History Forum / General / What If / August 2005

Tender readers,
George Gershwin, the former Jacob Gershovitz, was felled by a brain
tumour at the tender age of 38.  A talented musician and composer, he is
probably best known these days for his songs _Swannee_, _Someone to

Much too early for a proper what-if, but it does show the capriciousness
of fate: with the death of Robin Cook, Scotland has now lost three
politicians to heart disease at what - for a politician - counts as a
relatively young age (the other two on my mind being John Smith and

France's press is a highly subsidized industry.  Not only is much of it
state owned (Agence France-Presse is probably the most well known) but
it also gets lower than average tariffs for transport, discounts on
postal services, smaller VAT, subsidizes on printing and distribution

What if the Council of State decides against the invasion of Ireland in
1649? There were
certainly enough problems with the Commonwealth: the Levellers,
widespread mutinies, power

Not *just* for Randy McDonald, as promised:
1946 - the Saarland is removed from the area controlled by Allied
Control Council. The French form a government of emigrants and
anti-Nazis.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050808/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/brazil_atom_bomb;_ylt=Al48
GTWlm.5h47pYQACOwfy3IxIF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
It's lunch and I have a minute.
On Monday (while I was in San Diego) ex-President Jose Sarney of Brazil
came out and verified that the junta ...

The following is an outline of the apprehension which the United States
was exhibiting in 1968-9 when the differences between Communist China
and the USSR became glaringly apparent. Armed border clashes, 'mooning'
of Soviet Border Guards by their Chinese counterparts and the unrest ...

Would the Pearl Harbor attack have failed?
If the same results, what would FDR have been able to say?
"obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago"
- still true.

If you asked that average voter her impressions about the 1952
Presidential election, she would tell you that William Douglas had
survived a childhood battle with polio, that he had served his country
valiantly during World War I, that he was a devoted father and husband

Quick and Dirty:
In OTL Stalin was a rather cautious man when it came to foreign
adventures.  He was a jackal mainly, picking up what he could without
having to face any tough advisaries unless he absolutly had no choice

Decades of Darkness #119c: Riposte
"In war, there are no silver medals."
- Lucius Cornelius Bradley, U.S. General, 1931
* * *

   In yesterday's New York Times, they had an article on how for the
smartest South Korean high school students, summer basically is no
different from the school year, its a time for studying. The article
more or less was about the life of South Korean teenagers.

All fled-all done, so lift me on the pyre-
The Feast is over, and the lamps expire.
    - Poem copied by Robert E. Howard shortly before he killed
himself.

A few years ago I read the "Wild Blue and the Grey".
It's a fun little book that takes place during WWI in a world where the
Confederacy won its independence.
The main character is an American Indian flying a fighter for the CSA

Brady was one of those accidental inventions that really could have
come earlier or later depending upon the fickle hand of
stumble-across-it-impericism.  It was the Dutch traders in the 16th
century of OTL who discovered that they could ship more wine by