text:
Nerdlinger
1952: Harry Truman (D) vs. Adlai Stevenson II (S) and Harold Stassen (R).
1956: Harry Truman (D) vs. William Averell Harriman (S) and Harold Stassen (R)
1960: Hubert Humphrey (S) vs. John W. Bricker (D) and Harold Stassen (R)
1964: Hubert Humphrey (S) vs. Henry Cabot Lodge (D) and Walter Judd (R)
1968: Hubert Humphrey (S) vs. James Rhodes (D) and Bryson Briggs (R)
1972: Joshua Blackford (D) vs. Terrance Hobson (S) and Philip Ioannidis (R)
1976: Joshua Blackford (D) vs. Dwight O'Hare (S) and George Sidney (R)
After seeing this list, I've decided to attempt to piece together a list of US presidential candidates and their running mates for all three major parties in TL-191. (I also plan to do the same for the CSA.) I noticed that even though James Rhodes lost the 1968 election to Humphrey, he was Joshua Blackford's running mate and VP in the next two elections. Isn't it unusual for a presidential candidate, unsuccessful or otherwise, to later be nominated as a vice presidential candidate?
If you wouldn't mind, David, could you add in the running mates (and their home states) when you have time? Also, can you please include the 1948 election in there too? Thanks!
Zmflavius said:
I would assume so, given that it never lost it (well, except temporarily in the Settling Accounts series)
Okay, thanks. I would have thought Germany would have taken just a little more of France though.
Will the Mormons of this TL rise up in rebellion again sometime in the future or have they finally given up ?
GeorgeUK
Will the protestants in Ulster attempt another pro-British uprising like the did in BI?
CT23 said:
Now that I think of it, Turtledove briefly referred to Germany annexing Lorraine in the last Great War book. Which is insane, to be honest. OTL, Germany's war aims were unlikely to be much greater than Belgium (as ITTL), Briey-Longwy (Part of Lorraine), and Belfort.
Faeelin
Are there any Mormons left?
Faeelin said:
On the Sandwich Islands. Utah has been colonized by American settlers.
GeorgeUK said:
yes knowing Turtledove if he was writing this there would be a mirror of The Troubles only with loyalists doing all bombing and such
They got transported to the Sandwich Islands. It was in the first post of the TL. It was called Operation : Eagle Claw.
No, I get that, but after two (three if you count the 1880s) revolts, where the Mormons fought relentlessly... and unlike OTL there are no conversions from other Americans.
Well, it's not as if the Americans wanted to make America Mormonfrei. Well, maybe Utah.
It is, in fairness, an entire state's population. At least, most of it. OTL, the population in 1920 was 375k, if we assume that 2/3 of them were Mormons, that makes 250k Mormons at the start of the revolt. Even if a full third of them were killed, which would be an immense demographic hit (not even the Serbian Campaign of WWI was that bad, suffering something like a quarter population loss, including over half of all adult men), though it's quite possible that more were slain, there'd still be over 150k Mormons. OTL, between 1920 and 1940, the population of Utah increased by around a quarter; if we assume similar amounts, and assume that they suffered another third loss of population, there'd still be ~120k Mormons. And this assumes that only the Mormons revolt, and everyone else in Utah sits on their hands. This is all wild guesstimating, of course.
Now that I think about it, deporting all the Mormons to Hawaii sounds a lot more difficult than it did before, unless the Mormons did a lot more resisting and the Americans killed a lot more Mormons than my wild guesstimate.
The Big Island in OTL in 1950 only had a population of 68,350 people, if they weren't removed to make sure the Mormons were alone
Didn't one of the characters say that the Mormons had big families despite the ban on Polygamy ? I also remember in the Settling Accounts series that it was said that there were Gentiles that joined in the latest revolt with the Mormons. There was also the Mormons that left that said the current bunch were too fanatical even for them.
Wasn't it 100 Mormons for every soldier injured and 500 Mormons for every soldier killed ? I bet they'd be wiped out by our time.
Is there a figure for that? Even the confederacy only got 10/50 after the 2GW. In any case, it strikes me as appallingly stupid for the Mormons to continue resisting if they ever get to the point where five hundred dead is actually a significant chunk. To use an extreme example, the last five hundred Mormons aren't going to shoot at an American. The same really applies to any sufficiently small group, or any group which has seen five hundred people shot several times.
January, 1980 onwards—Immigration rates to the United States continue at a steady pace throughout the 1980s, particularly from Asia. Although seen as a rival to American power in the region, Bharat emerges as a new source of immigrants (with many beginning as students who come to the USA to study, and then elect to remain). Burma and Thailand also begin to emerge as major sources of immigrants during this time.
Beginning in the 1980s, the West African member states of the German Economic Association begin to supply a growing number of immigrants to the USA, although the major waves of immigrants from the DWV will not emerge until the 1990s and 2000s.
Beginning in the 1980s, large numbers of people from the former Confederacy begin to move outside of the region for the first time since the end of the Second Great War—much of this movement is related to economic necessity, as industrial production begins to leave locales such as Birmingham, and the old textile centers in North and South Carolina. Many, although not all, Southerners in these waves of migration move to either the Rocky Mountain West or the Canadian states, where new construction, energy and Big Tech-related jobs create a burgeoning need for labor.
Still lead by Cassius Madison, the Remembrance Center's agents continue to work with the Justice Department (and the OSS) in pursuing fugitive Confederate war criminals. With the collapse of previously friendly regimes in former Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa, these fugitives have few safe havens—if any—that they can depend on. In spite of these promising trends, Madison refuses to let up the pursuit.
The United States Department of Technology continues to fund promising research being conducted both by universities and private laboratories in a wide variety of fields—including astronomy, chemistry, combine tech, engineering, physics, and transportation. The USDT also funds promising start-ups in the emerging Big Tech field.
Over the course of the 1980s, the European Community's Continental free travel arrangement begins to make its effects felt. Two beneficiaries of this easier movement of people are Great Britain and France—although their respective economies have recovered from the depths of their long post-Second Great War recessions, economists in both nations warn that their economies will begin to stagnate again without a large influx of new workers (and taxpayers).
Beginning in the 1980s, both Britain and France begin sending agents throughout the EC to recruit new immigrants to live and work in their countries, focusing especially on finding skilled laborers. The Kingdom of Belarus, the Hellenic Republic, the Italian Empire, the Kingdom of Poland, the Portuguese Federation, the Kingdom of Romania, the Spanish Republic, and the Kingdom of Ukraine are all major sources of immigrants to Britain and France; by the end of the 1980s, population growth in both nations, due to rising birthrates and high immigration rates, have started to grow for the first time since before the Second Great War.
The economy of the Ottoman Empire begins to falter during the first half of the 1980s, before the outbreak of the Russo-Kazakh War in 1985. Long buoyed by its massive reserves of oil and natural gas, the decade sees, beginning in 1981, a massive decline in the global price of energy—a development seen by most international economic observers as being related to the discovery of new massive oil fields in Alaska and Siberia, along with expanding production in the Nigerian states and the Portuguese Federation. Overproduction in the Ottoman Empire (as well as in Persia and in Venezuela) only adds to the glut. [1]
The Ottoman economy is also negatively impacted in the early 1980s by the collapse of real estate prices throughout the empire. Many of the Great Rebuilding's urban renewal projects have fueled a speculative rush to acquire property throughout the empire, both by domestic and foreign investors. Beginning in 1980, as many investors realize that very few people in the empire can actually afford to buy these properties (with some development towns built in the construction boom of the previous two decades remaining virtually empty) property prices throughout the empire decline dramatically in a relatively short time.
There are similar collapses in real estate in other members of the Independence Movement who undertook Great Rebuilding-inspired projects, particularly in Persia (also hurt by the collapse in world oil prices), the Empire of Brazil, and Bharat. Brazil and Bharat, however, are able to fully recover by the end of the decade, due to having far more diversified economies than the Ottomans or Persians.
With the economic slowdown (particularly in construction), unemployment skyrockets throughout the Ottoman Empire, particularly among young people in the empire's major urban centers. Initially drawn to the big cities throughout the empire by promises of a better life, this new group, bitter and angry at the lack of good economic prospects, will provide the major push for the Ottoman Empire's post-Russo-Kazakh War descent into chaos and violence in the second half of the 1980s.
The coronation, in April 1981, of Sultan Abdul Hamid III reinforces this climate of pessimism in the early 1980s. The new ruler, in his mid-twenties at the time of his ascent, was previously second line, before his older brother Selim died after a riding accident in 1979. Abdul Hamid III, in spite of not being particularly forceful in personality, is widely known to have virulently reactionary views on a variety of issues, particularly when it comes to the empire's minority populations. It is not long before the sultan comes to be despised by the empire's liberal intelligentsia; as the expatriate novelist Kudret Marangoz remarks in an interview to the Italian newspaper La Stampa, the new ruler is, "…nothing more than a scared, stupid little boy. Nothing good will come of him."
The twin economic shocks in the construction and energy sectors are the major catalysts of what contemporary observers call "The Ottoman Winter." Historians will blame this "Ottoman Business Collapse", along with Abdul Hamid III's blunders, as catalysts for the final Ottoman Dissolution in the 2010s.
The Chinese Republic, due to its liberalization of trade and investment, sees its rates of economic growth surpass that of its Bharati rival during the 1980s. Assistance from the CDS in rebuilding its transportation links after decades of war and political fragmentation plays a key role in facilitating this rapid economic recovery, as goods from throughout China now flow freely to the world marketplace. China's cities, particularly coastal metropolitan areas such as Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Shanghai begin to experience massive surges in population, as millions of people migrate from rural provinces in search of work and wealth.
A number of ministers in President Zhuang's government, led by Finance Minister Xue Chen, push for a further liberalization in trade through its PESA-alliance with the Russian Republic and the United States. Minister Chen, in particular, dreams of creating the world's largest and most powerful free trade zone between the three Pacific powers. Although he is fully supportive of easing the ability of foreign nations to invest in China, President Zhuang is less enthusiastic about using the PESA to create such an economic bloc—particularly as Beijing and Moscow emerge as rivals in Central Asia during the 1980s.
