great prisoner who becomes the great statesman.) August 10: An ailing, frail, 88-year-old former President Herbert Hoover manages to host the opening of his Presidential Library at his birthplace of West Branch, near the University of Iowa. President Albert Gore and former Presidents Quentin Roosevelt and Happy Chandler are there. Still bitter about how he was treated in the 1930s, Hoover made a point of not inviting Eleanor Roosevelt, regardless of her health. With the branches of the Roosevelt family closer than they have been in half a century, Quent is not happy about this, but, as members of the Oyster Bay wing of the Roosevelt family would prefer not to do, holds his tongue. October 3: The New York Giants defeat the Brooklyn Dodgers, 6-4 at Dodger Stadium, to win their first pennant since moving into Stoneham Stadium. It

was a repeat of the 1952 season, in which the Giants won a playoff for the Pennant, although this time there was no game-winning home run as there was then, by Bobby Thomson. October 13: The New York Yankees defeat the New York Giants, 1-0, in Game 7 of the World Series at Stoneham Stadium. It was the first all-New York "Subway Series" in six years, and the first between the Yankees and Giants in eleven. (Game 7 was actually played by October 16, delayed by rain in San Francisco.) October 14: President Albert Gore is shown photographs, taken by one of the Air Force's AF-107s -- they don't dare call them U-3s, after the U-2 spy-plane incident of 1960 -- of missile bases being built in China, with Taiwan (formerly Formosa), Korea and even Japan as potential targets, the latter two still having U.S. military bases. Gore is advised by CIA Director John McCone that China does not yet have nuclear weapons, so they don't dare attack anyone with conventional missiles. Gore tells McCone that he'd better be right about that, or losing his job will be the least of his worries. (It was tough to come up with an analog to the Cuban Missile Crisis, what with Cuba being a State and all.) October 15: Premier Zhou Enlai announces that the People's Republic of China, a.k.a. Red China, has successfully tested its first atomic bomb, in the South China Sea. He demands the surrender of the Republic of China, a.k.a. Nationalist China, a.k.a. Taiwan. President Albert Gore announces that if the Reds attempt to take Taiwan, America will act, as it had in Korea. This is an implication that the atomic bomb would be used. The Taiwan Missile Crisis has begun. (China gets the bomb two years early, much as RL-North Korea's development was accelerated by George W. Bush raising tensions by including them in an "axis of evil" when they had nothing to do with Iraq, Iran or al-Qaeda, one of the stupidest foreign-policy blunders in American history -- if not yet one of the most damaging.) October 22: President Albert Gore announces that the U.S.S. Enterprise, the newly-commissioned world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, and its entire battle group, have surrounded the island of Taiwan. "If the People's Republic of China make any move, either troop or missile, at Taiwan," Gore announces in an Oval Office address televised around the world, "America will act. In ancient times, the Chinese were noted for their wisdom and philosophy. Now is the time for their government to show some wisdom. That government may be concerned with saving face. Saving face will do no good if you are dead. And no nation knows this better than does Red China. They say they now have nuclear weapons. We have more. Many, many more. They say they have a virtually limitless army. We do not want to test that theory. But if we must, we shall. I urge Chairman Zhou to save his army, navy and air force for a nobler purpose. The people of Taiwan do not want to live under a Communist dictatorship. And America will prevent that from happening." Much more so than the Korean War was one, a nuclear war may be about to begin.

October 24: Russian President Nikita Khrushchev, while sympathetic to Red China, would prefer not to see a nuclear war between that nation and America. He offers himself as a mediator. He is turned down by Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai before American President Albert Gore can respond. Khrushchev is not a man who tolerates being easily dismissed. He calls Gore, and tells him, "If the Chinese attack you, or Taiwan, or Korea, or Japan, we will stay out of your way." With this statement, America and Russia are closer than they have been since Khrushchev was first elected 20 years ago. But Sino-American tensions continue to rise for three more days. October 28: Deng Xiaoping proclaims himself the new Chairman of the Communist Party of the People's Republic of China. Of his predecessor, he says only that Zhou Enlai has "retired." Regardless, Zhou is never seen in public again. Deng contacts President Albert Gore, and tells him that China will stand its troops down. There will be no attack on Taiwan, Korea, Japan, or U.S. troops and ships protecting those nations. The Taiwan Missile Crisis is over, and humanity has won. However, in his posthumously published memoir, Secetary of Defense Maxwell Taylor writes, "We came damned close to a nuclear war, and millions of people being incinerated, far closer than anyone will ever realize." (These words have been repeated by the RL Defense Secretary of the time, Robert McNamara, talking about Cuba when interviewed following the declassification of the JFK White House tapes. Yes, JFK had tapes, and so did LBJ. Any others before Nixon, I don't know.) November 6: The Taiwan Missile Crisis over, Americans can do something far less nerve-wracking: Face a Congressional election. The results are mixed, as the Republicans gain just four seats in the House of Representatives, while the Democrats, the party with the White House and majorities in both houses of Congress, actually gain two seats in the Senate. In California, former Vice President Richard Nixon is defeated by incumbent Governor Edmund G. "Pat" Brown. And in Cuba, Governor Fidel Castro is elected to a third term. At his victory celebration, many hold up signs saying "GORE CASTRO '64." This does not please Vice President John F. Kennedy, who firmly believes he will be on the ticket again in 1964. Kennedy's Massachusetts Senate seat, vacated by his election as Vice President in 1960, is won by his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, whom President Albert Gore had appointed to be the first Director of the Peace Corps. Gore will fill that vacancy with Jack and Bobby's sister, Eunice Shriver. (Sargent Shriver, Eunice's husband, was the real first Director of the Peace Corps.) November 7: As the sun rises over Los Angeles, former Vice President Richard Nixon faces the press, having been dealt a stinging defeat in the election for Governor of California the night before. He bitterly accuses the media of writing stories with the purpose of damaging his campaign. He seems to be announcing his retirement from politics: "Just think of all the fun you'll be missing. You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore. Because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference." The words will haunt Nixon for the next six years, but they will be briefly put aside by the news of later in the day: Former President Eleanor Roosevelt, the greatest defender of freedom the world has ever known, dies of a heart attack at her home in Hyde Park, New

York. She was 78 years old. 1963 January 14: Richmond Flowers is sworn in as Governor of Alabama, with outgoing Governor, now U.S. Senator, George Wallace on hand. Acknowledging that, like most Southern States, Alabama has a backward image, Flowers vows, "I say to you, progress now, progress tomorrow, and progress forever!" (It was Wallace who was sworn in on this day, and he said, "...and segregation forever!" In TTL, that's now ancient history.) June 10: President Albert Gore gives the commencement address at American University in Washington, D.C. He proposes a nuclear test-ban treaty, to be signed by the world's present nuclear powers: The U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. "For, when all is said and done," Gore says, "what unites all people is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all hope for our children's future, and we are all mortal." By nightfall, Prime Minister Macmillan, President de Gaulle and President Khrushchev have contacted Gore to say they would sign such a treaty. No word from Chancellor Speer or Chairman Deng. June 11: Medgar Evers is elected Chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. He will hold this office for the next three years. (Evers was assassinated on this day. I keep him alive for one reason: I was not satisfied with the Democratic Presidential candidates of 1988. Even though Michael Dukakis was the first Presidential candidate I ever voted for, and I remain proud of that vote. After all, how many of us can truthfully say we cast four general-election votes for President against men named George Bush? I did, with no regrets and wiht no apologies.) June 26: President Albert Gore becomes the first U.S. President to visit the Far East. Before visiting Japan tomorrow, he gives a speech in Seoul, at the Korean War Memorial. "There are many people who don't understand, or say they don't, the differences between the governments of the free nations of the world, such as that of America and that of Korea, and the governments that keep their nations locked in tyranny." He then switches to Korean, and repeats his statement in English: "Kurul to tarooge haseyo Han-guk! Let them come to Korea!" He concludes: "All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Korea. And, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words... Nanun Hangugui!" ("I am a Korean!") Over one million people in the streets of Seoul, many of them veterans of the war, cheer widly. (TTL-Berlin, and TTLGermany, are united under the constitutional monarchy of the Fourth Reich. Korea, the centerpiece of the Cold War thus far, was the best choice for Gore's "Berlin Wall Speech." And you have no idea how hard it was to find an analog for "Ich bin ein Berliner!") July 17: Chancellor Albert Speer of Germany resigns rather than call an election in the wake of massive street protests of his announcement that he will not sign the proposed Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Ludwig Erhard is named Chancellor by Kaiser Ludwig IV, and will now head the German National

People's Party (DNVP) going into the election, where he will defeat Willy Brandt, Mayor of Berlin and the nominee of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). August 27: William E.B. Du Bois, who served Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate from 1917 to 1947, dies at his home in Boston. The first black person elected to the Senate by popular vote, under the 17th Amendment, was 95 years old. August 28: Over 200,000 people gather at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., at the climax of the Poor People's Campaign for Jobs and Justice. The concluding speaker is the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King: "I have a dream, that one day, this nation will rise up, and live out the true meaning of its creed: We holds these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal! I have a dream, that one day, my four little children will be judged not by the size of their bank account but by the content of their character! I have a dream today!" President Albert Gore invites King and his associates to the White House to discuss matters. Vice President John F. Kennedy also attends. Unlike Kennedy, Gore grew up poor before becoming rich, and tells King that poverty will be treated as an enemy of America, the way it had been during the Eleanor Roosevelt Administration 30 years earlier. After the preacher leaves, Kennedy, who had seen the speech on television, tells Gore, "He's damn good." (In RL, JFK said this to Bobby. The RL crowd has been estimated at 250,000 to 300,000. It was not easy finding a way to make MLK an important figure with racism so diminished by TTL-1963, but poverty has not gone away by RL-2007, so it seemed like a good forum for him.) September 2: In a CBS News Special, CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite conducts a Labor Day interview with President Albert Gore at his family farm outside Carthage, Tennessee. Gore says that Martin Luther King and the other speakers at last week's March On Washington were right, that poverty in America is a big problem, and that there are things that can be done fairly soon. He wants Congress to raise the national minimum wage. He wants an Amendment to the Constitution eliminating poll taxes, designed to keep poor people from voting. He wants to revive some of the New Deal programs that President Eleanor Roosevelt undertook in the 1930s, most of which were eliminated by George Patton in the early 1940s and Quentin Roosevelt in the 1950s. He wants to increase recruitment and pay for the armed forces, to make it a more attractive option for poor people who may not be going to college. He also wants to increase military recruitment because he is concerned about China's aggressiveness. Once again, China has appeared to boost its own military presences near its borders with Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Burma and -- perhaps most ominously -- Russia. "If there is a World War III, it is less likely to be between Germany and its allies on one side, and the rest of the world on the other, as it was in World War I and World War II," Gore says. "It is more likely to be between China and another country, and that other country may not be America, unless that other country asks for our help. I'm working to make sure such a war never happens." Earlier in the day, Gore received a phone call from Chancellor Ludwig Erhard, who told him that Germany, as it refused to do under

Chancellor Albert Speer, will sign the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. This significantly reduces the possibility of a new war between Germany and Russia, which is a big relief for anyone concerned with Eastern Europe. (Cronkite interviewed JFK at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts on this day. He asked JFK about Vietnam. "In the final analysis, it's their war," JFK said. He used those words, "In the final analysis," a lot. This statement has been used by many people to say he would have withdrawn troops from Vietnam, possibly after the 1964 election, when Barry Goldwater and the other hardline conservatives would be on shakier ground to use it against him. "But I don't agree with those who say that we ought to withdraw," he said later. That statement has been used by people to say he would have kept the troops there. It's likely that he would have waited until after the election, and would never have escalated things the way LBJ and Nixon did. He also cited the U.S. death toll in Vietnam to that point: 47. Not 47,000. Forty-seven. Within two years, that many were dying every day. And it got worse.) September 22: China's Chairman Zhou Enlai and Vietnam's President Ho Chi Minh sign a non-aggression pact. Ho also has his Vice President, Ngo Dinh Diem, removed from office. The official charge is "high corruption." October 6: The Brooklyn Dodgers win a World Series at home for the first time, defeating the New York Yankees, 2-1 at Dodger Stadium. Sandy Koufax, who had struck out a World Series record 15 batters in Game 1 (a record broken by Bob Gibson in 1968), beats the Yankees again to complete a fourgame sweep. It was the first "Subway Series" between the two teams in seven years. After 16 seasons and 407 home runs, Dodger legend Duke Snider announces his retirement. November 2: A coup fails in Vietnam. President Ho Chi Minh announces that it was led by former Vice President Ngo Dinh Diem, who is arrested and executed. Vietnam appears to be taking on the properties of a dictatorship. November 15: In the past 9 years, since Fidel Castro was elected Governor, over 100,000 people have left the State of Cuba, where Castro is instituting reforms that resemble socialism, and sailed or flown to Florida, whose Governor, C. Farris Bryant, also a Democrat, has been pursuing a more classically liberal course. These former Cubans, however, appear to be turning the tide of the State toward the Republicans, and Governor Bryant would like President Albert Gore to come to Cuba, as an unofficial kickoff for the 1964 Presidential campaign. It would solidify the traditional Democratic bases of farmers in North Florida and in the Panhandle, and Jews and retirees in the Miami area. Gore will visit the State next week. (I chose Miami to punish it for its RL role in giving the Presidency to George W. Bush in 2000. All I needed was a way to make a political trip to Florida as necessary as RL-JFK thought his trip to Texas would be.) November 19: President Albert Gore arrives in Florida, and encounters large, happy crowds all along the Panhandle, in Pensacola, Tallahassee and Jacksonville. This is the most conservative part of the State, which in the coming decades will be nicknamed the "Redneck Riviera"; ironically, this

northernmost part of Florida in geography is the most "Southern" part of it in culture. Governor Farris Bryant tells President Gore that, with crowds like this, there's no question Gore can take Florida in the 1964 election. November 20: President Albert Gore visits the National Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. There, he is told that the goal of putting a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth by the end of the decade is well within reach. The future is also on the mind of entertainment entrepreneur Walt Disney, who meets with the President in Orlando, and tells him of a futuristic "experimental community," based on his Disneyland theme park, that he'd like to build nearby. Gore is thrilled. He is greeted by additional enthusiastic crowds in Tampa and St. Petersburg. November 21: President Albert Gore continues his Florida trip, with a fundraising breakfast in Fort Myers, lunch in West Palm Beach, and dinner in Fort Lauderdale. He stays at the home owned by the family of Vice President John F. Kennedy in Palm Beach. Tomorrow, he will visit the heart of the Sunshine State's Democratic base, but also the heart of a rising community of former Cubans who have fled the socialist reforms of Governor Fidel Castro, and are trending Republican. Tomorrow -- Miami. November 22: President Albert A. Gore is assassinated in Miami, Florida. At 1:30 PM, three shots are fired at his motorcade as it rides down Flagler Street, apparently from the sixth floor of the Biscayne Building. He is hit by two of the shots. Florida Governor Farris Bryant, sitting in the middle seat of the limousine, is also wounded, although far less seriously. First Lady Pauline Gore, a former federal judge, was sitting next to the President, and Julia Bryant, the Governors wife, was sitting next to him, but neither was wounded. Gore is taken to Miami City Hospital, but is pronounced dead at 2:00. He was 55 years old. At 3:40, Vice President John F. Kennedy, who was in the car behind Gores, is sworn in as the nations 38th President. He is the second Catholic President, after Joseph R. McCarthy (1945-49). Around this time, a man named Frank Sturgis is arrested for the assassination. He protests his innocence. The country is in deep mourning, and expressions of sympathy come in from all over the world. In his first speech to the nation as President, Kennedy tells the American people, "I will do my best. I ask for your help, and God's. That is all I can do." (The time of the assassination is the same as in RL, except it was in Dallas, so it was 12:30 Central Time. I needed an analog for the Texas School Book Depository, so I needed a Miami building already there with sufficient height. There were surprisingly few, enough to make me consider changing the city. Sturgis was one of the RL Watergate burglars. And, yes, I believe there was a conspiracy. Sturgis, like RL-Oswald, did not kill the President alone.) November 24: President Gore's funeral is held at the National Cathedral in Washington. President John F. Kennedy attends, as do former Presidents Quentin Roosevelt and Happy Chandler, Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson, Britain's Prince Philip (representing his wife, Queen Elizabeth II), French President Charles de Gaulle, German Chancellor Ludwig Erhard, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, and many

other international dignitaries. Back in Miami, accused assassin Frank Sturgis is being transported to court for his arraignment, but is himself shot. He dies at the age of 38. The shooter this time is Vincent Alo, a New Yorker living in Miami and believed to be an associate of infamous mob boss Meyer Lansky. Nicknamed "Jimmy Blue Eyes," Alo claims that Lansky had nothing to do with either killing, saying only that he wanted to spare Pauline Gore the agony of the trial of her husband's assassin. (Alo takes the place of Jack Ruby. He was also the basis for the Johnny Ola character in "The Godfather Part II," just as Lansky was the basis for Hyman Roth. Of course, Lansky and Alo were still alive at the time that movie came out in 1974.) November 25: President Albert Gore is laid to rest beneath an "eternal flame" at Arlington National Cemetery, on the Virginia side of the Potomac River, across from Washington, D.C. He is the second President buried there, after George S. Patton in 1945. They are also the last two Presidents to have died in office. December 24: New York International Airport, better known as "Idlewild Field," is renamed Albert A. Gore International Airport. And the Maryland section of Interstate 95, dedicated by the late President in one of his last official acts before going to Florida, is named the Albert Gore Memorial Highway. Uncle Mike Aug 19 2007, 02:06 PM Post #31

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 1964 January 13: Folksinger Bob Dylan releases his third album, The Times They Are a-Changin'. His first two albums, Bob Dylan and The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan -- the latter featuring "Blowin' In the Wind," a song attacking war and prejudice -- did not do very well, but "The Times" brings him the acclaim he has been looking for. It includes the title track, "When the Ship Comes In," and the antiwar song "With God On Our Side." Although the entire album was recorded before the assassination of President Albert Gore, the release has come afterward, and it seems to touch a vein in the American psyche, as does something that the new President, John F. Kennedy, says in his first State of the Union Address, delivered tonight. "We stand at the edge of a New Frontier," Kennedy says, "the frontier of unfulfilled hopes and dreams. It will deal with unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered pockets of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus." With

Martin Luther King, the black Southern minister and anti-poverty activist, seated in the House of Representatives gallery next to First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, the new President announces that "This nation declares unconditional and total war on poverty, an enemy that has ended and otherwise ruined more lives than any of America's foreign foes." January 23: The 24th Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, banning poll taxes, which are seen as a violation of the right to vote, particularly for poor people, in line with President Kennedy's "War On Poverty." February 9: A record 140 million of America's 185 million people had watched President Gore's funeral on television a few weeks ago. But that was on all broadcast networks. Tonight, a new record for a single network broadcast is set when 73 million people watch The Ed Sullivan Show on CBS, as the British rock group the Beatles plays five songs, including their Number 1 smash "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and the future Number 1 hit "She Loves You." The Beatles are the first foreign rock band to make it big in America, and "Beatlemania," highlighted by rapturous screams of teenage girls and copies of their long hairstyles by teenage boys, brings them to heights previously reached only by Frank Sinatra in the early 1940s and Elvis Presley in the mid1950s. February 15: Already in legal trouble for some comments he has made onstage, comedian Lenny Bruce angers millions of people in Miami and the rest of South Florida. "Some town," he says in his act. "It's the city where people go to die. First elderly Jews, now Presidents." The City of Miami will sue Bruce (himself Jewish, although not a President or a Miami resident) for $50 million, but Bruce will die of a drug overdose in two years, before the case can reach a trial. (Bruce never made those comments about Miami. He did get into trouble over obscenity, just not there. Jim Morrison, on the other hand...) February 25: Cassius Clay knocks out Sonny Liston in a stunning upset, to become the new heavyweight champion of the world. The fight had been scheduled for the Miami Beach Convention Center, but after the assassination of President Albert Gore in downtown Miami, was moved to Madison Square Garden in New York. February 26: At a press conference to discuss last night's fight, new heavyweight champion Cassius Clay announces he has converted to Islam, and will file papers in court to legally change his name to Muhammad Ali. "America is a great country," he says. "America gave me the chance to become an Olympic champion. America gave me the chance to become champion of the world. America gave me the chance to become rich. But America also gave me freedom of religion. America also gave me freedom of speech. And I'm going to use that freedom to tell the world that there are things America still needs to do. Dr. Martin Luther King is right when he says that poverty needs to be ended. President Kennedy is right when he says that this nation needs to declare war on it. I got a big quarrel with poverty. Islam is a religion of peace. Over a thousand years ago, the wealthiest places in the

world were governed by Muslims. I'm not saying I should be President, or anything like that. But I know I can help to make this great country into the great country it was always meant to be." The words and works of Clay/Ali help to remove a great deal of mystery from religions outside the JudeoChristian sphere, and make him a hero all over the world. July 2: As part of his "War On Poverty," President John F. Kennedy signs the Economic Opportunity Act, creating the Office of Economic Opportunity. He surprises many people by appointing his sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, to be the agency's first director. (Again, in RL, it was her husband Sarge who premiered the office.) July 16: The Republican National Convention is held at the Grand National Livestock Pavilion, a.k.a. the "Cow Palace," in Daly City, California, just south of San Francisco. Governors Nelson Rockefeller of New York, William Scranton of Pennsylvania and Nile Kinnick of Iowa had all run for the nomination. But Rockefeller was rejected by Republican voters and delegates for his divorce and remarriage, and for his big-spending policies; Scranton for spending nearly as much in Harrisburg as Rockefeller has in Albany; and Kinnick because of his unusual religion, Christian Science. The winner of the nomination is the darling of the conservative movement, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona. He has been openly supported by groups like the John Birch Society, an aggressively anti-Communist organization that has taken was many consider to be "extremist" stances. "I would remind you, my fellow Republicans," Goldwater says, "that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice!" When the cheering stops after a minute, he adds, "And I would remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!" Seeing this, Senator Robert F. Kennedy of Massachusetts tells his brother, President John F. Kennedy, "That's it, Jack. Any chance that SOB had to win is gone now." Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy, a former assistant district attorney in Boston, now running Jack's campaign for a full term, asks, "You don't think Barry lost his last chance when he gave Kinnick the Vice Presidential nomination?" Jack tells them, "No, he lost his last chance when Albert Gore died. Against a living Albert, who would've had to defend his record, he might have had a chance. But he's running against Albert as much as he's running against me, so forget it. It's not fair to him, and it certainly isn't fair to Albert. Life is unfair." July 18: James Powell, a 15-year-old black resident of Harlem, is questioned by New York police. It is determined that he has committed no crime, and he is let go. There will be no riot in Harlem this week. (Powell was shot by the police, starting the Harlem race riot that symbolized New York's descent into crime and fear. This was a few weeks after 37 people in Queens saw at least some of the vicious killing of Kitty Genovese -- no relation to the Genovese crime family of New York -- but did nothing, and that also became an NYC cultural touchstone.) July 21: On what would have been the 100th birthday of President Frances Cleveland, the Grover and Frances Cleveland Presidential Library and Museum is opened in Princeton, New Jersey, at "Morven," a pre-Revolutionary mansion a short walk from the Clevelands' home, "Westland," and around the

corner from two homes once owned by another President, Woodrow Wilson. Since 1945, the former home of Declaration of Independence signer Richard Stockton had been the Governor's Mansion. Governor Richard J. Hughes, working with the Cleveland family, made the transition happen. The new Governor's Mansion will be just down Stockton Street (U.S. Route 206), a larger home, nearly as old, named "Drumthwacket." The Clevelands' surviving children are joined by President John F. Kennedy, and by former President Quentin Roosevelt. Like both Grover and Frances Cleveland, Roosevelt and his father, President Theodore Roosevelt, and his cousin, President Eleanor Roosevelt, served as Governor of New York. Grover and Theodore, though of opposing parties, had a mutual admiration. Both Clevelands -- Grover served 1885-93 and Frances 1921-29 -- are among the more highly-regarded Presidents in the nation's history. (Morven remained the official Governor's Mansion until 1981, when the honor was transferred to Drumthwacket, and Morven became a museum. Westland, the two Library Place homes in which Wilson lived in during his Princeton days, and the Mercer Street home of Albert Einstein, are all still private residences. Unlike Morven and, under certain circumstances, Drumthwacket, not only are they not available for tours, they don't even have historical markers outside. But Princeton Cemetery, final resting place of President Cleveland and his wife, the founders of Princeton and Tulane Universities, and dueling Vice President Aaron Burr, is open to the public.) August 12: British author Ian Fleming dies of heart trouble, shortly after the publication of his last James Bond novel, The Property of a Lady. He was 56 years old. August 28: Odessa Bradford, a pregnant black woman, has a stalled car at 23rd Street and Columbia Avenue in North Philadelphia. She receives help from two police officers, one white and one black. She gets home without incident. There will be no riot in Philadelphia this week. (The North Philly riot was an especially bad one.) August 29: The Democratic Convention is held at the Convention Hall on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey. President John F. Kennedy is nominated for a full term, with Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas as the Vice Presidential nominee. (I needed a Southerner. Supposedly, in January 1961, JFK offered Fulbright, then Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State, and he turned it down. No wonder Joe McCarthy and others called him "Senator Halfbright." He would've been much better for the job than Dean Rusk.) October 1: The City of Philadelphia renames Municipal Stadium, formerly known as Sesquicentennial Stadium, "Albert Gore Memorial Stadium." Locally, the massive, 105,000-seat horseshoe, best known as the site of the annual Army-Navy college football game, will be known as "the Gore Bowl." (It wasn't renamed John F. Kennedy Stadium until 1967. The Beatles played it in 1966, still under the Municipal Stadium name. It was torn down in 1992 to make room for the new 76ers and Flyers arena.)

October 4? The Philadelphia Phillies clinch the National League Pennant, defeating the St. Louis Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds by one game in the closest NL Pennant race in 56 years. They had a rough patch in late September, losing eight out of ten games, but their fans stood by them and kept up their home-field advantage at Connie Mack Stadium. (The North Philly riot kept many white fans away, fearful of getting mugged or killed or leaving their cars parked in the ghetto. Maybe the extra fan presence could have spurred the Phils on to win the two more games they needed, instead of having that mind-boggling 10-game losing streak that caused them to blow a 6 1/2-game lead with 12 games to play. The Cards didn't need this Pennant, the Phils did.) October 15: The Russian Parliament, the Duma, completes its investigation of a corruption scandal involving President Nikita Krushchev. A vote is taken, and there will be no impeachment, but the vote is close. Asked by a reporter from the newspaper Izvestia for a comment, Krushchev says, "If you feed the people with revolutionary slogans, they will be with you today, and they will be with you tomorrow, and they will be with you the day after tomorrow. But if revolutionary slogans are all you use to feed them, the next day, they will say, 'To hell with you.'" He has not yet announced whether he will run for a record sixth term in 1967. Also today, the New York Yankees end the Philadelphia Phillies' World Series dream in Game 7, winning 7-5. (Khrushchev was removed from power on this day, and the Cardinals beat the Yankees.) November 3: John F. Kennedy wins a full term as President, with Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas being elected Vice President. The Democrats defeat Senator Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona and Governor Nile C. Kinnick of Iowa in one of the biggest landslides in Presidential history: Kennedy wins 43.1 million votes to Goldwater's 27.1 million, giving Kennedy 61.1 percent of the vote to Goldwater's 38.5 percent. Kennedy wins 45 States, plus the District of Columbia, which had the Presidential ballot and Electoral Votes (if only three) for the first time. Goldwater wins only five States: Dakota, Idaho, Nebraska, Utah and Wyoming. Goldwater even loses his home State of Arizona. Someone later checks the figures and decides that, if, as some of the old Territorial legislators had wanted, the would-be State had been split into two States, Arizona and New Mexico, Kennedy would have won New Mexico by 65,000 votes, but Goldwater would have won Arizona by 4,782 votes. It is generally agreed that, once President Albert Gore was assassinated, the Democratic ticket would win easily, no matter what the Republicans did; but Goldwater's perceived extremism and Kinnick's unusual religion may have hurt them to the point where a wipeout was inevitable. Kennedy becomes the first Catholic to win a Presidential election. (The States I listed above -including both Dakotas -- were the States Goldwater came the closest to LBJ to other than those he actually won.) December 22: The film Goldfinger is released, the second appearance by Sean Connery as Bond, James Bond, Agent 007. With villains like Auric Goldfinger and Oddjob, and female leads like Pussy Galore and "golden girl" Jill Masterton, film fans are beginning to dismiss the previous Bond, David Niven, as an old man who got the role 10 years too late.

1965 February 11: Richmond Flowers Jr., an All-America wide receiver and hurdler at Sidney Lanier High School in Montgomery, Alabama and son of the State's Governor, announces he will attend the University of Alabama. (Because Richmond Sr. had prosecuted civil rights cases as State Attorney General, he became known as "the most hated white man in Alabama." Because of that hate, Richmond Jr. spurned the University of Alabama and accepted a football and track scholarship at the University of Tennessee, where he became a rarity in post-WWII collegiate sports: A two-sport All-American.) February 21: Malcolm Little, former Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is doing well in private law practice. At the age of 39, he may be the nation's premier African-American attorney. (Malcolm X was assassinated on this day.) April 25: Mickey Mantle hits his 500th career home run, a tremendous blast into the upper deck in right field at Yankee Stadium off Dean Chance. Having been remarkably healthy in his career, the switch-hitting center fielder for the New York Yankees is now fifth on the all-time list, trailing only previous Yankee legend Babe Ruth (714), Ted Williams (604), Jimmie Foxx (534) and Mel Ott (511). The Yankees win this game against the team currently known as the Los Angeles Angels, 3-2, as Roger Maris robbs Bobby Knoop of a home run. But the Yanks will be hit hard by injuries this season, and what looks like an early-season slump instead turns into an 11-year Pennant drought, as Sports Illustrated puts a weary Mantle on its cover with the headline, "NEW YORK YANKEES: END OF AN ERA." There is no question mark at the end, suggesting that it is something that is happening, rather than something that might be happening. The remainder of Mantle's career will be filled with personal highlights and milestones, but no team achievements. (The SI cover is real, published in June 1965, but because of various injuries, Mantle didn't hit his 500th homer until May 14, 1967.) July 3: Philadelphia Phillies teammates Richie Allen and Frank Thomas get into an argument, but it gets broken up before it can get violent. (With 20th Century racism intact, Thomas swung his bat at Allen, injuring his shoulder, and Allen punched Thomas out, breaking his jaw. Thomas was placed on waivers, and the man who became known as "Dick (Don't call me Richie!) Allen" was never the same.) July 6: The Albert B. Chandler Presidential Library opens at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. Former President "Happy" Chandler welcomes President John F. Kennedy, Vice President William Fulbright, former President Quentin Roosevelt, former First Lady Pauline Gore, and the now-adult children of Presidents Eleanor Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Frances Cleveland and Henry Cabot Lodge. July 25: Justice Arthur Goldberg, a former Secretary of Labor, resigns from the Supreme Court to accept President Kennedy's appointment as Ambassador to

the United Nations, following the death of Adlai Stevenson. JFK makes a startling appointment to replace Goldberg on the Court, not because it is a woman -- only the second, following Edith Galt -- but because it is a former First Lady, Vanderbilt University Law School graduate and former federal Judge Pauline Gore. Although some Republicans don't like it, none dare vote against the widow of an assassinated President, who is, after all, qualified for the seat. She is confirmed 418-0 in the House and 97-0 in the Senate. Of course, this means that 17 Congressmen and three Senators do not vote. (LBJ "resassigned" Goldberg because he wanted to put his pal Abe Fortas on the Court. Cronyism and Texas: Perfect together.) July 29: President John F. Kennedy signs Medicare and Medicaid into law. (LBJ signed them into law on this day.) August 11: Markus Frye, a black resident of the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, is pulled over for suspicion of drunken driving. The black cops on hand calmly take him to their precinct house, where a breath test reveals that Frye was not intoxicated. Frye receives a ticket for erratic driving, ending the incident. There will be no race riot in Los Angeles this week. (There were no black cops on the scene, and he was beaten, starting the Watts riot.) September 9: Dodger pitcher Sandy Koufax pitches his record-breaking fourth career no-hitter, this one a perfect game, beating the Chicago Cubs, 1-0 at Dodger Stadium in Brooklyn. September 26: The Washington Senators defeat the Minnesota Twins, 2-1 at District of Columbia Stadium in Washington to clinch their first American League pennant in 32 years. (In RL, it was the Twins, the "Old Senators," who beat the "New Senators," at Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, Minnesota.) October 14: The Brooklyn Dodgers defeat the Washington Senators, 2-0 in Game 7 of the World Series at D.C. Stadium. Sandy Koufax pitches his second shoutout of the Series. November 11: On Veterans' Day, also what would have been his 80th birthday, the George S. Patton Presidential Library opens at his birthplace in San Gabriel, California. Patton's grave will not be moved to the Library grounds, but will remain at Arlington National Cemetery, where the only other President buried is Albert Gore. The politically disgraced and electorally humiliated Joseph McCarthy is now the only President to have served between 1904 and 1961 who does not have a Presidential Library or a Presidential Museum. December 17: The film Thunderball is released. Sean Connery once again stars as Bond, James Bond, who thwarts a plan by the terrorist organization SPECTRE to use stolen American, British, French, German, Russian and Chinese nuclear weapons to launch World War III. 1966

March 15: James F. Byrnes retires after 24 years on the Supreme Court. The old (nearly 88), ailing Southern conservative did not want to resign, especially considering President John F. Kennedy's choice to replace him, Thurgood Marshall, the nation's first black Solicitor General, now becomes the first black Supreme Court Justice. JFK offered Byrnes the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, if he would step down. (LBJ appointed Marshall the next year, to replace Tom Clark; he replaced Clark because of the potential conflict-of-interest, as the Justice's son Ramsey Clark was LBJ's choice to replace Nick Katzenbach as Attorney General.) July 27: A malfunction is found aboard the Apollo I spacecraft, waiting to be tested for an early August launch at Cape Gore. The mission is delayed. (Six months before the RL Apollo I fire.) July 28: A black man walks into the 79ers Cafe at East 79th Street and Hough Avenue. He asks for a glass of water. He gets it. He leaves without incident. There will be no riot on the East Side of Cleveland this week. (I couldn't find the man's name, only the notation that he got not a glass of water but a beating, starting the Cleveland race riot.) September 7: Apollo I is launched. It is the first Earth spacecraft to carry three passengers: Virgil "Gus" Grissom, a veteran of Project Mercury; Ed White, who in Project Gemini became the first American to make a "spacewalk"; and Roger Chaffee, making his first voyage into space. Apollo I is meant to orbit the Earth for 10 days, simulating a voyage to the Moon as much as possible without actually breaking Earth orbit. President Kennedy believes the goal set by President Gore of landing men on the Moon and returning them safely to Earth, and doing it before the decade runs out, is now within reach. September 8: "Space: The New Frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: To explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before!" So begins the opening sequence of Star Trek, a new science-fiction program on NBC. The narration is by William Shatner, a veteran "character actor" who appeared on three episodes of The Twilight Zone, and now plays the Enterprise's commanding officer, Captain James F. Kirk. Series creator Gene Roddenberry had wanted to name his captain "James T. Kirk," but it was suggested to him that the captain have the same initials as the President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The fact that the first episode, "Where No One Has Gone Before," is airing a night after Apollo I was launched, beginning America's Moon project, helps the series out tremendously as far as viewership is concerned. With the Moon apparently about three, maybe two years away, suddenly going into the far reaches of space doesn't seem so far-fetched. The show's fans, a.k.a. "Trekkies" (or "Trekkers," for those who want to be taken a little more seriously) make famous several of the show's catchphrases. "Take us out of orbit, Mister Sulu, ahead, warp factor one!" "Highly illogical." "He's dead, Jim." "I'm a doctor, not a (fill in the blank)." "Captain, what are ye doin' to my engines?" "Hailing

frequencies open, Captain." "Captain, it was inwented in Russia." "Kirk to Enterprise: One to beam up." But, for the record, neither Kirk nor any other character ever says, "Beam me up, Scotty" during the run of the show. (Of course, the Captain's name was James T. (for Tiberius) Kirk. And the opening was, "Space: The Final Frontier.") September 11: A near-disaster on Apollo I. During re-entry, mission commander Gus Grissom suffers a heart attack. Upon splashdown, the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Robert E. Lee picks up the capsule, and Grissom is treated. He survives, but he will never go into space again. He had been considered the front-runner to be the first man on the Moon. (That was true, until the Apollo I fire. It had been decided that one of the "Mercury 7" astronauts should be the first man on the Moon. Wally Schirra commanded Apollo VII, and Deke Slayton commanded the U.S. half of the Apollo-Soyuz mission, but the only Mercury astronaut who went on to walk on the Moon was Alan Shepard, on Apollo XIV.) September 18: The Memphis Hound Dogs play their first game, as an expansion team in the American Football League. The AFL had considered placing a team in Miami, but being the site of a recent Presidential assassination, plus the subsequent comments of comedian Lenny Bruce, left the South Florida city an unattractive option. The Memphis team is named in honor of the 1956 hit record "Hound Dog," recorded by Memphis resident Elvis Presley, a minority stockholder of the team. Another entertainer who is a part-owner is Danny Thomas, who helped build the nearby St. Jude Children's Hospital. At Memphis Memorial Stadium, later to be renamed the Liberty Bowl, the Dogs lose to the Oakland Raiders, 23-14. The team finishes the season 3-11, bringing several jokes" "Talk about your underdogs," "They're dogging it," and "Those dogs won't hunt." But every dog has his day, and Memphis' day will come. (With no Presidential assassination there, Miami got the AFL expansion team, and the early Dolphins were so bad they were called "the fish that can't swim." Yes, the sportswriters knew that dolphins are mammals, not fish. But they were a Playoff team by their fifth season. In RL, Memphis had teams in the World Football League and the United States Football League, but except for the Tennessee Titans' single-season soujourn there in 1997, before their Nashville stadium was ready, Memphis has never had an NFL team. This is despite being the largest city in Tennessee, larger than Nashville. In fact, the only cities in the former Confederate States with more people than Memphis are in either Texas or Florida: Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Jacksonville and Austin. And while he did fund the St. Jude Children's Hospital in Memphis, Danny Thomas was also one of Joe Robbie's partners in establishing the Dolphins. Not to be confused with Danny Kaye, another legendary entertainer who was an original part-owner of baseball's Seattle Mariners.) October 27: Glenn Miller dies at the age of 62. The great big-band leader's health had been compromised by years of heavy smoking, and, although he had quit following a major heart attack 22 years ago, he remained susceptible to lung disease. But the news of the death of one of the defining figures of 20th Century music is overshadowed by a stunning scandal that

appears in today's Washington Star: President John F. Kennedy, according to a front-page story, has been having an affair with Sally Quinn, the 24-year-old reporter for the Style section of the rival (and much more liberal) paper, the Washington Post. The White House press corps begs White House Press Scretary Pierre Salinger for a comment, especially since the Congressional elections are less than two weeks away. Salinger tells them, "He's got to be President of the United States 24 hours a day. Do you really think he has time for an affair?" So you're saying the Star article is false, Pierre? "I'm saying it's a little hard to believe." (I wanted the JFK story to break right before the Congressional election, enabling the Congress to flip, making his impeachment possible. I chose Sally Quinn because of her comments about the Clintons during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, 32 RL years later. She was certainly a candidate, considering that Jacqueline Kennedy was the same age and also working for a Washington newspaper when JFK married her in 1953. The Star was D.C.'s right-of-center paper until it folded in 1981, making the Sun Myung Moon-owned Washington Times possible. As for Glenn Miller, I can't remember why I chose this date for his death. Maybe it was just the day in 2006 when I wrote the entry. However, when RL-JFK was assassinated, November 22, 1963, it was also the day British authors C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley died. So there is a precedent for someone's death being overshadowed by something bad happening to JFK.) October 28: The Washington Star publishes more information on its expose of President Kennedy and his affair with Washington Post writer Sally Quinn. To deny it now seems futile. JFK calls a press conference. "I have made some mistakes in my life," he says. "And that includes mistakes within my marriage. But these mistakes have been related to my personal life. In no way do they affect my job. And I ask you to respect that fact." This comment does not stop the media frenzy. October 30: Bob Grant, a young host for a radio talk-show in New York, who is normally no fan of anti-establishment songwriter Bob Dylan, begins repeatedly playing Dylan's song "It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding." Grant wants to remind his listeners of the line, "Sometimes, even the President of the United States must stand naked." He wants to remind his listeners of the Kennedy sex scandal. Soon, hosts in other cities begin playing it. Dylan, on a self-imposed exile after a motorcycle wreck injured him in June, just laughs, knowing he gets paid a royalty every time the song is played. (I don't know if Dylan knew that LBJ liked to skinny-dip in the White House pool. But Grant became one of the forefathers of right-wing talk radio, and remains a notorious bigot.) November 8: The Republicans make big gains in the Congressional elections. Fueled by voter anger against President Kennedy's affair, they nearly win enough seats to take both houses, but not quite. The biggest story is the defeat of the President's brother, Senator Robert F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who loses to a black candidate, former State Attorney General Malcolm Little. Jorge Mas Canosa, Republican Leader in the State House of Representatives, is elected Governor of Cuba, defeating three-term incumbent Democrat Fidel Castro. (Yes, RFK loses his Senate seat to the man

we know as Malcolm X, who is not an assassin's target in TTL-1965. In RL, this seat belonged to the retiring Republican Leverett Saltonstall, and was won by Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke, the first black person elected to the U.S. Senate by popular vote, serving two terms. He's still alive, 88 years old. Mas Canosa was a Cuban exile and one of the foremost antiCastro activists, and died a few years ago.) November 9: The Republicans convince enough conservative Southern Democrats to switch parties to take control of both houses of Congress. The Senators they convince are George Wallace of Alabama, George Smathers of Florida, Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and Harry Byrd Jr. of Virginia. In addition, Mississippi's Senators, James Eastland and John Stennis, announce that they are staying in the Democratic Party, but will caucus with the Republicans in the Senate. This is a stunning blow to President Kennedy, who will now have to face Gerald Ford of Michigan as House Speaker and Everett Dirksen of Illinois as Senate Majority Leader, starting in January. Impeachment over his affair with Sally Quinn, though it is not a crime, is a distinct possibility. (Thurmond switched parties when LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Byrd became an independent and stayed one. Wallace, who never ran for the Senate in RL, became an independent for the 1968 Presidential election but went back to the Democrats. Smathers never switched parties, but was so conservative and duplicitous, turning on former friends like JFK, LBJ and Senator Claude Pepper, that he might as well have. Smathers died while I was in the process of writing these entries.) November 19: After losing Game 2 of the World Series to the Baltimore Orioles at Dodger Stadium in Brooklyn, Sandy Koufax undergoes elbow surgery at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. He will miss the entire 1967 season but is expected to be able to pitch pain-free in 1968. (RL-Koufax retired on this day. I'm presuming that the surgery necessary to repair his elbow was developed by a doctor who survived TTL-WWII or TTL-WWI, or perhaps the grandson of someone not killed in the RL-American Civil War. I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure the surgery Koufax would've needed still doesn't exist in RL-2007.) December 3: The University of Alabama, undefeated and ranked Number 3 among American college football teams, wins its annual "Iron Bowl" game against cross-State rival Auburn University, 31-0 at Legion Field in Birmingham. Receiver Richmond Flowers Jr., son of Governor Richmond Flowers, catches two touchdown passes. This follows the "Game of the Century" played two weeks ago between Notre Dame and Michigan State, a 10-10 tie, when those teams maintained their rankings, Number 1 and Number 2, respectively. That game concluded Michigan State's regularseason schedule, while Notre Dame beat Southern California 51-0 last Saturday to complete theirs. Alabama fans, seeing that their team is undefeated and untied, demand that Notre Dame come to New Orleans and play them in the Sugar Bowl to determine a "true National Champion." The pressure on the Fighting Irish and coach Ara Parseghian is tremendous, and so he agrees. Notre Dame will play in its first bowl game since the 1925 Rose Bowl. (They did not play Alabama that year, and would not play in a bowl

until New Year's Day 1970, losing to Texas in the Cotton Bowl. In Alabama, 1966 is called the year of the Missing Ring, as they were the only unbeatenand-untied team in major college football, but the National Championship was awarded to unbeaten-yet-tied Notre Dame.) December 18: Eunice Shriver, sister of President John F. Kennedy, resigns as Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity in the wake of her brother's scandal. December 25: Russian President Nikita Khrushchev announces he will not be a candidate for re-election. As did his predecessor, Aleksandr Kerensky, he is choosing to step aside after 25 years in power. Well, not exactly choosing. He has been dogged by charges of corruption, and charges that he has grown old and stale in office (he is 72 years old). He has already faced an impeachment inquiry and survived. Whether U.S. President John F. Kennedy will also remains to be seen. Uncle Mike Aug 19 2007, 07:36 PM Post #32

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 1967 January 2: With New Year's Day having been a Sunday, the big college football bowl games are pushed back to today. The biggest one is the Sugar Bowl, played at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans. Alabama, led by two touchdown passes to Richmond Flowers Jr., son of the Governor, defeats Notre Dame, 24-21, and wins the National Championship. Several sportswriters say that the process that led to Notre Dame breaking its 40year self-imposed ban on bowl games should lead to a playoff for future National Championships, but Alabama coach Paul "Bear" Bryant and Notre Dame coach Ara Parseghian both say that the current system works well enough. (Alabama actually beat Nebraska, 34-7.) January 3: Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner with ties to organized crime, dies of cancer. He was 55 years old. Nearby, Lee Harvey Oswald, a Marine veteran employed in the Texas School Book Depository, is at his home in nearby Irving, cleaning his rifle, when it accidentally goes off, killing him. He was 27. He leaves behind a wife (Marina), two small daughters (June and Rachel) and an infant son (Lee Jr.). Most people outside the Dallas-Fort Worth "Metroplex" never hear either man's name. (Ruby did die on this day. Oswald

never flirted with Communism in TTL, although he does marry a Russian woman. He also never took part in any plan to kill the President -- his own, or anyone else's.) January 4: Gerald Ford of Michigan, the new Speaker of the House, announces that there will not be hearings in the House of Representatives regarding President John F. Kennedy's affair with Sally Quinn. "The President does not seem to have broken any laws," Ford says, "therefore it's none of our business." This does not please the new Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, James Mann of South Carolina, one of the conservative Southern Democrats who switched parties in reaction to JFK's infidelity. Mann says, "Impeachment hearings on the President's misconduct will be held, come hell or high water!" Ford threatens to remove Mann as Chairman, but Mann tells him he doesn't have the votes. Ford's bluff is called, and the hearings will soon begin. (I wrote this entry after Ford's RL death, in the wake of all that good feeling about him.) January 14: On the day before the first AFL-NFL World Championship Game -what will be renamed the Super Bowl, and will be won 35-10 by the Green Bay Packers over the Kansas City Chiefs -- the Pro Football Hall of Fame, having spent its first four years inducting only pioneers of the National Football League, elects some more recent players, including its first black players: Los Angeles Rams running back Jackie Robinson, Cleveland Browns running back Marion Motley and New York Giants safety Emlen Tunnell. Robinson is the first man elected to both the Baseball and Pro Football Halls of Fame, although Cal Hubbard, a retired baseball umpire who had played both offensive and defensive tackle for the New York Giants and Green Bay Packers, will join him in 1977. Also elected are Browns founder-coach Paul Brown, the late Chicago (now St. Louis) Cardinals founder-owner Charles Bidwill, Rams founder-owner Dan Reeves (not to be confused with the current Dallas Cowboys running back and future NFL coach of the same name), former Rams coach and Chicago Bears lineman Joe Stydahar, New York Giants running back-kicker Ken Strong, Philadelphia Eagles center-linebacker Chuck Bednarik and Detroit Lions quarterback Bobby Layne. January 23: The U.S.S. Pueblo, an American destroyer, is captured by Vietnamese ships. The Vietnamese claim that the Pueblo came within 40 miles of Vietnamese land. The U.S. does not dispute this, but maintains that it was outside the 12-mile limit recognized by international law. President John F. Kennedy is told that Vietnam was acting with the sanction of the People's Republic of China. He goes on television and demands that the Pueblo be released within 48 hours, or, "The United States of America will take action. This action could be anything from a simple attempt to liberate the vessel to the kind of attack that will eliminate both the Republic of Vietnam and the People's Republic of China as active nations. The Chinese know that we have this capability. They also know that any attempt to attack American allies in the Pacific region will constitute an act of war, and that America will retaliate with any and all available options." For the first time since the Taiwan Missile Crisis of October 1962, nuclear war seems possible. (The Pueblo was captured by North Korea a year later. Some conservatives printed up buttons

mocking JFK's brother, saying, "Trade Bobby for the Pueblo." These vanished after he was shot.) January 26: President John F. Kennedy sends the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Enterprise to liberate the U.S.S. Pueblo from the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese boats are no match for the attack of AF-108s launched from the deck of the "Big E," and within two hours, the Pueblo and all other U.S. ships are out of Vietnamese waters. One of the AF-108 pilots is Navy Lieutenant John McCain III, whose father, Admiral John McCain Jr., is commanding this fleet; his father was also an Admiral. Over 100 Vietnamese personnel are killed. There are no American casualties. President Kennedy again delivers a televised Oval Office address, stating that if Vietnamese President Ho Chi Minh wants this incident to be over, then it is; but if he wants further combat, America will oblige. Ho does nothing. The Chinese also do not appear to be taking any action, cowed into submission by the threat of nuclear annihilation. The incident is a boost to America's troops, and also to the ratings of the NBC science-fiction show Star Trek, whose 23rd Century starship is also named U.S.S. Enterprise. Through 2006, the Pueblo Incident is the only combat between American and Vietnamese forces. (McCain does not become a prisoner of war in TTL, but remains a hero and will still be elected to both houses of Congress.) February 2: With the Pueblo rescue boosting his public approval, but with the scandal over his affair with Washington Post writer Sally Quinn still hanging over him, President John F. Kennedy delivers the State of the Union Address. Upon discussion with advisers, both official and unofficial -- including his brother, former Senator Robert F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, and Dr. Martin Luther King -- he proposes a new piece of his War On Poverty, an Inner-City Enhancement Team, or "ICE-T." He calls it an urban version of the Civilian Conservation Corps, part of President Eleanor Roosevelt's New Deal of the 1930s. Speaker Gerald Ford and Senate Majority Leader Everett Dirksen tell him that, scandal or no scandal, this is a good idea, and he will get Republican support. The bill is passed on February 13, but JFK waits until February 15 to sign it into law. He is advised that he should not be seen in public on February 14 -- Valentine's Day. (This sounds like something JFK would have done, even if LBJ didn't try it.) March 15: As Julius Caesar should have 2,000 years ago -- at least, according to William Shakespeare -- President John F. Kennedy should have heeded the advice, "Beware the Ides of March." UPI reporter Seymour Hersh publishes a scathing book, The Dark Side of Glory, which suggests some truly disturbing things about JFK. It says that he and Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana not only had business dealings but shared a girlfriend, Judith Campbell. It also says that JFK was married in the 1940s, a union that was quickly annulled. It also alleges numerous affairs, beyond the known one with Washington Post writer Sally Quinn. Most of the women mentioned are famous actresses, including Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn, Angie Dickinson, Ann-Margret, Gene Tierney, the late Marilyn Monroe, even, while JFK was a young Senator, Grace Kelly, now Princess Grace of Monaco. Another affair alleged from his younger days is Russian-Jewish writer Alisa Rosenbaum, later to pen best-selling, but hardly liberal, novels under the name Ayn Rand. Representatives from many

of the women mentioned quickly come forward to deny the charges. But the questions about JFK having dealings with the Chicago mob soon cause the Republicans to step up their previously slow-moving impeachment inquiry. (Hersh would eventually write "The Dark Side of Camelot," about the Kennedys. In TTL, the Broadway musical "Camelot" is never publicly associated with the family. JFK did have affairs with Campbell and Tierney, and probably slept with Monroe and Hepburn, but the other claims are dubious at best. I doubt he ever even met Rand; that was just something I added based on Wendell wondering how her life in this alternate world would have gone. The previous-marriage story is completely bogus, dreamed up by John Birch Society members who consider Catholics to not be Christians.) April 2: For the first time in its 50-year history, the Russian Republic will be governed by a member of the Nationalist Party. In today's Presidential election, Leonid Brezhnev defeats Alexei Kosygin, nominee of the Socialist Party and chosen successor of outgoing President Nikita Khrushchev. Brezhnev promises to cut back on the massive building programs that Khrushchev loved, and also promises a new, more aggressive foreign policy. The nations of Europe, Red China, and the United States all become concerned. Russia has the atomic bomb, and so do Russia's old rivals, China and Germany. April 20: Thirteen days of hearings conclude in the House Judiciary Committee. The Republicans, having read Seymour Hersh's book The Dark Side of Glory and smelling blood, have brought forth several witnesses to testify that President John F. Kennedy has committed all kinds of high crimes, misdemeanors and other actions that, while not against any law, would be tremendously embarrassing if true. The Democrats on the Committee, however, punch several holes in the Republicans' theories, leading to a considerable amount of doubt as to whether any of the charges brought by either Hersh or the Republicans is true. April 24: The House Judiciary Committee, by a strict party-line vote, approves seven Articles of Impeachment against President John F. Kennedy, ranging from obstruction of justice to improper business practices to marital infidelity. The Democrats, led by their ranking member, elderly Congressman Emmanuel Celler of Brooklyn, New York, tell the press that the Republicans have no evidence that would hold up for a moment in a traditional court of law. The second-ranking Democrat, Peter Rodino of Newark, New Jersey, says, "They are pursuing the President because he doesn't fit their definition of what a President should be. And that is not the proper way to conduct a legal investigation." One of the newer members, John Conyers of Detroit, Michigan, is even more blunt: "They are trying to impeach President Kennedy because they hate him. They hate him because he is fighting for the poor, for racial minorities, for children, and for the elderly. They cannot be allowed to succeed." For the rest of his life, Conyers will be a favorite target of right-wing Republicans. April 29: A new group of draftees is taken into the U.S. Army. Despite the fact that the United States has not been at war in 17 years, the draft continues,

though it takes far fewer new soldiers than it did during World Wars I and II and the Korean War. Meanwhile, Muhammad Ali continues to prepare for his next defense of the heavyweight title. (Ali was drafted, and on this date refused induction. In TTL, he is not drafted, and is not stripped of his title.) May 1: The House of Representatives begins debate on the Articles of Impeachment against President John F. Kennedy. Speaker Gerald Ford of Michigan defies his party's rank and file by saying he will vote against all seven Articles. "As an attorney," he says, "I cannot allow these articles to stand without questioning the evidence. Our great republic is a government of laws, and not of men. And there seems, to me, to be insufficient evidence of President Kennedy breaking any law. The only thing that seems certain is his infidelity to his wife. But that is a sin, not a crime. He does not have to answer to this House for that, nor even to the American people. He does have to answer to his wife, and to his God. Let them decide whether and how he should be punished." The Articles alleging obstruction of justice and improper business practices go down to defeat, as enough Republicans join with the vast majority of Democrats to stop them. But the Article alleging infidelity is tabled. There will not be a vote on it for the time being. Some Republicans want to hold it in reserve, in effect giving JFK a second chance, in case he embarrasses the country with another affair (or the revelation of another one). May 26: Anti-poverty activists enter a welfare office in the Roxbury section of Boston, and demand to see the director. He sees them, and they work out a plan to deliver to Mayor John F. Collins. The dispute is settled peacefully. There will be no riot in Boston this week. (The dispute was not settled peacefully, and Boston became the first major city to have a race riot in 1967. It would not be the last, as the later riots would be so big as to make the one in Boston forgotten outside New England.) June 5: President John F. Kennedy tells Prime Minister Levi Eshkol that if Israel, as it believes imminent, is attacked by its Arab neighbors, America will help. But if Israel attacks first, America will stay out of it. Israel attacks first, and six days later has taken the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, and, most importantly, the city of Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan. Also on this day, the National Hockey League doubles in size. To the "Original Six" teams -- the Montreal Canadiens, the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Boston Bruins, the New York Rangers, the Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings -- the following expansion teams are added: The Philadelphia Flyers, the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Minnesota North Stars, the St. Louis Blues, the Los Angeles Kings and the Oakland Seals. June 13: The film You Only Live Twice premieres. Sean Connery stars as British secret agent 007, attempting to stop a SPECTRE plan to steal American and Russian space capsules in the hope of starting World War III, after which SPECTRE would then pick up the pieces of civilization. For the first time, filmgoers see the face of SPECTRE's Number One, and hear his name. Previously, they had seen him only from the neck down, wearing a gray suit and stroking a white cat on his lap. "James Bond?" asks actor Donald

Pleasence, with his head shaved and a nasty scar down the left side of his face. "Let me introduce myself: I am Ernst Stavro Blofeld." It is the most commercially successful Bond film yet. June 22: ABC News airs a special, hosted by their young Canadian-born anchor, Peter Jennings, titled "Hippies: The New Bohemians." Jennings investigates a counterculture involving new variations on rock music, leftleaning politics, clothing of wild colors, often with a Western or American Indian theme, increasingly liberal attitudes toward sex, and, perhaps most chillingly, hallucinogenic drugs, such as marijuana and lysergic acid diathlymide, better known by its initials, LSD. Communities such as Greenwich Village in New York, Cambridge near Boston, South Street in Philadelphia, Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco and West Hollywood in Los Angeles are among the centers of this phenomenon. Among the interviewees are members of a Los Angeles-based rock band called The Doors. Keyboard player Ray Manzarek says, "The world is about to explode. I don't mean blow up physically, but in culture. People want to fight or find love. Sides are being chosen. The planet is screaming for change, and people like us, we're going to make the myths!" Lead singer Jim Morrison, apparently quite high on some drug or other, says something even more disturbing: "I am interested in chaos, disorder, especially activity which seems to have no meaning." But the most shocking statement of all comes from a young unmarried couple in San Francisco, who, Jennings says, were seen by the camera crew, having sex in Golden Gate Park in broad daylight. The girlfriend describes the new openness as "groovy," while the boyfriend says, "Hey, President Kennedy is fooling around with any woman he wants. If the President does it, that means it's OK, right? Far out, man!" Having recently survived several rounds of scandal, many of them regarding his personal life, having this scene shown on television is the last thing JFK needed. (In RL, with the Vietnam War going on and full-scale opposition to it well underway, Jennings hosted a special titled "Dissent Or Treason?" on this night. Two months later, Harry Reasoner would host a CBS Reports special titled "The Hippie Temptation," which would feature not the Doors but the Grateful Dead. The Morrison quote is familiar. The Manzarek quote is altered slightly from Oliver Stone's film "The Doors," which RL Manzarek has said is full of Stone's misinterpretations and outright lies, although he praised Kyle MacLachlan's portrayal of him. And, "If the President does it, that means it's OK, right?" is a variation of, "If the President does it, that means it is not illegal." Said by, of course, Richard Nixon.) June 29: CBS News reporter Mike Wallace interviews Washington Post reporter Sally Quinn, former mistress of President John F. Kennedy, for a CBS Reports special. While avoiding salacious tidbits, she gives some details about their affair that prove terribly embarrassing. CBS executives are so impressed with the interview that they soon sign Wallace to do a "news magazine" program, which will be named 60 Minutes. (That show would not begin until September 1968.) July 2: Famed aviator Amelia Earhart dies of cancer at the age of 70. She was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean (1932), the first person to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean (1934), and the first person to fly around

the world (1937), a voyage that tested the AF-101, the father (mother?) plane of the modern U.S. Air Force. She will be laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery. Fellow aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh, the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic (1927), delivers a stirring eulogy in one of his few public appearances since World War II. (This was the 30th anniversary of her disappearance.) July 4: President John F. Kennedy speaks at a Fourth of July celebration in Detroit, honoring labor and anti-poverty activists. Also among the featured speakers are Walter Reuther, longtime head of the United Auto Workers, and Dr. Martin Luther King, a Baptist minister from Atlanta, who is the nation's leading anti-poverty crusader and has been acting on behalf of unions lately. JFK is wildly cheered by the crowd, which is mixed between black and white, but is almost completely poor or working-class. This is a far cry from the vituperation coming from Washington, where the possibility of his impeachment has once again been raised by the Republicans. July 5: Muhammad Ali knocks out Buster Mathis in the fifth round at Madison Square Garden in New York to retain the heavyweight championship of the world. Ali is now 30-0 as a pro. One of the guests at the fight is New York native Lew Alcindor, a basketball star at the University of California at Los Angeles. Afterward, Ali and Alcindor talk about many subjects, including basketball. Ali, born Cassius Clay, is a native of the basketball-mad City of Louisville in the basketball-mad Commonwealth of Kentucky. (Along with Virginia, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, Kentucky is officially a "Commonwealth" rather than a "State.") Three months earlier, at Louisville's Freedom Hall, Alcindor had led UCLA to the completion of an undefeated season by beating the University of Dayton for the National Championship. They also talk about religion. Ali is the Western Hemisphere's most prominent Muslim, and tries to tell Alcindor of the way he can reconcile what he calls "a religion of peace" with being the heavyweight champion of the world, which gives him the mythical title of "the biggest/strongest/most powerful man in the world." Alcindor listens intently, and learns a great deal from his conversation with Ali. He will go on to lead UCLA to two more National Championships and an 88-2 record in college. After leading the Milwaukee Bucks to the 1971 NBA Championship, Alcindor will announce his conversion to Islam, and change his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, eventually leading the Los Angeles Lakers to five World Championships along with Earvin "Magic" Johnson. Another of his Laker teammates will be fellow UCLA grad and Muslim convert Keith, later Jammal, Wilkes. July 10: Author Harold Laski publishes JFK: Man Or Myth? It is a venomous attack on both President Kennedy's personal life and his politics. It suggests "hundreds" of marital infidelities and "open appeasement of Communists" in China and elsewhere. Gerald Ford, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, decides he cannot wait any longer. Debate on the impeachment of the President, with the remaining undebated article, regarding his infidelity -- not a "high crime" or a "misdemeanor," but officially listed as "private conduct unbecoming a President" -- will begin in the House tomorrow. (Laski did publish uncomplimentary books on both Jack and Bobby

Kennedy.) July 12: On the Article of Impeachment, "Private Conduct Unbecoming a President," regarding the marital infidelities of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, President of the United States, the vote is 228 Yea, 206 Nay. JFK becomes the first President to be impeached. It turns out that, even with all his moral failings, JFK is enormously popular. By nightfall, riots break out in several American cities. The worst are in Detroit, Boston, Los Angeles, Baltimore and Newark, where some of his strongest anti-poverty efforts have been undertaken. (Andrew Johnson was never President in TTL, therefore there has never previously been a Presidential Impeachment. All the cities I mentioned in this entry had race riots between July 1964 and August 1968. Newark's began on this day, Detroit's two weeks later, Boston's earlier as stated previously. My parents were married earlier in the year, in anticipation of my father being shipped overseas by the Army. Vietnam was raging, and they sent him to Korea. They sent him to the site of "the last war," which is a big reason why you're reading this now. There he was, sitting on the DMZ, knowing that, at any moment, 100,000 Commies could come pouring over the border and start a new war. And there was my mother-to-be, taking the bus to work in downtown Newark, hearing gunshots, and not knowing if they were being fired by the rioters, the Newark P.D., or the New Jersey National Guard. She was in more of a war zone than he was. They both made it, though.) July 13: President Kennedy gives a live address from the Oval Office. He asks the American people to forgive him for his extramarital excesses, and says that rioting is the wrong way to protest yesterday's impeachment. "I will mount an aggressive defense in my trial in the Senate," he says. "I ask you all to please allow this process to take its course. I deeply appreciate the nonviolent support I have received from people all over this great country. But to riot is wrong. Dr. Martin Luther King, a man I have come to know quite well over the last four years, recently told me, 'A riot is, at bottom, the language of the unheard.' To those of you who are angry at my opponents for impeaching me, please understand that you have been heard. But violence is not the answer." There is no second night of rioting, but several inner-city areas, most of them black neighborhoods, sustain severe damage. September 19: The Senate impeachment trial of President John F. Kennedy begins. The House's impeachment managers submit that JFK's multiple marital infidelities have cost him the moral authority to continue as President, and have embarrassed the nation in the eyes of the world. JFK's defense attorneys make a very different case, showing that he is still capable of governing despite the scandal having raged for the last 11 months. Several witnesses, including former JFK mistress Sally Quinn, testify. But she is the only woman linked with JFK to testify, hurting the Republicans' cause. They need a two-thirds majority, 67 out of 100 Senators, to vote to convict Kennedy in order to remove him from office. September 27: The Kansas City Athletics sweep a doubleheader from the Chicago White Sox at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. They will be the team's

last games in Kansas City, as team owner Charlie Finley announces that the team is being moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, to become the Texas Rangers. He had wanted to move the team to Oakland, but was convinced of the Oakland Coliseum's unsuitability for baseball, the East Bay's market being too small for the major leagues, and the difficulties that the Miners were having across the bay in San Francisco. (In RL, the Giants were far more successful in San Francisco than the Miners, the RL-Mets, were in TTL, and Finley did move the A's to Oakland. In the 40 years since, a debate has raged as to whether the Bay Area can really support two Major League Baseball teams, as both have nearly moved, and more than once: The Giants to Toronto for 1976 and Tampa Bay for 1993, and the A's to Denver for 1978 and New Orleans for 1979. And if the A's don't get a new ballpark soon, they may once again face the prospect of leaving Northern California.) September 28: Debate begins in the U.S. Senate on whether to convict President John F. Kennedy of "Private Conduct Unbecoming a President" and remove him from office. Most of the Senators recommending his removal are Southern conservatives, and their moral indignation sounds shrill. The most eloquent voice in favor of conviction belongs to Barry Goldwater, Republican of Arizona and his defeated oppponent in the 1964 election. "President Kennedy has been a friend of mine," Goldwater says, "but his private conduct has been a terrible mistake, and I don't think this nation should have a President who has done these things. A man who will not be honest with his wife is no damn good in my book." But an equally eloquent voice in favor of acquittal belongs to Hubert Humphrey, Democrat of Minnesota. "Hubert was a wonderful speaker for 10 or 15 minutes," Goldwater would write in his memoirs. "It was the two-hour barnburner that was his weakness." This time, Humphrey speaks for 12 minutes, and concludes as follows: "The President betrayed his wife. He did not betray his country. His actions were immoral, but, constitutionally, and rationally, they were not impeachable. He should be allowed to serve out his term, and, if the American people are willing, to seek another term. Let them decide whether he is worthy of the office, with their votes and with their voices. After all, it is their work that we are here to do." (Goldwater's words about JFK are reflective of what he said about Nixon late in life; his words about HHH really are in his memoirs; HHH's words are adapted from those of Congressman Bob Wexler of Florida about Bill Clinton in the House debate of 1998.) September 30: "On this vote," reads Chief Justice Earl Warren, presiding over the impeachment trial of the President, "the Yeas are 44, the Nays are 56. Two-thirds of the Senate having not agreed, the defendant, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, is hereby acquitted of the charge against him." The Republicans did not even come close to getting a majority, let alone the two-thirds majority needed to convict and remove JFK from the Presidency. Despite getting several Democrats and Democrats-turned-Republicans to side with them, too many Republicans decided that the official charge of "Private Conduct Unbecoming a President" was either not proven by the House impeachment managers or was not sufficient to remove a President from office. As much as the President was by the revelation of his misconduct, the Republicans have been embarrassed by their failure, now widely seen as an obviously partisan

maneuver, rather than as the expression of a natural wave of revulsion on which they'd hoped to capitalize. Still, the question of next year's Presidential election remains up in the air. It seems unlikely that JFK can be elected to a second full term, and he may not even be renominated by the Democrats. But the Republicans are in an equal fix, as, right now, they look like losers on policy and prudes on personality. They will need someone who can question Kennedy's policy and his moral authority without sounding like he's simply attacking him for sex or, as President Joe McCarthy did 20 years ago, sounding like a nut on Communism. October 1: In reponse to yesterday's acquittal in the impeachment trial of President John F. Kennedy, 50,000 protestors descend on Washington. They are mostly married couples. The men all have short hair, clean-shaven faces and plain suits. The women all have long dresses that do nothing to reveal their figures. They are conservative stylistically and politically. But not in their expression. They picket the White House with signs. "JFK RESIGN." "JFK SEX FIEND." "LIBERAL LIBERTINE." "GIVE THE WHITE HOUSE BACK JACK." "FIRST SALLY QUINN NOW US." "JFK IN BED WITH SALLY AND CHINA." "JFK IN BED WITH SALLY AND THE MOB." "JFK MUST GO." "AND THAT GOES FOR BOBBY TOO," forgetting that the President's brother was already defeated in last year's Senate election by black Republican Malcolm Little. A few signs are directed at the Congress: "CONGRESS COWARDS, CONVICT KENNEDY ." "WE NEED 60 GOP SENATORS." Some take a shot at the Chief Justice for not letting more witnesses come forward, even though that was not his decision to make: "IMPEACH EARL WARREN." Nastiest of all is the chant that goes up: "Hey, hey, JFK, how many girls did you screw today?" Kennedy is unfazed. He is not even in Washington. He is back in Boston, at Fenway Park, watching the Red Sox win their first American League Pennant in 21 years, defeating the Minnesota Twins, 5-3. But they will go on to lose the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals. (Ted Kennedy was at Fenway that day, as was Minnesota native Humphrey.) October 11: Apollo IV becomes the first Earth spacecraft to orbit the Moon. Astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders become American heroes. The goal, set six years earlier by the late President Albert Gore, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth, and doing it by the end of the 1960s, now seems very close. (Those were the RL Apollo VIII astronauts.) October 27: Muhammad Ali knocks out Jerry Quarry in the fourth round at Madison Square Garden in New York, to retain the heavyweight title. It is the 12th and last heavyweight title fight at "the old Garden," which was opened in 1925 at 49th Street and 8th Avenue in Manhattan, as the third building with the name. It will be replaced in February by "the new Garden," at 32nd Street and 7th Avenue, atop the new Pennsylvania Station. November 23: Thanksgiving is held at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. When the dinner ends, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy tells 10-year-old Caroline to take seven-year-old John and two-year-old Frankie upstairs. Then, in full view of Jack's parents, Rose and the invalid Joe, she tells

Jack that she's leaving him, and taking the kids with her to a new apartment in New York. She'll appear with him at official functions, and she won't divorce him, but it will be a public marriage only. Their private life together is over. Jack accepts this. He now knows that he cannot run for a second full term next year. Not having Jackie by his side, especially after what has happened over the last year, would be devastating. December 21: Apollo V orbits the Moon, with a crew of James McDivitt, David Scott and Russell Schweickart. The lunar module is tested. It now looks like "Man On the Moon" will happen in 1968. (The RL Apollo IX astornauts.) Uncle Mike Aug 19 2007, 07:38 PM Post #33

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 1968 January 30: President John F. Kennedy delivers his fifth State of the Union Address. He does not look good. A youthful 46 when he took office upon the assassination of Albert Gore, he now appears a bit older than 50. His dark brown hair has begun to go gray, and he has a considerable amount of lines on his face. He gives a glowing report on the progress that America has made in seven years of Democratic governance, but his conclusion makes history. "My fellow Americans," he says, "the State of our Union is the strongest it has ever been." A standing ovation ensues. "But the state of the President is not. As you know, the last four years and two months, and in particular the last year and three months, have been very eventful, in some cases for the wrong reasons. It has been very difficult for my family. And it has taken a toll on my health. My doctors have told me that another campaign for President this year would take a further toll, and that, if I were to win, I might not serve out my new term. Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President. But until my last day in office, nearly one year hence, I will continue to do the work of the American people, to the best of my ability. Thank you very much." Another standing ovation. Democrats and Republicans alike, the news media, and the American people in opinion polls, seem to think JFK is doing the right thing by not running for re-election. Afterwards, however, he meets with Vice President Bill Fulbright. "You can't run either, Bill," the President tells him. "They'll use you as my stand-in, and try to punish you for what I've done." Fulbright: "Do you really think the American people would punish you? Do you really think they'd punish me in your place?" Kennedy: "I'm not talking about

the American people. I'm talking about the Republicans. Anyone in my Administration runs, and they instantly become 'the sex candidate' and 'the mob candidate,' no matter how ridiculous it is." Within days, Fulbright announces that he will not run for President, either. (This was the date of the Tet Offensive, which led to LBJ saying, "I shall not seek..." on March 31.) February 11: The old Madison Square Garden, at 49th Street and 8th Avenue in New York, is closed as the New York Rangers and Detroit Red Wings play to a 3-3 tie, followed by a "final skate" with legends from the Rangers and the other "Original Six" teams of the NHL. A few hours later, "The New Madison Square Garden Center," or just "the new Garden," opens, between 31st and 33rd Streets, between 7th and 8th Avenues, across 8th Avenue from the former General Post Office, which has been converted into the new Pennsylvania Station. A new general postal facility has opened across 9th Avenue, the Morgan Processing and Distribution Center. The new Garden opens with a salute to the USO hosted by Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. (Turning the old James A. Farley Post Office -- which didn't yet have the name, as former Postmaster General Farley lived on until 1976, the last surviving member of FDR's Cabinet -- into the new Penn Station has been talked about since the 1990s. In TTL, it happens right after the demolition of the 19101963 Penn Station. The plan is to divide the Farley Office's functions between the Morgan Center and Church Street Station in Lower Manhattan, across from the World Trade Center site. I would have put the new NYC main post office at the WTC site if I hadn't been able to find out where the new main office would be. Everything else in this entry is as it was in RL.) February 14: Following the newly-closed building formerly having the name, which had been nicknamed "the Mecca of Boxing," the new Madison Square Garden in New York hosts its first major prizefight, and it is a baptism in blood. Muhammad Ali retains the heavyweight title by pulverizing Jimmy Ellis for three rounds and then mercilessly knocking him out in the fourth. Like the February 14, 1951 welterweight title fight in which Sugar Ray Robinson pounded Jake LaMotta for 13 rounds before it was stopped, this fight receives the nickname of "the St. Valentine's Day Massacre." Some call it the most devastating fight since Joe Louis' first-round KO of Max Schmeling to retain the heavyweight title in 1938, others the most brutal since Jack Dempsey demolished Jess Willard to win the heavyweight title in 1919. Ellis will fight for several more years, but will never challenge for the title again. Ali, 26, is now 32-0, and has been champion for four years. The prediction he made before he won the title, "I'm young, I'm handsome, I'm fast, I'm pretty, and can't possibly be beat!" now seems more true than ever. (By resisting the draft, Ali was out of the ring between the ages of 25 and 28, prime years for a boxer.) March 3: Apollo VI orbits the Moon. While John Young pilots the command module, named "Charlie Brown" after a beloved comic-strip character, commander Thomas Stafford and pilot Eugene Cernan bring the lunar module, named "Snoopy" after Charlie Brown's dog who "went to the Moon" in a fantasy sequence in the "Peanuts" strip, to within eight miles of the Moon's surface. The next mission, if all goes well, will be "Man On the Moon." (Those were the names of the astronauts and modules of Apollo X. In the

strip, Snoopy said, "It looks like a dirty beach... or has someone already said that?" And, when setting foot on it, "I made it! I'm the first beagle on the Moon! I beat the Russians, I beat everybody! I even beat that stupid cat who lives next door!") March 12: The New Hampshire Primary is held. On the Republican side, former Vice President Richard Nixon, the 1960 Presidential nominee, easily defeats several candidates, including Governors Nelson Rockefeller of New York and George Romney of Michigan; former Governor Nile Kinnick of Iowa, the 1964 Vice Presidential nominee; and Senator George Wallace of Alabama, a former Democrat. This begins "The I Told You So Campaign," as Nixon has been telling people, "What has happened over the last eight years, and especially over the last two, would not have happened if I had been President." On the Democratic side, Hubert Humphrey, known as "the Conscience of the Senate" for his eloquent criticism/defense of President John F. Kennedy during the impeachment trial, is the victor, defeating several candidates, including his fellow Senator from Minnesota, Eugene McCarthy, and a candidate who doesn't seem to have much chance, especially in old, English, Yankee, taxophobic New Hampshire: Fidel Castro, the former Governor of Cuba. March 31: President Kennedy holds a press conference to announce the signing of a trade agreement with the Republic of Vietnam, a major step toward reconciliation with that country following the Pueblo Incident last year. Vietnamese President Ho Chi Minh has seen his relationship with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai go sour, and he needs a more trustworthy ally. Kennedy is asked if he will change his mind and get back into the Presidential race. "No." If the Democratic Convention at Chicago deadlocks, would he accept a draft? "No." Even if not having to go through the primaries eases the potential strain on his health? "I've made my decision. My health and my family have to come before my desire to continue to serve in this job I have loved." But doesn't the country come before anything else? "I believe that Senator Humphrey, who is currently leading the race, would make an excellent President. He has many of my strengths and none of my weaknesses. If he wins, the country will be in good hands." Senator McCarthy, who has never liked JFK, is furious that the President would endorse his fellow Minnesota Senator and competitor for the nomination, but there's not much he can do, except try to win. Governor Castro is also rather upset, but no one has the courage to tell him that he never had a chance anyway. Former Vice President Nixon just laughs: "If Kennedy wants to endorse Humphrey, let him. That'll be the albatross around Humphrey's neck!" April 2: Not surprisingly, Senator Hubert Humphrey of neighboring Minnesota wins the Wisconsin Primary, defeating, among others, fellow Senator from Minnesota Eugene McCarthy. Former Vice President Richard Nixon wins on the Republican side. Many thought that former Governor Nile Kinnick of Iowa, the 1964 nominee for Vice President, had a good chance in Wisconsin, but he made the mistake of telling how, as an All-American at the University of Iowa, he had a big game against the University of Wisconsin. Nixon, a huge sports fan (and, in particular, a huge football fan), had been a backup lineman at

tiny Whittier College in southern California, and so does not have Kinnick's problem. For the last three days of the campaign, he asks local bands to play "On Wisconsin" at his rallies. (Kinnick, of course, did not live long enough to run for office, as many suspected he would, as a grandson of a Governor of Iowa.) April 4: Dr. Martin Luther King successfully negotiates a new contract between striking sanitation workers and the City of Memphis. He returns home to Atlanta. He has been getting involved in alleviating poverty at a human level, rather than at the governmental level as earlier in the decade. "I am seeking to fill in the cracks of a program that has been mostly successful," he says of President John F. Kennedy's War On Poverty, "but at the same time, we cannot allow any more people to fall through those cracks." (King lives on here, as opposed to RL. I suspect, in TTL, he never gave that "farewell address" -- "I have seen the promised land. I may not get there with you" -- which in RL he apparently gave many times, not just in Memphis the night before he was shot.) April 23: The Pennsylvania Primary is held, and the major parties' nominations are all but sown up: The Democratic nominee will be Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, and the Republican nominee will be former Vice President Richard Nixon. But there are two candidates, one on each side, who refuse to get out of the race and endorse the front-runners: Former Governor Fidel Castro of Cuba for the Democrats, and Senator and former Governor George Wallace of Alabama, a Democrat-turned-Republican. May 19: "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The 'Eagle' has landed." So says Lieutenant Commander Neil Armstrong, U.S. Navy, as commanding officer of Apollo VII. They are the first words spoken on the surface of the Moon. While Michael Collins pilots the Command Module, "Columbia," in lunar orbit, Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin prepare to leave the Lunar Excursion Module "Eagle" to become the first men to walk on the Moon. At 10:56 PM, Eastern Daylight Time, Armstrong says, "I'm going to step off the LEM now." Earth's three billion people hold their breath. Armstrong's left foot steps off the "Eagle" ladder, and onto the surface. Man On The Moon. "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." Armstrong has chosen his words well. Aldrin joins him a few minutes later. They soon receive a phone call from President John F. Kennedy at the White House. JFK tells them, "This is humanity's greatest achievment. I know that Albert Gore is smiling down on us all," he says of the late President who set the goal of landing men on the Moon and returning them safely to Earth before the decade was out. Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins will return to Earth on May 23, as the great heroes of the age. (The crew of the RL Apollo XI gets moved up a little more than a year. It has always ticked me off that the President who got to make the lunar phone call was not JFK, who pledged us to go there, or LBJ, who as Senator wrote the bill that created NASA and as President was such a huge space program supporter, but Nixon. I'm originally from Bloomfield, New Jersey; Aldrin is from Montclair, Bloomfield's neighbor and scholastic sports arch-rival. I respect him anyway. Collins, of course, should not be confused with the Irish revolutionary of the same name. And here, I remove all doubt

as to whether Armstrong said "for man" or "for a man.") May 23: Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins return to Earth from the Moon. They splash down in the Pacific Ocean and are picked up by the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Enterprise. (More free publicity for the NBC science-fiction show Star Trek.) But all is not well on Earth, particularly in France. Revulsion toward the French government of President Charles de Gaulle is growing. Hundreds of thousands are in the streets of Paris. Many want "a new Bastille Day," to launch a coup, topple de Gaulle, and reinstall former President Jean Moulin. But Moulin will have none of it: "We French are a modern, enlightened people, not a mob. We will do this the right way or not at all." He demands that de Gaulle call an election. de Gaulle will win with 53 percent of the vote to Moulin's 42 percent and the rest scattered. de Gaulle and Moulin appear together on French television, say gracious things about each other and unifying things about the country, and civil peace is restored. (Without the moderating voice of this older, wiser Moulin, it got worse in RL, but the de Gaulle government survived.) June 5: President John F. Kennedy addresses a labor luncheon at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. The night before, at the same hotel, Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota had claimed victory in the California Primary, wrapping up the Democratic nomination for President. Kennedy congratulates Humphrey, who also attends the luncheon. On the way out, shots are fired. Kennedy is taken to Good Samaritan Hospital. He is wounded in the right shoulder, but the injury is not life-threatening. Two others are slightly wounded. The gunman is captured at the scene. His name is Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, a native of Jordan. His reason has nothing to do with JFK's extramarital failings or his liberal domestic policies. The date is the key: Sirhan tells the police that it is the first anniversary of the start of the Six-Day War, in which Israel took Jerusalem and the West Bank from his country, which he calls "Palestine," not "Jordan." This assassination attempt does nothing to help the cause of "the Palestinian people." Kennedy leaves the hospital the next day, and returns to a limited work schedule. It is initially feared that his health might not stand being shot, but he recovers fairly quickly. (This was the date and location of Bobby's shooting, and he died the next day.) June 10: Muhammad Ali retains his heavyweight championship in an eightround demolition of Argentine behemoth Oscar Bonavena at the Spectrum sports arena in Philadelphia. Despite claiming to have found peace through Islam, Ali's mouth remains as aggressive as his fists: "They ran out of ugly in America, so now they're importing ugly from South America! It don't matter, though, 'cause the world's champ should be pretty, like me! Who else they got out there?" Someone at the Spectrum press conference mentions that basketball superstar and Philadelphia native Wilt Chamberlain, all 7-foot-1, 265 pounds of him, might be the only guy to give Ali a decent fight. "You know what they'd say if I fought Chamberlain?" Ali says. "Tim-berrrrrrrr!" Within days, Ali and Chamberlain will appear together on ABC's Wide World of Sports, interviewed by Howard Cosell. "I want all the basketball players, football players, anybody who wants a shot at me! I'll go all over the world!

