The Annotated Today in Alternate History

1974: Ellsberg sentenced

Daniel Ellsberg, a consultant at the Pentagon, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for treason. Ellsberg had been caught trying to peddle classified papers to various news organizations through a fortuitous tip from his psychiatrist. President Nixon said, “Filthy traitors aren’t welcome in our America.”

Daniel Ellsberg (1931-) [Biography]
Former marine, analyst with the Rand Corporation, worked in the Pentagon under defence secretary Robert McNamara and for the state department in Vietnam.

In the real world Ellsberg leaked a collection of over seven thousand classified Pentagon documents in 1974. The Pentagon Papers, as they became known, revealed how the US got involved in the Vietnam war and how successive US presidents lied about the war. The leak was instrumental in ending the Vietnam war.

Ellsberg had first tried to get a number of politicians to release the papers. When they refused he passed the paper on to the New York Times, and went on the run to ensure publicity and make sure the information got out.

He was caught in June 1971 after an extensive manhunt, and would have been been imprisoned for life it hadn't been for Nixon's manic desire for revenge. Amongst a load of other things, Nixon had Ellsberg's psychoanalyst's office burgled by Howard Hunt and Gordon Liddy (two of the Watergate burglars!) and tried to bribe the judge by offering him the directorship of the FBI. The trial had to be abandoned and Ellsberg was acquitted.

Ellsberg published a memoir in 2002—Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers.

1960: Call for an African and Semitic state

Elijah Muhammed, leader of the Semitic-African Resistance, calls for the United States to set aside a state for those of African and Semitic ancestry. Political agitator Albert Einstein, a lesser functionary of the S.A.R., begins holding talks with sympathetic Congressmen who might be willing to allow them to do so. Armed resistance is still years away.

Elijah Muhammad (born Elijah Poole; also Elijah Karriem) (1897-1975) [Biography]
Leader of the Nation of Islam. In Elijah Muhammad's view of history, blacks lived in a sort of paradise for 78 trillion years until six thousand years ago when a deviant black scientist, Yakub, rebelled against the black gods and created the white race. The white race was perfecten on an Aegean Island and received a mandate to reign over blacks for six millennia. This reign has ended in 1914 (with a grace period extending it to 1984).
In the real world, the 1960s saw Elijah Muhammad spiral into megalomania and the National of Islam becoming increasingly violent, perhaps culminating in the murder of Malcolm X in 1965.

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) [Biography]
Theoretical physicist, widely regarded as the greatest scientist of the twentieth century and probably best known for his general theory of relativity.
In reality, Einstein was a Zionist but opposed nationalism and doubted whether a Jewish nation-state was a good solution. He declined the presidency.
Einstein would have been 81 in 1960. In the real world he died in 1955.

A state for the Jews and the blacks? A Jewish National District was actually founded in the late 1920s in the Soviet Union. It is now known as the Jewish Autonomous Oblast (Евре́йская автоно́мная о́бласть), and even if the vast majority of what little Jews there ever were have emigrated to Israel, Yiddish is taught in school and there's a Yiddish radio and a Yiddish edition of the Birobidzhaner Shtern.

1942: Chemical weapons in Minsk

The German Underground releases chemical weapons against Greater Zionist Resistance troops in Minsk. While not as effective as the nuclear weapons used a few months ago, they do have the advantage of leaving the buildings of Minsk standing. The GZR is now in a long state of withdrawal from Europe.

In reality, 1942 saw the Nazi regime's first use of Zyklon B (hydrocyanic acid) for the mass extermination of prisoners in concentration camps.

Also in 1942, the United States begins its offensive biological weapons program. Camp Detrick in Frederick, Maryland becomes its R&D site.

Soranim returns to earth

in the 16th year of Ptolerit’s reign [between 1912 and 1942], astronaut Soranim returns to earth, hailed as a demigod. Ptolerit names him a Prince of the Realm, and gives him one of his own daughters as a wife.

In our world, the first man on the moon was Neil Armstrong, in 1969.

1912: Filming of prize fights banned

President Nora Barney, in one of her last acts before leaving office, passes a law prohibiting the filming of prize fights, either for photographs or the cinema. Her successor, sister Suffragist Charlotte Gilman, enforced the law rigidly. Violence of almost any kind was being pushed out of polite society in Suffragist America.

Nora Stanton Blatch (1883-1971) [Biography]
Civil engineer, architect and suffragist. In 1912 she would have been 29, making her (by far) the youngest president ever. In reality she left her position as an assistant engineer and chief draftsman at the Radley Steel Construction Company in 1912 to start working as an assistant engineer for the New York Public Service Commission. In reality she only married Morgan Barney on 1919.

Charlotte Anna Perkins Stetson Gilman (1860-1935) [Biography]
Feminist, lecturer, writer, and publisher. In reality, she wasn't very involved in organized movements of the day, even if she was a co-founder of the Women's Peace Party in 1915.
In 1912 she was the editor and publisher of the Forerunner, a monthly magazine of feminist articles, views, and fiction.

In reality, women in the United States gained the vote in 1920. Note that they had been able to stand for election since 1788!

1556: Ignatius of Loyola dies

St. Ignatius of Loyola dies. In life, he had been the founder of the Society of Jesus, a somewhat ironically named organization that had been Pope Henry VIII’s political and intellectual assassins. Ignatius himself was only made a saint because of the political services he had performed for the Holy British Empire.

Ignatius of Loyola
Inigo de Oñez y Loyola (°1491, Loyola [Spain] +1556, Rome), founder of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). Biography.

1033 [24 Sha'ban 424]: Circumference of the Earth

Astronomers in Baghdad, expanding on the work of Abul-Wefa, calculate the circumference of the earth accurately. Their Caliph, El Hakam, celebrates their brilliance with a royal banquet and a pledge to always maintain the school of astronomy: “Since Allah made the stars within the domain of the earth, and gave to man the earth, it follows that the stars are our jewels, as well. May Allah grant your school the wisdom to pick these jewels from the sky.”

Abul-Wefa (or Abu'l-Wafa')
Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn Isma'il ibn al-'Abbas Abu'l-Wafa' al-Buzjani (° 940 Buzjan [now Iran] + 998 Baghdad [now Iraq]). Astronomer and mathematician who made important contributions to the development of trigonometry. Biography.

El Hakam (or Al Hakim)
Name of several caliphs, most notably al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, the sixth fatimid caliph. In 422 the actual (abassid) caliph of Baghdad was Abdullah al Qa'im.

1733: First masonic lodge in Boston

The Society of Freemasons opens its first lodge in the Western Hemisphere in Boston, Massachusetts. This front for the Bavarian Illuminati will soon control all levels of American government, and grow until its tentacles reach even the leadership of the free world, itself!

Boston's Grand Lodge, St. John's, was formally organized under the leadership of Henry Price and met for the first time at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern in Boston. It is considered the third oldest masonic lodge in the world.

In reality, the Bavarian Illuminati were founded on May 1st 1776 by Adam Weishaupt (1748-1830), in part because he found the "mysteries" of Freemasonry too childish and too readily accessible to the general public to make them worthwhile (and probably in part because he found the cost of joining a lodge probitive :). Read more...