Beginning in the 1980s, President Zhuang Lin, with full approval from the National Assembly, begins implementing policies to encourage Chinese settlement both in Tibet and Xinjiang.
Throughout the 1980s, the Rodo Undo maintains a tight grip on the society of the Japanese Worker's Republic, although People's Friend Sakamoto appears in public less and less as the decade wears on (with international observers speculating declining health). Although hostile to the outside world (and to the United States in particular), the JWR remains strictly isolationist in the 1980s, excepting the constant, government-sponsored calls for a global syndicalist revolution.
During this time period, over one million people find themselves expelled from the Japanese Worker's Republic for "improper" devotion to their "syndicalist paradise." As with previous waves of deportees, the expelled refugees from the JWR are accepted into the Republic of Ezo.
It is during the 1980s that the first organized resistance against the Syndicalist Party begins to make itself felt in the JWR. This resistance is non-violent, and is increasingly oriented around the Japanese Ecological Movement, founded after People's Friend Sakomoto outlaws Ecoism in 1983. Ironically, the Japanese Ecologists are forced to organize in the same conspiratorial manner that the Rodo Undo once did in the days of the Japanese Empire.
Throughout the 1980s, tensions continue to simmer between the Indonesian Republic and the CDS. Since the end of the Fourth Pacific War, Australia has continued to administer the island arc of Flores and formerly Japanese Timor, both of which are claimed by Jakarta. Indonesia's autocratic president, Umar Malik, also claims suzerainty over Celebes, Singapore, and West Papua, claiming that both nations are "illegitimate."
The Bharatis, Indonesia's primary military ally through the Chennai Pact, managed to successfully pressure Jakarta to refrain from any actions that might provoke a violent US-CDS response during the course of the 1970s. However, President Malik, whose rule has grown unpopular due to the serial corruption and brutality of his administration, hopes to use a confrontation against the CDS to enhance his popularity. In this, Malik is opposed by Indonesia's military command, which remembers the fate of General Ishii's Japanese Empire almost a generation earlier.
The tensions between Indonesia and the rest of the CDS, and Australia in particular, will finally come to a head with the escalation of the Malacca Crisis in the summer and fall of 1987.
Beginning in first part of the decade, there is a backlash against the Nihilist movements in both the United States and the European Community. In the United States, this backlash makes itself felt at the box office, where several major post-apocalyptic films fail dismally. As director Felix Krakowski bitterly remarks in a press conference held after the terrible returns for his 1980 dystopian work A Third Great War, "…I guess they [the public] is very sick of my favorite themes."
In the EC, the excesses of the more violently inclined Nihilist gangs, particularly in Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom, fuels a massive police crackdown in all of these nations. By the end of the 1980s, even the most feared of all of the European Nihilist gangs—the British "Punks", the French "Apaches" [2], and the Italian Squadrismo will be a distant memory.
Throughout the 1980s, in spite of the best efforts of the International Health Organization, Fleischer's Syndrome spreads across the world. During the decade, most member states of the CDS, the EC, and the DWV enact awareness campaigns about the disease. Dr. Fleischer himself works hard to find a cure, although the disease continues to confound him and his scientists. [3]
Throughout the 1980s, manned launches into Outer Space (and Lunar landings) begin to become routine, on the part of the US Department of Space and Exploration (and the CDS Liberty Space Agency) and the EC's European Space Combine.
Both programs, while still locked in the friendly competition with each other in the ongoing Space Chase, begin to diverge in their major goals. The United States (and the CDS) begins to plan a manned mission to Mars. The European Space Combine, by contrast, begins to plan the establishment of a permanently manned base on the Moon. Both supra-national space programs also announce plans to launch space stations into orbit during the course of the decade.
Separately, both programs also begin planning to send probes to explore the Outer Planets. The European Space Combine also begins to lay the preliminary stages for the launching of an orbital telescope, with the planned launch to be sometime in the early 1990s.
January 1, 1980—The Republic of Ireland, with approval from the United States, signs free trade accords with both Austria-Hungary and Germany. Both EC ambassadors express hope that this will be the first step towards a "comprehensive" free trade agreement between the nations of the CDS and the EC.
January 1, 1980 onwards—The South African Confederation, in a move that surprises international observers, applies for membership in the Chennai Pact, but not for membership the Independence Movement. Most observers speculate that this move is revenge, on the part of the SAC's Chancellor George Uuka for the Ottoman Empire's support of Jonas Guiri's syndicalist forces during the South African War, as well as the IM's support for the breakaway nation of KwaZulu-Natal, which South Africa refuses to recognize.
Later on, historians will generally agree that South Africa's rejection of membership of the IM played an important catalyst to the ultimate splintering of the organization over the next three decades.
January 1, 1980-November 3, 1980—The 1980 US presidential election proves to be the most exciting in decades: although initially stuck in third place, the Republican nominee, former ambassador Morgan Reynolds, gradually improves in the polls throughout the spring and summer of 1980. Presidential historians will note that Reynolds was able to do so in part due to the complacency of the Democratic and Socialist nominees.
The Democrats nominate, as expected, former Secretary of State Mildred Morrell-Quigley, the first woman to win the nomination of a major American party. The Socialists, expecting to win back the White House after eight years of Democratic control, nominate retired Brigadier General Theodore Abner Abell. A dark-horse choice for the Socialists, Abell is well known (and regarded) by the US public as a war hero from the Fourth Pacific War, from Operation Grizzly and Operation Rainbow Dawn.
Morrell-Quigley and Abell, in spite of early promises to be civil in their campaigns, soon resort to personal attacks, each accusing the other of not being "ready" for the highest office in the land. Journalist Thomas Harry Johnson, among other observers, notes in one of his many sarcastic editorials that this negativity stems from the candidates, "…not exactly disagreeing on them [the issues]."
Reynolds by contrast, campaigns hard all over the country, speaking to large crowds in cities from Vancouver to Atlanta. Charismatic and humorous on the stump, Reynolds, to the frustration of journalists, doesn't take a firm position on a major issue, and continues to speak in generalities. He does, however, promise a "new dawn of optimism," prompting the inevitable questions as to what that "new dawn" will look like.
Historians will generally agree that it is Reynolds's impressive performance in the five nationally televised presidential debates, stretched out throughout September and October. Held in New York City, Chicago, St. Louis, Denver, and San Francisco (respectively), Reynolds is widely seen as the "winner" in all of the sparring contests—even though neither Morrell-Quigley nor Abell make any kind of major verbal blunder. Neither the Democratic nor the Socialist nominee can find a way to effectively attack Reynolds. The debates propel Reynolds into the lead, where he will remain until the day of the election itself.
January 29-May 15, 1980—The Ogaden War is waged between the Kingdom of Ethiopia and the Somali Republic, after a series of brutal clashes occur on the disputed frontier between the two nations, in spite of the best efforts of the Ottoman forces stationed in Somalia to prevent such outbreaks of violence.
The war, although short, kills thousands of soldiers and displaces hundreds of thousands of civilians in the Ogaden region, with many ethnic Somalis forced to flee to the Somali Republic by the Ethiopian military.
The war only comes to a close in the spring of 1980 when both sides begin to realize the impact of a severe draught in their part of the world, which is severe to the point of requiring massive shipments of food from the Empire of Brazil, the Russian Republic, and the United States to avert a catastrophic famine; the "Ogaden Draught" will not end until the winter of 1982. [4]
February 13-February 24, 1980—The thirteenth Winter Olympic Games are held in Squaw Valley, California.
March 1, 1980—In one of his last major policy speeches before the end of his final term in office, President Blackford announces that, with the Moon Race over, the United States will now focus its efforts on sending a manned mission to Mars.
All three presidential candidates, when asked for a response to President Blackford's "Mars Shot" speech, all affirm their support for the endeavor, and each in turn promise to have the most effective plan to achieve that goal.
March 11, 1980—Representatives from the Empire of Brazil, the Portuguese Federation and the United States sign agreements with the South African Confederation, which promise assistance in restoring the elephant populations of that nation after years of violence. This mirrors ongoing US-sponsored efforts in Great Zimbabwe that have been underway since the end of the Rhodesian Turbulence in 1970.
April 24, 1980 onwards—The Italian film Rivers of Hate [5] is released. Directed by Massimo Veronesi, the film is the first of many (mostly Italian-made) "Middle Easterns"-films set in the Middle East, but mostly filmed in Italian Libya. With a screenplay by Ottoman novelist (and expatriate) Kudret Marangoz, the film, with its frank portrayals of brutal violence, anticipates the horrors that will one day wrack the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of the Russo-Kazakh War in the mid-1980s, and the Kashmir War in the late 1990s.
The emergence and popularity of Middle Easterns also spur a resurgence of Westerns in the United States, which borrow many of the frank portrayals of brutal violence and futile struggle from the Middle Easterns. The most famous "Neo-Western" to emerge during this time is Fred Niall's Custer trilogy—Custer on Horseback (1983), Custer on the Barrel Role (1988) and Emperor Custer (1989)—each film is four hours in length, and is highly praised for their realism.
The Middle Easterns and Neo-Westerns made in the 1980s foreshadow the emergence of the "Endurance" films of the 1990s and 2000s, named for their long time lengths.
May 1, 1980 onwards—In a May Day speech in Kyoto, People's Friend Sakamoto announces that the JWR will undergo, "…an exciting first tier reorganization of the popular bureaucratic institutions in the name of untold liberty and popular will." It will be the first of seven such "reorganizations" of the labyrinthine state bureaucracy over the course of the JWR's existence.[6]
May 18, 1980—Mount St. Helens erupts in Washington State. Fifty people die in the natural disaster.
June 30, 1980—The Chinese National Assembly formally approves the US invitation to participate in the CDS-Russian Liberty Space Program.
July 4, 1980—The Priobskoye oil field is discovered in western Siberia. [7]
July 19-August 3, 1980—The twenty-second Summer Olympics are held in Sydney, Australia.
November 4, 1980 onwards—Former ambassador Morgan Reynolds stuns the American political establishment with his victory in the US presidential election. Reynolds is the first Republican to win the presidency since James G. Blaine in 1880, as well as the first Canadian-American to be elected to the highest office of the land. Journalists immediately declare that the United States now has a "three party system"—a term echoed by historians thereafter.