I'll go to the Moon like the astronauts! I'll find some ugly chump there! I'll go to Mars! I'll even beat the astronauts to Mars! And I'll beat any Martian who wants to fight me!" Wilt, with a pretty quick mind himself, isn't fazed, and issues a threat: "Oh, you wanna go to Mars? You might get there sooner than you think!" But the Ali-Chamberlain fight never happens, mainly because Wilt's friends convince him that a punch from the Louisville Hummingbird would be more damaging than any ten from a Boston Celtic. (The AliChamberlain proposition happened in 1971, after Ali lost to Joe Frazier. The fight never happened, luckily for Wilt.) June 13: Chief Justice Earl Warren announces his retirement from the Supreme Court. President John F. Kennedy decides to promote Associate Justice William J. Brennan to be the new Chief. He also appoints Governor Richard J. Hughes of New Jersey, a former State Attorney General, to Brennan's seat. The anger over JFK's marital infidelities, reduced by his acquittal in his impeachment trial, is now largely dissipated by his survival of an assassination attempt. (Warren did retire on this day, but LBJ tried to promote his crony Abe Fortas to Chief Justice, and appoint another Texas crony, Homer Thornberry, to Fortas' seat. The Republicans filibustered the Fortas nomination, knowing they had a good shot at forcing Fortas off the Court entirely due to conflicts of interest, and then having a Republican President to fill both seats. It worked: Nixon appointed Warren Burger to be Chief, and, after two failed Southern segregationists, Harry Blackmun to the Fortas seat.) July 20: Apollo VIII lands on the Moon. Charles "Pete" Conrad and Alan Bean become the third and fourth men to walk on the Moon. Russia and Germany have recently announced that their own space programs will reach the Moon in the next few years. (They were the Apollo XII astronauts.) August 8: The Republican Convention is held at the Miami Beach Convention Center. As he was in 1960, former Vice President Richard Nixon is nominated for President. His running mate is Mark Hatfield, Senator from Oregon and former Governor. Nixon promises "a return to moral values in the White House" and "a new commitment to law and order." For the moment, he leads Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, the Democratic nominee-in-waiting, in the polls, but it's within the margin of error. August 22: Alexander Dubcek is elected President of Czechoslovakia. He declares that his country and the Russian Republic will be allies, but that his country will be "our own people." Russian President Leonid Brezhnev doesn't like this much, but it wouldn't make sense to do anything about it. There is peace in the streets of Prague. (The Prague Spring was crushed by the Soviets on this day.) August 28: The Democratic Convention, at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, is host to a nasty floor fight. Fidel Castro, the former Governor of Cuba, wants his delegation seated, but the State Party Chairman wants the duly-elected delegation seated. Castro announces that if his delegation is not seated, and he is not at least nominated for Vice President, he will bolt and

launch a third-party campaign. He is ignored. With the support of the outgoing ticket, President John F. Kennedy and Vice President J. William Fulbright, Senator Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota is nominated for President. The Vice Presidential nominee is a little bit of a surprise: Former Governor Richmond Flowers of Alabama. Humphrey wanted to have geographic balance on the ticket, and also to have a tough crimefighter -Flowers was once a crusading State Attorney General -- to counter the "lawand-order" rhetoric of the Republican nominee, former Vice President Richard Nixon. In the polls, the race is neck-and-neck. (Since there's no Vietnam War, it's strictly differences of personality. With the South still being "the South," RL-Flowers never had a chance to be Governor, let alone be placed on the national ticket.) September 25: Mickey Mantle hits his 25th and last home run of the season, off Jim Lonborg of the Boston Red Sox, into the right-field stands at Yankee Stadium. It is the 600th of the switch-hitting New York Yankee center fielder's career. He is just four behind Ted Williams for second all-time. As he concludes his 18th major league season and approaches his 37th birthday, with a mostly injury-free career, there is little reason to believe he cannot make a serious run at the career home run record of Babe Ruth, now just 114 home runs away. His closest competitors trail him significantly: Willie Mays with 587 and Henry Aaron with 510. (Mantle hit Number 536 on this day, and it was his last.) September 29: Despite a remarkable 25-8 comeback performance by Sandy Koufax and a record streak of 58 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings by Don Drysdale, the Brooklyn Dodgers finish ten games behind the pennant-winning St. Louis Cardinals, who go on to lose to the Detroit Tigers in the World Series. October 13: The one and only Presidential debate of this campaign is held, at Pauley Pavilion on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles. Former Vice President Richard Nixon and Senator Hubert Humphrey have a very spirited discussion. Nixon says that the Democrats, supporters of outgoing President John F. Kennedy, his moral failings and his "misguided War On Poverty," cannot be the party that is committed to law and order. Humphrey cites statistics showing that crime in 1967 is roughly at the same level that it was at in 1960, when the Republicans, including Nixon, were in charge. In fact, crime is down slightly in the cities, where much of the War On Poverty programs have been implemented, while it's up in the suburbs, where Nixon is claiming his strength. The subject of Kennedy's morals, and the "sexual revolution" they seem to have inspired, comes up again, and Nixon says, "I welcome this sort of an examination, because people have gotta know whether or not their President is a libertine. Well, I am not a libertine. I've always been faithful to my wife!" Humphrey has the perfect comeback: "First of all, I have also been faithful to my wife. Second of all, that is not a qualification for the Presidency. We're electing a President, not a clergyman." Humphrey's staff is relieved that he didn't say, "...not a Pope," for fear of losing the Catholic vote that had been theirs in 1960 and '64. "And finally," he concludes, "President Kennedy was still able to do his job. This country is better off than it was eight years ago, when Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Nixon had the government. President Gore

and President Kennedy provided this country with extraordinary leadership, and I believe I have the best chance of continuing that record." Nixon: "That's what worries me." Nixon gives a weak smile and an even weaker laugh, as his zinger doesn't have the zing he'd hoped for. October 16: American sprinter Tommie Smith sets a new world record in winning the 200 meters at the Olympics in Mexico City. Another American, John Carlos, finishes third. The two men, along with second-place finisher Peter Norman of Australia, receive their medals on the victory stand. Just before "The Star-Spangled Banner" is played, Smith and Carlos each raise a fist into the air -- each wearing half of a pair of gloves, Smith the right and Carlos the left -- and smile. Then they lower their arms and listen to the anthem. Later, they say they were trying to express "black pride," an equivalent to the ethnic pride that white Americans of various European nationalities express. They are criticized for doing so at the medal ceremony, as it is supposed to be a place where one is an American, not an ethnicity. But, for the most part, the incident becomes a footnote, not a cultural touchstone. After all, they were expressing a joyful pride, not an angry one with a demand for power. (In RL, Smith and Carlos gave the Black Power salute, and were torched in the press.) November 5: The Presidential election is very close in the popular vote. Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, the Democratic nominee, wins 36.2 million votes, to 35.6 million for former Vice President Richard Nixon, the Republican nominee, and 4.2 million for former Governor Fidel Castro of Cuba, a former Democrat who ran a third-party campaign, making him the first Hispanic to mount a serious challenge for the Presidency. The percentages are Humphrey 47.5, Nixon 46.7, Castro 5.5, and the remaining 0.3 scattered. The Electoral Vote concerned many, for fear that neither Humphrey nor Nixon would get a majority of 270, and thus be thrown into a House of Representatives that is controlled by the Republicans, but that is by no means a guarantee for Nixon, as Senator George Wallace of Alabama had indicated that he might try to convince several Southern Republicans to vote for him on the first ballot, in order to continue to deny a majority and then get political concessions from Humphrey or Nixon. But it doesn't get that far: Humphrey wins just 19 States plus the District of Columbia, to Nixon's 31 States, but Humphrey wins the Electoral vote by a narrow margin of 297 to 241. The Democrats retake control of the House of Representatives by a hair, but the Republicans keep the Senate. Humphrey has a win, but by no means does he have a mandate. November 14: Apollo IX lands on the Moon. Commander Jim Lovell and lunarmodule pilot Fred Haise walk on the Moon, while Jack Swigert pilots the command module above. The astronauts return to Earth without incident. (These were the Apollo XIII astronauts, and Lovell and Haise don't get stiffed by a shipboard accident.) November 18: Muhammad Ali retains the heavyweight championship with a total boxing clinic over light-heavyweight chmpion Bob Foster, taking him apart for four rounds before leveling him in the fifth at the Olympia Stadium

arena in Detroit. There seems to be only one genuine contender left in the heavyweight division, the man who succeeded Ali as America's top Olympic boxer in 1964: Smokin' Joe Frazier. The fight between the two undefeated Gold Medalists is set for next March at the new Madison Square Garden. (Foster only fought for the heavyweight title once, and it was Frazier who clobbered him.) 1969 (This was the end of OTL.com's Timeline 4129, "Lee Union Part 6: New Frontiers," and the start of Timeline 4147, "Lee Union Part 7: To Boldly Go.") January 20: Hubert Horatio Humphrey is sworn in as the 38th President of the United States by the new Chief Justice, William J. Brennan. He has a habit of giving long speeches, but his Inaugural Address is mercifully short, about 18 minutes. He paraphrases the opening of the TV show Star Trek: "Our technology, our diversity, and, of course, our freedom have made this nation one of infinite possibility. We have the opportunity to boldly go where no nation has gone before." February 12: It is called THE FIGHT by the promoters. Heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali is 34-0, challenger Joe Frazier is 26-0, and they get it on at "the new Madison Square Garden" in New York. The fight is brutal, and Frazier wins as many rounds as Ali. Finally, in the last minute of the 15th and final round, Frazier throws a devastating left hook, and puts Ali on the canvas for the first time since he became champion. But Ali gets up, gets mad, and gets even. He hits Frazier with a flurry of crushing blows, and, with 15 seconds left in the round and the fight, sends Smokin' Joe to the floor with a right uppercut. Frazier can't get up in time. Ali wins what many consider the greatest heavyweight fight ever, by a knockout -- and by five seconds. For the rest of their lives, people will wonder if Frazier could have won by decision had he gotten up before the count of ten. Frazier demands a rematch. ("THE FIGHT" happened in 1971, after Ali's layoff and only two warmup fights, and so he was not ready, and Frazier won, Ali's first pro loss.) February 23: Yours and Mine, a futuristic book that turns out to be the last novel by Ayn Rand, is published as her take on the "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll" lifestyle of the hippies. The title is based on something the main character, music producer Agatha Sjoberg, tells her singer boyfriend Douglas Jameson, an obvious takeoff on Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors: "What's yours is mine. And what's mine is mine." Rand ends up praising the hippies for their individualist forms of expression, but castigating them for their collectivist lifestyles, even as she likes the idea of free sex, and wonders why the drugs they ingest cannot be made safer, and thus a cash cow. The book is similar in tone to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, but ultimately is dismissed by the free-love set, because it seems to accept the satisfaction of lust for its own sake, rather than as a way to bring pleasure and joy to both partners. "Congenitally, terminally joyless," she is called by Gloria Steinem in her review of the book. Rand's role in literature and the changing role of women is still hotly debated beyond her death in 1981. But as the 20th

Century moves on, and a balance is struck between the desires of big business and the needs of the country as a whole, her philosophies of capitalism uber alles and "moral selfishness" make her look like a relic from the pre-Great Depression era. Until her death, her favorite President remains George S. Patton (1941-45). March 1: The Doors give a concert at the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa. Legend has it that this is the concert where lead singer Jim Morrison unzipped his fly and exposed himself, although no photographic or film evidence survives. The group had considered giving a concert in Miami, but the city really hasn't recovered from its image as "the place where old men and Presidents go to die." So the concert was held in Tampa instead. The police consider arresting Morrison, but decide against it. March 4: Secretary of State Stuart Symington, sent by President Hubert Humphrey, negotiates a settlement of border skirmishes between the Russian Republic and the People's Republic of China along the Ussuri River. This conflict had been seen as the closest call for a nuclear war between any pair of nations since the Taiwan Missile Crisis seven years earlier, and the first one not involving the United States. For this action, Symington, a former Senator from Missouri and Deputy Secretary of Defense, will receive the Nobel Peace Prize. (I put this entry in as a salute to the "Ussuri River War" series, one of the touchstones of Other Timelines.com.) April 7: The Major League Baseball season opens at District of Columbia Stadium in Washington. President Hubert H. Humphrey throws out the first ball. The host Washington Senators start Camilo Pascual, a righthander from Cuba who was once The best curveball pitcher in the game when he pitched for the franchise formerly known as the Senators, now the Minnesota Twins. Mel Stottlemyre, a righthander from Washington State and a fine pitcher near his peak, starts for the visiting New York Yankees. The Yanks win the game, 10, on Mickey Mantle's eighth-inning single, driving home Roy White. Pascual pitches well in defeat, but after this fine performance will prove to be over the hill. The Senators are playing their first game with former Boston Red Sox legend Ted Williams as their manager. D.C. Stadium is also home to the National Football League's Washington Federals. No one has any intention of changing the name of the stadium. (It was renamed Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in June. Mickey had retired at the start of spring training.) April 11: Alan Shepard, who nine years ago became the first American in space, today becomes the greatest athlete in the solar system -- if, that is, golfers are to be considered athletes. As part of the Apollo X mission, he uses a space-age golf club to hit a golf ball on the Moon. Not only, with the Moon's lesser gravity, does his drive set a record for the longest ever hit by an Earthman, but the ball is likely to remain in lunar orbit far longer than his space capsule. Stuart Roosa and Edgar Mitchell also participate in this mission. (These were the Apollo XIV astronauts.) May 9: French President Charles deGaulle is found dead in his bed this morning. He had been writing his memoirs the night before, and went to bed

extremely tired. deGaulle had been a veteran and hero of the wars of 1914 and 1938. The new president is Prime Minister Georges Pompidou, who will be serving during the rest of deGaulle's term. June 6: The third-season finale of Star Trek airs. "Turnabout Intruder" tells of Janice Lester (played by Sandra Smith), a former girlfriend of Captain James F. Kirk (William Shatner). Now criminally insane, she escapes from a holding cell and finds a way to switch bodies with the Captain, to give him an idea of what it is like to be a woman -- and to give herself an idea of what it is like to command the flagship of Starfleet. Her plan is foiled, but not before Kirk realizes that she has a point: He has treated women unfairly over the years. He begins to take stock of his life, and he wonders if the woman he truly loves has been right there all along -- and is not, as is widely believed, the starship Enterprise "herself." The success of the U.S. space program has boosted the show's ratings, so to speak, to the Moon. NBC renews the show for a fourth season. (The actual "Turnabout Intruder" was a little different, and the show was cancelled. "Shortly thereafter," series creator Gene Roddenberry said, "man walked on the Moon. Suddenly, trips to space didn't seem so far-fetched anymore." If the E! network ever does an entertainment version of ESPN's "The Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame..." perhaps the number one reason you can't blame NBC for cancelling the original "Star Trek" is the Apollo I fire, which delayed the Moon landing by at least a year.) July 1: The 25th Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, lowering the national voting age from 21 to 18. Georgia and Kentucky had already lowered the age to vote in State and local elections to 18, Alaska and Hawaii to 19, and New Hampshire to 20. Now it is 18, in all States, in all elections to all offices at all levels. (It happened in 1971, as the 26th Amendment.) July 20: The Apollo XI mission lands on the Moon, the fifth to do so, with commander David Scott, lunar module pilot James Irwin and command module pilot Alfred Worden. Worden had appeared on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, a new children's program on the new Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), discussing the space program. Later in the year, he would return to the program, showing host Fred Rogers some Moon rocks and other artifacts from the space program. (This was the day of the RL Apollo XI landing, and those were the Apollo XV astronauts. Worden really did appear with Fred Rogers, talking about his mission, albeit when Apollo XV actually happened, in 1971.) August 14: President Humphrey signs into law MediKid, which provides Medicare-style coverage to children age 12 and under, to pregnant women, and to women with children age three and under. The Democratic-controlled House had no trouble passing it, but the Republican-controlled Senate nearly derailed it, as it originally extended national health insurance to all U.S. citizens age 17 and under. September 14: The Philadelphia Eagles open the season at Franklin Field. Having won two of their last three games the year before, they had missed out on the top pick in this year's NFL Draft, and so Southern California

running back O.J. Simpson went to the Buffalo Bills. It will be many years before Eagle fans will feel relieved by this. They have the second pick, Purdue running back Leroy Keyes, whose pro career will be a bust. Their secondround pick is Alabama receiver Richmond Flowers Jr., son of the Vice President of the United States. In the off-season, the younger Flowers had married Lucia Chew, and will soon be the father of Richmond Flowers III. In his first pro game, he catches six passes for 85 yards and a touchdown, and the Eagles defeat the Cleveland Browns, 31-27. (Flowers played cornerback for the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants, and in the World Football League, but was not a particularly memorable player as a professional. And an injury kept him from competing in the 1968 Olympic hurdle competitions. His son Richmond Flowers III played football at Duke and in the Arena Football League.) October 6: The San Francisco Miners, one of baseball's worst teams in their first seven seasons, continue season eight by shocking the New York Giants in a three-game sweep of the first-ever National League Championship Series, defeating the Giants, 7-4 at Stoneham Stadium. Also, the Baltimore Orioles are dethroned as American League Champions, as the Washington Senators pull off their own surprising sweep, 11-2 at District of Columbia Stadium, which was renamed Robert F. Kennedy Stadium this season. The loss by the Giants shocks one fan, Elizabeth Crandall of East Brunswick, New Jersey, and she goes into labor. Her husband, Sam Crandall, takes her to Middlesex General University Hospital in New Brunswick, where their first child, a daughter, Catherine Celine Crandall, is born. (Her great-grandfather died in World War I, so her grandfather was never born, and neither was her father, and neither was she. Since I have never been married, I decided to alter history to give myself a wife. I named her after Catherine Zeta-Jones, also born in the fall of 1969. I had to tweak this as well, as I originally had Catherine's mother go into shock as a result of the Mets' dramatic 10-inning win in Game 4. But, since there are no Mets in Lee Union, I made the Crandalls Giant fans. I had considered giving the Pennant to the Giants, to save John Lindsay's re-election campiagn, but I decided that he didn't need a World Championship celebration to be re-elected. The hospital, with which I am all too familiar even though it is not my birthplace, has since been renamed Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, after the founder of the Johnson & Johnson Corporation, which, along with Rutgers University and the New Brunswick Development Corporation or DEVCO, runs that city... into the ground.) October 7: The St. Louis Cardinals trade outfielders Curt Flood and Byron Browne, catcher Tim McCarver and pitcher Joe Hoerner to the Philadelphia Phillies for first baseman Richie Allen -- who now prefers to be called Dick Allen -- second baseman Octavio "Cookie" Rojas and pitcher Jerry Johnson. Both Flood and Allen had poor seasons and had squabbled with management. This is basically a trade of "my headache for yours." But Flood doesn't want to play for the Phillies. He and his wife have a good home in St. Louis. He's building a business there. He writes to Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, and tells him that he doesn't want to go. The bid to challenge baseball's reserve clause, binding a player to his team for as long as that team wants him, is on.

October 16: With Kezar Stadium in Golden Gate Park recently retrofitted to host both baseball and football, 43,000 fans, many of them hippies from the nearby Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, watch the San Francisco Miners beat the Washington Senators, 5-3. The Miners become the first expansion team to win a World Series, doing so in five games. October 26: Apollo XII lands on the Moon, with John Young and Charles Duke on the lunar surface and Ken Mattingly piloting the command module. These missions to the Moon are getting awfully routine. (These were the Apollo XVI astronauts.) November 14: Landings on the Moon have become routine for America, but not for other nations. Today, Luna I lands on the Moon, making the Russian Republic the second nation to land men there. The cosmonauts who walk on the Moon are Aleksei Leonov and Vladislav Volkov, with Viktor Gorbatko in the command module orbiting the Moon. They arrive 16 days after the American mission Apollo XII leaves lunar orbit. Despite their achievement, the Russians have boldly gone where the Americans have gone before. (The Russians have never put a man on the Moon. Neither has any other country, except America.) December 8: Due to an unprecedented stink raised by fans of the football team at Pennsylvania State University, demanding that their undefeated team, ranked Number 2 in the country, be named as the opponents for undefeated and Number 1-ranked Texas, the Cotton Bowl, which accepts the Southwest Conference Champion, gives Penn State its other bid. The teams will play each other on New Year's Day. (Penn State didn't get the appearance against Texas.) December 18: Britain's Parliament outlaws capital punishment. Also in London, the film On Her Majesty's Secret Service premieres. It is the eighth film featuring Bond, James Bond, Agent 007 of Britain's MI6. With Sean Connery quitting the series to take on other projects, this film marks the debut in the role of the third Bond, Roger Moore. Diana Rigg stars as Tracy Draco, Countess di Vicenzo, who becomes the first and -- through 2007, only official -- Mrs. James Bond. Prior to their wedding, James and Tracy stop Bond's arch-nemesis, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, head of the terrorist organization SPECTRE, from launching biological warfare. The marriage lasts mere hours, as she is assassinated by Blofeld. Bond survives, but is stricken with grief. He vows revenge. Bond-film fans are upset at this result, but generally approve of Moore's performance, some of them suggesting that neither Connery nor his predecessor David Niven could've pulled it off emotionally. There is another premiere on this day: Michael Pacholek is born in Livingston, New Jersey. For the moment, no one outside his family sees this is as a significant event. (Here "I" am. The two British events also really happened on this day, although Moore did not become Bond for another four years and two films. George Lazenby made his only Bond appearance in "OHMSS.")

Uncle Mike

Aug 19 2007, 11:50 PM Post #34

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 1970 January 1: The University of Texas wins the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, defeating Penn State, 24-10, to win the Number 1 vs. Number 2 matchup and college football's National Championship. Penn State fans got what they wanted, the right to play for the National Championship, and they paid for it. There will be no Playoff in college football anytime soon. (Texas actually beat Notre Dame.) January 15: President Hubert Humphrey, a big baseball fan, calls Commissioner Bowie Kuhn to the White House. He tells Kuhn to get rid of the reserve clause before the season starts on April 6. Kuhn, a lawyer, asks the President what he'll do if there is no solution. He tells Kuhn that he'll ask Congress to take away baseball's antitrust exemption. Kuhn takes the threat seriously, and calls Players' Association Director Marvin Miller, to see if something can be worked out. (President Richard Nixon, despite being a big baseball fan, never got involved. Had he done so, being a right-wing Republican, it's likely he would have sided with the owners and taken Kuhn's side.) January 28: Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn and Players' Association Director Marvin Miller have worked out a deal. The reserve clause, binding a player to his team indefinitely unless traded or he voluntarily retires, will not be dropped, but will be limited to players with less than ten seasons of experience -- at least one game played in any ten seasons -- or at least 32 years of age. This means, among other things, that All-Star center fielder Curt Flood, recently traded from the St. Louis Cardinals to the Philadelphia Phillies, can refuse the trade, and either ask to stay with the Cards or be traded to another team. Clearly, the Cards don't want him anymore. (This is similar to the RL "five-and-ten rule," established after the reserve clause was finally struck down in 1975, where a player can refuse a trade if he has played ten seasons in the major leagues and five with his current team.) February 3: The St. Louis Cardinals trade center fielder Curt Flood to the Washington Senators for first baseman Greg Goossen, outfielder Gene Martin and pitcher Jeff Terpko. Flood had met with Senators owner Bob Short, who said he would help Flood find a place to live in the D.C. area and set him up with someone who could open a new business for him, satisfying his concerns about being traded out of St. Louis. To complete the trade that would've sent

Flood to the Philadelphia Phillies, the Cards send first baseman Willie Montanez. (A year later, Short really did trade for Flood's rights, and Flood did sign with the Senators, but the layoff had ruined his skills and he retired after about a month. The Senators then moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth "Metroplex" and became the Texas Rangers.) April 16: The Apollo XIII mission suffers a disaster as a liquid oxygen tank explodes. There is now no chance that astronauts Gene Cernan, Ronald Evans and Harrison "Jack" Schmitt can land on the Moon. The big question now is whether they can get home alive. (This was the RL crew of Apollo XVII, and the situation on the RL Apollo XIII. Except there was no help from the Soviets. It wasn't asked, and, with the Soviet program where it was at the time, there was no way it could have been done anyway.) April 18: The Russian spacecraft Luna II is launched. Russian President Leonid Brezhnev offers President Hubert H. Humphrey the crew's help to aid the damaged Apollo XIII craft. Humphrey accepts, and contacts Mission Control in Houston. April 19: Luna II and Apollo XIII dock in space, becoming the first international space mission. The Russian cosmonauts, Vladimir Shatalov, Aleksei Yeliseyev and Vitaliy Sevastyanov, help American astronauts Gene Cernan, Ron Evans and Jack Schmitt repair the damaged command module. The craft separate, and both splash down safely in the Pacific Ocean. It is the greatest example of international cooperation since the Korean War, 20 years earlier. April 30: President Hubert Humphrey announces that he has been invited to a summit meeting in China by Premier Deng Xiaoping, and that he has accepted. The summit, which Deng suggested after Secretary of State Stuart Symington's peaceful resolution of last year's Ussuri River border crisis with Russia, will take place in October. Democrats and moderate Republicans cheer this move as a step forward for world peace. Conservatives in both parties are appalled that HHH would speak with the one Communist nation on Earth as an equal. Senator George Wallace of Alabama, a Democrat-turnedRepublican, running to regain his State's Governorship -- a move nearly everyone interprets as trying to boost his planned Presidential campaign for 1972 -- demands HHH's impeachment. Wallace receives a lengthy lecture on the floor of the Senate from Robert Byrd, Democrat of Virginia, who explains in mind-numbing detail how the Constitution of the United States and the rules of the Senate do not allow impeachment of the President for anything like that, only for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." When Byrd's soliloquy is finally finished, several Senators stand and applaud. This awkakens Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who had fallen asleep halfway through Byrd's speech. Wallace asks Byrd if negotiating with the Communists is, in fact treason. Byrd reminds Wallace that the U.S. and China have not been at war since 1950, and that simply being a Communist nation does not, by itself, make them an enemy; therefore negotiating with them is not treason. Wallace sits back down and shuts up. (This was the date Nixon launched "the Cambodian incursion," careful not to call it an "invasion." Apparently, his "secret plan to end the war" included extending it, making

George W. Bush's Iraq "troop surge" look pathetic by comparison. For a year and a third, Nixon was a fairly progressive President, except for his troubled Supreme Court selection process. Bascially, the next four years and three months are what we think of as "the Nixon term," as the Nixon who was Eisenhower's Vice President would never have recognized the Nixon of January '69 through April '70.) May 4: President Hubert H. Humphrey receives an honorary degree at Kent State University in Ohio. He gives a speech about humanity's quest for peace, and how his summit with Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping, planned for October, will further the cause. As he is leaving the campus, a shot rings out. Secret Service agents head in the direction of the shot, and see a man escaping from a back door of a fraternity house. They quickle tackle and arrest him. His name is James Earl Ray, and his attempt turns out to be successful: President Humphrey dies of a massive blood loss at Robinson Memorial Hospital in Kent within two hours. He is just short of his 59th birthday. He is the fifth President to be assassinated, following Robert E. Lee (1865), James Garfield (1894), Thomas J. Jarvis (1901) and Albert Gore (1963). Within minutes of the announcement, Richmond McDavid Flowers, the Vice President, is sworn in as the nation's 39th President in the East Room of the White House. Ray, claiming he killed Humphrey for acting in favor of Communist causes, will be convicted and sentenced to 99 years in prison. Prior to his 1998 death from liver disease, however, he will claim that he did not kill Humphrey, and that he was set up by a conspiracy, but he never named any of the conspirators. Game 5 of the National Basketball Association Finals, scheduled for tonight, is postponed until after the funeral. So is the National Hockey League's Stanley Cup Finals. The New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers are tied at two games apiece in the NBA, while the Boston Bruins have a one game to none lead over the St. Louis Blues. (This was the day of the massacre at Kent State, in reaction to the students protesting the Cambodian incursion. Ray was the accused assassin of Martin Luther King, who, in TTL, is still alive in 1970. Steve Albert was a student at Kent State, and his brother Marv broadcast Game 5 for the Knicks, not knowing the names of the four students killed and the 13 others shot, wondering if his brother was one of them. Steve got through to Marv at halftime to tell him he was all right.) May 8: At the State Funeral for President Humphrey at Washington's National Cathedral, President Flowers announces that he will take up Humphrey's October summit in China. "The opponents of peace will not succeed," he says, "and the supporters of peace will not be intimidated. Hubert Humphrey now goes to his grave, but he goes to his grave undefeated." Humphrey will be buried tomorrow at a location at the University of Minnesota, where a Presidential Museum has been set up as the beginnings of a Presidential Library. May 13: The New York Knicks win their first NBA Championship after 24 years of trying, defeating the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 7 of the Finals, 113-99 at Madison Square Garden. Center and captain Willis Reed, injured in Game 5 on May 9, limps onto the court during practice and inspires his team to victory.

(Since there was no Presidential assassination and thus no delay, the RL Game 7 was on May 8. The Knicks were the last of the pre-expansion New York teams to win a World Championship. Prior to that, the Yankees had won 20, the now-gone baseball Giants five, the football Giants four, the Rangers three, the now-gone Brooklyn Dodgers one, and even the new Mets and Jets had each won one.) May 14: The Boston Bruins win Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals, 4-3 in overtime, completing a sweep of the St. Louis Blues and winning their first Cup in 29 years. Bobby Orr scores the winning goal. As he does so, he is tripped up by Blues defensemen Noel Picard, and photographs show Orr seeming to fly in celebration. It is known as the Miracle of the Fours, as it is the 4th Cup in Bruins team history, won in Game 4, in the 4th Period, and both Orr and Picard wear uniform Number 4. (The RL win came on May 10. I realize how unlikely it is for the NBA and NHL Finals to have the exact same results, right down to all the fours in the Bruins' case, that they had in RL with these delays. But it's my story. You don't like it, you can write yo' own damn Timeline. There is a bar within sight of the TD Banknorth Garden and the site of the old Boston Garden, called "The Fours." It was named America's Best Sports Bar by Sports Illustrated in 2005. I've eaten and drunk there, and it's certainly a candidate for the title.) May 17: President Richmond Flowers appoints Helen Meyner to be the new Vice President. A former television personality, wife of Governor Robert Meyner of New Jersey and since 1962 a Congresswoman, she will be easily confirmed. On this same day, Atlanta Braves right fielder Hank Aaron collects his 3,000th career hit, a single off Wayne Simpson of the Cincinnati Reds at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Later in the game, he hits his 570th career home run. He is the first man to be a member of both the 3,000 Hit Club and the 500 Home Run Club, and his career home run total trails only Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays. The Reds still win the game, 7-6 in 15 innings. (I wanted another female Vice President. The only thing that changes about Aaron's 3,000th hit is that he now trails Ted and Mickey on the all-time home run list -- for the moment. Ted missed less time due to military service, and Mickey had fewer injuries.) June 11: Aleksandr Kerensky, father of the Russian Republic, dies in Petrograd, formerly St. Petersburg. He was 89 years old, and one of the last surviving major figures of the World War I era. President Leonid Brezhnev reluctantly orders a state funeral for the Republic's founder and first President, who served from 1917 to 1942. (Kerensky's actual date of death.) July 18: New York Giants center fielder Willie Mays joins Hank Aaron as only the second man with both 500 home runs and 3,000 hits. He singles off Mike Wegener of the Montreal Expos at Stoneham Stadium in Flushing Meadow, Queens. Another future Hall-of-Famer, Gaylord Perry, goes the distance, and the Giants beat the Expos, 10-1. (Mays' 3,000th hit actually came at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Otherwise, the facts here are as in RL.) September 23: Congregationalist minister and anti-poverty activist Andrew

Young, formerly an aide to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (who has spoken on his behalf), wins the runoff for the Democratic Primary for Governor of Georgia, edging State Senator Jimmy Carter. The vote is tantamount to election, as the State Republican Party is currently rather weak. (Carter really won the Primary, and was elected. Young has never run for Governor.) September 30: Apollo XIV is launched. America returns to space, and to the Moon, after the near-disaster of Apollo XIII. (This was sooner than the RL Apollo XIV.) October 2: The Chicago Cubs win a one-game playoff for the National League Eastern Division title, defeating the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-3 at Wrigley Field. The game is won by an eighth-inning home run by third baseman Ron Santo. After last year's heartbreak of losing the N.L. East to the New York Mets, this time, manager Buck O'Neil has taken his team to first place. (Everyone forgets that the Cubs actually came closer to first place in 1970 than they did in 1969, five games as opposed to eight. The reason this is forgotten is that in 1969, the opponent was New York, the closeness to first place was the first in a generation, and the "September Swoon" was epic; while in 1970, the opponent was Pittsburgh, it was their second straight Pennant race, and there was no swoon, they simply got beat. They also finished just five games out in 1973. With O'Neil as manager, instead of as a coach, this time, they win the Pennant. Why wasn't Leo Durocher the Cubs manager, as in RL? Because Commissioner Harry Truman banned him for life in TTL-1951.) October 7: Fergie Jenkins shuts out the Big Red Machine, Ernie Banks finally hits his first postseason home run after 18 years in the Major Leagues, and the Chicago Cubs defeat the Cincinnati Reds, 5-0 at Riverfront Stadium, to win Game 5 of the National League Championship Series, and win their first Pennant in 25 years. Manager John "Buck" O'Neil has now won Pennants in both the Negro Leagues and the Major Leagues. When the team gets back to Chicago, the police have to clear thousands of fans off the runway at O'Hare International Airport before the plane can land. (The Reds won the Pennant, defeating the Pirates.) October 15: For the Baltimore Orioles, it is sweet revenge. For the Chicago Cubs, the dream is over a few winks too early. Thanks to the hitting and especially the sensational fielding of third baseman Brooks Robinson, the Orioles defeat the Cubs, 9-3, to win Game 5 and take the World Series. It is the closest the Cubs have come to winning the Series since 1945, and the closest that Cub shortstop Ernie Banks will ever get to winning one. The Cubs still haven't won it all since 1908, while the Orioles have now won two in the last five seasons, although they were embarrassed by the New York Mets in last year's Series. (This is the best I could do for the Cubs. Maybe someday, I'll finally get around to writing that "Curseless Cubs" Timeline, the way I helped out the White Sox and Indians and "cursed" the Yankees.) October 22: President Richmond Flowers and Premier Deng Xiaoping meet in the Forbidden City in Peking (later renamed Beijing). While they will not part as allies, Deng assures Flowers that China will not attack Taiwan, Korea, Japan

or any other U.S. ally. Flowers convinces Deng to join him in a "super summit," with Prime Ministers Edward Heath of Britain and Pierre Trudeau of Canada, President Georges Pompidou of France and Chancellor Willy Brandt of Germany. Now, all they have to do is convince Premier Leonid Brezhnev of Russia. That's easier said than done. October 27: President Richmond Flowers returns from his summit in China. Before returning to Washington, he stops in California. He briefly meets with Governor Ronald Reagan in San Francisco. Assuming he wins re-election two weeks from now, Reagan stands to be the front-runner for the Republican nomination in 1972. Flowers has not yet announced whether he will run for a term of his own. But after Air Force One takes off, Reagan returns to Sacramento and holds a press conference regarding the meeting. "Of course they got along so well," Reagan says. "You need Deng to make Flowers grow!" The Premier's name, in English, is pronounced "dung." The California press corps, used to Reagan's quirky sense of humor, laughs along with him. But when the joke gets around the country... liberals are infuriated that he would speak that way about the President of the United States, while conservatives, already furious with Flowers for meeting with the Communist dictator, are now convinced that Reagan is America's last hope for a recovery of moral values and the re-establishment of a Christian nation. November 3: The Republicans make slight gains in both houses of Congress, but enough to regain control of the House, and widen their lead in the Senate. Ronald Reagan is re-elected Governor of California. Among the electees is Congressman George Bush of Texas, who beats former Congressman Lloyd Bentsen for the Senate. November 9: William L. Dawson, the former Illinois Congressman who became America's first black Vice President, serving from 1949 to 1953, dies in Chicago at the age of 84. (Dawson's actual date of death.) November 19: Former Vice President J. Parnell Thomas dies of cancer at age 75. He remains the highest-ranking American politician ever to be convicted of a crime and serve time in prison. He served as Vice President from January 1946 to January 1949, and as prisoner from December 1949 to June 1951. Strangely, he dies just 10 days after his successor as Vice President, William L. Dawson, the first black person to hold the position. (Thomas' actual date of death.) 1971 January 26: Apollo XV is launched, and will land on the Moon. (Still sooner than the RL-Apollo XIV.) February 24: President Flowers & Premier Brezhnev sign the SCIENCE Treaty: Space Construction, Investigation and Exploration by Nations in Cooperation for Eternity. In the coming months, it will be ratified by Britain, France and Germany as well. (No such treaty has ever been signed.)

March 8: Joe Frazier finally gets his rematch with Muhammad Ali, at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. The 28-1 Frazier faces the 36-0 Ali, the only man to beat him, and slugs it out through 11 of the scheduled 12 rounds. But in the 12th, Frazier's vicious left hook staggers Ali. The man who calls himself "The Greatest of All Time" stays up, but the decision is unanimous: Frazier wins. Ali admits that, for the first time, another fighter got the better of him. But now, he says there needs to be a third fight. Frazier won't let him have one. Ali begins a campaign of questioning Frazier's character, courage and manhood -- along with his appearance, which he has always mocked. (The date of the RL Ali-Frazier I, which Frazier won. Ali won A-F II in 1974, but it was not for the title.) April 15: The Academy Awards are held in Hollywood. Patton, telling the story of the World War II experiences of the man who would become the 34th President of the United States, wins Best Picture, Best Director for Franklin Schaffner, and Best Actor for George C. Scott. Scott, who becomes the first person to win an Academy Award for playing a President (or a person who would go on to become President), does not show up for the ceremony, and, upon being told he had won, declines the award, saying he doesn't believe actors should compete with each other. He had previously declined two Oscar nominations, calling the ceremony "a meat parade." (The only change here is that, in RL, Patton didn't live long enough to run for President.) April 16: Apollo XVI is launched, and will land on the Moon. (The RL launch of Apollo XIV.) April 21: Germany completes its space program's mission by landing Mond V, with three astronauts, on the Moon, joining America and Russia in the Lunar Club. They had wanted to land the day before, but someone reminded their mission control that April 20 was the birthday of Adolf Hitler, so the launch was postponed for a day. (To this day, the U.S. is the only nation ever to land on the Moon. "Mond," like the Russian "Luna," is that country's word for "moon.") April 26: John Kerry is a very bored prosecutor in the office of the District Attorney of Middlesex County, Massachusetts. He has led a life of privilege, with hardly any chances to stand out. He once thought of joining the Navy, but, with his country not at war at the time, he figured he could just as easily live a life of drudgery at home. Hardly anyone outside of the Boston area has ever heard of him, and, except for a failed run for Congress next year, that will remain true for a long time to come. (This was the day of RL-Kerry's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. At least he doesn't have to do what it takes to win a Purple Heart, let alone three. I doubt, though, that Kerry without military service would have had as little substance to him as, say, FDR without polio.) April 27: Congressman Bill Green wins the Democratic Primary for Mayor of Philadelphia. He defeats several candidates, including the blustery former Police Commissioner, Frank Rizzo. Green will win the general election against Republican Councilman W. Thatcher Longstreth, and serve three terms, from

1972 to 1984. (Rizzo won, and again in 1975. He was Philly's "Rudy Giuilani" before Giuliani even got into politics. A real bully, but popular in da neighbuhhoods. The white ones, anyway. Green won in 1979, after Rizzo retired, but lost the primary to Wilson Goode in 1983. Rizzo came out of retirement in 1991, switching to the Republicans to run for Mayor again, but died in midcampaign. He has a statue across from City Hall, near Suburban Station, and nearly every time I visit Philadelphia, I see it and point to the statue and call him a goddamned bully. I'd hate to think that someday Rudy Giuliani will get a statue.) May 1: President Flowers signs the National Rail Passenger Corporation Act into law, creating Amtrak, a new national railroad, to bail out the bankrupt private railroads for intercity service. The law also allows major cities and the States to create their own commuter service. Thus New York gets to keep the Long Island Railroad, and turns the New York Central Railroad into the MetroNorth Commuter Railroad; New Jersey, New Jersey Transit; Connecticut, ConnRail to connect Hartford to New Haven with connections to New York and Providence; Boston, Massrail, with connections all over New England; Philadelphia, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA); Maryland, Maryland Commuter Rail (MARC); Illinois, METRA; California, CalTrain; and so on. The only major private railroad to keep anything like its former form is the Southern Railroad, which morphs into SouthRail. (RL-Amtrak was founded on this day, and has never truly realized its potential. Not that the Nixon, Reagan and Bush Administrations -- both Bushes -- ever chose to gave it proper funding.) May 14: Skylab, the world's first space station, is put into place. It has an American crew, and a Russian crew will join them next month. (Two years earlier, and the RL Skylab was all-American.) May 16: Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham meet at the library at Yale Law School in New Haven, Connecticut. He says he'd like to teach law school someday, and be elected Governor of Arkansas. She says she'd like to become a crusading defense attorney, and be elected Governor of Illinois. Both say they'd like to be U.S. Attorney General someday. (Their RL first meeting was sometime around this day.) May 22: The Albert Gore Presidential Library opens at the Gore family farm in Carthage, Tennessee. Supreme Court Justice Pauline Gore, the President's widow, has invited all the living Presidents, including Richmond Flowers, John F. Kennedy, Quentin Roosevelt and Albert "Happy" Chandler, as well as former First Lady Muriel Humphrey. President Gore remains at rest at Arlington National Cemetery, and his remains will not be moved to the Library grounds. The President's son, Albert Jr., recently graduated from law school at Vanderbilt University, as had his parents before him, and gives a moving address. Most observers are now convinced he has a political future ahead of him. (The date the RL LBJ Library opened.) June 6: The science-fiction show Star Trek completes its "five-year mission." The final episode, "The Greatest Voyage of All," shows Captain James F. Kirk

(played by William Shatner) marrying his Communications Officer, Lieutenant Commander Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols). "You know what this means, Spock?" remarks Doctor Leonard "Bones" McCoy (DeForest Kelley) to Commander Spock (Leonard Nimoy), the First Officer, Science Officer and best man. "By marrying Jim, by being the woman who conquered his heart, she managed to boldly go where no woman has gone before! ... Spock! Did I just see a smile out of you?" Spock admits the possibility, and says, "Perhaps this is a proper occasion to be both emotional and illogical." This is the first interracial marriage to be shown on American television. A few angry letters are received by NBC, most of them from the Southeastern United States. Asked about them, Shatner says, "Didn't we settle the racial question in the last century? Even if you don't think it's settled, it's not that big a deal. That's what you say to people like that. It's just a TV show. Get a life, will you, people?" Shatner is wrong about one thing, though: Star Trek was never "just a TV show." It is already one of the most popular shows in history. (Although Kirk and Uhura were forced to kiss in the Greek-themed episode "Plato's Stepchildren," and Nichols is alleged to have gotten onto the show due to an affair with series creator Gene Roddenberry, there has never been a suggestion of a romantic relationship, or even a one-night stand, between Kirk and Uhura. Shatner used the "Get a life" line on "Saturday Night Live" to a dramatization of a convention in 1986.) September 11: Nikita Khrushchev dies at the age of 76. He was the second President of the Russian Republic, serving five terms from 1942 to 1967. (His actual date of death.) September 17: Justice Hugo Black retires due to illness after a record 36 years on the U.S. Supreme Court. He will die just eight days later. In a bipartisan gesture, President Richmond Flowers appoints a Republican, albeit a fairly liberal one, to Black's seat. He is a man that former President Hubert Humphrey had spoken of as a possible future Justice, a fellow Minnesotan named Harry Blackmun. He will be easily confirmed. (Black was actually replaced by Lewis Powell. Blackmun replaced Abe Fortas.) September 20: With the Washington Senators having spent the first three years of Major League Baseball's divisional play competing with the nearby Baltimore Orioles for the American League Eastern Division title, owner Bob Short will not be moving the team. (The reason the TTL-Senators are doing so much better than the RL-Senators were is that they are the RL-Minnesota Twins, while the TTL-Twins are the expansion team that is the RL-Texas Rangers. The TTL-Rangers are the RL-Oakland Athletics. This was the day RLShort announced the move. He had previously owned the Minneapolis Lakers and moved them to Los Angeles in 1960 -- and now you know why a team from L.A. has the name "Lakers" -- making him, in a way, the NBA's Walter O'Malley and Bob Irsay. Except he went on to screw over two teams in two metro areas in two sports.) September 25: Richmond Flowers Jr., son of the President of the United States, catches the first touchdown pass in the first football game at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. But it is the only score by the home team, as the

Philadelphia Eagles lose to the defending NFC Champion Dallas Cowboys, 427. (This was the actual result of that first game.) December 17: Diamonds Are Forever premieres. Roger Moore makes his second appearance as James Bond, seeking revenge on arch-nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld for the killing of his wife Tracy in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. This is the third straight appearance in the Bond films for the Blofeld character, and he is played by a third different actor: Donald Pleasance for You Only Live Twice, Telly Savalas for OHMSS, and now Charles Gray. Country singer and sausage pitchman Jimmy Dean plays reclusive Las Vegas casino owner Willard Whyte, an apparent parody of Howard Hughes, although the real Hughes is no hillbilly. Jill St. John and Lana Wood (sister of Natalie Wood), uh, assist Bond in his pursuit of Blofeld, leading to confrontations in and around Vegas and off the coast of Mexico. (This was Sean Connery's last official appearance as Bond. And it bothers me that Dean as Whyte called the man who had Bond's wife killed "yer pal Blofeld" and "yer friend with the cat.") December 25: The longest game in the history of the National Football League (through the 2006 season, anyway) is played at Kansas City Municipal Stadium, the last football game to be played there. It is also the first NFL game ever played on Christmas Day. Tied at the end of regulation, the American Football Conference Divisional Playoff game goes to a second overtime period, before Garo Yepremian, the Armenian-born placekicker, boots a field goal to lead the Memphis Hound Dogs over the host Kansas City Chiefs, 24-21. (The Dogs are the RL Miami Dolphins.) 1972 January 15: Super Bowl VI is played at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans. After a few close calls as a "team that can't win the big one," the Dallas Cowboys and coach Tom Landry win their first World Championship, defeating the Memphis Hound Dogs, 24-3. Through the 2006 season, it remains the only Super Bowl in which a team prevented its opponent from scoring any touchdowns. February 18: "The City of New Orleans," written by Steve Goodman and sung by Arlo Guthrie, hits Number 1 on the U.S. popular music charts. It tells of a trip some friends take from Chicago to New Orleans on the eponymous train, now moved to Amtrak from the former Illinois Central Railroad, to take part in the Mardi Gras festival. It closes, "When we head back to Chi again, with memories will come some pain, this train's gonna have the great hangover blues." (With the improvements that Joe Bonkers and I made to railroad travel in our Timelines, the song is no longer a sad one, and does not have the chilling close, "This train's got the disappearing railroad blues." I also moved it up so that it could peak on the charts during the real Mardi Gras. In RL, it hit the charts in September 1972, and only peaked at Number 28, still the highest-charting composition for Goodman or recording for Guthrie.) February 24: The Montgomery Advertiser publishing a stunning account of

questionable business dealings by Richmond Flowers, now running for a full term as President, when he was Governor of Alabama from 1963 to 1967. The article accuses him of extorting money from savings and loan operators, and applicants who sought licenses to sell securities. The story had been leaked to the paper, located in the State capital, by aides to Flowers' longtime rival, current Governor and Republican Presidential candidate George Wallace, but this will not be known for some time. (This reflects the RL scandal around Flowers, which broke in 1967. The date is that of the release of "the Canuck Letter," a forgery printed in the Manchester, New Hampshire-based Union Leader which derailed the campaign of Senator Edmund S. Muskie of Maine.) March 4: President Richmond Flowers mounts a flatbed truck in front of the offices of the Montgomery Advertiser, which has published accounts of his supposed corruption while Governor in the mid-1960s. He speaks of how the stories are false, and how his political enemies, especially current Governor George Wallace, have manipulated the stories for their own advantage. Subsequent stories have even suggested that First Lady Mary Flowers might have been involved in some way, and that Flowers, while Vice President, might have used his influence to get son Richmond Jr. into the National Football League, where he now plays for the Philadelphia Eagles. "These men," Flowers says, referring to Wallace and the Advertiser, "have shown no decency. By attacking me, they would have been exercising their prerogative, if only they had told the truth. But they lied. And by attacking my wife, and by attacking my son, they have shown themselves to be gutless cowards. And by being dishonest, they have shown themselves to be goddamned liars." Although many American applaud Flowers for standing up for his family, and perhaps for the truth, many are shocked by his public use of the word "goddamned." (This is a reflection of Muskie counterattacking the Union Leader on a flatbed truck outside their offices just before the Primary, responding to publisher William Loeb calling him "Moscow Muskie," printing "the Canuck Letter," and even slamming his wife Jane. The difference is that, while Muskie called Loeb "a gutless coward," he never used the words "goddamned liar," and he stopped short, choking up, and, with snow falling on his face, appeared to be crying, demolishing his campaign in that lessenlightened time.) March 7: The New Hampshire Primary is held. President Richmond Flowers is unopposed on the Democratic side, and wins easily. The Republican side is a bit of a surprise, as Governor Ronald Reagan of California easily defeats the other candidates, including Governor George Wallace of Alabama, Governor George Romney of Michigan, Governor Winthrop Rockefeller of Arkansas, Senator William Brock of Tennessee, and Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Apparently, Mr. Reagan's supporters truly believe their "man of destiny" talk, and made the Republican voters of New Hampshire believe it, too. March 14: Governor Wallace wins the Florida Republican Primary, as both the leading Southern candidate and a candidate who has not promised to cut Social Security, thus appealing to both the State's rural, conservative north and its senior-citizen-heavy central and southern regions. Governor Reagan is

hit hard, and, losing his best chance in the South -- there is, as yet, not much strength in the South Carolina Republican Primary, and North Carolina's is too far off -- Senator Thurmond drops out of the race. March 21: Governor Reagan wins the Primary in Illinois, the State where he was born. Governor Wallace, though, finishes second, tapping into some Chicago, suburban, and Downstate rural voters concerned with urban crime, which has gone up somewhat in the last few years. April 3: Leonid Brezhnev is elected to a second term as President of the Russian Republic. Running as the nominee of the Nationalist Party, he again defeats Socialist Party nominee Aleksei Kosygin. This is the first election in the Republic with neither of the two preceding Presidents: Aleksandr Kerensky and Nikita Krushchev have both died within the last two years. May 2: Governor Wallace wins the Indiana and Ohio Primaries, but it's close. Wallace wins in rural areas and in the white neighborhoods of the cities, while Governor Reagan takes the small towns, the old Republican base, and the suburbs, a constituency which has only now begun to flex its political muscle, with several people, now grown-up with their own kids, no longer voting the way their city, or country, parents had necessarily done. May 6: Governor Wallace wins the North Carolina Primary, but this is the last major Southern Primary. He will have to show strength in the rest of the country if he is to hold off Governor Reagan for the nomination, and set up an Alabama grudge match against President Flowers in November. Flowers has faced stern criticism, as much for his intemperate reaction to the charges against him as to the charges themselves. Wallace is calling for Flowers' impeachment. Reagan, however, is merely calling for Flowers to step out of the race for another term, and for the legal process to then take its course. This calmer handling of the situation, seeming to trust the people (who would have the decision to re-elect or not) rather than the Congress (who would have the decision to impeach or not) has gained Reagan some support. Also on this day, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, a child is born who will one day make a very different kind of history: Martin Brodeur. (The goaltender for the New Jersey Devils and the 2002 Canadian Olympic team, winning the Gold Medal.) May 9: Governor Reagan wins the Nebraska Primary. This surprises no one, as the largely-rural State has been a stereotypically Republican one, filled with old-time conservatives and an opposition to government handouts that has been based more in a brand of Christianity than in any form of capitalism, as there usuallly is with the classic Eastern kind of Republican. But Reagan also wins the Virginia Primary, edging Governor Wallace in a Southern State. That Wallace could not win there, that Reagan could get nearly a majority (48 percent to Wallace's 36 percent, the rest scattered), is a blow to the Wallace campaign. The race for the Republican nomination is now down to these two, but anyone guessing who will win it is doing just that: Guessing. (Another occasion where I had to turn "the West Virginia Primary" into "the Virginia Primary.")

May 15: The Michigan and Maryland Primaries are tomorrow. If either Governor Ronald Reagan of California or Governor George Wallace of Alabama can take them both, he will be the unquestioned front-runner for the Republican nomination for President. Both men are campaigning at shopping centers: Wallace in Laurel, Maryland, about halfway between Baltimore and Washington; and Reagan in Southgate, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. Wallace ends his appearance without incident. Reagan is not so lucky: As he is approaching his car, a man pulls a gun and starts firing. Reagan is shoved into the car, which speeds away. The gunman is himself shot by one of Reagan's bodyguards, and dies at the scene. He is identified as Arthur Bremer, a 21-year-old Milwaukee native who recently quit his job as a janitor. Bremer's journal will be found, revealing that he wanted to shoot one of the Presidential candidates, either Reagan, Wallace, or President Richmond Flowers. He figured Flowers, who became President because of the assassination of Hubert Humphrey, was unlikely to be an easy target. He had been at a Wallace rally two days earlier in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Reagan is found to be bleeding, and is taken to a hospital, where one bullet is removed. He is expected to recover quickly. (Since RL-Bremer also considered killing President Nixon, and with the TTL-1972 GOP race as yet undecided, and Flowers not needing to campaign much at this point, it made sense for TTLBremer, still a Midwesterner, to wait until another candidate came to Michigan, where he already was, rather than follow Wallace to Maryland. In RL, Bremer remains alive and imprisoned as of August 2007.) May 16: With a sympathy vote behind him, Governor Reagan easily wins the Michigan and Maryland Primaries. Attempting to prevent a Presidency, wouldbe assassin Arthur Bremer may have made one instead. Reagan is shown on TV, sitting up in bed and watching the returns. It looks like he will be fine in a matter of days. May 29: In a Memorial Day doubleheader, Mickey Mantle becomes the first -and, through the 2006 season, the only -- player to reach the 3,000-hit plateau in a New York Yankee uniform, and he does it the way he was expected to: A long home run into the left-field stands off Detroit Tiger pitcher Mickey Lolich. The Yankees win the game, 5-1, and will also take the nightcap, 4-2, although the Tigers will beat the Yanks out for the American League Eastern Division Title this season. Now 40 years old, Mantle has slown down considerably the last two seasons. Once seeming to be a shoo-in to break Babe Ruth's all-time record of 714 home runs, his 3,000th hit is his 674th home run, putting him just 40 short, but he would probably need to play through the 1972 and '73 seasons to beat it. What's more, Willie Mays has surpassed him on the list: Mays now has 696. But "the Say Hey Kid," who came into the majors the same season as Mantle, 1951, and in the same city, with the New York Giants, is 41 and is also slowing down. He may be able to break the record by the end of the year, but maybe not. And there is a third player closing in, Atlanta Braves slugger Hank Aaron, who now has 647. And he's just 38, and playing in a homer-friendly stadium. (Healing Mantle's injuries complicated things slightly. Moving the Korean War up complicated things more, as Mays missed most of the '52 season and all of '53, and even

missed the beginning of spring training in '54 because of a late discharge. But I had to keep Aaron as the record-breaker. Also, since the Giants never move, Mays stays in New York and there are no Mets.) June 6: Governor Reagan takes the stage at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles, fully recovered from the attempt on his life, and claims victory in the California, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota Primaries. Governor Wallace has been shut out since the shooting. Standing at his campaign headquarters, Wallace announces he is dropping out of the race. Privately, he says Reagan owes him, since his back-channel dealings have damaged President Flowers to the point where he cannot possibly win a term of his own. Many political observers still expect Flowers not to accept renomination at the Democratic Convention in Atlanta, and to hand the nomination over to Vice President Meyner. (The Wilshire is the same hotel where, 10 years earlier, RL-Nixon told the press, "Just think of all the fun you'll be missing. You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference." Not Nixon's first lie, nor his last. Just his most ridiculous.) June 17: "Mr. President, Dan Rather of CBS News." The self-introduction at President Richmond Flowers' press conference gets a round of applause. Rather has been investigating Flowers' supposed extortion of Alabama businessmen while he was Governor, and has earned the enmity of Democratic activists and officeholders. "Are you running for something?" Flowers asks. "No, sir," Rather answers. "Are you?" When the "Woo-woos" of the other White House correspondents dies down, Rather finishes his question: "Will you be seeking a full term as President at the Democratic Convention? And will Vice President Meyner be running with you?" Angrily, Flowers says, "Absolutely, and I'm going to win." Meanwhile, at the Watergate hotel and office complex in Washington, D.C., the location of the offices of the Democratic National Committee, all is quiet. No scandal developing there. (This reflects a RL-1974 exchange between Rather and Nixon. TTL-Rather is not anti-Republican, or anti-Democrat, but rather out for the story, which challenges the incumbent. Just like RL-Rather. His bias is pro-himself and projournalism, not pro-liberal or anti-Bush.) July 8: A strange deal is struck down by NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle. Carroll Rosenbloom had wanted to trade ownership of the Baltimore Colts to Robert Irsay for Irsay's ownership of the Los Angeles Rams. Rosenbloom also tries to make a deal to sell the Colts to a Baltimore-based group in exchange for the rights to an expansion team in Miami, where Rosenbloom has a home and which had tried to get into the AFL but was turned down, with memories of the assassination of President Albert Gore there still fresh. (I decided to save the Colts as well as the team to which they are the football counterpart, the Brooklyn Dodgers.) July 13: Governor Ronald Reagan of California, fully recovered from the failed assassination attempt, looking strong and sunny, accepts his nomination at the Republican Convention in Miami Beach, Florida. He speaks of the mistakes of 12 years of the Democrats' big-government liberalism. And he

hammers their foreign policy as well. "They believe in peace through diplomacy," he says, "while we believe in peace through strength." He chooses Senator George Bush of Texas as his running mate. The platform is economically and socially conservative, enough to appropriate the stronger planks of the campaign of Governor George Wallace, while ignoring the Wallace campaign's harder edges. Limited to just ten minutes for his speech, Wallace stews as he engages in the arms-raised-in-victory pose that closes a convention. Standing there, he knows that this could have been his moment. He swears he will be back. Reagan leaves the Convention with a big lead over scandal-plagued President Richmond Flowers. David Broder writes in the Washington Post, "All Governor Reagan has to do now is avoid a stupid mistake, and he will be the next President. All President Flowers has to do to win a full term is convince enough Americans of his innocence without cursing on TV. Mr. Reagan has the easier task." (This will not be the hard-line Reagan of my Timeline "Kennedy Runs Later," who was willing to engage in assassinations of leftists heads of state. But it will still be a very conservative politician. Yeah, yeah, I know, Reagan was not a "politician," he was above politics, unlike those dirty liberal Democrats, yada, yada, yada...) August 23: President Richmond Flowers and Vice President Helen Meyner are nominated for full terms at the Democratic Convention at the brand-new Omni Sports Arena in Atlanta. It is the least enthusiastic Democratic Convention since 1944. Flowers has been dodging questions about scandal for much of the year, and trails Governor Ronald Reagan by nearly 20 points in opinion polls going in. Flowers needs a miracle. September 5: Two members of the Israeli Olympic team are killed in their dormitory in the Olympic Village in Munich, Germany. Nine others are taken hostage by terrorists calling themselves Black September. German Chancellor Ludwig Erhard, remembering that he was once the servant of a regime that not only was openly contemptuous of Jews, but secretly ordered their extermination, tells police to "terminate the kidnappers, with extreme prejudice," and to "save the Israeli athletes if you can." A shootout results, and all terrorists are killed -- but so are six of the nine remaining Israeli athletes in the room. The Olympics will pause for a day of mourning, then resume. President Flowers and Governor Reagan both give statements condemning the terrorists and supporting the Israelis. But whereas Flowers wonders whether Erhard did the right thing, Reagan gives Erhard his unquestioned support. (Erhard was no longer Chancellor by this point. I'm not sure what Chancellor Willy Brandt did, if anything. All the kidnapped athletes ended up being killed.) September 17: The Warren E. Hearnes Sports Complex, named for the outgoing Governor of Missouri, opens with the first football game at Arrowhead Stadium. The host Kansas City Chiefs lose 20-10 to the Memphis Hound Dogs. In April, the Kansas City Royals will play the first baseball game at the complex, at Royals Stadium, later to be renamed Ewing M. Kauffman Stadium for the team's founder and longtime owner. (It's actually the Harry S Truman Sports Complex, but in TTL, KC-area native Truman was Commissioner of Baseball, not President. Hearnes really was Governor, and

the University of Missouri's basketball arena is named for him.) September 24: At Veterans Stadium, the infamous "Philadelphia boo-birds," many of them blue-collar white ethnics wearing Reagan campaign buttons, unleash their wrath on Eagles receiver Rich Flowers, son of troubled President Richmond Flowers. The receiver drops five of the six passes thrown his way in the first half, and is removed from the game by head coach Ed Khayat. The Eagles lose the game, 27-17 to the Cleveland Browns. October 1: The New York Yankees split a doubleheader with the Cleveland Indians, winning the first game 3-2 and losing the second 4-3. In between games, in front of a standing-room-only crowd of 71,000 at Yankee Stadium, the Yankees retire the Number 7 of Mickey Mantle. Having played the last four seasons of his career dogged by age and injuries, the Oklahoma-born outfielder-first baseman, about to reach his 41st birthday, has announced his retirement. He finishes his career with 685 career home runs, third on the alltime list, but still 29 homers short of the all-time record set by earlier Yankee legend Babe Ruth. "I haven't had a really good year since 1967 or '68," he says, "and the young kids are just gettin' a little too fast for me. I think it's time for someone else to try and help the ballclub." Like Ted Williams, the first player to reach 600 after Ruth, Mantle claims that breaking the home run record would be nice, but it isn't worth putting his aching legs through it. He finishes with 3,064 hits in 10,200 at-bats, a lifetime batting average of an even .300, plus 1,874 runs batted in, 22 All-Star Game appearances, 3 Most Valuable Player Awards, 12 American League Pennants and 7 World Championships. Many fans think he is hte greatest player of all time, but older Yankee fans still think of Joe DiMaggio; others, Babe Ruth; and fans of other teams will suggest Ty Cobb, Oscar Charleston, and even the two men who are also making a run at Ruth's career home run record: Willie Mays (700) and Henry Aaron (673). Although the Yankees were in their first Pennant race in eight years this season, injuries took their toll on the Pinstripes, and they will finish in third place behind the Detroit Tigers and the Boston Red Sox. Mantle, who will be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1978, receives, for the final time as an active player, the adoring cheers of New York fans at The Stadium, which, in a deal between the team and the City of New York, will be renovated after the 1973 season. The Yanks will play the 1974 and '75 seasons sharing Stoneham Stadium in Queens with the Mets, and begin 1976 at a modernized version of the old Bronx ballyard. October 2: Ludwig Erhard resigns as Chancellor of Germany, in an effort to help his country put his role in the Munich Olympic debacle behind them. Kaiser Ludwig IV appoints Franz Josef Strauss, the 57-year-old President of the State of Bavaria, to be the new Chancellor. (Strauss never served as Chancellor in RL.) October 17: The one and only Presidential debate of the campaign is held, at the Chicago Theater. President Richmond Flowers uses the massacre at the Olympics in Munich, and Governor Ronald Reagan's questionable response to it, as a reason why Reagan might not be ready to take on the role of America's commander-in-chief and chief diplomat. "Well," Reagan says, "I'm

ready to say that the best diplomacy is a strong defense." Flowers says that Reagan will cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and MediKid. "There you go again," Reagan says. "I'm not going to cut spending on those programs." Flowers asks Reagan why he keeps harping on the "the last twelve years of Democratic domination of our country," when the country has grown by leaps and bounds. "Well," Reagan says, "I can think of some things that were done right in the last twelve years, and I can think of some things that were done wrong. I like that the space program got us to the Moon. I don't like that we have had four liberal Democrat Presidents who created several new bureaucracies, raising government spending nearly to the Moon." When the laughter stops, Reagan adds, "And if I'm elected President, I won't be spending a good portion of my term in office defending myself against scandal, either political or personal, because I won't get involved in scandal, either political or personal." This is Reagan's way of referring to the extortion scandal surrounding Flowers's Governorship of Alabama, and of referring to John F. Kennedy's affair with Sally Quinn that resulted in his 1967 impeachment, without actually referring to either -- this is "Reagan being above politics," as his supporters will say, "Reagan taking the high road." Finally, in his closing statement, Flowers hurts himself by referring to "the last twelve years of Democratic leadership," even though he's only been President for two and a half years, since Hubert Humphrey's assassination in 1970. With "twelve years" fresh in people's minds, Reagan uses his closing statement to ask, "Are you better off than you were four years ago? If your answer is no, then I can suggest an alternative." Putting the onus not on the records of Albert Gore, Kennedy, Humphrey and Flowers, but only on the policies Flowers has pushed as Vice President under Humphrey and then as President, Reagan has won the debate by a mile. October 22: The Texas Rangers, led by the hitting of Gene Tenace and the pitching of Jim "Catfish" Hunter, defeat the Cincinnati Reds, 3-2 in Game 7 of the World Series, in front of 52,598 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. It is the first World Series won by a Texas team, following the Super Bowl victory by the NFL's Dallas Cowboys nine months earlier. October 24: Jackie Robinson dies from complications of diabetes. He is 53 years old. Perhaps the greatest all-around athlete of the 20th Century, he is the only man elected to both the Baseball and Pro Football Halls of Fame. Two-way tackle and umpire Cal Hubbard will, through 2007, be the only man to join him in both. November 7: Ronald Wilson Reagan is elected the 41st President of the United States. The Republican nominee, the Governor of California, wins in a landslide over the incumbent Democrat, President Richmond Flowers. Flowers takes his home State of Alabama, plus Connecticut, Cuba, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York and Rhode Island, just eight States, plus the District of Columbia, losing the Electoral Vote 424 to 114. Reagan and his running mate, Senator George Bush of Texas, lose both the State where Bush was born (Massachusetts) and the one where he grew up (Connecticut), but take New Jersey, the home State of outgoing Vice President Helen Meyner. The popular vote is somewhat closer, with Reagan taking 54 percent to

Flowers' 45 percent. Flowers could never overcome accusations of dirty deals while he was Governor of Alabama, though his supporters will always maintain that he was a victim of dirty tricks, orchestrated by his Alabama rival, Governor George Wallace. Another factor in Reagan's win is his assertion that America could, in the Democrats' own words, "boldly go where no nation has gone before," but could go there only with lower taxes and reduced interference from the federal government. Reagan had asked, "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" and Flowers could not give a good reason why the answer would be yes, even as he tried to counter Reagan's arguments about twelve years of Democratic leadership. December 23: The Pittsburgh Steelers win a National Football League playoff game for the first time in their 40-year history, defeating the Oakland Raiders 13-7 at Three Rivers Stadium. Down 7-6 in the last 20 seconds of the game, quarterback Terry Bradshaw is chased out of the pocket, and heaves a pass downfield. It is deflected by Raider safety Jack Tatum, as he hits the intended receiver, John "Frenchy" Fuqua, and is caught out of the air, mere inches off the ground, by running back Franco Harris, who runs down the sideline for the winning touchdown. A rookie running back out of nearby Penn State University, Harris is half-black and half-Italian. A group of Italian-American fans sitting in Three Rivers has named itself his unofficial fan club, "Franco's Italian Stallions," wearing cowboy gear with green-white-and-red Italian flags stitched onto their Stetson hats. The Steelers will lose the AFC Championship Game to the Memphis Hound Dogs, but will win four Super Bowls in the remainder of the decade, building one of the most passionate fan bases in sports history. (In TTL, Francisco Franco lost the Spanish Civil War, and the assistance he received from Benito Mussolini didn't help. Therefore, Harris' group can't be called "Franco's Italian Army" and wear army helmets with the Italian flag. Instead, they become "Franco's Italian Stallions" and wear cowboy outfits.) December 26: Former Baseball Commissioner Harry Truman dies in Kansas City, Missouri. He was 88 years old. December 31: Roberto Clemente, the superstar right fielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates, who recently collected his 3,000th career hit, wants to bring relief supplies to the victims of the recent earthquake in Managua, Nicaragua. Luis Ferre, Governor of the State of Puerto Rico, offers his personal plane to Clemente, and goes with him. The plane lands safely in Managua, and the supplies are distributed. This action goes a long way toward easing tensions between America and Nicaragua (Statehood for Puerto Rico brings about this event, which goes on not only to eliminate the Contras and the civil war, but to keep Clemente alive to finish his career.) Uncle Mike Aug 20 2007, 02:16 PM Post #35

Posts: -1

Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 Never thought to consider either. But in TTL, any Exclusion Act, including the Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907, would probably be ruled unconstitutional as a result of Minor v. Happersett, Walker v. Anson and other Supreme Court rulings, which were broad enough to not specify extending benefits to any one race but rather to remove all discrminations based upon any race.. Uncle Mike Aug 21 2007, 01:58 AM Post #36

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 1973 January 14: Super Bowl VII is held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The Memphis Hound Dogs defeat the Washington Federals, 14-7, and complete the first undefeated season in the National Football League since the league went to a postseason-play format. They also win the first World Championship for a team from the city known as "the Heart of the Mid-South," "the Birthplace of the Blues" and "the Birthplace of Rock and Roll." The Hound Dogs had been named for a song by Elvis Presley, "the King of Rock and Roll" and a part-owner of the team. But Elvis isn't there. Instead, he is presiding over an event that is even bigger: His worldwide broadcast, "Elvis: Aloha From Hawaii Via Satellite," which is seen by over a billion viewers. Danny Thomas, another legendary entertainer, bankroller of Memphis' St. Jude's Children's Hospital and another Dogs part-owner, is on hand, and joins outgoing President Richmond Flowers, representing the Federals' city of Washington, D.C., in the ceremonial coin toss. January 20: Ronald Reagan is sworn in as President. In a very generous gesture, he salutes the outgoing President, Richmond Flowers: "Mr. President, you took office under the saddest of circumstances," referring to the May 4, 1970 assassination of Hubert Humphrey, "and you performed with determination, decency, and, in a moment many have criticized," referring to his denunciation of the "goddamned liars" accusing him and his family of

wrongdoing in Alabama, "devotion to truth and family. On behalf of the nation, I thank you, and may God bless you and Mary as you return home." The crowd of about 500,000 people outside the West Front of the Capitol cheers the former President, and the new President's salute. Then Reagan gets back to work on his speech: "Government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem!" He says he will ask Congress, now solidly controlled by his fellow Republicans in both houses, to act as soon as possible on across-the-board tax cuts and business deregulation, among other things, "and on these principles, there will be no compromise!" But he closes with a concilatory, unifying note: "We are required to give our best effort, and our willingness to believe in ourselves, and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds; to believe that together, with God's help, we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us. And, after all, why shouldn't we believe that? We are Americans. God bless you, and thank you." The former President and First Lady head back to their home in Dothan, Alabama, still wondering if criminal charges will be filed against them. January 22: Longtime Senate Democratic Leader Lyndon Johnson of Texas dies during a Senate debate. The Senate and the House had been working on new legislation brought forward by the Republican majorities, much of it inspired by the conservative rhetoric of the new President, Ronald Reagan. That night, in Kingston, Jamaica, 1968 Olympic boxing champion George Foreman wins the heavyweight championship of the world with a second-round destruction of champion Joe Frazier, who had won a Gold Medal at the 1964 Olympics. Foreman knocked Frazier down seven times in the first round. Only Muhammad Ali had ever knocked Frazier down before, or had beaten him before. After the second knockdown of the second round, the referee stops the fight. But the day's biggest story is a decision made today by the U.S. Supreme Court: In Roe v. Wade, the Court strikes down all State abortion laws. The newest Justice, Harry Blackmun, cites the 1965 decision Griswold v. Connecticut, which struck down all State laws prohibiting birth control, and said that a woman's right to choose if and when to have a child is a privacy issue. The vote is 7-2: Chief Justice William J. Brennan, William O. Douglas, Potter Stewart, Pauline Gore, Thurgood Marshall and Richard J. Hughes joining Blackmun; while Tom Clark and Byron White vote against. (In RL, the 7 were Chief Justice Warren Burger and Associate Justices Brennan, Douglas, Stewart, Marshall, Blackmun and Lewis Powell; the 2 were Justices White and William Rehnquist.) January 24: Quentin Roosevelt Jr., son of a President, grandson of another and cousin of still another, is confirmed by the Senate as President Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State. (Since RL Quentin Roosevelt died in World War I, he neither married nor had children.) April 11: Opening Day: The Brooklyn Dodgers open the new baseball season, with Dodger Stadium in Downtown Brooklyn renamed Jackie Robinson Memorial Stadium. They lose to the Cincinnati Reds, 4-1. April 30: President Ronald Reagan announces he has issued a pardon to former President Richmond Flowers for "any and all crimes he committed, or

may have committed, from January 14, 1963 through January 20, 1973," the period from his Inauguration as Governor of Alabama through his leaving of the White House. "I do not know whether he is guilty of the charges that federal prosecutors are pursuing against him," Reagan says, "but the man has already paid a stiff price. He should not have to live whatever years remain to him under this cloud." Reagan issues the pardon on the recommendation of House Speaker Gerald Ford, who said that, if Flowers is indicted, it will give Reagan himself a great deal of grief with the press. The current Governor of Alabama, and Reagan's 1972 opponent for the Republican nomination, George Wallace, is furious. Harboring a long and bitter rivalry with Flowers, he wants no part of this reconciliation. He is determined to oppose Reagan again in 1976. "I don't care if it tears apart the Republican Party for the next 50 years!" the diminutive firebrand says. He has already helped to injure the Democratic Party with his bolt in 1966. (This was the day RL President Richard Nixon fired Attorney General Richard Kleindienst and White House Counsel John Dean, and "accepted the resignations of" White House Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman and Special Adviser for Domestic Affairs John Ehrlichmann. All four would go to prison. I decided to have TTLReagan pardon Flowers as the simplest way out of dealing with the charges, and to have TTL-Ford recommend it as a reflection of his RL pardon of Nixon. In RL, years after going to prison and completing his sentence, Flowers was pardoned by President Carter.) June 27: Live and Let Die is released, the third film starring Roger Moore as James Bond. Yaphet Kotto, a black American actor, plays the two-faced villain, appearing in some scenes as Dr. Kananga, dictator of the fictional Caribbean island nation of San Monique, and in others as Harlem drug lord "Mister Big." British actress Jane Seymour makes her film debut as Kananga's fortunetelling associate, Solitaire, who switches sides after being seduced by Bond, seeking to take down Kananga's drug empire, which is hurting the British Empire as well as America. (It was RL-Moore's first Bond film, and he had to become "Agent Double-O-Shaft." And, as Moore himself put it, "Why would you have someone run across the backs of crocodiles while wearing crocodile shoes?" Because it was the Silly Seventies. Stuff like this is why a majority of 007 fans prefer Sean Connery. But Moore was the first Bond I knew, so he's still "my Bond.") July 25: The first Pan-European space mission is launched, a crew of a German, a Frenchman and an Italian. They link up with Skylab. President Ronald Reagan calls it "the space summit." He loves this sort of thing. August 16: It is 25 years to the day since Babe Ruth died, and there is a new man who is second behind him on the all-time home run list. Hank Aaron hits career home run number 703, capping a 4-2 Atlanta Braves win over the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. Facing mounting media interest, and even some unpleasant mail from fans who don't want to see Ruth's record fall, he had been tied with Willie Mays for three days. Just one year ago, Mays looked like a shoo-in to be the first to get to 714. Now, like Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle and every other Ruth-chaser before him, he may not get there at all. But Aaron might make it before the end of the season.

