Eric Blair | "We are in a strange period of history in which a revolutionary has to be a patriot and a patriot has to be a revolutionary" ~ Eric Arthur Blair writing in Tribune, the Labour left's weekly, in December 1940 |
George Orwell |
World War II accelerated changes in British society that had been bubbling since 1917. The defeat of Fascism in Europe by the emerging forces of Anarchy in Catalonia offered a new alternative. And not much later, the name Britain itself would be superseded, by Airstrip One. The full article is available at Wikipedia | |
~ quotation by Co-Historian Steve Payne from Counter-history – You're the Judge! |
In her superb history The Sleeping Serpent (1992), Pamela Sargent described what happened next in the mid-13th Century when the Mongol hordes arrived on the steppes, poised to enter Germany and Italy. Genghiz Khan's successor Subadai received news of a royal death back home, but chose to advance at that time, establishing vast European Khanates. Four centuries later, only Inglistan and her American colonies stand between the Mongols and world domination. Khan's son Yesuntai arrives at the encampment at Yeke Geren, and quickly establishes that the American Indians are their long-lost Asian brothers who crossed the land-bridge at the Bering Straits. Yesunta determines to emulate their victories, and nomadic hegemony forms a solid chain across the Northern Hemisphere. The Inglistani and her colonies are crushed but just a few “go native” in North America and become Kings of the Wild Frontier, preserving some form of non Mongol culture outside the control of the gloal Khanate. The lyrics are available at at Cifi | |
~ quotation by Co-Historian Steve Payne from Counter-history – You're the Judge! |
In 2021, Newsweek ran the article After Obama - could a successor President control the escalation of events following the sinking of the USS Condoleeza Rice? |
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!
In 1976, Robert Neville lived the life of a recluse, trapped inside his fortified home. He studied the vampiris bacteria. Outside vampires and the infected tried to break in. "Come out Robert Neville" yelled his undead neighbour Ben Cortman. |
~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.
Hiroshima | In 1945, a multi-national team continues to look for a breakthrough at Hiroshima. Matter continues to be sucked at an alarming rate through the fissure left by the nuclear explosion on August 6th. The area was fast de pressuring, and the general effect much like a hole in an air plane cabin but on a grander scale. “Any ideas today?” asks the team lead with barely disguised negativity. “How about, “ says Alan Turing, one of the British scientists “ the hair of the dog that bit you? Lets detonate another bomb to close the fissure.” |
~ entry by Steve Payne |
In 2127/2003, sneaked in by anti-war sympathisers in the security forces, and from behind a one-way mirror in Paddington Green Police Station, Robin Cook and Claire .. | Paddington Green.. |
.. Short watch the two interviewees, twenty-second century fugitive Brent and first Asian QC Kim Hollis. Urgent investigations are being pursued in relation to the apparent suicide of the Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith. Already convinced that the Second Gulf War is a terrible mistake, they believe the testimonies of time travellers Brent and first Asian QC Kim Hollis. | |
~ entry by Steve Payne |
Robert Silverbe.. | In 1666, a small fire was extinguished at the bakery of Thomas Farriner in Pudding Lane shortly after midnight on Sunday, 2 September. Historians disagree as to whether a great fire of London could have played a part in preventing future pandemics. The Great Plague epidemic of 1665 is believed to have killed a sixth of London's inhabitants, or 80,000 people, and it is sometimes suggested, given the fact that plague epidemics recurred in London after the fire, that a Great Fire could actually have saved lives in the long run by burning down so much unsanitary .. |
.. housing with the accompanying rats and their fleas (which transmitted the plague). However, there was no great fire, and London was devastated by the Second Year of the Plague in 1667 as described by Robert Silverberg in his history epic The Gate of the Worlds. | |
~ entry by Steve Payne |
In 1870, the first Franco-Prussian War reaches an unexpected conclusion at the Battle of Sedan. French forces take Kaiser Wilhelm I and 150,000 of his soldiers prisoner as the German nation is strangled at birth. In a famous picture of Napoleon III having a conversation with Bismarck after being captured in the Battle of Sedan, the Iron Chancellor indicated that he had serious doubts about the future and stability of the recently-founded German empire. .. | Napoleon III an.. |
.. However, he had no doubt that in the future, more robust attempts would be made, Prussian militarism could not be denied. | |
~ entry by Steve Payne |
No comments:
Post a Comment