The Republicans make gains in Congress, but fail to take either chamber (with the Democrats controlling the House and the Socialists controlling the Senate)—although observers note that the Republicans have enough representatives to form a viable "working relationship" with either of the other parities to pass the President-elect's proposed legislation. Electorally, the Republicans manage a clean sweep of the Canadian states (excepting reliably Democratic Alberta and reliably Socialist states of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia). The Republicans do manage to make electoral inroads in the formerly solidly Democratic Rocky Mountain West, and in the mostly Socialist Midwest; Reynolds also narrowly wins the electorally rich "swing states" of California, Illinois, and Pennsylvania.
Political observers, and later presidential historians, credit Reynolds's energetic campaign style (as well as his already high national profile), with bringing about his win, coupled with his strong performances in the five national debates held during the election. Several commentators also note the laziness and sloppiness that characterized the Democrats and Socialists in this cycle. As the Denver Post's Thomas Harry Johnson grudgingly admits in his first-post election editorial: ….he [Reynolds] was the only one who campaigned as though he wanted it [the presidency].
January, 1981 onwards—With the beginning of Morgan Reynolds's presidency, a period begins in US history known later as "The Great Relaxation." This is a period market both by a counter-cultural revolt against the unspoken national spirit of social conformity (dating back to the end of the Second Great War and reinforced by the Fourth Pacific War), as well as against some of the more intrusive bureaucratic prerogatives. In particular, the President expresses his desire to expand the definition of national service (which involves three years of conscription after graduation from high school)—to include options other than military service.
January 18, 1981 onwards—In Moscow, President Sergei Perov approves the sale of weapons to the New Georgians, who are now actively organizing against the Ottoman authorities. Most of these weapons are those captured from the Japanese during the Fourth Pacific War.
February 1, 1981—Morgan Reynolds takes the oath of office as President of the United States. His speech, matching his campaign addresses, is upbeat and unfailingly optimistic. Although still vague on any specific political agenda, Reynolds does promise to, "…help to bury the bloody hatchets of our nation's history and present. This means, as citizens, coming to terms with what has come to pass, and uniting together for a common glorious future."
February 14, 1981 onwards—In an announcement that surprises the nation, President Reynolds announces that the Big Island of the Sandwich Islands, controlled through military rule since the end of the Second Great War, will be transferred to the state government of the Sandwich Islands as of January 1, 1985. Reynolds also announces that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as represented by the umbrella group Mormons of the Union (MOTU), will be allowed to seek out proselytes and establish houses of worship, though he also promises that "law-breaking and incitement to hatred will not be tolerated by law enforcement." The president also promises that there will no mass return allowed to Utah.
The announcement fuels numerous public reactions, many of them negative. Democratic Speaker of the House John Theodore Jones leads the charge in claiming that the move will prove to be a "danger for all law-abiding Americans." Americans old enough to remember the last Mormon revolt during the Second Great War also express outrage at the move.
In spite of the fears, the leadership of MOTU scrupulously adheres to its promises in the following years and decades, although for the time being, most of their missionary activity is focused in the Pacific and Asia (particularly in China).
May 31, 1981 onwards—In simultaneous ceremonies in Lisbon and Salvação, the Lusophone Community ("Comunidade Lusófona.") [8] is inaugurated with the Brazilian-Portuguese Friendship Treaty. Both the governments of the Empire of Brazil and the Portuguese Federation intend the Lusophone Community to serve as a conduit for greater cultural exchanges between the two nations. With the continuing fragmentation of the Independence Movement over the next three decades, the Brazilians come to value to Lusophone Community as a pillar in their re-oriented foreign policy, which aims to establish closer relations with both the member states of the European Community, and the CDS.
July 4, 1981 onwards—The musical genre known worldwide as "Hollywood Stomp" explodes onto the world stage with the Fourth of July concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles of the John Cardoso Orchestra.
"Hollywood Stomp", as preformed by Cardoso and his many imitators, is an amalgamation of swing music, Cuban mambo, Irish folk music, and Klezmer band music.
Cardoso's performance also sparks a revival throughout the United States of the kind of big band and swing music popular during the Second Great War. Hollywood Stomp rapidly emerges as the most popular form of music in the 1980s.
January 1, 1982 onwards—The German colonies of Gabon and Kamerun gain their independence from the German Empire. The new nations quickly join the German Economic Association.
February 11, 1982 onwards—Protests erupt on the island of Bahrain. The largely Shi'a protesters express their anguish both at social discrimination leveled at them in Ottoman society, and at the skyrocketing unemployment rate in their community. The government response is harsh, and the protests in Bahrain are brutally suppressed by riot police, with the largest protests largely dissipated by the spring of 1982.
April 12, 1982 onwards—Farmers in the Chinese province of Shaanxi stumble upon what turns out to the Terracotta Army, created for the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. [9]
Archaeologists from around the world are quick to descent on the site. Ultimately, over 8,000 terracotta figures are discovered. The National Terracotta Museum will later be built at the site to handle the resulting crush of tourism, opening in 1991.
May 1-October 31, 1982 onwards—The Rio de Janeiro Exhibition of Technology and Design is held. The Rio World's Fair becomes a milestone for being the event that popularizes the new design of "Brazil Decoration"—more popularly known as "Brazil Deco" or "Braco." Brazil Deco is a form of art, architecture, fashion, jewelry design, and sculpture that becomes famous (and in some places, beloved) for its heavy ornamentation, asymmetrical shapes, and lavish use of color. [10]
The Rio World's Fair sparks a massive surge in worldwide popularity for Brazil Deco—Braco variants and spinoff movements take root as far apart as Australia ("Golden Matilda"), Mexico ("Mex-Deco), Texas (Tex-Deco) Great Britain and France ("Continental Swing"), Russia ("Future Muscovy"), Italy ("La Dolce Vita"), and Bharat ("Navi Mumbai"). In the United States, there are several regional Braco movements, most notably the Midwestern-based "Chicago Pinnacle" movement, led by the avant-garde architect Armstrong Giacopelli.
A smaller Braco-inspired movement in the South is given the moniker of "Dixie Modern" by Thomas Harry Johnson in a 1984 guest article for the Frankfurter Zeitung.
Contemporary observers are quick to note that Braco architecture and artwork is especially popular in regions of the world devastated by the Second Great War, where postwar austerity dictated that new buildings would be constructed on a strictly formulaic and simple basis. Historians will see the surge in popularity of Braco art and architecture as a backlash, particularly in the United States and the member states of the EC, against the austere architecture of the postwar period. As a result of the widespread popularity of Braco architecture, buildings constructed throughout the 1980s and early 1990s will have an almost decadent quality to them.
September 8, 1982 onwards—The first "Space Opera" is preformed at the Vienna State Opera, in Vienna, Austria-Hungary. The play, On the Ore Hauler "Caballero" [11], based on a short story by Gershom Kafka, scored by Szabolcsi Milena, and directed by the world renowned playwright Joshua Tolmach, is a massive hit, and virtually creates the new musical genre of Space Opera.
Szabolcsi and Tolmach (often consulting Gershom Kafka), will direct many of the most notable Space Operas throughout the 1980s and 1990s, including The Cantina Band (1985), The Spice Smugglers (1987), Hunter's Moon (1991), and the Centauri Cycle (1994-1999). Historians will credit the spectacular success of Space Opera to the ongoing popular fascination with science fiction (especially in the United States, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia) sparked by the ongoing Space Chase.
September 18, 1982—The film Paper Tigers is released internationally, having been playing in the Republic of Ezo for the previous six months. Directed by filmmaker (and expellee) Hamada Tadashi, the film is a thinly veiled satire of everyday life in the Japanese Worker's Republic—the setting is an unnamed dictatorship in which nothing works, and everyone has ceased to care, with the main character, a minor bureaucrat in the society's security apparatus, literally eaten by paperwork in the ending. [12]
A black comedy, Paper Tigers is a major worldwide hit (with the exception of the Japanese Worker's Republic, where it is given a "Permanent ban" by the JWR's Cultural Union).
October 20, 1982 onwards—In a ceremony held in Washington, D.C., the heads of state from the North American member states of the CDS sign the North American Trade Accord (NATA). Negotiated extensively during President Blackford's second term, the agreement promises the abolition of all trade barriers between the signatories by 1990. President Reynolds, in his remarks to the visiting media, states that, "…the end to barriers in trade will mean an end to the possibility of other kinds of conflict."
In spite of the President's lofty rhetoric, domestic opposition in the Republic of Quebec, the Republic of Texas, and the United States to the agreement remains vocal from various quarters. The US Congress will not ratify the NATA until the spring of 1983.
November 2, 1982—In the US Congressional midterm elections, the Democrats and Socialists both make gains against the Republicans in the House, although neither chamber changes hands.
December 20, 1982 onwards—The Anglo-French "Happy Wave" begins, with the publication of the spec fic The Life of Lord Lyons. Written by British novelist John Raleigh, the spec-fic imagines a utopian world (though still stuck with nineteenth century technology and social mores) in which the War of Secession never occurs, and the world has been at peace for over a century.
The "Happy Wave", inspired primarily both by the surrealist works of the 1970s (as well as a backlash against the themes of most Nihilist fiction) is largely utopian in nature. As German critic Johannes Kappel sums it up in a 1985 article for the Frankfurter Zeitung, Happy Wave fiction, "…can only get better. Conflict can only occur off-page or off-screen, and characters are often trapped in banal internal monologues about the 'joys' of their world."
The Anglo-French Happy Wave extends to the cinema in both nations during the 1980s and 1990s. Several "spec films" explore worlds where there was never a First Great War (François Roux's 1984 Hedgerow Country), worlds where Charles Maurras never gained power (Aline Joubert's 1987 Empty Throne), or worlds where the Confederacy never won its independence (Peter Loughty's 1993 President McClellan).
American spec-fic writer Greg Bliss pens a brutal mockery of the Anglo-French Happy Wave fiction (and of The Life of Lord Lyons in particular) entitled President Lincoln, published in 1984. [13]
January 3, 1983 onwards—The documentary The Battle of Chicago is released to widespread critical acclaim. Directed by German-American filmmaker Herbert Eichel, the documentary, in a throwback to the silent films of old, has no dialogue. Telling the story of a day in the life of the Windy City (July 4, 1982 to be precise), the documentary makes heavy usage of time-lapse photography to show the everyday hustle and bustle of city life from a very different perspective. Its avant-garde soundtrack becomes an international bestseller.