September 23: After a nasty battle in Congress, President Reagan signs his first budget into law. It cuts taxes on the wealthy, vastly increases defense spending, and cuts spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and MediKid. Exactly what President Flowers, in last year's debate, said Reagan would do, which Reagan flat-out denied in his "There you go again" rejoinder. October 1: Philadelphia Eagles owner Leonard Tose announces that receiver Richmond Flowers Jr. will not be traded, no matter how much the Philadelphia fans might boo him. October 6: Egypt attacks Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. At the same time, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), dominated by Muslims and ethnic Arabs, dramatically raises oil prices. President Ronald Reagan promises unflinching support of Israel. Prime Minister Golda Meir tells him she will ask for it if Israel needs it, but says they will not. October 10: President Reagan meets with his living predecessors at the White House, to discuss the current mess in the Middle East and the effect the oilprice shock is having on the American economy. Richmond Flowers (1970-73) tells him that instituting a second round of tax cuts, as Reagan had planned for next year, should be put off, at the risk of increasing the federal deficit. Quentin Roosevelt (1953-61) disagrees completely, thinking it the best possible stimulus for the economy. John F. Kennedy (1963-69) tells him that a targeted tax cut might be a better idea, but he's got a better one still. His brother, former Massachusetts Senator Robert F. Kennedy, now runs a company called Citizens Energy, which provides low-cost heating oil to poor families in New England. Why not a heating-oil tax credit? And why not go to, say, Canada or Latin America for our oil? Maybe even Russia, which is going through some severe economic difficulty at the moment? Roosevelt suggests that this might be a way to get the socialist Russian Republic back on the road to the free market. Albert "Happy" Chandler (1949-53) suggests moving toward alternative fuels. Reagan says that would hurt the auto industry. "Then have them start to build cars that can run on these fuels!" Chandler tells him. "The possibilities are endless, Ron," Kennedy says. "You can do this. You have the will. You have the goodwill of the people. You have the support in Congress. All you need is to think about it, and realize that we've all got some good ideas. If you didn't think so, you wouldn't have invited us." Reagan agrees to think about it. He then invites the former Presidents to watch Game 5 of the National League Championship Series with him. The Brooklyn Dodgers defeat the Cincinnati Reds, 7-2 at Robinson Stadium. It is Brooklyn's first Pennant in seven years, and Sandy Koufax goes into the ninth inning before Frank (Tug) McGraw, the reliever whose battle cry "Ya Gotta Believe!" has led the Bums to this point, slams the door. (This was the RL day that Spiro Agnew resigned the Vice Presidency. Two days later, Nixon appointed Gerald Ford to succeed him. This was also the RL day that the Mets beat the Reds for the Pennant. I was thinking that Clemente still being alive would give the Pirates the NL East, but then I remembered that the Dodgers and Giants hadn't moved, and thus would have finished first and second, and

by plenty. The Reds still win the West. Don't forget, with the elbow surgery of 1966, Koufax, closing in on his 38th birthday, is still pitching. And the Tugger still wins this Pennant.) October 12: President Reagan announces a World Energy Summit to be held next month in Geneva, Switzerland. Former Presidents Albert Chandler, Quentin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Richmond Flowers are with him for the announcement, and he credits for their input "these old, often wise men." Calling them "often wise" rather than just "wise" brings a few laughs. This is the most attention many of these men have received outside their Presidential Libraries in years. October 21: The Texas Rangers defeat the Brooklyn Dodgers in Game 7 of the World Series at Kezar Stadium, 5-2. Reggie Jackson homers and is named Most Valuable Player of the Series. He dedicates the Series to the memory of Brooklyn Dodger legend Jackie Robinson. The man who reintegrated baseball 25 years earlier had attended Game 2 of the previous year's Series, but died ten days later. October 26: Secretary of State Quentin Roosevelt Jr. finally talks President Anwar Sadat of Egypt into ending his war against Israel. "Don't call it an 'agreement,'" he says, "or a 'negotiation,' or even an 'armistice,' or anything that would suggest your country is ready to recognize the State of Israel. Just decide to say, 'The war is over, and we have achieved our objectives. Then decide what those objectives are. You haven't lost anything except men and materiel. Israel took no land from you. You haven't shamed yourself." Sadat agrees. He also begins to think about possibly establishing contact with Israeli representatives, which, for the moment, would be short of recognizing the nation. But with President Reagan of the U.S., Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada, Prime Minister Heath of Britain, President Pompidou of France, Chancellor Strauss of Germany, President Brezhnev of Russia, and Premier Deng of China all against him -- if not openly for Israel -- Sadat and the OPEC nations can no longer afford to wage the Yom Kippur War. But oil prices will continue to go up. "The oil weapon" will do what Arab military might could not: Hurt the non-Muslim world. November 17: The WEPA, World Energy & Power Agreement, is signed in Geneva, Switzerland. Signatories are President Ronald Reagan of America, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau of Canada, Prime Minister Edward Heath of Britain, President Georges Pompidou of France, Chancellor Franz Josef Strauss of Germany, President Leonid Brezhnev of Russia, Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka of Japan, and, most notably, Premier Deng Xiaoping of Communist China. There will be greater sharing of energy technology, including exports and experimentation of alternatives to oil, among the nations, in an attempt to isolate the OPEC nations, dominated as they are by Arab dictators and monarchs. Strauss and Brezhnev need this more than the others, as their nations are in severe recessions, and Strauss in particular may have to call an election soon. (This was the RL day Nixon said, "I am not a crook.") 1974

January 13: The Memphis Hound Dogs make it back-to-back World Championships, defeating the Minnesota Vikings, 24-7, in Super Bowl VIII at Rice Stadium in Houston. January 15: The German elections turn Chancellor Franz Josef Strauss out of power, leading to the rise of the Social Democratic Party and Willy Brandt. This gives Germany its most liberal government since the Weimar Republic, 41 years earlier. (Brandt had been Chancellor since 1970.) January 16: The Baseball Hall of Fame elects the following retired baseball legends: Pittsburgh Pirates center fielder James "Cool Papa" Bell, St. Louis Cardinals first baseman "Sunny Jim" Bottomley, umpire Jocko Conlan, New York Yankees pitcher Edward "Whitey" Ford, Chicago White Sox left fielder Orestes "Minnie" Minoso, and Philadelphia Phillies right fielder Sam Thompson. (Bell never played in the majors, only the Negro Leagues. Fellow Negro Leaguer Satchel Paige said, "Cool Papa was so fast, he hit a line drive up the middle, and it hit him in the ass as he was sliding into second. He was so fast, he could turn out the lights, and be back in bed before the room got dark. In RL, Ford's teammate and pal Mickey Mantle was also elected. In TTL, he plays longer and so isn't eligible yet.) April 8: A sellout crowd of 53,775 attends the Atlanta Braves' home opener at Atlanta Stadium (later Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium). Braves star Hank Aaron has tied the all-time record of 714 set by Babe Ruth. Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn has invited every living member of the 500 Home Run Club to attend, and all do: The recently retired Willie Mays (708), Mickey Mantle (685), Ted Williams (604), Buck Leonard (516), Braves manager and former Aaron teammate Eddie Mathews (512), Ernie Banks (512), and two active players, neither of whom were scheduled to play that day, Frank Robinson (552) and Harmon Killebrew (539). Already dead and unable to attend are Ruth, Jimmie Foxx (534) and Mel Ott (511). Each of the 500 Clubbers says a few words. Williams calls Aaron, "one of the best hitters I've ever seen, and I've seen most of the great ones." Mantle, representing the Yankees and, by extension, Ruth, calls it, "a great day for baseball, and wherever the Babe is, he understands that what's good for baseball is good for him. He's smilin' tonight." Herbert Aaron, Hank's father, throws out the first ball. Pearl Bailey sings the National Anthem. Sammy Davis Jr., who has offered $25,000 to the man who catches the record-breaking ball, sings "The Impossible Dream." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the great poverty-fighter who once again preaches in his home town, delivers the invocation. His former aide, Georgia Governor Andrew Young, also attends. In the top of the fourth inning, Aaron bats against Los Angeles Dodger pitcher Al Downing. On a oneball, no-strike count, Aaron swings. Braves broadcaster Milo Hamilton has the call: "Here's the pitch by Downing: Swinging! There's a drive to left-center field! That ball is gonna be... outta here! It's gone! It's 715! There's a new home-run champion of all time! And it's Henry Aaron! Henry Aaron's coming around third! His teammates are at home plate! The fireworks are going! And just listen to this crowd!" The ball fell into the Braves bullpen, where relief pitcher Tom House caught the ball, which is sent to the Baseball Hall of Fame

in Cooperstown, New York. Aaron, himself sent to the Hall in its 1982 elections, will retire after the 1976 season with 755 home runs. As of the 2006 season, it remains the all-time record. (Pearlie Mae really did sing the anthem, and Sammy really was there, as was RL-Mayor Young. RL-Governor Jimmy Carter presented Aaron with a personalized George license plate that read "HLA 715," his initials and the new record total. The gathering of the 500 Home Run Club did not take place, Commissioner Kuhn did not attend, and Dr. King, of course, was dead.) May 28: After a shaky Friday, the stock market has had the long Memorial Day weekend to worry investors. Prices drop sharply on this Tuesday. It is not so steep a drop as to be a "Crash of '74," and the market does bounce back the next day, but with inflation rising, including the highest gasoline prices ever as the summer begins, a drop in stock prices cannot be considered good news. June 4: The National Football League adds two teams, to begin play in 1976. The Nordstrom family of department-store fame receives a team for Seattle, which will be named the Seahawks. Carroll Rosenbloom agrees to sell the Baltimore Colts, and join Hugh Culverhouse in a team for Tampa, to be named the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Colts are purchased by Jerry Richardson, a former Colt receiver who now runs the Hardee's chain of fast-food restaurants. Some people in South Florida wonder why the Tampa Bay region, with its 47,000-seat Tampa Stadium (soon to be expanded to 74,000 seats) gets a team, while the far larger Miami-Fort Lauderdale region, with the 74,000-seat Orange Bowl, doesn't get one. Memories of Miami as the city where President Albert Gore was assassinated in 1963 are still very painful. (Rosenbloom had a RL home in Florida, so this deal is not so far-fetched. Richardson, who later started Denny's, wouldn't really get an NFL team ownership until 1993, when the Carolina Panthers were established, beginning play in 1995. He wanted a team for the Carolinas because his home and business headquarters were, and are, in Spartanburg, South Carolina.) July 10: Rich Flowers -- the son of the former Preisdent no longer calls himself "Richmond Flowers Jr." -- signs with the first major-league (sort of) sports team in the history of his home State, the Birmingham Vulcans of the World Football League. In the team's first game, at Legion Field, the former University of Alabama All-American and Philadelphia Eagle catches two touchdown passes from quarterback George Mira, and the Americans defeat the Southern California Sun, 18-7. (Flowers Jr. did play for that team, and the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants, but was pretty much finished by then.) July 12: Kopechne & Associates, a new law firm, is founded in Plymouth, Pennsylvania. Mary Jo Kopechne runs it, having passed the Pennsylvania bar and served as an associate at other firms. (Since there was no TTL barbecue at Chappaquiddick, Mary Jo is still alive, and I had to find something for her to do. She certainly fares better in TTL than she did both in RL and in "Kennedy Runs Later.")

August 9: Former President John F. Kennedy suffers a major heart attack. Surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston are barely able to save the life of the 57-year-old former chief executive. Elsewhere, former Vice President Richard Nixon publishes his memoir Hours of Crisis, telling of his rise from poverty in Southern California to law school, the U.S. Navy in World War II, the U.S. Congress, the Vice Presidency under Quentin Roosevelt, and his unsuccessful Presidential campaigns in 1960 and 1968. Despite a longstanding rivalry with his fellow Californian, Nixon has a considerable amount of praise for current President Ronald Reagan, but saves most of his admiration for his parents and for Roosevelt, now 77 years old and living in retirement on Long Island, as the father of Secretary of State Quentin Roosevelt Jr. Nixon's book becomes a best-seller, and one of the most important historical documents for people studying Quentin Roosevelt's "crowded hours." (The date is RL-Nixon's resignation. The title is a reflection of his RL 1962 book "Six Crises": His work on the Alger Hiss case while in Congress, the "Fund Crisis" leading to the "Checkers Speech" while Vice Presidential nominee, President Eisenhower's 1955 heart attack, the nasty reaction of natives on his 1958 trip to South America that exceeded the anger at George W. Bush in 2007, the "Kitchen Debate" with Nikita Krushchev in 1959, and his 1960 Presidential defeat by Senator John F. Kennedy.) August 25: Sandy Koufax, age 39 and having announced that he will retire at the end of the season, collects his 300th career win, a 3-0 shutout of the St. Louis Cardinals, outdueling another future Hall-of-Famer, Bob Gibson. The two men are also currently the only National Leaguers ever to strike out over 3,000 batters in a career, and Koufax also notches his 3,509th strikeout, breaking the career record held by Walter Johnson by fanning rookie first baseman Keith Hernandez. Four years later, Hernandez will also become the 3,000 strikeout victim of San Francisco Miners legend Tom Seaver. September 8: A month after major heart-bypass surgery, former President John F. Kennedy speaks publicly about his health for the first time. He reveals, in painfully honest detail, how he has kept himself alive with varying kinds of prescription drugs for the last 30 years or so. "Because I was a public figure," he says, "I was able to receive prescriptions that were carefully monitored, which prevented me from becoming psychologically dependent upon them. But, instead of becoming addicted, another problem developed. The use of all these drugs, piling up since I was a young man, placed a great strain on my heart, until I suffered a heart attack last month. Thanks to some new advances in medical technology, I can now receive new drugs that will be less of a strain on me. But because I was rich and famous, I was lucky. Many people are not. It is not just the young, who may be buying psychoactive drugs illegally on the street, who are suffering. Millions of people are addicted to prescription drugs, which they receive legally, and are afraid to speak up. But Eleanor Roosevelt taught us that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Let us take some steps forward so that there no longer needs to be a stigma about it. These are not criminals, shooting people on the street. These are regular, everyday Americans, who couldn't handle an illness, and were given something for it by their doctors, and now are unable to handle the

cure. Let us help them. I call on President Reagan and his advisors to begin a push for drug rehabilitation, for all who suffer." (This was the date of Ford's pardon of Nixon. Also the day Evel Knievel tried to jump over the Snake River Canyon in Idaho. Knievel escaped unharmed. Ford, politically, did not.) September 9: Having seen former President John F. Kennedy speak so candidly about the massive amount of prescription drugs he'd been forced to take just to stay alive, "King of Rock and Roll" Elvis Presley notes that his own prescription intake has been similar. He goes to a new doctor, who tells him that his intake would kill a man who had not already developed a tolerance for it. With the aid of his friend, fellow entertainer, and fellow co-owner of the NFL's Memphis Hound Dogs, Danny Thomas, he quietly checks into a rehabilitation clinic in Hollywood. He tells Thomas that, if this works, and he comes out clean, he'd like to establish a rehab center in connection with their shared charity, the St. Jude Hospital in Memphis. October 9: Oskar Schindler, a German factory operator, dies at the age of 66. Like most people outside the Nazis' inner circle, he never found out about the deaths of Jews in concentration camps until after the end of World War II in 1940, and thus was never in a position to save anyone from the Holocaust. He dies virtually unknown outside Germany. (Schindler's actual date of death.) October 10: Thanks to the recent resurgence of the Republican Party, and the open support of President Ronald Reagan, a Joseph R. McCarthy Presidential Library finally opens, at his birthplace in Grand Chute, Wisconsin. Reagan attends, as does Vice President George Bush, and McCarthy's widow Jean and their daughter Tierney. But no former Presidents, not even Quentin Roosevelt, the only other living Republican President, are on hand. Because of his lies and excesses, McCarthy's reputation is still just about the lowest of any President in modern times. (I can't remember why I chose the date for the opening.) October 17: The Texas Rangers defeat the Brooklyn Dodgers, 3-2 at Arlington Stadium, to win Game 5 and clinch their third straight World Championship in a rematch of last year's World Series. Joe Rudi wins the game with a home run off Sandy Koufax in the bottom of the seventh inning. Dodger manager Walter Alston removes Koufax, who receives a standing ovation from the Ranger fans, who know that this is the last appearance the great pitcher will make in a major league uniform. Koufax concludes his career with 304 career wins and 3,556 strikeouts, a record that will stand until Nolan Ryan surpasses him in 1983, and six no-hitters, a record that will stand until Ryan pitches a seventh in 1991. October 30: Muhammad Ali regains the Heavyweight Championship of the World with a stunning 8th-round knockout of previously undefeated Champion George Foreman in Kinshasa, Congo, hosted by President Patrice Lumumba, one of Ali's heroes. Few now doubt Ali's claim that, among heavyweight boxers, he is "the Greatest of All Time!" One who does doubt it is Joe Frazier, who has split two decisions with Ali. They will have to fight one more time.

(The country was then known as Zaire, and the President was Joseph Mobutu, alias Mobutu Sese Seko. Not having been duped by Elijah Muhammad, the mainstream Muslim TTL-Ali might have seen through RL-Mobutu, but I've set it up so he didn't have to deal with him.) November 1: The Hubert H. Humphrey Presidential Library opens at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. The martyrerd President's remains are reinterred in a tomb on the grounds. Over the tomb are words he liked to quote, and included in his final speech, just before his assassination at Kent State University in Ohio on May 4, 1970: "The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life; the sick, the needy and the handicapped." Attending are former Presidents Richmond Flowers, Quentin Roosevelt, Happy Chandler and, in his first public appearance since his heart surgery, John F. Kennedy, who, for the first time in his 57 years, looks older than his age. The current President, Ronald Reagan, does not attend. Instead, he is campaigning for Republican candidates in next week's elections. (Those words were delivered by RL-Humphrey before a joint session of Congress in 1977, while he was dying of cancer and looked like it. I'm not sure why I chose this date for the opening.) November 5: The Democratic Party makes big gains in the mid-term elections, taking both houses of Congress on the basis of the deepening recession. For the first time in American history, the nation is dealing with high unemployment and high inflation at the same time, and the public has lost confidence in President Ronald Reagan. Gerald Ford of Michigan is out as Speaker, Thomas "Tip" O'Neill of Massachusetts is in. Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania is out as Senate Majority Leader, Mike Mansfield of Montana is back in. Among the new members of Congress is Bill Clinton, a professor at the University of Arkansas Law School. At 28, he is barely older than his students. Among the new Senators is Elizabeth Dole, Republican of North Carolina, succeeding the retiring Democrat Sam Ervin. Ironically, her husband, Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, is defeated for re-election by a narow margin. (Bob held off a tough challenge, and Elizabeth didn't run for office until 2002. Clinton lost that race, and has said that it was a good thing, since he would've been spending time in Washington, away from his beloved Arkansas, and never would have become Governor and then President. I'm not so sure: Jim Guy Tucker was elected to Congress that year, and he becme Clinton's Lieutenant Governor and then Governor. Of course, he also became a convicted felon, something Clinton never became. But winning this race may help explain why Bill doesn't become President in TTL.) December 5: The Birmingham Americans defeat the Florida Blazers, 22-21, at Legion Field in Birmingham, in the first World Bowl, the championship game of the World Football League. Rich Flowers catch the touchdown pass and the two-point conversion that win the game. Despite all the controversy surrounding his father, former President Richmond Flowers, he is once again an unquestioned hero in Alabama.

December 19: Roger Moore stars for the fourth time as Bond, James Bond, in The Man With the Golden Gun. The title character is not Agent 007 himself, but rather Francisco Scaramanga, played by British horror-film legend Christopher Lee, as a sort of "anti-Bond": Instead of serving Queen and country, taking only the occasional medal -- and the occasional pleasure from one of Her Majesty's female subjects or an agent from another country -Scaramanga is a hitman for hire, charging US$1 million per gold-plated bullet from his golden gun, as he famously only needs one shot per attempt. Scaramanga involves himself in the worldwide energy crisis, killing the inventor of the Solex Agitator, a solar-energy generator, for Hai Fat, a Hong Kong businessman, and then killing the tycoon so as to auction off the device and keep the profits for himself, but not before building a solar energy cannon, a much bigger "golden gun." Bond must first save the Solex, and then, once the true magnitude of Scaramanga's plot is realized, stop Scaramanga. He is aided by two Swedish actresses: Britt Ekland as the cutesy-named Mary Goodnight, and Maud Adams as Andrea Anders, Scaramanga's double-dealing girlfriend, who wants Bond to get rid of Scaramanga -- who secretly and greatly admires Bond until Bond gets in his way -- so as to free herself from the hitman's clutches. Although some of the scenes are rather cheesy, and some of the fashions are abominable -- it is the 1970s, after all -- film fans are beginning to choose to forget that David Niven and Sean Connery ever appeared as 007. Uncle Mike Aug 21 2007, 02:18 AM Post #37

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 1975 March 21: A meeting is held at the Old Executive Office Building, next-door to the White House, among some advisers to President Ronald Reagan. Among those at the meeting are Vice President George Bush, White House Chief of Staff Michael Deaver, Attorney General Edwin Meese, National Security Adviser Alexander Haig, Presidential Press Secretary Lyn Nofziger, and Special Counsel to the President Charles Colson. They are concerned that, if the recession continues, despite Reagan's tax cuts, and energy prices remain high, voters may continue the drift to the left seen in last November's Congressional vote. So something must be done to discredit the Democratic majority in Congress and the prospective Democratic candidates for President. It is determined that Reagan must not know what is going on, to give him plausible deniability. Colson has a suggestion, and longtime Reagan

loyalists Deaver, Meese and Nofziger all like it. Haig likes it, too, but isn't sure it's a good idea. "What if they get caught?" he asks. "They won't get caught," Colson says. Bush says, "If they do, it's gonna be bad for the President in '76. It'll be bad, bad. Shouldn't do it. We're not gonna do it. Wouldn't be prudent." Colson tries to convince Bush it's the best thing to do to assure not just Reagan's re-election, but his election. "If the President goes down next year, George," Colson says, "it takes away any chance you have of ever being President, short of the President dying in office." Bush reluctantly says, "Fine, but don't tell anybody I had anything to do with this. Tell them I was out of the loop." (This is two years to the RL day after John Dean told Richard Nixon, "There is a cancer on the Presidency," and Nixon convicted himself by approving hush money on tape. It also reflects Bush Sr. and his protests that he was "out of the loop" on Iran-contra. In RL, he was Chairman of the Republican National Committee during the dog days of Watergate, although he probably had nothing to do with it. Iran-contra, he probably did, but the evidence has never come forward, possibly due to his lame-duck Christmas Eve pardons in 1992.) June 17: Five men are arrested outside the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate hotel & office complex in Washington. Found with them are documents suggesting that the White Hous may have sent them. (Three years after the RL break-in.) June 23: As Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein continue to write stories about the Watergate burglary, President Reagan insists that no crime was committed by the White House. "We did not, repeat, did not send men to break into the Watergate complex, for political purposes, or for any other purposes." No one ever ran the plan by him, in order to protect him from liability. So, as far as he knows, he is telling the truth. August 27: Emperor Haile Selassie I dies after 45 years on the throne of Ethiopia. He was 83 years old. His 59-year-old son is proclaimed His Imperial Majesty Emperor Amha Selassie I, Elect of God, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah and King of Kings of Ethiopia. But his power, as his father's had before him, has been severely curtailed by a constitutional movement. He is little more than a figurehead, albeit a beloved one. (Amha Selassie renounced his right to the throne shortly after his father was deposed.) October 1: "The Thrilla in Manila." Heavyweight Champion Muhammad Ali fights former Champion Joe Frazier, with whom he has split two prevoius bouts, at the Araneta Coliseum, which is actually in the Philippine capital of Quezon City rather than Manila. "I hit him with punches that would bring down buildings," Frazier says afterwards. "Lord, he's great." Ali will say, "That 10th round was as close to death as I've ever come." But in the 13th round, an Ali right to the jaw sends Frazier's mouthpiece flying out of the ring into the crowd. The 14th round is brutal, and Ali closes it ahead on points. Frazier will need a final-round knockout to win. But Frazier's trainer, Eddie Futch, decides his man is too badly hurt to continue, and stops the fight. Told it's over, Ali raises an arm in victory, and then collapses. Later Ali announces his retirement, and never fights again. The Heavyweight Championship of the

World is now vacant. (He did not quit after this fight. He should have.) October 5: Washington Senators outfielder Curt Flood announces his retirement. He is 37 years old. The four-time All-Star (three in the National League, one in the American League) leaves the game after 20 seasons, with a lifetime batting average of .293, 2,331 hits, eight Gold Gloves for fielding excellence (seven in the NL, one in the AL), four postseason appearances -1964, '67 and '68 with the St. Louis Cardinals, 1970 with the Senators -- and World Championships won in 1964 and 1967. His timing is impeccable: After this season, the reserve clause that he wanted to challenge in 1969, and was partially overturned, is coming up for review again. October 11: The late-night variety show NBC Saturday Night premieres. It will later be renamed Saturday Night Live. It features, among other sketches soon to prove regular, Dan Aykroyd as a somewhat daffy President Ronald Reagan, and Chevy Chase as a bumbling Vice President George Bush. The two men discuss the rising scandal resulting from the Watergate break-in, and how it will hurt them next year. The real Reagan sees a clip of it the next day, and laughs. The real Bush is infuriated. (RL-Chase played President Gerald Ford, but neither looked nor sounded like him. Aykroyd played Carter, Reagan was played by Randy Quaid and Phil Hartman, Bush Sr. by Dana Carvey, Clinton by Hartman and later Darrell Hammond, and W. Bush by Will Ferrell, Bill Hader and now Jason Sudeikis.) October 18: Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein break the story that several White House officials, including Chief of Staff Michael Deaver and Attorney General Edwin Meese, associates of President Ronald Reagan going back to his days as Governor of California, were involved in the break-in at the Watergate complex in June, having contacted, hired and paid the burglars. That night, Reagan calls them into his office. They tell him the truth: They are guilty. He fires them all. He goes on television and tells the American people, "I will not accept this kind of activity in my Administration. If I can't win next year on my record, then I deserve to lose. I want to be your President for another four years. But I want to do it with the best men available. And, although men such as Mike Deaver, Ed Meese, Lyn Nofziger and the rest are old and dear friends, I cannot keep them on, for dearer still to me is the Constitution of the United States." The next day, the Sunday edition of the Post features a column by David Broder, calling it "the Saturday Night Massacre." October 19: President Reagan meets with Congressional leaders. He wants a tough but clean crime-fighter to be the new Attorney General. House Minority Leader Gerald Ford recommends the Senator from Massachusetts, a former State Attorney General, Malcolm Little. "He's totally clean, devoted to justice, and, unlike Ed Meese, he looks trustworthy," Ford says. Although William L. Dawson served as Vice President under Albert "Happy" Chandler from 1949 to 1953, Little will become the first black person to rise to such a high level in any President's Cabinet. (Little is RL-Malcolm X, alive, well, and considerably more conservative. Success will sometimes do that to you.)

October 21: The World Football League folds after a year and a half of play. Few people notice, as the World Series is going on. Game 6 is played at Fenway Park in Boston. The Boston Red Sox defeat the Cincinnati Reds, 7-6, on a 12th-inning home run by catcher Carlton Fisk. But the Reds will win Game 7 and the Series tomorrow night. (Yes, the WFL really did fold the day Fisk did the Fenway Twist. Well, not quite: It was after midnight, so the homer was actually on October 22.) October 29: President Reagan rejects a federal bailout of New York City's troubled finances. He criticizes the City for "reckless, runaway spending" on things like pensions for city employees. October 30: "RON TO CITY: DROP DEAD!" reads the headline in the New York Daily News. Along with the rival New York Post's erroneous post-election headline in 1952, "CHANDLER DEFEATS ROOSEVELT," it is one of the most famous newspaper headlines ever. But City officials take the hint, and begin working with State officials to bring the City's finances under control. Within weeks, President Reagan will be satisfied with the progress, and reverse his position. (The headline is real, except it was "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD" with no exclamation point.) November 12: After several years of advancing illness, and realizing that he can no longer wait for a Democratic President to appoint his replacement, William O. Douglas retires from the Supreme Court, having just broken its longevity record with over 36 years of service. Douglas was the last of the "New Deal Justices," who had been appointed by President Eleanor Roosevelt. The current President, Ronald Reagan appoints William Rehnquist, a federal judge from Arizona, to the seat. (Ford appointed John Paul Stevens, meaning this seat has had just two fillers in 68 years.) December 23: Arbitrator Peter Seitz rules that baseball's reserve clause is inherently unfair and unconstitutional. He strikes it down. It had previously been limited to players with less than 10 years experience or under 32 years of age, thanks to the efforts of outfielder Curt Flood. Now, thanks to pitchers Dave McNally (who, like Flood, has just retired and had nothing to lose this time) and Andy Messersmith (an All-Star, who did have something to lose), and Players' Association Director Marvin Miller, it is dead after 97 years. Baseball's team owners and players' union work out a deal to create the freeagency system. December 30: Unable to sign with a new professional team following the dissolution of the World Football League, wide receiver Rich Flowers retires from football. He will enroll in law school at his alma mater, the University of Alabama. 1976 February 1: Governor Michael Dukakis of Masschusetts appoints Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy, brother of former President John F. Kennedy, to the Senate seat vacated by Malcolm Little's recent confirmation as U.S. Attorney General.

Also on this day, Major League Baseball announces an expansion for the 1977 season. With the National League's San Francisco Miners now a regular sellout at Kezar Stadium, Oakland is admitted to the American League with the Wolves, named for the creatures featured in the novels of Oakland native Jack London. With the NL's Montreal Expos a success at the box office, if not on the field, Toronto is admitted to the AL with the Blue Jays. With the AL's Los Angeles Angels a success at the box office, if not on the field, nearby Anaheim is admitted to the NL with the Aviators. The NL also adds the Seattle Mariners. February 10: The Iowa Caucuses are held. On the Republican side, President Ronald Reagan easily defeats Governor George Wallace of Alabama, despite the Watergate scandal. On the Democratic side, an uncommitted slate of delegates wins 37 percent of the vote, while the announced candidate with the most votes is Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana, with 17 percent. But tied for second with Senator Fred Harris of Oklahoma, with 14 percent, is former Governor Andrew Young of Georgia, the first-ever black candidate to do so well in any Presidential contest. Congressman Morris "Mo" Udall of Arizona gets 10 percent, while Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson of Washington nets a mere 5 percent. February 24: The New Hampshire Primary is won by Congressman Mo Udall of Arizona, but barely. He takes 28 percent of the vote, to 26 percent for former Governor Andrew Young of Georgia. Senator Henry Jackson of Washington wins 19 percent, and Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana, who had won the Iowa Caucuses, gets just 14 percent. March 9: Former Governor Andrew Young of Georgia wins the primary in neighboring Florida. He wins 42 percent of the vote, appealing about evenly to black, elderly and Jewish voters, and even to conservative, mostly relgious farmers in the northern part of the State, the kind of people he had won over to be elected in Georgia. Senators Henry Jackson of Washington and Birch Bayh of Indiana are the only other candidates left, and are staking everything on next week's Illinois Primary, where "Scoop" hopes to gain the support of the machine of Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, and Bayh hopes that voters from Chicago and eastern Illinois will know him as a neighbor. On the Republican side, President Ronald Reagan wins easily. Governor George Wallace of Alabama gained a pathetic 11 percent in his intraparty challenge to Reagan. His hopes of gaining the Presidency appear to be over forever. March 11: Jean Moulin, who served as President of France from 1958 to 1962, dies at his home in Paris. He is 76 years old. March 16: Andrew Young, the former Governor of Georgia, wins the Illinois Primary. He is significantly aided by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, like Young a former aide to anti-poverty activist Dr. Martin Luther King, whose voterregistration drives in Chicago and, at the other end of the State, East St. Louis offset the moves by Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley on behalf of Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson of Washington. Young wins 46 percent of the vote, while Senator Birch Bayh of neighboring Indiana finishes second with 31

percent, and Jackson takes just 19 percent. Jackson drops out, but does not endorse either Young or Bayh. March 23: Governor Young rolls to an overwhelming victory in the North Carolina Primary, defeating Senator Bayh 58 percent to 37 percent. The next day, Bayh drops out, and he and Senator Jackson both endorse Governor Young. Surprisingly early, the major-party candidates for President are set: President Ronald Reagan for the Republicans, and Andrew Young, former Governor of Georgia, for the Democrats. July 4: President Reagan hosts Bicentennial celebrations in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and New York. Governor Young gives a stirring address before a racially integrated crowd at the Robert E. Lee Library and Slavery Museum in Charlottesville, Virginia. The idea of a black man -- or, at least, the idea of this particular black man -- becoming President doesn't seem so strange anymore. Despite the kind of patriotic backdrop that he loves so well and accentuates so well, Reagan has but a slim lead over Young in opinion polls. The economy and the memory of the Watergate scandal have hurt him. July 29: The Democratic Convention gathers at Madison Square Garden in New York. The invocation is given by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. His former associate, later Governor of Georgia, Andrew Young, becomes the first black person nominated for President by either major party. He chooses another former Governor, Martha Griffiths of Michigan, to be his Vice Presidential nominee. After the last two Presidencies -- one Democratic, Richmond Flowers, and one Republican, Ronald Reagan -- have been tainted by scandal, Young tells America, "I want a government as good as its people." He reminds them of what Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in the 1830s: "America is great because it is good, and if it ceases to be good, it will cease to be great." So, he says, "Let us become the country we were meant to be. Together, we can make it happen." With the Watergate scandal fresh in voters' minds, and the economy still not recovered from the nasty recession of 1973-75, Young leads President Reagan by an average of 10 points in opinion polls. August 2: Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein publish All the President's Men, about their exposure of the Watergate case. Its revelations do not show that President Ronald Reagan knew about the break-in beforehand, but suggest that he did try to cover it up afterward. Even if that is not believable, what it says about the men in the Administration who were involved casts doubts on Reagan's moral fitness to lead the nation. August 19: The Republican Convention is held at the Kemper Arena in Kansas City. President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George Bush are nominated for second terms, but the Convention is the least enthusiastic Republican gettogether since the Hoover re-election drive in the middle of the Depression in 1932. Reagan does his best to lift the Delegates' spirits. but his acceptance speech is not up to his usual standards. He will get a minimal "bounce" from his Convention. He trails Governor Andrew Young by an average of seven points in the polls. What's more, the States in which Young leads are far

larger than the States in which Reagan leads. In the Electoral College, this election could be a blowout. September 23: The first Presidential debate of this campaign is held at the Walnut Street Theater in Philadelphia, also the home of CBS' daytime talk show The Mike Douglas Show. President Reagan tries to answer questions about Watergate and the still-struggling economy. Governor Young tries to tell the nation about how the government will be more honest and ethical, and more attentive to the poor and the unemployed, with him as President. But the only notable thing about this debate is what is not said -- or, rather, not heard. About two-thirds of the way through the debate, a technical difficulty cuts off the sound, so that neither the candidates nor the panelists can be heard. It takes 23 minutes to restore the sound. About 10 minutes into the delay, Reagan walks over to Young, says something to him, and they both laugh. What had been a rough campaign thus far turns more collegial -- for the moment. Political observers suggest that this exchange helps Young a little, and Reagan a little more. But as for what's actually heard in the debate, few minds are changed. September 28: For the 16th time, the first time since its renovation, and the last time ever, Yankee Stadium in New York hosts a fight for the Heavyweight Championship of the World. Vacant since the third fight between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier nearly one full year ago, the combatants are the only two men ever to defeat Ali: Former Champion Frazier and Number 1 contender Ken Norton. Norton wins a unanimous 15-round decision, and Frazier retires. October 6: The second Presidential Debate is held at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. President Reagan is asked about relations with the Russian Republic. "Well," he says, "things could be better. But it's not like we're dealing with a monolithic, imperialist power. They have the military capability to dominate much of the world. But there is no Russian domination of Eastern Europe. No, and there's no Russian domination of Central Asia, or the Middle East. We're not dealing with an evil empire here. But that doesn't mean we like everything they do." Governor Young says, "Well, that's cursing them with faint praise. We've worked with them, like with the Apollo XIII/Luna II linkup, and the Skylab project. I think we're on the verge of even greater cooperation, if only they'll be open to it. And I think the next President ought to give them the opportunity to do the right thing." Both candidates seem to have helped themselves, but neither is a decisive winner. Young still leads in most opinion polls, but Reagan has made it a little closer. It seems the lingering doubts about the economy and Watergate may still be the decisive factor. (What Reagan says here is a reflection of what RL-Ford said, but in an incredibly different context.) October 23: The last Presidential Debate of the election is held, at the Phi Beta Kappa Hall on the campus of the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. President Reagan needs a win here. Moderator Barbara Walters of ABC News gives him a chance to address one of the lingering issues of his (first?) term: The break-in at the Democratic National Committee's offices at the Watergate complex in Washington, sponsored by

White House officials. "Well, Barbara, you know, well, I had, you know, I had nothing to do with it," Reagan says, clearly uncomfortable with the question, but knowing he has to answer it. "And, you know, I welcome the chance to answer this, because the American people need to know that their President is not a crook. Well, I am not a crook. I do not tolerate things like that in my Administration." Governor Young says, "I wouldn't have let people like that into my Administration in the first place." The questions turn to the economy. Young says that he will not cut spending on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and MediKid, the way Reagan has. "You know," Reagan says, "I wasn't going to say this, but... There you go again. We did not, repeat, did not cut spending on those programs. We simply cut the rate of their increases." Young was expecting the line Reagan used against President Richmond Flowers four years ago. Young comes back: "Mr. President, you are either a liar or totally unaware of the existence of inflation. With inflation factored in, Social Security spending has gone down 12 percent since 1972, the last year of a Democratic Administration. Medicare has, with inflation factored in, been cut 4 percent. You turned 65 this year, Mr. President. If you didn't have government pensions and health care, that would be you whose programs were cut. Medicaid has been cut 6 percent. And MediKid has been cut 11 percent. That is absolutely inexcusable, picking on children like that. You should be ashamed of yourself." Children don't vote, but the elderly and the poor do. Reagan knows that he has blundered, and that inflation is one of his great concerns, and he should've been prepared for this. November 2: Andrew Jackson Young Jr., named for a 19th Century President who held slaves, becomes the first black person elected President of the United States. The Democrat, the former Governor of Georgia, is elected, with former Governor Martha Griffiths of Michigan as his Vice President. Young wins 44 million votes, to incumbent Republican President Ronald Reagan's 37 million, 53.6 to 45.1 percent with the rest scattered. The Electoral College is a wipeout, with Young winning 491 Electoral Votes and Reagan taking only 47. Reagan wins only the traditionally Republican States of Arizona, Dakota, Hiawatha, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming. A heavy black vote, coming out for Young, takes away even Republican-leaning Southern States like Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas, and also the usually Republican State of Indiana. "The people have spoken," Reagan says, "and they have told a true, honest-toGod, 'Only in America' story. They did it for me, four years ago. They have done it for the President-elect, Andrew Young, now." Some political observers say that if Reagan had governed the way he'd conceded, he would've won. But lingering doubts about the economy and Watergate knocked him down and led to Young's election. The Democrats also increase their majorities in Congress. November 29: Unwilling to use the new rules of free agency to pay huge salaries for his Texas Rangers, team owner Charlie Finley lets several stars get away, most notably slugging right fielder Reggie Jackson, signed today by the New York Yankees. He has already lost pitcher Jim "Catfish" Hunter to the Yankees, pitcher Vida Blue to the San Francisco Miners, relief ace Rollie Fingers to the San Diego Padres, third baseman Sal Bando to the Milwaukee

Brewers, and left fielder Joe Rudi to the Los Angeles Angels. With the Rangers not a great draw, not even selling out a single home game in the 1974 postseason, he begins to look into selling the team. Uncle Mike Aug 24 2007, 11:17 PM Post #38

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 1977 January 2: After 22 seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Roberto Clemente retires from baseball. The legendary right fielder collected 3,454 hits, making him fifth on the all-time list at this point, behind only Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron, Stan Musial and Tris Speaker. He helped the Pirates to Division Titles in 1970, '71, '72 and '75; and to World Championships in 1960 and 1971. He also won four batting titles and had a lifetime batting average of .314. Aaron, baseball's all-time home run king with 755, is also newly retired, as is Frank Robinson. But baseball is not lacking for stars. Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Carl Yastrzemski, Dick Allen, Willie McCovey, Tom Seaver, Jim Palmer, Nolan Ryan, Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson, Rod Carew and many others are still around. This season will see the Rookie of the Year awards go to two future Hall-ofFamers: Eddie Murray of the Baltimore Orioles and Andre Dawson of the Montreal Expos. (Dying in the New Year's Eve 1972 plane crash, Clemente finished with 3,000 hits even and a .317 average. Living to play another four years, he gets another 454 hits and another Division Title -- but Pittsburgh loses the '74 Division Title because the Dodgers are still in Brooklyn -- but his batting average goes down a little, since he has the post-age 38 decline he never got to have. Murray is in the Hall. Dawson is eligible but not yet in. In TTL, circumstances will allow him election.) January 20: Andrew Young takes office as the 41st President of the United States. "In a world where change is inevitable and continuous," he says in his Inaugural Address, "the need to achieve that change without violence is essential for survival." January 27: Brigadier General Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, U.S. Air Force, dies of a heart attack. The third human and second American in space, and the commander of a Gemini mission and an Apollo mission, he was just 50 years old. He is the first of the original "Mercury 7" astronauts to die. (Ten years to the day after his actual death.)

April 4: The Socialist Party wins the Russian elections, as Yuri Andropov defeats the incumbent President, Nationalist Party Leader Leonid Brezhnev. The Russian economy has been in tatters, and Andropov has promised reform. May 11: Former First Lady Pauline Gore retires from the Supreme Court. She had waited until the end of the term in the first year of a Democratic President to retire. President Andrew Young appoints federal Judge Betty B. Fletcher to replace her. She is easily confirmed. May 16: Ken Norton defends the Heavyweight Title by defeating Alfredo Evangelista in a decision at the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland, outside Washington, D.C. (Same date, same site, same opponent, but it was Muhammad Ali who was still champ.) June 13: Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark dies. Having resisted the pressure to appoint a fellow black man earlier in the year, upon the retirement of Pauline Gore (although he did appoint a woman), President Andrew Young now appoints federal Judge A. Leon Higginbotham to replace Clark. He is also easily confirmed. (Clark actually retired 10 years earlier.) July 13: A blackout strikes New York City. Due to anti-poverty and anti-crime measures, looting is minimal. (If you've been watching the ESPN miniseries "The Bronx Is Burning," you know that this was not the case in RL.) July 14: The film The Spy Who Loved Me is released. It is the fifth film in which Roger Moore plays British secret agent James Bond. He pursues Karl Stromberg, a mad genius who has stolen American, British, Russian and Chinese nuclear submarines in an attempt to start World War III, wiping out everyone except his chosen few, who would survive at his underwater base "Atlantis." Bond is alternately aided and hindered by Chinese agent Yu enMei, played by Nora Miao, a Hong Kong-born actress known for her work in martial-arts films. It becomes the highest-grossing Bond film to date. (I needed a Chinese agent and actress to take the place of the Soviet Major Anya Amasova, Agent Triple-X, played by Barbara Bach, a.k.a. Daisy Duke's sister and Ringo Starr's wife. After considerable Wikipedia checking, Miao fit the bill. She has never acted in an English-language film, but now lives in Toronto and hosts a talk show on a Chinese-language Canada-based cable network. One of her early films has the title, when translated into English, as "The Blade Spares None." What a great title. Quentin Tarantino must be kicking himself for not being able to get her into any of his movies.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nora_Miao http://www.simonyam.com/hkmw/actors/noramiao/ August 16: The Gladys Presley Memorial Center for Drug & Alcohol Rehabilition opens in Memphis, Tennessee. Named for his mother, "King of Rock and Roll" Elvis Presley announces that all who enter will have the strictest of confidentiality, and no one outside will know unless the patients

later wish to make it public. Among the patients who will check into the Gladys Presley Center before the year is out are actress Elizabeth Taylor and Betty Ford, whose husband Gerald was Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1967 to 1969 and again from 1971 to 1975. Elvis has lost 50 pounds over the last three years and looks great. He says he will tour again later in the year. September 29: Earnie Shavers becomes the Heavyweight Champion of the World by knocking out Ken Norton in the 11th round at Madison Square Garden in New York. (Ali barely survived Shavers' assault at the Garden, winning by decision. Shavers may have been the best heavyweight never to win the title. If not the best, probably the scariest.) October 18: Repairs are made to the Skylab space station by a joint American and Russian team of astronauts. It is now believed to be spaceworthy for at least the rest of the 20th Century. A few hours later, the New York Yankees win their record 21st World Championship, but their first in 15 years, defeating the Brooklyn Dodgers 8-4 in Game 6 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium. Yankee right fielder Reggie Jackson blasts three home runs, tying a Series record set by Yankee legend Babe Ruth twice in the 1920s, and doing it on three successive swings of the bat. Naturally, Jackson wins the Babe Ruth Award, given to the World Series' Most Valuable Player. According to City records, over 100 baby boys born in the City over the remainder of the month of October are named "Reginald" or "Reggie" in honor of Reginald Martinez Jackson -- as is a candy bar made by the Curtiss Candy Company, which had also marketed the Baby Ruth bar since Ruth's time. (Skylab was not repaired, and fell to Earth on July 11, 1979.) November 8: Mario Cuomo, the Secretary of State of the State of New York, is elected Mayor of the City of New York. Having won the nominations of the Democratic and Liberal Parties, he defeats John Marchi, a State Senator from Staten Island, who, as he had in the 1969 and 1973 elections, received the nominations of the Republican and Conservative Parties. To win the Democratic Primary, Cuomo had to defeat three current or former members of the City's Congressional delegation: Edward I. Koch, Bella Abzug and Herman Badillo. (Cuomo lost the Democratic nomination to Koch.) December 19: A film version of All the President's Men is released. Robert Redford plays Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward. Dustin Hoffman plays his partner, Carl Bernstein. Jason Robards plays Post editor-in-chief Ben Bradlee, who helps them uncover the Watergate plot that helped to bring down President Ronald Reagan. By a weird coincidence, the real Bradlee is now engaged to be married to Sally Quinn, the former Post reporter whose 1965-66 affair with President John F. Kennedy nearly brought down that Presidency. (Bradlee really did marry Quinn shortly after this. But, as far as I know, Quinn has never had an affair with a President.) 1978 January 11: Charlie Finley sells the Texas Rangers to oil magnate Marvin

Davis, who moves them to Denver's Mile High Stadium and restores their former name, calling them the Colorado Athletics. Over 80,000 fans attend their April 10 opener, a 1-0 victory over the Oakland Wolves. January 19: The Baseball Hall of Fame elects New York Yankee center fielder Mickey Mantle, Milwaukee Brave third baseman Eddie Matthews, Cleveland Indian pitcher Addie Joss, and Larry MacPhail, a general manager for several teams who introduced night games and radio broadcasts to the major leagues. February 15: In what was meant to be a tuneup fight to regain the Heavyweight Title from Earnie Shavers, Ken Norton is shocked, losing a unanimous decision to Leon Spinks at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Spinks had won a Gold Medal at the 1976 Olympics, but was in only his ninth professional fight. Spinks is now set up to fight Shavers. (Spinks beat Ali.) April 3: The Academy Awards are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. Host Bob Hope makes a few silly remarks about former President Ronald Reagan, who looks very bad in Best Picture nominee All the President's Men. He makes a few space-age cracks about another Best Picture nominee, the science-fiction blockbuster Star Wars. He chides Best Actress nominee Diane Keaton for her wardrobe in Best Picture nominee Annie Hall. Keaton wins Best Actress anyway. Winning Best Supporting Actress for her role in Julia, Vanessa Redgrave attacks the racism and anti-Semitism shown by the Nazis, in the film and in real life, but then complains about "Zionist hoodlums," drawing audible gasps from the theater audience. Richard Dreyfuss wins Best Actor for The Goodbye Girl" and Jason Robards wins Best Supporting Actor for playing Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee in All the President's Men, having also been nominated for a role in Julia. Despite being the most successful film ever at the box office, Star Wars loses Best Picture to Annie Hall, and Woody Allen wins Best Director for it. April 10: The first reusable spacecraft is launched from the Albert A. Gore Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The "space shuttle" is named Enterprise, in honor of several American warships, including the great aircraft carrier in World War II and the current U.S. aircraft carrier, the first nuclearpowered carrier; but also in honor of the starship in the TV series Star Trek. Star Trek: The Motion Picture halts production to allow the cast members to attend the launch. The shuttle will orbit the Earth for six days, and land safely at Edwards Air Force Base in southern California. September 10: Having seen his team's 14-game lead over the New York Yankees drop to one game, and seeing them beat his team 15-3, 13-2 and 7-0 over the last three days, Boston Red Sox manager Don Zimmer bows to the request of team captain Carl Yastrzemski, and starts Bill Lee, a quirky lefthander known as the Spaceman, who'd been criticizing Zim and ended up in his "doghouse" after several poor outings. This is another: The Spaceman doesn't get out of the first inning, proving Zim's point. The Sox close to within 7-4, but the Yankee bullpen slams the door, completing a four-game sweep and tying the Sox for the American League Eastern Division lead. The teams

will finish in a tie for first place, and the Yanks will win a one-game Playoff on home runs by Bucky Dent and Reggie Jackson. (Zim started a rookie named Bobby Sprowl, who had not yet won a game in the majors, and never would.) September 15: Earnie Shavers defends the Heavyweight Title by knocking out Leon Spinks in the seventh round at the Superdome in New Orleans. (Ali regained the title from Spinks, and retired again. Didn't stay retired. Should have.) September 17: After a year's worth of intense negotiations, capped by a week of talks at the Presidential retreat of Camp Esther, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin joins President Andrew Young at the White House, for the signing of the Camp Esther Accord. The state of war between Egypt and Israel, which has officially existed for all of Israel's 36year nationhood, is over. The three heads of government will share the Nobel Peace Prize. (Remember, in TTL, it's named for Grover and Frances Cleveland's daughter, not Dwight D. Eisenhower's grandson David.) November 7: The Republicans make slight gains in the Congressional elections, but the Democrats keep solid control of both houses, as President Andrew Young remains popular. Congressman Bill Clinton is elected Governor of Arkansas. At 32, the Democrat is the youngest Governor in the country. 1979 January 31: Premier Deng Xiaoping announces that the Communist Party of China is dissolved. The 36-year (to the day) experiment in Communism is over, and there are no more Communist nations on planet Earth. Deng renames his party the People's Socialist Party, and announces that elections for a Parliament will be held in the summer, and that the elected Parliament will appoint the President. Of course, that President turns out to be Deng himself. It will still be some time before the people of China are used to the concept of opposing candidates. February 11: To stem rising tensions in his homeland, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi takes the advice of Kings Hussein I of Jordan and Faisal II of Babylon, and steps aside as Shah of Iran. His son, 18-year-old Reza Cyrus Pahlavi, is proclaimed Reza Shah II, and announces that he will be a constitutional monarch, rather than an absolute one like his father, and that Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar will continue in office. The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini remains in exile in France. April 2: Carroll Rosenbloom, co-owner of the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers, drowns off the coast of Florida. He was 72. His wife, Georgia, inherits his share, and spends the next 26 years feuding with co-owner Hugh Culverhouse and then, after his death, with Hugh Culverhouse Jr. April 9: The Academy Awards are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, hosted by Tonight Show host Johnny Carson. The award for Best Picture goes to The Deer Hunter, a film about a group of friends from a steel-

mill town in Western Pennsylvania, and the effects of the Korean War on them. The film also wins Best Actor for Robert DeNiro and Best Supporting Actor for Christopher Walken in his radiation-scarred role. It was widely believed that Jane Fonda would win Best Actress for Coming Home, in which she starred as the wife of a Korea veteran, but the Oscar was won instead by Jill Clayburgh for An Unmarried Woman. Fonda had previously won for Klute in 1971, so it's not as if she was cheated out of her best shot at winning. (Ironic: With no Vietnam War to stain her record, Fonda -- who wasn't old enough to become "Pyongyang Jane" -- wins one less Oscar.) June 29: Moonraker is released, the sixth film starring Roger Moore as James Bond. While the 1954 Ian Fleming novel was about a stolen military aircraft, in the film the "Moonrakers" are a private fleet of space shuttles, first built by British industrialist Sir Hugo Drax (Michael Londsale), and then used by him to further his mission, to destroy all life on Earth except for his chosen few, whose superior talents will repopulate the Earth with virtual supermen. It's a virtual rehash of the seaborne The Spy Who Loved Me of two years earlier. Despite the title her character bears, American actress Lois Chiles will forever be remembered with the envelope-pushing name of "Doctor Holly Goodhead." The film was an attempt by the Bond franchise to piggyback onto the science-fiction craze brought about by Star Wars, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Battlestar Galactica, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and so on. Instead, it becomes the campiest, dopiest Bond film yet. And, at age 52, Moore looks old, puffy, and a caricature of Agent 007. "If I'd tried to 'James Bond in Space' for this show," Bob Hope says on his next NBC TV special, "it wouldn't have been any more ridiculous." Moore had wanted to step aside after this film, but now, in order to redeem himself, he has to try one more film as Bond. "Film number 007, of course," he will say. July 15: President Andrew Young signs the Energy Assistance Act of 1979. It takes an idea that former President John F. Kennedy (who, along with his brother, Citizens Energy Corporation Chairman Robert F. Kennedy, is on hand) had given President Ronald Reagan six years ago, and makes it a reality: Tax credits for energy consumption for households. The worldwide energy crisis isn't helped much outside the U.S., but inside, the Act helps a great deal. The Act also allows greater tax deductions for gasoline use, making the current high gas prices easier to bear. Still, Hendrik Hertzberg, one of President Young's speechwriters, tells him, "The country is in a bit of a malaise. Most of it is economic, but some of it is spiritual. It's almost as if America has a crisis of confidence." Young rebuffs him: "There's no crisis of confidence. This nation's in a minor slump. And this new law will help us break out." Despite some warning signs, the nation does not appear to be in danger of slipping into a recession. (This was the night of Jimmy Carter's "crisis of confidence" speech, which Hertzberg, a RL White House speechwriter, compounded the next day by using the word Carter never used, "malaise." This was the beginning of the end of the Carter Administration, although few could see it at the time, and it was hardly irreversible.) July 16: King Faisal II of Babylon is assassinated, shot by a Baath Party activist named Saddam Hussein. The King was 44 years old. Royal bodyguards open

fire as Hussein attempts to flee, and cut him down. Before nightfall, the 16year-old Crown Prince is proclaimed King Ghazi II, Prince Abdul Ilah is proclaimed regent (as he once had been during Faisal's minority), and the royal assassin is hanged, dead at the age of 42. (This is the day RL-Saddam launched his coup. With the monarchy still in place in TTL, it was an easy way to get rid of him before more than a hundred Americans had even heard of him.) July 17: President Anastasio Somoza Debayle flees Nicaragua in advance of a coming coup. The former dictator flees to Paraguay, where he will be assassinated a year later. Violeta Chamorro, a noted publisher and champion of freedom of expression, is named President by the new junta, and will soon win election to a full term. Her government will be one of social democracy, although she and her one-time ally, Daniel Ortega, will wind up trading power in the nation's elections for the next 30 years. (No civil war, no Contras, no Iran-contra scandal.) August 2: On an off day in the New York Yankees' schedule, their catcher and Team Captain, Thurman Munson, is at home in Canton, Ohio, practicing takeoffs and landings in his new small jet airplane. He does so without incident. Munson then goes to Hopkins International Airport in Cleveland, and flies to join the Yankees for their next series. But with both knees and a shoulder injured, Munson is not much help to the Yankees this season, and they finish in fourth place in the American League Eastern Division. (This was originally the start of a Timeline that OTL.com officially named "Munson Skips Flight." In that one, he received a phone call from the airport, telling him a problem has been found with the plane, and that it will not be ready for him to fly today. In this one, with the evolution of aircraft having been sped up by Theodore Roosevelt all the way back in 1915, by 1979 Munson has a plane that is considerably safer, and more "trainee-proof." In fact, now that I'm off OTL.com, I've combined several Timeline ideas into this one big one. You don't like it? Write your own utopia. August 5: Willie Mays, who played 23 years with the New York Giants and hit 702 career home runs, and Duke Snider, who played 16 seasons with the Brooklyn Dodgers and hit 407, are inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. This completes the triumverate of 1950s-60s New York center fielders, as Mickey Mantle, who played 22 years with the Yankees and hit 685 home runs, was elected last year. Also elected are former National League President Warren Giles and Depression-era Chicago Cub slugger Hack Wilson. (Snider was actually eleced a year later.) August 9: Walter O'Malley dies of cancer at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota at the age of 75. He had owned the Brooklyn Dodgers in full since 1950 and at least in part since 1942. September 28: Larry Holmes wins the Heavyweight Title by knocking out Champion Earnie Shavers in the 11th round at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. October 16: The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library opens at Columbia Point,

on the Boston campus of the University of Massachusetts, nearly 11 years after its subject left the Presidency. Now 62 years old and looking closer to 70, JFK is using a cane to get around. His brother, former Senator Robert F. Kennedy, has recently been appointed the nation's first Secretary of Energy by President Andrew Young. His other surviving brother, Senator Ted Kennedy, gives the opening speech. Also attending are Young and former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Richmond Flowers. Quentin Roosevelt has been ill lately but sends his regards. The reason for the absence of Albert (Happy) Chandler is not known. This is the first time that JFK and his estranged wife, Jacqueline, have been seen together in public since the end of his Administration. It is rumored that JFK has been seeing an actress, although reports conflict as to which one. (The RL-JFK Library opened on this day, but, of course, RL-JFK had been dead for 16 years.) October 22: The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini takes a big chance and returns to Iran. Reza Shah II says that the Ayatollah is welcome to return, but interference with Iranian governmental functions or elections will not be tolerated. Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar says he will enforce the Shah's pronouncement. (This was the day President Carter gave the fateful decision to allow exiled Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi into the U.S. for medical treatment. If he hadn't, there would have been no hostage crisis, and he probably would have been re-elected, even with the weakening economy.) November 1: The New York Yankees trade first baseman Chris Chambliss to the Toronto Blue Jays for catcher Rick Cerone. Cerone will be the new Yankee catcher, and team Captain Thurman Munson, about to have operations on his shoulder and knee, will move to first base. Chabmliss is soon traded to the Atlanta Braves without ever playing a game for Toronto. November 4: Supporters of the Ayatollah Khomeini storm the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking 70 hostages. They demand that Reza Shah II abdicate and Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar resign, in favor of an Islamic theocracy. November 7: The Iranian Imperial Guard surrounds the Tehran residence of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Their commander tells the Imam that he must order the militants to release the hostages at the American Embassy. If he does not, he will be arrested and imprisoned until the hostages are released. He is also told that Reza Shah II and Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar have the backing of the Regent of Babylon, the King of Jordan, the King of Saudi Arabia and the President of Egypt. All had been lined up behind the Shah and the Prime Minister through the diplomacy of American President Andrew Young. The Ayatollah is alone. But he refuses to give in. He is arrested. November 8: A shootout breaks out between the Iranian Imperial Guard and the fundamentalist Islamic militants holding 70 Americans hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. All of the militans end up dead. Two of the hostages are killed, but the rest survive. The crisis is over. The militants' spiritual leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, will be convicted of treason, but his life will be spared due to his age, 79. It will be quite some time before Islamic fundamentalists try anything so reckless and stupid again.

November 16: Former Governor George Wallace of Alabama, now 60 years old, formerly a Democrat but now a Republican, stands on the steps of the State Capitol in Montgomery and announces his fourth campaign for President. In the Washington Post, cartoonist Herb Block draws Wallace at a podium, and uses as his caption a quote, which Block attributes to Albert Einstein: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result." Uncle Mike Aug 25 2007, 12:52 AM Post #39

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 1980 January 21: Former Governor George Wallace, on his fourth run for the Presidency, shocks the field by winning the Iowa Caucuses, appealing to the religious vote. He edges former Vice President George Bush, who'd hoped to win the religious-conservative voters by reminding them that he was the Number 2 man in the Administration of their favorite President, Ronald Reagan. Senate Minority Leader Howard Baker of Tennessee finishes third, and the other candidates -- former Governor John Connally of Texas and Illinois Congressmen John Anderson and Philip Crane -- barely get any votes at all. February 22: At the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, the American hockey team beats the Russian team, 4-3, to advance to the Gold Medal game. The Russians were heavy favorites, but the Americans rode the home crowd to victory. It is a big upset, but is quickly pushed aside in the players' minds, as there is still one more game to play. Two days later, the U.S. team will beat Finland, 4-2, and win the Gold Medal. In the years to come, the upset of the Russians will seem less important than the Gold Medal win over the Finns. (Obviously, without the Cold War implications, and the Russians seeing no need to invade Afghanistan, this game is not what it was in RL. Of course, that also means no boycott of the Summer Olympics, which means I have to revise that.) February 26: With the endorsement of the intensely anti-tax Union Leader of Manchester, the State's largest newspaper in its largest city, Congressman Philip Crane of Illinois, the most ardent tax-cutter in the field, wins the New Hampshire Primary in a major upset. He edges former Vice President George

Bush, who has now finished second in both major early contests. Senate Minority Leader Howard Baker of Tennessee matches his third-place finish in the Iowa Caucuses. Former Governor George Wallace of Alabama, the winner in Iowa, is a distant fourth in the Granite State. Crane's fellow Illinois Congressman, John Anderson, and former Texas Governor John Connally each get only a smattering of votes. March 8: Governor Wallace wins the South Carolina Primary, but not by much over Senator Baker. Wallace needed a big win in a Southern State to boost him after his disaster in New Hampshire, but he and Baker split the Southern vote. Governor Connally could not get a piece of that, and drops out of the race. Congressman Crane finishes third, and is in good shape. Former Vice President Bush, though a Navy veteran of the Korean War, could not win over the vet and religious-conservative voters who dominate the Palmetto State. He stays in the race, as does Congressman Anderson, who is hoping against hope to win in Illinois, even though Crane is still in the race and has won New Hampshire. March 11: Governor Wallace wins the Primary in his home State of Alabama. No surprise there. What is a surprise is that former Vice President Bush wins in Florida, where his son John Ellis "Jeb" Bush lives and has been organizing for him. Senator Baker finishes second in Alabama, tops Wallace for second in Florida, and edges Wallace to win Georgia. Illinois is coming up, and Congressman Crane needs it badly, and Congressman Anderson needs it just to get to the Wisconsin Primary on April 1. March 14: Congressman Philip Crane of Illinois, despite having won the New Hampshire Primary and having his home-State Primary coming in just four days, drops out of the race for the Republican nomination for President, and endorses former Vice President George Bush. The rumor going around the media is that Bush offered Crane the Vice Presidential nomination, something that former Governor George Wallace of Alabama would most likely never offer him, although Senate Minority Leader Howard Baker of Tennessee might. This move may hurt Wallace and Baker. It might help the other Illinois Congressman in the race, John Anderson, but if the people who were going to vote for Crane instead follow his lead and go for Bush, Anderson's cause is completely lost. March 18: Former Vice President George Bush wins the Illinois Primary with 42 percent of the vote, much of it coming from the supporters of Phil Crane, the Congressman from the northwestern suburbs of Chicago who dropped out of the race four days ago. Howard Baker of Tennessee, the Senate Minority Leader, finishes second with 24 percent. The other Illinois Congressman in the race, John Anderson, finishes third with 21 percent and, seeing how hopeless his cause now is, drops out. Former Governor George Wallace of Alabama, hoping to tap into resentment against crime, gains a dismal 12 percent. Having won only the Iowa Caucuses, he hopes to hang on until May 3, the Texas Primary, and then May 6, Indiana, Tennessee and North Carolina. With Crane out of the race, Wallace is now billing himself as "the only true conservative in the race."

April 1: Former Vice President Bush wins the Wisconsin Primary, but only slightly over Senator Baker. Governor Wallace is far behind. April 16: President Andrew Young signs the Mental Health Assistance Act, increasing aid to psychiatric wards, particularly those in veterans' hospitals, extending such aid not just to veterans but to their wives and children. April 22: Former Vice President Bush wins the Pennsylvania Primary. Senator Baker is close behind, though. Governor Wallace was unable to make much use of his fading populist charm in the steel-mill and coal-mine towns of the Keystone State. If he doesn't win the Southern States coming up, he has no chance at taking the nomination fight all the way to the Republican Convention. May 3: Former Vice President George Bush, a resident of Texas, wins the State's Primary, but with only 39 percent of the vote. Senate Minority Leader Howard Baker gets 36 percent. Governor George Wallace, banking on a good showing in the Lone Star State, gets 23 percent, good enough to try to hang on for the Primaries coming up in three more days: Indiana, North Carolina and Tennessee -- Baker's home State, but also one bordering Wallace's Alabama. May 6: In the Primary in Tennessee, home State of Howard Baker, the Senate Minority Leader: Baker 52 percent, former Governor George Wallace of Alabama 32 percent, former Vice President George Bush 12 percent. In the neighboring State of North Carolina: Baker 47, Wallace 36, Bush 14. In Indiana: Bush 45, Baker 36, Wallace 15. Baker goes a long way toward cutting down Bush's lead in Delegates. Wallace did not do nearly as well as he needed. Still, he refuses to drop out of the race. He had done well in Maryland in 1972, and their Primary is coming up. So is Nebraska's, and maybe while there he can tap into religious-conservative resentment toward the Young Administration. He is ready to make his last stand, even if it's not in Dixie Land. May 11: An accident infringes on the race for the Presidency tonight. While George Wallace, the former Governor of Alabama and a candidate desperate to keep his Presidential hopes alive, is speaking to an outdoor crowd on a makeshift stage in Salisbury, on Maryland's Eastern Shore, a bank of lights shorts out and breaks off a tower, landing right on him. Although the danger of electrocution is gone, the weight of the lights crushes him and injures his back, and the heat of the lamps burns his face and throat. Wallace will live another 18 years, but will spend much of that time in a wheelchair, and finds speaking very difficult. He will never be able to run for public office again, and his 16-year quest for the Presidency is over. (A mirror of what hurt him elsewhere in Maryland in 1972. The Eastern Shore is by far the most conservative part of the State, unless you count the hedonistic resort town of Ocean City, which still has its share of Confederate flag T-shirts, caps and bumper stickers, if not actual flags.)

May 13: Former Vice President Bush wins the Maryland Primary, but Senate Minority Leader Baker wins the Nebraska Primary. The Republican nomination to face President Young may go all the way to the Convention. May 20: Senate Minority Leader Baker beats former Vice President Bush in both the Michigan and Oregon Primaries, but not by much. Bush still has a slim lead in Delegates, but he's still well short of a minority. Coming in two weeks are nine Primaries, including the big States of California, Ohio and New Jersey. June 3: The Republican nomination for the Presidency is pretty much decided in favor of George Bush, who served as Vice President under Ronald Reagan from 1973 to 1977. He easily wins the Primaries in California, New Jersey and Rhode Island, although only the first two have enough Delegates to matter. He edges Howard Baker, the Senate Minority Leader, in the important State of Ohio, sweeping the three States with the most Delegates available today, and putting him only a few short of a majority. Baker runs away with the Southern States of Virginia and Mississippi, and edges Bush in Montana, New Mexico and Dakota. He has run a good race, but drops out and endorses Bush. He's now got a campaign to run to regain the Congress for the Republicans, and become Senate Majority Leader. July 17: Former Vice President George Bush accepts the nomination of the Republican Convention at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit. Congressman Philip Crane of Illinois is nominated for Vice President. "Mr. Young governs us as if he believes that the light has gone out of our nation," Bush says. "But I see America as our founders saw it, as a city on a hill, shining with a thousand points of light." Crane, the tax-cutting defense hawk, gets a better response: "Mr. Young said he would raise taxes only as a last resort. My fellow Americans, the Democrat Party always checks into that resort!" He waits for the cheering to stop, and says, "It's like that song the young people like, about the hotel in California: We can check out any time we like, but we can never leave! On November 4th, tell Andrew Young we're leaving, and we're not coming back!" July 27: Mark Chapman is admitted to a psychiatric unit of Queen Kapiolani Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii. August 3: The Olympic Games close at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Russia. Among the American Gold Medalists: Renaldo Nehemiah in the 110-meter hurdles, Kurt Thomas in gymnastics' pommel horse, and the basketball team, led by Darrell Griffith of the National Champions, the University of Louisville, and Isiah Thomas of Indiana University. August 14: The Democratic Convention at Madison Square Garden in New York renominates President Andrew Young and Vice President Martha Griffiths. Young comments on Republican Vice Presidential nominee Phil Crane's mishandling of quoting the song "Hotel California" at his acceptance speech: "If Congressman Crane likes the rock band the Eagles, I've got news for him: He's going to have a 'Heartache Tonight!' We're not going to 'Take It Easy.'

Instead, we're going to 'Take It to the Limit' one more time. So my message to that 'New Kid In Town' is, when you look up on the night of November 4th, you'll be 'Already Gone.' My fellow Americans, with your help, we'll be all right in 'The Long Run.'" Young stops short of calling either Crane or Presidential nominee George Bush a "Desperado," but continues: "We've got a few songs of our own, liked by people young and old alike: 'I Will Survive.' These are the 'Good Times.' Because each of you, my fellow Americans, has proven to be a 'Shining Star.'" October 12: Despite three home runs in the American League Championship Series by first baseman Thurman Munson, the New York Yankees lose the Pennant in five games to the Kansas City Royals. Ex-Yankee Larry Gura allows only Munson's homer and four other hits in a 4-1 victory for the first major league Pennant any Kansas City team has won, though the pre-1955 minor league Blues won several each. The Royals will lose the World Series to the Philadelphia Phillies. (With Munson dead, the Royals avenged three ALCS defeats in the late Seventies in three straight games. The Kansas City Monarchs also won several Pennants, but that was in the Negro Leagues, which never existed in TTL. Never had to.) November 4: The Presidential election is surprisingly close. In the fall, inflation was up, the stock market was down, and economic indicators began suggesting a recession might be coming. But this news came too late to help the Republican ticket of former Vice President George Bush and Illinois Congressman Phil Crane. The incumbent Democrats, President Andrew Young and Vice President Martha Griffiths, win with just over 52 percent of the vote, winning 327 Electoral Votes to Bush-Crane's 211. The Republicans managed to win traditionally Democratic States like Colorado, Missouri, Ohio, Texas and Washington, and had their strongest showings in ages in many others. Washington Post columnist George Will, admittedly favoring the Bush campaign (but secretly wishing, as he would admit in a book a few years later, that Crane were the nominee), writes that if the election were held one week later, Bush would have won. The Republicans also make some gains in Congressional and Gubernatorial races. In Arkansas, Democratic Governor Bill Clinton is defeated for re-election by Republican Frank White. At 34, Clinton is the youngest ex-Governor in the country. In New Jersey, Samuel J. Crandall is elected to the Middlesex County Board of Chosen Freeholders. Democrats such as Crandall have dominated the County since the days of Eleanor Roosevelt's New Deal in the 1930s. November 12: John Hinckley is admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Colorado Springs, Colorado. His observers hear him muttering over and over again about the film Taxi Driver and how he has to "save" one of the film's stars, teenage actress Jodie Foster. Clearly, this young man is quite deranged, and he will not be released anytime soon. December 8: Mark Chapman is released from Queen Kapiolani Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii. He will continue to undergo counseling on an outpatient basis. Meanwhile, in New York, former Beatle John Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, continue recording for a new album.

1981 January 30: Air Force General Edward H. White II, the first American astronaut to take a "spacewalk," dies of a heart attack. He was just 50 years old. March 30: Responding to the wishes of labor leaders concerned that rising inflation and dropping stock prices might lead to a recession, President Andrew Young meets with them at a luncheon at the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C. Having reassured them that he will use every power available to the Presidency to hold off a recession, he walks back to his car. He waves to a few people. He gets into the car. He is taken back to the White House, and arrives without incident. That night, Indiana University defeats the University of North Carolina for the National Championship of College Basketball. Patients at a psychiatric hospital in Colorado Springs, Colorado are permitted to watch. At one point, Indiana coach Bobby Knight is shown screaming at a referee over a perceived bad call. One of the patients, John Hinckley, screams at the TV screen, "You talking to me? Hey, ref, are you talking to me?" No one knows what Hinckley means by that, because those who can read lips know that Hinckley is not repeating Knight's words. Rather, Knight is saying something considerably more profane to the official. (Reagan attended the luncheon right before Hinckley shot him.) April 2: Robert Hale Merriman, commander of the Robert E. Lee Brigade that liberated Ethiopia from Italy in 1937, dies at his home in Berkeley, where he had taught at the University of California. He was 73 years old. On this same day, at a psychiatric hospital in Colorado Springs, patient John Hinckley receives a red sweater from his mother. He had asked for one yesterday after watching Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight wearing one in the National Championship game. He is still repeatedly muttering the words, "Are you talking to me?" Finally, someone figures out it's a line from a movie he's been obsessing over, Taxi Driver, delivered by the title character, Travis Bickle, played by Robert DeNiro. June 26: For the seventh -- or, as he will say himself, the 007th -- and last time, Roger Moore plays Bond, James Bond, in Octopussy, released to American theaters today. Swedish actress Maud Adams becomes, through 2007, the only two-time "Bond Girl," playing the title character, a British woman running a smuggling ring through several legitimate "front" businesses from a palace in India, aided and guarded by a cult of female gymnastic and martial arts experts, with the assistance of an exiled Afghan prince, played by French actor Louis Jordan, who's actually working for a renegade Chinese general, who's planning on blowing up an American military base in Thailand as a way of starting World War III, and Bond and Octopussy become allies, and more, as they... well, it's plots like these, and advancing age (he's 53) that have led Moore to quit, but when it's all over, Bond manages to keep on top of things. EON Productions now has to search for a new actor to play Agent 007 in the next movie, due in two years. ("Octopussy" came out two years later, but I already used "For Your Eyes Only" for David Niven in the 1950s. Once again, with a different Cold War, it's

a Chinese enemy rather than a Russian one, and a U.S. base in Thailand instead of West Germany.) July 3: Justice Potter Stewart retires from the Supreme Court. He was the last Justice who had been appointed by President Quentin Roosevelt. President Andrew Young appoints federal Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg to succeed him. September 1: Albert Speer, who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1954 to 1957, dies of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 76. (His actual date of death, but, of course, he never came close to that level of power.) October 11: Andre Dawson's spectacular catch of Rick Monday's drive to center field with the bases loaded saves the game for the Montreal Expos, who beat the Brooklyn Dodgers 3-0 at the Olympic Stadium to win the National League Eastern Division Championship. (Dawson did not make such a catch, and Monday's homer won the Pennant for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS on October 19. In Montreal, it became known as "Blue Monday." Or "Lundi Bleu.") October 19: The Montreal Expos become the first team from outside the United States to reach baseball's World Series. Warren Cromartie's bottom of the ninth home run off Frank Pastore wins the Pennant, as the Expos win, 2-1 over the Cincinnati Reds. October 28: With catcher Gary Carter hitting two home runs, the Montreal Expos defeat the New York Yankees in Game 6 of the World Series, 9-2, becoming the first team in any of the three U.S.-based major sports (baseball, the NFL, the NBA) to win a World Championship. (The Dodgers beat the Yankees in 6. In "Munson Skips Flight," I had Thurman Munson tying a World Series record with 13 hits, including a Game 7 homer, to win it for the Yanks.) November 1: At a victory rally for the World Champion Montreal Expos at the Montreal City Hall, Canada's Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and Quebec's Premier Rene Levesque both praise the Expos, and shake hands. It is the beginning of a thaw in the cold war between Levesque's Quebec nationalists and Trudeau's federalists. November 3: Mayor Mario Cuomo of New York is re-elected, defeating Congressman Ed Koch in a rematch of 1977. Cuomo won the nominations of New York State's Democratic and Liberal Parties, while Koch, nominally a Democrat, was reluctantly endorsed by the State's Republican and Conservative Parties. The Conservatives will not be so willing in the future. December 4: Warren Beatty releases Whites, which he directed and in which he also stars, playing journalist John Reed in 1917, Russia's "Year of the Revolutions." Seemingly sympathetic to the Bolsheviks (the "Reds"), rather than to the republicans (the "Whites") led by Aleksandr Kerensky, the film is a collossal flop, and Beatty looks like a fool.

December 25: Over Christmas dinner in Little Rock, Arkansas, former Governor Bill Clinton says he wants to run for Governor again. "No," his wife, Hillary Rodham, tells him. "You had your chance, and you blew it. Now it's my turn to run for office." A true supporter of women in politics, Bill doesn't try to change her mind. 1982 March 29: The Academy Awards are held in Los Angeles, hosted by Johnny Carson. Chariots of Fire, about British runners at the 1924 Olympics in Paris, wins Best Picture, beating out Atlantic City, On Golden Pond, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Albert and Pauline, starring Tommy Lee Jones as President Albert Gore (served 1961-63) and Susan Sarandon as his First Lady. Sarandon had also starred with Burt Lancaster in Atlantic City" but loses Best Actress to Katherine Hepburn for On Golden Pond, and Jones and Lancaster both lose Best Actor to Henry Fonda for the same film. Fonda had never won before (although his daughter Jane had won Best Actress and his son Peter had won Best Screenplay), and it is suspected that he gets the award for this role, hardly his best work, because he is dying. April 5: Yuri Andropov is elected to a second term as President of the Russian Republic, defeating Andrei Gromyko. This will be the last Presidential election in Russia with both parties -- Andropov's Socialists and Gromyko's Nationalists -- nominating members of the World War II generation. April 17: Prime Minister Trudeau and Premier Levesque, in the spirit of Quebec unity that began with the Montreal Expos' victory in the 1981 World Series, announce the signing of the Constitution Act, repatriating the Constitution of Canada from Great Britain. The new Constitution ensures the status of the Province of Quebec as "a distinct but equal society within Confederation," with the rights of both English-speakers and French-speakers to be equally protected. It also gives Quebec a seven-day veto over acts of Parliament, enabling its Members seven days to explain their objections to a bill they do not support, at the end of which Parliament can either rewrite the bill or submit it for a second vote which shall be binding on all Provinces, including Quebec. (Trudeau and Levesque remained enemies, and Quebec remained the one Province that did not approve the repatriation of the Constitution -- even though the Quebecois Trudeau, several of his Cabinet members who were Quebecois, and a majority of Members of Parliament from the Province voted for it. Quebec nationalists called the day the day the other nine Premiers approved Trudeau's proposal "The Night of the Long Knives," which is also the nickname of the day Adolf Hitler ordered the assassination of several of his Nazi rivals, including his former best friend, Ernst Rohm.) June 4: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is released. The crew of the starship Enterprise meets an old enemy -- a really old enemy, the late 20th Century (in their timeline, anyway) tyrant Khan Noonian Singh, played as he was in a 1967 episode of the TV series by Mexican actor Ricardo Montalban. The film also introduces Merritt Buttrick, playing Dr. David Marcus, now-Admiral James F. Kirk's son from a youthful affair, and Cree Summer, playing Samantha Kirk,

daughter of Kirk (William Shatner) and his wife, his former Communications Officer, now Starfleet Academy Professor, Commander Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols). Named for her scientist uncle, Dr. George Samuel Kirk Jr. (a.k.a. "Sam," seen killed in the series episode "Operation: Annihilate!"), Samantha is a genius, preparing for her impending admission to Starfleet Academy despite being only 13 years old, when her half-brother Dr. Marcus sees his project hijacked by Khan, and the Enterprise has to come to the rescue. Also appearing is Kirstie Alley as Lt. Saavik, who is half-Vulcan and half-Romulan, something of a protegee to Captain Spock (Leonard Nimoy). Some fans think the much-younger Saavik is Spock's girlfriend, others his daughter, though neither is explicitly stated in the movie. Some mock the film as "Star Trek: The Next Generation," and many "Trekkies" are horrified that the film features the death of Spock. But the film is a much bigger hit at the box office than the previous Star Trek: The Motion Picture from 1978. (Of course, Kirk and Uhura never married and had a child. Cree Summer is best remembered from the 1980s NBC sitcom "A Different World." "ST:TMP" was mocked as "Spockopalypse Now," "Where Nomad Has Gone Before," and "Star Trek: The Motionless Picture." But "ST:TWOK" is regarded by many as the best "Star Trek" film.) July 1: On the 115th anniversary of creation of the nation of Canada, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and Queen Elizabeth II of Britain sign the Constitution Act of 1982, establishing full Canadian control over the Constitution of Canada and its Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Canada's Major League Baseball teams, made up almost entirely of Americans and Latin Americans, do not put up much of a celebration, despite both playing at home under the Maple Leaf Flag. The Montreal Expos lose 2-1 to the New York Giants at the Olympic Stadium, and the Toronto Blue Jays lose 4-3 to the Oakland Wolves at Exhibition Stadium. August 1: Rockets fired by the Israeli Defense Forces flatten the bunker where Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat is hiding. He is dead at age 53. General Ariel Sharon demands that the PLO surrender immediately, and that Syria stay out of the PLO's decision-making process, at the risk of Israeli bombing raids on Damascus. Speaking for the surviving leadership of the PLO, Muhammad Zaidan, alias Abu Abbas, surrenders. He believes that the only path to a Palestinian nation now is through peaceful negotiation. Although Jordan is still officially at war with Israel, it has not attacked since 1967, and the only nation that refuses to acknowledge Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state is Syria. (Another cop-out on my part, eliminating a long-term troublemaker.) August 8: The Baseball Hall of Fame inducts Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson, Roberto Clemente (each in their first year of eligibility), Travis Jackson (who sets a record for longest wait to be elected and still be alive), and Harry Truman, the former Senator from Missouri who served as Commissioner of Baseball from 1945 to 1955. (Clemente was elected in a special vote in 1973, a few weeks after his death. Happy Chandler, with whom Truman essentially switched jobs in TTL, was elected in 1982.)

September 13: President Andrew Young flies to Jerusalem to attend the signing of the peace treaty between Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel and King Hussein I of Jordan, which he had helped to bring about. Now, only Syria is still at war with Israel. This will remain a problem for the Middle East and its observers. November 2: As the economy falls further into recession, with inflation at 13 percent and unemployment at 8 percent, the Republicans make big gains in the Congressional elections, taking the Senate and nearly taking the house. In Arkansas, Governor Frank White is re-elected, defeating Congressman Jim Guy Tucker. However, many Arkansans split their tickets, as Hillary Rodham, wife of former Governor Bill Clinton, is elected State Attorney General. Another member of a prominent political family in the South, Al Gore, son of a President and a Supreme Court Justice, is elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Republican businessman Lewis Lehrman is elected Governor of New York, defeating the Democratic nominee, Manhattan-based Congressman Ed Koch. Koch returns to the practice of law. Although he will often appear as a "talking head" on news programs, and will write a newspaper column and several books, he will never run for another office. Mary Jo Kopechne, an attorney, is elected to Congress as a Democrat from Pennsylvania, defeating Leo Nelligan, a freshman Republican. (Yes, Mary Joe is still alive. For Governor of New York, Cuomo had won the primary against Koch, who said, "It's not the end of the world. And I'm still the Mayor!" Cuomo then went on to beat Lehrman in a squeaker. In TTL, Cuomo is still Mayor, and Koch is still in the Congress.) November 10: Leonid Brezhnev, who served as President of the Russian Republic from 1967 to 1977, dies at the age of 76. He had been complaining of a cold, but was actually stricken with pnuemonia. The joke is that, for weeks, the Politburo was saying Brezhnev had a cold, when in fact he was dying. They said that for Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, too.) Uncle Mike Aug 25 2007, 04:30 AM Post #40

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 1. It's alternate history. Alternate armed forces with alternate capabilities. Use your imagination. 2. It's alternate history. There's no Apollo I fire this time, so Grissom lives. Shepard's health issues couldn't have been too bad, because he flew on RL-

Apollo XIV. And Grissom WAS being considered for First Man On The Moon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gus_Grissom Do I have to explain everything to right-wingers as if they're six years old?

Uncle Mike

Aug 25 2007, 05:06 AM Post #41

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 1983 January 30: Super Bowl XVII is held at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. The Washington Federals win their first World Championship in 40 years, defeating the Memphis Hound Dogs, 27-17. Unhappy with the performance of quarterback David Woodley in this game, the Dogs pursue a new passer. At the draft, many hope that John Elway of Stanford will still be available. But he is taken as the first pick by the Baltimore Colts, who fail to sign him, and trade his rights to the Denver Broncos. With the 27th and next-to-last pick in the first round, the Dogs are still hoping for a quarterback. But Hound Dogs co-owner and singer Elvis Presley notices who is still available, and calls coach Don Shula and says, "Get that Italian kid from Pittsburgh! He'll be a big star, Don!" And so, instead of going down in history as the youngest quarterback ever to start a Super Bowl, David Woodley is remembered today as the guy between two Hall of Fame quarterbacks for Memphis: Bob Griese and Dan Marino. (Because of greater sensitivity toward Native Americans, there are still a Cleveland Indians, an Atlanta Braves, a Chicago Blackhawks, a Golden State Warriors and a Kansas City Chiefs, but not a Washington Redskins. The Hound Dogs, of course, are the RL-Miami Dolphins.) March 6: The United States Football League begins play, a spring competitor to the National Football League. Among the USFL teams is the Miami Dolphins, the first major-league (sort of) sports team to play in that city since the All-America Football Conference's failed one-year experiment with the Miami Seahawks in 1946. (They became the Baltimore Colts the next year.) At first, the reason not to put any teams in Miami was the lack of facilities except for the Orange Bowl. Then it was the distance from the rest of the NFL teams. Then it was a backlash against the Gore assassination. Now, nearly 20 years after the assassination, the 'Phins begin play and, in their first game, at the Orange Bowl, lose 53-14 to the Nashville Chords. Losing 13 of their first 14 games, the 'Phins are mocked for their garish aquamarine and orange

uniforms, are easily outdrawn at the Orange Bowl by the rising program at the University of Miami (which still doesn't sell the old horseshoe out) and sometimes even by nearby baseball teams in the Florida State League -Class A, three steps from the majors! Legendary Miami Herald columnist Edwin Pope mocks them as "The Fish That Can't Swim." (A nickname given to the early RL-Dolphins before they started winning.) June 10: Timothy Dalton, a Welsh actor probably best remembered thus far for his role as King Philip of France in the 1968 film The Lion In Winter, is Bond. James Bond. Agent 007 returns in The Property of a Lady, a title used by Bond creator Ian Fleming, although the story for the film is completely new: The longtime banter between Bond and Miss Moneypenny, secretary to the MI6 head known to the film audience only as "M," finally leads somewhere. Moneypenny, also played by a new actor, Caroline Bliss replacing Lois Maxwell, is finally given a first name, Jane. With Bernard Lee having died, there is also a new "M," Robert Brown, who portrayed Admiral Hargreaves, Chief of Naval Intelligence, in The Spy Who Loved Me, his earlier character having been promoted. But the new relationship only goes so far, as, on their first date, Bond is shot and Moneypenny is kidnapped. It seems that Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the villain of five Bond films (but whose face was only seen in three of them and had changed for each) has a son, Albert Niarchos Blofeld, played by Rowan Atkinson. (Through 2007, Albert's mother, presumably the original Blofeld's wife, has never been identified.) As the head of a revived SPECTRE, his demands are severe. Having taken his revenge on Bond for killing his father and destroying the original SPECTRE, he is sure that Bond is in no position to interfere. But Bond lives, and, having seen him strike at MI6 and his dear friend Jane Moneypenny, and remembering that the elder Blofeld had killed his wife Tracy, a not-yet-fully-recovered Bond goes bananas in pursuit of the younger Blofeld. Dalton is well-received, particularly by fans who remember the Fleming novels going back to 1949, claiming that he is closer to Fleming's version of Bond than David Niven, Sean Connery or Roger Moore had ever been. (This was the release date of "Octopussy." Dalton didn't become Bond for another four years, and then for only two films, "The Living Daylights" and "Licence to Kill.") July 29: Less than two months after the premiere of the latest James Bond film, The Property of a Lady, Sir David Niven, the first actor to play Bond, in Casino Royale in 1955, dies of amoyotrophic lateral sclerosis (a.k.a. "Lou Gehrig's Disease"). He was 73. Because of his illness, he turned down an offer to pose for publicity photos with fellow Bond actors Sean Connery, Roger Moore, and the new hire, Timothy Dalton. September 1: Korean Air Lines Flight 007 leaves a refueling stop in Anchorage, Alaska, and heads for Seoul, Korea. It drifts off-course, crossing over Russian territory, Sakhalin Island. The Russian Republic's White Air Force tracks it, but recognizes it as a civilian airliner, and guides it back on course. The plane lands safely in Seoul. Among the 269 passengers is Congressman Larry McDonald of Georgia, a Democrat but one so conservative that he was once elected president of the John Birch Society.

September 30: It is the last day of the federal government's fiscal year, President Andrew Young faces a Congress with a Republican-controlled Senate and a House controlled by Democrats but with a conservative "working majority" that can hold up the liberal Speaker Thomas "Tip" O'Neill's legislative priorities. Just in time, they reach a budget agreement. The budget holds the line, in constant dollars, on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and MediKid spending, and cuts defense spending, allowing the deficit to be cut from a record $178 billion to $125 billion, and includes targeted tax cuts. Young and O'Neill wanted to spend more on social programs and cut more defense spending. The Republicans, led by Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker and House Minority Leader Bob Michel, wanted to cut taxes more and actually cut spending on those programs. Neither side likes this budget, but both sides can live with it. October 2: The New York Yankees finish their season with a 2-0 loss to the eventual World Champion Baltimore Orioles, in second place, four games back. It was a tough year, and team Captain Thurman Munson, now 36 years old and with seemingly his whole body hurting, sees the handwriting on the wall: A new first baseman named Don Mattingly. Munson announces his retirement. He closes his career with a batting average of .294, 158 home runs, 2,258 hits, and three World Series wins (1977, '78 and '81). He is, through the 2006 season, the only Yankee ever to win the Rookie of the Year (1970) and Most Valuable Player (1976) awards. (The MVP started in 1931, the Rookie of the Year in 1947. Yankee MVPs are Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Joe Gordon, Spud Chandler, Phil Rizzuto, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Elston Howard, Munson, Don Mattingly and Alex Rodriguez. Yankee ROYs are Gil McDougald, Bob Grim, Tony Kubek, Tom Tresh, Stan Bahnsen, Munson, Dave Righetti and Derek Jeter. Only Munson has won both in a Yankee uniform. His teammates Lou Piniella and Chris Chambliss won for other teams before becoming Yankees.) October 23: The U.S. peacekeeping force in Beirut, Lebanon suffers a devastating blow. A suicide bomber attacks a Marine base, killing 241 Americans. Hezbollah, the Syrian-sponsored "Party of God," claims responsibility. President Young, famed around the world as a peacemaker, now has to decide whether to launch a military attack on Syria. October 25: A revolution in Grenada overthrows the elected Socialist government. There are nine Americans studying at a medical school on the island, and the new goverment announces that they will not be harmed. That's good news for President Andrew Young, but he's got a bigger problem. The National Security Council and the Joint Chiefs of Staff are recommending an attack on Syria which would hurt their military capabilities, and kill somewhere in the vicinity of the 241 military personnel that the Syrianbacked terrorist group Hezbollah killed in a suicide bombing in Beirut two days ago, without hurting very many civilians. But Young doesn't like it: "What is the virtue of a proportional response? If we follow up the killing of 200 of our fighting men with the killing of 200 of their fighting men, that will send them a message that there is no true punishment for it. We need to send Hafez Assad a real message: 'Don't mess with us.' Gentlemen, get me

an idea." The ordained minister and Nobel Peace Prize laureate is in no mood for peace, or for a proportional response. (The question, "What is the virtue of a proportional response?" comes from Aaron Sorkin, from his film "The American President" and used again on his TV show "The West Wing.") October 27: American jets knock out an Air Force base on the Mediterranean Coast of Syria. About 500 Syrians are killed, doubling the number of U.S. Marines killed in the suicide bombing of the Beirut barracks four days ago. President Andrew Young speaks before a worldwide TV audience, telling Syrian President Hafez Assad, "You will tell the leaders of Hezbollah to leave America alone. If you do not, we will hold you responsible. And so will Israel." The crisis is averted, although many Americans, including several Republican candidates for President -- those already announced, and those about to announce -- call for greater action, such as the bombing of the Syrian capital of Damascus. Young had wanted to do that, but decided that a year away from a Presidential election was no time to get America involved in what would surely be a very complicated war, especially with U.S.-Middle East relations having been, before the Beirut bombing, the best they'd ever been. November 8: Medgar Evers, former Chairman of the NAACP, is elected Governor of his home State of Mississippi. (Evers was assassinated 20 years earlier.) 1984 January 22: Super Bowl XVIII is held at Tampa Stadium. The Los Angeles Raiders embarrass the defending World Champion Washington Federals, 38-9. February 9: Russian President Yuri Andropov dies from kidney failure. He was 69 years old. Vice President Mikhail Gorbachev, just 52, is sworn in as President. Andrei Gromyko, leader of the Nationalist Party and former Foreign Minister during the Brezhnev Administration, demands that Gorbachev call a new election. Gorbachev insists that the Constitution of the Russian Republic mandates that Presidential terms are to be for five years, and the next election will be held as scheduled, on the first Monday in April, five years after the last election. This will be on April 6, 1987. "Grim Grom" and the Nationalists stew in their borscht over the impudence of this "bald, birthmarked child." February 20: The race to succeed President Andrew Young is on, with the Iowa Caucuses. On the Democratic side, Vice President Martha Griffiths wins 35 percent of the vote. Senator Gary Hart of Colorado wins 16, Senator John Glenn of Ohio 12, Senator Walter Mondale of Minnesota 10, and the rest of the candidates in single digits. Not able to reach the top three in a neighboring State despite his impressive credentials in supporting farmers, Mondale drops out of the race. On the Republican side, the Rev. Pat Robertson, a Baptist minister and son of a Democratic Senator, who broadcasts nationwide from his Virginia Beach church, rides the tide of "Christian conservatism" to win a narrow victory, with 21 percent. Congressman Phil Crane of Illinois, the 1980 Vice Presidential nominee, was

hurt by a scandal involving his brother, Congressman Daniel Crane, and by rumors of his own drinking, and finishes second with 19 percent. The difference between winning and losing turns out to be less than a thousand votes, but it is the difference between being the front-runner and the former front-runner. Congressman Jack Kemp of New York, a former pro football quarterback, and Governor Pierre "Pete" duPont of Delaware, a member of the famed chemical-producing family, finish with 16 and 14 percent, respectively, running as Crane did four years ago, trying to appeal to the taxcut activists. Senator Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina and Governor Lamar Alexander of Tennessee finish with 12 and 10 percent, hoping to hang on until the Southern States have their Primaries. February 28: Senator Gary Hart of Colorado defeats Vice President Martha Griffiths in a stunning New Hampshire Primary. Senator John Glenn, unable to remind people of his Korean War and astronaut heroism despite the recent release of the film The Right Stuff, finishes a disappointing third. Right on his heels, although New Hampshire has very few black voters, is the Rev. Jesse Jackson, hoping to tap into the same interests that President Young had, as, like Young, Jackson is an ordained minister who had worked on anti-poverty campaigns with Dr. Martin Luther King in the 1960s and 1970s. The Republican Primary is almost always geared toward the Granite State's innate hatred of taxes, and Governor Pete duPont of New Hampshire narrowly beats Congressman Jack Kemp of New York, 35 percent to 34. Congressman Phil Crane of Illinois, the 1980 Vice Presidential nominee and former carrier of the tax-cut banner, has been severely hurt by personal issues, and his former goodwill has disappeared, as he falls behind duPont, Kemp, and even Senator Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina to finish fourth. The Rev. Pat Robertson, winner of the Iowa Caucuses, was unable to make his religious-conservative message work in New Hampshire and finishes fifth. March 13: Super Tuesday. Vice President Martha Griffiths wins Democratic Primaries in Florida, Georgia, Washington and Nevada. Senator Gary Hart of Colorado wins in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the two most liberal States up for grabs, but also in the two most conservative, Alabama and Oklahoma. Senator John Glenn of Ohio is finished in this race, and so is the Rev. Jesse Jackson, although only Glenn drops out. It is now between Griffiths and Hart. In the Republican Primaries, Congressman Phil Crane of Illinois, dogged by questions about his drinking and his brother Dan's involvement in the Congressional page sex scandal, does not finish as high as second in a single State. Governor Lamar Alexander of Tennessee wins the Southern States of Florida and Georgia, and also finishes strong in Oklahoma and Washington. The Rev. Pat Roberston is surprised by Alexander's success, hoping to win in the South, rather than finish second, as he did in Florida and Georgia, although he does win Oklahoma. Congressman Jack Kemp of New York wins Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Washington, while Governor Pete duPont of Delaware finishes second in those States. Nevada reverses that order, with duPont winning and Kemp coming in second. Despite high hopes, Senator Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina does no better than fourth in the three Southern States, and drops out, leaving the race to, in current order of Delegates, duPont, Kemp, Alexander, Robertson and, perhaps desperately,

Crane. Alabama is not having a Republican Primary. March 20: Congressman Crane wins the Illinois Primary, but he should have won his home State by more than 31 percent to 26 over Governor Alexander, to 19 for Congressman Kemp, 14 for Governor duPont and 8 for Rev. Robertson. On the Democratic side, Vice President Griffiths holds off Senator Hart by splitting the liberal base in Chicago and its suburbs, while winning easily west and Downstate. March 28: Baltimore Colts owner Jerry Richardson negotiates a new lease on Memorial Stadium, and talks begin on a new facility for the Colts, preferably closer to downtown than "the Insane Asylum on 33rd Street," tucked away in the Venable Park neighborhood of northeast Baltimore. A former Colts receiver and the owner of the Hardee's and Denny's restaurant chains, Richardson had been threatening to move the team to Charlotte, North Carolina, the center of his business empire. Baltimore fans are fortunate, however, that the stadium situation is even worse in Charlotte: The largest stadium there seats only 22,000 and could not be substantially expanded as a stopgap facility, and the major colleges in North and South Carolina were unwilling to take on a professional team for as many as four years while a new stadium would have been built in Charlotte. (This was the day Bob Irsay became football's answer to Walter O'Malley, moving the Colts out of Baltimore.) April 1: Fed up with his lease at Anaheim Stadium, nearly 30 miles from the city whose name his team bears, and also with having to compete with Al Davis and his Los Angeles Raiders, Bob Irsay moves the Los Angeles Rams, the West Coast's oldest major-league sports team, to Indiana, to be renamed the Indianapolis Rams. Many Southern California fans are upset over losing the Rams and their nearly 40 years of tradition, but with the Raiders being the defending World Champions, Los Angeles is still very much in the National Football League. April 2: Recently retired New York Yankee catcher Thurman Munson is signed to broadcast the games of his hometown Cleveland Indians. Many fans are surprised that Munson, who didn't always get along with the media, is now one of them. April 3: Governor Lamar Alexander of Tennessee wins the Wisconsin Primary in an upset, topping Congressmen Phil Crane of neighboring Illinois and Jack Kemp of New York, Governor Pete duPont of Delaware, and Rev. Pat Robertson. Crane now has no choice, and drops out of the race. With a tradition of progressive, activist Republicanism -- this is the State where the Party was founded on an anti-slavery platform in 1854 -- Wisconsin likes the young (he'll be just 44 in July), enthusiastic, proactive Southern Governor who favors red-and-black plaid shirts, which make him look at home on the State's dairy farms as much as his gray suits make him look right on the streets of downtown Milwaukee and the smaller cities such as Madison, Green Bay and Eau Claire. On the Democratic side, there are two Primaries. Senator Gary Hart needed to tap into Wisconsin, whose Democrats are among the most

liberal in the country, and does win big. But Vice President Martha Griffiths beats him in the large and important State of New York, by a surprising 56 percent to 42 margin. She takes back the momentum of the race. April 10: Governor Pete duPont of Delaware wins the Primary in neighboring Pennsylvania, stopping the momentum of Governor Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. Congressman Jack Kemp of New York, who had briefly played football in the State for the Pittsburgh Steelers, was hoping to win, but his third-place finish dooms his campaign. He drops out, and throws his Delegates to duPont, pushing him ahead of Alexander in the race. On the Democratic side, Vice President Martha Griffiths defeats Senator Gary Hart. Hart sees the writing on the wall, and drops out. But Griffiths sees it as well, and offers to make Hart her running mate, provided that it not be announced until the Democratic Convention approaches in August. He accepts. May 8: After surprising second-place finishes by the Rev. Pat Robertson in Texas and Louisiana three days ago, his campaign for President is all but finished. Governor Pete duPont of Delaware wins in Ohio, Indiana and his neighboring State of Maryland, while Governor Lamar Alexander of Tennessee wins in his neighboring State of North Carolina. Next week, duPont will win in Oregon and Idaho, while Alexander will gain a narrow win in Nebraska, where Robertson makes his last stand but finishes well behind. June 1: Star Trek III: The Search For Spock is released, a plot forced by the angry reaction of "Trekkies" to the death of Mr. Spock (played by Leonard Nimoy, who also directs this film) in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Admiral James F. Kirk (William Shatner), his wife Commander Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy (DeForest Kelley) and some other members of the crew of the battered starship Enterprise need to retrieve Spock's body from the Genesis Planet and return it to his homeworld of Vulcan. The Genesis Planet is currently being monitored by Kirk's son from a previous relationship, Genesis Device inventor David Marcus (Merritt Buttrick), and Spock's protegee, Lieutenant Saavik (now played by Robin Curtis). Kirk & Uhura's daughter, Starfleet Academy Cadet Samantha Kirk (Cree Summer), begs them not to do it, as it would involve stealing the badly damaged, newly-decommissioned Enterprise. And renegade Klingons, led by Christopher Lloyd as Commander Kruge and future Night Court star John Larroquette as Lieutenant Maltz, complicate things. The film is not as well regarded as its predecessor, and the ending is one of mixed emotions, but it has its moments, such as newly promoted Captain Montgomery Scott (James Doohan) sabotaging a hopped-up starship that would have pursued the Enterprise, and Commander Hikaru Sulu (George Takei) telling a guard trying to stop the aging officers from taking the Enterprise, "Don't call me 'Tiny!'" June 5: Governor Pete duPont of Delaware wraps up the Republican nomination for President. He wins the Primaries in California, Montana, New Mexico, and his neighboring State of New Jersey. Governor Lamar Alexander of Tennessee wins only Virginia. He drops out of the race and endorses duPont. The general election is set, with duPont opposing the Democratic nominee, incumbent Vice President Martha Griffiths.

July 19: The Republican Convention is held at the Reunion Arena in Dallas. Governor Pete duPont of Delaware is nominated for President. Congressman Jack Kemp of New York is nominated for Vice President. Many Republican activists, particularly in the South and West, are unhappy with the long-term domination of the party by Northeastern interests, a.k.a. "Country Club Republicans." But duPont and Kemp are committed to tax cuts, and duPont has promised the most sweeping tax reform since the 17th Amendment to the Constitution created the federal income tax in 1913. He has also appeased them by promising to appoint anti-abortion, tough-on-crime federal judges. Governor Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who finished second to duPont in delegates, gives a rip-roaring Convention speech supporting duPont, leaving some delegates thinking that they might have nominated the wrong guy. But the speech convinces most socially conservative Southern delegates to get solidly behind duPont. He's not the candidate they want, but he could be the President they can live with. August 1: President Andrew Young signs the AIDS Awareness and Research Act of 1984. AIDS, an acronym for "Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome," is a virus attacking the immune system, spread by blood transfusions or sexual contact. For the most part, it has affected mainly homosexual men, and social conservatives in the Republican Party have mocked the AIDS Research Initiative, created in this bill, as "welfare for homosexuals." Nevertheless, Young, an ordained minister, says, "Signing this bill into law is an act of Christian compassion. Those who oppose it as immoral fail to understand that Jesus healed the sick, without regard to their sins, real or perceived. And those who oppose it as government intervention tend to forget how much they like government investigations of waste, which are government intervention. So is increasing defense spending. Anything can be called government intervention. I choose to err, if this is an error, on the side of offering hope." August 2: In response to the AIDS Awareness and Research Act, Congressman Larry McDonald of Georgia leaves the Democratic Party and joins the Republicans. "I cannot be a member of a party that panders to the homosexual agenda," he says. August 23: The Democratic Convention is held at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. The top two finishers in delegates are the ticket: Vice President Martha Griffiths, former Governor of Michigan, for President; and Senator Gary Hart of Colorado for Vice President. Though the nation is deep in recession, though not as deep as under Ronald Reagan in 1975, Griffiths and Hart promise to increase social spending, and tout the new AIDS Research Initiative, which the Republicans have mocked as "welfare for homosexuals." They also mock the tax-cut plans of the Republican nominee, Governor Pete duPont of Delaware. "It's one thing for someone to call himself 'Pete' and try to pretend he's 'just one of the guys,'" Hart says in his acceptance speech. "But when people need job creation, job protection, better wages, better public education and better access to health care, they're going to know that Pierre Samuel duPont IV is not someone who understands their concerns."

Griffiths, though, says something devastating, and to the wrong campaign: Her own. "With the federal budget defict at over $160 billion," she says, "cutting taxes is a foolish thing to do, especially since half of the benefits will go to the top 1 percent of the wealthiest Americans, and 80 percent of the benefits will go to the top 20 percent. This will backfire, and it could turn the recession into a full-blown depression. There is only one way out of this deficit. The next President of the United States will have to raise taxes. Mr. duPont will raise taxes sometime in the next four years. And so will I. He doesn't respect you enough to tell you the truth. I just did." Griffiths' planned attack on duPont as a fabulously wealthy man out to help his fellow fabulously wealthy man, out of touch with the poor and the middle class, instead paints her as someone who wants to raise the taxes of the middle class. The Griffiths-Hart ticket leaves the Convention with no "bounce" in the polls. Things will get worse. September 12: A new schoolyear begins at East Brunswick High School in Central New Jersey. Starting the tenth grade there are Catherine Crandall, whose family has been in town for over 100 years, and Michael Pacholek, whose family is a relatively recent arrival, and hasn't even been in the country for 100 years. Despite being descended from a family of New York Giants baseball fans, Catherine roots for the New York Yankees, as does Michael. They also share interests in history and books. And in politics, as Catherine's father, Samuel J. Crandall, is a member of the Middlesex County Board of Chosen Freeholders. Although not yet 15 years old, they start dating. September 17: As one did in 1966, a sex scandal rocks the Democratic Party. An investigation by the Miami Herald reveals that Senator Gary Hart, the Party's nominee for Vice President, has been having an affair with high-profile fashion model -- she prefers to call herself a "supermodel" -- Janice Dickinson. When confronted by reporters, she admits it. She is rumored to have abused drugs, but says Hart has never used drugs around her. But the damage has been done. And it is going to get worse. September 18: Vice President Griffiths defends her running mate against the sex-and-drug scandal swirling around him, saying, "Senator Hart is my man, one thousand percent." Saying "my man" instead of "my candidate" leads to jokes that she and Hart are having an affair, which is not true. September 20: Senator Gary Hart resigns from the Democratic ticket. Republican claims of their Party's moral superiority are reinforced. To make matters worse, Vice President Martha Griffiths' determined support for Hart just two days earlier makes her look like a fool. And now she has to find a new running mate, one without the taint of scandal. September 22: Vice President Martha Griffiths has chosen her new Vice Presidential nominee. She had offered the post to Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, brother of former President John F. Kennedy, but, like Senator Hart, he has his own issues with womanizing; and, like Congressman Phil Crane, who ran for the Republican nomination, he has his own issues with alcohol. But Kennedy has a good suggestion, who also happened to be on

Griffiths' "short list." His Midwestern base, Korean War heroics, status as the first American to orbit the Earth, and eight-year tenure in the Senate will certainly help, but that doesn't stop many Americans -- some in jest, some in hopelessness over the perhaps mortally wounded Griffiths campaign -- from saying, "Godspeed, John Glenn." October 11: On the 100th anniversary of her birth, the Eleanor Roosevelt Memorial is dedicated in Washington. President Andrew Young gives the dedication speech. Former Presidents Ronald Reagan, Richmond Flowers, John F. Kennedy, Albert B. Chandler and Quentin Roosevelt, Eleanor's cousin, attend. This is believed to be the first time that six living Presidents have been together. With the Presidential election just 26 days away, pictures are taken with the six of them together, with the six of them and Vice President Martha Griffiths, and with the six Presidents and Governor Pete duPont, just so that a picture can be taken with seven Presidents together as well as one with six. November 6: Pierre Samuel duPont IV, a.k.a. Pete duPont, the 49-year-old Governor of Delaware, is elected President, with Congressman Jack Kemp of New York elected Vice President. The Republicans defeat the Democratic ticket of Vice President Martha Griffiths and Senator John Glenn of Ohio. The popular vote is solidly in the Republicans' favor, 50.5 million to 41.5 million, or 54.5 percent to 44.8 percent. The Electoral Vote is even greater: duPont wins 37 States with 390 EVs, while Griffiths wins just 13 States plus the District of Columbia, totaling 148 EVs. duPont even won Griffiths' home State of Michigan and Glenn's home State of Ohio, although Griffiths won Kemp's home State of New York. Governor Frank White of Arkansas again defeats former Congressman Jim Guy Tucker. Despite the re-election of the Republican White, Democrat Hillary Rodham, wife of former Governor Bill Clinton, is re-elected State Attorney General. December 1: Sam Crandall, son of Middlesex County Freeholder Samuel J. Crandall, returns an interception for a touchdown with less than a minute to go, to give East Brunswick High School a 32-27 victory over J.P. Stevens High School of nearby Edison in the Central Jersey Group IV (large-school) Championship Game in East Brunswick. The win completes the first undefeated season in the Bears' 24-year football history, and their first State Championship since before the current playoff system began. When the game ends, Sam, a senior, is joined on the field by his younger sister, Catherine, and her boyfriend, Michael Pacholek, both sophomores. They agree that this is the greatest football game they've ever seen. The game had nearly been lost, because E.B. had blown a 20-19 lead, and trailed 27-20 with a minute and a half to go when the tying touchdown was scored, but a two-point conversion pass was lost in the sun by the intended receiver, and it looked like Stevens would win the game, 27-26. But in the final minute, as Stevens tries to run out the clock with a running play, Sam hits the Hawk runner so hard he fumbles. Cornerback Jim DeSimone picks up the fumble and takes it into the end zone for the winning touchdown. It would have been a crushing defeat if the Hawks had beaten the Bears, the kind of close-but-no-cigar, bizarre-occurrence ending that befalls "cursed" sports teams like the Boston

Red Sox, Chicago Cubs and New York Rangers. But Mike quotes Irish author George Bernard Shaw, who likely never saw a game of American football, and tells Sam, "You couldn't let it end that way. 'Some men see things as they are, and say, Why? I dream things that never were, and say, Why not?' And so do you, and that's why the Bears won!" (The Crandalls were never born, as their great-grandfather was killed in RL-World War I. DeSimone was a friend of mine at the time, although I haven't seen him since graduation. And, without Sam Crandall, E.B. lost the game 27-26. A crushing defeat, and though my Alma Mater finally won a State Championship 20 years later, I've never really gotten over this loss. So I changed it, creating the Sam character solely to change the result.) This marked the end of OTL.com Timeline 4147: "Lee Union Part 7: To Boldly Go." Uncle Mike Aug 25 2007, 05:56 AM Post #42

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 This marked the start of OTL.com Timeline 4176: "Lee Union Part 8: Things That Never Were." 1985 January 20: Pierre Samuel duPont IV takes office as the 42nd President of the United States. Because today is a Sunday, the Inauguration ceremony is held privately at the White House, with a Congressional resolution passed the day before allowing outgoing President Andrew Young to still hold the title "President of the United States" until the official ceremony tomorrow at noon, while duPont will still be addressed as "President-elect," even though he now has the powers and duties of the the President. With Jack Kemp as Vice President and a Cabinet filled with bosses of big businesses -- he is, after all, a member of the duPont chemical family of Delaware -- President duPont looks to have the most conservative (at least, the most economically conservative) Administration since Herbert Hoover left office in 1933. Hopefully, with better results. Today is also Super Sunday, and, in Super Bowl XIX, the San Francisco 49ers defeat the Memphis Hound Dogs, 38-21. Stanford Stadium was chosen as a "neutral site" well in advance, but as the Stanford University campus is just down the road from San Francisco, it is virtually a home game for the Niners. Although Dogs co-owner Elvis Presley, who just passed his 50th birthday, puts on a dynamite show at halftime, San

Francisco-based singer John Fogerty, the former leader of Creedence Clearwater Revival, does a boffo pregame show, and the Niners' Joe Montana shows the Dogs' sensational Dan Marino the difference between a "passer" and a "quarterback." Marino set several records in this, his second NFL season, but Montana has his second title and his second Super Bowl Most Valuable Player award. March 2: Although the Republican-controlled House of Representatives easily passed it, the Republican-controlled Senate rejects a bill, recommended by President duPont, to "reform" Social Security by offering recipients private savings options in exchange for a corresponding reduction in government benefits. Democratic Senators, led by Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, had filibustered the bill by saying it would destroy Social Security rather than reform it. Enough Republicans were convinced that the bill fell 51-49 when it finally came up for a vote. Just 41 days into his Presidency, and with both houses of Congress controlled by his own Party, Pete duPont has suffered a severe rebuke. The conservative revolution he had hoped to achieve will not reach full flower in this Congress, no matter what else he might achieve. March 25: The Academy Awards are held, hosted by Jack Lemmon, himself a winner of the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor "Oscars." Amadeus, the film version of a Tony Award winner for Best Play, about the life of late 18th Century Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, wins Best Picture. F. Murray Abraham wins Best Actor for portraying the story's narrator, Italian composer Antonio Salieri, a rival and, he claims, murderer of Mozart. (In fact, they were more friends than rivals, and Mozart likely died of an illness now easily treatable by antibiotics.) Sally Field wins her second Best Actress, for Places In the Heart. Accepting, she says, "I haven't had an orthodox career, and I've wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time I didn't feel it, but this time I feel it, and I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!" For some reason, the line ends up being remembered as, "You like me! You really, really like me!" Dr. Haing S. Ngor, a Cambodian physician, wins Best Supporting Actor for The Killing Fields, in which he plays a Korean doctor treating victims of the atomic bombs dropped on the Chinese-Korean border in 1950, ending the Korean War but causing untold suffering. (No Vietnam War, no Cambodian civil war, no Khmer Rouge, the "killing fields" are the nuked plains of RL-North Korea and the adjoining section of China.) May 24: Timothy Dalton's second appearance as James Bond, A View to a Kill, is released. Bond must stop Max Zorin, a now-middle-aged product of Nazi "super-soldier" experiments on children, played by Christopher Walken, from taking over the world computer-chip market with bombs to be dropped on the San Francisco Bay Area and the nearby "Silicon Valley," producing an earthquake that would sink most of California into the Pacific Ocean. Although his initial offering as 007, The Property of a Lady, was well-received, this Bond film is generally considered to be a disaster. Roger Moore, who played Bond from 1969 to 1981, is relieved that he got out of the franchise before this rubbish could be presented to him. (He didn't, and it was an ignominious end

to the career of the longest-serving, most-appearing and, in my opinion, best Bond.) June 14: Hezbollah agents hijack a Trans World Airlines jet, Flight 847, which had been flying from Athens, Greece to Rome, Italy. The plane is diverted to Beirut, Lebanon; then to Algiers, Algeria; then back to Beirut, then back to Algiers, then back to Beirut. The hijackers demand the release of all Lebanese captured by Israel in Lebanon. It will be two weeks before the crisis is resolved, with Israel releasing some prisoners and the hijackers releasing all the hostages. But, as TWA is an American airline, President duPont is aware that terrorism is going to be a problem for some time to come, and must do something about it. July 16: The Live Aid concerts for African hunger relief are held. At Wembley Stadium in London, the Beatles reunite to perform before a paying audience for the first time in 19 years -- the first time the four of them have even been in the same place for 16 years. Each of the Beatles sings a song for which he once sang lead: John Lennon kicks it off with "Help," Paul McCartney sings "Yesterday," George Harrison sings "Here Comes the Sun" and Ringo Starr sings "Yellow Submarine." They each do one of their solo hits as well: John sings "Imagine," Paul "Band On the Run," George "Give Me Love, Give Me Peace On Earth," and Ringo "It Don't Come Easy." They close with "She Loves You" and "Hey Jude." The Rolling Stones, the Who and Led Zeppelin, each also having broken up, reunite for the London phase of Live Aid. Also playing are concert organizer Bob Geldof, Elton John, David Bowie (who does a duet of the Motown song "Dancing In the Street" with Stones frontman Mick Jagger), Queen (with leader singer Freddie Mercury singing "Under Pressure" with Bowie), Genesis, Wham! and the rising Irish band U2. The American phase of the concert, held at Albert Gore Stadium in Philadelphia, is headlined by Elvis Presley. The King of Rock and Roll recently turned 50, but is healthy and trim, and knocks the socks off the 125,000 fans packed into the nearly 60-year-old South Philly horseshoe. Among the other American performers are Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, Tina Turner, John Mellencamp and, in an emotional moment, Philadelphia native Teddy Pendergrass, making his first concert performance since being paralyzed in a car crash. July 18: President duPont receives a suggestion: Sell weapons to Syria in exchange for their influence in getting Hezbollah to release hostages of various nations, most of them American, held throughout the Middle East. duPont rejects the idea: "Syria will get no American weapons. I will not arm nations that have sponsored terrorist acts against us." (Ronald Reagan did, only with Iran rather than Syria. And he got away with it. If Bill Clinton had done that, right-wingers would have wanted him impeached, removed, jailed, shot and hanged. Not necessarily in that order.) August 19: The lawsuit lauched against the National Football League by the United States Football League is settled with a merger deal. The USFL teams that are directly competing with NFL teams are disbanded: The Chicago Blitz, the Denver Gold, the Houston Gamblers, the Los Angeles Express, the Detroit-suburban Michigan Panthers, the New York-suburban New Jersey

Generals, the Philadelphia Stars, the Pittsburgh Maulers and the Tampa Bay Bandits. The Birmingham Stallions, Nashville Chords, Orlando Renegades, Portland Breakers and San Antonio Gunslingers are also folded, since they are judged to have stadiums that are too small or otherwise substandard. Four teams are merged into the NFL: The Phoenix-suburban Arizona Outlaws, the Jacksonville Bulls (who agree to change their name to the Jacksonville Jaguars to avoid confusion with the NBA's Chicago Bulls), the Oakland Invaders (taking the place of the NFL's Raiders, who had moved to Los Angeles) and the Miami Dolphins. Finally, after a 20-year stigma placed on NFL expansion teams and would-be moving teams due to the Gore assassination, a major league sports team is coming to South Florida. The surviving USFL teams get preference on the players from the disbanded teams in a supplemental draft, while the NFL teams then get preference over any remaining players from the USFL teams that had been in their cities. The 32-team NFL is also realigned, so that the Atlanta Falcons and Indianapolis Rams are no longer in the NFC West. September 23: President duPont reaches a deal with King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, to give the Saudis weapons in exchange for lower oil and natural gas prices and the right to use Saudi military bases as a preventive measure against Middle Eastern terrorism. At the time, it seems like a great idea. It will prove to be otherwise. November 5: Mario Cuomo is elected to a third term as Mayor of New York. The Democrat from the Borough of Queens defeats City Councilwoman Diane McGrath. December 2: The most-watched game in the history of ABC's Monday Night Football results in a 38-24 victory by the Memphis Hound Dogs over the Chicago Bears at the Liberty Bowl in Memphis. The 1972 Dogs are the only team in NFL history to go undefeated and win a World Championship game (Super Bowl VII). Several members of that team were invited onto the team's sideline by Don Shula, then as now the Dogs' head coach, in the hopes of getting inside the heads of the Bears, who come into this game 12-0. Whether it was because of that or because the current Dogs simply played a great game, it ends up being the only game the Bears lose all season, as they go 15-1, shut out first the New York Giants and then the Indianapolis Rams in the NFC Playoffs, and then crush the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XX to win their first World Championship in 22 years. The surviving members of the '72 Dogs begin a tradition: Each season, whenever the last remaining undefeated NFL team loses, guaranteeing their continuation as the only undefeated team in NFL history, they will gather for a champagne toast. December 7: J.P. Stevens High School of Edison, New Jersey avenges their defeat in last year's Central Jersey Group IV Championship game, defeating host East Brunswick, 19-14. The Hawks complete an undefeated season, denying the Bears their second straight and breaking their 22-game winning streak. 1986

January 28: A malfunction is found on the space shuttle Challenger during its final launch countdown. The launch is delayed. February 12: The space shuttle Challenger is launched following a two-week delay. It docks at Skylab, where its crew of Dick Scobee, Ron McNair, Judy Resnik, Michael J. Smith, Ellison Onizuka, Greg Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe, the "teacher in space," performs several experiments with European and Russian astronauts. It will safely return to Earth in nine days. April 26: Nelson Mandela, leader of the African National Congress party, defeats incubment P.W. Botha to become the new President of South Africa. June 11: After years of delays, mainly due to the reluctance of potential fundraisers to contribute to a President of questionable ethics, the Richmond Flowers Presidential Library and Museum finally opens on the main campus of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Presidents Pete duPont, Andrew Young, Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy and even 89-year-old Quentin Roosevelt attend the opening, as do Helen Meyner, Flowers' Vice President; former First Lady and Supreme Court Justice Pauline Gore; and former First Lady Muriel Humphrey. But 88-year-old Albert "Happy" Chandler, the earliestserving former President, is too ill to come. Many still debate whether Flowers was guilty of the corruption charges against him, which he has always denied. His son, former pro football player Richmond Jr. (or "Rich Flowers"), has recently divorced and remarried, and has returned to Alabama to run chains of health clubs and health-food stores. (That is what Rich has done. His son Richmond III played Arena Football. When I decided to make Richmond Sr. a TTL-President, I ran into a problem: I didn't know if he was still alive. As of 2001, when ESPN did a SportsCentury on Richmond Jr., he was, but that was the best I could do. Now I find out the man has just died within the past month, at the age of 87.) August 2: San Francisco Miners pitching phenom Dwight Gooden is checked into the Betty Ford Center for detox from cocaine. The Miners were leading the National League West by 15 games, but the loss of "Doctor K" is too much to bear, and they collapse. August 3: In the wake of Dwight Gooden's drug rehab announcement, the Los Angeles Angels are stunned by hometown hero Darryl Strawberry's announcement that he too will enter the Betty Ford Center to beat his cocaine addiction. Unlike the Miners, the Angels will hang on and win the American League West, but will lose the pennant to the Boston Red Sox. On this same day, there is good news for baseball. San Francisco Giant first baseman Willie McCovey, Chicago Cub third baseman Ron Santo, Philadelphia Phillies third baseman turned Chicago White Sox first baseman Dick Allen, 1940s Boston Red Sox second baseman Bobby Doerr and 1940s Cincinnati Reds catcher Ernie Lombardi are inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. (I was at this induction ceremony in Cooperstown, New York. Santo is one of those not yet elected to the Hall who is often cited as the most deserving. Allen, who had a shorter, less successful, far more contentious career in RL

than in TTL, will almost certainly never be elected. But with the Phillies having won a Pennant in 1964 and the Cubs in 1970, that puts them over the top.) October 5: The Houston Astros defeat the Atlanta Braves, 4-1, and complete their comeback from 15 games behind the San Francisco Miners on August 2 to win the National League Western Division. They will play the Cincinnati Reds for the pennant. October 14: The Houston Astros defeat the Cincinnati Reds, 2-1, on Kevin Bass' home run in the top of the eleventh inning. It is their first pennant. They will face the Boston Red Sox in the World Series. October 24: An unfortunate incident nearly occurs at a high school football game in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. A runner for Perth Amboy High takes a pitchout, gains 25 yards, and is knocked out of bounds by an East Brunswick defender. He nearly falls to the ground, seems to regain his balance, and then bumps into an East Brunswick cheerleader, Catherine Chandler, who had been slightly out of position. Her back to the play so she could lead the visiting crowd in a "Dee-FENSE!" chant, so she couldn't see the player coming toward her. This infuriates the E.B. fans, including her boyfriend, Michael Pacholek, who had seen the play. Before he can jump out to defend his girlfriend, a referee throws a penalty flag, grabs the player, pulls him back to the field, and tells him he's being penalized for "unsportsmanlike conduct," as he did nothing to stop himself from running into the cheerleader. The Amboy fans are now as enraged as the East Brunswick fans, but there is little they can do. The Panther rally is stopped, and East Brunswick goes on to win a tight game, 17-12. Along with a win by the same score the next week against J.P. Stevens -- the same Edison-based team with whom they've battled for the Conference and Central Jersey Championships the last two years -- the Bears qualify for the State Playoffs for the third straight season. (In RL, that Amboy runner, whose name I will not mention here, did not bump into any E.B. cheerleader. He did, however, score two touchdowns that led to Amboy winning 20-17, costing E.B. a Playoff berth in my senior year. The referees really robbed us in this one.) October 25: Dave Henderson of the Boston Red Sox hits a home run off Charlie Kerfeld of the Houston Astros to break a tie game in the top of the 10th inning of Game 6 of the World Series at the Astrodome. The Red Sox score another run to make it 5-3. All they need to do is get three more outs, and they will won their first World Championship in 68 years. But Calvin Schiraldi only gets the first two outs. Then he allows three straight singles. It's 5-4 Boston, with the tying and winning runs now on base. Manager John McNamara has seen enough. He goes to the bullpen, and out comes... Tony Fossas, the tough, 29-year-old lefthander who has dazzled fans first in Cuba and then in the U.S. He gets Billy Hatcher to hit a weak ground ball up the first base line. Another star the Red Sox signed out of Cuba, Orestes Destrade, is there, and he scoops up the ball and calmly steps on first for the final out. Pandemonium in New England. Red Sox fans have waited so long. And to have beaten the arch-rival Yankees out for the American League East,

and then to beat the other New York team for the title, well... And, to think, some people were starting to think the Red Sox were "cursed" by "the baseball gods" for selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1920. But that thought is over. The Red Sox are World Champs for the first time since 1918. November 3: The Democrats gain seats in both houses of Congress, but not enough to take either house. State Attorney General Hillary Rodham is elected Governor of Arkansas, defeating Frank White, the incumbent Republican, who defeated her husband, Bill Clinton, in 1980. The Clintons become the first husband and wife in any State to both be elected Governors without the husband dying in office and the wife being appointed to take his place. This is also the first four-year term for Governor of Arkansas. Previously, the terms were two years. In New York, Republican Governor Lew Lehrman is defeated by Bronx-based Democratic Congressman Herman Badillo, who becomes the first Hispanic Governor of any State outside the Southwest and Cuba. In Massachusetts, the seat of Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, the retiring Speaker of the House, is won by Joseph P. Kennedy, nephew of former President John F. Kennedy and Senator Edward M. Kennedy and son of former Senator Robert F. Kennedy. In Maryland, Joe's sister, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, wins the House seat of Barbara Mikulski, who is elected to the Senate seat vacated by the retiring Republican Charles Mathias. Mikulski beats former union leader Linda Chavez. In New Jersey, Middlesex County Freeholder Samuel J. Crandall is elected to Congress, defeating incumbent 12th District Congressman Jim Courter. Crandall is a liberal Democrat, while Courter is a very conservative Republican who was planning on running for Governor in 1989, having served in a District that, while containing some towns in liberal Middlesex County, is skewed toward conservative Somerset and Hunterdon Counties. Working against this grain, Crandall wins 54 percent of the vote. He credits two of his youngest campaign workers: His daughter Catherine, "the world's greatest envelope-stuffer," and her boyfriend, Michael Pacholek, "America's finest speechwriter under the age of 17." Catherine and Michael are seniors at East Brunswick High School. So that they can continue to work for her father, the young couple have both applied to, and been accepted by, the University of Maryland, which is just outside of Washington, D.C. (Arkansas: Bill was elected in 1978, lost to White in '80, beat White in '82, and was re-elected in '84, '86 and '90. New York: Mario Cuomo was elected to a second term. Massachusetts: No change from RL. Maryland: Kathleen lost. New Jersey: Sam Crandall Sr. does not exist, Courter was reelected, and I had not entered politics -- and still haven't.) November 14: A group of students at New Jersey's East Brunswick High School goes on a class trip to Boston. Among their stops is the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. The former President, now 69 years old and looking closer to 80, is nevertheless well enough to address them. One of the students, Kerry Gilliland, asks JFK, "What did you think of the way Gary Hart was treated in the 1984 campaign?" Remembering how he was treated his own scandal in 1966 and '67, he says, "We all make mistakes. Most of us don't make them in front of the whole world, or have them revealed to the whole world. I gave a few speeches for Martha Griffiths, and I think she might have had a chance if she'd run with someone else. But I think Senator Hart

wants what he thinks is best for this country, and for that, I can't fault him." Another student, Catherine Crandall, mentions that her father, Sam, has just been elected to Congress. "You have my sympathies," JFK tells her, and the students laugh. Catherine's boyfriend, Michael Pacholek, asks the former President what he thinks will be the biggest issue facing the country in the 1988 Presidential election and beyond. "I think the growth of technology," JFK says, "because we need to learn how to use it and make it grow, before it starts to use us. And our country needs to continue to hold the lead in technology, lest someone who wants to make us an enemy takes that lead. I've said many times, this nation needs to do certain things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." Switching back to his familiar sense of humor, he says, "In the final analysis, it may not matter what I think the most important issue in the rest of the 20th Century is, because, at my age, I may not be around in the year 2000. And whatever my fellow Democrats want the top issue in 1988 to be, you can bet that the Republicans will want to make something else the dominant issue." (There was an EBHS class trip to Boston that weekend, but I didn't go, and so I don't know if they went to the JFK Library. Kerry is a real person and was a friend, though I've seen her only once since graduation.) December 6: East Brunswick defeats Middletown North, 24-14, to win their second Central Jersey Group IV football championship in three years. Over that span, their record is 28-2-1. (Middletown North beat J.P. Stevens for the title. E.B.'s real record over that period was 24-6-1.) December 24: President duPont accepts the resignation of Secretary of Labor Raymond J. Donovan. To replace him, he appoints Linda Chavez, a former union leader who has just lost a race for the Senate in Maryland. 1987 January 23: Hillary Rodham, the new Governor of Arkansas, signs a bill raising the State's minimum wage from the current national minimum of $6.50 to $8.00. She also asks the State Senate's Labor Committee to investigate a company headquartered in-State for unfair labor practices. Before the year is out, Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton will have spent so much money in legal fees that he will no longer be one of the wealthiest men in America. (Take that, you greedy pig! Wal-Mart never becomes a retail titan in TTL.) February 28: President Pete duPont signs the Welfare Reform Act of 1987, mandating time limits for welfare recipients, but also providing tax breaks to companies that hire welfare recipients. The bill had been co-sponsored by an unlikely pair of Congressmen: Newt Gingrich of Georgia, a firebrand conservative who says, "We should help people go from welfare to work, but the American taxpayer should not fund payments to people who don't work"; and Sam Crandall of New Jersey, an old-school liberal completing just his second month in the House, who says, "The way to reform welfare is to make it unnecessary. If a job pays more than welfare, people will go after that job. This bill is well within the realm of the anti-poverty programs of great Democrats going back to the days of Frances Cleveland, through Presidents

Eleanor Roosevelt, Albert Gore, Jack Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey and Andy Young." There is talk that Gingrich is gunning for the House Republican leadership, and that Crandall will be a candidate for Governor in 1989. Crandall brushes aside that talk, saying there are more qualified candidates for that office. Gingrich does nothing to stop the speculation about his future. March 1: Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy publishes Chasing the Bambino: The Boston Red Sox and the Struggle to Win the World Series. He calls it "a story 68 years in the making." A few people had suggested that the Red Sox were "cursed" by selling George Herman Ruth, a.k.a. "Babe" or "The Great Bambino" to the New York Yankees after the 1919 season. Certainly, the Red Sox hadn't won the World Series until 1986, often losing in excruciating fashion. But the idea of a "Curse of the Bambino" is not taken very seriously, especially now that, assuming it ever existed, it has been broken before the idea has had a chance to sink in nationwide. (With the Sox winning, I originally had New York Daily News columnist Mike Lupica go back to the Mets' last World Series win in 1969, and write "The Curse of Joe Foy," even if it was then only 17 years. Now it's been 21 years since their last title, and I've been using the phrase "The Curse of Kevin Mitchell." I also originally had my Dodgers-and-Giants-stay Timeline include an entry about how "Cheers" wasn't funny anymore, because Boston was no longer the home of the pathos-inducing Red Sox. So the show was cancelled, but there was a spinoff: "Norm," with George Wendt going back to his home town, Cleveland, where the accountant hosted a money-matters talk show on a radio station. I had Patricia McPherson, who played the luscious supermechanic Bonnie on "Knight Rider," play his previously unseen wife Vera, and Cleveland native -at this point in RL, a struggling standup comic -- Drew Carey play Norm's brother Jimmy, whose sports-talk show followed Norm's. Why did I choose Cleveland? Because, unlike the TTL-Red Sox, the TTL-and-RL-Indians still stunk, and the Browns had just suffered "The Drive" at the hands of John Elway and the Denver Broncos. Seattle hadn't suffered enough yet, which is why it was "Norm" in Cleveland and not "Frasier" in Seattle. Besides, the Frasier Crane character was still new and not yet beloved. Of course, on "Cheers," there had not yet been any specific indication as to where Norm was from; that would change in 1991, when he talked about how he and his dad used to go to the Boston Garden, and he'd watch his dad drink beer after beer, and he'd think, "Someday... someday... ") March 4: Having visited the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston three months ago, East Brunswick High School seniors Michael Pacholek and Catherine Crandall pile into Mike's car, a navy blue 1979 Mercury Zephyr, and make the 60-mile trip east to Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York, to the Roosevelt Presidential Center. Nearly 90 years old, former President Quentin Roosevelt has announced that he is going to attend a conference about his Presidency. He looks very old, but has lost none of the familiar Roosevelt teeth. As she had with Kennedy, Catherine tells Roosevelt that her father has just been elected to Congress. "Bully for him!" he says. "As a Democrat," she says. "Not so bully for America," he says, laughing. As he had with Kennedy, Mike asks Roosevelt what he thinks the most important issue facing the country will be through the Presidential election next year. "Keeping this

nation strong," he says, "militarily and economically. If we can't protect our people, our sovereignty and our economy, then what good is anything else we do?" ("I" met JFK, I had to balance that with meeting a Republican President.) April 6: Mikhail Gorbachev wins a full term as President of Russia, defeating Andrei Gromyko. Gromyko resigns as Leader of the Nationalist Party, and is succeeded by a much younger man, Gennady Yanayev. June 23: Catherine Crandall and Michael Pacholek graduate from East Brunswick High School in Central New Jersey. They have both been accepted by the University of Maryland, and will begin school there in the fall. (Let's just say that I did not attend what the NCAA woud call a "Division I-A" school.) July 15: President Pete duPont nominates federal Judge Robert H. Bork to the Supreme Court, to fill the vacancy created by Leon Higginbotham, who recently retired following a stroke. Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, former Attorney General of Massachusetts and brother of a former President, tries to block this nomination by painting a rather unrosy picture for his Senate colleagues: "Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, and writers and artists could be censored at the whim of government." The part about segregation does not strike a chord, since segregation was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1896. But the mention of abortion, evolution, censorship and violations of the 4th Amendment's protections against unreasonable search and seizure catch people's attention. July 16: Just three months after being hit with "The Dreaded SI Cover Jinx," in which Sports Illustrated magazine put Joe Carter and Cory Snyder on the cover with the headline: "Indian Uprising: Believe it! Cleveland is the best team in the American League," the Indians are 31-56 and in last place in the American League Eastern Division. They fire manager Pat Corrales -- who said, "Sports Illustrated isn't getting my hitters out. Sports Illustrated isn't hitting my pitchers" -- and hire broadcaster Thurman Munson as their new manager. Munson, a native of nearby Canton, Ohio who played 15 seasons for the New York Yankees, has never managed at any level, but what do the Indians have left to lose? Not tonight's game, as they beat the Chicago White Sox, 4-3 at Comiskey Park. (The Tribe actually hired Doc Edwards, an expitcher who wasn't much better as a player than former infielder Corrales, as their new manager. He didn't work out any better as skipper than Corrales did.) July 31: Timothy Dalton and the James Bond franchise, still reeling from the diaster of A View to a Kill two years earlier, redeem themselves with The Living Daylights. The film tells of Bond's efforts to stop a rogue Russian general from reigniting the old rivalry between Russia and Germany, with the aid of Czech cellist/sniper Kara Milovy, played by Maryam d'Abo. Bond is also assisted, then hindered, by a British agent who turns out to be a double

agent, Hilda Swain, a.k.a. Lyudmila Verensky, played by Sarah Douglas. At one point, Bond and Verensky fight, and she asks him, "Who do you think you are, Superman?" Bond says, "Of course not. Superman doesn't sleep with bad girls." The joke is at the expense of Douglas, who played Kryptonian villain Ursa in two "Superman" films opposite Christopher Reeve. (The TTL-plot is similar to the RL-plot, although Douglas was not in it.) August 3: For the first time, Thurman Munson is in uniform aganist the New York Yankees. He manages the Cleveland Indians, and knuckleballer Tom Candiotti tosses a one-hitter, blanking the Bronx Bombers, 2-0. August 14: Yankee Stadium erupts in a huge ovation for Thurman Munson, former Yankee star, as he manages the Cleveland Indians against the Pinstripes in New York for the first time. It is so strange to see Number 15 come out of the visitors' dugout wearing an opposing uniform. As was the case on August 3, in the first game he managed against them in Cleveland, Tom Candiotti is the winning pitcher, as the Indians win, 6-5. October 4: The Cleveland Indians beat the California Angels, 10-6 at Anaheim Stadium. After seeming so hopeless on July 16, when they fired manager Pat Corrales and replaced him with Thurman Munson, they won 42 of their last 74 games, and finished 74-88, but still in sixth place, 24 games behind the firstplace Detroit Tigers. October 19: President duPont asks newly-appointed Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan to join him in the East Room of the White House as the Dow Jones Industrial Average falls further and further. They announce that the federal government will support the stock market if necessary. After falling to as much as 440 points below last Friday's close, the Down rebounds to where it has lost "only" 325 points, still the biggest one-day point and percentage loss ever. But tomorrow it will see the biggest one-day point and percentage gain ever. What could've been a Crash of '87 becomes merely a Panic of '87, and, with careful monitoring of interest rates and tax breaks for corporations with a record of creating jobs over the last three years -- roughly the length of the duPont Administration thus far -- a 1987-88 recession is avoided, lucky for duPont, who has already announced he is running for reelection. October 23: The nomination of federal Judge Robert Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court is rejected in the Senate by the slimmest of margins, 51-49. Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, a liberal Republican, ends up being the difference-maker. Vice President Jack Kemp, who would have had to cast the tiebreaking vote had it ended 50-50, privately thanks Specter for taking the decision out of his hands. Kemp tells President Pete duPont that the rejection is a blessing in disguise, as they would not want to run for re-election having put Bork on the Court. Kemp makes a suggestion for a new Justice: Former U.S. Attorney General Malcolm Little. "It's not just that he was once this nation's chief law-enforcement officer," Kemp says, "it's that he beat Bobby Kennedy for the Senate in '66. His brother Teddy remembers that, and it was Teddy who did more than anybody to get Bork beaten. Put Little on the Court,

and it'll really get under Teddy's skin." duPont likes this idea. Little will be confirmed by a 73-26 vote. (Yes, RL-Malcolm X is on the TTL-Supreme Court.) October 25: The Washington Senators win their first World Series in 54 years, defeating the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-2 in Game 7 at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium. They will also win the Series in 1991 against the Atlanta Braves. (The TTL-Senators are the RL-Minnesota Twins.) November 21: It is a very cold day in the Northeastern United States. Michael Pacholek's 1979 Mercury Zephyr, parked behind a University of Maryland dormitory, cannot start. As a result, the freshman will be unable to make the 200-mile trip from College Park to his hometown of East Brunswick, New Jersey, to see East Brunswick High play its arch-rival, Madison Central (later to be renamed for its town, Old Bridge), in the Central Jersey Group IV Playoff Semifinal. He considers taking the train up, but he doesn't have the money for the Amtrak ticket. And his girlfriend, fellow Terrapin freshman Catherine Crandall, doesn't have a car, or enough money for a ticket. "Why won't President duPont do something about the price of Amtrak tickets?" he asks. Catherine, the daughter of a Democratic Congressman, says, "Because he's a Republican. He doesn't even believe in public transportation." As a result, Mike doesn't see his Bears lose an "Ice Bowl" to the Spartans, 33-0, on their own frozen home field. But he also sustains no damage to his car other than a lack of antifreeze. The Zephyr will survive, for now. (Not having left town, I did see the game. The first half, anyway. It was 27-0 at the half, and about 27 below zero as well. I left early. And I lost control of my car and crashed into a telephone pole. Twenty years later, and I haven't driven since. And now you know why I'm such a supporter of improved public transportation.) December 13: The St. Louis Cardinals football team plays its final game, defeating the New York Giants, 27-24, in front of just 29,623 fans at Busch Memorial Stadium. Team owner Billy Bidwill has announced that the team is moving to Austin, Texas, with the idea of playing at the University of Texas' Memorial Stadium until a new stadium can be built in San Antonio. He thinks he can make money by taking much of the State away from the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Oilers. By the time the Alamodome opens in 1993, he will wish he'd never created the Texas Cardinals, as fans from Texarkana to Lubbock to El Paso continue to root for the Cowboys, while fans from Laredo to San Antonio to Austin to Galveston continue to root for the Oilers. (The Cards actually moved to Arizona. I saw this game on TV, and a St. Louis fan held up a sign saying, "Dear Santa, please don't let them take my team away." Eight years later, they got the Rams, and four years later, they got something the Cards never gave them: A Super Bowl. They won it, too.) Uncle Mike Aug 25 2007, 08:48 PM Post #43

Posts: -1 Group:

cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 << Two thoughts: 1. How does an aircraft carrier/carrier task force capture a ship. Its not equipped to do this. 2. The reason the first man on the moon being a Mercury astronaut fell out of favor was there were no viable Mercury astronauts at the time. Grissom was dead, Shepard and Slayton had health issues and Gordon Cooper didnt take training seriously. >> Spartan Phalanx 1. It's alternate history. Alternate armed forces with alternate capabilities. Use your imagination. 2. It's alternate history. There's no Apollo I fire this time, so Grissom lives. Shepard's health issues couldn't have been too bad, because he flew on RLApollo XIV. And Grissom WAS being considered for First Man On The Moon: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gus_Grissom> Do I have to explain everything to right-wingers as if they're six years old? (Apparently, yes.) << "Use your imagination." Said the man who has every president elected in 1960 killed on November 22 of 1963 and Ronald Reagan as the inevitable president of 1973. >> Pompey Wrong. In "Senator Kennedy Dies Following Back Surgery," Nixon goes to Dallas on October 24 and faces an assassination attempt but survives, but the Dexter Church scandal (TTL-Watergate) forces him to resign on November 22 (like August 9, 1974, a Friday). And in this one, it doesn't happen in Dallas. * << 1. Use my imagination? Alright. Each carrier task force has an elite squad of Amazon cyborgs. Theyre parachuted into the vicinity where the Pueblo and crew are detained and spray pheremones over the Viet guards. This sends the Vietnamese into a sexual frenzy. The Amazons rescue the sailors and ship while their captors are busy fucking each other. >> SP I said, "Use your imagination," not, "Use LSD." I certainly didn't say, "Use foul language." So, you like Amazon cyborgs? I take it your favorite Star Trek show was Voyager, with Jeri Ryan as Annika Hansen/Seven of Nine. Nah, it couldn't be,

since, A, it was commanded by a woman (Kathryn Janeway, played by Kate Mulgrew), and, B, Star Trek is an inclusive liberal fantasy of the future. Anyway, back to the Pueblo rescue, using one's imagination, and explaining things to right-wingers as if they're six years old: The aircraft carrier, as I understand it... carries aircraft. Which can drop bombs. And shoot bullets and missiles. Thus neutralizing the enemy to the point where a troop carrier can send men to board the ship, get the prisoners out, and bring them back. << 2. You have Grissom having a heart attack! >> Hence, he still does not become the first man on the Moon! But at least he gets to live an extra 10 years, not dying in the Apollo I fire, which doesn't happen in TTL. << Yeah, OK, right-wing people, calm down. History isn't just wargames... Also - a minor revision to your Live Aid entry would involve this: A Penn State student who will one day post to the Internet under the name of "Joe Bonkers" heads down to Live Aid along with a girlfriend and assorted sidekicks. "Joe Bonkers" has the good sense to quit his summer job at the hoagie shop to go to the concert. (He also has the good sense to pick a different major, but that's another story.) >> Joe Bonkers (as if you hadn't guessed) Joe, you've been a good guy thus far, so I hope you won't take this too personally, but you just said two words that make me sick: Penn State? You mean Ratface U.? God, I wish Penn State had joined the Big East, so the now, finally, mighty mighty Rutgers Scarlet Knights could kick Ratface's Pussycat Dolls all over Unhappy Valley! Just for being a Nittwittany Lion, in TTL, your car breaks down on the way to Live Aid, and you don't make it! Them's the breaks! I despise Joe Paterno. If I had an "anti-Mount Rushmore of sports," it would have Curt Schilling, Mark "Lex Luthor" Messier (he's not just the Hair Club Team Captain, he's also a client), Paterno (admit it, he looks almost as much like a rat as Joseph Goebbels did) and a guy I won't name here, but he ruined two high school football seasons for me. "One day out of every five, he's a horse. The other four, he's a horse's @$$." -- Lee Thomas, then general manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, on Curt Schilling I think Thomas was too kind to Crybaby Curt. Paterno took too many New Jersey kids away from Rutgers over his 230 years as head coach for me to ever forgive him. If I were the Governor, I'd have him

arrested for tresspassing as soon as he crossed the Delaware. I'd say he first crossed it with George Washington, but then, he was probably already on the other side, with the Hessians! (My "pro-Mount Rushmore of sports" would have Reggie Jackson, Martin Brodeur, Rutgers coach Greg Schiano, and the kid who finally led my high school to break its 32-year State Championship drought in 2004.) Former head coach Doug Graber is now a broadcaster for Rutgers football radio broadcasts. Good. RU should give him a job for life for getting in Paterno's rat face for running up the score at the Meadowlands, on national TV, a few years back. Paterno is like Reagan: He's a Republican who gets away with everything. Except he's ugly, and he dresses himself and his players funny. I yelled, "YESSSS!" like Marv Albert when I found out his son lost a Congressional race to a Democrat. (Sort of like Tom Kean Jr. for the NJ Senate seat last year: Running on a name alone doesn't work.) << With ample train travel available, and no one volunteering to be a designated driver, the group takes the train variously from Wilkes-Barre, State College, Pittsburgh, and the greater Philly area, rendezvousing at the concert. (I haven't decided if, in my Beatles timeline, I keep them together as long as 1985 - although they would definitely reunite for the concert - so I won't comment on that for now, but I would have kept at least Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin alive.) >> Yeah, well, even in TTL, I never found a cure for heroin addiction. Or for whatever killed Jim Morrison. I didn't save Hank Williams Sr., Johnny Ace, Buddy Holly, Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Duane Allman or Ronnie Van Zant, either. I certainly didn't think Sid Vicious worthy of saving -- I didn't even mention the Sex Pistols, or the Ramones, or Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, or any other punk act. They still "happened," but with no change in their oeuvre, I didn't think it important enough to mention. Punk was still better than disco by a damn sight. OTL.com had two Holly Timelines, and there was one where Van Zant's plane didn't run out of gas and crash. I'm still thinking of saving Bobby Fuller in a Timeline, because, having released only three singles and not living to see age 23, he had more to say. Where was I when Live Aid happened? I was 15, and broke, so I was probably at home, about 70 miles away from Sesquicentennial/Municipal/John F. Kennedy Stadium (Gore Stadium in TTL). << You were at Live Aid? I had the chance to buy tickets for it. I was going to get them if Led Zepplin would play, otherwise, I was going to get my wisdom teeth pulled. Nothing definite came of Zep and I went to the dentist. Imagine how agitated I was when I came out of my percodan induced haze and saw Jimmy Page and company playing Stairway to Heaven! >> SP to JB Didn't Zep play at Wembley, not Philly? Besides, they're the most overrated

band in history. They're like the Mets: They may be tolerable, but their fans aren't. I've never taken Percodan, but every time I've had teeth pulled (a third of my teeth are either gone or capped now), I've been prescribed Vicodin. That's a nice drug. A nice drug. There were 125,000 people crammed into the old South Philly horseshoe, which was demolished in 1992 to make way for the new 76ers and Flyers arena, currently named the Wachovia (Wah-KOH-vee-ah) Center, after a Philly-based bank. Uncle Mike Aug 25 2007, 09:46 PM Post #44

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 << See, the thing is, you care WAY more about Paterno and the whole football thing than I do. For me, home football games were sort of a vague blur that happened during weekends in the fall semesters where I would start drinking, and sometimes smoking weed, after my last class on Friday afternoon. >> Joe Bonkers That explains why it's called "Happy Valley." OK, you're excused. * << 1. Use my imagination? Alright. Each carrier task force has an elite squad of Amazon cyborgs. Theyre parachuted into the vicinity where the Pueblo and crew are detained and spray pheremones over the Viet guards. This sends the Vietnamese into a sexual frenzy. The Amazons rescue the sailors and ship while their captors are busy fucking each other. >> SP I said, "Use your imagination," not, "Use LSD." I certainly didn't say, "Use foul language." So, you like Amazon cyborgs? I take it your favorite Star Trek show was Voyager, with Jeri Ryan as Annika Hansen/Seven of Nine. Nah, it couldn't be, since, A, it was commanded by a woman (Kathryn Janeway, played by Kate Mulgrew), and, B, Star Trek is an inclusive liberal fantasy of the future. << Pretty much correct. The only Star Trek episodes I care about are "Arena" where Kirk dukes it out with The Gorn and "The Way To Eden". The last one I

enjoy mainly because seeing hippies get their feet burned and die pleases me. The rest is Commie horseshit. >> You would think so. I would've thought your favorite episode was "Patterns of Force." The Nazi episode. By the way, did you notice, at the end of Arena, Kirk yells, "No, I won't kill him!" Did that ruin it for you? As the Klingons would say, "You are without honor." * Anyway, back to the Pueblo rescue, using one's imagination, and explaining things to right-wingers as if they're six years old: The aircraft carrier, as I understand it... carries aircraft. Which can drop bombs. And shoot bullets and missiles. Thus neutralizing the enemy to the point where a troop carrier can send men to board the ship, get the prisoners out, and bring them back. << I dont even know where to begin with this. >> At least you're consistent. << Lets just say I am glad youre not going to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs any time soon! >> Yeah, I might actually figure out how to kill Osama bin Laden. (Rest in peace, Admiral Percival Fitzwallace.) * << You were at Live Aid? I had the chance to buy tickets for it. I was going to get them if Led Zepplin would play, otherwise, I was going to get my wisdom teeth pulled. Nothing definite came of Zep and I went to the dentist. Imagine how agitated I was when I came out of my percodan induced haze and saw Jimmy Page and company playing Stairway to Heaven! >> SP to JB Didn't Zep play at Wembley, not Philly? Besides, they're the most overrated band in history. They're like the Mets: They may be tolerable, but their fans aren't. << They played in Philly......about 3 hours north of where I was laying on a sofa in abject misery! >> So, despite the presence of the putrid Phil Collins in John Bonham's seat, it wasn't a total loss. << Most over-rated? I would disagree with that. Still, I certainly dont hold them in quite the esteem as I did then. I was going through the 18 year old American male Led Zepplin phase. You know, the one you get into after your Doors phase! >>

I never went through a Led Zeppelin phase. Nor have I ever gone through a phase of any metal act. If anything could have made that happen, growing up eight miles from Jon Bon Jovi's house would have stifled it. (And if you like the band so much, at least spell their name right. I'd hate to see how you spell "Lynyrd Skynyrd.") * It will probably be at least Monday night before I continue with this Timeline. I've got plans for tomorrow that will likely keep me off the computer all day. Uncle Mike Aug 27 2007, 12:59 PM Post #45

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 You want me to include you, Wendell? Uncle Mike Aug 28 2007, 02:18 PM Post #46

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 Anyway, back to the Pueblo rescue, using one's imagination, and explaining things to right-wingers as if they're six years old: The aircraft carrier, as I understand it... carries aircraft. Which can drop bombs. And shoot bullets and missiles. Thus neutralizing the enemy to the point where a troop carrier can send men to board the ship, get the prisoners out, and bring them back. << I dont even know where to begin with this. >> Spartan Phalanx At least you're consistent.

<< I hoped you would take that comment as me holding back. It seems youve taken it as some admission of ignorance. So its time to pick this plan apart. >> Do your best. I'll try not to laugh. << 1. Aircraft munitions today are somewhat indescriminate. They were much less discriminate in the late 60s. >> Uh, SP, I don't know how to tell you this... Actually, I do: This is ALTERNATE HISTORY . Things change. Guys who died in the American Civil War have survived, and their sons and grandsons and great-grandsons -- and feminine descendants -- have helped things advance. So have those who survived World Wars I and II, both of which ended much sooner. Lots of people are alive who should have been dead or never born. We'll never know for sure what we lost due to militaristic, bloodthirsty maniacs -- bigotry-driven or otherwise. Here, guesses can be made. << So are you proposing to flatten all of north Vietnam to rubble? Tsk tsk tsk. Thats an awfully un-nice thing to do. >> You'd do it. Anyway, to rescue the TTL-Pueblo, it's neither necessary nor what I suggested. Your reading comprehension is better than you hero Bush's, but not good enough. << And what of the Communist troops guarding the POWs and the ship? You think you can lob a 500 lb bomb on PVT Nguyen and not hit PO2 Smith in the cell 5 feet away from him? I think not. >> No, but you can shoot Private Nguyen with bullets from the rifles of snipers on these ships. These guys are American troops. They're good. Better even than in RL. << 2. You really think a US carrier task force has sufficient muntions to do what you want? If you do a little homework, you might realize that while it has a substantial load of stuff that goes boom, it is a finite amount. Certainly not enough to bring an entire nation to heel. >> First of all... THIS IS ALTERNATE HISTORY! Things change! (I'm having to say the same thing over and over again. It feels like I'm arguing with Okie.) Things change. More munitions capacity. Better munitions, so perhaps the added capacity isn't necessary. And the object of the mission was to rescue a few U.S. sailors, not "bring an entire nation to heel." That wasn't necessary. Which you would have known had you bothered to be un-Bushlike and read it. Oy.

<< 3. I think its a fairly safe assumption your air campaign will be imperfect and there will be survivors. Do you really think they are going to just let this shore party walk in and take the ship and its crew back without a fight? >> Without a successful one. Keep in mind, this is a President (John F. Kennedy) with a brain (not George W. Bush) and an understanding of combat (not Lyndon Johnson) but not the need to preserve his image of masculinity (both GWB and LBJ). If you'd done a little research, you'd have noticed that this is a mirror not of the RL-Pueblo incident of 1968 (now a year early), but the Mayaguez incident of 1975 (which, in TTL, doesn't happen at all). Gerald Ford's rescue mission was hardly perfect, but this is a mission taking place in 1967 with, roughly, 2007 military capability. (Thank you, TTL-Theodore Roosevelt and his successors.) << 4. I smell a lack of S2/intelligence collection. You think the ship and crew are going to be in a nice place for you to simply pick them up? >> Not necessary. Our troops take out the guards quickly. Don't you trust them to do that? I do. << Perhaps you should try to get into your opponent's head and try to anticipate what he would do (probably easy for you given you think on a similar wavelength as Uncle Ho and his minions). >> If I did, I would have had the U.S. troops make ten attempts instead of one, and still win. You're incorrect as usual, King Friday. << If you did that you might realize the north Vietnamese may put up some stumbling blocks. Stuff like parking the Pueblo next to a Soviet freighter, locking the crew up in a prison in the middle of a residential area, give the guards strict orders to execute the crew if it looks like they may get liberated, or any number of inconveniences. >> HELLO! THIS IS ALTERNATE HISTORY! Things change! For example, there is no such thing as a Soviet freighter. Or a Soviet anything else. TTL-Russia and and China aren't exactly as friendly in 1967 as they had once been (that didn't change). The only Communist nation on the planet is China, and TTL-Vietnam, while socialist and somewhat allied with them, is not going to allow Chinese freighters in its ports. * << Lets just say I am glad youre not going to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs any time soon! >> Yeah, I might actually figure out how to kill Osama bin Laden. (Rest in peace, Admiral Percival Fitzwallace.)

<< Nah. Youd more likely cause all sorts of collateral damage and not kill UBL. Of course, youd then blame the failure on Ken Starr, George Bush, a vast right wing conspiracy, etc. >> I'd kill him. As Admiral Fitzwallace (fictional, much like Bush's reasons for attacking Iraq, and for staying there, but pretty smart, unlike Bush's reasons) would say, "We measure success by how few civilians we kill. They measure it by how many. In this case, I might cause collateral damage. But once the son of a bitch is dead, I won't care. You bums are always saying, "This is war, we have to do whatever it takes." If I have to kill a thousand Afghan and/or Pakistani civilians to kill bin Laden, I'll do it. The MF must pay. If I have to kill a million, I'll just remind Karzai and Musharraf where they'd be without America. They're not stupid; I think they'd get it and shut up. Well, Musharraf might not shut up... In case anyone who can think straight is wondering, Osama bin Laden will appear in TTL, and he will matter. And something tragic will happen on 9/11/2001... but not what we remember happening, and not something that bin Laden has anything to do with. Uncle Mike Aug 28 2007, 11:02 PM Post #47

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 <<This Timeline is so Implauseable... >> Steve/FTB Why? * HELLO! THIS IS ALTERNATE HISTORY! Things change! << That's why there's WWI, WWII, Presidents Reagan, JFK, assassination at 1963, President Hoover, crash in 1929...and no, it doesn't happen on years ending with 9 all the time. There were crises at 1873, 1987, the crisis at Japan of 1990, etc... >> Pompey WWI ending in 1916. WWII ending in 1940. Reagan and JFK President at different times. Assassination in 1963 not of the same President, with the

same assassin, or even in the same city. And WHAT crisis in Japan in 1990? You don't like the changes? Write yo' own damn Timeline. Joe Bonkers has two different divergences based on this Timeline. Nobody's stopping you from doing the same. << Oh, Musharraf's support for Bush has radicalized the local clergy, the northern warlords and is about to throw the country into a civil war. His regime was pretty stable before he decided to side with the "Great Satan" as the Good old Ayatollah would say. Oh, I'm so glad that guy is dead. Anyway, that's what you want, Mike? Pakistan and it's nuclear arsenal to descend into civil war? especially considering that Bin Laden is in Pakistan? >> That's why you kill bin Laden, to show the "local clergy" that if you mess with America, America will send you to hell. That goes for the people who would depose Musharraf. He is, himself, an illegitimate ruler, just like Bush, and the Taliban. << Interesting that Bin Laden is now hidding on the backyard of one of America's most loyal allies... >> All that means is that Pakistan is no more an ally of ours than South Vietnam was. Yeah, SP, you heard me! Musharraf is worthy of death. He is scum. He was scum when he launched his coup, and he was scum when he let bin Laden into the country, and he is scum now. << I think considering the state of Europe before WWI a war was pretty much inevitable, and WWI makes it at least somewhat plausible that there could be another round. So I don't think the WWI ---> WWII thing is just a cliche Mike is using. >> Silvious, using common sense on these people is pointless. Trust me, I know from experience. << Actually, the alternate Civil war could affect the French Intervention in Mexico, then French politics, then European politics and geopolitics... >> Pompey This is a good point, and I'll deal with it in a separate post. * << Oh, okay. Its alternate history. >> Spartan Phalanx Yes. The first step is admitting you have a problem. Next, accept that I am a

higher power. << I dont know about the rest of the folks here, but I much prefer AH that is rooted in some sort of reason beyond "I made a POD so anything and everything I want is possible". >> Oh boy, two steps forward, three steps back... There are three reasons to put up a Timeline: 1. The Better World. Make the world you always wanted to have. 2. The Nightmare Scenario. See how much you can make people suffer. That should appeal to you. 3. The Historical Inquiry. A simple "What if": "I'd like to know what would have happened if _____. Do you guys have any idea?" For me, this is Number 1. (In more ways than one.) You may think it's Number 2. (In more ways than one.) Welcome to my world. As I've said, you don't like it, you can make your own, and no one can stop you. Disagree with you, sure. Ridicule you, maybe. But stop you? No. << If you want to put forward the notion that the US Navy in this time line can do anything and everything, more power to you. >> And to them. What's the matter, you don't like the U.S. Navy? I do. << I'll tell you, I think you have a pretty decent start here. Having President Lincoln talk General Lee into staying with the US rather than GEN Scott is good. Im not trying to torpedo your thread, just giving some helpful tips. >> Well, you're definitely giving tips. << I suspect I have quite a bit more experience in things like weapon capabilities and tactical planning than you. >> If only it meant something. I suspect, wherever you are in TTL, you're quite bored. << But since youre setting this thing up as an implausible anti-Confederate wank-fest, count me out. Do as you wish. >> XQZMe? It's guys like Okie, who feel that the "Lost Cause" deserved to win, who are the ones who've spent the last 142 years in a "wankfest." Newsflash for them: The good side, the moral side, won. And KITT blew the doors off the General Lee, including in the ratings.