The Battle of Chicago proves to be the first film in a new genre known as "Reines Kino" ("Pure Cinema") [14]. Eichel's documentary quickly sparks a surge of similar projects over the following decades, the better received among them including Brazilian director Rodrigo Burnier's Andes trilogy—Clouds (1985), Water (1987), and Rocks (1994)—Kenyan director Cyril Karanja's five-hour-long Serengeti (1988), Polish director Alexander Rabinowitz's "Five Books" series—Genesis (1984), Exodus (1986), Leviticus (1989), Numbers (1992), and Deuteronomy (1999), and the antiwar War quartet by Bharati director Shraavan Vyas—Induction (1985), Training (1988), Battle (1989), and Aftermath (1993).
February 2, 1983—President Perov wins a hard-fought campaign against Vasily Rebikov in the Russian presidential elections. Both men campaign on the promise to take a "hard line" (in Rebikov's words) against the Ottoman Empire's policies against the Georgians as part of their crackdown on the New Georgian nationalist movement.
February 15-February 27, 1983 onwards—A massive round of clashes occurs on the disputed Russo-Kazakh border. Although this round of fighting does not spark a war, the leaders of Russia and Kazakhstan both vow that the next round will see a "final contest" (in the words of President Perov) between Moscow and Almaty.
International observers fearfully speculate that Central Asia will become the site of the next massive war, noting that the Russian Republic has never recognized the independence of the Central Asian republics in the aftermath of the Second Russian Revolution. The Ottoman Empire, in the aftermath of the clashes, promises that Constantinople will move to protect the Central Asian members of the Independence Movement from "…undiluted Russian aggression," as the Ottoman ambassador to Germany remarks angrily in press conference.
March 30, 1983 onwards—The United States Environmental Bureau begins its largest project yet: the Great Lakes Cleanup, a multi-state restoration project designed to restore the natural environment of the region. Observers note that state governments have embraced this project across the political spectrum, which see the GLC as a gateway to increasing tourism in the region.
April 6, onwards—Agents from the Remembrance Center, with assistance from the OSS, capture John Logan in La Paz, Bolivia. Logan, once employed by the Confederacy's Justice Department, was wanted for his role in overseeing the deportations of the black communities in the Mississippi Delta during the Second Great War. Logan is tried in New York City, and sentenced to death and executed in 1985.
June 10, 1983—In Washington, D.C., Congress ratifies the North American Trade Accord. This is accomplished, in the face of stubborn Socialist opposition, through cooperation between the Democratic and Republican parties.
July 4, 1983—In a Fourth of July conference at the White House, President Reynolds announces that civilian rule will go into effect, via an Executive Order, in the US Pacific territories of Micronesia [OTL Guam, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Mariana Islands, and Palau], Melanesia [OTL Fiji, New Caledonia, and Vanuatu], and Polynesia [OTL Cook Islands, French Polynesia, Niue, Pitcairn Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Wallis & Futuna].
As per the recommendations made by the Defense Department, Reynolds also states that for the time being, the Bonin Islands and Ryukyu Islands will remain under military rule, due to their close proximity of the Japanese Worker's Republic.
October 3, 1983 onwards—In the Brazilian parliamentary elections, Dr. Lucas Braga's Ecological Party wins fifty-five seats, at the expense of both the Liberals and the Nationalists. Braga promises that his party will "…fight for a higher quality of life, for all people, and all life in the Empire!"
The Brazilian elections of 1983 prove a watershed moment in international politics. Ecoism now emerges as a credible ideology, and in the wake of Dr. Braga's newfound world fame, Eco-based parties emerge all over the world.
Not everywhere is hospitable to Ecoism, however. In nations highly dependent on energy exports (such as the Italian Empire, the Portuguese Federation, and the Ottoman Empire), Ecological parties are met with hostile receptions. This also holds true for Bharat, and the business-minded nations of Southeast Asia. The Japanese Worker's Republic outlaws the philosophy on the direct orders of People's Friend Sakamoto in November of 1983 (which does not stop the philosophy from spreading underneath the heels of the JWR's authorities over the next three decades).
In the United States, attempts to found a US Ecological Party founder on the ability of both the Republicans and the Socialists to absorb their more popular ideas.
Ecological Parties do manage to gain footholds in Austria-Hungary, the German Empire, and the Russian Republic throughout the rest of the decade; mirroring Dr. Braga's successful strategies in Brazil, the leaders of these Eco parties stress their plans to increase the quality of life for ordinary people in all three nations.
In the Chinese Republic, the Ecological Party of China, founded in Hong Kong by a group of environmental activists, emerges as the largest opposition group to the ruling autocratic Democratic Party of China. This is mostly because the Chinese Ecologists manage to move to the forefront of the countless protests that erupt throughout the country in the 1980s against the commercial seizures of farmland for industrial purposes, and against the worsening air and water pollution throughout the nation. The Ecological Party of China will not, however, manage to gain power for a long time to come.
April 14, 1984 onwards—In a ceremony in the Sri Lankan capital of Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, representatives from Bengal, Bharat, Bhutan, Hyderabad, Nepal and Sri Lanka sign the Indian Free Trade Accord (IFTA), which will remove all trade barriers between the signatories as of December 31, 1992. International observers speculate on the possibility of the IFTA eventually serving as the basis for a single free trade area in the entirety of the Chennai Pact, although most agree that the IFTA itself is unlikely to be extended beyond Persia or Southeast Asia.
July 3, 1984—In a press conference in New York City, a spokesman for Eagle Airways announces the newest round of expansion for the supersonic airline service: Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Saint Paul, St. Louis, and Toronto in the United States; Belgrade, Sarajevo, Krakow, and Lemberg in Austria-Hungary; and Dresden, Düsseldorf, Hanover, Magdeburg, and Stuttgart in Germany.
Eagle Airways also announces that the cities of Amsterdam, Holland, Helsinki, Finland, Milan, Italy, Moscow, Russia, Warsaw, Poland, and Kiev, Ukraine will be added as destinations. This massive round of expansion on the part of the supersonic carrier reflects a soaring demand for tickets.
August 2, 1984—The Vankor oil field is discovered in eastern Siberia. [15]
August 15, 1984—An eruption of carbon dioxide from Lake Monoun, Kamerun kills 30 people.
November 6, 1984—In the US Presidential elections, President Reynolds, as expected, wins an easy popular and electoral victory over the Democrats' Governor Porter Schmitt of Illinois, and the Socialists' Senator Robert Bronowski of Pennsylvania. Observers credit Reynolds's great personal popularity, along with the humming economy and lack of major foreign crises, for ensuring the quietist presidential campaign since President Humphrey's landslide reelection in 1964.
President Reynolds is also the first Republican president in US history to win reelection.
One disappointment for President Reynolds is the Republican failure to capture either chamber of Congress, with all three parties maintaining almost the exact same number of seats after the 1984 elections as they did before.
January 30, 1985 onwards—In a summit held in San Francisco, President Reynolds and President Perov sign the Russo-American Energy Accord (RAEA). The agreement, coming on the heels of new, massive finds of oil and gas in both nations, is meant to facilitate increased technical cooperation in the energy sectors of Russia and the United States.
February 1, 1985 onwards—In his second inaugural address, President Reynolds pledges a "..steady and strong course." As with his first address, the President is notably short on details. As Thomas Harry Johnson observers bitterly in a column reacting to Reynolds's second inauguration, "…no one seems to care. They're [the crowds] all too busy smiling."
February 20-October 31, 1985 onwards—The Russo-Kazakh War erupts with a series of brutal clashes between Russian and Kazakh troops along the length of their long contested border. One week into the start of the clashes, on February 27, 1985, President Sergei Perov asks the Duma to affirm that a state of war now exists between the two nations, a measure that unanimously passes the Russian parliament.
During the conflict, President Reynolds calls for a quick end to the fighting, and repeatedly offers to arrange for a peace summit. Quietly, however, Reynolds continues to supply the Russians with critical shipments of spare parts and raw materials during the duration of the conflict, mirroring President Blackford's policies towards China during the Tibetan War.
The Ottoman Empire quickly declares war in support of the Kazakhs, and dispatches an expeditionary force to Central Asia. Ottoman troops are also stationed in Azerbaijan and Chechnya at the start of the conflict.
Remembering their victories over Tsarist forces during the Second Russian Revolution, the Ottoman commanders generally expect to win a similar triumph against the Russian Republic, or at least force a return to the status quo. However, the Russians are now armed with the newest American aircraft and barrel technology, which they use in the opening weeks of the war to devastating effect against the Kazakhs, as well as against the Ottomans in Chechnya.
A revolt also begins in Ottoman-ruled Georgia, spearheaded by the New Georgians, forcing Constantinople to divert crucial supplies of men and material to keep the restive province under control.
By March of 1985, the Russians, forcing the country's Emir to flee with his family to Constantinople, have overwhelmed Chechnya, installing a new "president" in the Emir's palace. Russian aircraft bomb military and industrial targets as far away as Kirkuk and Ankara, while in Kazakhstan, Russian armored forces advance with orders to capture that country's Caspian Sea coastline.
On April 6, 1985, Russian forces surprise the Ottomans and their allies with Operation Sea Snake: an amphibious invasion of Georgia from the Black Sea. For the previous two months, the Russians had fed Constantinople false intelligence to suggest that there would be an invasion of Azerbaijan instead. The Ottoman forces in Georgia, fighting to defeat the local insurgency, quickly find themselves overwhelmed. On April 18, 1985, Russian barrels enter Tbilisi, where New Georgian rebel commander Giorgi Nogaideli proclaims an independent Georgia two days later. The Russians will recognize Nogaideli as the new nation's first president.
Reeling from this battering, the Ottomans quickly rush soldiers to stabilize the front. In the Caucuses, with their goals largely met, the Russians elect to fortify their military positions along that front line.