<< Popping smoke......................... >> You're popping something... Uncle Mike Aug 28 2007, 11:13 PM Post #48

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 << Actually, the alternate Civil war could affect the French Intervention in Mexico, then French politics, then European politics and geopolitics... >> Pompey This is a good point, and my knowledge of Latin American history is appallingly low. This is such a good point, in fact, that I've considered creating a reverse of this Timeline, a true nightmare scenario. I call it "Civil World War," in which somebody gives Lincoln terrible advice -- what that advice will be, I have to decide on -- and the dominoes fall as they did in Europe half a century later, and this "world war" takes out so many people, including leaders and innovators and ancestors of leaders and innovators, that life in TTL-2007 is closer to life in RL-1907. A possibility is trying to get the Mexicans to do what Polk accused them of doing in 1846: Send a raiding party into Texas. This might cause the CSA to seek out an alliance with the French, and down go the dominoes, and boom goes the... well, maybe not the dynamite. I'm not sure when Alfred Nobel invented it. Anyway, with the American Civil War reduced to a Slavery Rebellion, maybe Lincoln can remind the French about the Monroe Doctrine. Or maybe they don't need the reminder and bug out anyway. Would a France getting out of Mexico early have fared better in the Franco-Prussian War? * << And on top of that, we have irresponsible yet well-polling leftist politicians who want to leave Iraq to start something with the Pakistanis And they thought Iraq is/was a quagmire... >> Wendell

"Well-polling leftist politicians"? There are no well-polling leftist politicians in America. The only leftist politicians running for President right now are Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, and, let's face it, they won't get any delegates. Uncle Mike Aug 28 2007, 11:26 PM Post #49

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 For some reason -- possibly revulsion over the fact that, between the ages of 9 and 13, I actually liked the show -- I left this out of the Timeline. I'm putting it back in:

January 26, 1979: The TV show The Dukes of Hazzard premieres on CBS. It follows the adventures of cousins Bo, Luke and Daisy Duke (John Schneider, Tom Wopat and Catherine Bach) and their uncle Jesse (Denver Pyle), as they are pursued for crimes real and imagined by the corrupt County Executive of fictional Hazzard County, Georgia, Thomas Jarvis "T.J." or "Boss" Hogg (Sorrell Booke) and his Sheriff, Roscoe P. Coltrane (James Best). The Dukes' car is the General Jackson, an orange 1969 Dodge Charger named after Andrew Jackson, the hero of the Battle of New Orleans and the 7th President of the United States. The car's horn plays "Dixie." Painted on the car's roof is a representation of the Georgia State Flag, which has a red field, a blue X, and white stars in each corner of the X, representing Georgia as the 4th State to ratify the Constitution of the United States. As typical silly Seventies fare, the show is a hit, and runs for six seasons. (I needed a rather dashing, very masculine, very Southern role model for the car, and Old Hickory sufficed. The flag on the roof still resembles the Confederate battle flag, only here, it's not a flag of traitors and bigots. And Boss Hogg wouldn't be named after Jefferson Davis, who, in TTL, is remembered, when he is remembered at all, as a Senator from Mississippi who served as Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce. In TTL, no one wanted to hang him from a sour apple tree.) Uncle Mike Aug 29 2007, 12:58 AM Post #50

Posts: -1 Group:

cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 1988 January 31: The Denver Broncos lead the Washington Federals 10-0 as the second quarter begins in Super Bowl XXII at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. The Feds, led by quarterback Doug Williams, score five touchdowns in the quarter, and go on to win the game, 42-10. February 27: For the first time in 19 years, and a record 22nd time overall, Elvis Presley has a Number 1 hit. The 53-year-old King of Rock and Roll tops the charts with the aptly titled "Father Figure," written for him by British superstar George Michael, formerly half of Wham! ("Father Figure" was Number 1 on this date, but, of course, Michael sang it himself.) March 8: While President Pete duPont is running for re-election unopposed in the Republican Primaries, the Democratic Primaries are a mess. Congressman Richard Gephardt of neighboring Missouri won a shocking victory in the Iowa Caucuses, while Governor Michael Dukakis of neighboring Massachusetts won an easy victory in the New Hampshire Primary. Today is "Super Tuesday," and it does little to clear up the Donkeys' picture. Gephardt wins his home State, neighboring Oklahoma, and Florida. Dukakis wins his home State and neighboring Rhode Island. Governor Medgar Evers of Mississippi wins his home State, plus the Southern States of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, and the "Border State" of Maryland, and finishes second in the Southern States of North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. Senator Al Gore, just 40 years old, son of a President and a Supreme Court Justice, wins his home State of Tennessee, plus neighboring Kentucky, North Carolina and Virginia, and the non-neighboring State of Texas, and is second in the other Southern States contested today, but does poorly outside the South. Senator Paul Simon of Illinois wins no States, but finishes second or third in 12 of the 16 States contested today, and is very much still in the race. The only candidates who have to drop out are Governor Bruce Babbitt of Arizona, whose best finish was third in Texas, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, whose claim to being the voice of black America doesn't fly in the wake of Governor Evers' campaign, not to mention Evers' endorsement by former President Andrew Young. (RL-Evers, of course, was assassinated in 1963. I kept him alive for the sole purpose of this campaign.) April 19: The New York Primary helps to clear up the nomination picture for the Democrats. Governor Herman Badillo and Mayor Mario Cuomo both endorsed Governor Medgar Evers of Mississippi, and he wins a narrow victory over Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts, who had been endorsed by several current and former members of Congress representing the City, including Ed Koch of Manhattan, Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Holtzman of Brooklyn, and Geraldine Ferraro of Queens. Senator Paul Simon of Illinois

can't get the endorsement of any famous New Yorkers, not even the legendary singer-songwriter named Paul Simon. Congressman Dick Gephardt of Missouri fails to bring in union endorsements the way he did in Iowa, Florida and Missouri. And while most New York voters have fond memories of his martyred father, they see Senator Al Gore of Tennessee as too young, a man whose time will come. It is not yet clear that Evers is the front-runner, but neither is it clear that Dukakis can catch him. Simon, Gephardt and Gore are now in desperation mode. April 26: Governor Evers wins the Pennsylvania Primary, rolling up a big win in Philadelphia. Congressman Gephardt manages to play the labor card, winning enough votes in the Pittsburgh, Scranton and Lehigh Valley areas to finish second. Governor Dukakis had hoped to do well in Philly and Pittsburgh, the two "major league" cities of the Commonwealth, but finishes a distant third. The endorsement of Governor Bob Casey is no help to Senator Simon, and Senator Gore drops out, endorsing Governor Evers. A terrible candidate for President -- at this point in his career, anyway -- he now seems to be an ideal candidate for Vice President. May 3: Governor Evers wins the Ohio Primary, rolling up big totals in black neighborhoods in Cleveland and Cincinnati. Senator Simon, familiar to many Indiana voters from TV commercials that have aired in Illinois cities and reaching Hoosier TV sets, wins Indiana. Congressman Gephardt's appeals to labor unions allows him to finish second in both States. Simon is third in Ohio, Evers is third in Indiana. Governor Dukakis finishes last in both States and drops out of the race, despite suggestions that he can hang on for another month and make a play for California. He does not, as yet, endorse anyone. June 7: Governor Medgar Evers of Mississippi wraps up the Democratic nomination for President, winning the California and New Jersey Primaries. Congressman Dick Gephardt of Missouri wins Montana and New Mexico, as he had previously won Nebraska, but it is for naught. Senator Paul Simon of Missouri had won Oregon and Idaho, but it was also no use. Evers will now take a majority of the Delegates into the Convention in Indianapolis. July 14: Former President Quentin Roosevelt dies of a heart attack at his home in Cove Neck, on New York's Long Island. Although frail, he had not been thought to be ill. He had reached the age of 90 years, 7 months and 25 days. He was just two weeks short of surpassing John Adams' record as the longest-lived President. By a weird coincidence, he dies on the 90th birthday of the man he defeated in the 1952 election, former President Albert B. "Happy" Chandler, who now has a chance to break Adams' record. July 21: The Democratic Convention meets in an unlikely place, in Indianapolis, Indiana, a Republican city in a Republican State. Governor Medgar Evers of Mississippi is nominated for President. For his running mate, he chooses Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey, a Rhodes Scholar and a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame for his play with Princeton University and the New York Knicks.

August 18: The Republican Convention meets at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans. President Pete duPont and Vice President Jack Kemp are nominated for re-election. At the start of his acceptance speech, duPont notes the recent passing of former President Quentin Roosevelt, and says, "Let's win this one for Quent!" October 15: The Colorado Athletics win Game 1 of the World Series, defeating the Brooklyn Dodgers, 4-3. Dennis Eckersley gets the last out, popping up Kirk Gibson. Gibson later claimed he'd swung too hard, thinking he was at Mile High Stadium in Denver, not Jackie Robinson Memorial Stadium in Brooklyn. (The game was Oakland at Los Angeles, and Gibson homered, and the Dodgers went on to win the Series.) October 19: The Colorado Athletics beat the Brooklyn Dodgers, 3-1 at Robinson Stadium, to complete their four-game sweep of the Brooklyn Dodgers and win the first World Championship in any sport for a team from the Mountain Time Zone. (No Mountain Time Zone team would win one until the Colorado Avalanche won the 1996 Stanley Cup.) November 8: President Pete duPont and Vice President Jack Kemp are reelected. The Republicans ride a recovering economy and a nation at peace to win by a solid margin over the Democratic ticket of Governor Medgar Evers of Mississippi and Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey. The popular vote favors duPont-Kemp over Evers-Bradley by 48 million to 43 million, or 52.4 percent to 46.6 percent. duPont wins the Electoral College 365 to 173. In addition to the peace and prosperity issues, some sources cite duPont's argument that his tax cuts have worked, and that Evers would raise taxes; the Democrats' inability to win in California despite heavy minority voting (which would have cut the Electoral Vote to a 318 to 220 duPont win and not helped nearly enough), and Bradley's rambling, particularly in the Vice Presidential debate with Kemp. Evers, at age 63, was noble in defeat. But the 45-year-old Bradley looked like a "not ready for prime time player." 1989 March 23: Former President Albert B. "Happy" Chandler reaches the age of 90 years, 8 months and 9 days. He thus surpasses the record of John Adams to become the longest-lived President in American history. April 19: A "suicide boat" is launched, crashing into the battleship U.S.S. Iowa and causing an explosion, killing 47 crewmen, along with the five men on board the boat. The Syrian-backed group Hezbollah is suspected, along with agents of Libyan dictator Moammar Khadafy. But neither Hezbollah, nor Syrian President Hafez Assad, nor Khadafy claims responsibility. It will be a few years before the actual guilty party claims credit. (The Iowa did suffer an explosion on this day, but it was almost certainly an accident.) April 20: President duPont delivers an ultimatum to President Assad of Syria: Disarm and disband Hezbollah, or we will disarm your country. Assad knows he is in a box, for duPont can rally most of the nations of the world to his side.

But, along with Colonel Khadafy of Libya, he is just about the only world leader who dares to oppose the Zionist cause of Israel. (At least, that's how he and Khadafy see it.) He tells duPont to do what he must, but that if he does, he will regret it. Assad is totally bluffing, and he knows that duPont knows, and he knows that duPont is not bluffing. He calls Khadafy and begs him for help. April 21: President Assad of Syria, knowing that the assistance that could be provided by Colonel Khadafy of Libya won't be ready for a few days yet, visits with King Hussein of Jordan. He asks the King if he has any information as to who launched the suicide boat at the battleship Iowa. Hussein will try to find out. Assad also gets in touch with King Fahd of Saudia Arabia, and asks him if he knows anything. Fahd says he doesn't. In fact, Fahd is misleading Assad: While he doesn't know for sure, he does suspect someone, but doesn't want to risk revealing that information, for he feels that, as a corrupt monarchy, his country and its vast oil reserves might be next. April 22: King Hussein of Jordan tells American President Pete duPont that he shouldn't attack Syria before he knows for sure that Syria was responsible for the attack on the battleship Iowa. He warns duPont that if no reliable evidence is found showing Syria's guilt, then he and the other Arab nations will not be able to support any American attack. duPont asks the King if he knows anything to suggest that another nation, or an extranational terrorist group, is responsible. The King says only that Syrian President Hafez Assad has informed him that neither his country's armed forces, nor Hezbollah, nor anyone operating out of Lebanon is responsible. "That's not good enough," duPont says. "Your Majesty, you have been a friend of America's for a long time, but I've had attacks on America by Syrian-backed murderers in the past. We have that proof, and that's enough." That night, U.S. fighter jets attack the Syrian capital of Damascus. President duPont speaks from the Oval Office, and says that the attacks will continue until President Hafez Assad hands over all evidence of who attacked the Iowa, and, if he can get them into custody, hand them over to U.S. officials. The Syrian War has begun. May 1: The air war has been going on for a week now. President Assad still refuses to either send the U.S. any information he has on the battleship bombers or let U.S. officials into Syria to look for themselves. Tonight, the Presidential Palace is hit. No members of the Assad family are at home, but one member of a political famliy is involved. One of the bomber pilots is Air Force Lieutentant Frank Kennedy, the 23-year-old son of former President John F. Kennedy. May 6: Two weeks into the air war, and Syria is all but defenseless. President duPont sends in the ground troops, launching an amphibious assault from the Mediterranean coast, and marching in from Israel. Israel offers no help beyond letting them through. May 16: U.S. troops are now just 20 miles from Damascus. It seems inevitable that a man in green with a Star-Spangled Banner shoulder patch will soon be walking up to Hafez el-Assad and asking, "The Iowa bombers! Who were they,

and who paid them, and where are THEY?" But the Syrian troops aren't completely defenseless. They still have a few ground-to-air missiles. One of them hits a U.S. Air Force jet, an AF-111, whose pilot bails out. He lands hard. He is taken to a field hospital, where his injuries are tended to by, among others, an Army medic, a medical student from Dallas, the son of a Marine whose questionable record he is trying to atone for. And so it is that Lieutenant Francis R. Kennedy is soon able to return to duty, thanks to the medical skills of Sergeant Lee H. Oswald Jr. May 19: U.S. troops enter Damascus. Everywhere, there are posters and statues of President Hafez Assad. They do not last much longer. Assad is found in his office. He offers no resistance. He is arrested. His office is searched, but nothing is found to implicate anyone in the attack on the battleship Iowa. Clearly, the evidence must be elsewhere. May 22: President duPont declares that the Syrian War is over, after just 35 days (counting the attack on the battleship Iowa). Only 46 American soldiers were killed. President Hafez Assad of Syria, and his son and designated heir, Bashar Assad, are taken into custody, and will be charged with war crimes. The opposition party takes control in Syria, and announces it will hold free elections early next year. There is only one Middle Eastern dictator left who still opposes the U.S. and Israel: Moammar el-Khadafy of Libya, who might also be a suspect in the Iowa Incident, which, like Assad, he denies. May 30: Former Senator Claude Pepper dies. The Florida Democrat, nominated for President in 1944, was 88. (Pepper did die on this day, but never ran for President. He served in the Senate from 1937 to 1951, and in the House from 1963 to 1989.) July 14: France holds celebrations honoring the 200th Anniversary of the French Revolution, which are also the 50th Anniversary of D-Day. President Francois Mitterand is joined in Paris by U.S. President Pierre duPont (here, he does not call himself "Pete"), British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Prince Charles, Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev, and even the leader of the former enemy, Helmut Kohl, Chancellor of the Fourth Reich of Germany. Also on this day, Licence to Kill -- a British film, hence the spelling -- is released, the fourth film to star Timothy Dalton as British secret agent 007, James Bond. His "licence to kill" is revoked after he goes on a vendetta against the man who nearly killed his American friend, CIA Agent Felix Leiter (David Hedison) and killed Leiter's wife on the very day of their wedding. This is an echo of Ernst Stavro Blofeld killing Bond's wife Tracy shortly after their wedding, in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (in 1969, Roger Moore's first appearance). Bond is aided by CIA Agent Pam Bouvier (future Law & Order co-star Carey Lowell), and, himself against orders, armsmaster "Q" (Desmond Llewellyn). Dalton has been feuding with EON Productions, the holder of the Bond franchise. This year marks the 40th Anniversary of the character's introduction, in the Ian Fleming novel, Casino Royale. Though Dalton is just 43 years old, and looks no older, if the Bond character was 25 years old in the first film, the 1953 edition of Casino Royale, then he is now 61. At the end of the film, Bond tells Pam, "I can't do this anymore." She sweeps over him, and

asks, "Can you still do THIS?" His only answer is to kiss her, and the audience is left hanging as to whether Bond is heading for retirement. October 1: The Cleveland Indians finish the season with a 1-0 win over the Chicago White Sox at Comiskey Park, but their record is 76-86, fifth place in the American League East, 13 games behind the Division-winning Toronto Blue Jays. After two-and-a-half years as their manager, the Indians fire Thurman Munson. October 2: The Oakland Wolves win a single-game playoff for the American League Western Division title, beating the defending World Champion Colorado Athletics, 3-2 at the Oakland Coliseum. The complete game is pitched by Dwight Gooden, who completes his comeback from drug rehab after being released by an unforgiving San Francisco Miners across the Bay. The Miners are the N.L. West Champions, so there could be a revenge factor if they meet in the World Series. (This sets up a "Bay Bridge World Series" that doesn't involve either the Giants or the A's.) October 9: The Oakland Wolves defeat the Toronto Blue Jays, 4-1, and win the American League Championship Series by the same number. It is their first pennant. They will play the San Francisco Miners, who also clinch the National League pennant today, beating the Chicago Cubs, 3-2. It will be the first Series all in one metropolitan area since the "Subway Series" between the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers in 1978. Because of the road crossing between San Francisco and Oakland, and the Bay Area Rapid Transit rail system, it is being called the "Bay Bridge Series" or the "BART Series." October 14: Will Clark homers off Dwight Gooden in the top of the ninth, and the Miners beat the Wolves, 2-1, to take Game 1 of the World Series in Oakland. October 15: A home run by Howard Johnson off Mike Moore gives the Miners a 4-2 win over the Wolves and a 2-0 lead in the World Series. October 17: A massive earthquake hits the San Francisco Bay Area while pregame preparations are being made for Game 3 of the World Series. Kezar Stadium is spared any damage, but significant damage is sustained, including a fire in the Mission District, not far from the Stadium, the collapse of a section of the double-decked San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, and much of the Nimitz Freeway in Oakland. In total, about 80 people are killed. Commissioner Fay Vincent suspends the Series for a suitable period of mourning. (The RL-Kezar, which had hosted high school and college football from 1925 onward, and the San Francisco 49ers from 1946 to 1970, was demolished earlier in the year, before the Loma Prieta Earthquake could do it for the city. It has been replaced by a smaller facility on the same site with the same name. A similar smaller stadium was built on the site of War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo, which some of you might remember as "Knights Field" in "The Natural.") October 27: Game 3 of the World Series is finally played at Kezar Stadium,

and the Wolves win a Series game for the first time, beating the Miners, 13-7. Cecil Fielder, brought in from the Japanese league, hits two home runs. October 28: Dwight Gooden's pitching and Cecil Fielder's hitting lead the Wolves to a 9-1 win over the Miners, tying up the World Series. October 29: The Miners strike back as catcher Gary Carter hits two home runs, and the Wolves fall, 6-1 in Game 5. This is now the latest-ending baseball season ever. October 31: Despite their team being named after a creature of horror, fans of the Oakland Wolves will forever be frightened by the mention of Halloween Night 1989, when their team was defeated by their cross-bay rivals, the San Francisco Miners, 5-0 on a shutout by Sid Fernandez and a home run by World Series MVP Gary Carter. On the plus side, the Series raised millions of dollars for disaster relief following the earthquake of October 17. November 7: Eight years after losing an election for Governor of New Jersey by 1,700 votes to Assembly Speaker Tom Kean, Congressman Jim Florio wins an overwhelming victory over the current Assembly Speaker, Chuck Hardwick, and will succeed Kean, who is wrapping up his second and last term. Only Kean himself, running for re-election four years earlier, had won the office by a wider margin. Manhattan Borough President David Dinkins is elected Mayor of New York, as Mario Cuomo chose not to run for a fourth term. (With Jim Courter having been defeated for re-election to Congress in TTL-1986, he is not a vialbe candidate for Governor.) November 9: Not much happening in Berlin today. But a milestone is surpassed in Syria: The 1,000th American combat death. Strangely, far more American soldiers have died since the war was declared over than during the war itself. The U.S. troops, in Syria to help that nation adjust to democracy, can't seem to stop an insurgency. Many of the attackers call themselves Palestinians, although there is no nation of Palestine, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was forcibly disbanded after Israeli attacks in Lebanon in 1982. Uncle Mike Aug 29 2007, 02:08 AM Post #51

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 1990

January 7: Horace Stoneham dies at age 86. He had been the owner of the New York Giants baseball team since 1936. January 15: "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel becomes the Number 1 song in America. Joel had wanted to release the song, and the accompanying album Storm Front, in the fall of 1989, but he ran into writer's block on the song, a recitation of names and places that made headlines since his 1949 birth. When he got to 1958, he got stuck trying to find a rhyme for "Charles DeGaulle." He remembered that Herb Score, the sensational young pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, was hit by a line drive, his great career all but over at age 24, so he wrote, "Herb Score hit by baseball." He rejected the line as too lame, and besides, it was in '57, so it was out of order. Then he remembered the epic 1958 NFL Championship Game, in which Johnny Unitas led the Baltimore Colts over the football version of the New York Giants, and rhymed "Charles DeGaulle" with "overtime football." But this delay meant that the Syrian War got worse, so he discarded his ironic final line, "Rock-androller cola war, I can't take it anymore!" with "Middle Eastern desert war, I can't take it anymore!" and held back the song's release until Thanksgiving 1989. (There's still "California baseball" in TTL. But that particular fire didn't start until 1961.) March 26: Glory wins Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Robert Duvall wins his second Oscar, playing General and future President Robert E. Lee at the time of the Slavery Rebellion. He follows George C. Scott, in Patton, as the second actor to win an Oscar for playing a President (in each case, a General and a President-to-be). Denzel Washington wins Best Supporting Actor for playing Lee's black aide at the Battle of Bull Run, beating out Matthew Broderick, who played General George McClellan in the same film. May 10: Igor Kravchuk, the veteran forward of the Chicago Blackhawks, hits Edmonton Oilers captain Mark Messier with a shoulder-to-shoulder check, a clean hit, helping turn the tide of Game 6 of the NHL's Western Conference Finals, as the Hawks beat the Oilers, 4-3. The Hawks will win Game 7 two nights later, 5-4, in front of a raucous crowd at Chicago Stadium. (With no Cold War, Russian players came into the NHL much sooner. As a New Jersey Devils fan, I retroactively despise Messier even in his Edmonton days.) May 26: The Chicago Blackhawks defeat the Boston Bruins, 5-1 at Chicago Stadium, to win Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals. They win the Cup for the first time since 1961. Hawk defenseman Doug Wilson is named Playoff MVP and is awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy. (The Oilers swept the Bruins, four straight. It remains their only Cup without Wayne Gretzky The Hawks haven't won since 1961, the longest drought of any current team -- keeping in mind that the current Ottawa Senators, losers of the 2007 Cup Finals, started in 1992 and are not the team that played from 1894 to 1934 and last won the Cup in 1927.) July 20: Chief Justice William J. Brennan retires from the Supreme Court. He was the last Justice who had been appointed by Quentin Roosevelt. President

duPont has to find a replacement. He finds one he believes to be sufficiently conservative: U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Antonin Scalia. It will be a nasty fight, but Scalia will be confirmed by a 55-45 vote. August 2: Not much happening in Kuwait today. But the insurgency continues in Syria, and the "Intifadeh" -- that's how the English-language newspapers in the Middle East spell the Arabic word -- continues, having spread into Lebanon and into Israel itself, including suicide bombings. Today, the 2,000th U.S. soldier is killed in Syria. And the economy has fallen into a recession. The American people are getting tired of President duPont's unending war and his economic policies. A Congressional election is just three months away, and he's got to do something. August 11: It is Old-Timers' Day at Yankee Stadium. Thurman Munson is honored with the retirement of his Number 15 and a Plaque in Yankee Stadium's Monument Park. "I may have gone back to Ohio," he tells the fans, "but Yankee Stadium will always feel like home." He notices, though, that, for the first time that anyone can remember, neither Joe DiMaggio nor Mickey Mantle is on hand for the ceremonies. It was reported that DiMaggio was ill, but no reason was given for Mantle's absence. It turns out that Mantle was at his hotel, too hungover to come. Some of his friends and former teammates begin to work on him, to try to get him to quit drinking and enter rehab, reminding him of last Christmas, when his former teammate and good friend Billy Martin was killed when drunkenly driving his pickup truck. (I was at this Old-Times' Day. Munson, being dead for 11 years, was not there, although the Yankees usually invite widows of Yankee stars, and Diane Munson was there, as was Elston's wife Arlene Howard and Billy Martin's last wife Jill. Claire Ruth and Eleanor Gehrig, for as long as they lived, were always invited back and usually came. DiMaggio really was ill that day, but to this day, I don't know why Mantle wasn't there. The reason I give here might have been true.) September 17: Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, who directed films about the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty and 1930s politician Huey Long, premieres his three-hour film, Slavery and the Making of America. It is broken into three parts: "Part One: Chains of Command, 1492-1776"; "Part Two: Like Holding Onto a Wolf, 1776-1826" (a phrase taken from a letter by Thomas Jefferson, a slaveholder himself but one who wanted to do away with the "peculiar institution"); and "Part Three: Forever Free, 1826-1861." Burns goes on to make even longer films, with more parts, about baseball and jazz music, along with shorter films, including biographies of Jefferson, author Mark Twain, architect Frank Lloyd Wright and the fight for women to receive the vote. October 1: The Andrew Young Presidential Library opens on the campus of Emory University in Atlanta. Former President Young is joined by former Presidents Reagan, Flowers and Kennedy, who appears despite rumors of his being very ill. Unfortunately, the current President, Pete duPont, cannot attend, as he and the leaders of Congress are hammering out the final pieces of a budget agreement that prevents the federal government from shutting down. Hating it with all his intellectual fervor, duPont approves a small

rollback of his tax cuts, and agrees to fund a job-creating (they hope) "stimulus package." Now, if he can just keep the death toll from going much higher in Syria (it's now at 2,150 and rising), duPont might just save his party in next months' Congressional and gubernatorial elections. But sixth-year elections are usually very bad for the President's party. (Jimmy Carter's Library isn't on the Emory campus, but Emory does have a hand in running it.) November 6: The Democrats retake both houses of Congress, the voters offering a sharp repudiation of President Pete duPont's war and economic policies. Governor Hillary Rodham of Arkansas is overwhelmingly re-elected. In Maryland, former Secretary of Labor Linda Chavez defeats the Democratic incumbent Governor, William Donald "Dud" Schaefer. Governor Herman Badillo of New York is re-elected, defeating Pierre Rinfret, an economist whose insights had proven so accurate that Presidents of both parties -- Democrats Kennedy, Humphrey, Flowers and Young, and Republican Reagan -- had him on their Council of Economic Advisers. In New Jersey, Congressman Sam Crandall is re-elected. (Rinfret is real, and lost badly to Cuomo in 1990. Chavez has run against Senator Barbara Mikulski, but for no other elective office.) December 26: On the advice of fellow New York Yankee legends Whitey Ford, Reggie Jackson and Thurman Munson, Baseball Hall-of-Famer Mickey Mantle checks into the Gladys Presley Center in Memphis, to finally break the 40year grip of alcoholism. (Three years sooner than in RL, and it makes a difference -- that, and playing longer means his truly heavy drinking starts later. That Christmas was the anniversary of Billy Martin's death may have had something to do with it.) 1991 January 17: Patrice Lumumba, who served as the first President of the Republic of the Congo from 1955 to 1975, dies of cancer at the age of 65. His good friend, former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, gives an eloquent eulogy at his funeral. (The 30th anniversary of his RL assassination. Having retired sooner, Ali's ability to speak is not impaired by the early onset Parkinson's disease. He would probably still develop it, but much later.) January 27: The two major female candidates for the Democratic nomination for President are dealing with questions about their husbands. Governor Hillary Rodham of Arkansas faces questions about the apparent infidelities of her husband, Bill Clinton, a former Governor of the State. And Governor Dianne Feinstein of California is being asked about the business dealings of her husband, Richard Blum. "You know," Rodham says in a nationally televised interivew on a CBS News program, "I love Tammy Wynette, but this isn't just a case of 'Stand By Your Man.' In a country that doesn't respect women as much as ours does, Bill might be the Presidential candidate. With me, you get two for the price of one. And whatever has gone on in our marriage is between us. What matters is, can I, with his advice, and the advice of other men and women, lead the American people better than the

Republicans have? And if you have any basis for choosing a candidate other than that, then, heck, don't vote for me!" Blum's finances have been checked out several times, and, legally, he is in the clear. But that's not good enough for the Bay Area scandalmongers, who have targeted Feinstein since she was Mayor of San Francisco. She says she will stay in the race. (Hillary's comments are reflective of things she said in RL. Blum was investigated for financial misdeeds, but never charged. Then again, Feinstein has never run for President.) February 21: Retired Navy Captain and astronaut Roger Chaffee dies. He had just passed his 56th birthday. He and the other two members of the Apollo I crew had all died before reaching the age of 60. (Of course, RL proved that it could have been much worse.) March 1: President duPont gives a major address to the nation. He says that U.S. troops will be withdrawn from Syria in stages over the course of the year. He admits that their presence is actually hurting the people of that fledgling democracy as much as it's helping them. "As the Syrian military and police forces continue to step up," he says, "our forces will stand down." But he reminds the American people that this is more than just a fight against an evil regime that was sponsoring terrorist activity. "This is a war on terror itself. And while it must be won, it is highly unlikely that it will be a short struggle. Therefore, I shall do what only Theodore Roosevelt before me has done, and seek a third term as your President." The nation is stunned: Except for Syria, they see the struggle as mainly an abstraction, while the recession is something they see and feel every day, and here is this very conservative President asking for more power so he can solve a problem they thought had been solved by the deposition of the Assad regime. duPont's approval rating, which had been a whopping 86 percent at the height of the war, is now less than half that: 39 percent. Several potential Democratic candidates for 1992 chose not to run, fearing duPont was unbeatable. Several candidates, including some unexpected candidates, will now get into the race. June 15: Former President Albert B. "Happy" Chandler dies. At 92 years, 11 months and 1 day, he is the oldest former President ever. (His actual date of death.) June 29: Justice Thurgood Marshall retires from the Supreme Court. He was the last Justice to have been appointed by John F. Kennedy. President duPont has to find a replacement. He not only replaces the first black Justice (Malcolm Little is the second) with another, but with the first black woman: Aulana Peters, the Commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission. (Although an unusual move, the longest-serving Justice to date, William O. Douglas, had been SEC Chairman prior to his appointment to the Court.) She is moderate enough to avoid a tough confirmation fight in the Senate, and is easily approved. June 30: Recent University of Maryland graduates Michael Pacholek and Catherine Chandler, both 21, are married in East Brunswick, New Jersey. Their honeymoon will be a cross-country trip -- good training, they say, for knowing

what people around the United States are thinking, as they prepare to work in the 1992 Presidential election. They have the issues: The deepening recession and the unending U.S. losses in the insurgency in Syria. Now, all they need is a candidate. August 18: Gennady Yanayev, Vice President of the Russian Republic, announces that he is now the Acting President, and that President Mikhail Gorbachev is taking a vacation at his dacha on the Black Sea. This sounds awfully suspicious, and these suspicions are confirmed when Mayor Boris Yeltsin of Moscow announces that this was a coup, and that the people of Russia will not stand for it. Presidents duPont and Mitterand, Prime Ministers Major and Mulroney, and Chancellor Kohl announce their solidarity with Gorbachev and Yeltsin. Within hours, the White Army will remove Yanayev from power, and restore Gorbachev. The August Coup is a pathetic flop, but it still comes closer to succeeding than any coup attempt, including those of Leon Trotsky in 1917, Josef Stalin in 1924 and Lavrenti Beria in 1956. Perhaps Gorbachev is not as popular with the Russian people as he thinks. From his prison cell, Yanayev writes "Letter from Lubyanka," in which he cites the "fascist grip of the tyrant," excoriating Gorbachev with a phrase first heard in the World War II years, and having painful memories for many Russians. August 19: A car accident rocks the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City. Yosef Lifsh, a Hasidic Jew, runs a red light, hits another car, and runs onto the sidewalk, killing Gavin Cato, a seven-year-old boy, who immigrated with his parents from the South American nation of Guyana. His seven-year-old cousin Angela Cato is also seriously injured. New York police arrest Lifsh, who will be convicted of vehicular manslaughter and driving while intoxicated. By the time the trial begins, Yankel Rosenbaum, a 29-yearold rabbinical student, will have returned to his native Australia; and Lemrick Nelson, a 19-year-old Crown Heights resident, will be in New York's Rikers Island jail for car theft. Most New Yorkers will never hear the names of either Rosenbaum or Nelson. (Several Brooklyn blacks, angry over Cato's death, sought out and killed Rosenbaum, beginning the Crown Heights Riot -- or "the Crown Heights Pogrom," as Brooklyn's Hasidic community calls it. This time, no riot.) October 4: Governor Hillary Rodham of Arkansas officially announces her candidacy for the Democratic nomination for President. By her side is her husband, former Governor Bill Clinton. "How can Pete duPont ask you for a third term, something only Teddy Roosevelt has ever asked for and received," she asks, "if he can't get this country out of its worst recession in over 20 years, and his mission in Syria has resulted in over 2,700 American soldiers killed? If you will elect me as your President, I will give you a different approach. We don't have a person to waste in this country." Governor Clinton joins Governors Herman Badillo of New York, Doug Wilder of Virginia and Dianne Feinstein of California, and former Governor Jerry Brown of California; Senators Bob Kerrey of Nebraska and Tom Harkin of Iowa, and former Senator Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts. On the Republican side, print and TV journalist Patrick J. Buchanan, also a former official in the Administration of President Ronald Reagan (1973-77), is challenging President Pete duPont in

his bid for a third term. Vice President Jack Kemp had wanted to run, thinking duPont would observe the unofficial two-term limit, but his ambition is thwarted for now. October 7: The New York Yankees fire manager Carl "Stump" Merrill. Former catching legend Thurman Munson is named to replace him. November 4: The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library opens in Simi Valley, California, outside Los Angeles. Reagan has invited President Pete duPont and former Presidents Andrew Young, Richmond Flowers and John F. Kennedy. All attend but Kennedy, who is reportedly ill, and is represented by his brother, Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. Reagan's welcoming speech sounds good at first, full of his old charm, which got him elected in a landslide over Flowers in 1972 but failed him against Young in 1976. But as the speech goes on, he seems to ramble and lose focus, telling a strange story about riding down the Pacific Coast Highway. After about 20 minutes, his wife Nancy puts her hand on his shoulder, and whispers something in his ear. He closes the speech with an old joke, and all seems to be well again. But longtime Reagan watchers can tell that something isn't right with him. (His Library did open on this day. The PCH reference reflects something he said in his second debate with Walter Mondale in 1984. It was clear to me then, but most Reaganauts refuse to believe he was already showing the signs of Alzheimer's disease.) December 4: Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country premieres. It is the final film to feature the entire main cast of the original series, as future films will focus on the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which premiered four years ago. The film helps to set up the premise of the new show, which features the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire, if not exactly friendly, at least no longer at each other's throats, due to the diplomatic efforts of Captain James F. Kirk (William Shatner), his wife, Ambassador Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), his science officer and best friend, Captain Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and longtime U.S.S. Enterprise crewmembers, Doctor Leonard "Bones" McCoy (DeForrest Kelley), Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott (James Doohan) and Security Chief Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig). Another old friend, Captain Hikaru Sulu (George Takei), now commands with U.S.S. Excelsior, with Ensign Samantha Kirk (Cree Summer), Kirk and Uhura's daughter, as his helm officer. December 25: Mikhail Gorbachev announces he will not run for a second full term as President of the Russian Republic. 1992 January 22: The Washington Federals defeat the Buffalo Bills, 37-24, in Super Bowl XXVI at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis. It is the Feds' third Super Bowl win and their fifth NFL Championship. February 10: The Iowa Caucuses are held. Despite taking the unusual step of seeking a third term, President Pete duPont wins for the Republicans, with Pat Buchanan unable to rally cultural conservatives to his side to "send a

message." The Democratic side was expected to be pointless, since Senator Tom Harkin was expected to win big in his home State. But he only gets 62 percent of the vote. The one other Democratic candidate to campaign in the Hawkeye State is Governor Hillary Rodham of Arkansas, who manages 26 percent. This suggests that she can maneuver through the Democratic field, although it is noted that she is originally from the neighboring State of Illinois, and will find it much tougher in New Hampshire next week. Even Senator Bob Kerrey of neighboring Nebraska did not try to campaign in Iowa, but Clinton did, and did far better than anyone expected. February 18: The New Hampshire Primary provides a Republican surprise. Former Reagan Administration official turned journalist Pat Buchanan gets 42 percent of the vote, holding President Pete duPont to 50 percent. Buchanan had run on duPont breaking the Presidency's two-term tradition (though it is not a legal limit), breaking his pledge not to raise taxes, and for getting U.S. troops bogged down in Syria. duPont points out that he has the experience to run the country, while Buchanan has never risen higher in government than White House Communications Director. But by focusing his attention on Buchanan, duPont is unable to mount an effective defense of his policies against the Democrats attacking him. Former Senator Paul Tsongas wins, but mainly because he is not just from neighboring Massachusetts, but from the city of Lowell, which is close to the State Line. Governor Hillary Rodham of Arkansas finishes right behind him. The other candidates are far behind, including Governor Dianne Feinstein of California, who, like Rodham, faced questions about her husband (business, not personal). In fact, due to the nature of New Hampshire liberalism, it's a former Governor of California, also a son of a former Governor, Edmund G. Brown Jr., who finishes third. "Jerry" Brown has long been considered a flake -- Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko tagged him "Governor Moonbeam" in the late Seventies -- but he is very much in this race, for now. March 3: Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska wins the primary in the neighboring State of South Dakota, but only finishes second in the neigbhoring, and much bigger, State of Colorado. He needed to win both in order to reach his fundraising goals, but doesn't, and drops out of the race. Governor Dianne Feinstein of California wins in Colorado. Governor Doug Wilder of Virginia wins in the neighboring State of Maryland and in Georgia, taking advantage of minority voters as the only black candidate in the race. Both Feinstein and Wilder were desperate for wins, and, unlike Kerrey, got them. The other candidates -- Governors Hillary Rodham of Arkansas and Herman Badillo of New York, former Governor Jerry Brown of California, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa and former Senator Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts -- now need big wins. March 7: President duPont wins the South Carolina Primary, which Pat Buchanan was counting on due to the religious-conservative and "angry veteran" votes. He says he will stay in the race, but his candidacy is now hopeless. Among the Democrats, Governor Rodham edges Governor Wilder, both Southerners. None of the other candidates comes close. In three days, Super Tuesday arrives, and it will be make or break time for Governors Badillo, Feinstein and Brown and Senator Harkin.

March 10: The Super Tuesday Primaries are held. Governor Hillary Rodham of Arkansas wins neighboring Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, plus Florida and Tennessee, and finishes second in neighboring Mississippi. Governor Doug Wilder wins Mississippi and finishes second in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and neighboring Tennessee. Former Senator Paul Tsongas wins his home State of Massachusetts and neighboring Rhode Island, but does poorly everywhere else. Governor Dianne Feinstein can do no better than second in Florida, and is now in trouble of falling far behind. Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, having done no better than third in Oklahoma, drops out. Governor Herman Badillo, having finished third in Hispanic-heavy Florida and Texas, stays in, hoping to make a difference by winning in his native New York. March 17: Illinois native Hillary Rodham, now Governor of Arkansas, wins the Illinois primary, and finishes second in Michigan. Governor Doug Wilder of Virginia wins in Michigan and is the runner-up in Illinois. The other female candidate in the race, Governor Dianne Feinstein of California, finishes third in both States. Governor Herman Badillo of New York, former Senator Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts and former Governor Jerry Brown of California trail far behind. Governor Rodham, a graduate of Yale University School of Law, will also win the Connecticut Primary next week. Not even coming close in a next-door State, Tsongas will need a big performance in the next set of primaries, in two weeks, to stay in. April 6: Boris Yeltsin, Mayor of Moscow, is elected the sixth President of the Russian Republic. The nominee of the Socialist Partry defeats Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who was elected leader of the Nationalist Party. Early in the campaign, Zhirinovsky was considered even-money to beat Yeltsin, whose Socialists, previously led by outgoing President Mikhail Gorbachev, had lost a considerable amount of popularity due to an extended recession. But some wild statements by "Bad Vlad" -- including his continued use of the old phrase, "The fascist grip of the tyrants" -- doomed his candidacy. While he came close in several, he did not win in any of the Republic's prefectures. Also on this day, Sam Walton dies, 74 years old and $5 million in debt. Most people north of the Mason-Dixon Line have never even heard of him, or of his struggling company, Wal-Mart. April 7: Governor Herman Badillo wins his home State Primary in New York, enabling him to stay in the race. But he doesn't come close in the other States with Primaries today. Governor Hillary Rodham wins Wisconsin and Minnesota, and finishes second in New York. Governor Dianne Feinstein finishes second in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Kansas, and third in New York. Former Senator Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts wins Kansas, but that's about it. Governor Doug Wilder of Virginia takes a big hit, as his pursuit of the black vote in New York was surpassed by the Hispanic vote coming out for Badillo and the Jewish vote for Feinstein. Former Governor Jerry Brown of California is the big loser, not doing any better than third in Wisconsin. He is out of the race in every way except having made an official announcement. April 28: The Pennsylvania Primary is held. Governor Rodham wins a tough

three-way race with Governors Wilder and Feinstein, mainly on the get-outthe-vote efforts of the new Mayor of Philadelphia, Ed Rendell. Governors Badillo and Brown get nowhere, and Senator Tsongas, hoping for one last Northeastern miracle, drops out. April is over, and there are still five Democrats in the race to challenge Republican President Pete duPont. April 29: Four Los Angeles police officers are found guilty of using excessive force in beating Rodney King, a driving-while-intoxicated (DWI) suspect. They will receive suspended sentences in exchange for turning in their badges and forfeiting half their pensions. Los Angeles is quiet tonight, although over half a million people in the city still live in poverty, despite the various efforts of people in and out of various governments. (The officers were acquitted, and one of America's worst race riots resulted.) May 5: Governor Rodham wins the Indiana Primary. Governor Wilder wins the North Carolina Primary. Next week, Wilder will win Nebraska with the endorsement of Senator Bob Kerrey, who dropped out of this race early. Governors Badillo, Feinstein and Brown trail badly. All three are basically trying to hang on for one more month, in the hopes of capturing California, where Feinstein and Brown are from and Badillo hopes to win the evergrowing Hispanic vote. May 7: The 26th Amendment to the Constitution is ratified -- 203 years after it was first proposed, along with 11 other proposed Amendments, 10 of which were ratified by 1791 and became the Bill of Rights. This Amendment prohibits Congress from raising its own pay during its current term, forcing any increase to take effect with the beginning of the following Congress. May 19: The California Governors strike back, sort of. While Governor Hillary Rodham of Arkansas wins both of the Pacific Coast Primaries held today, the current California chief executive, Dianne Feinstein, finishes a close second in Washington; while the former Golden State Governor, Jerry Brown, finishes right on Rodham's heels in Oregon. Governors Doug Wilder of Virginia and Herman Badillo of New York are far behind. June 2, which includes the California Primary, will tell a story, but no one yet knows how the story will turn out. June 2: Governor Hillary Rodham of Arkansas defeats Governor Dianne Feinstein of California in her own State's Primary. Feinstein had tremendous strength in Northern California. But she was not nearly as strong in Southern California, where Rodham and, much more so, her husband, former Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, had won over the Hollywood donors and other rich Los Angeles-area liberals. Trying to win Hispanic votes in the L.A. and San Diego areas, Governor Herman Badillo of New York finished third, not far behind Feinstein, but not nearly good enough to take the race to the Convention. He drops out and endorses Rodham. Governor Doug Wilder of Virginia won many black votes in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, but finished a distant fourth, and drops out, endorsing Rodham. Former California Governor Jerry Brown finishes an embarrassing fifth, drops out, and endorses Feinstein. So the race comes down to two strong-willed women.

June 3: The day after the California Primary, Arsenio Hall invites Governors Feinstein and Rodham to be his guests on his late-night TV talk show. He asks them about several issues, many of them relating to his audience, mostly young and more black than any other host's. Rodham wants to talk about her plan for national health insurance. Feinstein objects: "Wouldn't that do away with Medicare, Medicaid and MediKid? That would confuse too many people. People in those programs are very attached to them. You don't want to mess with those programs. You've got to find a way to keep them in place while still finding a way to cover everyone else." Rodham is a little flustered: She has received objections on this issue from Republicans, but to have the other leading Democrat in the race question her, while being seated right beside her, is unnerving. Feinstein handles the remaining questions with her usual aplomb, while Rodham needs some time to get back in gear. Though she lost her home State last night, Feinstein has, in effect, won a "national primary" of America's youth and blacks through The Arsenio Hall Show. July 16: Governor Dianne Feinstein of California is nominated for President by the Democratic Convention, held at Madison Square Garden in New York. Following her "defeat" of Governor Hillary Rodham of Arkansas in their debate on The Arsenio Hall Show, about one out of ten Rodham delegates shifted to Feinstein. That, plus about two of every three unpledged delegates going to the San Franciscan, make the difference. To appease Rodham, she agrees to take on some of her campaign staff, including James Carville and Paul Begala. And she takes as her Vice Presidential nominee Senator Al Gore of Tennessee, a failed Presidential candidate four years ago, whose father was a President and mother was a Supreme Court Justice. Gore gives a strong acceptance speech, ripping the duPont Administration's policies at home and abroad: "And now they want a third term? No, my fellow Americans. It is time for them to go!" He rattles off issue after issue, and repeats the kicker: "And it is time for them to go!" Feinstein's speech is less boisterous, but it brings the crowd to its feet. President Pete duPont will have to have a Convention that is united, enthusiastic, and positive to have a chance at winning a third term, something only Theodore Roosevelt has ever done. August 20: The Republican Convention in Houston doesn't go as well as President Pete duPont had hoped. In order to have order, he handed some major prime-time speeches to hard-right religious conservatives. Pat Buchanan, the Reagan Administration speechwriter turned journalist turned Primary opponent for duPont, says, "There is a religious war going on in this country." He rips into Governor Dianne Feinstein for her liberal, anti-gun, progay, pro-education moves as Mayor of San Francisco and Governor of California; clobbers Senator Al Gore for his obsessions with the environment, telecommunications and computers; and closes by saying, "We will take back our culture, and take back our country!" Another former Presidential candidate, Rev. Pat Robertson, gives a speech blaming "secular humanists" for all the problems in the country. How they can be responsible for the nation's economic distress and the never-ending "war on terror" is a mystery to most TV viewers. Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana, seen by many as a future Presidential candidate, attacks popular culture as well, including TV shows

like Murphy Brown, [i[The Simpsons[/i] and Married... with Children, making himself sound ridiculous even to some people who don't like those shows. Other officials, from Senators to Governors to Cabinet officials, hammer the Democrats for the favoritism they seem to show to gays, immigrants, nonwhite people and people who don't display their religious faith in public. In a letter published in the liberal magazine The Nation, Michael Pacholek, a young staffer with the Feinstein campaign, calls it "Nuremberg in the Astrodome." September 7: The Major League Baseball team owners fire Commissioner Francis T. "Fay" Vincent. "To do the job without angering an owner is impossible," Vincent says. "I can't make all twenty-eight of my bosses happy. People have told me I'm 'the last commissioner.' If so, it's a sad thing. I hope the owners learn this lesson before too much damage is done." The owners' new hire is a surprise: Fidel Castro, the 67-year-old former Governor of the State of Cuba and a huge baseball fan. Legend has it that he was a pitching prospect for the Washington Senators in the early 1950s, but this is not true. Since his doomed third-party candidacy for President in 1968, he has written extensively on legal matters and baseball. Although his politics have long seemed socialist to some, he actually supported the owners during the battle, ultimately successful, to overturn the reserve clause. The owners think he will act in their favor most of the time. This will prove to be a severe miscalculation. October 11: The first Presidential debate of the campaign is held at the field house of Washington University in St. Louis. "We've been hearing the other side talk a lot about 'change,'" says President Pete duPont, the Republican running for a third term. "But change for change's sake will hurt this country's security. We face terrible threats, and my Administration is handling them. Theirs won't be able to." Governor Dianne Feinstein of California, the Democratic nominee, responds: "He's been sending our soldiers overseas to fight battles he hasn't tried to understand. Yet he won't send troops to aid the victims of genocide in Bosnia or the victims of famine in Somalia. Is it because they don't have sufficient strategic importance? Is it because they don't have oil? Why was Syria worth liberating, and Bosnia and Somalia not? This is not attention to our security, my fellow Americans. This is policy by choice, and it must change!" She addresses the economy as well: "We've got terrible deficits, and our President, Pierre Samuel duPont the Fourth still won't raise the taxes we need, because it would affect the richest of us. I'm rich, too, but I understand that this is what we have to do. And if we have the most powerful armed forces in the world, but a compromised economic security, then just how secure are we?" duPont's answers are not very strong, and his hold on the Presidency is considerably less secure. November 2: Election Eve. After rallies yesterday at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati and the Brendan Byrne Arena in the New Jersey Meadowlands -itself named for a Democratic former Governor -- Governor Dianne Feinstein of California and Senator Al Gore of Tennessee close with a rally in Boston, between New City Hall and Faneuil Hall. They've received word that one of the heroes of the Democratic Party, and one of Boston's leading citizens, who

had hoped to attend, is back in the hospital. Feinstein speaks of his contributions to America, and says, "Let's win this one for Jack!" The brothers of former President Kennedy, former Senator Bobby and Senator Ted, are seated near her on the stage. November 3: Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic Governor of California, is elected the nation's 43rd President, its third woman and first Jewish person. She defeats the incumbent Republican, Pierre S. "Pete" duPont IV, who was seeking an almost unprecedented third term. She wins the Electoral Vote, 372 to 166, and the popular vote, 54 percent to 42 percent. Most of the remaining 4 percent is won by a third-party candidate, Texas billionaire Ross Perot, who barely got much notice since he was seen by most voters as just another old rich guy, like duPont. (Actually, duPont is only 56, and Feinstein is older at 59. Perot is 62.) Senator Al Gore of Tennessee, whose father was President and whose mother was on the Supreme Court, is elected Vice President, replacing Jack Kemp, who naturally becomes the front-runner for the 1996 GOP nomination. November 9: Frustrated in his attempts to buy a Major League Baseball team and move it to Dallas, struggling businessman George W. Bush, son of the current Secretary of State who had also been Ronald Reagan's Vice President, buys the Houston Astros from John McMullen. November 17: With nothing left to lose, President duPont sends U.S. troops to deliver food to Somalia, and sends his Secretary of State, George H.W. Bush, to see if he can negotiate an end to the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. December 24: George Bush, the former Vice President now closing out his tenure as Secretary of State, gets Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic to sign a cease-fire agreement, ending the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. President Pete duPont can close his tenure in the White House on a high note. (This was the end of OTL.com Timeline 4176: "Lee Union Part 8: Things That Never Were.") Uncle Mike Aug 29 2007, 12:47 PM Post #52

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 Joe Bonkers

Aug 29 2007, 08:49 AM Michael P Aug 28 2007, 10:02 PM

If only it meant something. I suspect, wherever you are in TTL, you're quite bored.

There's not as big a military in TTL - not as much need for one - but somehow I think guys like SP would have found a means to quench their thirst for extreme action: becoming a deep-sea rescue diver, or a fireman specializing in tall buildings, or something. Well, 2001 is coming. It might mean something. Then again, it might not. Uncle Mike Aug 29 2007, 12:52 PM Post #53

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 Okie Aug 29 2007, 10:29 AM Michael P Aug 29 2007, 05:02 AM There are three reasons to put up a Timeline: 1. The Better World. Make the world you always wanted to have. 2. The Nightmare Scenario. See how much you can make people suffer. That should appeal to you. 3. The Historical Inquiry. A simple "What if": "I'd like to know what would have happened if _____. Do you guys have any idea?" For me, this is Number 1. (In more ways than one.) You may think it's Number 2. (In more ways than one.) Then please rename this TL Pacholek's Utopian Fantasy World or something rather than presenting it as TL about the results of Robert E. Lee choosing to

side with the Union. :rolleyes: No. You see, it's a story based on a theory. If you want, you can have a Timeline where Lee sides with the Union, and gets beat at Bull Run, and then have the traitors march on Washington and take over, and have that X flag flying everywhere, and worry about the effects of slavery into the 20th Century. That would be your Timeline, and you could post it and face the consequences, as I have done with mine. Look at the bright side: Spartan Phalanx has surpassed you for ridiculousness. Then again, maybe he's on steroids; it would explain a number of things. Uncle Mike Aug 29 2007, 01:11 PM Post #54

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 Spartan Phalanx Aug 29 2007, 11:17 AM Hay now, leave Michael_P alone so he can get back to his intellectual masturbation! Now his likely response to your post will be along the lines of "Its my TL! If you dont like it, make your own!!". Perhaps thats what we should do. Personally, Im seeing a timeline where the Confederacy wins and Nathan B. Forest skippers the first starship to Alpha Centauri in 1864. First of all, anyone who posts a picture of Bush in his flight suit -- suddenly, Michael Dukakis in the tank looks like Schwarzkopf by comparison -- and calls him "the biggest f---ing hero in the world" is in no position to criticize anyone's intellectual exercise. Second of all, yeah, make your own. You don't see me stopping you, do you? Of course not, because your mind doesn't work well enough to try making your own. If you, I will critique it, certainly, but I won't stop you from posting it. Have any of you -- some of whom have are now with me on a third different board -- ever been reported by me for anything you've said? No. I take matters into my own hands -- OK, bad choice of words there. Let's try this... Instead of whining to an admin every time one of you posts something I

consider offensive, I fire back. So I've laid down the challenge: If you don't like one of my Timelines, try your own hand at it... Well, you know what I mean. Tink is probably laughing like crazy right now. But then, she needs all the laughter she can get. ANYWAY ... How are you going to get from Manassas to Alpha Centauri in three years, when the first AIRPLANE is still at least 30 years away? Even if, somehow, the Confederacy manages to speed up technology enough to... Excuse me for a moment... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA! OK, where was I? Anyway, you might be able to get a workable heavier-thanair craft by, say, 1890. And maybe rocketry before World War I. (Hey! There's an idea. No, seriously, it would be right up some of your alleys. OK, another bad choice of words... But what do you think?) And maybe, by that Timeline's 1945, you can launch men into space. And maybe, if you avoid the disasters of Apollo I, Apollo XIII, Challenger and Columbia, you might get Man On the Moon by 1960 and on Mars by 1990. But even in TTL, I wasn't planning a return to the Moon before 2003. It won't happen, as something will get in the way on September 11, 2001. (Cue creepy music -- but it won't be what we all remember from that day.) Mars would have to wait. And warp drive? Ye can't change th' laws o' physics, Captain! Sorry, Bo and Luke, but you'll have to wait a while to put the first still on the Moon. You're makin' yer way, the only way you know how, but that's just a li'l bit more than the laws of physics will allow. Uncle Mike Aug 29 2007, 01:14 PM Post #55

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007

Okie Aug 29 2007, 11:24 AM Nah, you missed out a crucial element of his counter-post, he'll throw in some snide comment about me, the South, or George W. Bush (whom he assumes I support because he assumes everyone who disagrees with him does) before telling me to write my own TL. It's easy to presume why a Southerner who doesn't know enough to accept that the Confederacy was wrong would support Bush. But, hey, if you want to tell me you voted for Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004, go ahead. I think I still have a few laughs in the tank, left over from SP's Alpha Centauri remark. Uncle Mike Aug 29 2007, 02:00 PM Post #56

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 << Totally called it. Incidentally that thing about reaching the moon in 1864 is called "sarcasm." >> Okie It certainly can't be called "logic" or "humor." * I'm predicting I'll have the rest of the 20th Century part of this Timeline up tonight. I still have to work on the 21st, though. (Don't we all?) Uncle Mike Aug 30 2007, 12:41 PM Post #57

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 First of all, let me apologize for not posting more of the Timeline last

night, as I said I would. Real life intervened: Major family function on Sunday, and it was a Yankees-Red Sox night. I'm not going to say who won, but I'm in a really good mood right now. That may be about to change... * WWI ending in 1916. WWII ending in 1940. Reagan and JFK President at different times. Assassination in 1963 not of the same President, with the same assassin, or even in the same city. And WHAT crisis in Japan in 1990? << Well, you always say that stock market crashes take place on years ending with 9, and I pointed out to the Crash of 1987, the crisis of 1873 and the Japanese crisis of 1990 >> Pompey When did I ever say that? I've said that stock market dives often happen in October, although I have no idea why. It may be, as the great New York comedian Paul Reiser, would say, "A rather large coincidence." But I think it was Paul Erdman, noting that the 50th anniversary of the Crash of 1929 was coming up, wrote the novel The Crash of '79. And, when that didn't happen, wrote a different novel (not a sequel) called The Panic of '89 (which came a lot closer, but hardly close). I did put a "Crash of '73" in "Kennedy Runs Later." That was an October crash, but not in a year ending in a 9. As for the Japanese crisis of 1990, America didn't even notice it. We were still sure, even as Daddy Bush gave way to a President with a clue about economics in early 1993, that Japan was going to buy up more of our stuff. One of Johnny Carson's "Carnac the Magnificent" jokes went like this: A. Tokyo, Los Angeles, New York. Q. What are the three largest Japanese cities? There was another joke: "The U.S. and Russia had a Cold War. Who won? Japan." Neither of those jokes turned out to be true. * That's why you kill bin Laden, to show the "local clergy" that if you mess with America, America will send you to hell. << Oh, just like Vietnam. Wow, you really thought them a lesson there >> Totally different scenario. If you killed Ho Chi Minh, you ran the risk of bringing China into the war. If you kill bin Laden... to use an old cliche, the

Mufti of Saudi Arabia? How many divisions does he have? * Musharraf is worthy of death. He is scum. He was scum when he launched his coup, and he was scum when he let bin Laden into the country, and he is scum now. << Well, no problem there, but I'd still have him rather than a Pakistani Ayatollah with Nukes... >> So get the nukes. If you can get bin Laden, you can get the nukes. Or, cut a deal with Musharraf: You give us bin Laden and the nukes, we'll help you stay in power. I'm making a prediction now: If Musharraf is still in power the next time a Republican is in the White House -- admittedly, he'd be pretty old, unless Hillary screws up royally -- he'll be the Saddam Hussein of the 2010s: A glorious ally turned "the next Hitler." * Silvious, using common sense on these people is pointless. Trust me, I know from experience. << You could try making good points, or learning something about the military, other than it kills people...or you could use drugs, I don't know >> "The purpose of the military is to kill people and break things." -- Rush Limbaugh, in a rare, undrugged moment of clarity * 3. The Historical Inquiry. A simple "What if": "I'd like to know what would have happened if _____. Do you guys have any idea?" << That's what I do, except when It's my sides are winning, which includes Spain, the Catholic Church, Japan... I'm so objective >> The least you could do is pick a side that deserves to win. Which could be Spain, circa 1936 against Franco and the traitors. How come nobody ever writes about a surviving Poland? After all, nobody ever expects the Polish Inquisition! Uncle Mike Aug 31 2007, 12:25 AM Post #58

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 So get the nukes. If you can get bin Laden, you can get the nukes. Or, cut a deal with Musharraf: You give us bin Laden and the nukes, we'll help you stay in power. << Watching Rambo and the West Wing doesn't constitute Military Knowledge, Mike. >> No, it doesn't. Then again, who watches Rambo anymore? At least The West Wing was grounded in reality and idealism rather than Reaganaut insanity. << Then again, someone could have told George Bush that drinking Martinis in a national guard uniform does not constitute real Military service... >> True. Except for the drink in question. You really think he was drinking martinis? If so, he probably decided to be macho about it and order it stirred, not shaken. * How are you going to get from Manassas to Alpha Centauri in three years, when the first AIRPLANE is still at least 30 years away? Even if, somehow, the Confederacy manages to speed up technology enough to... << Well, as you would say ITS ALTERNATE HISTORY!! Its not much more ridiculous than your idea of the US Navy rescuing POWs with perfect munitions and some of the most bizarre doctrine Ive ever come across. All based on a American Civil War ending quickly due to Robert E. Lee choosing to not go South. >> Spartan Phalanx And, again, I have to explain this to you as if you were six years old. Development of the airplane being accelerated, starting in 1915, to the point where a rescue attempt that is plausible in RL-2007 happens in TTL-1967? "Ridiculous" and "bizarre." The Confederate States of America going from not even having a transregional, never mind transcontinental, railroad in 1861 to reaching the nearest star to Earth's sun in 1864, requiring faster-than-light travel? "Not much more ridiculous."

Yeah, I get it: Stonewall Jackson was such a genius that he could have anticipated Albert Einstein, Werner von Braun, Gene Kranz, and even Zefrem Cochrane, and used the technology available in the early 1860s to get us to the next-closest star. There's the distinctly possible if not necessarily likely, such as Robert E. Lee choosing his country over his State (me). There's the improbable, such as Brian Jones going back to being a coherent musician (Joe Bonkers). And then there's the OxyContin-induced (you). ASB? "Alien Space Bats"? I don't know about the space part, or the alien part, but you're definitely bats. You might as well call your house The Belfry. My apologies to Christian Bale, George Clooney, Val Kilmer, Michael Keaton, Adam West and to the memories of Bob Kane (Batman's creator) and Bill Finger (the character's first artist). Uncle Mike Aug 31 2007, 12:33 AM Post #59

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 (This was the beginning of OTL.com Timeline 4185: "Lee Union Part 9: What Is Right With America.") 1993 January 20: Today marks the Inauguration as President of Dianne Emiel Goldman Berman Feinstein Blum. Or, as she identifies herself when taking the Oath of Office, "I, Dianne Emiel Feinstein, do solemnly swear..." Her Vice President is Al Gore, son of a former President. In a move designed to gain the support of her primary opponent, Governor Hillary Rodham of Arkansas, she appoints Rodham's husband, Bill Clinton, also a former Governor of Arkansas, as Attorney General. And, in order to complete the negotiations for the peace treaty in the former Yugoslavia, she agrees with the recommendation of outgoing President Pete duPont and signs an Executive Order allowing Secretary of State George Bush to remain in office through February 28. In her Inaugural Address, she says, "There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America!" (This was the start of OTL.com Timeline 4185, "Lee Union Part 9: What Is Right With America." Unfortunately, this was where OTL.com ran into severe technical difficulties, and as a result, the Timeline only got up to 1996 and was never

finished. So those of you who saw it there will get to see it in full here. All I have to do is finish it. That's all. *groan*) January 22: Justice Byron White retires from the Supreme Court. A former football star known as "Whizzer" in his playing days at the University of Colorado and with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Detroit Lions, he was the last Justice who had been appointed by Albert Gore. He had just closed out his judicial career two days ago, by swearing in the martyred President's son, Al, as Vice President. Al had wanted retired Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first black Justice, to preside, but Marshall was too ill, and will die within days. To White's seat, President Feinstein appoints Harard University constitutional law professor and author Laurence Tribe, a fellow San Franciscan who has argued many cases before the Court, and had been a clerk to Justice Potter Stewart. January 31: The Buffalo Bills win Super Bowl XXVII, defeating the Arizona Outlaws, 26-17, to take their first World Championship. The Bills had beaten the Memphis Hound Dogs at the Liberty Bowl to win the AFC Title, while the Outlaws had to upset the 49ers in San Francisco and the Dallas Cowboys in Irving to become the NFC Champions, and the first former USFL team to reach the Super Bowl. March 1: With the Dayton Accords signed, and Serbian troops beginning their pullout of Bosnia, former Vice President George Bush resigns as Secretary of State. He believes he will win the Nobel Peace Prize. For reasons as yet unknown, he will end up sharing it. President Dianne Feinstein appoints Madeleine Albright, currently U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, to be the new Secretary of State. March 7: Former President John F. Kennedy dies at his home in Hyannis, Massachusetts. He had been suffering from heart and kidney ailments for some time, and was recently sent home from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston because nothing more could be done for him. He did, however, live long enough to see another Democrat, Dianne Feinstein, elected President. He was 75 years old. He will be buried at his Presidential Library in Boston, with a ceremony attended by all the living Presidents: Feinstein, Pete duPont, Andrew Young, Ronald Reagan and Richmond Flowers. (Why 75? I wanted him to live long enough to see the next Democratic President. Why March 7? Probably just the date on which I wrote the entry.) March 13, 1993: "Free As a Bird" hits Number 1. John Lennon wrote the song in 1977, and it had been sitting around for 15 years, never recorded. But after finally settling all legal disputes with the other Beatles last year, the Fab Four all got together and recorded it. It remains Number 1 on the U.S. charts for seven weeks. By a weird coincidence, the Number 2 song for all seven weeks is "Informer" by Darrin O'Brien, a Canadian performer calling himself "Snow," imitating Jamaican "dancehall singing." It never reaches Number 1. Having settled their differences, the Beatles prepare for their first world tour in 31 years. ("FAB" -- just realized it has the initials "fab," wonder if John realized it? -- reached Number 5 in 1995, after Paul, George and Ringo patched things up enough to do "The Beatles Anthology" on ABC. This also knocks Snow down.

Or, should I say, "a-licky-boom-boom-down.") April 4: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the nation's leading anti-poverty crusader, dies of diabetes. He was 64 years old. His legacy is the many government programs instituted in the "New Frontier" of Presidents Albert Gore, whose son is now Vice President, and John F. Kennedy, who died just a month ago. Because of Dr. King's efforts, poverty in the U.S. has been reduced by onethird from what it was in the summer of 1963, when he spoke in front of over 200,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, and said, "I have a dream, that one day, my four little children will be judged not by the size of their bank account but by the content of their character!" (The 25th anniversary of his assassination. Black men are much more susceptible to diabetes than white men, so it seemed an understandable, if painful, way to send MLK to his final reward.) April 5: Major League Baseball's two newest expansion teams begin play today. At Cerro Stadium in Havana, in front of 55,000 people, the Havana Almendares (Scorpions) defeat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 6-3. Havana-born salsa singer Celia Cruz sings "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "Guantanamera," the unofficial anthem of the State of Cuba. Baseball Commissioner Fidel Castro, also a Cuban native, catches the ceremonial first ball from Luis Tiant. Although they obviously never played for this edition of Almendares, named for a former Cuban League team, Tony Oliva (Number 6), Minnie Minoso (Number 9), Camilo Pascual (Number 17), Tiant (Number 23), Tony Perez (Number 24) and Mike Cuellar (Number 35) are honored with retired numbers on the fence. At Shea Stadium in New York, the Denverbased Colorado Rockies lose their debut, 3-0 to the New York Mets. Four days later, they will win their first home game, an 8-1 win over the Montreal Expos at Mile High Stadium in front of 80,227 people, a major league record for an Opening Day crowd. July 25: David Samuel Pacholek is born in Silver Spring, Maryland, the first child of Catherine and Michael, both political operatives. Although she is also a Yankee fan, Catherine told Michael that if he wished to retain the potential to have more children, the boy would not be named Reginald Jackson Pacholek. Fine, Michael says, but, though he is also a very liberal Democrat, he says that if they go on to have a girl, they are not naming her Dianne Feinstein Pacholek. Catherine agrees. July 30: Republican Congressman Bob Barr of Georgia asks Congress to investigate the business dealings of investment banker Richard Blum, husband of President Dianne Feinstein. It seems he has made deals with Chinese officials to help fund the construction of real estate in Northern California, including a development overlooking San Francisco Bay in Emeryville, known as "Watergate." Barr insists that Watergate is a serious matter, and it could lead to revelations of corruption in the White House itself. Speaker Tom Foley announces there will be no investigation, and calls Barr's charges "ridiculous." (Had to have a way of making all political scandals have the "-gate" suffix. This, combining "Watergate" and "Whitewater," made as much sense as anything else.)

September 13: The Gaza-Jericho First Accord is signed on the White House lawn by President Dianne Feinstein, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Chairwoman Hanan Ashrawi. The Accord begins the process of achieving nationhood for the group of Arabs who call themselves Palestinians, with a capital at Ramallah and joint Israeli-United Nations enforcement of Palestinian transit into and out of, but also protection of, Jerusalem. Ashrawi, Rabin and his Foreign Minister, former Prime Minister Shimon Peres, will share the Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President George Bush, who, as Secretary of State earlier in the year, negotiated an end to the Bosnian Civil War. October 3: In Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, U.S. Army Rangers arrest two warlords who have been interfering with transmission of food to aid stations, as part of the mission begun last year by President duPont. But in trying to return to their two Black Hawk helicopters, they are attacked by the warlords' militias. The copters are heavily damaged, and a vicious firefight erupts. Within minutes, backup arrives, and the men, harmed and unharmed, and their captives are taken away. Upon returning to base, the toll is shown to be 17 dead. When news reaches the U.S., several Republicans denounce President Feinstein for allowing this to happen. She stands firm: "This mission was begun by my Republican predecessor for noble reasons. It will be continued and concluded by this Democratic President for noble reasons. Anyone who opposes it is condemning a million people to starvation. Those people are being saved, and will continue to be saved, until the Somalis have a stable government capable of feeding its people." But with the Mogadishu firefight, Republican calls for investigations into her husband Richard Blum's Watergate housing development are renewed. October 4: The New York Yankees and the Toronto Blue Jays finish in a tie for the American League East title. For the Playoff, the Yanks start Orlando Hernandez. The 23... or is it 24? or is it 27? Who knows?... -year-old righthander, a Cuban with a high leg kick and a devastating array of pitches, he had been drafted by the Yanks just two years earlier, when they had the top draft pick after finishing in last place in 1990. They had resisted the lure of North Carolina high school phenom Brien Taylor. Some fans wanted Yankee manager Thurman Munson to start Jimmy Key, who had helped the Jays win the World Series last year before signing with the Yanks as a free agent. The Jays go with Pat Hentgen. But it's no contest: In the top of the first, Wade Boggs, Paul O'Neill, Don Mattingly, Danny Tartabull, Mike Stanley and Bernie Williams all single, producing four runs before Hentgen can get Dion James to pop up. Hernandez, known as "El Duque" (the Duke), bewilders the Jays for eight shutout innings, slamming the door on All-Stars Paul Molitor, Rickey Henderson, Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter, and Steve Farr pitches a scoreless ninth. Yankees 5, Blue Jays 0, and 56,778 fans at Yankee Stadium rejoice. Two of them are Michael and Catherine Pacholek, taking a break from working on the re-election campaign of New Jersey Governor Jim Florio. The campaign is not going well. They begin to wonder if they can both work on the campaign and care for their two-month-old son David at the same time. In another baseball development on this day, Houston Astros owner George W. Bush

trades first baseman Jeff Bagwell, the team's most popular player, to the San Francisco Miners for pitchers Bret Saberhagen and Anthony Young. Bagwell becomes one of the most popular players in Miners history. Injuries have reduced Saberhagen, the MVP of the 1985 World Series for the Kansas City Royals, to a has-been. Young, loser of 27 straight decisions over the previous two seasons, is a never-was and never-will. Six thousand Astro fans will cancel their next year's season tickets in disgust over this trade. (This kind of very visible incompetence in his home State will have repercussions for Dubya. Speaking of baseball incompetence, on five occasions in RL-1993, William Nathaniel Showalter III, a.k.a. "Buck," took out a Yankee starter after eight innings of shutout or one-run ball, and they then lost. Five times. They lost the Division by seven. Munson is smarter than that.) October 8: The National Hockey League begins a new season with two new teams, the Colorado Avalanche, playing in Denver; and the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, named for a Disney movie about a youth hockey team. The new St. Paul Civic Center opens, and the Minnesota North Stars move into it after 26 seasons in suburban Bloomington. (The North Stars do not move to Dallas. With a new team in Denver, the Quebec Nordiques cannot move there.) October 10: The New York Yankees defeat the Chicago White Sox, 5-4 at Yankee Stadium, and win the American League Championship Series and the Pennant, four games to one. They'd won Games 2 and 4 in 10 innings, including a walkoff homer by one of those unlikely heroes that seems to come along when the Yanks most need them in the postseason, second baseman Pat Kelly. Tonight, it's a Mike Stanley double that leads to Danny Tartabull scoring from first on a bang-bang play at the plate, sliding under the mitt of Sox catcher Ron Karkovice. Yankee radio broadcaster John Sterling is so excited, he comes up with a phrase that enters the Yankee language along with Mel Allen's "How about that!" and Phil Rizzuto's "Holy cow!" He shouts, "Here's the play at the plate, he is... safe! He's safe! Tartabull is safe! Ballgame over! Yankees win! The-e-e-e Yankees win!" He had used a briefer "Yankees win! Yankees win!" after Kelly's homer in Game 2, but this version becomes an iconic line. (I'm not sure when Sterling started using it. By the time of the Jim Leyritz playoff homer in 1995, he was using a far less exaggerated version of it. By the time of the 1996 playoffs, it was in place in full.) October 20: The last debate of the campaign is held between New Jersey's candidates for Governor. The Democratic incumbent, Jim Florio, is trailing his Republican opponent, Christine Todd Whitman, whose only experience is one term as a Somerset County Freeholder and a failed campaign in 1990 against Basketball Hall-of-Famer turned U.S. Senator Bill Bradley. She has hoped to ride the anger over Florio's $2.8 billion tax hike to victory, and it's worked so far. But this is not just a nervous night for Florio for campaign reasons. The former Congressman, whose District included the parts of South Jersey closest to Philadelphia, is a Phillies fan. Last he checked before the debate started, the Phils were leading the New York Yankees 14-9 in a rainy Game 4 of the World Series at Veterans Stadium. One of his campaign speechwriters, Michael Pacholek, is a Yankee fan, and he is pacing in the wings of the

auditorium at Glassboro State University, located in Florio's old District. He is worried more about the campaign than about the Series, and is hoping Florio will use a line he's written. "Mrs. Whitman," Florio says, "I wouldn't have had to raise taxes if the previous Republican Administration in Trenton, and the recent Republican Administration in Washington, hadn't cut taxes for the wealthiest among us. It put the State's financial house in serious disorder, and it took a serious man with a serious proposal to get it back in order, which it is now. And here you are, with an easy answer: Tax cuts. Any fool can propose tax cuts. But we need serious answers. It's like President Kennedy used to say: We choose to do things, not because they are easy..." Pacholek mouths the words as the Governor finishes JFK's old line: "...but because they are hard. You are taking the easy way out, because you know no other way. Your way failed. It failed in Trenton, and it failed in Washington. My way, President Feinstein's way, has worked." Whitman's response is to robotically say the same old platitudes, looking like she just memorized a policy rather than thought it through. After the debate, Florio feels good, until he hears what happened in the game: The Yanks came from behind to win, 15-14, to take a three games to one lead. It remains to be seen whether Florio can complete his comeback. (The Toronto Blue Jays made the comeback against the Phils. The Phils could not hold a five-run lead in the seventh inning of a World Series game at home. Had they done so, the Series would have been tied, and Curt Schilling -- with me cheering for him for the last time -- would have used his shutout to give the Phils a 3-2 lead, and the Jays would have had to win both Game 6 and Game 7 in Toronto. Instead, the Jays led 3-1, Schilling's shutout in Game 5 made it 3-2, and Joe Carter's homer won Game 6 and the Series. Florio did not make the comeback against Whitman, because he refused to tell her what a moron she was, dooming New Jersey to eight years of the most corrupt government in its modern history.) October 23: Game 6 of the World Series is held at Yankee Stadium. New York Yankee Hall-of-Famer Mickey Mantle, now three years sober, throws out the first ball. The Yanks lead the Philadelphia Phillies, three games to two, but trail 6-5 in the bottom of the ninth. However, Phils closer Mitch Williams loses his control, living up to his nickname "Wild Thing," putting the tying and goahead runs on base. Paul O'Neill, the right fielder the Yankees picked up in the last off-season, comes to the plate. The Wild Thing tries an inside fastball, and O'Neill turns on it. The ball screams down the right-field line, and before Yankee broadcaster John Sterling can get out his usual words, "Swung on, and driven to deep left! It is high! It is far..." it is gone. Pandemonium erupts in The Bronx, as the Yankees win, 8-6, and take the Series in six games. In the Yankee clubhouse, Yankee owner George Steinbrenner and manager Thurman Munson pose with the World Series trophy, along with Yankee legends Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra (who recently ended a feud with Steinbrenner thanks to the newly-sober Mantle's efforts), Whitey Ford, Phil Rizzuto and Reggie Jackson (now the newest member of the Baseball Hall of Fame). Yankee first baseman and captain Don Mattingly finally has his ring. It is the second for third baseman Wade Boggs, who becomes the first player since the 1920s to have won titles with both the Yankees and their arch-rivals, the Boston Red Sox (in 1986). Boggs' 12-for-24 performance, including home runs in Game 1 and in the wild 15-14 thriller in Game 4, earn him the Series' Most Valuable

Player Award, handed to him by Baseball Commissioner Fidel Castro. Castro had been kept waiting a little bit, however, as Boggs had spent a few minutes riding behind a policeman on his horse. It is the Yankees' 25th World Championship, their first since 1981. In the postgame interview, Munson goes out of his way to tell Philadelphia fans, "Don't blame Mitch Williams. He's one of the guys who got the team here. He didn't choke. He got beat by a good hitter on a good pitch. I'm an ex-catcher, I know when a pitcher blows it and when he simply gets beat." (In RL, Boggs and O'Neill did debut with the Yankees in 1993, but had to wait until 1996 to win that title, and Boggs had to wait until '96 to ride that horse. Without the efforts of the now-sober Mantle and the still-living Munson, the George-Yogi feud lasted until 1998, mainly because a dying DiMaggio asked George to apologize for sending a flunky to fire Yogi as manager in 1985. Yogi was never mad that he was fired, only that George didn't have the decency to tell Yogi himself. Without a kind word from the RL opposing manager, Cito Gaston, Mitch Williams was run out of Philly by fans and management. I originally had Bernie Williams hit the homer in "Lee of the Union," but realized that a Williams vs. Williams matchup might be a little confusing. Besides, Bernie was the first man ever to hit two "walkoff homers" in postseason play -- Yankee-killer David Ortiz of the Red Sox is the second and currently the last -- so he didn't need this one. In "Munson Skips Flight," it was O'Neill, so I put him in.) November 2: Mayor David Dinkins of New York is re-elected, again defeating former U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani in a close race. Giuliani had tried to use crime as an issue, but it just didn't resonate with City voters. In New Jersey, Governor Jim Florio, having lost the closest election ever for the office in 1981 and winning by the second-largest margin in 1989, wins by the new secondclosest margin, defeating former Somerset County Freeholder Christine Todd Whitman by just 26,000 votes. The tax revolt that Whitman had hoped to ride to victory fizzled during the last debate, when Florio dismissed it as an easy idea that shouldn't be taken seriously by the voters. It was a passage written by speechwriter Michael Pacholek, son-in-law of Congressman Sam Crandall. James Carville and Paul Begala, who had helped to elected Dianne Feinstein President last year, have taken notice. They offer him a job with their consulting firm, but he has to take time off. Not just to enjoy his victory, but because he and his wife Catherine have agreed they can't raise a baby boy and work on a Congressional or gubernatorial campaign at the same time. December 2: Offered Doug Jones and Jeff Juden by the Houston Astros in exchange for Mitch Williams, the Philadelphia Phillies turn the trade down. With Thurman Munson's supporting remarks, Delaware Valley fans seem to be forgiving of Williams for giving up the World Series-losing home run to Paul O'Neill, and the Phils keep their volatile closer. December 17: Nile Kinnick dies of a heart attack at the age of 75. The winner of the 1939 Heisman Trophy as a two-way back at the University of Iowa, he served in the Marines in World War II, was twice elected Governor of Iowa, and was the Republican nominee for Vice President in 1964 and a candidate for President in 1968. (December 17 was the date on which I wrote the entry, and 75 seemed a reasonable age.)

1994 January 30: For the first time, a Super Bowl is a rematch of the previous year's game. And, for the first time in 41 seasons, an NFL Championship is reversed, with last year's loser defeating the winner. The Arizona Outlaws defeat the Buffalo Bills, 31-30 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. By a weird coincidence, three former teammates at East Brunswick High School in Central New Jersey have gotten the Outlaws to this point: Quarterback Bryan Fortay and safety Sam Crandall, son of a New Jersey Congressman; and Josh Miller, taken by the Outlaws after playing at the University of Arizona and in junior college in the State. Miller's field goal with 12 seconds left ices the victory for the Outlaws, who become the first former United States Football League team to win an NFL Championship, and the first Arizona-based team to win a World Championship in any sport. The Phoenix Suns have reached the NBA Finals twice, and Arizona does not yet have a team in Major League Baseball or the National Hockey League. (Super Bowl XXVIII was a rematch, but a repeat result, the Dallas Cowboys beating the Bills. Fortay played in NFL Europe and the Arena Football League, but never in the NFL. Miller was luckier: He punted in two AFC Championship Games with the Pittsburgh Steelers before winning a Super Bowl with the New England Patriots. He is one of two RL-EBHS athletes to get his number retired, the other being Dave Wohl, who played for the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia's "Big 5" basketball, for the New York Nets in the ABA and the Philadelphia 76ers in the NBA. He won two titles as an assistant to Pat Riley on the Los Angeles Lakers before coming back to New Jersey to coach the Nets, but he never had the horses. He is now a scout working under Riley on the Miami Heat.) February 25: The Baseball Hall of Fame's Committee on Veterans elects former New York Yankee shortstop and longtime broadcaster Phil Rizzuto. The "Scooter" had been eligible for the Hall since 1962, and Yankee fans had launched a large letter-writing campaign to get him in. With former teammates Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford, and opponents Ted Williams, Stan Musial and Monte Irvin, all Hall members already, on the Committee, he finally has enough votes. He will join Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Steve Carlton, and San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Orlando Cepeda, both of whom were elected last month by the Baseball Writers Association of America. (Cepeda did not make it, and this was his last chance under the BBWAA. Five years later, in his first chance under the Vets' Committee, he made it. Leo Durocher was also elected at this time, but, banned from baseball for life by Commissioner Harry Truman for his 1951 cheating, he does not make the TTL-HOF. I attended the induction ceremony in August. Carlton was known for not speaking to the press, to the point where this joke made the rounds in 1981: "The two best lefthanded pitchers in the National League are Steve Carlton and Fernando Valenzuela, and neither one speaks English." But Carlton gave a good speech. Laraine Day, a retired actress and Durocher's second wife, who he cheated on constantly leading to their divorce, gave his speech. She married him for his fame, and, being paid attention to for the first time in years, rode his fame again. Still looked good in her 70s, though. And Rizzuto's speech was a half-hour I

wouldn't have given up for anything. Well, maybe for playing the '94 season out. The reason I don't let the strike happen should be obvious: It was stupid. The reason I don't have the Yankees winning the World Series, or even the Pennant, in TTL-1994 is that they already won it in TTL-1993. So I let what I thought were the two next-best teams play for the championship.) March 21: The Academy Awards are held in Los Angeles. The Piano wins Best Picture, Best Actress for Holly Hunter, Best Supporting Actress for 12-year-old New Zealander Anna Paquin, and Best Original Screenplay for another New Zealander, Jane Campion, who was also nominated for Best Director. There were some grumblings that Schindler's Dilemma, Steven Spielberg's film about a long-forgotten German industrialist wondering what to do about the repression in Nazi Germany, should have been nominated for several awards, including Best Picture, but it got none. (With the war over in 1940, Schindler doesn't find out about the Holocaust until Rommel's "secret speech," so he never makes his list, making his story far less compelling. Liam Neeson is still a star, though.) April 14: Justice Harry Blackmun retires from the Supreme Court. To replace him, President Dianne Feinstein appoints Judge Stephen Breyer, a federal Appeals Court Judge who grew up in Massachusetts but who, like Feinstein and her first appointee, Justice Laurence Tribe, was born in San Francisco. Although his confirmation turns out to be an easy vote, some Republicans are upset at the "San Francisco Aristocracy" now ascendant in Washington. Liberal Democrats point out that the Republicans are on shaky ground when they talk about aristocratic behavior. April 22: Richard Nixon, who served as Vice President under Quentin Roosevelt, 1953 to 1961, and was the Republican nominee for President in 1960 and 1968, dies of a stroke at his home in New York City. He was 81 years old. May 19: With the Houston Astros now having lost nine straight, team owner George W. Bush panics. He fires manager Terry Collins, who'd been in charge for all of 39 games, and replaces him with John McNamara, who managed the Boston Red Sox to the 1986 World Series, where his blunders gave the Astros the World Championship. He also trades pitcher Darryl Kile to the Colorado Athletics for moody slugger Ruben Sierra. May 27: Game 7 of the NHL's Eastern Conference Finals is held at Madison Square Garden in New York. In the first period, New York Rangers captain Mark Messier prepares to pass the puck to Brian Leetch, who is in good position to score the game's first goal against the Rangers' cross-river rivals, the New Jersey Devils. But Devils forward Vladimir Krutov, remembering his fellow Russian Igor Kravhcuk's hit on Messier turning the tide of the 1990 Conference Finals, checks Messier and knocks the puck loose. With the game scoreless in the final seconds of regulation, another Russian player for the Devils, Valeri Zelepukin, scores on Mike Richter with just 7.7 seconds left. The Devils win the game, 1-0, and go on to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time in their history. For the Rangers, it is now 54 years without the Cup.

Captain Messier, who had all but promised the Cup, is booed off the ice by the long-suffering Ranger fans. (The Devils did not have Krutov, then or ever, and Leetch scored that goal. Zelepukin's goal only tied the game. In double overtime, Stephane Matteau scored a wraparound goal to win for the Rangers. It was a crushing defeat for Devils fans, to lose like that to their arch-rivals -- the Meadowlands Sports Complex and Madison Square Garden are just six miles apart; the new Newark arena, the Prudential Center, is ten miles from the Garden. Thankfully, the Devils kept the tastes in their mouth, both the bitter and the sweet, and won the next year's Stanley Cup, and three of the next nine.) June 2: Former Texas Governor Bill Clements defeats Houston Astros owner George W. Bush in the Republican Primary for Governor. Voters in the southern half of the state were angry at Bush for wrecking the Astros, and voters in the rest of the state seemed to just consider him dumb. June 12: The Vancouver Canucks defeat the New Jersey Devils in Game 6 of the Finals, 4-2, and win Vancouver's first Stanley Cup in 79 years, since the 1915 Vancouver Millionaires. Canucks goaltender Kirk McLean is awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as Playoff MVP. The Devils have had a taste of success after struggling for most of their history thus far, but they will be back, winning the Stanley Cup next season by beating the Boston Bruins, the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Philadelphia Flyers and, in a four-game sweep, the heavily favored Detroit Red Wings. In Vancouver, the news of the Canucks' Cup win is met with jubilation. In the rest of the world, however, it is overshadowed by a late-breaking story: Nicole Brown Simpson, ex-wife of Pro Football Hall-of-Famer O.J. Simpson, and a friend of hers, Ronald Goldman, are found murdered at her home. O.J. will be arrested and charged with the murders. (Hard to believe, but Vancouver had been waiting longer to win the Cup than Ranger fans were. Not anymore: The chant of "Nine-teen-for-ty!" goes on. As Devils fans say, "Rangers suck! Flyers s-----w!") July 20: Emperor Otto IV of Austria, also known as King Otto I of Hungary, Bohemia and Slovakia -- formerly King of Czechoslovakia before it split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia -- age 82, has now ruled, albeit as a figurehead the entire time, for 72 years, 3 months and 18 days. He surpasses King Louis XIV of France (1643-1715) as the longest-reigning monarch in European history. August 11: With a midnight deadline for the Major League Baseball Players to go on strike, Commissioner Fidel Castro steps in. He shocks the owners by saying, "You will never crush the union. I won't let you. No one put guns to your heads and told you to pay these high salaries. You have until October 31 to work out a new collective bargaining agreement, and it must be for at least ten years. And if it does not pass, if it does not get the 75 percent of you necessary to pass it, then I shall declare forfeit every game played by the teams of the owners who vote against it. Try to remove me as Commissioner, and I will take you to court. I know the law, and I know the league charters. You can't fire me without me going to Congress and having your antitrust exemption removed. It is time to see which of us is bluffing." It is the owners

who were bluffing: They promise a new CBA, and the players postpone their strike for one week while it is worked out. The CBA is written, and 21 of the 28 team owners -- exactly 75 percent -- vote for it, preventing baseball's greatest crisis since the Black Sox Scandal of 1919. (Since baseball's Commissioner was a team owner, Allan H. "Bud" Selig Jr. of the Milwaukee Brewers, no compromise would be made. Yes, I made Castro a hero. But, remember, this is not a totalitarian dictator who dabbles in baseball, like in RL: This is a hack machine politician who, due to his fame and love of the game, becomes a rather suspect Commissioner.) August 14: The Beatles -- 53-year-old John Lennon, 52-year-old Paul McCartney, 51-year-old George Harrison and 54-year-old Ringo Starr -- are underway in their first world tour in 31 years, playing songs from their entire careers, including the individuals' solo careers. They perform today at Stoneham Stadium in New York, where they had played on their 1965 and '66 tours, the first-ever big stadium rock concerts in the U.S., concerts whose preserved sound proves that concert-holders of the time -- performers and setup men alike -- didn't yet know what they were doing. This time, the 55,000-seat Flushing Meadow amphitheater has a proper stage so they don't look like little dolls, a proper sound system so they can be heard over any screaming, and a proper security force in case any women in their mid-50s decide to repeat their teenage mad dashes across the field. Fans of all ages attend, including 27-year-old New Jersey natives Michael and Catherine Pacholek, holding their son David, so he can truthfully claim later on that he saw the Beatles in concert. September 12: The National Health Insurance Act of 1994 is signed into law by President Dianne Feinstein. It reduces the Medicare cutoff age from 65 to 60, raises the MediKid cutoff from 18 to 21, increases the income limit for Medicaid, and works with the insurance companies to provide some medical coverage to everyone else. No longer will anyone have to worry about health catastrophes wiping out their savings. The Democrats are relieved that national health insurance has finally been achieved. The Republicans are furious, less because "socialized medicine," as they call it, has been achieved, than they are that the insurance companies will no longer be sending them gigantic campaign contributions, since the Democrats gave them a way to make money off it. "Capitalism and socialism at the same time," remarks House Republican Whip Newt Gingrich, who stands to become the Huose Minority Leader next January. "Sickening!" Gingrich vows to go all out in the fall Congressional campaign. The Republicans will take control of Congress in November, he tells his allies, and he doesn't care what it takes. (President Clinton's health-care initiative was removed from debate on this day, killing it. In RL-2007, 47 million Americans are without health insurance. In TTL-2007, the number is zero.) September 26: Kaiser Ludwig IV of Germany dies at the age of 86, after 43 years as a figurehead monarch. His 55-year-old son, Friedrich Wilhelm, succeeds him as Kaiser Friedrich IV (in English, "Emperor Frederick IV"). The new heir to the throne is his son, 26-year-old Philip. (The son of the last Crown Prince of Germany did die on this day, and his son, Friedrich Wilhelm,

now 68, would be the Kaiser should the throne ever be restored -- don't hold your breath. His son, Philip, is 39.) October 2: The Major League Baseball regular season ends. At Stoneham Stadium in New York, it ends with a bang: Giants third baseman Matt Williams hits his 61st home run of the season off Brooklyn Dodger starter Ramon Martinez. This ties both the game and Roger Maris' 1961 record of 61 homers in a season. In the ninth inning, with the game still tied, Williams bats against Dodger closer Todd Worrell, and crushes home run Number 62 over the rightfield fence, into the Giant bullpen, while reliever Rich Monteleone catches it. The hitting of Williams and Barry Bonds, and an improved pitching staff, leads the Giants to a repeat of what happened in 1952 and 1962: An epic comeback, beating the Dodgers out for first place. The Giants win the National League Wild Card. The Montreal Expos win their first NL East Title in a full season (having won in the strike-shortened 1981), the Cincinnati Reds win the Central, and the Houston Astros take the West. In the American League, the New York Yankees repeat in the East, the Chicago White sox do so in the Central, the California Angels take the West, and the Cleveland Indians squeak into the Wild Card, the franchise's first postseason appearance in 40 years. Aside from Williams' breaking Maris' record, notable individual achievements including Tony Gwynn of the San Diego Padres, whose .402 batting average is the first over .400 since fellow San Diego native Ted Williams did it in 1941, and the first in the National League since Bill Terry in 1930; Jeff Bagwell of the Astros collecting 174 runs batted in, the second-highest in NL history and the most in either league in 56 years; Bags' Astro teammate Craig Biggio hitting 68 doubles to break the 1931 record of 67 by Bill Webb, just beating out Larry Walker of the Expos and Chuck Knoblauch of the Minnesota Twins, who each had 66; and the 24-win performances of pitchers Jimmy Key of the Yankees and Ken Hill of the Expos. October 10: The South American nations of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and Venezuela form the South American Common Market, an economical and political alliance based on the European Union. At the ceremony presidents Italo Luder of Argentina and Luiz Incio Lula da Silva of Brazil both give long speeches about the democratic traditions of their countries and the region. (Pompey added this entry, and I decided to leave it in.) October 22: The World Series begins. The American League Champions, for the first time in 35 years and only the second time in 75, are the Chicago White Sox. They had defeated the New York Yankees in 5 games, after they swept the California Angels and the Yanks beat the Cleveland Indians in 4 in the Division Series. The Montreal Expos win their second National League Pennant, defeating the New York Giants in 6, after sweeping the Houston Astros and the Giants had beaten the Cincinnati Reds in a tough 5-game Division Series. Game 1 is held at Stade Olympique in Montreal. Prime Minister Jean Chretien, himself a Quebec native, catches the first ball, thrown out by former Expos great Rusty Staub. Despite the recent election of a separatist Parti Quebecois government in Quebec, Chretien is riding the wave of excitement over the Province's first World Series in 13 years. The federal

and Provincial flags, the Maple Leaf and the Fleurdelyse, are waved by fans throughout the stadium. Pedro Martinez allows just three hits, and Delino DeShields and Larry Walker hit home runs off Jack McDowell, leading the Expos to a 5-0 victory over the ChiSox. October 23: Game 2 of the World Series. Former Expos great Gary Carter throws out the first ball to Quebec Premier Jacques Parizeau. Wilson Alvarez pitches brilliantly, while Frank Thomas hits two home runs, showing Ken Hill why he's known as the Big Hurt. The White Sox beat the Expos, 6-1, and tie up the Series as it leaves the East Side of Montreal and heads for the South Side of Chicago. October 25: Game 3 of the World Series. For the first time in 24 years -- since the Cubs lost the 1970 Series to the Baltimore Orioles -- a Series game is played in Chicago, at the new Comiskey Park (later renamed U.S. Cellular Field). Hall-of-Famer Luis Aparicio throws out the first ball to future Hall-ofFamer Carlton Fisk. Alex Fernandez pitches seven shutout innings, while Robin Ventura homers, and Ozzie Guillen pulls off a suicide squeeze bunt to give the White Sox a 1-0 victory over the Expos, despite a tough-luck effort by Jeff Fassero, who allows only four hits, the same as Fernandez. The Sox lead the Series, two games to one. This matches the games they won in their last Series, in 1959, and is the closest any Chicago baseball team has come to a World Championship since the Cubs lost in seven games to the Detroit Tigers in 1945. October 26: Game 4 of the World Series. Al Lopez, the 86-year-old last manager to take the Sox to the Series before current skipper Gene Lamont, catches the first ball from one of his 1959 pitchers, fellow Hall-of-Famer Early Wynn. Pedro Martinez is nearly flawless for seven innings, allowing just one hit and one walk. In the eighth inning, he begins to tire, but John Wetteland bails him out, and the Expos take advantage of the Chicago bullpen to surge to a 7-4 victory. The series is now tied. October 27: Game 5 of the World Series. White Sox Hall-of-Famer Minnie Minoso throws out the first ball. Black Jack McDowell does something only one other pitcher, Don Larsen of the 1956 Yankees, has done in postseason play: He pitches a no-hitter, although an error by shortstop Ozzie Guillen prevents him from matching Larsen's feat of a World Series perfect game. The White Sox win, 3-0, and are just one win away from taking the first World Series for the City of Chicago since 1917. The Expos must win Games 6 and 7 in Montreal to win the title. (I would not have given Guillen such a prominent role in this Series if he hadn't come back as White Sox manager and made a spectacle of himself -- and, at the same time, a World Champion out of his former team.) October 29: Game 6 of the World Series. Former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau throws out the first ball as 60,000 Quebecois cheer, including many separatists who once despised him, as well as the federalists who always loved him. Jeff Fassero and Wilson Alvarez both pitch shutout ball through eight innings. The bullpens take over, but in the bottom of the 13th inning,

catcher Darrin Fletcher hits a drive to dead center field off Paul Assenmacher, and the Expos have a stunning 1-0 victory. Game 7 will be tomorrow night, and one team will win its first World Series in 13 years, or the other will win its first in 77 years. (Anybody who had doubts that this thing would go seven games just doesn't understand how much those of us who love baseball missed the postseason that year. When Bud Selig cancelled the remainder of the season, it was hard. September 12, 1994, the day the decision was made is a day that lives in infamy.) October 30: Game 7 of the World Series at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. The Expos are taking no chances, as Maurice "the Rocket" Richard, the legendary right wing of the Montreal Canadiens and the most popular person in the history of the Province of Quebec, throws out the ceremonial first ball. A young starlet named Celine Dion sings the National Anthems, "The StarSpangled Banner" softly, and "O, Canada" as if the nation's life, not just one World Series, depended on it. Over 60,000 people roar throughout the game. Pedro Martinez starts for the Expos. Alex Fernandez starts for the Chicago White Sox. Martinez pitches a no-hitter through five innings. But Robin Ventura homers in the sixth, tying the game at 1-1. Moises Alou, son of Expos manager Felipe Alou, homers off Fernandez in the seventh to make it 2-1 Expos. For a moment, Moises looks like a hero every bit as great as Richard. The game goes to the ninth inning, but Martinez has now thrown 110 pitches. He can't find the plate, and loads the bases. Felipe Alou goes out to the mound, and asks, "Tienes algo dej?" (Do you have anything left?) Second baseman Joey Cora, a switch-hitter who would be batting lefthanded against the righthanded Martinez, is up. "Permtame en l, l ser fcil," Pedro says. (Let me at him, he will be easy.) Pedro throws Cora a split-fingered fastball that doesn't quite break enough, and Cora sends it up the middle for a hit. Julio Franco scores the tying run from third. Darrin Jackson attempts to score the potential Series-winning run. He slides under catcher Darrin Fletcher's tag, and is ruled safe. White Sox 3, Expos 2. Roberto Hernandez takes the mound for the bottom of the ninth, and gets Larry Walker to pop up to Ventura for the last out. For the first time in 77 years, the White Sox are World Champions. Expos fans will wonder, for the rest of their lives, why Felipe didn't take Pedro out. But they have had a glorious season, one that lasted just one inning too long. (Shades of RL-2003. Will the Pedro-Grady Little scenario play out in TTL-2003? No. I have a plan for that.) November 8: The Republicans take both houses of Congress in today's elections. Newt Gingrich of Georgia will be the new Speaker of the House, and Trent Lott of Mississippi will be the Senate Majority Leader. The elections for Governor go the GOP's way, too. In New York, incumbent Democrat Herman Badillo is defeated by Republican State Senator George Pataki. Bill Clements regains the Governorship of Texas, defeating incumbent Ann Richards. The Republicans had used a previously little-exploited medium, talk radio, as their mouthpiece, having show hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Bob Grant tell people that President Dianne Feinstein and the rest of the Democratic Party are leading America on the road to Chinese-style socialism. They also use some vicious anti-liberal and anti-Feinstein articles in right-wing magazines like old standbys National Review and The American Spectator, and the new Weekly

Standard. The Democrats tried to counter the charges, calling them "lies" and saying some minor stories were blown out of proportion, like First Gentleman Richard Blum's "Watergate" real estate deal. The Democrats looked very ineffectual breaking through the Republican lies and exaggerations, and this hurt them further, making the Republicans look like they, unlike the Democrats, were a gang that could shoot straight. The Weekly Standard didn't start until 1996. Somehow, with the President a liberal Jewish woman from San Francisco who had a history of favoring gun control and gays from her days as Mayor and, in TTL, Governor, I think Fred Barnes and William Kristol were willing to go with it early.) November 11: The film Star Trek: Generations is released. It is the last film to feature members of the old crew: William Shatner as former Enterprise Captain James Fitzgerald Kirk, Nichelle Nicholls as his wife, now Ambassador Nyota Uhura, James Doohan as Starfleet Captain of Engineers Montgomery Scott, and Walter Koenig as Captain Pavel Chekov, now commanding the starship Leonov. Lieutenant Commander Samantha Kirk, Kirk & Uhura's daughter, played by Cree Summer, is now 23 years old and the First Officer of the Enterprise-B. Jacqueline Kim plays Ensign Demora Sulu, daughter of former Enterprise helmsman Hikaru Sulu; his portrayer, George Takei, chose not to appear in this film. The first part of the film shows Kirk's apparent death, trying to rescue the Enterprise-B on its first mission. In the main section, featuring the "Next Generation" cast led by Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, legendary singer Lena Horne makes a special appearance as 101-year-old Admiral Samantha Kirk, briefing the Enterprise-D crew on a renewal of the threat seen in the first part of the film. Uncle Mike Aug 31 2007, 12:40 AM Post #60

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 1995 January 8: Elvis Presley is honored with a 60th birthday tribute at the Pyramid arena in his home town of Memphis. All proceeds are divided equally between a pair of Memphis hospitals with connections to Elvis: The Gladys Presley Rehabilitation Center and St. Jude's Children's Hospital. Among the King's fellow Rock and Roll Hall of Famers paying tribute, with these songs listed in chronological order: Neil Young, "I Forgot to Remember to Forget"; Johnny Cash, "Mystery Train"; Jerry Lee Lewis, "Jailhouse Rock"; Eric Clapton, "Fools Fall In Love"; Elton John, "A Little Less Conversation"; Stevie Wonder, "In the

Ghetto"; and ex-Beatle Paul McCartney, "Way Down." Future Hall-of-Famers performing include Billy Joel, "Heartbreak Hotel"; David Bowie (who shares Elvis' birthday), "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You"; Chris Isaak, "Hound Dog"; Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders, "Don't Be Cruel"; Sting, "Love Me Tender"; John Mellencamp, "Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear"; John Fogerty, "Hard Headed Woman"; Bono of U2, "It's Now Or Never"; Rod Stewart, "Are You Lonesome Tonight"; Levon Helm of The Band, "Little Sister"; Don Henley, "Marie's the Name of His Latest Flame"; Tom Petty, "You're the Devil In Disguise"; Bruce Springsteen, "If I Can Dream"; Tom Jones, "Suspicious Minds"; Melissa Etheridge, "Burning Love"; Meat Loaf, "My Way"; George Michael, "Father Figure" (which he wrote for Elvis, who took it to Number 1in 1988); and Prince, singing "Kiss," which Elvis covered and made a Top 10 hit in 1989. Elvis himself closes the concert with "An American Trilogy," a medley of "Dixie," "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "All My Trials," and his encore is "Can't Help Falling In Love." After which, Elvis leaves the building, and takes all the stars with him back to Graceland. Having gotten back down to 190 pounds, he can afford the pig-out he hosts there. (I originally goofed and moved a 70th birthday tribute back here, with Pink, "You're the Devil In Disguise"; Justin Timberlake, "Bossa Nova Baby"; Christina Aguilera, "If I Can Dream"; and Alicia Keys, "Memories" -- all whom were stars by 2005, but none of whom were even out of high school in 1995.) February 9: Former Vice President William Fulbright dies at his home in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He had served under President John F. Kennedy from 1964 to 1969, had previously served in both houses of Congress, and was the founder of the Fulbright Scholar program for international study exchange. He was 89 years old. March 2: The Balanced Budget Amendment, passed by the Republicancontrolled Congress, fails in the Republican-controlled Senate. The Senate has also killed other aspects of the House Republicans' "Contract With America," inlcuding Constitutional Amendments to require a 60 percent majority of each house in order to raise taxes, and to make burning the American flag a crime. Not even getting out of the House is an Amendment to limit members of each house of Congress to 12 years service (potentially, a total of 24 years), which was one of the few Contract items on which new Speaker Newt Gingrich failed to keep his party united. Although Gingrich has failed with much of his Contract, he rationalizes this by saying he only promised to bring these items up for a House vote, and thus succeeded, and has had other successes. But a majority of what both houses of Congress passes relating to the Contract is vetoed by President Dianne Feinstein. "I will not let a group of people whose partisan zeal surpasses both their common sense and their talent make a mockery of the Constitution," she says. March 8: Malcolm Glazer purchases the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers from feuding co-owners Georgia Frontiere and Hugh Culverhouse Jr. Both are fed up with the NFL and neither is ever involved with the league again. Glazer will rebuild the Bucs into a Playoff team in three seasons and a Super Bowl winner in eight.

April 16: Rebecca Grace Pacholek, named for two of her great-grandmothers, is born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, joining parents Catherine and Michael and brother David. May 14: Justice W. Arthur Garrity retires from the Supreme Court for health reasons. The Republican leaders who control Congress vow to fight any appointment by Feinstein of a liberal Justice, so they can replace the liberal Garrity with a conservative Justice, or at least a moderate one. "No more Arthur Garritys, no more Laurence Tribes, no more Ruth Ginsburgs, no more Bill Brennans, no more Earl Warrens!" shouts Speaker Newt Gingrich in front of a wildly cheering crowd at a Republican fundraiser. (Garrity was the judge who allowed busing to integrate Boston's public schools in 1974. In TTL, that wasn't necessary. I wanted a name conservatives would both recognize and despise.) May 21: Although the Quebec Nordiques have recently been eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs, several petitions have reached the National Assembly, the Provincial legislature in Quebec City, asking the NA to give the Nords a partial bailout. In light of this reaction, and that of the fans in Montreal at last year's World Series, Premier Jacques Parizeau gives his assent to the bailout. The Nordiques will be able to afford to stay in Quebec for at least three more years. But the Province will not build the team a new arena to replace the aging Colisee de Quebec without significant improvement in the team's fortunes. (Parizeau and the NA did not bail out the Nordiques, and they moved as defending Northeast Division Champions -- to the Pacific Division, where, as the Denver-based Colorado Avalanche, they won the Stanley Cup the very next season and took the Division every year until 2004. My thanks to the Quebec Nordiques Preservation Society, for the alternate-history article on their website. But even that has the Nords failing to secure a new arena, and moving in 1998, being bought by Ted Turner to become the Atlanta Thrashers. In TTL, they remain in Quebec City.) June 2: President Dianne Feinstein appoints Federal Appeals Court Judge Emmett Till to the Supreme Court seat vacated by the retirement of Justice Arthur Garrity. Although liberal on most issues, he is considered enough of a moderate to pass a majority of the Senate, currently controlled by Republicans. The key to Till's confirmation is his cordial relationship with the Senate Majority Leader, Trent Lott of Mississippi. Till has relatives in the Camellia State, and has known Lott, who is the same age, for years. Along with the rejection and watering-down of some of the House "Contract With America" initiatives, this is continuing evidence of a split in the solidarity that had been in place between Lott's Senate Republicans and the House Republicans controlled by Speaker Newt Gingrich. (No kidding: Till and Lott were both born in 1941. When RL-Till was kidnapped, brutally beaten and murdered at age 14 in 1955, what side was Lott on?) June 20: The Baltimore Orioles defeat the New York Yankees, 8-7 at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, in Baltimore. Oriole Shortstop Cal Ripken plays in his 2,131st straight game, breaking the record set from 1925 to 1939 by Yankee Hall-of-Famer Lou Gehrig. The streak will reach 2,705 straight games before

Ripken finally takes himself out of the lineup near the end of the 1998 season. (No strike of 1994-95 means the 2,131st came comes sooner, and the streak gets even longer than its RL 2,632.) June 30: Apollo 13 is released. The film tells the story of the 1970 mission to the Moon that was nearly ruined by a malfunction, and the performances of the American astronauts, and the Russian "cosmonauts" aboard Luna II who aided them. Tom Hanks plays Apollo XIII commander Gene Cernan. (Hanks played Apollo XIII commander Jim Lovell, and there was no Russian rescue: Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert had to rely on themselves and Mission Control in Houston.) August 13: Baseball legend Mickey Mantle undergoes surgery to replace the knees that had so badly troubled him during his playing career. It took five years for his doctors to say that his liver had recovered from his 40 years of heavy drinking to the point where such a surgery would not endanger his life. (Mantle died on this day. When he quit drinking, thinking he might live longer, he talked to teammate Whitey Ford and Jets quarterbacking legend Joe Namath, who both told him to get his knees replaced as soon as possible, that he'd feel much better. Mickey's doctors told him his liver had to get into better shape before they dared attempt the surgery. They never did.) September 3: The National Football League expands. The NFC gets the Charlotte-based Carolina Panthers. In the AFC, after 35 years as their owner, Bud Adams sells the Houston Oilers to Houston businessman Bob McNair, and gets an expansion team, the Nashville-based Tennessee Titans. Only Al Davis' silver-and-black misfits could have moved from the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, on the fringe of South Central, down the freeway to comfy, suburban Orange County, and feel like they're in exile. But after two years at Anaheim Stadium, 30 miles from downtown Los Angeles, the Raiders move into a renovated Coliseum, its 1923 arched peristyle refurbished and its 90,000-seat bowl totally rebuilt into a 70,000-seat modern superstructure. Davis had wanted to move back to Oakland, and actually offered to switch cities with the Invaders, one of the former USFL teams, but the Invaders owners laughed at the idea. Why not? They've made the Playoffs the last three years in Oakland, while the Raiders have stunk the last couple of years. The City of Anaheim is relieved, as these staid, rich and upper-middle-class conservatives are concerned less with the Raiders stinking and more with the smell of their disgusting fans, who, in their costumes, look more like a biker gang or the rock group KISS than traditional football fans. In their first games, the Panthers lose 23-20 in Atlanta to the Falcons, who will become their geographic arch-rivals; the Raiders beat the San Diego Chargers in Oakland, 17-7; and, by a quirk in the schedule, the Texans and Titans open against each other, with the Titans winning 10-3 at Vanderbilt Stadium in Nashville, the Titans' temporary home while a larger stadium is being built. October 3: Pro Football Hall-of-Famer O.J. Simpson is found guilty of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman, a friend of Nicole's who was a potential witness to the crime. The conviction was secured in the voters' minds by the testimony of Los Angeles Police Detective

Mark Fuhrman. Simpson's attorneys had attempted to paint Fuhrman as a racist who had helped frame Simpson for the crime, but this tactic did not convince the jury. Simpson will be sentenced to life in prison without parole, since the Los Angeles County District Attorney chose not to seek the death penalty for the football legend. As of 2007, Simpson is still in the Corcoran State Prison, where his "neighbors" include murder-cult leader Charles Manson, and Sirhan Sirhan, the would-be assassin of President John F. Kennedy. (Manson and Sirhan, convicted killer of Robert Kennedy, are indeed in the same prison. In TTL, 134 years after the Slavery Rebellion and almost a century after Plessy v. Ferguson, race is a minor issue in California v. Simpson, and he loses.) October 14: For two years now, Republican politicians and other prominent conservatives have demanded that Attorney General Bill Clinton appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate President Dianne Feinstein and her husband, businessman Richard Blum, for their handling of the Watergate housing development in the East Bay area of California. For the first time, Clinton speaks for himself and refuses, coining a phrase that will echo through the years: "The people who want a Special Prosecutor couldn't defeat the President at the polls, and they can't find any wrongdoing on the part of the President. So they attack the First Gentleman, as if attacking an opponent's family was fair game. And they still can't find any wrongdoing, so they want me to hire someone who will do it for them. They are engaging in the politics of personal destruction, and I'm tired of it! There will be no special prosecutor as long as I continue to serve as Attorney General! And I will continue to serve as long as the President wants me to. She will decide when my time in office is at an end, no one else." Thus baited, several Republicans demand that Feinstein fire Clinton. She refuses. October 30: Just one year to the day after the Montreal Expos lost the World Series, the voters of Quebec go to the polls to vote on a sovereignty referendum. Aware of the pride brought about by the Expos and the Quebec Nordiques, they decide, in a close vote, to stay in Canada, 52 to 48 percent. Premier Jacques Parizeau resigns as chief executive of the Province. (The actual vote was incredibly close, about 50.4 percent to 49.6 percent. Parizeau did resign, however, blaming "money and ethnics" for the defeat -- meaning the Anglophones and other non-French people and their financial backers. This was a far cry from the 1980 referendum, defeated 59 to 41, which Premier Rene Levesque accepted with class, saying simply, "A la prochaine." Until the next. Levesque served as Premier from 1976 to 1985, and died in 1987, so he did not see "the next." Had he lived, and had he spoken for it, it probably would have passed.) November 1: On the request of his father, the former Vice President of the United States, George W. Bush sells the Houston Astros to businessman Drayton McLane. Having paid $75 million for the Astros, Bush receives $65 million for them. He has become the laughingstock of Texas. November 2: After losing the American League Division Series to the Seattle Mariners, New York Yankee manager Thurman Munson has had enough of

owner George Steinbrenner's meddling, and quits. Steinbrenner will soon hire another ex-catcher, Joe Torre, who had previously managed the New York Mets, Atlanta Braves and St. Louis Cardinals. The Yanks will be wildly successful under Torre, more so even than under Munson. November 6: Art Modell sells the Cleveland Browns to a friend, local businessman Al Lerner, who told him, "I don't care how much money Municipal Stadium is costing you, if you can't make money as the owner of a National Football League team, you're a damn fool." Modell keeps a 5 percent interest. Lerner begins negotiations with the City of Cleveland, the County of Cuyahoga and the State of Ohio to build a new stadium on the site of Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The Browns will play at Ohio Stadium, on the Ohio State campus in Columbus, for the 1996 and '97 seasons before the new Municipal Stadium opens in 1998. November 13: Unless President Feinstein reaches an agreement with Congress on a new budget, or at least a "continuing resolution" by midnight, the federal government will be shut down due to a lack of funding. Feinstein has spent the last year hearing Congressional Republicans question her patriotism, her ethics, her intelligence, her "family values," and her commitment to America's working people. She has had enough, and she tells Speaker Gingrich, "I don't care if I go down to five percent in the polls. I am a Democrat, and a Democrat does not sign a budget that hurts the most vulnerable of our citizens! Consider that budget plan vetoed until you restore the funding those people need! Until you do, you can take that budget plan and shove it up your big, fat, fascist tuchus!" Gingrich, not used to hearing someone -- especially a woman -- speak to him that way, and certainly not used to hearing Yiddish words (the President is, after all, Jewish), is stunned, and walks out looking much less confident than he was when he walked in. He does not speak to the media waiting outside. (Clinton did not tell Gingrich where he could put his budget. Rather, he said, "I don't care if I go down to five percent in the polls. If you want that budget passed, you're going to have to put somebody else in that chair," pointing to the one behind the desk in the Oval Office. It wasn't just the moment he won the budget battle, it was the moment that insured that he would win re-election and that Gingrich's "revolution" would fail. At least, until 2000, when the Republicans regained the White House, not by revolution, but by coup.) November 14: The U.S. federal government has been shut down, due to a lack of a budget. A strategy session at the White House goes long into the night. Members of the Cabinet are on hand. A White House intern delivers some pizzas. The Attorney General is particularly pleased with the pizza. And with the intern. "Thanks, Miss...?" He doesn't know her name. "Monica," she says. "Monica Lewinsky, Mr. Clinton." President Feinstein sees the way her Attorney General is looking at the intern, and says, "Don't get any ideas, Bill! Monica, the Attorney General is married, and his wife is tougher than anyone in this room. So don't you get any ideas, either!" There will be no agreement tonight between the White House and the Congress... or between the White House intern and the Attorney General.

November 17: Pierce Brosnan, the Irish actor best known for playing 1980s TV private detective Remington Steele, has a new name. "The name's Bond. James Bond." The first Bond film in six years, Goldeneye, premieres. Judi Dench takes over as MI6 head "M." The new actress playing Jane Moneypenny? Her name is Bond. Samantha Bond. Orson Bean, himself once considered a candidate to play Agent 007, plays Agent 006, Alec Trevelyan, now defected to that most insidious of enemies, big business. He is an agent for the Janus Syndicate, seeking to use the Goldeneye satellite to intimidate the world's military and economic powers into doing things his way. Danish actress Famke Janssen plays his Georgian aide and girlfriend, Xenia Onatopp, who has both a typically racy "Bond Girl"-type name and a rather unusual way of, uh, getting what she wants. Bond is assisted by Russian electronics expert Natalia Simonova, played by Polish actress Izabella Scorupco. Strangely, the gadgets, cars and fashions suggest that this film seems to take place in the late 1970s or early 1980s -- in fact, some critics call it a ripoff of the 1971 Bond film Diamonds Are Forever, with Roger Moore -- and M calls Bond "a relic of the Sino-Western Cold War," which ended in 1979, as well as "a blatant misogynist who cannot stand that a woman is in power," which may suggest M herself, or Margaret Thatcher, who served as Prime Minister of Britain from 1979 to 1990. This is, perhaps, to account for the last Bond film, Licence to Kill, in which the previous Bond, Timothy Dalton, said toward the end, "I can't do this anymore," citing his advancing age. Brosnan is 42 years old, and looks considerably younger than Moore and David Niven were when they gave up playing Bond. November 19: With the American public siding with President Dianne Feinstein over the Republican leaders of Congress by a 2-to-1 margin, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott talks House Speaker Newt Gingrich into finding a compromise solution for the budget crisis. "Don't you understand, Trent?" the Speaker asks. "Getting a budget is secondary. The important thing is to win! To beat her! To take back the White House next year!" Lott wants Gingrich to think of it another way: "We'll win, Newt. Just remember, she's a Jew. We'll go to heaven, and she won't." Gingrich, knowing he'll have some explaining of his own to do when he meets God, can only shake his head and accept the idea of compromise. After all, he's always been motivated by earthly desires, not heavenly ones. Sometimes, he thinks, it's a wonder the religious right and I get along at all. (The views expressed by the Lott character in this entry are reflective of many of the "evangelicals" in the Republican Party, and may, or may not, reflect RL-Lott's views, which are definitely bigoted toward blacks and gays, although I have never heard of him making an anti-Semitic statement.) December 6: The Montreal Canadiens trade their spectacular but disgruntled goaltender Patrick Roy to the Winnipeg Jets for the Jets' goaltender, Nikolai Khabibulin, and center Mike Eastwood. "Le Trade" becomes a dark moment in the Canadiens' long, proud history, as they would win just two playoff series from 1996 through 2006. By the year 2002, Montreal Gazette]/i] sports columnist Jack Todd would be saying the Habs were under "The Curse of St. Patrick," although most sports teams said to be "cursed" have gone far longer without winning a World Championship than the Canadiens, and have lost in

heartbreaking and often bizarre ways, something the Canadiens managed to avoid over that period. (Since the Avalanche are still the Nordiques, and are still nasty rivals of the Habs, the Habs can't send Roy there, even if Quebec City is his home town -- he was born there on October 5, 1965, the same day another hockey legend, Mario Lemieux, was born in Montreal. I needed to send Roy to a Western Conference team. This way, I do that, and I save the Jets from moving. The name "Habs" is short for "Les Habitantes," a nickname for the early farmers of New France, the original name of Quebec. But the "CH" on the Canadiens' jersey doesn't not stand for "Canadiens" and "Habitantes." Rather, it is their corporate name, "Club de Hockey Canadien." It's not a CH, even though everyone calls it "the CH," it's an HC. Todd really has called the Habs' post-trade woes the Curse of St. Patrick, but there's no bizarreness to their difficulties, except -- or, should I say, save -- for allowing an opposing goalie to score on them in a Playoff game, and one from Montreal, no less, Martin Brodeur of the New Jersey Devils. His father, Denis Brodeur, was the Canadian goaltender in the 1956 Olympics and the longtime team photographer for the Habs and Expos.) 1996 January 3: President Dianne Feinstein vetoes the Telecommunications Bill. "It would create mergers that would eliminate competition in most American TV and radio markets," she says, "and allow a select few to control what the American people can see and hear. It is monopolistic and unconstitutional." The Republican-controlled House overrides her veto, 292-138, but the Senate fails to do so, 64-35, and the bill dies. (Clinton signed the bill. In TTL, take that, Rupert Murdoch!) January 28: Super Bowl XXX is held at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona, outside Phoenix. The Arizona Outlaws had won the NFC Title by beating the Dallas Cowboys. Although the 1979 Los Angeles Rams (at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena) and the 1984 San Francisco 49ers (at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto) had played in Super Bowls in their own metropolitan areas, the 1995 Outlaws become the first team ever to play a Super Bowl on its home Field. They face the Pittsburgh Steelers, who beat the Baltimore Colts for the AFC Title. Early in the fourth quarter, Outlaws defensive end Clyde Simmons sacks Steeler quarterback Neil O'Donnell, knocking him out of the game. Kordell Stewart comes in to replace O'Donnell, and leads them to tie the game and produce the first overtime Super Bowl. With 2:54 left in the first overtime, Gary Anderson, the Steelers' South African-born placekicker, kicks a 27-yard field goal to win the game, 27-24. The Steelers join the 49ers as the only teams to win five Super Bowls, although, when pre-Super Bowl NFL Championships are counted, both teams still trail the Green Bay Packers (12), Chicago Bears (9) and New York Giants (6) and are matched by the Washington Federals. (O'Donnell stayed in the game and threw two incredibly dumb interceptions to Dallas Cowboys cornerback Larry Brown, and the Steelers lost, 27-17. As someone in his right mind, I despise the Cowboys, and so their success in TTL is severely limited. "America's Team," my Polack ass.)

February 12: Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana wins the Iowa Caucuses on a family-values, smaller-government, low-taxes platform. Reagan speechwriterturned-journalist Pat Buchanan finishes a surprising second. Former Governor Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who previously ran in 1984, finishes third. Far behind are Senators Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, Phil Gramm of Texas and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania; Congressman Bob Dornan of California; former Ambassador Alan Keyes, and Forbes magazine chairman Malcolm S. "Steve" Forbes Jr. February 20: Steve Forbes -- Malcolm Stevenson Forbes Jr. -- a magazine publisher from New Jersey, wins the New Hampshire Primary. He wins in the most taxophobic State in the Union with a plan for a "flat tax." A kind of national sales tax, it taxes income from wages, hurting the poor and middle class, but not income from investments, helping the rich. Forbes edged Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana, who won in Iowa last week, and journalist Pat Buchanan. New Hampshire's Republican voters seem to be favoring political neophytes (although Buchanan also ran for President in 1992) over people who have actually been elected to public office, like Quayle, former Governor Lamar Alexander of Tennessee (4th place), Senator Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina (5th), Senator Phil Gramm of Texas (6th, and like Alexander and Dole counting on the upcoming Southern States), Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania (7th and banking on a win in neighboring Delaware next week), Congressman Bob Dornan of California (8th and waiting for more conservative States to come), and former Ambassador Alan Keyes (9th). President Dianne Feinstein is, of course, unopposed on the Democratic side. February 24: Publisher Steve Forbes and his flat tax idea win in the taxophobic State of Delaware. He gets 36 percent of the vote, and no other candidate gets more than 18 percent. That's Senator Arlen Specter, and if he can't win in an otherwise moderate State that borders his native Pennsylvania and gets most of its media from his home town of Philadelphia, then he's finished. He drops out, leaving eight candidates to oppose President Dianne Feinstein. February 27: Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana, who went to high school in Arizona, wins that State's Primary, defeating publisher Steve Forbes handily. No other candidate came close to them. (Although from Huntington, Indiana, Quayle had relatives in the Phoenix area, and graduated from Scottsdale High School, two years behind Baseball Hall-of-Famer Jim Palmer.) March 2: The first Southern primary of the election is held, and it goes to a Southern ex-Governor, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. He wins 32 percent of the South Carolina vote, while Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, who was really counting on this State, wins just 24 percent. Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana takes third with 17 percent, and nobody else gets more than the 12 percent of Senator Elizabeth Dole of neighboring North Carolina. She drops out of the race and endorses Alexander. Congressman Bob Dornan of California, counting on the religious-conservative and veteran vote, also drops out, but withholds any endorsement for now. This leaves six candidates: Alexander, Gramm, Quayle, publisher Steve Forbes, journalist Pat Buchanan and former

Ambassador Alan Keyes. However, only the first four have won a serious amount of delegates already. Next Tuesday has eight Primaries, and could be make-or-break for somebody. March 5: Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana wins the Colorado, Connecticut and Maine Primaries. Former Governor Lamar Alexander of Tennessee wins the primary in neighboring Georgia. Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, who was born in Georgia, finishes a distant second there and drops out of the race, endorsing Quayle. Publisher Steve Forbes wins in the New England States of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont. Alexander also wins in Maryland, home State of former Ambassador Alan Keyes, who nonetheless stays in the race because he believes none of the other candidates is strong enough on the issues that matter to him, not even Quayle on abortion or journalist Pat Buchanan on opposition to gay rights. Buchanan, a native of Washington, D.C. who now lives in Virginia, finishes second in neighboring Maryland and, like Keyes, vows to keep fighting until the Republican Convention in San Diego in August. March 7: Former Governor Lamar Alexaner of Tennessee scores a big win in the New York Primary. He had gotten off some great lines to use on his competitors in last night's debate, broadcast on several New York City TV stations. To publisher Steve Forbes of neighboring New Jersey, who had been counting on the New York "Wall Street Republicans" or "country-club Republicans" to give him a win there and keep his campaign going: "Steve, your flat tax is truly a nutty idea. How can we trust you to run this country? I've been the Governor of a large State. The only thing you've ever run is a magazine you inherited. And you raised the price of your magazine." Forbes finishes second and never recovers. To Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana: "Dan, it just doesn't make sense to talk about 'family values' when not every family is two parents, married to each other, with children. There are plenty of single-parent homes, children raised by grandparents or aunts and uncles, and blended families. There are divorced parents who work together to raise their kids. And some of these kids turn out just fine. Some don't. Just like in two-married-parents homes. And stop talking about reforming the legal system. The only people who want to hear about that are conservative lawyers. Heck, I'm a conservative lawyer, and it's not one of my top ten issues." Quayle finishes a distant third, and will have to count on the upcoming Midwestern State Primaries. To Pat Buchanan: "Pat, if I want someone to write a column or a speech about government abuses, I'd call you in a heartbeat. But if I want someone in government who can stop those abuses, I want someone with government experience. Your government experience is limited to writing speeches for a President, and he was beaten for re-election." Buchanan, who had been White House Communications Director to Ronald Reagan, gets barely 4 per cent of the New York vote. And to former Ambassador Alan Keyes: "Alan, if Dan, Pat and I aren't anti-abortion enough for you, then that's your problem, not the voters' problem. I think they'll be satisfied with one of us on the issue. And while I oppose gay marriage, why should we as a party oppose gay people? They're American citizens, too. They vote. Not for you, but I hope they'd see that the Republican Party is better for them on most issues than the Democrats."

Despite being black, and being on the ballot in New York City, Keyes gets less than 1 percent of the vote. Still, he and Buchanan continue their hopeless campaigns. (Alexander really did use that line to Forbes, although it was in New Hampshire, not New York, and I added the part about being "Governor of a large State." Tennessee is certainly large in area, but only mid-size in population. He didn't use the lines above on Quayle -- who didn't even run in 1996, but then, in TTL, was never the laughable Vice President he was in RL, so is taken more seriously -- or on Buchanan or Keyes. If anything, Buchanan got off the second-best line of the debate: Invoking the CNN show on which he was a frequent panelist when not running for President, "Lamar, welcome to 'Crossfire!'") March 12: Seven Primaries, all but one in the South. Governor Alexander wins in Mississippi, Oklahoma, Texas and his native Tennessee. Senator Quayle wins in Florida and Louisiana, and in the non-Southern State of Oregon. Only in Oregon does Steve Forbes finish as high as second, as the nation has rejected his flat tax as being skewed towards the wealthy (investment income would not be taxed) and hurting everyone else (wages would be taxed, much higher than they are now). Still, he stays in the race. March 19: Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana wins three States bordering his own, Illinois, Michigan and Ohio. Publisher Steve Forbes keeps his campaign alive with a surprise win in Wisconsin. Former Governor Lamar Alexander wins none of the four States up for grabs today, but finishes second in all but Wisconsin. March 26: The California Primary is a dogfight, with Senator Quayle winning 41 percent, largely due to the archconservatives in Southern California, due to his endorsements by Governor Pete Wilson and Congressmen like Bob Dornan, Dana Rohrabacher, Duncan Hunter and Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Senator Alexander wins 38 percent, while Forbes takes 15 percent, with the rest scattered. Alexander, however, wins Washington and Nevada, to stay neck-and-neck with Quayle in delegates. Forbes drops out and endorses Alexander. April 23: Former Governor Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, with the endorsements of Governor Tom Ridge, Senator Arlen Specter and Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, wins the Pennsylvania Primary. Despite having the endorsements of anti-abortion crusaders like Senator Rick Santorum, former Governor Dick Thornburgh and a crossover Democrat, former Governor Bob Casey, Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana finishes second, even losing Indiana County. Alexander is once again the leader for the Republican nomination. April 28: The Quebec Nordiques win the NHL Northeast Division, and go on to beat the surprising Tampa Bay Lightning, a fourth-year expansion team, in the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals. In the West, sparked by goaltender Patrick Roy, the Winnipeg Jets shock the heavily-favored Detroit Red Wings. Moving after this season or not, there will still be more NHL hockey in Winnipeg after today. (With Nikolai Khabibulin in goal, the Jets battled bravely before falling to the Wings in Game 6 at the Winnipeg Arena. With a full

house of 15,399 fans cheering them on, they skated around the ice with their sticks held high, ending 24 years of major league hockey in Manitoba. They were moved to Phoenix and became the Coyotes. They've done little better there than they did in "Loseipeg.") May 7: Senator Quayle wins the Primary in his home State of Indiana. Governor Alexander wins his neighboring State of North Carolina. Next week, Quayle will win Nebraska, while Alexander will win neighboring Virginia. The next, Alexander will win neighboring Arkansas. The week after that, Alexander will win neighboring Kentucky while Quayle will win Idaho. The race for the Republican nomination may go to the wire. May 14: The Quebec Nordiques beat the New York Rangers in the NHL's Eastern Conference Semifinals. The Rangers' Stanley Cup drought is now 56 years, and the "Trade Messier!" calls are increasing. The stage is now set for a grudge match Conference Final against the Philadelphia Flyers, whose captain, Eric Lindros, had enraged the Nordique faithful four years earlier by refusing to play for the team, using their French-language dominance as an excuse, and demanding the trade that ultimately rebuilt and saved the Quebec City franchise. June 1: The 1996 NHL Eastern Conference Finals are a knock-down, drag-out affair that goes down as one of the greatest hockey matchups of all time. After falling behind in the series 2-0 with back-to-back losses at the Colisee, the Quebec Nordiques come back by taking the next two games in Philadelphia, and by finally beating the Flyers in Quebec City in Game 5. The Flyers, led by their Legion of Doom Line of Eric Lindros, John LeClair and Mikael Renberg, come back to win Game 6 in what turns out to be the final major league sporting event in Philadelphia's Spectrum. (Their new arena, known by 2007 as the Wachovia Center, opened the next season.) But Game 7 at the Colisee remains scoreless into triple overtime, as Nords goalie Stephane Fiset and Flyer netminder Ron Hextall turned back shot after shot for 60, 80, 100 minutes. Finally, at 104 minutes and 31 seconds, Uwe Krupp, the Nords' ordinarily low-scoring defenseman from Germany, fires a shot from the blue line that gets past Hextall, and the Nords win the game, 1-0, and advance to their first Stanley Cup Finals. (This is a reflection of Game 4 of the '96 Cup Finals, in which Roy and John Vanbiesbrouck turned back every shot into triple overtime before Krupp scored to complete the sweep for the Colorado Avalanche over the Florida Panthers.) June 4: Former Governor Lamar Alexander of Tennessee wins the Primary in neighboring Alabama. With the endorsement of publisher Steve Forbes, Alexander wins New Jersey. Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana wins Montana and New Mexico. The Republican Primaries are complete, and neither Alexander, nor Quayle, nor anyone else has a majority of the Delegates. For the first time in 20 years, a major U.S. party will go to its nominating convention without having decided their Presidential nominee. June 12: Compared to the Conference Finals, the 1996 Stanley Cup Finals, the first involving two former World Hockey Association teams, each making their

first NHL Finals appearance, prove to be a bit anticlimactic, as the Quebec Nordiques establish their dominance in the series early and never look back. The Winnipeg Jets, hampered by injuries, notably to right wing Dallas Drake, and the internal confusion of the organization as to whether they would even be playing in Winnipeg or have to move, never really jelled despite the outstanding play of goaltender Patrick Roy, captain Kris King and defenseman Teppo Numminen. The Nordiques capture the Stanley Cup in five games, and return to a rousing welcome and parade in Quebec City. The Jets stay on the ice after the Cup ceremony, and raise their sticks in the air to their fans, not knowing if this was it. The 15,399 fans in attendance chant, "Save Our Team!" (The last all-Canada final was in 1989, Calgary over Montreal. There has never been an all-ex-WHA Final, although the NBA had an all-ex-ABA Final in 2003, San Antonio over New Jersey.) July 1: On Canada Day, the Parliament of the Province of Quebec approves funding for a new arena for the Stanley Cup Champion Quebec Nordiques, and the Parliament of Manitoba approves funding for a new arena for their Finals opponents, the Winnipeg Jets. Both arenas will open in the fall of 1999, saving those teams for those cities for at least another generation. July 15: Former Governor Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, having the most delegates to the Republican Convention but not a majority, meets with several conservative activists. Their leader, Paul Weyrich, tells him they will back him for President, and ask Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana, the only other major candidate left, to drop out, if he will approve their choice to be Vice President and their choice to be the next Justice of the Supreme Court. He has no problem with appointing former duPont Administration Solicitor General Kenneth W. Starr to the Court. But their VP pick? "He's a Southerner," Alexander says, "and I've got the South wrapped up. And he used to be a Democrat! He was a Democrat until, what was it, 1984?" Yes, but, as Weyrich points out, "He's with us on all the issues that really matter." Alexander decides to take him. Later that day, Alexander announces that his running mate will be Congressman Lawrence P. McDonald of Georgia. Quayle had been considering Senator John McCain of Arizona as his running mate, but McCain tells him they can't beat an Alexander-McDonald ticket, and neither can Feinstein-Gore. Quayle drops out the next day. August 8: The Republican Convention held in San Diego. "Four years ago," GOP Presidential nominee Lamar Alexander says, "Dianne Feinstein told us, 'There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.' I wholeheartedly agree. The problem is, she thinks the cure for what is wrong with America is not what is right with America, but what is left with America! And if we don't elect a Republican President and a Republican Congress this fall, if we get another four years of what is left with America, there may not be much left of America!" Vice Presidential nominee Larry McDonald gives an even more incendiary speech: "Nowhere in the world has Communism worked. But Dianne Feinstein wants to try it in America! And we must stop her! Nowhere in the world has a nation made itself more safe by taking guns away from law-abiding citizens. But Dianne Feinstein wants to try it in America! And we must stop her! Nowhere in the world has a nation

prospered without proper reverence for God. But Dianne Feinstein wants to try it in America! And we must stop her!" McDonald's introduction, by the Governor of Georgia, another Democrat-turned-Republican named Zell Miller, isn't too friendly, either. August 11: A team of scientists, including Drs. Anthony Fauci, David Ho and Otto van Pels, announce that a cure has been found for Acquired ImmunoDeficiency Syndrome, or AIDS. They praise the heavy funding provided by the federal government, led by President Dianne Feinstein, who had been Mayor of San Francisco when it broke out there, mainly as a disease affecting the city's large gay community. The announcement of a cure, and the disease's spread to all kinds of people, makes the anti-gay speeches heard at last week's Republican Convention sound quite cruel. President Feinstein urges continued funding so that the cure can be produced and transmitted worldwide, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, where it is said that one person in four has AIDS. Dr. van Pels is the son of Ann van Pels, Nobel Prize-winning author of The Backhouse Diary. (Named, of course, for her father, Otto Frank.) August 15: Artemis IV lands on the Moon. The first three vehicles in Project Artemis, named for the ancient Greek goddess of the Moon, had been meant to test the system. Air Force Colonel Eileen Collins becomes the first woman on the Moon, leading a combined U.S., Canadian, British, Russian and European team that will shuttle them back and forth from the International Space Station Freedom to the Moon to build a permanent base, aboard the successor vehicle to the space shuttle, formerly known as the X-33, now called the Direwolf, named for, among all things to be associated with the space program, a song by the rock band the Grateful Dead. The Direwolf orbits the Moon while an updated version of the Apollo lunar lander, the actual Artemis IV vehicle, lands. Collins' first words as the first woman on the Moon? "I come in memory of the first woman to be told she was going to the Moon, Alice Kramden." She refers, of course, to the character played by Audrey Meadows on The Honeymooners, always told by her fist-shaking husband Ralph, played by Jackie Gleason, that, "You're going to the Moon!" (I wrote this long before I "met" the AH message-board poster who screennamed herself "Artemis." Unlike "V," I accept the possibility of coincidences.) August 22: The Democratic Convention is held at the United Center in Chicago. President Dianne Feinstein and Vice President Al Gore are nominated for second terms. "Look at the progress that has been made," Gore tells the nation. "Our country is more prosperous than ever. Its military might is unmatched in the history of this planet. And yet, we are at peace. We have a cleaner environment than at any time since the Theodore Roosevelt years. New technologies like the Internet, pushed to the forefront of American society by legislation I wrote, are creating new jobs to replace the jobs that have become obsolete. More people are graduating from high school and attending college than ever before, and job training programs are allowing these people to accept and excel in the new jobs. Just in the last few days, a team of American scientists found a cure of AIDS, and we have begun to distribute it, and we have led a multi-national effort to return to the Moon. This is what we, the Democratic Party, led by President Dianne Feinstein,

have done. If this is what Republican ticket says must be stopped, I'd hate to see what they want to start!" As this is the last Presidential election of the 20th Century, several speakers, including Feinstein, Gore, Attorney General Bill Clinton, Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and Governor Jim Florio of New Jersey use the words "new century" in their speeches. (This time, Gore doesn't say anything that can be misconstrued as, "I invented the Internet," which isn't what he said in RL, anyway. His TTL speech also reflects a line he used on RL-1996 GOP nominee Bob Dole, who called himself "the most optimistic man in America" in his Convention speech, to try to offset his "Darth Vader of Politics" image: "If he's the most optimistic man in America, I'd had to see a pessimist.") August 26: New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon offers the team's managerial post to former Yankee catcher and manager Thurman Munson, saying that he's about to fire Dallas Green. Munson turns him down. Wilpon hires Bobby Valentine, a former Met player who'd managed the Texas Rangers and a Japanese team, the Chiba Lotte Marines. September 26: President Dianne Feinstein vetoes the Defense of Marriage Act, despite the fact that it had passed the House of Representatives 300 to 119 and the Senate 75 to 24. "I don't care if it passed 435-0 and 100-0," says the President, formerly the Mayor of San Francisco, where she had to work with America's most politically-charged gay community before being elected Governor of California. "This bill is bigotry, plain and simple, and I cannot support it. It's not just bigoted, it's stupid. 'Defense of Marriage'? Exactly what marriage is defended by banning gay marriage? Would it be Newt Gingrich's first marriage, or Gingrich's second marriage? Rush Limbaugh's first, second or third marriage? I've lived my whole life in a city where there is a substantial gay community, and I'm now with my third husband. But neither of my first two marriages were damaged by gay people. And neither is anyone else's. Grow up, Congress. If you believe traditional marriages are threatened by gay people wanting to get married, then maybe your own marriage isn't as strong as you think. Clean up your own backyard before you deny anyone the right to buy their own home." The House immediately votes to override the President's veto, and it does, 312 to 96. But several Democratic Senators remember their spines, and the bill passes only 65 to 34, falling one vote short of the necessary two-thirds majority. Feinstein's veto will not be overridden. (In an action designed to pander to people terrified by GOP rhetoric about predatory gay men and witchcraft-practicing lesbians, Clinton signed the bill. I'm not one of the people who will have to forgive him for that, but I will point out that vetoing it would not have cost him re-election.) October 9: Game 1 of the American League Championship Series is held at Yankee Stadium in New York. With the Baltimore Orioles leading the New York Yankees 4-3 in the bottom of the eighth inning, the Yankees' sensational rookie shortstop, Derek Jeter, hits a line drive deep to right field. Oriole right fielder Tony Tarasco looks up, jumps, and can't get the ball. He misjudges it, putting his glove up four inches too close to the right-field pole to get it. The ball bounces off the fence and rolls away, and Jeter races around the bases

for a game-tying inside-the-park homer, a rather generous ruling by the official scorer, who could easily have called it an error. What's worse, Tarasco's jump led him to collide with a fan in the stands, 12-year-old Jeffrey Maier. Tarasco's glove cuts Maier's face, and he requires some minor first aid. Bernie Williams, whose hitting tore up the Division Series against the Texas Rangers, strikes again, homering in the bottom of the 11th to win the game. Afterward, Tarasco apologizes to Maier, who, despite his youth, clearly understands that it was an accident. Oriole fans are not so forgiving of Tarasco, as his goof seems to inspire all sorts of fielding miscues in the series, which the Yanks win in five games, sweeping all three games in Baltimore. Tarasco becomes the most ridiculed athlete in Baltimore history, and is traded in the middle of the next season. Ironically, he will later briefly play for the Yankees. Maier will go on to play baseball at Wesleyan College in Connecticut and set several school records, but will not be drafted by a professional team. He will, however, become a baseball-team front-office worker. (This doesn't change the outcome of the game. It does, however, show that Tarasco would not have caught the ball. Check out the tape: His glove is not properly line up with the ball. In relation to his glove, the ball was back and to the left. I'm not making that up: It was back and to the left, back and to the left, back and to the left. Seriously. He never jumped for the ball, making himself look like a fool. But the bigger fools are Oriole fans who think the Maier play cheated them out of the Pennant. They lost three straight ALCS games on their home field. And the next season, they lost Game 6 and the Pennant at Camden Yards. If you can't defend your house, you don't deserve to decorate it with a Pennant. But I have another reason for altering this event. Read on.) October 10: Congressman Larry McDonald, the Republican nominee for Vice President, makes a careless remark. Comparing the Feinstein Administration to the error made in last night's baseball Playoff game by Baltimore Oriole right fielder Tony Tarasco, he says, "President Feinstein's been jumpin' around, makin' all kinds of mistakes, like that guy for the Orioles last night! Wasn't that something? That little monkey had no idea where the ball was! And the Feinstein people don't know where the ball of our country is! But then, what do you expect from a bunch of Communists?" Almost immediately, the media rips McDonald for his apparent racism and inability to tell the difference between liberalism, as practiced by President Dianne Feinstein and her Administration, and Communism. Some people, inlcuding a few Republicans, call for McDonald to be dropped from the ticket. "We should have settled this in 1861," says Feinstein. "There is no place in America for racism," says House Speaker Newt Gingrich, McDonald's colleague in Georgia's Congressional delegation. McDonald will apologize tomorrow, but it may be too late. October 12: The second and last Presidential debate of the election is held at auditorium of the University of San Diego. Governor Alexander makes an additional apology for Congressman McDonald's remarks. "He tried to use humor as a political point, and he blew it," Alexander says. "But that doesn't make him a bad person, and it doesn't make him unfit for the Vice Presidency, or the Presidency." Feinstein is ready: "If anything, Mr. McDonald's

remarks take attention off of his ticket's actual policies, which are unfit for the Presidency. This nation doesn't need tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. It doesn't need rollback of environmental regulations and workersafety regulations. It doesn't need public tax money for private religious schools. It needs common-sense ideas, the ideas the Democratic Party has embraced throughout the 20th Century, and will continue to embrace in the 21st Century." Barring a miracle, the Alexander-McDonald ticket is headed for a diastrous loss to the Feinstein-Gore team. (I originally had a near-miracle set up, with Robert Fiske, on October 22, presenting to Congress his findings in the investigation of Richard Blum in the "WaterGate" real-estate development in Northern California. Then I remembered that I had Attorney General Bill Clinton refuse to appoint a Special Prosecutor. So I just took the reference out. This mistake was never noticed on OTL.com, but that could be because, when I was trying to enter the 1996 events, that's when technical difficulties started making the site go haywire.) October 29: Congressman Larry McDonald strikes again. "The only way to enter the kingdom of heaven is through Jesus Christ," the Republican nominee for Vice President tells an audience at Bob Jones University in Charleston, South Carolina. "And the only way for a nation to get there is to embrace Christian values. President Feinstein is pro-abortion, pro-gay, and a Jew, and she will not see the kingdom of heaven." Seeing the clip on CNN on board his campaign plane, Governor Lamar Alexander, the Presidential nominee, almost chokes on his peanuts. The election is seven days away. October 30: Governor Alexander meets with Congressman McDonald in Nashville. Afterward, Alexander brings McDonald out to a press conference, and announces that McDonald has agreed to resign from the Republican ticket. "Larry realizes that he has made statements that are offensive to millions of Americans," he says, "and he sees now that the next Vice President of the United States must offend as few Americans as possible. I'm running for President of the United States, not the President of the Christian people of the United States. This is not a Christian nation, it is a mostly Christian nation. That distinction is critical. It is what separates us from those nations that are, and have been, dominated by religion, which always end up backward." A reporter asks Alexander, "Do you believe that a Jew can go to heaven?" He says, "Yes, I do. I don't know how. But I'm not God, and I'm not a theologian, so I don't have to know how. I hope to meet Dianne Feinstein on Earth, and I hope to meet her in heaven. Hopefully, with both of us as former Presidents." Too late to replace McDonald on the ballot, Alexander says that, in the event he wins, he will recommend to the Republican National Committee a name for the Vice Presidency, who would then be elected by the Electoral College and serve with him. President Feinstein praises Alexander in a speech that night: "Governor Alexander has shown that bigotry, any kind of bigotry, has no place in his campaign, would have no place in his Administration, and should have no place in any of our political parties. I hope that the rest of his party will follow his lead." November 3: Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, Governor Alexander's choice to be the new Republican Vice Presidential nominee, and Vice President Al

Gore have an unprecedented debate on NBC's Meet the Press. The debate is lively but calm. Lugar's performance helps Republicans unsure of the former Alexander-McDonald ticket stay with Alexander, but it makes independents wonder why Alexander didn't take someone with Lugar's obvious intelligence, demeanor and breadth of experience in the first place. Gore's performance is, as they often say of him, stiff, but then, the race is the Feinstein-Gore ticket's to lose. The election is in two days. November 5: President Dianne Feinstein is re-elected in a landslide. The Democrat takes 56 percent of the popular vote, 35 States and 430 Electoral Votes. The Republican nominee, former Governor Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, wins just 43 percent, 15 States and 108 EVs. Alexander's blandness, and his needing to replace his Vice Presidential nominee, the racially and religiously bigoted ex-Democratic Congressman Larry McDonald of Georgia, with the more moderate Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, hurt him tremendously. But it wouldn't have mattered, since the issues of the economy, war and peace, and the overall good feeling of the American people would likely have doomed Alexander even if he had run a near-perfect campaign. Many political observers agree that what had gone wrong with the Republican campaign was not Alexander's fault, and that he has earned a third run at the Presidency, should he want one (having also run for the nomination in 1984). The Democrats win 48 seats in the House and 7 in the Senate, retaking both houses of Congress due to the Feinstein landslide. Congressman McDonald is actually defeated for re-election to the House. In New Jersey, two members of the House slug it out in a nasty campaign to succeed Democrat Bill Bradley in the Senate. Sam Crandall defeats Dick Zimmer, largely thanks to the organizing skills of his daughter, Catherine Crandall, and the speechwriting of her husband, Michael Pacholek. The Crandall-Pacholek team has now elected people to both of New Jersey's Statewide offices, Governor and U.S. Senator, and are in demand nationwide. Before the polls even close on the West Coast, they receive offers from would-be candidates in next year's elections for Governor of New Jersey and Virginia, and Mayor of New York. November 15: Former State Department official Alger Hiss dies at age 92. Aside from people who know him from the high-level legal practice he kept up nearly until his death, he is virtually unknown to the general public. December 18: Thurman Munson accepts a consultant's position with the Cleveland Indians, his hometown team, for whom he once managed and broadcast, as a special assistant to general manager John Hart. December 23: The Washington Federals win their last game at District of Columbia Stadium, defeating their arch-rivals, the Dallas Cowboys, 37-10 in front of a national television audience. In a halftime ceremony, several past Feds greats are introduced, wearing replicas of the jerseys of their time. After the game, fans storm the field and rip up chunks of grass as souvenirs. In the parking lot, fans are seen walking away with some of the stadium's orange, maroon and yellow seats. (Offensive to Native Americans, the name "Redskins" has never been used in TTL. And with Robert F. Kennedy never

assassinated, and never rising above Cabinet rank, let alone running for President, D.C. Stadium is never renamed in his memory.) Uncle Mike Aug 31 2007, 12:56 AM Post #61

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 1997 January 12: The NFL's Conference Championships are held. The Green Bay Packers win the NFC by beating the Carolina Panthers at Lambeau Field, advancing to their first Super Bowl in 29 years. At Foxboro Stadium in the Boston suburbs, the New England Patriots defeat the Jacksonville Jaguars, to advance to their first Super Bowl in 11 years. The Jags, formerly in the United States Football League, had recently changed their name from "Bulls" to avoid confusion with the NBA's Chicago Bull dynasty. The Pack will beat the Pats 35-21 in Super Bowl XXXI. January 27: Justice Betty B. Fletcher retires from the Supreme Court. To replace her, President Dianne Feinstein appionts Federal Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who becomes the first Hispanic Justice. (Sotomayor was the judge who ruled that the Major League Baseball owners could not use "replacement players" -- or, as they are known among labor union members, "scabs." This ended the Strike of '94-'95. I love her, and I don't even know what party she is, let alone how good a judge she otherwise is. She has, however, been discussed as a possible first Hispanic Justice on the RL Supreme Court. But then, so had Alberto Gonzales, a suggestion now so obviously ridiculous as to make future Court watchers' eyeballs spin in their sockets.) February 17: Emperor Amha Selassie I of Ethiopia dies. Virtually a figurehead through his entire 22-year reign, he is succeeded by his 44-year-old son, who becomes Emperor Zera Yacob II. He presently has one child, a daughter, so the imperial heir apparent -- for whatever that title is now worth -- is now the 50-year-old Prince Paul, Duke of Harrar, like Zera Yacob a grandson of Emperor Haile Selassie I. (The Ethiopian throne remains abolished, but this is the RL line of succession for it.) March 23: Fargo wins Best Picture at the Academy Awards. For her role in the film, Frances McDormand wins Best Actress. Australian actor Geoffrey Rush wins Best Actor for portraying pianist and countryman David Helfgott in Shine. Cuba Gooding Jr., son of Main Ingredient leader singer Cuba Gooding

Sr., wins Best Supporting Actor for his football receiver in [i[Jerry Maguire[/i]. And Lauren Bacall, who had never even been nominated before in her long career, wins Best Supporting Actress for The Mirror Has Two Faces. Meanwhile, The English Patient, an overly long film set in Europe in the last days of World War II, can be found at your nearest video store. (Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas were already stars, and Juliette Binoche will become one, but this particular film becomes a bomb in TTL. I am old enough to remember when calling something a "bomb" meant it was very bad, not very good.) March 31: ABC has recently begun airing Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, a politics-and-culture-themed late night talk show that had previously aired on HBO. Maher often has political operatives on his show, some of them young. Today, among his four panelists, he has a 36-year-old -- or 30, if you believe her word -- Republican lawyer and political columnist, Ann Coulter; and a 27year-old Democratic campaign consultant, Michael Pacholek. "Bill, your show is the only thing that would get me to fly out to Los Angeles," Pacholek tells him after the cast is introduced. The discussion turns to federal spending on social programs. Coulter: "People are tired of the government spending their tax dollars on these wasteful programs." Pacholek: "Wait, I'm confused: Wasn't there an election last November? Wasn't the liberal Democrat elected in a landslide?" Coulter: "The people were distracted by the fuss over Larry McDonald." Pacholek: "Right, and if Governor Alexander had chosen someone with a brain and a heart, he would've gotten 200 Electoral Votes instead of 100, and he still would have lost easily." Coulter: "People expressed their views quite clearly in 1994, not in 1992 or 1996." Pacholek: "The votes of '92 and '96 were a lot more decisive than the one in '94." Coulter: "They want these programs rolled back." Maher: "How far back would you go?" Coulter: "At least as far back as the New Deal." Pacholek: "So, Social Security, banking insurance, rural electrification, you're not down with that stuff?" Maher: "How do you feel about the 13th Amendment?" Coulter: "That would be a good start." The audience gasps, as Coulter seems to be calling for the repeal of the Constitutional Amendment that bans slavery in America. Pacholek: "And this is the same woman who wrote the legal briefs that spurred the so-called Defense of Marriage Act! Isn't that 'big government interventionism'?" (President Feinstein veoted it last fall.) The show descends into name-calling among the four panelists, and Maher wisely breaks for commercial. When the show comes back, Maher changes the subject to the recent Academy Awards. Coulter is angry that Best Actor when to Geoffrey Rush, an Australian instead of an American. Pacholek tries to get the pot stirred again: "What about Best Supporting Actor going to Cuba Gooding?" (Who is black.) Coulter: "He was playing a good capitalist, asking people to show him the money!" Coulter's line gets a few laughs, but few people turn back to her. Maher never invites her back, her column is dropped by several newspapers, and she fades back into obscure legal work. For a time. (OK, now I'm engaging in a little selfpuffery. However, two things about my TTL appearance on "PI" are true in RL: I don't like to fly, and I don't like Southern California. I'm not sure of the exact date, only that it happened in late March '97, but I've got it on tape: Maher says, "How do you feel about the Emancipation Proclamation?" And Coulter says, "That would be a good start." In TTL, the Emancipation Proclamation

was never necessary, so I made Maher's line "the 13th Amendment." Maher continued to invite Coulter onto his show until it was cancelled in 2002. As far as I know, Coulter had nothing to do with the RL-Defense of Marriage Act. Then again, at 46, she's never been married. Then again, at 37, neither have I. I once wrote a Timeline where I became a Republican, and Ann and I got married, then divorced due to her cheating and my drinking -- you'd drink a lot too if you were married to that -- and then she asks me to fly to L.A. to reconcile, but my plane ends up landing at the Pentagon. Hard.) April 7: Russian President Boris Yeltsin is re-elected, defeating Aleksandr Rutskoy. Once again, the Nationalist Party nominee fails to sway the electorate with talk of the Socialist incumbent's "fascist grip." April 15: Seventeen Major League Baseball players currently wear the uniform Number 42. Through the 2007 season, the number will continue to be available, except on three teams. The Los Angeles Dodgers have already retired it for Hall-of-Famer Jackie Robinson. (Although he played for them only in Brooklyn, he grew up outside L.A.) The St. Louis Cardinals will retire it for Hall-of-Famer Bruce Sutter. And the New York Yankees will retire it for future Hall-of-Famer Mariano Rivera. (Since Walker v. Anson insured baseball's integration in 1887, no "Jackie Robinson" was necessary. He becomes a great player, but not a pioneer. The Dodgers retired his number in 1972, Commissioner Selig retired it for all of baseball on this date, Sutter was honored by the Cards upon his election to the Hall of Fame in 2006, and Rivera is the last player still allowed to wear 42 without permission from the Commissioner.) May 12: The Commonwealth of Massachusetts approves a new stadium to be built in Foxboro, next to the current home of the defending AFC Champion New England Patriots. This prevents the Patriots from moving to a project approved last week by the State of Connecticut, to build a new stadium/arena complex in East Hartford. The NHL's Hartford Whalers will move to the arena, and the University of Connecticut will move its highly successful men's and women's basketball teams to the arena and their growing football program to the stadium. By the time they open, the new Patriots field will be named Gillette Stadium, the East Hartford outdoor facility Rentschler Field and the indoor facility United Technologies Arena, or Unitech Arena. United Technologies had operated an airfield on the site, also named Rentschler Field. (The arena remains unbuilt, but Rentschler Field is used by UConn's football team, now Division I-A and a member of the Big East Conference. And the Whalers are saved from becoming the Carolina Hurricanes.) May 25: The Philadelphia Flyers defeat the New York Rangers to win the NHL's Eastern Conference Title. Flyer captain Eric Lindros skates circles around his old hero, Ranger captain Mark Messier. The Rangers' Stanley Cup drought is now 57 years and counting. Messier is soon traded to the Vancouver Canucks, and after the bold talking that he and the Rangers had done, he goes down as perhaps the biggest flop in New York sports history. The Flyers will be swept in the Stanley Cup Finals by the Detroit Red Wings. The next season,

the NHL will begin another round of expansion: The Nashville Predators will start, followed the next season by the Atlanta Thrashers, and the season after that by the Dallas Tycoons and the Columbus Blue Jackets. (Messier signed with the Canucks as a free agent, but returned to the Rangers, and remains the franchise's all-time greatest hero. To me, a Devils fan, however, he'll always be "Lex Luthor.") June 13: Major League Baseball begins Interleague Play. While the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants have played each other in the regular season since 1890, and the New York Yankees have played several "Subway Series" against each team, for the first time, the Yankees play one of them in the regular season. The Dodgers beat the Yankees 2-1 at Jackie Robinson Stadium. The Yankees will win the Saturday afternoon Fox Sports-televised Game of the Week, but the Dodgers win the Sunday night ESPN Game of the Week. (The Yankees' first Interleague game was on this date, and they lost to the Florida Marlins, who do not exist in TTL.) June 16: It's no contest, as Dave Mlicki pitches a shutout, the Giants rough up Andy Pettitte, and a packed house at Yankee Stadium is stunned. Giants 6, Yankees 0. The Yankees take the next two games of the series, however. Both teams will end up losing their Division Series, and the Dodgers will not make the playoffs this season. (The RL game was Yanks vs. Mets on this day. I was there. I was never so miserable at a ballgame in my life. But we got the last laugh. That pitcher's name is not a misprint: Mlicki, pronounced "Muh-LICKee.") October 26: Game 7 of the World Series is played at Estadio Cerra in Havana. The Havana Almendares (Scorpions) are hosting the Cleveland Indians. In the visiting team's owner's box, Indians general manager John Hart is watching the game with Thurman Munson, a Cleveland-area native who had once managed the team and led the Yankees to the 1993 World Championship, and is now a consultant for the Indians. On a hunch, remembering that Jose Mesa, the Indians' usual closer, had allowed what turned out to be the winning run in the ninth inning of Game 5, Munson asks Hart to get word to manager Mike Hargrove that he should not pitch Mesa to close the game out. Hargrove brings in Orel Hershiser, the 1988 National League Cy Young Award winner for the Brooklyn Dodgers and a key cog in the Tribe's 1995 and 1997 Pennant runs. Hershiser gets the last three outs of the game. The Indians win, 2-0, and claim their first World Championship since 1948, 49 years. It is the first World Championship for any Cleveland team since the Browns won the 1964 NFL Championship, 33 years ago. The Almendares reached the World Series in only their fifth year of play, a new Major League Baseball record -- excluding the teams that played the first few World Series, of course. November 2: Helen Meyner dies at her home in Captiva Island, Florida. A television newscaster who became New Jersey's youngest Governor and, under Richmond Flowers, the first female Vice President, she was 68 years old. November 4: Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer is elected the first

Hispanic Mayor of New York City, defeating former U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani in his third run for the office. Mayor Jim McGreevey of Woodbridge, also a State Senator, is elected Governor of New Jersey, defeating Mayor Bret Schundler of Jersey City. The campaign was a contentious one, with the Republican Schundler, a religious conservative, accusing McGreevey of being gay and thus a false Catholic. Upon recommendation of his campaign manager, Michael Pacholek -- son-in-law of New Jersey's U.S. Senator Sam Crandall -- McGreevey admitted that he is gay, and that it shouldn't change the voters' feelings about the policies of the outgoing Democratic Governor, Jim Florio, who put the State's financial house in order and improved things from education to the environment. The win makes McGreevey the nation's first-ever openly gay Governor. Furious over his loss and how it happened, Schundler resigns the mayoralty and becomes a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. November 6: The Pierre S. duPont Presidential Library opens at Brandywine, Delaware, near the headquarters of the family's chemical company. duPont is joined by President Dianne Feinstein, and former Presidents Andrew Young and Richmond Flowers. December: Pierce Brosnan makes his second appearance as James Bond in Tomorrow Never Dies. He battles Jonathan Pryce as Elliot Carver, a British cable-TV magnate apparently based on NewsCorp head Rupert Murdoch. Carver attempts to start World War III by using his news networks to falsify footage to show by Britain and China against each other. He doesn't count on his wife, Paris, played by Teri Hatcher, an old girlfriend of Bond's, or on Chinese agent Wai Lin, played by Malaysian-Chinese actress Michelle Yeoh. Despite the advances in cable TV shown in this film, it is suggested that, like Brosnan's first Bond film, Goldeneye, it takes place prior to the events of Licence To Kill in 1989. Perhaps the Bond franchise simply can't exist in a current format. Or perhaps EON Productions is setting up another idea. 1998 January 21: Bill Clinton resigns as U.S. Attorney General, embroiled in a sex scandal over his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a low-level bureaucrat at the Department of Justice and a one-time White House intern. President Dianne Feinstein will appoint Florida Attorney General Janet Reno to the post, and she will be confirmed. (This was the date the RL Clinton-Lewinsky story broke.) February 6: Congress renames Washington National Airport after the President responsible for its construction. It is now Eleanor Roosevelt National Airport, or "Roosevelt National," or "ERN." (Naming an airport after Ronald Reagan is like naming a baseball field in Brooklyn after Walter O'Malley.) April: A steel joint weighing several hundred pounds falls through a roof panel at Yankee Stadium in New York destroying a seat located between 3rd base and home plate on the second level, the Loge. Luckily the Yankees are scheduled to play a night game and no fans are in the stadium at the time.