The fighting in Kazakhstan continues for almost five more months, as the Kazakhs are forced into a steady, demoralizing retreat in the face of relentless Russian attacks. On September 2, 1985, Russian forces occupy the Kazakh capital of Almaty, after the city is declared an open one. Kazakhstan's Prime Minister, Arman Zhandos, forms a government-in-exile in Constantinople—over 500,000 people flee the country during the after the conflict, and ultimately are mostly absorbed by the Empire of Brazil, the Ottoman Empire, and the United States.
Meeting under German auspices in Potsdam (also attended by representatives from Bharat, Brazil, China, and the United States), the Russians and Ottomans agree to the Treaty of Potsdam, signed in the Berlin suburb on October 30, 1985. The terms are harsh for the Ottomans:
• The Ottomans are forced to recognize the independence of the new Republic of Georgia.
• The government of the newly declared "Republic of Chechnya" will henceforth be seen as the only legitimate one.
• Kazakhstan will remain under Russian military rule, until power will be transferred to a "legitimate civilian authority"; the country is shorn of its Caspian coastline, along with a large swath of its border with China—the Russian Republic will annex these territories.
The Russians do not gain everything they want in Potsdam. President Perov, over the course of the (often acrimonious) negotiations, is forced to drop Russian demands for the "de-militarization" of Azerbaijan, as well as an initial demand for massive restitutions from the Ottomans for the cost of the war. The Russians also fail to force the withdrawal of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan from the Independence Movement.
President Perov also states at the Potsdam Conference that Russia will now recognize the independence of the Central Asian nations, and also states that Russia's new borders are its "final" ones.
The Chinese object to the prospect of any Russian military presence in the former Kazakh border regions now under Moscow's control. In the end, it is only when President Reynolds offers to spearhead the creation of a CDS-manned "Peace Zone" on the new frontier that this objection is dropped.
The Bharati delegation, represented by Prime Minister Sikandar Ramanujam, generally remains quiet during the proceedings. The journalists attending the conference are surprised at the refusal by Prime Minister Ramanujam, or any member of his delegation, to raise any objections to Kazakhstan's effective transformation into a Russian satellite state.
November, 1985-January, 2001 onwards—In the aftermath of their victory in the Russo-Kazakh War, the "Second Wave" of the Russian Renaissance begins, which will last until the dawn of the twenty-first century. This is a period marked by the increased popularity of historical novels—the most famous of which is Sergei Derzhavin's Alexander Nevsky cycle—a quintet of novels (published in 1987, 1992, 1997, and 2001 respectively) detailing the life and times of the medieval Russian hero, and ultimately of his triumph in the Battle of the Ice.
The Second Wave of the Russian Renaissance is also marked by an unexpected surge in popularity of the Russian Orthodox Church, which was discredited in the aftermath of the Second Russian Revolution by its close associations with the former Tsarist regime. No longer encumbered as an unofficial agent of the Russian government, the Church's revival—centered around the construction of lavish new churches and cathedrals, massive "revivalist" meetings held around the country, the rise of a new generation of charismatic, community-centered priests—comes to be known as the Rassvet ("Dawn") in the Republic. The leaders of this religious revival, most notably Patriarch Sergius of Moscow, become notable for using television as a medium to attract new adherents to the Church.
Patriarch Sergius also approves the creation of the Renewal Party, which will enter the Duma in the 1989 elections.
Throughout the Second Wave, Russia's comic operas remain very popular. During this time period, Russian composers begin producing their own Space Operas, to cash in on the popular tours of the Austro-Hungarian productions that have been held throughout the country since the early 1980s.
November 3, 1985-January 1, 1987 onwards—In the Ottoman Empire, outrage over the signing of the Treaty of Potsdam spills over into violence. Throughout the empire, mobs, mostly consisting of the large number of unemployed young men in the major cities, launch attacks on their local Christian and Jewish communities, killing hundreds and wounding thousands in hundreds of riots staged between the November 3, 1985 anti-Jewish and anti-Christian riot in Baghdad (known thereafter as the "Farhud" [16]) and the massive anti-Jewish and anti-Christian riots that tear through Beirut and Jerusalem, respectively, on New Year's Day, 1987.
These first riots, coming as a surprise to the authorities and world observers (starting with the Farhud in Baghdad), are at first largely spontaneous actions of rage in reaction to the Treaty of Potsdam. Over the course of late 1985 and the entirety of 1986, these unorganized rioters are joined by thousands of angry, demobilized soldiers, who begin to organize bigger and bigger atrocities. Catastrophically, Sultan Abdul Hamid III refuses to condemn these attacks, and does his best to blame the Jews and Christians in these locales for "…inciting their own torment."
It's during this time that the Bu Kaynak Soldiers' Circle is founded in the solar-powered officer's town by Colonel Nuray Karga, in a repair garage, on February 15, 1986. This group is better known in the empire and abroad as the "Golden Wolves," [17] for the symbol drawn on their banners and signs. As articulated in the invective-filled rants spewed by Karga, the Golden Wolves promotes an ideology that holds Sunni Muslims—and Turks in particular—as the superior (and most loyal) blocs in the empire. Karga calls for a radical extirpation of all "suspect" groups throughout the Ottoman Empire—Christians, Ibadi Muslims, Jews, and Shi'a Muslims—by "any means necessary." The Golden Wolves also call for the "ultra-militarization" of everyday life in the Ottoman Empire to take revenge on the Russians, and eventually to reclaim all lands lost by Constantinople over the centuries, in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe. Words quickly turn in violent action, as Golden Wolves-led mobs in Mosul and Kirkuk lead attacks on churches and synagogues throughout the winter and spring of 1986, sparking waves of internal Christian and Jewish refugees to Beirut, Constantinople, and Jerusalem.
Sultan Abdul Hamid III refuses to say anything about either Karga or the Golden Wolves, beyond praising, in a speech in Izmir in March of 1986, the actions of the empire's "honorable zealots." Subsequent to these remarks, the Golden Wolves become active in launching pogroms against the Christians and Jews in Constantinople and Izmir.
The alarmed OSS station chief in Ankara, S.Q. Grimes, reports in a dispatch to Washington, in February of 1986 that Karga has all of the makings of a potential Featherston or Ishii, should he ever be granted power by the Majils. This fear is reinforced as the Golden Wolves establish a paramilitary force to spearhead violence against targeted minority groups and political opponents—the Ghazis. Over time, many Ghazi units will consist of Chechen or Kazakh refugees, who lack prospects for a stable economic future in the bleak climate of the Ottoman Empire, and the ongoing postwar recession.
Throughout this time, there are also massive pogroms launched against the Christian and Jewish communities in the Kingdom of Egypt (with the worst occurring in Alexandria and Cairo, in March of 1986). In Morocco, there are anti-Jewish riots in Casablanca, Marrakesh, and Rabat throughout the spring and summer of 1986—throughout the rest of the 1980s, large numbers of Jews flee Morocco for the Kingdom of Italy, the Republic of Quebec, and the United States.
In reaction to these "Middle Eastern Tempests" [18] (as one Warsaw Yiddish-language daily calls these early pogroms), the Jews and Christians of the empire begin to organize self-defense units—in defiance of their religious leaders to not do anything "provocative." The largest of the Christian militias are the Maronite Christian "Shields" based in Beirut. The Jewish self-defense militias are organized by the Mizrachi movement [19], and is headquartered in Jerusalem, with a sizable presence amongst the Jewish communities of Hebron, Ir Avraham [OTL Tel Aviv, Israel, Jerusalem, Tiberius, and Safed [OTL Tzfat, Israel] , as well as the Jewish towns in the Negev Desert and the Jordan Valley.
This process of "militiazation" spreads throughout the empire during the "Tempests", as law and order suffers an utter breakdown in rural areas. The empire's religious minorities organize militias, alongside various tribes. Weapons for these numerous militias mostly come from overseas—the Russians supply the Christian and Druze self-defense units, while the Bharatis illicitly ship weapons to the Ibadi and Shi'a militias forming on the Arabian Peninsula. The Mizrachi Shomrim ("Guardians") militia purchases its weapons as far afield as Bulgaria, China, Great Zimbabwe, Mexico, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, and Ukraine. The Shomrim also work to recruit Jews in the Diaspora with military experience to defend the communities in the Ottoman Empire from mob violence, finding willing hands from Australia, Austria-Hungary, Belarus, Bulgaria, the German Empire, the Italian Empire, Poland, Ukraine, and the United States—all of which have some kind of mandatory conscription.
The Americans, Austro-Hungarians, Bharatis, Germans, and Russians all condemn the violence, and Sultan Abdul Hamid III for refusing to do anything to help his empire's beleaguered minority populations; it is only the public threat of possible armed intervention (from President Reynolds and Chancellor Mann) in late 1986 that finally unleashes a thorough crackdown by the central government against the perpetrators of the violence, although the Golden Wolves are not disbanded for their role in fomenting the violence of this time. Colonel Karga himself is elected to the Majils, from Bu Kaynak, in 1986, to the veiled approval of the Sultan himself.
April 1-April 12, 1985 onwards—In a summit in Berlin, the member states of the German Economic Union approve of the establishment of the Infrastructure Bank. With twin branches in Berlin and Conakry, Guinea, the Infrastructure Bank is primarily designed to continue the improvement of member states' transportation links. In the German Empire itself, the Infrastructure Bank is designed to repair transportation links in need of upgrading, and to improve the energy efficiency of existing buildings.
Similar institutions will be established in Austria-Hungary, Australia, Brazil, China, the Ottoman Empire, Russia, the United States, over the next three decades.
May 2, 1985 onwards—The first major US-produced Space Opera—Robert Martinez's Crater Square Dance, premiers on Broadway, to great critical and popular acclaim. Crater Square Dance [20] will become the longest running Broadway show to date, and will be made into a hit film, directed by Sheila Brody, in 1987.
September 19, 1985 onwards—A massive earthquake strikes Mexico City, killing almost 10,000 people and causing billions of dollars in damage. The United States quickly deploys rescue workers to assist in the aftermath of the disaster.
October 2, 1985 onwards—In a referendum held on the colony's future, the citizens of German Southwest Africa vote to seek a full union within the German Empire. The first Reichstag deputies from Southwest Africa will be elected to that body in the 1989 elections.