Emergency inspections are scheduled and the game against the Anaheim Angels is canceled. The final game of the series will be played at Shea Stadium home of the New York Mets, while next week's series against the Tigers is switched to Detroit, with the next series in Detroit switched to New York. This incident seems to emphasize the Yankees' need for a new stadium, and also the desire for a new stadium for the Mets. May 15: Despite struggling both on the field and at the box office, the Brooklyn Dodgers turn down a trade for their All-Star catcher, Mike Piazza, from the Havana Almendares, the defending National League Champions, who have already gutted their powerful lineup and pitching staff and have become one of the worst teams in recent memory. "I wouldn't give you Mike Piazza for your whole team," Brooklyn owner Fred Wilpon tells Havana owner Wayne Huizenga. (Piazza was traded from the Los Angeles Dodgers to the Florida Marlins for Gary Sheffield, and within days was traded to the Mets, as the Marlins were in total selloff mode.) May 23: Mayor Fernando Ferrer of New York signs deals with Yankee owner George Steinbrenner and Met owner Fred Wilpon. Construction will begin this summer on a new stadium for the Mets in Brooklyn, at Ocean Parkway and Neptune Avenue, in the neighborhood of Brighton Beach, near the Coney Island Boardwalk. It is expected to open for the 2002 season. At that point, the Yankees will move into Shea Stadium for a season while Yankee Stadium is renovated, much as it was in the 1974 and '75 seasons, in time to repoen in the spring of 2003, saving the 75-year-old Stadium for at least the next 75 years. Shea Stadium will remain standing for the time being, as some City officials want to bid for a future Olympic Games. The deal is signed just three days after Yankee pitcher David Wells threw a perfect game against the Minnesota Twins at Yankee Stadium, re-emphasizing the structure's historic importance to New York and to baseball. (Had Ferrer been elected Mayor, over the fascist phony Yankee fan Rudy Giuliani, Yankee Stadium would have been saved. Yankee owner George Steinbrenner likes to say, "Owning the Yankees is like owning the Mona Lisa." But when you own the Mona Lisa, you do NOT tear down the Louvre. That location in Brooklyn is now home to, surprise, a luxury apartment tower.) August 17: Former Attorney General Bill Clinton and his wife, former Governor Hillary Rodham of Arkansas, announce their trial separation. November 3: The Democrats beat the usual sixth-year-of-an-administration jinx in Congressional elections. They actually gain five seats in the House of Representatives and hold their numbers in the Senate. In New York, Republican Governor George Pataki is defeated by the Democratic nominee, State Comptroller Carl McCall. December 19: Former Attorney General Bill Clinton and his wife, former Governor Hillary Rodham of Arkansas, announce their trial separation is over, and that they are going to see if they can make their marriage work. 1999

March 21, 1999: Saving Private Ryan, about the D-Day invasion of July 14, 1939, wins Best Picture at the Oscars. It also wins Best Director for Stephen Spielberg, and Tom Hanks his third Best Actor. Gwyneth Paltrow wins Best Actress and Judi Dench Best Supporting Actress for Shakespeare In Love. Dench won for playing an elderly Queen Elizabeth I, while Cate Blanchett was nominated for Best Actress for playing a younger version of the great British monarch in Elizabeth. Roberto Benigni wins Best Foreign Film for Life Is Beautiful, another World War II story, this one set in his native Italy under the fascist reign of Benito Mussolini. April 8, 1999: Parc Labatt -- Labatt Park in English -- opens in downtown Montreal, the new home of the Montreal Expos. It ensures the continuation of the franchise in that city for the foreseeable future. The Expos open their new 42,000-seat palace by defeating the New York Mets, 5-1. (That was the result of the Expos' 1999 home opener, but they never got their new ballpark.) June 19, 1999: The Minnesota North Stars defeat the Buffalo Sabres to win their first Stanley Cup. The Sabres had also been seeking their first Cup. The Stars win Game 6 on a Brett Hull goal in triple overtime, to take the Finals, four games to two. The goal is a blistering slap shot from the point, in the mold of Hull's father, noted "slap shot" artist Bobby Hull, and has no controversy associated with it. (No controversial winning goal for Hull and the Dallas Stars.) September 13, 1999: After three years of work by NASA and the European, Russian and Japanese space agencies, Moonbase Alpha is completed. Space Station Freedom orbits the Earth, and Space Station Diana, named for the ancient Roman goddess of the Moon, orbits the Moon. Skylab, predecessor of Freedom, has been disassembled and taken back to Earth in a series of missions by the fleet of space shuttles and their successors, the Direwolves. NASA is now at work on the vehicle that will take humanity to Mars. The multi-stage rocket is currently scheduled to be completed in September 2001. If it works, the project is scheduled to move forward until M-Day, Mars Launch Day, currently set for June 30, 2003, with a landing on Mars set for March 1, 2005. (On the TV show "Space: 1999," made in 1975-77, this was the date that explosions of nuclear waste on the Moon's surface send the Moon, and Moonbase Alpha, out of Earth orbit and hurtling into space. I don't remember the series well, so I don't remember if they ever explained what the loss of the Moon did to Earth -- or even if the Moon can survive out of Earth orbit.) October 4: It takes 39 years, plus one game, but the Minnesota Twins finally make baseball's playoffs, beating the Cleveland Indians, 2-0 at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis, to win the American League Central Division Championship. But they will be swept in the Division Series by the New York Yankees. (TTL-Twins are the RL-Texas Rangers.)[/i] October 24: The Major League Baseball All-Century Team is introduced before Game 2 of the World Series at Turner Field in Atlanta. All the living members are on hand: First baseman Mark McGwire, shortstops Ernie Banks and Cal

Ripken, third basemen Brooks Robinson and Mike Schmidt, catchers Yogi Berra and Johnny Bench; outfielders Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente and Pete Rose; and pitchers Warren Spahn, Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Nolan Ryan and Roger Clemens. The New York Yankees, the team of Mantle, Berra and deceased All-Century Teamers Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and the late Joe DiMaggio, go on to win the Series, sweeping the Atlanta Braves, the team of Aaron and Spahn (who pitched for them in Boston and Milwaukee before moving to Atlanta). (Mantle was dead. So was Clemente, who, with four extra years to build up his statistics, made the TTL-ACT.) October 27: Thurman Munson throws out the first ball before Game 4 of the World Series, the last Major League Baseball game played in the 20th Century. The New York Yankees defeat the Atlanta Braves, 4-1, and Yankee starter Roger Clemens, the greatest pitcher of his generation, nails down the sweep. November 19, 1999: Pierce Brosnan once again stars as James Bond in The World Is Not Enough, this time aided by Serena Scott Thomas as an MI6 physician, Dr. Molly Warmflash (one of those racy Bond-girl names); and Denise Richards as an American physicist, Dr. Christmas Jones; and both helped and hindred by Sophie Marceau as oil heiress Elektra King; all while opposing Robert Carlyle as terrorist kingpin Viktor "Renard" Zokas. Once again, the film looks like it takes place in the 1980s, not in the present day. (Denise Richards plays a physicist? NOW we are entering the realm of "Alien Space Bats.") December 31, 1999: Millennium celebrations are held around the world. President Dianne Feinstein leads America's celebrations at the Washington Monument. There is a minor international story that everyone hears about: Boris Yeltsin announces today that he will not run for a third term as President of the Russian Republic. There is a major international story that is not announced for some time to come: Several agencies, including the American FBI, Britain's MI5 and Germany's Staatspolizei have thwarted terrorist plots to destroy major landmarks. There was also concern about the "Y2K Bug," a computer problem that the world's leading computer experts had been working on for a few years. In each case, nothing happens. No news is good news. Most of the world is at peace. Fewer people than ever live under tyranny. Poverty is still rampant, but significantly reduced over the last 100 years. The world has made it to the 21st Century, and has never been better off. Many cheers, and some prayers of thanksgiving and relief. For all the bangs, the 20th Century ends not with a bang, nor with a whimper, but with some "Hallelujahs" and a few relieved prayers. (This was the end of OTL.com Timeline 4185: "Lee Union Part 9: What Is Right With America." Because of OTL.com's technical difficulties, there never was a Part 10.) Uncle Mike Aug 31 2007, 03:57 PM Post #62

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 Tinkerbell Aug 31 2007, 08:23 AM Yeah...I don't like you anymore. <_< Is this because I gave America's Most Wanted Team what it truly and deeply deserves? You should've seen my OTL.com Timeline "Landry Coaches Giants." The Cowboys end up moving to Charlotte in the mid-1980s. And the Giants (for whom Tom Landry played and invented modern NFL defense as the first true defensive coordinator) don't do any better, either. Uncle Mike Aug 31 2007, 04:20 PM Post #63

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 Tinkerbell Aug 31 2007, 03:08 PM Michael P Aug 31 2007, 02:57 PM Is this because I gave America's Most Wanted Team what it truly and deeply deserves? You should've seen my OTL.com Timeline "Landry Coaches Giants." The Cowboys end up moving to Charlotte in the mid-1980s. And the Giants (for whom Tom Landry played and invented modern NFL defense as the first true defensive coordinator) don't do any better, either.

Meh...I'll show you. Guaranteed I can show you how the Cowboys can be the best franchise there is. Sure, they can. First, they have to apologize for being owned by Clint Murchison, who was part of the JFK conspiracy. Then they have to apologize for ramming themselves down our throats every Sunday on CBS, which was the Cowboys Broadcasting System well before NBC became the Notredame Broadcasting Company. Then they have to apologize for that ridiculous "America's Team" nonsense. Everyone knows the closest thing to an America's Team in the NFL was the Green Bay Packers. Maybe the Baltimore Colts, a.k.a. "The Working Man's Team," may they rest in peace. (That team Peyton Manning led to the Super Bowl last season was pretty good, but it wasn't the Colts. The Colts belong in Baltimore. In TTL, they are still there.) Then they have to admit that Tom Landry, "God's Coach," didn't exactly bring the fire and brimstone when his players became South America's Team, with all that cocaine. Then Lee Roy Jordan has to apologize for breaking Timmy Brown's face with one of the cheapest shots in NFL history. Then Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson has to admit that Terry Bradshaw is smarter than he is. Then Jerry Jones has to admit that NIKE sucks. Then Jimmy Johnson has to get a real haircut. Then Barry Switzer has to admit that the reason he couldn't coach in the NFL is that he had a salary cap, which he didn't have at the University of Oklahoma. (That Super Bowl XXX team? It was still the team that Jones & Johnson built. Switzer was just along for the ride.) Then they have to apologize to Bill Parcells. Then they have to cut Terrell Owens, who does not deserve to play professional football. Finally, and this one is, for all intents and purposes, happening, since they're building a new stadium: They have to admit that building a stadium with a hole in the roof was the most ridiculous thing ever to hit the NFL, even more ridiculous than the orange jerseys the Bears, Browns and Dolphins sometimes wear. Really, if that hole was "so God could look down on his favorite team," why then did the 1967 NFL Championship Game have to be played not in

good weather but with a temperature of 40 degrees below zero? You really think God cares who wins a football game? Or that he can't see through a dome? Oh yeah, and Bear Bryant's hat was better than Landry's. Do all of that, Cowboys... and you'll be back at zero and can begin to be worthy of support. One more thing: As Wyatt Earp and his brothers -- among America's original gangsters -- proved, just because you wear a star doesn't make you a good guy. Uncle Mike Sep 1 2007, 10:05 AM Post #64

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 Another oops. I forgot to include this entry: July 16, 1999: A private jet lands at Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. The pilot is Francis Robert "Frank" Kennedy, a hero pilot of the Persian Gulf War. Also aboard are his wife, Sylvia Taylor Kennedy, and their son John Robert Kennedy; his brother, John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn, and her sister Lauren Bessette. They have come to the Vineyard for the wedding of their cousin, Rory Kennedy, daughter of former Attorney General and Secretary of Energy Robert F. Kennedy. (That was the real point of making Frank a war hero pilot: Not so that he could run for public office himself, but so that he could fly the plane, not John-John. Frank's wife is made-up, although she could be the descendant of someone who now survives the American Civil War, or World War I or II. I can't imagine where I got the name... ) Uncle Mike Sep 1 2007, 09:20 PM Post #65

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36

Joined: July 30, 2007 2000 January 1: The 21st Century has begun. From 1861 through 1999, the people of the United States of America, under the leadership of Presidents from Abraham Lincoln through Dianne Feinstein, have built not only a nation but a world stronger, more peaceful, more prosperous and more free than at any time in the history of the world. This is a Presidential election year, and Feinstein's Vice President, Al Gore, is unopposed for the Democratic Party's nomination. The Republican Party's picture is unclear. Former Governor Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the 1996 nominee and a candidate in 1984 as well, has chosen not to run again. The leading candidates are: Governor John E. "Jeb" Bush of Texas, son of Ronald Reagan's Vice President; Linda Chavez, formerly Governor of Maryland and Secretary of Labor under Pete duPont; Senator John McCain of Arizona, a former Navy officer who was among the pilots who liberated the U.S.S. Pueblo from Vietnam in 1967; and Malcolm S. "Steve" Forbes, the publishing tycoon who also ran in 1996, but who has never been elected to anything. (No Vietnam War, McCain was never a prisoner of war. But his political record does not change. Failing to be elected Governor of Texas, it is not George W., but Jeb, who runs for President. Why did I choose Chavez? I wanted a divider, not a uniter, just like the guy who actually "won.") January 24: Governor Bush, pandering to the State's Christian conservatives, wins the Iowa Caucuses. Senator McCain, Governor Sanchez and the rest of the field are far behind. January 30: The Indianapolis Rams defeat the Tennessee Titans, 23-16, in a Super Bowl XXXIV that is not decided until the final play, a game-saving tackle of Kevin Dyson by Kevin Jones at the Indy one-yard line as the crowd at the Georgia Dome holds its breath. After taking the Philadelphia Eagles to Super Bowl XV and losing, 19 years earlier, Rams coach Dick Vermeil finally has his championship. It is the first NFL Championship for the Rams franchise since 1951, the days of Bob Waterfield, Norm Van Brocklin and Jackie Robinson. (The Rams moved to Indianapolis in 1984 in TTL, not to St. Louis in 1995 as in RL.) February 1: Senator McCain wins the New Hampshire Primary in a landslide, as the State's Republicans have come to see Bush as an empty suit whose biggest qualification for the Presidency is that his father was once a heartbeat away in a failed Administration. February 5: Governor Chavez wins her neighboring State of Delaware, a State Steve Forbes won in 1996 and was counting on this time (and also neighbors). Forbes drops out, leaving the nomination, for all intents and purposes, to Chavez, Governor Bush and Senator McCain. February 19: Governor Bush wins the South Carolina Primary, partly due to

pandering even further to religious conservatives, and partly due to a smear campaign against Senator McCain (questioning his family values, his military service and how he adopted his foreign-born daughter) and another against Governor Chavez (raising the point that a Hispanic Catholic does not hold "South Carolina values"). Angry, McCain calls Chavez and says that if she drops out of the race, he'll make her his running mate. Equally angry and determined, Chavez reverses the offer: "I've been a Governor, John. I've been a Cabinet Secretary. I've been an executive. I've been more of a 'commanding officer' than you have." McCain does not take kindly to that statement, and Chavez has never served in the military. Neither has Bush. February 22: Senator McCain wins the Primary in his home State of Arizona. Governor Chavez pulls an upset in Michigan. A usually pro-union State, she had been the most anti-union Secretary of Labor since the early 1930s, yet her populist message works in the Wolverine State. Governor Bush comes in third in both States. February 29: Governor Chavez wins in her neighboring State of Virginia. Senator McCain wins in Washington State. Governor Bush desperately needs to win the California Primary -- and a few others -- next week. March 7: Despite his best efforts to reach Hispanics -- his wife, Columba, is a native of Mexico -- and to appeal to the arch-conservatives in the Southern part of the State, Governor Bush's campaign crashes and burns in California. Governor Chavez wins solidly, with Senator McCain a strong but not close second. McCain wins in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont. But Chavez also wins in New York, Georgia and her home State of Maryland. She now leads in delegates. Later this week, Chavez will win Colorado and McCain will win Utah. March 14: Governor Chavez wins the Primaries in Texas, where Governor Bush grew up, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Governor Bush wins in his adopted home State of Florida, but barely over Chavez. His father, former Vice President George Bush, tells him he has to drop out. He does, but does not endorse either Chavez or McCain just yet. March 21: Governor Chavez rides Chicago's growing Latino population to win the Illinois Primary. Senator McCain drops out and endorses her. So do Governor Bush and Steve Forbes. The race for the Presidency is set: Linda Chavez, former Governor of Maryland and Secetary of Labor, against Al Gore, Vice President and former Senator and Congressman from Tennessee. For the moment, Gore leads by an average 7 points in the polls. April 22: Elian Gonzalez is a six-year-old boy living in Havana, Cuba. Hardly anyone outside his neighborhood has ever heard his name. (This was the day he was rescued from his kidnappers by the federal government and returned to his father.) June 9: The New Jersey Devils win their second Stanley Cup, beating the Minnesota North Stars in six games. Game 6 at the Xcel Energy Center

(formerly the St. Paul Civic Center) goes to a second overtime, when Jason Arnott takes a Patrik Elias pass and shovels it past goaltender Ed Belfour for the winning goal. (The Dallas Stars were the Devils' opponents, and the game was at the Reunion Arena, otherwise this doesn't change.) August 3: The Republican Convention is held at the First Union Center (soon renamed the Wachovia Center) in Philadelphia. Linda Chavez, former Governor of Maryland and Secretary of Labor, is nominated for President, the first woman so honored by the Republican Party, 80 years after the Democrats nominated Frances Cleveland. Nominated for Vice President is Dick Cheney, former Congressman from Wyoming and Secretary of Defense. So two members of the Pete duPont Cabinet are nominated. But with the nation prosperous and at peace, and with the memory of the martyred father of Vice President Al Gore still revered by many Americans, they've got a tough road ahead against Gore and his as-yet-unselected running mate. So they decide to go negative, with Cheney doing what so many Vice Presidential nominees have done, taking the cheap shots and throwing the red meat that the Presidential nominee wouldn't, invoking "all the ignored scandals of the Feinstein-Gore Administration." But Chavez also goes negative, choosing, as the first major-party Presidential nominee of Hispanic descent, to attack the Democrats over the issue of illegal immigration, as well as for looking the other way on alleged scandals involving Gore and President Dianne Feinstein. "America is a nation for law-abiding citizens," she says, "and when the President and the Vice President think they're above the law, and when they let people into this country illegally, with no reprisal, then their party cannot be trusted." She also says that, with the prosperity available, the Democrats should have brought more, and that, even with the peace agreements in the Middle East, the Balkans, and even Northern Ireland, they should have taken a wider role in world affairs: "The liberals in the Democrat Party have squandered their chance to lead this nation to a true prosperity, and to a place of real moral leadership in the world. They have not led. We will!" August 24: The Democratic Convention is held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Vice President Al Gore is nominated for President, as was his father, Albert A. Gore, at the old Los Angeles Sports Arena 40 years earlier. His running mate is John Lewis, a black longtime Congressman from of Georgia and one of the party's best public speakers, in the hopes of countering Republican nominee Linda Chavez's appeal to the Hispanic vote and in possibly taking some Southern States away from the GOP. Some people suggested he should have chosen Joe Lieberman, the Senate's main moralizer, to counter the Chavez campaign's talk of "scandals." But President Dianne Feinstein told him, "Al, we're already going to win Connecticut, and, besides, we need a Democrat. Lieberman's too conservative." Some others suggested Bob Graham, a Senator who once served as Governor of Florida. Gore turned down this suggestion. It will prove to be a mistake. September 4: Governor Chavez, 53 years old, long married and a grandmother, is being inundated with young men at campaign rallies, chanting, "We love Linda!" Not leaving anything to chance, she's going to be

"the attractive candidate," as opposed to the now 67-year-old President Feinstein, who was once considered gorgeous but is now starting to look her age, and Vice President Gore, continually "stiff" and with a receding hairline. He seems to be putting on weight, too. So, not having the issues of war vs. peace or prosperity vs. recession on her side, Chavez is apparently trying to suggest that a female President can be sexy. She still wears conservative suits, but they do seem to be a little tighter than before. October 1: The first Presidential Debate is held at Washington University in St. Louis. Governor Chavez seems totally relaxed and confident, finding small flaws in the Democratic record of the last eight years and turning them into major issues. Vice President Gore, on the other hand, seems to drone on and on about his issues, including the "lockbox" he wants for money set aside for Social Security. Chavez wins the debate going away, and then goes off to wave to her college-age male fans, whom Democratic campaign operative Catherine Crandall has dubbed "Linda's Fanboys." Crandall's husband, Michael Pacholek, also working on the campaign, tells the Vice President, "Next debate, you've got to let her have it. You let her walk all over you tonight!" "Mike," Gore says, "it wouldn't be Presidential. Besides, she's a lady, and I'd lose a few women's votes..." and goes on like that for about 20 minutes. Soon, Pacholek is rolling his eyes and sighing as much as Gore was in the debate. "That's when I knew," he would write later, "That's when I knew that Al Gore was trying to be Presidential, and not trying to get elected President." The second debate will be considered a draw, and the third a minor Gore victory. But, like Richard Nixon running against Albert Gore Sr. 40 years ago, the first debate ends up shaping the story. October 17: For the first time in 22 years, since Yankees vs. Dodgers in 1978, there will be a Subway Series in New York. For the first time in 38 years, since 1962, it will be the Yankees and the Giants. The Yankees defeat the Oakland Wolves, 9-7 on a home run by David Justice into the upper deck at Yankee Stadium, to win the American League Championship Series in six games. The New York Giants defeat the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-2, to win the National League Championship Series, also in six games. (The 1981 Series, in TTL, was not Yankees vs. Los Angeles Dodgers but Yankees vs. Montreal Expos. In RL, the Mets beat the San Francisco Giants in the 2000 National League Division Series. In TTL, the team playing its home games in Flushing Meadow wins the NL Pennant, but it's not the same team as in RL.) October 21: With Yankee legend Mickey Mantle throwing out the ceremonial first pitch, Game 1 of the World Series is a thriller, with the Yankees tying the game in the top of the ninth at Yankee Stadium, and then winning in the twelfth on a hit by Jose Vizcaino off Robb Nen, 4-3. October 22: Yankee legend Whitey Ford throws out the first ball for Game 2 to fellow Yankee legend Yogi Berra, but the truly strange throw is the piece of broken bat from Giants left fielder Barry Bonds by Yankee pitcher Roger Clemens, seemingly right in Bonds' path on the way to first base. The two men shout at each other -- "As if they were both in a steroid rage," remarks Mike Lupica, columnist for the New York Daily News -- and both benches

empty, but peace is restored. Clemens settles down, and the Yankees win, 61, to take a two games to none lead in the Series. (Since it's the surly Bonds, and not the fan-friendly, media-accomodating Mike Piazza -- who will appear again in TTL -- there is not a huge outcry aganist Clemens, except from the usual Yankee- haters.) October 24: With Giant legend Willie Mays throwing out the first ball, the Giants take Game 3 at Stoneham Stadium, 4-2. For the first time ever, brothers are the opposing pitchers in a World Series game, and Livan Hernandez outduels his brother Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez, thanks to an eighth-inning single by Marvin Bernard. It is the first postseason defeat for El Duque, who, since arriving in New York in 1993, had been 14-0 with two nodecisions. The game, as is the entire Series, is watched by the brothers' fellow Cuban, Baseball Commissioner Fidel Castro. (The Hernandez brothers arrive much sooner because Cuba has been part of the U.S. since 1898.) October 25: Orlando Cepeda throws out the first ball as the Giants' adoring fans look on, but any momentum the Giants may have had from last night's Game 3 win is erased on the first pitch by Kirk Reuter to Derek Jeter, into the left-center field "picnic area" at Stoneham Stadium. The Yankees win, 3-2, and take a commanding three games to one lead in the Series. October 26: For the 28th time, the New York Yankees are the World Champions of baseball. Willie McCovey, who tried in vain to help the Giants defeat the Yankees in the 1962 World Series, throws out the first ball, but a tiebreaking single by little-used utility infielder Luis Sojo off a tiring Shawn Estes gives the Yankees a 4-2 lead in the ninth. There is a hush over the crowd with one out to go as Barry Bonds sends Mariano Rivera's pitch to dead center field, but Bernie Williams catches it at the warning track. For the Giants' fans, the old and recently revived cry of their arch-rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers, is appropriate: "Wait 'til next year." November 7: The Presidential election is held. Shortly after 8:00 PM Eastern Time, the State of Florida is called for Vice President Al Gore. But around 10:00, the networks look at the numbers, and declare that the State is now too close to call. By midnight, Gore has a solid lead in the popular vote, in fact has a majority, just over 50 percent. But the Electoral Votes are what matters, and he leads former Governor Linda Chavez of Maryland 262 to 244. There are three States yet to be called, two of them the furthest west: Gore will probably win Hawaii, and Chavez will probably win Alaska. That would make it 266 to 247 in Gore's favor. But 270 is the magic number, and Florida's 25 EVs will decide it. November 8: At 2:13 AM Eastern Time, a Fox News reporter named John Ellis announces that Governor Chavez has won Florida. But her lead is only 5,000 votes, close enough for a recount. Still, the other networks follow, and by an Electoral Vote of 272 to 266, Linda Chavez is elected President of the United States. Or is she? Just a few minutes later, after a raucous Chavez campaign celebration outside the State House in Annapolis, Peter Jennings of ABC sees that Chavez's lead in Florida is down to 500 votes, and he decides that the

State is too close to call, and thus she is not elected. Dan Rather of CBS points out that it was John Ellis who made the call for Fox, and that he is the cousin of John Ellis "Jeb" Bush, Governor of Florida and a major player in the Chavez campaign -- and also the son of former Vice President George Bush. It turns out that many of the black voters the Gore campaign was counting on were stricken from the voter rolls because they were convicted felons -except they weren't, rather they had been convicted of misdemeanors, but the Bush Administration in Florida declared them ineligible to vote anyway. And many of the Jewish voters Gore was counting on were in Palm Beach County, where an unusual ballot form confused them and caused them to unintentionally vote for a minor-party candidate. Many other Jewish voters sided with Chavez because of her Jewish husband, Christopher Gersten, an attorney who heads the Institute for Religious Values. With the Florida vote so close, a recall clause in the State Constitution is kicked in. Gore says he will abide by the result of the recount. Chavez thanks her supporters for electing her President. Gore is waiting for the real result; Chavez is declaring it. November 19: The Florida recount is complete in all but three Counties, all of which would supposedly favor Vice President Gore: Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Broward. In the certified Counties, Governor Chavez has a lead of about 2,800 votes. But at the building where the Miami-Dade votes are being counted -- just two blocks from the site of the assassination of Gore's father, President Albert A. Gore, 37 years ago this week -- a crowd began pounding on the doors, threatening to break in and trash the place if the recount did not stop. "The Miami protest was carried out by rent-a-rioters flown in by the Republican Party," writes John Lantigua in the November 28 installment of the Internet public-affairs magazine Salon.com, calling it "the Preppy Riot." "GOP spokespeople have said that at least 750 Republican activists have been sent into South Florida from around the country to oppose the recount, with the party picking up the tab for a number of them. And last Wednesday, when a gaggle of protesters sprang into action in Miami, those efforts seem to have paid off. The halt of the Miami-Dade County hand count, where 10,750 ballots remain uncounted -- more than enough to flip the outcome of the Florida election or further buttress Linda Chavez's lead in the state -- dealt a devastating blow to Al Gore's presidential campaign. The Vice President's attorneys are arguing that intimidation influenced the canvassing board's decision to stop the hand recount and that it should be resumed. The incident -- the ugliest single set piece of the Election 2000 epic and possibly the most decisive one -- was set in motion by one imported GOP operative: Rep. John Sweeney, R-N.Y ., who from an office in that same county building has led the Miami fight against the recount. But Sweeney wasn't alone. According to the Miami Herald, he had a few helpers, including Elizabeth Ross, a staffer for Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Thomas Pyle, an aide to House Minority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas." Reaction is severe on both sides. "This is just sour grapes on the part of the liberals and the Democrat Party," says Ted Olson, an attorney for the Chavez campaign. "The Democrats can win, so they have to whine and say, 'Do-over!'" says conservative newspaper columnist Ann Coulter. Catherine Chandler, an adviser to the Gore campaign, puts it bluntly: "The Chavez campaign can't handle the fact that Al Gore is the people's choice, so they rely on fascist tactics to try to stop the clear will of

the people from being heard. Her husband, Gore speechwriter Michael Pacholek, puts it even more bluntly: "Some city, that Miami. "First they kill the father, now they steal an election from the son." (Lantigua's RL article on the Preppy Riot is quoted directly, with the name of the candidate changed, and "Majority" in the cases of Lott and DeLay changed to "Minority," as the Democrats held the TTL majority in both houses of Congress, both before and after the election. I had previously assumed that it was all DeLay and the people he hired were Miami Cubans, but apparently that wasn't it, not by a long shot. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised by the full truth.) November 28: The Chavez campaign files suit to have the Florida hand recount stopped. The Florida Supreme Court rules against them, but they appeal all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. December 12: The Supreme Court makes its ruling in Chavez v. Gore. By a 54 ruling, the Court rules that the Florida recount must be stopped, and the last official count hold. In that count, Governor Chavez leads Vice President Gore by 537 votes, giving the disputed Electoral Votes, and the election, to Chavez. All four Justices appointed by Republican Presidents -- Ronald Reagan appointee William Rehnquist, and Pete duPont appointees Malcolm Little, Aulana Peters and Chief Justice Antonin Scalia -- side with Chavez. Four of the Justices appointed by Democrats -- Andrew Young appointee Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Dianne Feinstein appointees Laurence Tribe, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor -- side with Gore. The surprise is Emmett Till, appointed by Feinstein, who sides with Chavez, swayed by Scalia's arguments about the equal-protection clause. December 13: Vice President Gore concedes the election. Democrats around the country declare that, as a second-place finisher in the popular vote and a cheater in the Electoral College, the Chavez Presidency is "illegitimate." But there's not much they can do about it. 2001 January 9: The outgoing Feinstein Administration's national security team delivers a memo to their counterparts in President-elect Chavez' group. It suggests that international terrorism will be America's number-one national security problem. It also advises the President-elect to be on the lookout for "rogue nations" that may be aiding terrorists, possibly including Iraq. January 20: Linda Chavez is sworn in as the 45th President of the United States. Despite a light rain and cold weather, over one million protestors come out, many with signs saying, "Get out of Al Gore's house" and "Linda the Bandit Lady." But "Linda's Fanboys" start fights with them, and over one thousand are arrested. No one is seriously hurt, however. (Having a little more guts in TTL, the Democratic protests are just as numerous, but more determined. But so are the Republicans, who, in TTL, really do see Chavez as the Great Babe in the White House, even though she's 53 years old at the time.)

January 28: The Cleveland Browns defeat the New York Giants, 34-7, to win Super Bowl XXXV at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, winning their first NFL Championship in 36 years. (The Browns' move to Baltimore to become the Ravens isn't possible in TTL, since the Colts are still there.) March 9: Vincent Alo, the mobster who killed Frank Sturgis, the accused assassin of President Albert Gore, dies in prison at the age of 96. He outlives Gore and Sturgis by 37 years. (The actual date of death for the man who played "Jack Ruby" in TTL, and who served as the model for "Johnny Ola" in "The Godfather Part II," played by Dominic Chianese, now better known as Corrado Soprano Jr., alias "Uncle Junior," from "The Sopranos.") April 3: President Linda Chavez throws out the first ball to begin the new baseball season at District of Columbia Stadium. The host Washington Senators defeat the Detroit Tigers, 3-2. After the game, he attends a briefing in the White House Situation Room. "We really need to discuss this airportsecurity plan," she is told by National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice. Chavez takes a look at it, and, with her suspicion of immigrants -- despite her own Mexican heritage -- agrees to put it into place. June 11: The St. Louis Blues win Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, 3-1 over the defending Champion New Jersey Devils. After 20 seasons with the Boston Bruins, defenseman Ray Bourque finally plays on a Cup winner. Blues Captain Al MacInnis receives the Cup, and goaltender Jamie MacLennan is awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as Playoff MVP. (Since the Quebec Nordiques did not become the Colorado Avalanche, I needed a new team for Bourque, and the Blues were a good team at the time and have never won a Cup. Here, they do. Yes, I still let Bourque beat my Devils. This is an ideal world, but not a perfect one.) July 11: A stunning announcement is made by Baseball Commissioner Fidel Castro, the day after the American League's victory in the All-Star Game in Seattle. A series of steroid tests has produced positives for several of baseball's biggest stars. Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals, who hit a record 70 home runs in the 1998 season and has 578 for his career. Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs, who hit 66 to also surpass the previous record in 1998. Barry Bonds of the New York Giants, who has 533 career home runs, has already hit 39 home runs this season and could have made a serious run at McGwire's record. Jose Canseco, now with the Chicago White Sox, a former American League Most Valuable Player who became the first player to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in the same season, 1988, and who has 460 career home runs. Rafael Palmeiro of the Texas Rangers, who has 424 home runs. Jason Giambi of the Colorado Athletics, last year's AL MVP. And several other players of lesser stature. Castro announces they are all banned from baseball for life, and any records they may have are stricken from the books. Their teams' owners are livid, but Castro reminds them that his word is law in the game. August 6: National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice presents President Linda Chavez with a memo warning of a plan by Osama bin Laden, head of the

terrorist organization al-Qaeda, to hijack American airliners. Rice and the national security team don't yet know what the specifics of the plan are, but they suggest beefing up security at America's major airports. Chavez agrees with this plan, down to the recommendation of a Transportation Security Administration. September 10: Major League Baseball owners meet by conference call. They want the players banned for steroid use reinstated. They vote 30-0 to send a delegation to New York tomorrow to confront Commissioner Fidel Castro and threaten him with firing unless he reinstates them. Milwaukee Brewers owner Bud Selig, Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf and St. Louis Cardinals owner Bill DeWitt Jr. fly into New York. Tomorrow, they will meet with Castro. September 11: A terrible day. Ares I, the first flight of the first spacecraft designed to go to the planet Mars, meant only for a test-flight to the Moon and back, blows up just a minute and 40 seconds after launch, killing all 15 crewmembers, men and women from six different nations, including veteran U.S. spaceflight commander Dick Scobee. He was 62. But this is only the beginning. Several prominent people end up dying today. John Lennon, the first member of the Beatles to die, lung cancer, just before his 61st birthday. (Fellow ex-Beatle George Harrison also has cancer.) Supreme Court Justice Malcolm Little, a bleeding ulcer, at the age of 76. Robert F. Kennedy, former Senator from Massachusetts, the nation's first Secretary of Energy, brother of a President and a Senator, father of two members of Congress, pnuemonia, at the age of 75. Medgar Evers, former Governor of Mississippi, President of the NAACP and 1988 Democratic nominee for President, diabetes, at the age of 76. Congresswoman Mary Jo Kopechne of Pennsylvania, cancer, at the age of 61. Yitzhak Rabin, former Prime Minister of Israel, a stroke, at the age of 79. King Ghazi II of Babylon, a car accident, at the age of just 38. (His 12-year-old son is proclaimed King Faisal III.) Anne van Pels (nee Frank), Nobel Prize winner for her World War II novels, a stroke, at the age of 72. "Each of these people had cheated death at some point," political operative turned syndicated newspaper columnist Michael Pacholek writes in his next column. "There's no rational explanation for why they all died, virtually at once, at nearly the same time that Earth's greatest spaceflight tragedy occurs. It's as if things were going so well for the world that Fate decided to reassert itself and take these people, to balance the space-time continuum." It is not, however, immediately obvious how Kopechne has cheated death, though it is soon revealed that she has survived cancer once before. Also dying today, though hardly noticed since few people outside his family, friends and former jobs knew who he was, is Julius Rosenberg, a retired electrical engineer in New York City, of cancer at age 83. About the only good news today is that 19 men, all from the Middle East, 15 of them from Saudi Arabia, have been arrested at three American airports: Newark in New Jersey, outside New York City; Logan in Boston; and Dulles in Virginia; outside Washington. They are found to have ties to al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization run by Osama bin Laden. What was their plan? As of now, they are not talking. But if they had succeeding in hijacking the four planes they were attempting to board... No one wants to think about what these terrorists could have done. But they must. Among the many activities cancelled today is the meeting between

Baseball Commissioner Fidel Castro and representatives of the team owners. (Ares was the Greek name for the god of war, known as Mars to the Romans. Scobee was the commander of the Challenger mission that ended in tragedy in 1986. Lennon and Harrison were both smokers. All these people I gave reprieves, dying on the same day? I admit, it's cheesy, but it's better than what happened to them, and better than what happened today, in RL.) September 12: President Chavez announces that, despite the explosion of the Ares I craft and rocket, and the deaths of the 15 crewmembers, the project to put Earth people on Mars will resume. September 16: The represenatives of the team owners meet with Commissioner Castro. He offers them a deal: Each team that lost a player who had been an All-Star gets to move up to the head of the 2002 amateur draft. And he will step down as Commissioner after the World Series. In exchange, the owners accept as permanent his bans. In order to make both the issue and Castro go away, they accept. Recognition of the single-season home run mark is restored to Roger Maris, who hit 61 for the New York Yankees in 1961. September 27: President Chavez appoints Kenneth Starr, who had served as Solicitor General under President duPont, to the Supreme Court, filling the vacancy left by the death of Malcolm Little. Despite some Democratic Senators' complaints about Starr having lobbied for the gun and tobacco industries and for fringe religious groups, he will be confirmed. (Remember, in TTL, Starr is not the psycho who violated the civil liberties of several people in order to bring down President Clinton. He's just another conservative legal hack, although one just as qualified to serve on the Court as in RL.) October 6: The New York Yankees defeat the Colorado Athletics, 1-0 at Coors Field in Denver, and complete a sweep over the A's. Without first baseman Jason Giambi, banned from baseball due to steroid use, the A's were unable to compete with the Yankees. The game is highlighted by a play in the bottom of the seventh inning. Terrence Long hits a drive down the right-field line. Right fielder Shane Spencer overthrows the would-be cutoff man, first baseman Tino Martinez, and it looks like Jeremy Giambi, Jason's brother, will score. But shortstop Derek Jeter comes seemingly out of nowhere, grabs the ball with his bare hand, and tosses it to catcher Jorge Posada, who makes a swipe tag on Giambi for the out. "The Flip" is remembered as one of the most amazing defensive plays in the history of sports. (The A's almost moved to Denver in 1978 and almost moved there again in 1980. If you've read of the exploits of Brandon Davis, you should be glad his grandfather Marvin did not complete the deal to buy the A's from Charlie Finley. In TTL, the Oakland Wolves have done all right for themselves. With Giambi, the A's took a two games to none lead on the Yankees, but the Yanks won the next three, thanks to this Game 3 play by Jeter and a Jeter catch to tumble into the stands in Game 5. And since the 9/11 attacks did not happen, all baseball entries from September 11 onward are moved up a week.) October 7: President Chavez orders a bombing raid on Afghanistan, to attack

Al-Qaeda terrorist camps. On television that night, she tells the American people what has happened, and why: The thwarted terrorist plans of September 11. "They tried to strike a terrifying blows against us," she says. "and they have failed. We have done the same, and are continuing to do the same, and we will succeed." She receives almost unanimous support from both parties in Congress. Her Administration had been foundering due to a recession that kicked in this year, her tax cuts for the wealthy done with the publicly stated motive of stopping the recession, and continued suggestions that she stole the 2000 election. But in this crisis, most of her opponents are ready and willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. October 26: President Linda Chavez speaks before a joint session of Congress. She tells the American people what they want to hear: Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is in American custody, and the Taliban government of Afghanistan has fallen. "Let the dictators and demagogues of the world know," she says, "Americans are not scared. We are ever vigilant. Whether communist, fascist, or theocratic, whether you claim Christianity, Islam, or any other religion in the name of repression, your days are numbered." Chavez does not name any other such country or dicator. October 28: June Scobee, widow of the Ares I commander, throws out the first ball before Game 7 of the World Series in Phoenix. The Arizona Diamondbacks come from behind to beat the New York Yankees, 3-2. November 6: Mayor Fernando Ferrer of New York is re-elected over Republican broadcasting billionaire Mike Bloomberg. Governor Jim McGreevey of New Jersey is re-elected over Congressman Bob Franks. November 7: The Anaheim Aviators announce they are moving to San Juan, Puerto Rico. They will play at Hiram Bithorn Stadium, whose capacity will be increased from 18,000 to 25,000 with temporary seats, until a better ballpark can be built. They have never won a Pennant, and for five years straight have finished last in the National League West while drawing less than a million fans each time. After 25 years of trying to compete with the American League's Los Angeles Angels up the freeway, they give up. November 29: George Harrison dies of lung cancer at the age of 58. He joins in death his former Beatles bandmate John Lennon, who died on September 11 of the same disease. Uncle Mike Sep 4 2007, 11:13 PM Post #66

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36

Joined: July 30, 2007 2002 January 4: The Major League Baseball team owners select a replacement for outgoing Commissioner Fidel Castro: Rudolph Giuliani, a former U.S. Attorney and three-time candidate for Mayor of New York. His impending third marriage, and second divorce, do not seem to matter to the owners. (Since he had as many unsuccessful runs at the Mayoralty as he had at John Gotti, New York's former Boss of All Bosses -- and his replacement as U.S. Attorney got Gotti convicted on the next try -- and the 9/11 attacks did not happen, he's not going to make a truckload of money talking about "leadership" and "crisis management" and then going on to become an apparently credible candidate for President. Here, Giuliani gets to play to a different apparent strength.) January 27: The New England Patriots shock the Indianapolis Rams by winning Super Bowl XXXVI, 20-17, on a last-second field goal by Adam Vinatieri. It is the first World Championship for a Boston-area football team. (The Providence Steam Rollers won the NFL Championship in 1928, when winning the league championship meant being in first place at the end of the season, and there was no championship game. That was the only other major pro football title for a New England team. The Patriots' 1971-present home of Foxboro, Massachusetts is actually slightly closer to downtown Providence than it is to downtown Boston, which is probably why they have the name "New England" rather than the "Boston Patriots" name they had from 1960 to 1970.) March 1: Cecil Farris Bryant dies at his home in Jacksonville at the age of 87. He was the Governor of Florida from 1961 to 1965, and was shot along with President Albert Gore when Gore was assassinated on November 22, 1963. (In RL, Farris Bryant died on this day, but not having had much to do with national politics, he's barely even remembered in Florida anymore.) April 1: Russian Vice President Vladimir Putin is elected President. The Socialist Party nominee defeats Nationalist Party nominee Mikhail Kasyanov. June 8: The Detroit Red Wings win their third Stanley Cup in the last six years, their tenth overall, winning in five games over the Hartford Whalers. It was the 22nd trip to the Cup Finals for the Wings, but only the first for the Whalers, who won the first Avco Cup, making them champions of the World Hockey Association, in 1973. (The Whalers do not move to Raleigh to become the Carolina Hurricanes.) September 11: One year after the foiled terror attacks, President Chavez gives a televised speech alleging that Iran has built a chemical and biological weapons program. Iran's comparatively young President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has been running his mouth, calling for the conversion of mostly-Christian nations to Islam and the destruction of the nation of Israel, and has said that Iran will build nuclear weapons to defend itself.

Ahmadinejad is seen by many around the world as a madman, and Chavez says he cannot be allowed to gain weapons of mass destruction. (It can't be Iraq, because it is still a constitutional monarchy in TTL.) October 24: The Los Angeles Angels win their first World Series in 42 years of trying, defeating the Montreal Expos in the National League Championship Series seven games. (With Barry Bonds banned, no Pennant for the Giants. And with the revenue for the new ballpark, the Expos are better.) November 5: Due to some saber-rattling rhetoric, the Republicans regain both houses of Congress. One State that bucks this trend is New York, where State Attorney General Elliot Spitzer is elected Governor over billionaire businessman Tom Golisano. November 22: The film Die Another Day is released, and it turns out to be Pierce Brosnan's last appearance as James Bond. Despite the presence of Halle Berry, soon to win an Oscar for Best Actress for Monster's Ball, the film is not particularly successful. And, again, the film seems to take place in the 1980s, allowing the familiar Agent 007 to not be an old man, which he would be if he had started his career as a secret agent in the 1940s, as portayed by David Niven in Casino Royale in 1949. With Brosnan, now 48, backing out of the role, this could be "Goodbye, Mister Bond." Unless the producers at EON Productions can do something else. 2003 January 26: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers win Super Bowl XXXVII, the first World Championship for any team from Florida, defeating the Los Angeles Raiders, 48-21. (With the partial merger of the USFL with the NFL and the coming of the Invaders, the Raiders never moved back to Oakland.) February 1: America returns to space for the first time since the Ares I disaster. Ares II is launched with an 18-person crew. Its three-week mission docks at the International Space Station Freedom and Moonbase Alpha, and returns to Earth safely (Since the space shuttles are all but retired, the Columbia is not destroyed, and survives to the present, along with the Enterprise, the Challenger, the Discovery and the Atlantis. Since the Challenger was not destroyed in TTL, Endeavour was never built as a replacement. Instead, one of the X-33 "Direwolf" craft is named Endeavour, after the ship of Captain James Cook -- hence the British "-our" spelling.) February 5: President Linda Chavez sends Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations. Addressing the General Assembly, he announces that Iran had hired the terrorist group Hezbollah to attack the battleship U.S.S. Iowa in 1989, when, for 14 years, it had been assumed that Syria -- which also had ties to Iran and Hezbollah -- had done it, and then-President Pete duPont went to war over it. Powell asks the U.N. for a resolution condeming Iran and authorizing U.S. force against it. He doesn't get it, as the evidence is seen as too flimsy.

February 18: Vice President Dick Cheney announces that al-Qaeda, the terrorist group routed in 2001 after its failed attempt to hijack U.S. airliners, also has connections to Iran. This is untrue. Ironically, in the coming days, the highest-ranking al-Qaeda figure still at large, Ayman al-Zawahiri, announces that al-Qaeda was responsible for the attack on the battleship Iowa in 1989. This only bolsters the Chavez-Cheney Administration's case. President Chavez announces that Iran must disarm by March 18, or she will act. March 7: President Chavez negotiates with two regents, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Prince Khalil of Iraq, to gain their nations' support in her planned war against Iran. King Fahd of Saudi Arabia has been ailing and may be dying, while King Faisal III of Iraq is just 14 years old, and neither is speaking for himself. Both Saudi Arabia and Iraq will hold U.S. bases to attack Iran. March 18: President Chavez launches the Iran War, launching bombing raids on Tehran with the latest in U.S. airpower, the AF-122. President Ahmadinejad refuses to surrender, and says that America, Israel and Iraq will all pay. He does not, however, dare attack Saudi Arabia, the center of Islam, for fear of offending the true leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. March 31: U.S. ground forces enter Iran, but are met with harsh military resistance. April 22: Martha Griffiths, former Vice President under Andrew Young, former Governor of Michigan, and 1984 Democratic nominee for President, dies at the age of 81. May 7: The NBC drama The West Wing, featuring Martin Sheen as fictional President Josiah "Jed" Bartlet, closes its fourth season with a tense cliffhanger in the episode "Article Nineteen." First Daughter Zoey Bartlet (Elisabeth Moss) has been kidnapped, and Bartlet, refusing to be blackmailed into releasing terrorist prisoners, temporarily gives up the office under the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. But the Vice Presidency is vacant due to a sex scandal that forced John Hoynes (Tim Matheson) to resign. So the Speaker of the House is now the Acting President. And while Bartlet is a liberal Democrat, a former economics professor from New Hampshire, Glen Allen Walken is a conservative Republican, a former country music singer from Tennessee. He is played by Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll, now 68 years old. Elvis will play Acting President Walken in the first two episodes of the fifth season as the storyline is resolved with Zoey's rescue and Bartlet reclaiming his office under the 19th Amendment. Elvis will make one more appearance as Walken later in the season. (The episode's title was "Twenty Five." When I first saw it, I thought it was a play on "24," the Fox series that seems to favor neoconservatism and torture -- forcing someone to watch it could certainly qualify as "cruel and unusual punishment," a violation of the 8th Amendment. Walken was played by John Goodman, was from Missouri, and his pre-politics profession was never mentioned. The Amendment regarding Presidential and Vice Presidential succession in RL is the 25th, ratified in 1967 in the wake of the assassination of John F. Kennedy; in TTL, it

was the 19th, ratified in 1902 in the wake of the assassination of Thomas J. Jarvis.) June 10: The New Jersey Devils need seven games, but they defeat the Anaheim Mighty Ducks in seven games. Goaltender Martin Brodeur, who shuts the Ducks out for the second time in the Finals, is awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as Playoff MVP. (The only change here is that Brodeur is not robbed of the Smythe, which should not have gone to the defeated, indeed humiliated Anaheim goalie, Jean-Sebastien Giguere. The NHL has given its postseason MVP award out to a member of the team that lost the Finals more often than all the other sports combined. While it may have been justified on some occasions, it sure wasn't here.) July 31: Tired of the injuries, poor throwing and whining of catcher Mike Piazza, the Brooklyn Dodgers trade him to the Chicago Cubs for five prospects. October 11: Game 3 of the American League Championship Series at Fenway Park in Boston is marred by several beanballs and a brawl between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. A truly ugly incident happens in the sixth inning, with the Yankees leading 3-2. Roger Clemens, once a beloved Boston pitcher but now a Yankee and despised by the Sox faithful, throws high, but over the plate, to Manny Ramirez, who charges the mound, bat still in hand. Yankee coach Don Zimmer, 72 years old and manager of the Red Sox in their terrible season of collapse in 1978, runs toward Sox starter Pedro Martinez, who had previously hit Karim Garcia on the shoulder and threatened to throw at the head of Jorge Posada. Martinez grabs Zimmer by the head and throws him to the ground. Zimmer is checked out at a local hospital and released, but Martinez has grabbed a 72-year-old man by the head and thrown him to the ground -- a 72-year-old man whose own playing career had twice been curtailed by getting hit in the head with pitches. When the field is cleared, the umpires eject no one, Clemens strikes Ramirez out, and the Yankees win this latest installment of baseball's nastiest rivalry, 4-2, to take a two games to one lead in the series. October 12: It's probably for the best that it rains in Boston today, postponing Game 4 of the ALCS and allowing all parties to simmer down a little. But another log is thrown onto the Yankee-Red Sox fire when Baseball Commissioner Rudy Giuliani suspends Pedro Martinez for twelve games, including the rest of this series -- meaning he would miss his next start in the ALCS, if the Sox can extend it to a Game 7, and any World Series starts he would have made; all the way until, at the absolute minimum, next season's Opening Day, and, at the most, ten games, either two or three starts, in the 2004 season. "Pedro Martinez's actions were truly heinous," Giuliani says in a press conference. "In Boston, he was cheered and allowed to stay in the game. In New York, he could have been charged with attempted murder. It is the action that incurred the penalty, not just the game and previous on-field experiences of the victim." Red Sox fans are furious, and Giuliani decides not to attend Games 4 and 5 at Fenway.

October 14: The Chicago Cubs win their first Pennant in 58 years, defeating the Havana Almendares, 6-0. Two home runs by newly-acquired catcher Mike Piazza make the difference, although there is a scary moment in the bottom of the sixth, when Piazza hits a line drive foul into the left-field stands. Steve Bartman, 25, was hit in the head with the line drive, causing the headphones he was using to listen to the radio broadcast to shatter and make several cuts on the right side of his face. He was taken to a nearby hospital, stitched up, and released, allowing him to party with the rest of the city of Chicago -- that is, except for the White Sox fans. (This time, Bartman is a victim, not a -ahem -- goat. And, as Harry Caray would have said had he lived long enough, "Cubs win! Cubs win! Holy cow!" The Almendares -- Spanish for "Scorpions" -take the place of the Florida Marlins. In TTL, Miami still does not have an MLB team.) October 16: Desperate for a pitcher to start Game 7 of the American League Championship Series, with Pedro Martinez suspended and neither Tim Wakefield, Derek Lowe or John Burkett able to go more than an inning or two today, Boston Red Sox manager Grady Little starts a man familiar with October baseball in Yankee Stadium, former Yankee Ramiro Mendoza, who has been mainly a reliever in his career but has made spot starts for both teams. Uh-oh, think Sox fans, another risky pitching maneuver for a Sox manager that will blow up in our faces. But Mendoza pitches pretty well, giving the Sox seven strong innings, his only two mistakes being solo homers by Tino Martinez. But Little goes to his bullpen in the eighth, and Mike Timlin gives up four straight doubles to Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada, and the game is tied. In the bottom of the 11th, Tim Wakefield throws one pitch, a weak knuckleball, to Aaron Boone, who drives it to left feld for a Pennant-winning home run. Yankees 6, Red Sox 5. The Red Sox may have won the World Series in 1986, but even that seems like a long time ago, and they still can't seem to beat the Yankees when it counts. (Tino was re-signed because Jason Giambi wasn't available, having been banned from baseball for steroids. This time, Little gets fired for going to his bullpen, not for refusing to.) October 23: Shortstop Alex Gonzalez homers off Jeff Weaver in the bottom of the 11th inning, giving the Chicago Cubs a 4-3 victory over the New York Yankees in Game 4 of the World Series. Wrigley Field is in absolute pandemonium. (It was the other Alex Gonzalez, the one who played for the Marlins, who homered off Jeff "Bad Dream" Weaver to win this game. I despise Jeff Weaver.) October 24: Roger Clemens makes his last career start -- or so he says -- and, against his deepest instincts, elects not to throw a high-inside pitch to Cubs catcher Mike Piazza. He throws low over the plate, and Piazza belts the pitch into the green hitters' background in center field. The Cubs win Game 5 of the World Series, and need one more victory over the New York Yankees to win the World Series for the first time since 1908. (Clemens actually started Game 4. If I have to see my team lose this Series as it did in RL, I like it better this way.)

October 26: The Chicago Cubs are World Champions for the first time in 95 years. They defeat the New York Yankees, 3-0 in Game 6, in front of a stunned crowd of 56,821 at Yankee Stadium. Mark Prior outduels Andy Pettitte, and Aramis Ramirez hits a home run into Monument Park in left-center field. (It was Josh Beckett of the Marlins who pitched, otherwise this is the same. Unlike the Giants with Barry Bonds, the Cubs do not suffer for the steroidrelated banning of Sammy Sosa.) October 27: As the Chicago Cubs return home from their incredible World Series win over the New York Yankees, ESPN is forced to hire substitute panelists for its programs Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption when sports columnist Jay Mariotti of the Chicago Sun-Times is too hung over to appear on the former, and Washington Post columnist and Chicago native Michael Wilbon is too hoarse to appear on the latter. Tim Cowlishaw of the Dallas Morning News substitutes for Mariotti, and Michelle Tafoya of ESPN fills in for Wilbon, showing Wilbon's co-host and fellow Post columnist Tony Kornheiser a picture of Wilbon wearing the Cubs' official locker-room celebration cap and smoking a victory cigar. "I guess Mariotti gave a new meaning to 'Toss-Up!'" Kornheiser says on the air, referring to a segment of the show where he and Wilbon take sides of two-way arguments. November 4: Albert Benjamin Chandler III, a.k.a. Ben Chandler, Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Kentucky and grandson of President Albert B. "Happy" Chandler, is elected Governor. November 22: J.D. Tippit, a retired captain of the Dallas Police Department, dies of a heart attack. He was 79 years old. Most people outside the DallasFort Worth Metroplex have never heard of him. (Forty years to the day after his death, and there is no question that Tippit was murdered by Lee Harvey Oswald.) Uncle Mike Sep 6 2007, 02:39 AM Post #67

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 The idea of having Malcolm X and Emmett Till -- and Till was almost exactly the same age as Mississippi's Trent Lott -- both being on the Supreme Court and throwing the election from Gore to Chavez (Linda, not Hugo), was too good to pass up. And as a high school student (something Till never lived to be), Malcolm had thought about going to law school.

I've wondered: When names go in alphabetical order, does Malcolm X go under M, or X? Or S, for the name he adopted last, Malik el-Shabazz? * OK, who's more absent-minded: Me for making this mistake, or everybody else for not noticing it? I have President Linda Chavez going to war against Iran, featuring President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in 2003. The war can't be against Iraq, because there is no Iraq, it's broken into Babylon and Kurdistan, and both of those are constitutional monarchies and allies of the U.S. So what's the mistake? A too-early Presidency for Ahmadinejad? No, that can easily be explained with some entry or other. The mistake is that the Shah, Reza II, the son of the man we knew as the last Shah, crushed the Khomeini revolution in 1979. So it's unlikely Ahmadinejad (the name makes me hear Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull sing "Aqualung my friend") and Khamenei ever come to power. Therefore, everything I posted in 2002 and 2003 is hereby inoperative. So I have to either come up with a new country to be the site of the disastrous Republican war of the 2000s, or just drop the idea, and have Linda get her comeuppance for some other reason. Or maybe even have her reelected. (Don't count on it.) The floor is open for suggestions. Uncle Mike Sep 6 2007, 02:48 PM Post #68

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 Turtledove Sep 6 2007, 10:55 AM Liberal use of the butterfly effect.

Oh, thanks, T-Dove, for a while I was worried that you were going to be vague about it. Unless you mean not how do I get out of that corner I wrote myself into, but all the little changes that my big changes make, which make this one of the most involved Timelines ever put on one of these sites. I wanted everything that happened to be, if not a likely occurrence, at least a rational one. To make supporters go "Yeah! That's showin' 'em!" and opponents go, "I don't like it, but at least it makes some sense, a far cry from so many of your GD commie-liberal revisions." So why did I "kill" all those no-longer-martyred people on 9/11? Maybe it was to throw a crumb to all you blood-spilling warmongers on the site. Maybe I should've made Mrs. Me, the former Catherine Crandall, a redhead...

Uncle Mike

Sep 7 2007, 03:01 PM Post #69

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 Turtledove Sep 6 2007, 07:46 PM Michael P Sep 6 2007, 01:48 PM Oh, thanks, T-Dove, for a while I was worried that you were going to be vague about it. Unless you mean not how do I get out of that corner I wrote myself into, but all the little changes that my big changes make, which make this one of the most involved Timelines ever put on one of these sites. I wanted everything that happened to be, if not a likely occurrence, at least a rational one. To make supporters go "Yeah! That's showin' 'em!" and opponents go, "I don't like it, but at least it makes some sense, a far cry from so many of your GD commie-liberal revisions." So why did I "kill" all those no-longer-martyred people on 9/11? Maybe it was

to throw a crumb to all you blood-spilling warmongers on the site. Maybe I should've made Mrs. Me, the former Catherine Crandall, a redhead... Wow. I was making a comment about how history hasn't changed much event-wise though with Lee as a Union commander the butterfly effect should be in place and warping the world to an even larger degree than what this timeline has. But it might not have warped that much. Even with everything that's happened in TTL, we still haven't gotten to Mars by 2003. For crying out loud, Star Trek had us reaching Saturn and its moons by 2009, sending deep-space vessels out by 2018, and achieving light speed in 2063 despite being in the aftermath of a World War III that killed 600 million people. And yet, I heard on the radio the other day that 2025 is the soonest we can get back to the freakin' Moon. Unless, of course, we have Spartan Phalanx give the secret of warp drive to Nathan Bedford Forrest, as he previously suggested. <_< Now THAT would be "warped." (Then again, so is anyone who today takes the Confederates' side.) Does anyone really think that avoiding the summer 1914 spark of World War I would have led to a hundred more years of peace? I don't. Does anyone think that taking Hitler out prevents a World War II? It might have been different, but it would have happened. There would have been a "Vietnam" somewhere, even if Ho lets Ike buy him off. Castro would have been a pain in the @$$ somehow. Walter O'Malley was an SOB no matter where the Dodgers would now be playing. And if another sport had come along to take the place of basketball, Kobe Bryant still wouldn't pass the ball enough when playing it. I have a non-Communist (though often socialist) Russia, which gets to the Moon in 1970. Iraq, under the name Babylon, is a monarchy friendly to the U.S. for its entire history (assuming I don't change that, which I might to fit the need for a Republican war in 2003). September 11, 2001 is the date of a tragedy, not a crime. Three women, one of them Hispanic (and, in RL, has never been elected to anything despite having tried, unlike the other two), and a black man have been President of the United States in TTL. And Bill Clinton's runs for public office end in 1980. Is that not change enough? Is that not "butterflied" enough? It is for me. Uncle Mike Sep 7 2007, 03:07 PM Post #70

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks

Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 Wendell Sep 6 2007, 09:11 PM Africa is a big no in terms of American intervention in our TL. Considering the similarity of this TL to our own, I see not why such a conflict would occur in Africa. I'm agreeing with Wendell and disagreeing with Joe. Maybe somebody spiked my Diet Pepsi. Let's see, in Africa, who has oil? Nigeria? Nah, can't go to war there, Pat Robertson wouldn't like it. I also can't see Linda Chavez, or even Dick Cheney, picking a fight with South Africa, even after Nelson Mandela has left office. The whole world would turn on us, and I don't mean a million people in the streets of London, I mean the end of America as the world's ideal. Somalia? Not sure what the excuse would be. After all, Linda Chavez is not related to Pete duPont, and no Somali ever tried to kill him. No, I think I'm just going to tweak Iraq. After all, the King who accedes to the throne on 9/11/2001 is a minor, and his regent might be hiking the price of oil... Hold on... Chavez vs. Chavez! Linda vs. Hugo! How about that? Or does Hugo not "happen" with Castro being Governor of Florida and later Commissioner of Baseball? Uncle Mike Sep 7 2007, 03:11 PM Post #71

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007

Spartan Phalanx Sep 7 2007, 02:07 PM Michael P Sep 7 2007, 02:01 PM For crying out loud, Star Trek had us reaching Saturn and its moons by 2009, sending deep-space vessels out by 2018, and achieving light speed in 2063 despite being in the aftermath of a World War III that killed 600 million people. And yet, I heard on the radio the other day that 2025 is the soonest we can get back to the freakin' Moon.

Yes, but youre missing one critical point. Star Trek sucks

Only the third season, and that was Fred Freiberger's fault. It was the first scifi/fantasy series he messed up, but not the last: He also wrecked Mission: Impossible, and then, deciding to see what he could do without Leonard Nimoy in the way -- but sticking with Martin Landau and Barbara Bain -ruined Space: 1999. "Fred Freiberger is now executive producer. This show will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck, Jim." So what's YOUR favorite sci-fi/fantasy epic? Lemme guess: Battlefield Earth? Starship Troopers? Maybe Dune? "Everyone knows that Dune stunk." -- Gene Siskel Uncle Mike Sep 7 2007, 03:32 PM Post #72

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 Spartan Phalanx Sep 7 2007, 02:20 PM Michael P Sep 7 2007, 02:11 PM So what's YOUR favorite sci-fi/fantasy epic? Lemme guess: Battlefield Earth? Starship Troopers? Maybe Dune? "Everyone knows that Dune stunk." -- Gene Siskel

Battlefield Earth- The book was enjoyable but the movie was pathetic. Starship Troopers- Good book. Verhoeven raped it in the film though. Dune- Liked the book, movie and the miniseries. The movie was my favorite though. I boycotted the Children of Dune miniseries because that bitch Sarandon was in it. Well, Battlefield Earth had Travolta in it. Travolta has this nasty habit of making a really good movie and then totally bombing in his next one, then doing another great one, then another horrible one. If Costner had done Battlefield Earth, it, like Dances With Wolves, Waterworld and The Postman, would've been called "Kevin's Gate." (For those who don't know: Heaven's Gate was a far-too-expensive Western that sank United Artists studios in 1980. And of the three "Kevin's Gates," only The Postman was truly bad, rather than just overly expensive to make.) Never been a Verhoeven fan. I used to love Susan Sarandon, but she's a New York Mets and New York Rangers fan. I'm sorry, but I hate those teams so much, it trumps the fact that we agree on poltics and she's still so freakin' hot at 60. Uncle Mike Sep 8 2007, 11:59 PM Post #73

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 OK, I've fixed the problem with the 2001 President's war. By the time the sun comes up here on the U.S. East Coast, this Timeline will be up, to the present day. Unless my computer goes haywire for the second time tonight. You never know. << Michael, how about something happening in Indonesia ITTL? >> Wendell My knowledge of Indonesia is pathetically small, aside from the fact that Vice President-in-waiting Obama lived there for a while as a child, and NOT in a

Muslim-indoctrination school as some would like us to believe. So I really wouldn't know what I'm doing. Yes, that WOULD be different from "the usual!" Don't you people know I'm a Jedi and I can read your minds? (And some of you really ought to be ashamed of yourselves.) << What he'd say: QUOTE Michael P: Indonesia? is that the one next to Pakistan? >> Pompey Uh, no, that's what Bush would say. Even though he was just one country away today. After all, he called his hosts "the Austrians" and the APEC Summit "the OPEC Summit." My God, even Warren "Not Nostrums But Normalcy" Harding wasn't this stupid. << Star Trek sucks and I won't have its crap sullying my board. >> Turtledove I find your opinion highly illogical. Uncle Mike Sep 9 2007, 12:02 AM Post #74

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 2002 January 4: The Major League Baseball team owners select a replacement for outgoing Commissioner Fidel Castro: Rudolph Giuliani, a former U.S. Attorney and three-time candidate for Mayor of New York. His impending third marriage, and second divorce, do not seem to matter to the owners. (Since he had as many unsuccessful runs at the Mayoralty as he had at John Gotti, New York's former Boss of All Bosses -- and his replacement as U.S. Attorney got Gotti convicted on the next try -- and the 9/11 attacks did not happen, he's not going to make a truckload of money talking about "leadership" and "crisis management" and then going on to become an apparently credible candidate for President. Here, Giuliani gets to play to a different apparent strength.)

January 27: The New England Patriots shock the Indianapolis Rams by winning Super Bowl XXXVI, 20-17, on a last-second field goal by Adam Vinatieri. It is the first World Championship for a Boston-area football team. (The Providence Steam Rollers won the NFL Championship in 1928, when winning the league championship meant being in first place at the end of the season, and there was no championship game. That was the only other major pro football title for a New England team. The Patriots' 1971-present home of Foxboro, Massachusetts is actually slightly closer to downtown Providence than it is to downtown Boston, which is probably why they have the name "New England" rather than the "Boston Patriots" name they had from 1960 to 1970.) March 1: Cecil Farris Bryant dies at his home in Jacksonville at the age of 87. He was the Governor of Florida from 1961 to 1965, and was shot along with President Albert Gore when Gore was assassinated on November 22, 1963. (In RL, Farris Bryant died on this day, but not having had much to do with national politics, he's barely even remembered in Florida anymore.) April 1: Russian Vice President Vladimir Putin is elected President. The Socialist Party nominee defeats Nationalist Party nominee Mikhail Kasyanov. June 8: The Detroit Red Wings win their third Stanley Cup in the last six years, their tenth overall, winning in five games over the Hartford Whalers. It was the 22nd trip to the Cup Finals for the Wings, but only the first for the Whalers, who won the first Avco Cup, making them champions of the World Hockey Association, in 1973. (The Whalers do not move to Raleigh to become the Carolina Hurricanes.) September 11: One year after the foiled terror attacks, President Chavez gives a televised speech alleging that Babylon is building a chemical and biological weapons program. Iraq's King is the 13-year-old Faisal III, so the real power lies with the Prince Regent, Sharif Ali bin Hussein. Sharif Ali has been running his mouth, calling for the conversion of mostly-Christian nations to Islam and the destruction of the nation of Israel, and has said that Babylon will build nuclear weapons to defend itself. He is seen by many around the world as a madman, and Chavez says he cannot be allowed to gain weapons of mass destruction. (Faisal III is the son of the late Ghazi II, the son of Faisal II. In RL, King Faisal II of Iraq was killed in the 1958 coup and had no children, so Ghazi II and Faisal III are characters created for TTL. Sharif Ali bin Hussein, however, does exist. Born in Iraq in 1956 and a member of the House of Hashem that ruled Iraq and still rules Jordan, he is the leader of the Iraqi Constitutional Monarchy party and a pretender to the throne, and makes a convenient villain, although, as far as I know, he has never made anti-Semitic or anti-Israel statements. The key here is that, having been close to power, he could see Israel, Zionism, and its supporters in the West as threats, particularly in light of the U.S. war against Iraq's brother nation of Syria -- RLSyria having also been a Hashemite kingdom, but has been estranged from Iraq since the 1958 military coup. The generally-agreed heir to the Iraqi throne, should it ever be reinstated -- don't bet the farm on it ever happening -- is Prince Ra'ad, 71, a first cousin of Faisal II and of the late King Hussein I of Jordan, who has been Chamberlain to the Royal Court of Jordan, and thus an

aide to Hussein and to Hussein's son, King Abdullah II.) October 24: The Los Angeles Angels win their first World Series in 42 years of trying, defeating the Montreal Expos in the National League Championship Series seven games. (With Barry Bonds banned, no Pennant for the Giants. And with the revenue for the new ballpark, the Expos are better.) November 5: Due to some saber-rattling rhetoric, the Republicans regain both houses of Congress. One State that bucks this trend is New York, where State Attorney General Elliot Spitzer is elected Governor over billionaire businessman Tom Golisano. November 22: The film Die Another Day is released, and it turns out to be Pierce Brosnan's last appearance as James Bond. Despite the presence of Halle Berry, soon to win an Oscar for Best Actress for Monster's Ball, the film is not particularly successful. And, again, the film seems to take place in the 1980s, allowing the familiar Agent 007 to not be an old man, which he would be if he had started his career as a secret agent in the 1940s, as portayed by David Niven in Casino Royale in 1949. With Brosnan, now 48, backing out of the role, this could be "Goodbye, Mister Bond." Unless the producers at EON Productions can do something else. 2003 January 26: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers win Super Bowl XXXVII, the first World Championship for any team from Florida, defeating the Los Angeles Raiders, 48-21. (With the partial merger of the USFL with the NFL and the coming of the Invaders, the Raiders never moved back to Oakland.) February 1: America returns to space for the first time since the Ares I disaster. Ares II is launched with an 18-person crew. Its three-week mission docks at the International Space Station Freedom and Moonbase Alpha, and returns to Earth safely (Since the space shuttles are all but retired, the Columbia is not destroyed, and survives to the present, along with the Enterprise, the Challenger, the Discovery and the Atlantis. Since the Challenger was not destroyed in TTL, Endeavour was never built as a replacement. Instead, one of the X-33 "Direwolf" craft is named Endeavour, after the ship of Captain James Cook -- hence the British "-our" spelling.) February 5: President Linda Chavez sends Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations. Addressing the General Assembly, he announces that, under the orders of Prince Sharif Ali, and with the tacit approval of King Ghazi II -- who, conveniently, is no longer alive to defend himself -- Babylon had hired the terrorist group Hezbollah to attack the battleship U.S.S. Iowa in 1989, when, for 14 years, it had been assumed that Syria -- which also had ties to Babylon and Hezbollah -- had done it, and then-President Pete duPont went to war over it. Powell asks the U.N. for a resolution condeming Babylon and authorizing U.S. force against it. He doesn't get it, as the evidence is seen as too flimsy.

February 18: Vice President Dick Cheney announces that al-Qaeda, the terrorist group routed in 2001 after its failed attempt to hijack U.S. airliners, also has connections to Babylon. This is untrue. Ironically, in the coming days, the highest-ranking al-Qaeda figure still at large, Ayman al-Zawahiri, announces that al-Qaeda was responsible for the attack on the battleship Iowa in 1989. This only bolsters the Chavez-Cheney Administration's case. President Chavez announces that Babylon must disarm by March 18, or she will act. March 7: President Chavez negotiates with another regent, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, to gain his nation's support in her planned war against Babylon. King Fahd of Saudi Arabia has been ailing and may be dying, so, like King Faisal III of Babylon, just 14 years old, he is not speaking for himself. Saudi Arabia will hold U.S. bases to attack Babylon. Chavez does not, however, get the support of Faisal's cousin, King Abdullah II of Jordan, who warns her that any attack on Babylon would not have his support, and that if Faisal were killed, it would be disastrous for U.S.-Muslim relations. March 18: President Chavez launches the Babylonian War, launching bombing raids on Baghdad with the latest in U.S. airpower, the AF-122. Prince Regent Sharif Ali refuses to surrender, and says that America and Israel will all pay. He does not, however, dare attack Saudi Arabia, the center of Islam. March 31: U.S. ground forces enter Babylon, but are met with harsh military resistance. April 22: Martha Griffiths, former Vice President under Andrew Young, former Governor of Michigan, and 1984 Democratic nominee for President, dies at the age of 81. April 19: U.S. troops reach Baghdad, the Babylonian capital. The search is on for Prince Regent Sharif Ali and 14-year-old King Faisal III. May 1: On the deck of the modern, nuclear-powered aircraft carrier U.S.S. Robert E. Lee, underneath a banner reading, "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED," President Linda Chavez speaks of the Babylonian War: "The war is over, the terrorist state has lost, and freedom has won." Few doubt her. However, Prince Regent Sharif Ali and King Faisal have not been found. May 7: The NBC drama The West Wing, featuring Martin Sheen as fictional President Josiah "Jed" Bartlet, closes its fourth season with a tense cliffhanger in the episode "Article Nineteen." First Daughter Zoey Bartlet (Elisabeth Moss) has been kidnapped, and Bartlet, refusing to be blackmailed into releasing terrorist prisoners, temporarily gives up the office under the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. But the Vice Presidency is vacant due to a sex scandal that forced John Hoynes (Tim Matheson) to resign. So the Speaker of the House is now the Acting President. And while Bartlet is a liberal Democrat, a former economics professor from New Hampshire, Glen Allen Walken is a conservative Republican, a former country music singer from Tennessee. He is played by Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll, now

68 years old. Elvis will play Acting President Walken in the first two episodes of the fifth season as the storyline is resolved with Zoey's rescue and Bartlet reclaiming his office under the 19th Amendment. Elvis will make one more appearance as Walken later in the season. (The episode's title was "Twenty Five." When I first saw it, I thought it was a play on "24," the Fox series that seems to favor neoconservatism and torture -- forcing someone to watch it could certainly qualify as "cruel and unusual punishment," a violation of the 8th Amendment. Walken was played by John Goodman, was from Missouri, and his pre-politics profession was never mentioned. The Amendment regarding Presidential and Vice Presidential succession in RL is the 25th, ratified in 1967 in the wake of the assassination of John F. Kennedy; in TTL, it was the 19th, ratified in 1902 in the wake of the assassination of Thomas J. Jarvis.) June 10: The New Jersey Devils need seven games, but they defeat the Anaheim Mighty Ducks in seven games. Goaltender Martin Brodeur, who shuts the Ducks out for the second time in the Finals, is awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as Playoff MVP. (The only change here is that Brodeur is not robbed of the Smythe, which should not have gone to the defeated, indeed humiliated Anaheim goalie, Jean-Sebastien Giguere. The NHL has given its postseason MVP award out to a member of the team that lost the Finals more often than all the other sports combined. While it may have been justified on some occasions, it sure wasn't here.) July 31: Tired of the injuries, poor throwing and whining of catcher Mike Piazza, the Brooklyn Dodgers trade him to the Chicago Cubs for five prospects. August 12: King Faisal III of Babylon appears on state television in Amman, Jordan, where his second cousin Abdullah II is King. He has escaped from Babylon, with the help of some loyal guards, from both his cousin, Prince Regent Sharif Ali, and from attacking U.S. forces. The 14-year-old Faisal tells the world that American troops have caused terrible damage to his country, and that he wants them to leave as soon as Sharif Ali -- whom he calls "a traitor and a grievous infidel" -- can be taken into custody by someone. King Abdullah offers his assistance to President Linda Chavez. She accepts. September 8: Prince Regent Sharif Ali is killed in a firefight between his guards and those of the teenage King Faisal of Babylon. Soon, Faisal will return to his country, and will meet with the U.S. commander in Babylon, General Eric Shinseki, and will begin to rebuild his country with assistance from his cousin, King Abdullah of Jordan, and from another, Prince Ra'ad bin Zeid, the new Prince Regent and, for the moment, the heir to the throne. Early next year, Babylon will hold elections, and become a parliamentary democracy. President Linda Chavez has gambled and won, but won what? Iraq has been liberated from a despot who was taking advantage of a teenaged boy, but no weapons of mass destruction (the supposed reason for the invasion) have been found, over 1,000 Americans have died, over 20,000 Babylonians are dead, and the country's infrastructure and other resources are a pathetic mess. (At least, unlike in RL, the war in that country is over.)