November 7, 1985 onwards—In an announcement on state television, Bharati Prime Minister Ramanujam, flanked by representatives from the country's political and military elite, announces that, effective immediately, "Our relationship with the so-called 'Independence Movement' is dissolved."
International observers have expected the announcement for some time now, by some since the eruption of the widespread anger in Bharat over the outcome of the 1970 Kashmir referendum. Over the next few weeks, Bengal, Bhutan, Borneo, Burma, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Hyderabad, Laos, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand all also withdraw from the IM. For the time being, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Persia, and Uganda remain members of both organizations, although most observers wonder how tenable this arrangement can last, particularly as New Delhi begins to bring its financial and military pressure to bear on these nations to leave the IM.
In reaction to the announcement, a Golden Wolves-sponsored mob led by Colonel Karga himself attempts to storm the Bharati embassy in Constantinople, which is beaten back by government troops.
October 20-October 23, 1985 onwards—In a meeting in Beijing, the Afghan ambassador to China, Gorbat Sarbanri, signs a secret accord on behalf of his government. The "Beijing Understandings" will result in the Chinese Republic dispatching military advisors to Afghanistan to modernize its armed forces. King Mohammed Zahir Shah is afraid that the Independence Movement has become irreparably weakened by the Ottoman defeat in the Russo-Kazakh War, and now looks to China as a potential ally against future Russian or Bharati incursions.
The Chinese also gain the almost exclusive right to explore for minerals in Afghanistan. During the second half of the 1980s, China displaces the Ottoman Empire as the largest investor in Afghanistan's small mining sector.
November 10, 1985 onwards—The Somali Republic requests military "assistance" from the Ottoman Empire to guard its border with the now-implacably hostile Kingdom of Ethiopia. Over the next six months, some 20,000 Ottoman troops will arrive in the country, and will be stationed for the most part on the porous (and still disputed) Ogaden region.
November 14, 1985 onwards—In direct reaction to the Somali request for Ottoman military aid, the government of Ethiopia, in a secret meeting with the Bharati ambassador, requests direct military assistance from the founding power of the Chennai Pact.
Over the next two years, millions of dollars in military hardware will be shipped from Bharat to Ethiopia, along with thousands of Bharati "advisors" to train and re-equip the Ethiopian military.
December 15-December 19, 1985 onwards—In a series of secret meetings held in the Swiss city of Geneva, the German Minister of War, Georg von Pfaff, negotiates a major contract with his Bharati counterpart, Minister of Defense Kuruvilla Saini.
Acting on behalf of their respective governments, von Pflaff and Saini negotiate one the biggest arms contracts in world history to that point. The secret "Geneva Understanding" includes a promise by Germany to play a primary role in modernizing Bharat's armed forces. This modernization will include Bharat gaining advanced aircraft and barrel designs, as well as the newest German small arms.
Implicit in the Geneva Understanding is the future possibility of a close working relationship between the European Economic Community and the Chennai Pact. In Berlin, Chancellor Mann, preparing to retire from political life, hopes that Bharat will become a major German military ally over the coming decades (to balance, in his view, America's Pacific-oriented alliance with China and Russia).
December 31, 1985 onwards—Bernard Polgar resigns from Siemens, and leaves for London the same day to begin his new job. The Austro-Hungarian combine engineer and inventor will begin work, in January of 1986, for the Intrigue Corporation, a new Anglo-French Big Tech consortium, based both in London and Paris. The founder of Intrigue, Robert Bolton, captures Polgar's imagination with the idea that one day, every household in the world will have their own "Home Combine"—supplied by Intrigue, of course. Bolton also shares Polgar's vision of groups of Combines connected by a "sluice", to achieve the free flow of information and potentially commerce.
Intrigue's Home Combine—the Granite Mark I—will be demonstrated at the Paris Exposition of Technology and Art in the summer and fall of 1989. [21]
January 1, 1986 onwards—The first US troops arrive on the new Peace Zone established between Russia and China. Over the next year, soldiers from Australia, Chile, Ireland, New Zealand, and Quebec join the Americans. The CDS force is under the joint command of US General Dexter MacArthur and Quebecois General François Talon.
January 1, 1986—The three Nigerian nations of Hausaland, Oyo, and Yorubaland join the German Economic Association.
February 12-February 20, 1986 onwards—A Russian trade delegation, led by Russian Minister of Finance Radomir Polzin visits New Delhi to discuss the liberalization of trade between the two major powers.
Attached to the Russian delegation are representatives from the Special Operations Bureau (COB), the foreign intelligence service of the Russian Republic. The agents meet with representatives from the office of Gurshant Sohota, the powerful head of the Bharati Bureau of Intra-Regional Intelligence—colloquially known both domestically and internationally as the "Intra-Net." The Russians and Bharatis, over the course of the stay of the Russian trade delegation, come to an understanding to combine intelligence-gathering operations directed against the Ottoman Empire (which both Moscow and New Delhi consider a hostile power regarding their national interests). In particular, the two intelligence services agree to coordinate the smuggling of weapons into the Ottoman Empire, in the hope of causing greater instability in that nation.
March 10-March 24, 1986 onwards—In New Delhi, the Bharatis play hosts to the leaders of Hausaland, Oyo, and Yorubaland. The three oil-rich nations sign an accord promising to increase shipments of petroleum to Bharat, in exchange for increased investment on New Delhi's part. Representatives from the mammoth Austro-Hungarian and German oil companies (that dominate the oil facilities of the three nations) agree to increase production accordingly at the same meeting.
This summit, largely unnoticed at the time, will be see by historians as the most blatant attempt to move away from dependence on the Ottoman Empire of most of its oil dependence. Besides the three Nigerian nations, Bharat also comes to increasingly rely on Borneo, Indonesia and Persia for its energy needs.
May 1, 1986 onwards—Tanganyika gains its independence from the German Empire, and is also admitted into the German Economic Association. The Germans maintain direct control over the Lettow-Vorbeck rocketry base, near Dar-es-Salaam, as well as the islands of Pemba and Zanzibar.
The celebrations in the new country are somewhat marred in the northwest of Tanganyika, where violent clashes suddenly erupt between the Hutus and Tutsis, especially in the cities of Kigali and Bujumbura. The new government of Chancellor Evert Radhi immediately orders soldiers into the affected areas, and will establish a commission, which will meet in Dar-es-Salaam, to look into the underlying causes of the violent acts.
July 1, 1986 onwards—The Council of Astrakhan (COA) is established at a summit in the Russian city of the same name. The COA is a military and economic pact between the Russian Republic and its client states—Chechnya, Georgia, Ezo, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia. Most international observers see the COA as an alliance directed against the Independence Movement in general, and the Ottoman Empire in particular.
July 15, 1986 onwards—After almost a year of Bharati pressure (and in angry reaction to the Ottoman suppression of the Shi'a protests on the Arabian Peninsula), Persia announces its withdrawal from the Independence Movement. Subsequently, an enraged mob burns the deserted Persian embassy to the ground in Constantinople.
August 21, 1986 onwards—An eruption of CO2 gas from Lake Nyos, Kamerun, kills over 1,500 people and over 3,000 livestock. Upon hearing of the initial reports of the disaster, the International Health Organization (from both Vienna and Wilhelmsville) dispatches teams of doctors and scientists to the site of the disaster, fearing the appearance of some new disease. The government of Kamerun will ban human settlement around Lake Nyos hereafter, as well as settlement from around Lake Monoun, which saw a smaller leak of gas in 1984.
November 4, 1986—In the US Congressional midterm elections, the Socialists capture a large number of seats from both the Democrats and Republicans, winning control over the House of Representatives. Political observers speculate that, after over a decade out of power, the Socialists have a strong change of winning the next presidential election, barring any unexpected political disasters on their part.
December 19, 1986 onwards—The spec-fic The Grey House is published. Written by Greg Bliss, the novel imagines a world in which the Confederacy never launched Operation Blackbeard in 1941, but is still ruled by the Freedom Party, and is now on the verge of collapsing in the face of a "Frozen War" with the United States in the alternate 1986, under the command of a president who believes himself to be the messiah [22]. It is the second novel by Bliss to deal with a longer-lasting Confederacy (after 1974's Doctor Lexington); there will be three more spec fics published by Bliss over the course of the 1990s and 2000s dealing with alternate (and always dystopian) Confederacies.
January 1, 1987 onwards—In Vienna, a spokesman for the European Space Combine confirms speculation that has been circulating in the world media for months: that the new prerogative of the ESC will be to establish a permanent base on the surface of the Moon. The facility will be built in the Fra Mauro crater, and will be named Reck-Malleczewen Hafen, after the first man to set foot on the Moon.
The facility is intended both as a massive laboratory for Space-related scientific experiments, and an observation platform to gain a clearer view of the Outer Space. Owing to the massive technical and logistical challenge of the venture, actual construction of Reck-Malleczewen Hafen will not begin until the late 1990s, and the base will not be completed until the end of the 2010s.
January 2, 1987 onwards—The leaders of Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, and Nicaragua meet in the Costa Rican capital to sign the Treaty of San Jose. Having been negotiated since 1983 (with encouragement from President Reynolds), the Treaty of San Jose removes all trade barriers between these members of the CDS, and also accomplishes the establishment of a "Central American Congress"—modeled after the US House of Representatives—that will meet in San Jose to discus issues that affect the region, though the national legislatures of all six signatories will have final say as to what agreements will be enacted.
Representatives from the Empire of Brazil, Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, Quebec, Texas, the United States, and Venezuela also attend the signing ceremony, in what many historians will claim as a prelude to the establishment of the Council of the Western Hemisphere (CWH) in 1999.
January 24, 1987—In Vienna, the European Space Combine announces that the member states of the German Economic Community will be invited to participate in all European Community space-related projects.
January 30, 1987 onwards—The Frankfurter Zeitung publishes an editorial by Berthold von Kuster, the former ambassador to the Russian Republic. In it, von Kuster calls for the establishment of an "International Security Council," to facilitate a forum where nations can resolve their differences peacefully. The former ambassador uses the positive precedents established by Interpol (for international crimes) the International Health Organization (for international outbreaks of disease) to bolster his audience. Von Kuster reminds his audience that, with the exception of the 1950s, every decade since the end of the Second Great War has seen the eruption of at least one major war—the Fourth Pacific War in the 1960s, the Tibetan War of the 1970s, and the Russo-Kazakh War of the 1980s.