October 11: Game 3 of the American League Championship Series at Fenway Park in Boston is marred by several beanballs and a brawl between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. A truly ugly incident happens in the sixth inning, with the Yankees leading 3-2. Roger Clemens, once a beloved Boston pitcher but now a Yankee and despised by the Sox faithful, throws high, but over the plate, to Manny Ramirez, who charges the mound, bat still in hand. Yankee coach Don Zimmer, 72 years old and manager of the Red Sox in their terrible season of collapse in 1978, runs toward Sox starter Pedro Martinez, who had previously hit Karim Garcia on the shoulder and threatened to throw at the head of Jorge Posada. Martinez grabs Zimmer by the head and throws him to the ground. Zimmer is checked out at a local hospital and released, but Martinez has grabbed a 72-year-old man by the head and thrown him to the ground -- a 72-year-old man whose own playing career had twice been curtailed by getting hit in the head with pitches. When the field is cleared, the umpires eject no one, Ramirez's at-bat is resumed, Clemens strikes him out, and the Yankees win this latest installment of baseball's nastiest rivalry, 4-2, to take a two games to one lead in the series. October 12: It's probably for the best that it rains in Boston today, postponing Game 4 of the ALCS and allowing all parties to simmer down a little. But the rain cannot put out the Yankee-Red Sox fire, and another log is thrown onto it when Baseball Commissioner Rudy Giuliani suspends Pedro Martinez for twelve games, including the rest of this series -- meaning he would miss his next start in the ALCS, if the Sox can extend it to a Game 7, and any World Series starts he would have made; all the way until, at the absolute minimum, next season's Opening Day, and, at the most, ten games, either two or three starts, in the 2004 season. "Pedro Martinez's actions were truly heinous," Giuliani says in a press conference. "In Boston, he was cheered and allowed to stay in the game. In New York, he could have been charged with attempted murder. It is the action that incurred the penalty, not just the game and previous on-field experiences of the victim." Red Sox fans are furious, and Giuliani decides not to attend Games 4 and 5 at Fenway. (Martinez was not penalized, not so much as fined a penny, and was scheduled to start Game 7. It did rain on this day. I was in Boston for the day of Game 4, and the atmosphere was still quite tense. The hate that Sox fans have for the Yankees is topped only by that which they have for Yankee fans. The only U.S. sports rivalries that come close are the nastier college football rivalries, like Alabama-Auburn or Florida-Florida State. Ohio State-Michigan is as intense, but by no means as nasty. The Sox won Game 4 with a tough performance by knuckleballer Tim Wakefield; nevertheless, I got out of New England in one piece. The Yanks won Game 5, then the Sox won Game 6.) October 14: The Chicago Cubs win their first Pennant in 58 years, defeating the Havana Almendares, 6-0. Two home runs by newly-acquired catcher Mike Piazza make the difference, although there is a scary moment in the bottom of the sixth, when Piazza hits a line drive foul into the left-field stands. Steve Bartman, 25, was hit in the head with the line drive, causing the headphones he was using to listen to the radio broadcast to shatter and make several cuts on the right side of his face. He was taken to a nearby hospital, stitched up,

and released, allowing him to party with the rest of the city of Chicago -- that is, except for the White Sox fans. (This time, Bartman is a victim, not -- ahem -- a goat. And, as Harry Caray would have said had he lived long enough, "Cubs win! Cubs win! Holy cow!" The Almendares -- Spanish for "Scorpions" -take the place of the Florida Marlins. In TTL, Miami still does not have an MLB team.) October 16: Desperate for a pitcher to start Game 7 of the American League Championship Series, with Pedro Martinez suspended and neither Tim Wakefield, Derek Lowe nor John Burkett able to go more than an inning or two today, Boston Red Sox manager Grady Little starts a man familiar with October baseball in Yankee Stadium, former Yankee Ramiro Mendoza, who has been mainly a reliever in his career but has made spot starts for both teams. Uh-oh, think Sox fans, another risky pitching maneuver from a Sox manager that will blow up in his face and ours. But Mendoza pitches pretty well, giving the Sox seven strong innings, his only two mistakes being solo homers by Tino Martinez. But Little goes to his bullpen in the eighth, and Mike Timlin gives up four straight doubles to Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada, and the game is tied. In the bottom of the 11th, Tim Wakefield throws one pitch, a weak knuckleball, to Aaron Boone, who drives it to left field for a Pennant-winning home run. Yankees 6, Red Sox 5. The Red Sox may have won the World Series in 1986, but even that seems like a long time ago, and they still can't seem to beat the Yankees when it counts. (Tino was re-signed by the Yankees after the 2001 season because Jason Giambi, whom George Steinbrenner badly coveted in RL, wasn't available, having been banned from baseball for steroids. This time, Little gets fired for going to his bullpen, not for refusing to.) October 23: Shortstop Alex Gonzalez homers off Jeff Weaver in the bottom of the 11th inning, giving the Chicago Cubs a 4-3 victory over the New York Yankees in Game 4 of the World Series. Wrigley Field is in absolute pandemonium. (It was the other Alex Gonzalez, the one who played for the Marlins, who homered off Jeff "Bad Dream" Weaver to win this game. I despise Jeff Weaver.) October 24: Roger Clemens makes his last career start -- or so he says -- and, against his deepest instincts, elects not to throw a high-inside pitch to Cubs catcher Mike Piazza. He throws low over the plate, and Piazza belts the pitch into the green hitters' background in center field. The Cubs win Game 5 of the World Series, and need one more victory over the New York Yankees to win the World Series for the first time since 1908. (Clemens actually started Game 4. If I have to see my team lose this Series as it did in RL, I like it better this way.) October 26: The Chicago Cubs are World Champions for the first time in 95 years. They defeat the New York Yankees, 3-0 in Game 6, in front of a stunned crowd of 56,821 at Yankee Stadium. Mark Prior outduels Andy Pettitte, and Aramis Ramirez hits a home run into Monument Park in left-center field. (It was Josh Beckett of the Marlins who pitched, otherwise this is the same. Unlike the Giants with Barry Bonds, the Cubs do not suffer for the steroid-

related banning of Sammy Sosa.) October 27: As the Chicago Cubs return home from their incredible World Series win over the New York Yankees, ESPN is forced to hire substitute panelists for its programs Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption when sports columnist Jay Mariotti of the Chicago Sun-Times is too hung over to appear on the former, and Washington Post columnist and Chicago native Michael Wilbon is too hoarse to appear on the latter. Tim Cowlishaw of the Dallas Morning News substitutes for Mariotti, and Michelle Tafoya of ESPN fills in for Wilbon, showing Wilbon's co-host and fellow Post columnist Tony Kornheiser a picture of Wilbon wearing the Cubs' official locker-room celebration cap and smoking a victory cigar. "I guess Mariotti gave a new meaning to 'Toss-Up!'" Kornheiser says on the air, referring to a segment of the show where he and Wilbon take sides of two-way arguments. November 4: Albert Benjamin Chandler III, a.k.a. Ben Chandler, Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Kentucky and grandson of President Albert B. "Happy" Chandler, is elected Governor. (He lost this election, but then, in RL, his grandfather was never President of the United States.) November 22: J.D. Tippit, a retired captain of the Dallas Police Department, dies of a heart attack. He was 79 years old. Most people outside the DallasFort Worth Metroplex have never heard of him. (Forty years to the day after his death, and there is no question that Tippit was murdered by Lee Harvey Oswald.) 2004 January 1: The New Year begins with the news that President Linda Chavez has announced that U.S. troops will be redeployed from Babylon, and that only a token force will remain by July 1. This is generally considered good news, and the Babylonian War, and its handling and mishandling by Chavez, begins to fade as an issue for this November's Presidential election. But the American economy is falling apart, as Babylon's oil isn't exactly flowing into U.S. coffers, and America's supposed allies of Saudi Arabia have set oil prices at an all-time high. Chavez's tax cuts, skewed heavily toward the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, have cost three million jobs, to say nothing of job growth not keeping up with population growth. While Chavez, despite difficulties at home and abroad, is unopposed for the Republican nomination, the race for the Democratic nomination for President is on. Neither half of the supposedly cheated ticket of 2000, former Vice President Al Gore or Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, runs this time. Two candidates have run before, former Governor Hillary Rodham of Arkansas and outgoing House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri. Also running are: Former Governor Howard Dean of Vermont; from the Senate, John Kerry of Massachusetts, Bob Graham of Florida, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut (the first major-party Jewish candidate), Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois and John Edwards of North Carolina (the latter two abandoning their runs for re-election to the Senate to seek the Presidency); and from the House of Representatives, Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and Al Sharpton of New York. Because of her experience, Rodham is

considered the favorite; however, due to concerns over the Babylonian War and terrorism, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Graham and the hawkish Lieberman are believed to have a shot. Gephardt, Edwards and Dean are banking on winning the Iowa Caucuses, while Dean and Kerry are putting heavy emphasis on New Hampshire; Dean is running as if he needs to win both to have a chance at the nomination. January 8: Ronald Reagan, who served as President from 1973 to 1977, reaches the age of 92 years, 11 months and 2 days. He surpasses Albert "Happy" Chandler to become the oldest former President ever. However, suffering from Alzheimer's disease, he is completely unaware of it. January 19: Senator Edwards wins the Iowa Caucuses. Governor Rodham is a close second. No one else is close, leading Congressman Gephardt to drop out of the race. If he can't win a farm-heavy, union-heavy State he won in his first campaign, he's not winning anything else, except maybe his home State. January 27: Senator Kerry wins the New Hampshire Primary. Governor Rodham finishes second, and Governor Dean drops out. This leaves Kerry, Rodham, Senator Edwards, Senator Lieberman, Senator Moseley-Braun, Congressman Kucinich and Congressman Sharpton. February 3: Governor Rodham wins primaries in Missouri, Arizona, New Mexico, Delaware and North Dakota, giving her campaign a badly-needed kick-start. Senator Edwards wins the primaries in South Carolina and Oklahoma. Senator Kerry, the New Hampshire victor, is unfazed. The other candidates, however, are in trouble. February 7: Governor Rodham wins the Michigan Primary, while Senator Kerry wins the Washington Primary. February 8: Senator Kerry, a New Englander, wins the Maine Primary. February 10: Senator Edwards, unlike Governor Rodham a native Southerner, wins the Tennessee and Virginia Primaries. It is now a three-horse race with Edwards first, Rodham second and Kerry third. Senators Lieberman and Moseley-Braun drop out. Congressmen Kucinich and Sharpton both swear to stay in until the Convention. February 14: Senator Kerry wins the Nevada Primary. Governor Rodham wins the District of Columbia Primary. February 17: Governor Rodham picks up a much-needed win in the Wisconsin Primary. February 29: The Academy Awards are held at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the final chapter in the trilogy of films based on J.R.R. Tolkein's Middle Earth epic, is nominated for 11 awards and wins them all, including Best Picture. Mystic River wins

three Oscars: Sean Penn for Best Actor, Tim Robbins for Best Supporting Actor, and Marcia Gay Harden wins Best Supporting Actress. (Since the Civil War ended after one meaningful battle, "Cold Mountain" is never made, and Renee Zellweger doesn't win Best Supporting Actress for it. Sorry, Renee, it's nothing personal. Even if you did say some nasty things to my girl Catherine Zeta-Jones in "Chicago." And then some.) March 2: Super Tuesday. Governor Rodham runs away with the biggest State, California, and another big State, New York. She also wins the mid-sized States of Maryland and Minnesota. The New England States of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Vermont hold their Primaries, and Kerry, who's lived most of his life in Massachusetts, was expected to win them all, if not easily. And he does take Massachsetts, Rhode Island and, with the endorsement of former Governor Dean, who has dropped out, Vermont. But a big surprise comes in Connecticut. Kerry, a Yale graduate, had hoped to win it. But Rodham, a graduate of Yale Law School, won it by appealing to a wide range of Nutmeg Staters, from inner-city blacks to suburban ethnics. Senator Edwards edges Rodham in Ohio, to keep his campaign going, and easily wins the Southern State of Georgia. Despite winning three States today, Kerry is all but finished. He drops out. March 9: Four Southern States hold their Primaries, and Senator Edwards hopes to sweep them. He does win Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. But Governor Rodham wins Florida, the State that made the difference four years ago, and that keeps her in the Delegate lead. Edwards will win Kansas in four days, but that doesn't help him much. March 16: Governor Rodham wins her birth State of Illinois. In four days, Edwards will win Alaska and Wyoming, but they won't help him much. And the next Primary isn't until April 13 in Colorado. Edwards drops out, endorses Rodham, and waits for a possible call to be nominated for Vice President. June 5: Former President Ronald Reagan dies at his home in Los Angeles at the age of 93. He had suffered from Alzheimer's disease since at least the late 1980s, and had finally been stricken with pnuemonia. His funeral will be attended by Presidents Linda Chavez, Dianne Feinstein, Pete duPont and Andrew Young. Former President Richmond Flowers, whom Reagan defeated to win the White House in 1972, is unable to attend due to the effects of Parkinson's disease. August 12: The Democratic Convention is held at the FleetCenter arena in Boston. Hillary Rodham, the former Governor of Arkansas, is nominated for President. Her Vice Presidential nominee is Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, in the hopes that his economic populism and Southern roots -unlike Rodham, a native of the Chicago suburbs before marrying Bill Clinton, a law school classmate and also a former Governor of Arkansas -- will take some States from the Republicans. (I've been very critical of Edwards, but he still seemed like the likeliest running mate for TTL-Hillary. The replacement arena for the Boston Garden has now had four separate names in just 12 years: "The new Boston Garden," the Shawmut Center when naming rights

were sold, the FleetCenter when Fleet Bank bought out Shawmut Bank, and the TD Banknorth Garden when Bank of America, which bought out Fleet, chose not to renew naming rights. This is paralleled by the site of the 2000 Republican Convention in Philadelphia: It was Spectrum II, then the CoreStates Center, then the First Union Center, and now the Wachovia Center -- that's "Wah-KOH-vee-ah," not "WACK-oh-vee-ah," although fans of the Philadelphia Flyers tend to be quite wacky.) September 2: The Republican Convention is held at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, a gift from President Linda Chavez to the man who made her "victory" in 2000 possible, Governor John "Jeb" Bush. Chavez and Vice President Dick Cheney are renominated, producing the first female vs. female Presidential election in American history. It is already one of the nastiest, with the Republicans, especially Cheney, taking cheap shots at the "defeatist" "surrendering" "terrorist-appeasing" "tax-raising" "extremist" "trial lawyer" "culture of death" "liberals," Governor Rodham and Senator Edwards. Meanwhile, unemployment is at 9 percent. (Despite the name "Tropicana Field," the home of baseball's Tampa Bay Devil Rays and site of two NCAA Basketball Final Fours is fully enclosed, formerly named the Florida Suncoast Dome and the ThunderDome. With the 9/11 attacks not having happened, there's no way the GOP would go to New York. Between the Republicans, the Knicks and the Rangers, fumigating Madison Square Garden is far more necessary than after the circus leaves.) September 28: On the eve of the National Hockey League season, a deal is reached to prevent a lockout. The season will be played as scheduled. (It wasn't: In the biggest insult to North American labor since the Depression, the NHL team owners saw they would lose less money by not playing the season at all than by paying the players what their contracts said were required, and so there was no 2004-05 season.) September 30: The first Presidential debate is held at the San Diego Convention Center. President Chavez tries to show what an extremist liberal Governor Rodham is. Chavez even calls her a "socialist." Rodham is ready: "Madam President, if you can't create some new jobs, and if you can't get your new clients in Babylon to cut oil prices, and you can't come up with a new reason why your wiretapping program isn't unconstitutional, then at least try to come up with some new material. Compared to you, Pete duPont would have been a 'socialist!'" The audience breaks up laughing. The Chavez campaign looks as though it will not recover. The election is 33 days away. October 13: Game 2 of the American League Championship Series is held at Yankee Stadium, and, apparently, Boston Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martinez has not learned his lesson from last year. In the first inning, he hits Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez with a pitch. The Yankees go on to win the game, and afterward, Commissioner Rudy Giuliani against suspends him, this time for the entire remaining postseason. "Pedro Martinez is too talented a pitcher to be a headhunter," Giuliani says, "but he is too much of a punk to be allowed to play Major League Baseball. I will be watching next year's spring training to see if he has learned then what he clearly has not learned now.

And for those Red Sox fans who will be upset at me again, all I can say is that you should rather be upset at Pedro, for he threw away your best chance at winning the World Series since 1986. Blame him for being the baseball equivalent of a criminal, and awfully close to an actual criminal, not me for laying down the law." (As he always has, Pedro got away with it, with neither ejection nor fine nor suspension. He went on to start Game 5 of the ALCS, a Boston victory, and start and win Game 3 of the World Series, which the Sox swept. I figured suspending Pedro the Fenway Punk, as the New York Post called him, was simpler than saying, since World War II ended differently, there's no U.S. base on Okinawa, and Dave Roberts' parents never meet, and he's never born, and he's not there to steal that base in Game 4. Roberts' parents do meet, and he is born, and Game 4 happens exactly as in RL. Game 5 does not. And thus, Game 6 and Game 7 do not happen at all. So the TTLRed Sox have won exactly the same number of World Series since 1918 as the RL-Red Sox: One. Just not the same one.) October 18: With Pedro Martinez suspended, and Bronson Arroyo and Derek Lowe unavailable to start, Red Sox manager Terry Francona asks if Curt Schilling, originally meant to be started tomorrow night, can pitch. An experimental procedure was performed on his injured ankle this morning. He is cleared to pitch by his doctors. He says he is ready. The Yankees are more ready, and unload on him, as blood oozes from his suture to give him an actual red sock. The final score is Yankees 14, Red Sox 4, and the Yankees clinch the Pennant in five games. Schilling was signed as a free agent because he was meant to be the difference between last year's horrible finish to a strong season and a World Championship. Instead, the Sox are now two games farther away from beating the Yankees. October 27: The New York Yankees win their 29th World Series, completing a sweep over the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-0 at Busch Memorial Stadium. Jorge Posada and Alex Rodriguez hit home runs off Jason Marquis, and Javier Vazquez, Tom Gordon and Mariano Rivera combine on a four-hit shutout. November 2: Hillary Diane Rodham, Governor of Arkansas from 1985 to 1995, is elected the 46th President of the United States. The Democrat and her Vice Presidential nominee, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, are elected over the Republican incumbents, Linda Chavez and Dick Cheney, 64 million votes to 56 million, 53.3 percent to 46.6 percent, 379 Electoral Votes to 159. The stagnant economy -- Chavez is the first President to get through an entire four-year term with a net job loss -- the ever-rising price of gasoline, and the illegal wiretapping program result in a change of party in power. One of the largest shifts is in male voters aged 18 to 29, a group formerly known as "Linda's Fanboys." It is not so much that Chavez is now 57 years old (Rodham is the same age) -- or that she has visibly aged (she hasn't, at least not significantly). It is more that many of them are concerned about jobs and gas prices, and have "fallen out of love" with Chavez. In a post-election article for The American Prospect magazine, which moves quickly to hire him, Rodham campaign operative Michael Pacholek -- whose wife, Catherine Crandall, came up with the "Linda's Fanboys" name -- cites a "fifty-state strategy" that took several States from Chavez's victory column four years earlier, and also

retook the House of Represntatives but not quite the Senate, and also won over the young unmarried men. "Linda Chavez got what she wanted from those young men," he writes, "and left them to wake up with a hangover and a note. A promissory note, except that it was a promise extracted from them, to support her war and her rich-skewing economic policies. It's not clear whether her campaign manifesto is 1984 by George Orwell or Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, but if it's either, she got the wrong message from it, and gave the wrong message to the nation. Now, the nation has sent a message to her: 'This relationship isn't working. I think we should see other Presidents. It's not me, it's you.'" (You were expecting 9/11 to help the Republicans? A spaceflight tragedy?) November 18, 2004: The Dianne Feinstein Presidential Library opens at Stanford University, her alma mater, in Palo Alto, California. Feinstein is joined by President-elect Hillary Rodham and former Presidents Andrew Young and Pete duPont. Outgoing President Linda Chavez and former President Richmond Flowers declined their invitations, Chavez due to her continuing hatred of Feinstein (which didn't stop Feinstein from inviting her), Flowers due to his age (86) and frailty (Parkinson's disease). Al Gore, son of President Albert Gore and Feinstein's Vice President, also does not attend, due to the illness of his mother, former First Lady and Supreme Court Justice Pauline Gore. December 15, 2004: Former First Lady and Supreme Court Justice Pauline Gore dies at her home in Carthage, Tennessee. She was 92 years old. (Her actual date of death. She did go to Vanderbilt University School of Law, but never served in public office like her husband and son.) Uncle Mike Sep 9 2007, 03:53 AM Post #75

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 Here it is, as promised, the "final" chapter of "Lee of the Union" before the sun comes up on the U.S. East Coast today. When major world events happen in RL, I'll make new entries adapting them to TTL. Until then... Enjoy. Or loathe. 2005 January 20: Hillary Rodham, her husband Bill Clinton and daughter Chelsea

Clinton by her side, is sworn in as the new President by Chief Justice Antonin Scalia, an ideological opposite. Outgoing President Linda Chavez and her husband, attorney Christopher Gersten, return to a home they recently bought in Purcellville, Virginia. (According to Wikipedia, Chavez, who has never successfully been elected to any RL office, and Gersten live in that small town in Loudoun County, near Washington, D.C. No, I don't think we should go visit them, either together or separately.) February 3: For the first time in 44 years, the Philadelphia Eagles are NFL Champions. They defeat the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXIX, 2824, at Alltel Stadium in Jacksonville, on a last-minute touchdown pass from Donovan McNabb to Sam Crandall. (McNabb didn't have the option of Crandall, and the Pats won, 24-21. And since my old high school classmate, Patriots punter Josh Miller, already has a ring from an earlier TTL-Super Bowl, he doesn't need this one.) June 6: A wild National Hockey League season, which almost didn't happen at all, comes to a close. In the first round of the Playoffs, all four top seeds in the Eastern Conference were beaten: The Ottawa Senators by the Hartford Whalers, the Philadelphia Flyers by the Toronto Maple Leafs, the defending Stanley Cup Champion Tampa Bay Lightning by the Quebec Nordqiues, and the New Jersey Devils by the Buffalo Sabres. By contrast, all four top seeds in the Western Conference survived: The Detroit Red Wings against the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, the Minnesota North Stars against the Edmonton Oilers, the San Jose Sharks against the Vancouver Canucks, and the Calgary Flames against the Nashville Predators. In the Conference Semifinals, the Wings beat the Flames, the Stars beat the Sharks, the Sabres beat the Whalers, and in a very nasty series, with several conflicts going back and forth -- WHA import vs. old-time NHL, Quebec vs. rest of Canada, French vs. English, and Canada's biggest market vs. one of the continent's smallest -- the Nordiques beat the Leafs in seven rough, fight-filled games. The Sabres put an end to the Nords' gutty run for the East title, and the Stars edge the Flames in the West. The Stanley Cup Finals go six games, and, avenging their 1999 Finals loss, winning their first Cup in 35 seasons of trying, and taking the first major league championship ever for their city, the Buffalo Sabres are World Champions. (Did you think I would automatically give my favorite team the championship that never happened in RL? I didn't do it for the Yankees in TTL1994, and I don't do it for the Devils in TTL-2005. As George W. Bush would say, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me, can't get fooled again!") July 17: President Rodham signs a bill rewriting the nation's budget priorities. While not repealing all of the Chavez tax cuts, her budget does bring the federal deficit down considerably, and redirect some of the savings toward extending the life of the Social Security trust fund. July 31: The Baseball Hall of Fame inducts its newest members. The Baseball Writers Association of America, responsible for voting on recently retired players, elected Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees third baseman Wade Boggs, and Chicago Cubs second baseman Ryne Sandberg. The Committee on Veterans, responsible for electing long-retired players that the BBWAA

might have missed, plus managers, executives and umpires, elected Thurman Munson, former New York Yankee catcher and manager. August 24: Mickey Mantle, one of the greatest players in baseball history, dies of liver cancer at the age of 73. His liver had been weakened by years of drinking. It was thought that alcohol rehab in 1990 had saved his life, and it seems to have bought him as many as 15 years. The New York Yankees will wear black armbands and Number 7s on their left sleeves for the rest of the season. August 29: Hearing that the city's two main levees have been breached, President Rodham puts the full weight of the federal government behind the effor to evacuate New Orleans as it is flooded by levees broken by the rising tides caused by Hurricane Katrina. Although 200 people end up dying, it is estimated that about 1,000 are saved. Rodham is highly praised for her humanitarian actions. September 8: Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist dies after nearly 30 years on the bench. He was the only Justice who had been appointed by President Ronald Reagan. President Hillary Rodham appoints federal Judge Kathleen Sullivan to succeed him. Though the Senate remains under Republican control, she has enough bipartisan support to be confirmed. (A protege of RL Harvard Law professor and TTL-Justice Laurence Tribe, Sullivan has been considered a front-runner to be the next Justice appointed by a Democratic President.) November 8: After being urged to leave Congress to run for the job, Vito Fosella, a Republican whose District includes all of Staten Island and part of Brooklyn, is elected Mayor of New York, defeating the Democratic nominee, former City Council Speaker Peter Vallone, to succeed the term-limited incumbent, Democrat Fernando Ferrer. Fosella will be the first Staten Islander to lead New York City. Despite Ferrer's success, the City Democrats have been riven with intraparty squabbles and difficulties with social services and education, which Fossella was able to exploit. 2006 February 5: The Pittsburgh Steelers become the first team to win six Super Bowls, defeating the Seattle Seahawks 21-10 in Super Bowl XL at Ford Field in Detroit. Detroit native Jerome Bettis, the big running back known as the Bus, scores a touchdown, plays on a Super Bowl winner for the first time (he joined the team just after their Super Bowl XXX win in January 1996), and announces his retirement as a player. (With SB XXX going to, yuck, Dallas, SB XL was the Steelers' fifth. After 26 years of having four Super Bowl rings, they finally got "One For the Thumb." In TTL, they've already begun ringing the other hand. The Green Bay Packers have the most NFL Championships, with 12, and, yes, they all count, not just the three they got in the Super Bowl era, which they began. The Chicago Bears have nine, the New York Giants six, and five each for the Steelers, Dallas Cowboys, San Francisco 49ers and Washington Redskins -- but of those with five, only the Redskins won any, two

in fact, in the pre-Super Bowl era, even though all played in the pre-Super Bowl era, 1967 to the present.) February 11: Former Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shoots Harry Whittington, a famed Texas lawyer and Republican political operative, on a ranch owned by a common friend in Texas. Whittington receives about 15 shotgun pellet wounds in his face, but his life appears never to have been in danger. No criminal charges are filed, as the shooting is considered an accident by all parties, including Whittington. Despite a few jokes from comedians, the American public is generally dismissive of the situation, since Cheney is no longer Vice President. April 1: Emperor Otto IV of Austria, also known as King Otto I of Hungary, Bohemia and Slovakia, 94 years old, celebrates his 84th anniversary on the throne. He is now the second-longest reigning monarch in human history, surpassing King Sobhuza II of Swaziland, who reigned from 1899 to 1982. The only one ahead of him is Pharoah Pepi II of ancient Egypt, who reigned 94 years from 2278 to 2184 BC. (Otto von Hapsburg is still alive, although he's obviously never ruled.) May 11: Actress Carole Lombard dies at the age of 97. She was one of the last surviving Hollywood legends of the pre-World War II era. (My grandmother, who was a big fan of Lombard's, died on this day. She would have liked going out at the same time as Lombard, who died in a plane crash in 1942.) May 22: Mickey Schwerner, a sociology professor at Cornell University, dies of a stroke at the University's campus in Ithaca, New York. He was 64 years old. (One of the civil rights workers killed in Mississippi during "Freedom Summer" in 1964.) June 19: The Hartford Whalers win their first Stanley Cup, defeating the Edmonton Oilers in six games. It is the first major league championship in any sport for a team in Connecticut. (The Whalers don't move to Carolina in TTL. In RL, the University of Connecticut has won men's and women's basketball National Championships. The "New England Whalers," as they were known in their World Hockey Association days, did win the first WHA title in 1973, but were playing home games at the Boston Garden at the time. They moved to Hartford when the Civic Center opened in 1975.) September 8: Baseball Hall-of-Famer Thurman Munson dies of a heart attack at his Canton, Ohio home. He is 59 years old. In his memory, the New York Yankees will wear a black Number 15 on their left sleeves for the rest of this season. (This means that, for the third year in a row in 2007, the TTL-Yankees are doing this: 7 for Mantle in 2005, 15 for Munson in 2006, and 10 for Phil Rizzuto in 2007. In RL, they wore black armbands but no numbers for Munson in 1979 and '80, Elston Howard in '81, clubhouse man Pete Sheehy in '85, and groundskeeper Jimmy Esposito in '86. They wore a Number 1 but no armband for Billy Martin in '90, an armband and a 7 for Mantle in '95, a 5 for DiMaggio and later in the season an armband for Catfish Hunter in '99, an armband for Bob Lemon in 2000, and an armband for Cory Lidle before adding Rizzuto's

10 this year.) October 27: The St. Louis Cardinals defeat the Detroit Tigers, 4-2, and win the World Series in five games. To get there, the National League Central Division Champion Cardinals got a top-of-the-ninth, Game 7 home run by Yadier Molina to beat the Western Division Champion San Francisco Miners; in the Division Series, the Cards beat the Eastern Division Champion Brooklyn Dodgers and the Miners beat the Wild Card San Diego Padres. The Tigers, Champions of the American League Central, beat the Wild Card Washington Senators and then the Eastern Division Champion New York Yankees, who had beaten the Western Division Champion Colorado Athletics. (Of course, the Cards got to the Series by meeting the Mets, meeting the Mets, stepping right up and beating the Mets.) November 7: The Democrats make modest gains in the Congressional elections, enough to slightly regain the Senate and increase their majority in the House of Representatives. Voters seem satisfied with President Hillary Rodham's restoration of the economy and getting the rebuilding of New Orleans going after Hurricane Katrina. Congressional elections. Governor Elliot Spitzer of New York is re-elected. November 17, 2006: The film Never Say Never premieres. It begins with British actor Daniel Craig standing over a pair of graves. One tombstone says, "TERESA BOND, 1943-1969, BELOVED WIFE OF JAMES BOND. WE HAVE ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD." The other says, "JAMES BOND, 1930-2001. THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH." Then a woman walks over to Craig's character. She is played by Maud Adams. "I never pretended to be his only love," she says. "And he never pretended to be yours, Mother," says Craig. It is then that Judi Dench, M, walks up to them, sees the woman she knows as "Octopussy," and turns to Craig, and says, "I suppose I know your name as well." Craig says, "The name is Bond. James Bond." And so the new Agent 007 is activated. It is explained that Bond Sr. was among the "celebrities who cheated death until then" who all mysteriously died on September 11, 2001, only the film gives an explanation, which has been bandied about by "conspiracy-theory kooks" in the "real world" for the last five years: All of them were punished in some way by a foreign organization revealed to be, once again, a revival of SPECTRE. This time, the organization is run by Heinrich Nikolas Blofeld, played by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen. Like Albert Niarchos Blofeld of the 1983 film The Property of a Lady, he is a son of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, but, again, his (their?) mother is not identified. Bond Jr., along with Caroline Lindley, a 00-number candidate played by French actress Eva Green, pursues the younger Blofeld to stop him from assassinating the leaders of the G-8 countries at their summit in Montenegro. The film ends with the new Blofeld defeated, but not captured, setting up at least one sequel. Caroline receives the 009 licence, last mentioned in Octopussy when that 009 was killed at the beginning. This marks the first time any Bond film has even suggested a female 00 Agent, much less given one to Bond as a lover. What's more, this James Bond seems to have learned from his father's mistakes, and seems to be trying his hand at monogamy. (The title comes from the "unofficial" Bond film "Never Say Never Again." Green played Vesper Lynd alongside Craig in

the new "Casino Royale," and obviously Caroline's name is taken from Vesper's. Mikkelsen played Le Chiffre in that film. I almost brought back one of the former Bond actors, but I figured Sean Connery wouldn't do it, Roger Moore likes the fact that he played Bond "007" times, and Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan would still be feuding with EON Productions. Why is James Jr. the son of Octopussy? Because Honey Ryder, Tatiana Romanova, Domino Derval and Kissy Suzuki were just too far back in my opinion, although Craig was born in 1968, between "You Only Live Twice" and "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." Because Mary Goodnight was a bimbo. Because Craig does not resemble an Asian, as were Kissy and the Chinese substitute for the Soviet Anya Amasova. Because if he's the son of James and Solitaire, I'd have to explain that he inherited her clairvoyance, which would be too cheesy, or that he didn't, which would be unfair. Because every potential Bond babymama from "Moonraker" onward would be too recent, since Craig does not look like a teenager or a guy in his twenties. Because I thought Octopussy was the closest match for James Sr. in terms of wit, guts, passion and intrigue. And because Maud Adams still looks great.) November 29: Rudy Giuliani resigns as Commissioner of Baseball. Elected to replace him is Bob Watson, who has been on both sides of the player-owner divide, as a first baseman for several teams, mostly the Houston Astros, and as general manager of the New York Yankees when they won the World Series in 1996. He is the first black director of any of the four major North American sports associations. December 26, 2006: Gerald Ford, the Michigan Republican who served as Speaker of the House from 1967 to 1974, dies at his retirement home in Rancho Mirage, California. He was 93. (Since Ford was never President, Reagan remains the oldest former TTL-President. Richmond Flowers, still alive at this point, fell five years short. Reagan will continue to hold that record unless Andrew Young lives at least until 2023.) 2007 February 4: The Baltimore Colts defeat the Chicago Bears, 29-17, in Super Bowl XLI at the new Marinablue Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. Colt quarterback Peyton Manning is named the game's Most Valuable Player. It is the first World Championship for a Baltimore sports team since the 1983 Orioles won the World Series, and the first NFL Title for the city since the 1970 Colts won Super Bowl V. It is the first major sporting event held in the Miami area except for the annual Orange Bowl college football game. It appears that the National Football League is finally ready to forgive the city, currently undergoing a massive building boom including the "Biscayne Wall" group of downtown skyscrapers, for being the site of the assassination of President Albert Gore in 1963 and the "theft" of the Presidential election in 2000. There is talk of a football team, either expansion or moved, sharing Marinablue Stadium with the University of Miami, and even of using it as a stopgap facility for a baseball team until a proper ballpark can be built. (Since the Browns never left Cleveland, Cleveland won Super Bowl XXXV, not Baltimore. Marinablue Stadium is, of course, on the site of the RL stadium

that has been known as Joe Robbie Stadium, Pro Player Stadium and now Dolphin Stadium. The building boom, including the Biscayne Wall, is indeed happening. But, in TTL-2007, the only major league team in Miami in any sport is the NBA's Miami Heat. They did win the 2006 NBA Title as they did in RL, however.) February 15: Czar Nicholas III, the pretender to the Russian throne, dies at the age of 66. Although he inherited the hemophilia of his father, it had been controlled by drugs, but half a century of such treatments weakened his heart. His son, now 38, lives in St. Petersburg, Russia, and calls himself Pyotr Romanov. Those who still wish to restore the monarchy call him Czar Peter IV. March 10: Ethel Rosenberg dies in New York at the age of 91. Few people outside New York know her name. March 16: Andrew Goodman, history professor and author of Poor, Poor Mississippi, a history of poverty in the Deep South, dies of a heart attack on the campus of Miami University of Ohio. He was 63. (Another of the civil rights workers killed in Mississippi during "Freedom Summer" in 1964. The third, James Chaney, is still alive in TTL.) April 2: Aleksandr Litvinenko defeats incumbent Vladimir Putin to become the new President of the Russian Republic. The voters had had enough of Putin's heavy-handed tactics. This time, the phrase "fascist grip," long a red herring in Russian politics, was believed. Litvinenko was the former intelligence officer murdered by polonium poisoning in 2006.) April 16: Seung-Hui Cho is being treated for an anxiety order at a clinic in Blacksburg, Virginia, near the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute, a.k.a. "Virginia Tech." The campus is quiet. (Better mental-health treatment in the U.S. is already established in TTL.) August 7: Barry Bonds, with 533 career home runs and now five full seasons past his last career game, thinks he should have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame over the weekend, along with Cal Ripken and Barry Bonds. But the reason he hasn't played in six years is that he was banned from baseball for life for his steroid use. Mark McGwire, with 578 homers, was also banned. And figures on baseball's "permanently ineligible list" have been declared by the Hall's board of directors to be ineligible for consideration. So Hank Aaron, with 755 in his career, remains baseball's all-time home run leader, and he is in the Hall of Fame. (This was the day RL-Bonds hit Number 756. I estimate Alex Rodriguez will hit Number 756 in the 2016 season. RLBonds finished the 2007 season with 762, so it may take A-Rod until early 2017 to catch him at 770-something.) August 11: Former President Richmond Flowers dies at his home in Dothan, Alabama, from complications from Parkinson's disease. He was 88 years old. He will be laid to rest at his Presidential Library at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, with his funeral attended by Presidents Hillary Rodham, Linda Chavez, Dianne Feinstein, Pete duPont and Andrew Young. (His actual date of

death, but, as he was never President and has no Presidential Library, he was buried in Dothan.) September 1: Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll, dies of a heart attack at Graceland, his home in Memphis, Tennessee. He was 72 years old. September 8: Ares IV lands on Mars after a 15-month trip from Earth. The mission's commander is a 42-year-old U.S. Air Force Lieutenat Colonel who was a hero pilot of the Persian Gulf War, now on his fourth space mission: Francis Robert "Frank" Kennedy, whose father, John F. Kennedy, was President of the United States when humans first set foot on the Moon in 1968. He chooses as the first Earth person to set foot on the Red Planet a 58-year-old Jewish American biomedical engineer-turned-astronaut, Dr. Judith Resnik. They are part of a 20-person crew of astronauts, from Canada, France, Germany, Russia, China, Japan, Argentina and Israel. Resnik's first words on Mars are, "We come in peace." It seems an odd time to not be on Earth, for the world is better off than it has ever been. It may not be a "utopia," but there is no major war. Poverty, hunger and disease have been significantly reduced all over the world. In America, unemployment is at 3.2 percent, the federal budget is back in surplus, crime is down, gun violence is half what it was in 1970, and more people are graduating from both high school and college than ever. Incidents of discrimination against women, racial minorities, religious groups and homosexuals is at a level so low as to be unimaginable 100, 50, even 20 years ago. And only a few kooks complain about taxes, gun control, or "moral decay." President Hillary Rodham has announced she is running for reelection, but the Republican candidates to oppose her -- including Senator John McCain of Arizona, former Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, former Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee, Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, Senator Wendell Cohen of Alaska, and a dark horse, the Governor of South Dakota, the archconservative James Carson -- have their campaign work cut out for them. (As for the race for President: Never having been elected Mayor of New York and having a 9/11 to go through, no one would take a Rudy Giuliani candidacy seriously. Carson does not exist. He is the son of a soldier who died in RL-WW2, or the grandson of one who died in RL-WW1, or the great-greatgrandson of one who died in the American Civil War. He's a flake, kind of a mix of Newt Gingrich, Dan Quayle and Ron Paul. I chose South Dakota due to the coercive new anti-abortion law, and to serve as a counterpoint to the "prairie populists" born in that State, such as Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern and Tom Daschle. I chose the name for a "West Wing"-themed Timeline, looking for an opponent for Jed Bartlet when he first ran, deciding "James" was a good name for an incumbent President, and seeing "C" as the most common letter to begin Presidents' names and several ending in "-son." And so I moved "James Carson" to TTL. This one won't beat Hillary, since, not having experienced the last quarter of 2007 or any of 2008 yet, I can write those problems away if need be.

As for the space program: If the U.S. hadn't gotten bored and the Russians hadn't run out of resources, both by 1970, then back to the Moon by 1996 and Mars by 2007 might have been possible. Notice I don't have anyone going light-speed yet. No Alpha Centauri anytime soon. When I visited Cape Canaveral, a few months after the Challenger disaster, my tour group was shown a film about the space shuttles. It focused on a 1984 mission about Discovery, which featured a mission specialist who caught my 16-year-old attention. She was a gorgeous brunette, who, in one experiment shown onscreen, was wearing shorts, and -- how shall I put this -- both the shorts and the zero gravity were kind to her. Her name was Judy Resnik. At the end of the film, it mentioned that she was one of the crew that died on Challenger. It felt really weird to be turned on by a woman I now knew was dead. Here, she gets a better "final reward." And now, my final entry, for now. Me, a writer for TAP? With a gorgeous, brilliant wife and two precocious kids? I wish... The author mentioned is a another descendant of a TTL figure who died in the RL-Civil War, whose name I took from a guy I knew on an AOL message board, calling himself "BE Tucker." I don't know if that was his real name. You can guess where I got the book title. And there really is a Churchill Junior High in my home town, although, due to where I was living at the time and a later redistricting, I never attended it until it became the location of one of my community college classes.) September 9, 2007: Michael Pacholek, a 37-year-old writer for the political magazine The American Prospect, finishes his an article he's writing for the next issue, a review of a new book titled The Phalanx: How Conservatives Can Make a Stand in 2008 and Beat Hillary Rodham, by Brent E. Tucker. The review is not flattering, as its author is an unshakable liberal and the book's author a stone right-winger. David Pacholek, now 14 years old and just starting the ninth grade at Churchill Junior High School in East Brunswick, New Jersey, calls his father over to his computer. He's discovered a fascinating website called "Different Worlds," in which site members can literally re-write history. He knows his father has long been interested in the subject. "I wish I could look at it, David," Michael says, "but I just haven't got the time." He chides his father for his atrocious pun. His 12-year-old, seventh-grade sister Rebecca laughs, but their parents, Michael and his wife Catherine, a political consultant and the daughter of New Jersey's senior U.S. Senator Sam Crandall, get ready to go out to dinner. It is a charity event, to raise money for artificial joints for children. Michael had received one, an artificial hip, in 1988 under the MediKid program. Neither the joint nor the scar had bothered him for 19 years. All was well. Staying behind, looking at the Different Worlds forum, David gets an idea, registers as a member on the site, under the name "DavidP24" -- after his favorite baseball player, New York Yankee second baseman Robinson Cano, Number 24 -- and begins to post his idea: Suppose that, back in...

Uncle Mike

Sep 10 2007, 03:41 AM Post #76

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 Joe Bonkers Sep 9 2007, 11:36 AM If you didn't pour a toast when you finally got to the end of this, you should have. Now, since I diverged from your timelines over stuff that I wanted to emphasize or change a bit, the onus is on me to get caught up on my two TL's...Yikes! Gotta watch out for them onuses. (Onii?) They're ornery. I suppose I could add the following: September 10, 2007: Lieutenant General David Petraeus is "driving a desk" in the Pentagon, and he is bored out of his skull. If only he had something to do today. If only he'd had something to do for the last few years. But then, since the Pentagon wasn't built until RL-1941, due to FDR being sure we'd have to get into WWII, and he wasn't President in TTL, the Pentagon may not have... Who are we kidding? If anything, Eleanor, being closer to TR, would've understood its need. Still, why a five-sided building with a central courtyard? Like so many things military, it makes no sense. A few stray notes, if you'll pardon what you'll see in a moment was a pun... January 18, 1960: Despite the raised status of Native Americans, "Running Bear" by Johnny Preston still becomes the Number 1 song in America. October 10, 1960: "Chain Gang" by Sam Cooke is Number 1. Since there was no Battle of Little Bighorn, Larry Verne never records "Mr. Custer.'

October 12, 1963: "Be My Baby" by the Ronettes is Number 1. Nothing that changed in TTL should cause it, but I saw Ronnie Spector perform -- strangely enough, on a stage at the plaza at the World Trade Center -- in 1990, and she was 47, and she was still smokin'. And I really hate the song that actually was Number 1 for most of October '63, "Sugar Shack" by Jimmy Gilmer & the Fireballs. Nobody in their right minds could have thought it was a better record than "Be My Baby" -- no matter what you think of Phil Spector today! September 25, 1965: "Hang On Sloopy" by the McCoys hits Number 1 a week early. Phil Sloan has been trying to write songs about social disaffection, but he finds it difficult. Civil rights is settled. There's no race riots. There's no war for U.S. troops at the moment. So he never writes "Eve of Destruction," and Barry McGuire never records it. McGuire is still remembered as the lead singer of the New Christy Minstrels, including their 1963 Top 10 hit "Green, Green," while Sloan still writes the hits "Secret Agent Man" for Johnny Rivers and "You Baby" for the Turtles. December 4, 1965: "Let's Hang On" by the Four Seasons hits Number 1, delaying rather than stopping the rise to the top spot of "Turn! Turn! Turn!" by the Byrds, lyrics adapted from the Bible by Pete Seeger. Nothing really changes to make "Let's Hang On" a bigger hit, I just love the song. January 1, 1966: By contrast with "Eve of Destruction," Paul Simon still writes "The Sound of Silence," and with Art Garfunkel, still reaches Number 1 with it. After all, there's still rampant consumerism and "man's inhumanity to man" and people who are, to use a phrase James Brown will soon make famous, "talking loud and saying nothing." March 5, 1966: "The Ballad of the Green Berets" is written and recorded by Barry Sadler, and it still hits Number 1, but only for one week, as it just doesn't resonate as much without a war. As a result, "Daydream" by the Lovin' Spoonful and "19th Nervous Breakdown" by the Rolling Stones top the charts. August 17, 1968: "People Got to Be Free" is written and recorded by the Rascals, and it still hits Number 1, but only for one week, as it just doesn't resonate as much with civil rights being settled, Martin Luther King still alive, no war in Vietnam and no Soviet tanks rolling into Prague. Maybe the words, "If there's a man who is down and needs a helping hand... " etc. still resonate as anti-poverty activism. So "Born to Be Wild" by Steppenwolf takes the Number 1 spot. May 9, 1970: "American Woman" is never written and recorded by the Canadian band the Guess Who. Maybe America still has "ghetto scenes," but the "war machines" aren't seen on the evening news every day, so the song doesn't get written. So "ABC" by the Jackson 5 hangs on a little longer at Number 1. August 29, 1970: "War" by Edwin Starr is never written. "Make It With You" by Bread has a couple of extra weeks at Number 1, and Diana Ross' version of

"Ain't No Mountain High Enough" gets to the top quicker. Starr is still remembered as the singer of the hits "Agent Double-O-Soul" and "Twenty-Five Miles." July 24, 1971: With the improved status of Native Americans, John D. Loudermilk, who started out as a rockabilly singer in the Fifites, never writes "Indian Reservation (The Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian)," and Paul Revere & the Raiders don't record it. They're still remembered as the performers of the anti-drug song "Kicks" and a few other hits. Instead, "Don't Pull Your Love" by Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds hits Number 1 -- and keep your jokes to yourself, it's not a song about a "Seinfeld Contest." August 25, 1973: "Brother Louie," a song about an interracial romance by Stories, tanks because it's no big deal. Paul McCartney certainly doesn't need any more Number 1 hits, but his theme from the James Bond film Live and Let Die makes it. This also means that the despicable Duran Duran, a band that would be totally forgotten if MTV hadn't arrived when it did, is not the only act to hit Number 1 in the U.S. with a 007 theme. October 6, 1973: Again, Native Americans have it better in TTL, Mary Dean doesn't write "Half-Breed," Cher doesn't record it, it doesn't hit Number 1, and Paul Simon takes the Dixie Hummingbirds to the top with him on "Love Me Like a Rock." So who do, who do YOU think YOU'RE foolin'? June 15, 1974: "Billy Don't Be a Hero" by Bo Donadson & the Heywoods is still a horrible song, but it's still Number 1, mainly because I also don't like the song it kept out of the top spot, "You Make Me Feel Brand New" by the Stylistics. "Billy" is a World War I song in TTL, not a Civil War song. December 27, 1980: "(Just Like) Starting Over by John Lennon hits Number 1. that doesn't change. Remember, it was Number 6 when he was killed, so it still had a shot. But it doesn't stay up there as long without the assassination, so Neil Diamond reaches it on January 17, 1981 with "Love On the Rocks." May 15, 1982: Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder still hit Number 1 together. This time, no one has to ask, "How could two so incredibly talented men combine to make such a piece of crap?" Because, with the struggle for civil rights long won, the song isn't the treacly "Ebony and Ivory." Instead, it's "The Girl Is Mine." Paul still sings "Say, Say, Say" with Michael Jackson, and hits Number 1 with it in late 1983. And, of course, as previously stated, George Michael gives Elvis Presley "Father Figure," and, 53 years old or not, Elvis knocks it out of the park. * One final thing: Somebody as liberal as I am writes a Timeline where FDR, Truman, LBJ, Carter and Bill Clinton are never President; Reagan still is; Lincoln does not get re-elected; Patton does; Joe McCarthy becomes

President, JFK gets impeached, and as a result Bobby and Ted are never taken seriously as Presidential candidates... And the world is still better off than in real life? Think of the money you could've made betting that. What would have been the odds? Uncle Mike Sep 11 2007, 04:05 PM Post #77

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 Pompey Sep 10 2007, 07:19 PM I wonder if Sweet Home Alabama would be as popular as IOTL Let's see... Ronnie Van Zant mentions some things about Alabama he likes, so those wouldn't change. But Neil Young probably doesn't write "Southern Man," so that part of the song isn't written. I guess it never occurred to Neil that, as a Canadian, he wasn't the best choice to take a swipe at the Southeastern U.S. To him, the whole country is south. In Birmingham, they probably still love George Wallace. Whether you hear "Woo woo woo" or "Boo boo boo," to go with "Now, we all did what we could do," those words don't change, since TTL-Wallace is just as much of an opportunist, although the issues have changed. Watergate wouldn't have bothered Skynyrd in 1973-74, since Nixon was never President. The Watergate complex in D.C. still gets built, but there's no reason to break into it. There was a "WaterGate" scandal in TTL, due to Richard Blum, Dianne Feinstein's husband, putting together a coastline real estate deal in Northern California, but it more closely resembles Whitewater, down to the time period and the fact that the First Spouse is more involved than the President. But, by

that point, Ronnie is long dead. (That didn't change, although, since I "saved" Thurman Munson with a better aircraft, couldn't I have saved those members of Skynyrd who died? And what about Buddy Holly and the others in Mason City? And Otis Redding?) There would still have been a song "Sweet Home Alabama," just as the facts of TTL wouldn't prevent Hoagy Carmichael from writing, and Ray Charles from singing, "Georgia On My Mind." It would have had very different lyrics, but it could have been just as popular. Musically speaking, though, "SHA" is a better song than "Freebird." I love the piano licks in it, whereas "Freebird" is just an annoying piece of crap for three minutes, and the long fadeout makes it unlistenable. Uncle Mike Sep 16 2007, 04:02 PM Post #78

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 << If we are to play the game of "I don't like this song, so it shouldn't be No. 1," that opens a whole can of worms. For starters, what about Creedence Clearwater Revival? CCR, incredibly, never had a Number One hit, even though they reached the Number Two position five separate times (Proud Mary, Bad Moon Rising, Green River, Who'll Stop the Rain, Lookin' Out My Back Door). Among the Number One hits keeping Creedence from the brass ring were "Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet" by Henry Mancini (real badass rock and roll there), the execrable "In the Year 2525" by Zager and Evans (one can exhaust one's thesaurus writing about songs this bad), and "I Think I Love You" by TV's own Partridge Family. >> Joe Bonkers It gets worse: The Hollies, with and without Graham Nash, never had a Number 1 U.S. hit. "Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress" came out in the spring of 1972 and sounds so much like CCR that John Fogerty could have sued. And that, too, stalled at Number 2! The Number 1 song that kept it out? (Goes off to look it up, cringes at the prospect of what it might be... It is, after all, the Seventies... ) And checking in my reference book at the Number 1 hits I look. I'm remembering the song, how it all went wrong for that little old Irish schnook.

I was only two years old so it didn't disturb my soul. But as years go by and the time does fly it was played on oldies stations leaving me to sneer with two ears, feel like they're broken. That woe-is-me bad rhapsody should never have been spoken. And, "Sorry," I must say but what topped the chart that day? "Alone Again, Naturally." Actually, I like that song. But it was Number 1 for six weeks, and "Long Cool Woman" should've had at least one week at the top. * Russian Vice President Vladimir Putin is elected President. The Socialist Party nominee defeats Nationalist Party nominee Mikhail Kasyanov. << Vladimir Putin? socialist? have you ever, like, heard of this guy at all? >> Pompey Yes, I have. He's an opportunist, and, at the time, the opportunity lay with this alternate Socialist Party. << He dosent like America that much. So In Michael P's Mind Putin must be a good guy. Because America is run by Bush. Therefor he must be a Leftist, and as this is Russia, he must be a Socialist. So yeah Mike heard of him >> Steve What a bunch of malarkey. Of course Putin is a bad guy. Not because I'm an American, or even an American of Polish descent and thus distrustful of Russian leaders in general, but because I don't like totalitarians, be they from St. Petersburg, Russia or Midland, Texas. << Putin used to work for the KGB . So I assume he could be a socialist if it was politically convienent. >> Paul V. McNutt Precisely. Or maybe he's this Socialist Party's equivalent of a New Democrat or New Labour, turning it toward the center or even the right. Uncle Mike Sep 16 2007, 10:31 PM Post #79

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks

Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 Presidents in This Timeline, from its 1861 beginning, with their rankings and ratings from a poll of historians published in the (alternate) February 2005 issue of American History magazine. 16. Abraham Lincoln. "Honest Abe" or "The Old Railsplitter." Born February 12, 1809 in Hodgenville, Kentucky. Died January 13, 1893 in Chicago, Illinois, age 83. Buried in Springfield, Illinois. Lawyer. Republican. Served March 4, 1861 to March 4, 1865. Ranking, 2nd. Rating, Great. 17. Robert Edward Lee. "Bobbie" or "The Virginia Gentleman." Born January 19, 1807 in Westmoreland County, Virginia. Died April 15, 1865 in Washington, District of Columbia, assassinated, age 58. Buried in Arlington, Virginia, at his home which overlooks Arlington National Cemetery but is not part of it. (In TTL, only Patton and Gore are buried at that cemetery.) Soldier. Democrat. Served March 4 to April 15, 1865. Ranking, 25th. Rating, Incomplete. 18. Joel Parker. Born November 24, 1816 in Freehold, New Jersey. Died there January 2, 1888, age 71. Buried there. Lawyer. Democrat. Served April 15, 1865 to March 4, 1869. (All of this information is as in RL, except he was never President.) Ranking, 27th. Rating, Below Average. 19. William Henry Seward. "Willie." Born May 16, 1801 in Florida (Orange County), New York. Died in office October 10, 1872 in Auburn, New York, age 71. Buried there. Lawyer. Republican. Served March 4, 1869 to October 16, 1872. (All of this information is as in RL, except he was never President.) Ranking, 23rd. Rating, Average. 20. Ulysses Simpson Grant. "U.S." or "Sam." Born April 27, 1822 in Point Pleasant, Ohio. Died July 23, 1885 in New York, New York, age 63. Buried in New York. Soldier. Republican. Served October 16, 1872 to March 4, 1877. (Not the victorious general of the Civil War, so his grave is far simpler than the RL "Grant's Tomb." But TTL-Grant definitely did not want to go back to Galena, Illinois.) Ranking, 32nd. Rating, Average. 21. Samuel Jones Tilden. "Honest Sam." Born February 9, 1814 in New Lebanon, New York. Died August 4, 1886 in New York, New York, age 72. Buried in Yonkers, New York. Lawyer. Democrat. Served March 4, 1877 to March 4, 1881. (All of this information is as in RL, except he was never President.) Ranking, 33rd. Rating, Below Average. 22. James Gillespie Blaine. "The Continental Liar from the State of Maine." Born January 31, 1830 in West Brownsville, Pennsylvania. Died January 27, 1893 in Augusta, Maine, age 62. Buried in Augusta. Lawyer. Republican. (Actually died in D.C.) Served March 4, 1881 to March 4, 1885. Ranking, 43rd.

Rating, Failure. 23. Stephen Grover Cleveland. "Grover the Good" or "The Buxom Buffalonian." Born March 18, 1837 in Caldwell, New Jersey. Died June 24, 1908 in Princeton, New Jersey, age 71. Buried in Princeton. (Spent most of his life in Western New York State.) Lawyer. Democrat. Served March 4, 1885 to March 4, 1893. Ranking, 12th. Rating, Near Great. 24. James Abram Garfield. "Boatman Jim" or "Jim the Jackal." (The latter nickname acquired only in TTL.) Born November 19, 1831 in Moreland Hills, Ohio. Died August 2, 1894 in Chicago, Illinois, assassinated, age 62. Buried in Cleveland, Ohio. Minister and college professor. Republican. Served March 4, 1893 to August 2, 1894. Ranking, 40th. Rating, Failure. 25. William McKinley. Born January 29, 1843 in Niles, Ohio. Died March 10, 1904 in Canton, Ohio, age 61. Buried in Canton. Lawyer. Republican. Served August 2, 1894 to March 4, 1897. Ranking, 37th. Rating, Below Average. 26. Thomas Jordan Jarvis. "The Carolina Cicero." (Nickname obtained in TTL.) Born January 18, 1836 in Jarvisburg, North Carolina. Died September 14, 1901 in Buffalo, New York, assassinated, age 65. (Actually lived until June 17, 1915, age 79.) Buried in Greenville, North Carolina. Educator. Democrat. Served March 4, 1897 to September 14, 1901. Ranking, 16th. Rating, Above Average. 27. Thomas Woodrow Wilson. "The Professor." Born December 28, 1856 in Staunton, Virginia. Died in office February 3, 1904 in Washington, D.C., age 47. Buried in Princeton, New Jersey. (Actually at the National Cathedral in Washington.) Educator. Democrat. Served September 15, 1901 to February 3, 1904. Ranking, 22. Rating, Average. 28. Theodore Roosevelt. "Teddy," "T.R.," "the Cowboy" or "The Rough Rider." Born October 27, 1858 in New York, New York. Died March 15, 1921 in Oyster Bay, New York, age 62. Buried in New York. (I decided to give him the Grant's Tomb site, seeing as how, in TTL, he is an even more significant President than in RL.) Lawyer, Author. Republican/Progressive. Served February 3, 1904 to February 12, 1919, resigned due to illness. Ranking, 3rd. Rating, Great. 29. Henry Cabot Lodge. Born May 12, 1850 in Boston, Massachusetts. Died November 9, 1924 in Boston, age 74. Buried in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (All of this information is as in RL, except he was never President.) Lawyer. Republican. Served February 12, 1919 to March 4, 1921. Ranking, 29th. Rating, Below Average. 30. Frances Clara Folsom Cleveland. "Frank." Born July 21, 1864 in Buffalo, New York. Died October 29, 1947 in Princeton, New Jersey, age 83. Buried in Princeton. (All of this information is as in RL, except she was never President. Grover called her "Frank." In 1913, after Grover's death, she married Princeton archaeology professor Thomas Preston, a marriage that lasted until her death.) Housewife. Democrat. Served March 4, 1921 to March 4, 1929. Ranking, 14th. Rating, Average.

31. Herbert Clark Hoover. "The Great Engineer" or "the Great Humaniatarian." (That nickname went by the boards in 1930.) Born August 10, 1874 in West Branch, Iowa. Died October 20, 1964 in New York, New York, age 90. Buried in West Branch. (All of this information is as in RL. Lived most of his life in the San Francisco Bay Area and abroad.) Engineer. Republican. Served March 4, 1929 to March 4, 1933. Ranking, 41st. Rating, Failure. 32. Anna Eleanor Roosevelt Roosevelt. (Married a distant cousin, hence same name.) "Eleanor," "E.R." or "That Woman in the White House." Born October 11, 1884 in New York, New York. Died November 7, 1962 in New York, age 78. Buried in Hyde Park, New York. Sociologist. Democrat. Served March 4, 1933 to January 20, 1941. Ranking, 4th. Rating, Great. 33. George Smith Patton. "Old Blood and Guts." Born November 11, 1885 in San Gabriel, California. Died in office December 21, 1945 at Camp Esther (Camp David), Maryland, age 60. Buried at Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia. (Actually at a U.S. military cemetery in Luxembourg.) Soldier. Republican. Served January 20, 1941 to December 21, 1945. Ranking, 11th. Rating, Near Great. 34. Joseph Raymond McCarthy. "Tailgunner Joe" or "Joe McCrazy." (The latter nickname acquired only in TTL.) Born November 14, 1908 in Grand Chute, Wisconsin. Died May 2, 1957 in Appleton, Wisconsin, age 48. (Actually in Bethesda, Maryland.) Buried in Appleton. Lawyer. Republican. Served December 21, 1945 to January 20, 1949. Ranking, 44th. Rating, Failure. 35. Albert Benjamin Chandler. "Happy." Born July 14, 1898 in Corydon, Kentucky. Died July 15, 1991 in Versailles, Kentucky, age 93. Lawyer. Democrat. Served January 20, 1949 to January 20, 1953. Ranking, 17th. Rating, Above Average. 36. Quentin Roosevelt. "Quent" or "Q.R." Born November 19, 1897 in Oyster Bay, New York. Died there July 14, 1988, age 90. Buried there. (Actually at a U.S. military cemetery in France.) Lawyer. Republican. Served January 20, 1953 to January 20, 1961. Ranking, 9th. Rating, Near Great. 37. Albert Arnold Gore. Born December 26, 1907 in Granville, Tennessee. Died November 22, 1963 in Miami, Florida, assassinated, age 56. Buried in Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia. (Actually in Carthage, Tennessee.) Lawyer. Democrat. Served January 20, 1961 to November 22, 1963. Ranking, 6th. Rating, Near Great. 38. John Fitzgerald Kennedy. "Jack" or "J.F.K." Born May 29, 1917 in Boston, Massachusetts. Died March 7, 1993 in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, age 75. Buried in Boston, Massachusetts. (Actually at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.) Lawyer. Democrat. Served November 22, 1963 to January 20, 1969. Ranking, 15th. Rating, Above Average.

39. Hubert Horatio Humphrey. "Hubert," "H.H.H.," "the Hump" or "the Hube." Born May 27, 1911 in Wallace, South Dakota. Died May 4, 1970 in Kent, Ohio, assassinated, age 58. Buried in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Lawyer. Democrat. Served January 20, 1969 to May 4, 1970. Ranking, 19th. Rating, Above Average. 40. Richmond McDavid Flowers. Born November 11, 1918 in Dothan, Alabama. Died August 9, 2007 in Dothan, age 88. Buried in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. (Actually in Dothan.) Lawyer. Democrat. Served May 4, 1970 to January 20, 1973. Ranking, 35th. Rating, Below Average. 41. Ronald Wilson Reagan. "Ron," "Dutch" or "Bonzo." Born February 6, 1911 in Dixon, Illinois. Died June 5, 2004 in Los Angeles, California, age 93. Buried in Simi Valley, California. Actor. Republican. Served January 20, 1973 to January 20, 1977. Ranking, 24th. Rating, Average. 42. Andrew Jackson Young. "Andy." Born March 12, 1932 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Living in Atlanta, Georgia. Clergyman. Democrat. Served January 20, 1977 to January 20, 1985. Ranking, 21st. Rating, Average. 43. Pierre Samuel duPont. "Pete." Born January 22, 1935 in Wilmington, Delaware. Living in Wilmington. Business executive. Republican. Served January 20, 1985 to January 20, 1993. Ranking, 28th. Rating, Below Average. 44. Dianne Emiel Goldman Berman Feinstein Blum. "Dianne Feinstein" or "DiFi." Born June 22, 1933 in San Francisco, California. Living in San Francisco. Democrat. Served January 20, 1993 to January 20, 2001. Ranking, 10th. Rating, Near Great. 45. Linda Chavez Gersten. "Linda Chavez" or "Liberal-Lashin' Linda." Born June 17, 1947 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Living in Purcellville, Virginia. Sociologist. Republican. Served January 20, 2001 to January 20, 2005. Ranking, 39th. Rating, Failure. 46. Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton. "Hillary Rodham" or "Hill." Born October 26, 1947 in Chicago, Illinois. Prior to her election, was living in Chappaqua, New York. Inaugurated January 20, 2005. As a newly-inaugurated President at the time, she was not included in the rankings and ratings. Presidential Rankings, 1789-2005, as polled in American History magazine, February 2005 issue 1. George Washington 2. Abraham Lincoln 3. Theodore Roosevelt 4. Eleanor Roosevelt 5. Thomas Jefferson 6. Albert Gore 7. James Polk 8. Andrew Jackson 9. Quentin Roosevelt

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45.

Dianne Feinstein George Patton Grover Cleveland John Adams Frances Cleveland John F. Kennedy Thomas J. Jarvis Albert B. Chandler James Monroe Hubert Humphrey James Madison Andrew Young Woodrow Wilson William Seward Ronald Reagan Robert E. Lee William H. Harrison Joel Parker Pete duPont Henry Cabot Lodge John Quincy Adams Martin Van Buren Ulysses S. Grant Samuel Tilden Zachary Taylor Richmond Flowers John Tyler William McKinley Millard Fillmore Linda Chavez James Garfield Herbert Hoover Franklin Pierce James Blaine Joseph McCarthy James Buchanan

Great: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt. Near Great: Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, James Polk, Grover Cleveland, George Patton, Quentin Roosevelt, Albert Gore, Dianne Feinstein. Above Average: John Adams, James Monroe, Thomas J. Jarvis, Frances Cleveland, Happy Chandler, John F. Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey. Average: James Madison, William Seward, Woodrow Wilson, Ronald Reagan, Andrew Young. Below Average: John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, John Tyler, Zachary

Taylor, Joel Parker, Ulysses S. Grant, Samuel Tilden, William McKinley, Henry Cabot Lodge, Richmond Flowers, Pete duPont. Failure: Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, James Blaine, James Garfield, Herbert Hoover, Joseph McCarthy, Linda Chavez. Incomplete, due to the brevity of their time in office: William Henry Harrison, Robert E. Lee. * Time In Office 15 Years, 9 Days: Theodore Roosevelt 8 Years: Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Grover Cleveland, Frances Cleveland, Quentin Roosevelt, Andrew Young, Pete duPont, Dianne Feinstein 7 Years, 10 Months, 16 Days: Eleanor Roosevelt 7 Years, 10 Months, 5 Days: George Washington 5 Years, 1 Month, 29 Days: John F. Kennedy 4 Years, 11 Months: George S. Patton 4 Years, 6 Months, 11 Days: Thomas J. Jarvis 4 Years, 4 Months, 16 Days: Ulysses S. Grant 4 Years: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, James Polk, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, Samuel J. Tilden, James G. Blaine, Herbert Hoover, Albert B. Chandler, Ronald Reagan, Linda Chavez 3 Years, 11 Months: John Tyler 3 Years, 7 Months, 17 Days: Joel Parker 3 Years, 7 Months, 12 Days: William H. Seward 3 Years, 1 Month: Joseph R. McCarthy 2 Years, 10 Months, 2 Days: Albert A. Gore 2 Years, 8 Months, 16 Days: Richmond Flowers 2 Years, 7 Months, 24 Days: Millard Fillmore 2 Years, 7 Months, 2 Days: William McKinley 2 Years, 4 Months, 19 Days: Woodrow Wilson 2 Years, 20 Days: Henry Cabot Lodge 1 Year, 4 Months, 5 Days: Zachary Taylor 1 Year, 3 Months, 29 Days: James Garfield 1 Year, 3 Months, 14 Days: Hubert Humphrey 1 Month, 11 Days: Robert E. Lee 1 Month: William Henry Harrison * As for those Presidents I've removed from the line of succession: Andrew Johnson (1808-1875): Served as Senator from Tennessee, uninterrupted from 1857 to 1875.

Rutherford B. Hayes (1819-1893): Returned to Fremont, Ohio following his defeat in 1876 and practiced law. Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901): Returned to Indianapolis following his defeat in 1888 and practiced law. William Howard Taft (1843-1930): Served as Secretary of War under Theodore Roosevelt, and practiced law in Washington and Cincinnati. Warren Harding (1865-1923): Nominated for Vice President in 1920, and remained in the Senate until his death. Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933): Returned to Northampton, Massachusetts following his defeat in 1924, served out his term as Governor of Massachusetts, and practiced law. Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1950): Stricken with polio in 1921, aided his wife Eleanor's political career, writing such speeches as her First Inaugural Address and her request for a declaration of war following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Practiced law in New York from leaving the White House in 1941 until his death. Harry Truman (1884-1972): Left the Senate to serve as Commissioner of Baseball from 1945 to 1955. Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1955): One of the most important generals of World War II, but not the most important. Served as Secretary of War to Presidents Patton and McCarthy. Broke with McCarthy over his conduct of the Korean War. Ran for President as the candidate of the Liberty Party in 1948, finishing second to Happy Chandler but ahead of McCarthy. Suffered a fatal heart attack while he and his wife were visiting her family in Denver. Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973): Served as Senate Democratic Leader from 1953 to 1973 (including Majority Leader 1955-67), dying of a heart attack at his desk on the Senate floor. Richard Nixon (1913-1994): Returned to New York following his defeat in 1968 and practiced law. Served as a diplomat for the Reagan Administration. Gerald Ford (1913-2006): Served as House Republican Leader from 1965 to 1977 (including Speaker 1967-75). Owned retirement homes in Rancho Mirage, California and Aspen, Colorado. Jimmy Carter (born 1924): Returned to farming and teaching Sunday school following his defeat for Governor of Georgia in 1970. George H.W. Bush (born 1924): Ronald Reagan's Vice President lost the 1980 election and returned to Houston. He served as Secretary of State to Pete duPont and won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts at ending the Bosnian

Civil War. Bill Clinton (born 1946): Served as Governor of Arkansas 1979 to 1981 and First Gentleman of Arkansas 1985 to 1993. U.S. Attorney General 1993 to 1998, when he had to resign due to a sex scandal. Practiced law and aided his wife Hillary Rodham's Presidential campaign in 2004. Now the First Gentleman of the United States. George W. Bush (born 1946): Owned the Houston Astros, but was one of baseball's most incompetent owners. Defeated in the Republican Primary for Governor of Texas in 1994. Currently on the boards of directors of several Texas-based energy companies. Connected with the Enron scandal of 2000, and it is widely believed that his father's influence kept him from being indicted and convicted; turned states' evidence on former partner Ken Lay, leading to his conviction. Uncle Mike Sep 18 2007, 01:12 PM Post #80

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 Wilson's reputation has taken a severe hit in recent years, mostly for his racial views and actions. Although he's the only politician to hold office in my home State and go on to be President, and had some monumental achievements, there are things I couldn't ignore about him. Here, I took him down a peg or two. As with my "Kennedy Runs Later" series, Reagan gets elected in 1972 but is not re-elected in 1976, due to scandal. In this version, however, he gets off much easier. In "KRL," I decided to "Let Reagan Be Reagan," and made him an even more conservative figure than he was in RL, and he was deeply involved in horrifying activities, but cut a deal with the Democrats, where he wouldn't run for re-election in exchange for stopping the impeachment proceedings. In this one, he's not involved in the legal tomfoolery, and takes a stand by firing those who are -- essentially, "Nixon doing the right thing." And while he gets annihilated in the Electoral College, the popular vote is not a landslide, and people's memories of him rebound to where they think, "Aw, he wasn't so bad," as so often happens with bad Presidents -- for example, the elder George Bush, who never becomes President in TTL, but wins a Nobel Peace Prize. Seriously.

Uncle Mike

Sep 30 2007, 11:59 PM Post #81

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 September 30, 2007: I still can't believe the San Francisco Miners blew that big lead and lost the National League West title to the Arizona Diamondbacks. Anyway, the NL Playoffs will be the D-backs playing the Chicago Cubs and the Philadelphia Phillies playing the San Diego Padres. The American League Playoffs will be the New York Yankees against the Cleveland Indians and the Boston Red Sox against the Los Angeles Angels. Uncle Mike Oct 14 2007, 09:03 PM Post #82

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 Having picked up the DVD of The Bronx Is Burning, it occurred to me that, while I altered the criminal and political landscape of New York in 1977, I did not save any of the victims of the Son of Sam case. Is it wrong to like the story, when the story is so sad and scary? If so, I'm still in better shape than those of you who like the bloodshed and suffering that war brings. But I could save another victim of one of New York's most notorious crimes, without altering too much of this Timeline: March 13, 1964: Catherine "Kitty" Genovese, a 28-year-old tavern manager, returns from work to her apartment in the Kew Gardens section of Queens, New York. She is attacked by Winston Moseley, who stabs her. But in an America where two women have been President of the United States, she fights back, kicking him in the groin. He drops his knife, and she picks him up and stabs him with it. She gets inside her apartment and calls the police.

She is taken to a hospital, and lives. Moseley is taken to the same hospital, and also lives, but is taken to jail at Rikers Island. He is sentenced to life in prison. As of October 2007, he remains at the State Prison in Attica, New York. Kitty returns home, where she lives with Mary Ann Zielonko. At the time, it is not publicized that the roommates are lesbian lovers. (Kitty did not fight back, but rather screamed, and supposedly, 38 people admitted either seeing or hearing part of the attack. She died horribly. Zielonko, who did not admit the lesbian relationship publicly until a 40th anniversary article, had the grim task of identifying Kitty in the morgue. She is now retired and living in Vermont. The case became a symbol for the rise of urban crime, and to a populace that, in one witness' phrase, "didn't want to get involved." But, in TTL, better police-public relations will prevent that. In RL, Moseley was sentenced to death, had his sentence commuted to 20 years to life upon abolition of the State's death penalty, participated in the Attica prison riot of 1971, and remains alive in prison.) June 27, 1969: Police raid the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, New York. But the clientele fight back against their constant persecution by the police, resulting in a riot that spills out into Sheridan Square. This is viewed as the beginning of the modern gay rights movement in America. One of the leaders is the manager on duty at the Stonewall that night, 34-year-old lesbian Catherine "Kitty" Genovese. November 7, 1978: The Republicans make slight gains in the Congressional elections, but the Democrats keep solid control of both houses, as President Andrew Young remains popular. Congressman Bill Clinton is elected Governor of Arkansas. At 32, the Democrat is the youngest Governor in the country. Also elected to office today is Catherine "Kitty" Genovese, a 43-year-old bar owner and gay-rights activist, as New York State's first openly gay member of the Assembly. November 3, 1998: The Democrats beat the usual sixth-year-of-anadministration jinx in Congressional elections. They actually gain five seats in the House of Representatives and hold their numbers in the Senate. In New York, Republican Governor George Pataki is defeated by the Democratic nominee, State Comptroller Carl McCall. Retirements and defeats have led to a new Speaker of the Assembly, 20-year-veteran and gay-rights activist Kitty Genovese. November 7, 2006: The Democrats make modest gains in the Congressional elections, enough to slightly regain the Senate and increase their majority in the House of Representatives. Voters seem satisfied with President Hillary Rodham's restoration of the economy and getting the rebuilding of New Orleans going after Hurricane Katrina. Governor Elliot Spitzer of New York is re-elected. Kitty Genovese, just short of her 72nd birthday, has retired from the State Assembly after 28 years, so another Manhattanite, Sheldon Silver, rises to the Speakership.

Uncle Mike

Oct 16 2007, 01:45 PM Post #83

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 I have to amend this one to reflect the actual 2007 baseball season. Here are the TTL standings: AL East Boston Red Sox 96 New York Yankees 94 Toronto Blue Jays 83 Washington Senators Baltimore Orioles 69 AL Central Cleveland Indians Detroit Tigers Minnesota Twins Chicago White Sox Tampa Bay Rays 96 88 79 72 66 66 .593 68 .580 2 79 .512 13 (Texas ) 93 .426 27 66 74 83 90 96 .593 .543 .488 .444 .407 8 17 24 30 88 74 .543 6 76 86 .469 18 27

75 87 .463 19

AL West Los Angeles Angels 94 68 .580 Oakland Wolves (Seattle ) Colorado Athletics (Oakland ) Kansas City Royals 69 93 .426

NL East Philadelphia Phillies 90 72 .556 San Juan Aviators (Arizona) 89 73 .549 1 Brooklyn Dodgers (LA) 82 80 .506 8 Montreal Expos (Wash.) 73 89 .451 17 New York Giants (SF) 71 91 .438 19 Havana Almendares (Florida) 71 91 .438 18 NL Central Chicago Cubs Atlanta Braves Milwaukee Brewers Cincinnati Reds Pittsburgh Pirates 85 84 83 72 68 77 78 79 90 94 .525 .519 .512 .444 .420 1 2 13 17

NL West Seattle Mariners (Colorado) 90 73 .552 San Diego Padres 89 74 .546 1 San Francisco Miners 88 74 .543 2 St. Louis Cardinals 78 84 .481 12 Houston Astros 73 89 .451 17 Since the Colorado Athletics have won a World Series in TTL, the TTL-Denver team does not win the Pennant; rather, the team that here stands in for the Colorado Rockies does. So it is the TTL-Seattle Mariners, the RL-Colorado Rockies, who go on the 21of-22 streak and win the NL Pennant. They will face either Cleveland or Boston in the World Series. If the RL-Rox win the Series, the TTL-M's will; if the RL-Indians win, the TTL-Indians will; if the RL-Red Sox win, the TTL-M's will. The TTL-Miners/RL-Mets still choke, however. October 16, 2007: Baseball legend Roberto Clemente dies at his home in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He was 73 years old. Uncle Mike Jun 24 2008, 07:18 PM Post #84

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 A little update: October 28, 2007: Game 5 of the World Series is a 10-1 wipeout for the Cleveland Indians over the Seattle Mariners in front of a stunned crowd at Safeco Field in Seattle. The big blow is a third-inning grand slam by the Indians' Travis Hafner. Third baseman Casey Blake, whose 11 hits were a record for a Series of five games or less, is named Most Valuable Player, edging out Fausto Carmona, who won Games 2 and 5. For the last out, Joe Borowski gets Brad Hawpe to fly out to Grady Sizemore. The World Championship is the first for the Indians since 1948, and the first for any Cleveland team since the Browns won Super Bowl XXXV. (As per previouslymentioned baseball expansions, TTL-Mariners are actually the RL-Colorado Rockies, so the Mariners have Todd Helton, Matt Holliday and Troy Tulowitzki; not Ichiro Suzuki, Richie Sexson and Felix Hernandez.) May 20, 2008: Vito Fossella resigns as Mayor of New York, after a scandal

reveals that he used City funds as child support for a woman in Virginia who had his illegitimate daughter. The City's Public Advocate, who presides over the City Council, is next in the line of succession, and so New York has its first female Mayor, Elizabeth "Betsy" Gotbaum. August 28, 2008: The Republican Convention is held at the Alamodome in San Antonio. The Republicans nominate former Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts for President and Governor James Carson of South Dakota for Vice President. Leery of his Mormon faith, many social conservatives did not want Romney, even though the economic conservatives insisted. As a compromise, Carson, the evangelical Christian and "Red Meat Governor" is on the ticket, and his speech is a blistering attack on President Hillary Rodham. By contrast, Romney's acceptance speech is calm, measured, and very effective. He looks great. He sounds great. He gives the Republican Party hope again, after the 2004 defeat of President Linda Chavez to Rodham. Maybe, just maybe, the various "conservative wings" of the Republican Party can unite behind this ticket. And maybe, just maybe, the Romney-Carson ticket can ride the current recession, including the mortgage crisis and gasoline at a national average of $4.50 a gallon, to victory. They know they won't be able to do it by calling Rodham's program "socialist." And they won't be able to win with attacks on her foreign policy, either, since she recently returned from a summit with Russian President Alexander Litvinenko. But the recession might do her in. (Not having been a POW in Vietnam, and not having a war in Iraq to ride, John McCain doesn't come close in TTL. Neither does Mike Huckabee. Never having been elected Mayor of New York and having a 9/11 to go through, no one would take a Rudy Giuliani candidacy seriously. So I went with Romney. Carson does not exist. He is the son of a soldier who died in RL-WW2, or the grandson of one who died in RL-WW1, or the great-great-grandson of one who died in the American Civil War. He's a flake, kind of a mix of Newt Gingrich, Dan Quayle and Ron Paul. I chose South Dakota due to the coercive new antiabortion law, and to serve as a counterpoint to the "prairie populists" born in that State, such as Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern and Tom Daschle. I chose the name for a "West Wing"-themed Timeline, looking for an opponent for Jed Bartlet when he first ran, deciding "James" was a good name for an incumbent President, and seeing "C" as the most common letter to begin Presidents' names and several ending in "-son." And so I moved "James Carson" to TTL.) Uncle Mike Jun 25 2008, 07:05 PM Post #85

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36

Joined: July 30, 2007 xtreme2004 Jun 25 2008, 06:59 PM Uncle Mike Jun 24 2008, 07:18 PM October 28, 2007: Game 5 of the World Series is a 10-1 wipeout for the Cleveland Indians over the Seattle Mariners in front of a stunned crowd at Safeco Field in Seattle. The big blow is a third-inning grand slam by the Indians' Travis Hafner. Third baseman Casey Blake, whose 11 hits were a record for a Series of five games or less, is named Most Valuable Player, edging out Fausto Carmona, who won Games 2 and 5. For the last out, Joe Borowski gets Brad Hawpe to fly out to Grady Sizemore. The World Championship is the first for the Indians since 1948, and the first for any Cleveland team since the Browns won Super Bowl XXXV. (As per previouslymentioned baseball expansions, TTL-Mariners are actually the RL-Colorado Rockies, so the Mariners have Todd Helton, Matt Holliday and Troy Tulowitzki; not Ichiro Suzuki, Richie Sexson and Felix Hernandez.) Yes! Another AH World Series title for the Indians to go with the one in 1997 over Los Almendares. This is excellent. Oops... I forgot about that one. OK, it's the first in 10 years, since the Tribe beat the Scorps. Did you also notice that the Browns never moved, and still won Super Bowl XXXV over the Giants? I couldn't make the Giants win that Super Bowl. Kerry Collins is still their quarterback, and an SB won by that QB couldn't be anything but ASB. Uncle Mike Jun 26 2008, 10:30 AM Post #86

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 Paul: Anti-Mormon prejudice only still exists within the nut wing of the Republican Party. Tiu: Go back to the beginning and you'll see the point of divergence: Robert E. Lee doesn't betray his country, ends the Civil War at Bull Run, and racism is accepted as unacceptable far sooner.

Uncle Mike

Jun 26 2008, 02:02 PM Post #87

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 Wendell Jun 26 2008, 12:58 PM Inquisitor Jun 26 2008, 12:53 PM I demand the time I spent reading this monstrosity back. At which point did you begin to dislike it? Probably May 25, 1977, when I didn't "re-write Star Wars" to let the Empire win. Didn't C3PO teach you anything? You're supposed to "Let the Wookiee win," and the Wookiees are on the side of freedom. Uncle Mike Jun 26 2008, 02:42 PM Post #88

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 Inquisitor Jun 26 2008, 02:05 PM Uncle Mike Jun 26 2008, 02:02 PM Wendell Jun 26 2008, 12:58 PM Inquisitor Jun 26 2008, 12:53 PM I demand the time I spent reading this monstrosity back. At which point did you begin to dislike it?

Probably May 25, 1977, when I didn't "re-write Star Wars" to let the Empire win. Didn't C3PO teach you anything? You're supposed to "Let the Wookiee win," and the Wookiees are on the side of freedom. 1) You're an asshole. 2) I hated it from the begining. Every date, year, and decade after that became exponenially more stupid after that, until I started to lose portions of my sanity around 1942 or so. 1) An opinion shared by many, confirmed by none. 2) So now you're a sympathizer with the Empire AND the Confederacy? Wow. Tell me, did you watch 300, and if so, were you rooting for the Persians? Uncle Mike Jun 26 2008, 04:24 PM Post #89

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007 You're certainly trying. VERY trying. And as for which institutions you may or may not support, I'm suggesting that it might have led to some bias on your part. At least I tried to let the Republicans have control every once in a while. After all, Quentin Roosevelt wasn't bad. Wasn't as good as his father, but then, few were. Uncle Mike Jun 26 2008, 05:04 PM Post #90

Posts: -1 Group: cho_riks Member #36 Joined: July 30, 2007

I didn't make them look like incompetent fools. I merely... No, I'm not going to go there, because some of them had some praise for this Timeline. 1 user reading this topic Members: Tom Kratman Free Forums. Reliable service with over 8 years of experience. Learn More Register Now Go to Next Page Previous Topic Alternate History Next Topic Pages: 1 2 Fast Reply Add Reply Full Reply Screen Go Choose a theme: Track Topic E-mail Topic Hosted for free by ZetaBoards 8:35 PM Aug 2