Although there have been proposals for the establishment of such a body since the end of the First Great War, the idea never found a major world leader willing to back it. Ambassador von Kuster's vision, however, finds backing from both Chancellor Weber and Kaiser Frederick IV, both of whom will promote the idea of an ISC throughout their careers.
It will not be until after the devastation of the Kashmir War, at the end of the next decade, before the push for an International Security Council becomes widespread, however.
February 1, 1987 onwards—The first "Mindbender" film, Wedding Days, is released. Directed by Brazilian filmmaker Breno Fernandes, the film is notable for having three different endings [23]—with the director refusing to say which one is the "correct" one—a development that critics worldwide note is partially inspired from the Anglo-French surrealist films of the 1970s.
A major hit, both in Brazil and abroad, the film will herald the emergence of the "Mindbender" genre, which will become popular worldwide throughout the 1990s and 2000s.
February 14, 1987 onwards—Flanked by President Reynolds, Secretary of Space and Exploration Augustus Torricelli announces that the United States will launch the first components of the world's first ever space station—the "Theodore Roosevelt." The station is intended to act simultaneously as a laboratory for scientific experiments, and ultimately as a way station between the Guantanamo and Tayabas Bay launch sites and any kind of permanent base on the Moon.
February 22, 1987 onwards—Colonel Karga, the leader of the extremist Golden Wolves, dies in Ankara after speaking at an anti-Jewish and anti-Christian rally in the city when his automobile explodes the moment his driver turns the key in the ignition.
Karga's death sparks another round of violence from the Golden Wolves, although without their leader, the party soon begins a process of splintering which dramatically erodes its support in the Majils. Most of Karga's supporters blame the Bharatis, Germans, or Russians for the assassination.
In fact, an OSS Bayonet [24] squad was responsible of the assassination of Colonel Karga—as one veteran of the operation later admits (anonymously) to Brazilian reporter Carlos Henriques in 2008, "…it was decided by the President and the Director that we weren't going to fight another [war] against a genocidal maniac."
March 6, 1987—Kenya and Uganda withdraw from the Independence Movement.
March 20, 1987—The United States ratifies free trade accords with Liberia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.
March 31-April 10, 1987—In a summit in Warsaw, the new German Chancellor, Kurt Weber, meets with Russia's President Perov. At the end of the summit, the two leaders sign the Treaty of Warsaw, affirming the demilitarization of the frontiers between the Russian Republic and the Eastern European member states of the European Community.
April 1, 1987 onwards—James Lyndon, the Director of the US Environmental Bureau, announces that a moratorium has been declared on the commercial fishing of the Atlantic northwest cod fishery, a region that includes the Grand Banks. The moratorium reflects the dramatic decline in the fish populations in the region, due to better technology on fishing ships. The resulting downturn from the collapse of the fishing industry devastates the north Atlantic states (especially Newfoundland). The fishing stocks in this region will not fully recover, under the auspices of the moratorium, until well into the twenty-first century. [25]
May 6, 1987 onwards—Kenya and Bharat sign a new military accord, in which the Kenyans agree to lease a naval base to Bharat near the city of Malindi, on the Indian Ocean. The base, constructed from 1988 to 1991, will be Bharat's largest military facility outside of the Indian Subcontinent, and is intended to bolster New Delhi's military presence in East Africa.
In response to this agreement, the government of Tanganyika signs a new security accord with the German Empire, through the links established by the DWV, to update and expand Berlin's naval facilities in the nation.
July 6-October 23, 1987 onwards—The Malacca Crises erupts with a belligerent speech made by Umar Malik before the Indonesian Parliament, on July 6, 1987. In his address, President Malik denounces the "imperial presence" of the Australians in Flores and Timor, and the presence of the CDS in general in Southeast Asia. Malik then shocks his audience with an announcement that unless the Australians agree to withdraw from Flores and West Timor, Indonesia will enact an embargo against Singapore, to begin on September 1.
The reaction from the CDS is swift. President Reynolds, in an address that displays uncharacteristic anger, promises that the United States will act to defend its allies in the region from Malik's "imperialist aggression." Reynolds orders the dispatch of the Thomas Dewey carrier group to Southeast Asia, and announces that unless Indonesia backs down from its threats, the US will mobilize its military.
The Malacca Crises continues to escalate during the summer of 1987. The governments of Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, and Vietnam all announce general mobilizations throughout July and August. The Bharatis pressure Malik to back down, fearing of being drawn into a war against the USA that they know they cannot win. Prime Minister Sikandar Ramanujam, preparing to retire before the 1988 elections, also fears that Bharat would have to face China in event of a war with the CDS. President Zhuang announces, on August 14, that should war break out between the CDS and the Chennai Pact, Beijing would honor its commitments through the PESA.
In the end, President Malik, facing an open revolt from his generals, announces that the deadline for Australia's withdrawal from Southeast Asia has been extended to November 1.
Throughout September and October, the United States bolsters its troop presence in Australia and Celebes.
On October 23, President Malik awakens to find his personal bodyguards under arrest, and barrels patrolling the streets of Jakarta. General Teguh Makmur leads a phalanx of military officers into Malik's personal quarters, where he announces that the former president is now under arrest.
General Makmur takes office immediately, and promptly announces, on state television, that he will now lead an "apolitical" military council until new elections can be "properly" held. Makmur announces that Indonesia will refrain from embargoing Singapore, or launching any kind of "pointless adventures" beyond their borders. President Makmur will remain in office until the early years of the twentieth century; subsequently, the Indonesian military begins to encroach on the country's domestic economy. Umar Malik, after a show trial in January of 1988, is sentenced to exile by a military tribunal. Malik will spend the rest of his life in the Burmese capital of Rangoon.
September 24, 1987 onwards—In a meeting in Vienna, scientists from around the world meet to discuss a proposal from Dr. Michael Fleischer for the International Health Organization to pool efforts on mapping all of the genes of the human genome [26]. Fleischer expresses hope that the successful conclusion of such a project would boost the efforts to eradicate diseases such as Fleischer's Syndrome.
February 13-February 28, 1988—The fifteenth Winter Olympics are held in Reykjavik, Denmark.
May 1, 1988—Madagascar and Nyasaland gain independence from the German Empire, and are accepted as full members of the German Economic Association.
May 31, 1988 onwards—In a speech given to the Lok Sabha, newly elected Prime Minister Padmaj Tajdar calls for the dramatic modernization and expansion of the Bharati navy, to guard against the, "…insolent powers that would dare intrude on our seas!" Most international observers agree that the Prime Minister directed his remarks against the Ottoman Empire.
This speech sparks a ten-year program by the Bharatis, begun in 1989, to modernize and expand their fleet. In Constantinople, the Ottoman government announces soon afterwards, in July of 1988, that they will also begin a program of naval expansion to "…counter the upstarts," as Sultan Abdul Hamid III refers to the Bharatis.
The Bharati-Ottoman "Naval Race" is widely compared by historians to the international naval arms race between the major world powers that preceded the First Great War. President Reynolds, in one of his last major foreign policy addresses before the November elections, states that the United States will continue to defend the member states of the CDS will "…all required force." The Germans, who supply advanced electronic gear and mechanical parts to New Delhi, quietly assist the Bharatis in their new shipbuilding endeavors.
An unintended consequence of the Bharati-Ottoman Naval Race is the announcements, made over the course of 1989, by the governments of Australia, China, the Philippines, and Vietnam on naval expansion programs of their own.
September 1, 1988 onwards—Gershom Kafka publishes the first novel in his "Combine" trilogy, Human-Cyborg Relations. The novel is the first work in the "Combine" sub-genre of science fiction [27], which will become increasingly popular throughout the 1990s and 2000s. The other two novels in the trilogy, Twelve Million Forms of Communication, and Not the Ones We're Looking For, will be published in 1991 and 1994, respectively.
September 17-October 2, 1988—The twenty-fourth Summer Olympics are held in Manila, the Philippines.
November 8, 1988-In the United States presidential elections, the Socialists (as expected) recapture the White House of the first time in sixteen years. The Socialist ticket of Senator Leo Enos of Massachusetts and Governor Alfred Turnbull of Ontario triumphs over Democratic Governor Archibald Young of Minnesota, and Republican incumbent Vice President John S. Smith.
The Socialists also add to their majority in the Senate, although the Democrats manage to recapture the House of Representatives. The Republicans largely maintain their caucus in the House, although they suffer Senate losses in the Canadian states—mostly due to the energetic campaigning of Ontario's Governor Turnbull.
December 7, 1988 onwards—An earthquake in the northeastern corner of the Ottoman Empire [ In the OTL area around the cities of Gyumri, Spitak, and Vanadzor, Armenia] kills 30,000 people and causes billions of dollars in damages, and also forces the shutdown of a nearby nuclear power plant. Dozens of nations immediately dispatch rescue teams to the devastated region, although offers of help from both the Republic of Bharat and the Russian Republic are rejected by Constantinople.
February 1, 1989—In his inaugural address, President Enos promises that the "New Era of Good Feelings" will continue throughout his administration. Observers note that the new president is particularly enthusiastic when discussing the plans to expand the US presence in Space—the new president states that the ongoing efforts to land a man on Mars and establish a permanently manned space station must be augmented with the establishment of viable industry in Outer Space.
President Enos also condemns the past outbreaks of violence in the Ottoman Empire, and promises that the United States will not stand for, "…mindless hatred and lawless violence. This blood-stained continent has known too much of both throughout the Twentieth Century."
February 2, 1989—In the Russian presidential elections, the Socialists continue their hold on power, with Stas Lagounov, the Ambassador to the United States, winning over Vasily Rebikov's Justice and Prosperity Party.
The 1989 elections are notable for startling success of the Russian Ecological Party, led by Sarafima Orlova. The Russian Ecological Party wins thirty seats in the Duma, and thus emerges as an important power broker in the consideration of any legislation to be passed by that body. Orlova is the first woman in the history of the Russian Republic to lead a major political party in the Duma.
A bitter Vasily Rebikov blames the Ecologists for spoiling his chances for the Russian presidency; polls, however, show that the Ecologists took more votes away from the Socialists. International political observers speculate that both Lagounov and Rebikov (in spite of the latter's bitterness) will both try to co-opt Orlova's party.
The Renewal Party, a vehicle for the Russian Orthodox Church, also does extremely well in the 1989 elections, taking a large number of seats away from the Socialist Party. The Renewal Party is led in the Duma by Father Stanlislav Krupin, but answers to Patriarch Sergius.
March 1-March 16, 1989—In a summit with German Chancellor Kurt Weber in Hamburg, President Enos expresses interest in the idea of an International Security Council, but reminds his host that there would likely be hostility in the US Congress to the idea of the United States potentially being subservient to any kind of supra-national "world government." The Chancellor, in turn, stresses to his guest that the ISC would be meant as little more than a forum to prevent the outbreak of war, and that, in any case, the United States would have a major role in shaping the actual establishment of such a body, "…in a way that would never infringe on domestic sovereignty for either of our nations."
March 31, 1989 onwards—After a long debate, sometimes acrimonious in the House, Congress approves one of President Enos's signature initiatives—the Infrastructure Bank of the United States (IBUS), modeled after the one established by the member states of the German Economic Association. The IBUS will be responsible for the upgrading or replacement of old transportation links, and providing grants to cities and towns for the upgrading or replacement of old buildings with new, energy efficient ones.
There is some speculation by observers that a similar institution will be established for the rest of the CDS, though the issue will not be broached at the organization's 1990 summit in Dublin, Ireland.
In keeping with the prerogatives established by the US Constitution, the IBUS, although a federal agency under the auspices of the Treasury Department, works with a list of recommended projects to be provided annually by Congress.
April 10, 1989—Ethiopia (with encouragement from the Bharatis) signs a free trade accord with the German Economic Association.
May 1, 1989—In Berlin, representatives from the Republic of Great Zimbabwe and the South African Confederation sign free trade accords with the member states of the German Economic Association.
May 31, 1989—In Johannesburg, representatives from Great Zimbabwe and the South African Confederation sign a free trade accord between the two nations.
July 4, 1989 onwards—Yukon and Nunavut are admitted into the Union, the last states to be admitted from former Canada. Both of the new states split the old Northwest Territories between them; the two new states, as expected by political observers, quickly become bastions of the Republican Party.
September-December, 1989 onwards—A massive round of protests by Ibadi Muslims, over economic despair and religious discrimination erupts in southwestern Arabia, once again precipitating a brutal crackdown by the Ottoman authorities.
October 17, 1989 onwards—A massive earthquake devastates the San Francisco Bay Area, killing 57 people and causing billions of dollars in damage. The Federal government immediately dispatches a massive rescue operation to the region, joined by rescuers from around the world.
As a result of the damage, particularly to its bridges and elevated road and railways, San Francisco becomes one of the largest recipients (to that point) of funding from the Infrastructure Bank of the United States. One of the major prerogatives of the IBUS in the city, besides assisting in repairing the damages, is to update (and earthquake-proof) San Francisco's older buildings and transportation links.
Throughout the 1990s, other US cities close to major fault lines will seek assistance from the IBUS to earthquake proof their vulnerable buildings, roads, and railways.
November 1, 1989—Liberia signs a free trade accord with the German Economic Association.
November 15, 1989—US director Brian Mendoza's neo-Western Geronimo premiers. This neo-Western is notable for being the first of its genre to borrow from the example set by the Brazilian Mindbender films, as well as from spec fiction. The first half of the four-and-a-half hour film is an accurate account of Geronimo's life until the Second Mexican War; the second half, however, set after the Apache warrior's death, imagines Geronimo's life had there never been a Confederate States to ally with in the first place.
December 20, 1989 onwards—Brazilian singer Filipe Pires releases his debut album, Platinum River. The record, the first internationally released "Bossa nova" [28] album, proves to be an international bestseller, and heralds the coming worldwide popularity of Brazilian music during the 1990s.
[1] [In our world, there was a similar massive decline in world energy prices, which began in 1981 and bottomed out in 1986. In TTL, the actual decline in energy prices has not been as severe, due to continued high demand from the rapidly growing economies of Brazil, Bharat, China, and several nations from the German Economic Association.]
[2][In our world, "Les Apaches" were a criminal subculture in turn-of-the century Paris.]
[3] [Given the greater militarization of national governmental policies in TTL compared to our world, Fleischer's Syndrome (OTL HIV-AIDs) has been confronted as a major threat much earlier than IOTL. The pandemic is still devastating in TTL, however.]
[4] [This natural disaster is roughly analogous with the 1983-1985 famine that devastated Eritrea and Ethiopia in our world.]
[5] [Rivers of Hate shares many themes and motifs from Sergio Leone's "Dollars Trilogy"]
[6] [For an idea of the nature of political repression in the Japanese Worker's Republic, think less along the lines of our world's North Korea, and more along the lines of the fictional society depicted in Terry Gilliam's 1985 film Brazil.]
[7] [In our world, the Priobskoye field was discovered in 1982.]
[8] [The Lusophone Community in TTL is analogous to our world's Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF).]
[9] [In our world, the Terracotta Army was discovered in 1974.]
[10] [The Braco architecture, art, and fashion of TTL is similar, especially in its earliest years, to that of our world's Art Deco. In TTL, with France's defeat in the First Great War, the International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts was never held in Paris; combined with the devastating effects of the FGW on the world economy, this meant that interwar architecture was far more austere than in our world. This was a trend that continued after the devastation of the Second Great War; many of the residential and public buildings constructed after the SGW, especially in the defeated Entente nations and in the former Confederacy, closely resembled our world's Brutalist designs.]
[11] [For an idea of the plot and tone of On the Ore Hauler "Caballero", imagine if Gilbert and Sullivan had been the creative team behind Alien.]
[12] [The plot and tone of Paper Tigers is very similar to that of George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four and Terry Gilliam's film Brazil.]
[13] [As the title suggests, President Lincoln takes place in an alternate universe where Abraham Lincoln, through a massive amount of fortuosity, easily broke up the "Southern Rebellion of '61" and went on to serve five terms in the Oval Office, ushering in a new era of international prosperity and peace. The novel takes place in 1984, and deals with a population that has grown bored with its utopia. In terms of general plot structure and outcome, President Lincoln is similar to Nathanael West's 1939 novel The Day of the Locust.]
[14] [Some notable analogues to the films of TTL's "Reines Kino" from our world include the Qatsi trilogy (1983-2002), Chronus(1985), Anima Mundi (1992), Baraka(1992), and Samsara (2011).]
[15] [In our world, the Vankor field was discovered in 1988.]
[16] [In our world, the Farhud "violent dispossession" was an anti-Semitic riot unleashed on the Jews of Baghdad, Iraq from June 1-June 2, 1941.]
[17] [The name "Golden Wolves" is borrowed from two extremist groups from our world: the Turkish neo-fascist group Grey Wolves, and the Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn.]
[18] In our world, the anti-Semitic pogroms that erupted in the Russian Empire in 1881 were known as the "Southern Tempests", since much of the violence was centered in the southern portions of Russia. In terms of violence and scope, the "Eastern Tempests" are more analogous to the outbreaks of anti-Jewish violence that occurred throughout the Russian Empire from 1903-1906. For more information on the pogroms in the Russian Empire, see here.]
[19] [Not to be confused with Mizrahi Jews. The Mizrachi movement in TTL is similar to the Mizrachi movement in our world; absent Theodor Herzl's launching of the modern Zionism, the Mizrachi movement in TTL has become the main vehicle for the Jewish return to the Holy Land. The Mizrachi movement in TTL holds that in order to usher in the Messianic Age, it is necessary for Jews to return to the Land of Israel to rebuild and replenish the land itself, concurrent with personal religious renewal. Rabbi Joshua Abraham Kook, an ATL descendent of our world's Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, leads the Mizrachi movement as of 1985.
Because of high birthrates, and active recruitment in the Jewish Diaspora, over four million of the Ottoman Empire's five million Jews live in the Holy Land as of 1985.
In TTL, the Mizrahi movement is also active in attempting to lead secular Jews back to religious observance, alongside the Chabad-Lubavitch and Sanz-Klausenburg Hasidic movements.
For another ATL that features a spiritual community in the Holy Land led by Rabbi Abraham Kook (which provided the inspiration for the nature of the Mizrachi movement of TTL), see this profile from EdT's ATL "Fight and Be Right".]
[20] [For an idea of the plot and tone of Crater Square Dance imagine a combination of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Oklahoma! set on the surface of the Moon.]
[21] [The Granite Mk. I is roughly analogous with our world's Macintosh II.]
[22] [The plot of The Grey House is similar in its black humor (and horrifying ending) to that of Peter Medak's 1972 black comedy film The Ruling Class.]
[23] [The basic plot structure of Wedding Days is similar to that of the 1998 German film Run Lola Run.]
[24] [In our world, Mossad's assassination units are known as Kidon ("bayonets).]
[25] [In our world, the Canadian government declared a moratorium on fishing on the Northern cod fishery in 1992.].
[26] [In our world, the Human Genome Project was launched in 1990.]
[27] [TTL's "Combine" subgenre is similar to our world's Cyberpunk subgenre.]
[28] [As in our world, Bossa nova ("new trend") is a hybrid of samba and jazz. In OTL, Bossa nova was developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Needless to say, the Bossa nova popular in TTL sounds very different from our world's.]
It has been pointed out to me that in TL-191, US Presidents are sworn into office on February 1, not January 20. I have edited this post in that regard, and it should be viewed as a retcon for the rest of this ATL.
Special thanks also goes to Nerdlinger for his helpful suggestions on the names (and size) of the US Pacific territories.
The 1990s will be posted in December.
Abhakhazia
Good work! An excellent update. Can't wait to hear about the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, in particular.
In TL-191 Presidents are inaugurated February 1st, they amended the Constitution, I'm pretty sure.
CurlyGangster
Excellent update. Can't wait until December.
Well, you certainly kept your word, Dave. I'm going to read it now.