May 16, 1966 – May 16 Notification Ousts Mao

Since the domination of China by Chinese Communist Party over the Kuomintang (KMT, Chinese Nationalist Party), Mao Zedong and his comrades had worked to turn the backward, post-imperial China into a modern industrial titan. After China’s recovery from the Civil War, Mao’s first action had been the first Five-Year Plan (1953-57), emulating the programs of Josef Stalin to improve the USSR. Through socializing private firms and encouraging industrial and agricultural growth, as well as taking advantage of Soviet technological aid, China increased its economic output by an average of 19% per year.

While the industry of China flourished, agriculture seemed to lag behind the lofty goals set by Communist leaders. With the close of the first Five-Year Plan, Mao called for a second, which would be dubbed the “Great Leap Forward.” While continuing ideals of widening industry and improving living standards, one of the main focal points of the plan was a spread of socialism, shifting private land to public domain, especially among the common farmers. Income and industry surged forward as in the first plan, but the mismanagement of social agriculture proved devastating.

With common land farmed in a cooperative manner, planners hoped for an increase of food production by 270%. However, local managers struggled to keep up with such demand and saw overstating production on paper as the only way keep up. Based on fraudulent numbers as well as excessive hopes, millions of agricultural workers were shifted to the growing industry, causing the production to fall further behind. Overall through the plan, production would increase by 35%, still an impressive amount, but not enough to keep twenty million people from starving to death while government documents said they were well fed.

Unexpectedly, one of the worst agricultural devastations came from an unlikely source: Mao’s hygiene program known as the “Four Pests.” He used his impressive propaganda to model a campaign at eliminating rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows, the last of which was noted as a grain-stealer. The Eurasian Tree Sparrow became the focus of the assault with people tearing down nests, shooting them from the sky, and scaring them to exhaustion by banging pots or drums. Contests led to competition among schools and agencies as to who could kill the most sparrows. Such mass attack nearly wiped out the bird from China. By 1960, however, people realized that the sparrows ate more insects than grain as bug populations had soared. Mao put an end to the campaign against the sparrow, but the damage had been done: massive locust swarms devoured crops across the country. Misuse of pesticides and deforestation compounded the problems, and even more people died from ecological fallout.

The Great Leap Forward ended in 1962, the last part being referred to as the "Three Bitter Years" by many Chinese. While domestic problems abounded, Mao’s government also fell out with the Soviet leadership that before had been a source of inspiration. Mao called Khruschev’s policies “revisionist”, stepping away from the pure ideals of Marxism-Leninism, eventually condemning them publically after promises of endorsing China in the United Nations and delivering nuclear weapons fell through. Without foreign allies, Mao worked increasingly to purge any dissidence within China.

The first moves in 1965 involved criticism of the play Hai Rui Dismissed from Office by Wu Han, Deputy Mayor of Beijing. It had at first been praised, but now Mao took the “corrupt emperor” in the play as an attack on himself. Wu Han was defended by Mayor Peng Zhen, and a propaganda battle erupted between him and Mao’s aide Yao Wenyuan. With the mayor under fire, Mao moved against Yang Shangkun, director of the Party's General Office with accusations of conspiracy.

Rather than take his firing or even attempting to question it, Yang Shangkun decided to rally the anti-Mao members of the Party. It was a political gamble, but the revolutionary movement had always been just that. Allied with Peng Zhen as well as fellow economic moderates Head of State Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping as well as Premier Zhou Enlai, they built up their own propaganda machine capable of defeating Mao’s. Articles and photos showed Mao’s eccentric and especially decadent lifestyle. The people of China became outraged, and Mao attempted to strike back with false criminal charges, but even the People’s Liberation Army had lost support for him.

Finally, in May of 1966, the Politburo of the Communist Party of China released the May 16 Notification, a public announcement condemning Mao’s “imperialism.” Mao fled China, escaping secretly into exile in communist Albania. China, meanwhile, followed the increasingly capitalist economic ideals of Peng and Zhou, what many hard communists deplored as “reactionary” and “bourgeois.” Arguments for the programs of limited free market and open trade showed that China had built an impressive economic base and now needed innovation to flourish.

By the time American President Richard Nixon visited China in 1972, it had lost much of its red tone, even extending invitations for inclusion to Hong Kong and Taiwan as Special Market Areas, creating a balance with capitalism as had been seen in the ceasefire between North and South Vietnam that led to peace agreements in 1973, for which Nixon would win his Peace Prize.


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In reality, Mao’s purges went smoothly after the firing of Yang Shangkun. His allies made their own attacks on enemies from other factions, ousting generals and directors of press. With a fully dominated government, Mao began his Cultural Revolution, fed by rallies from the youth deeming themselves as Red Guard and idealism in pure communism through art, rhetoric, and purges of population. Some violence erupted against him, but Mao firmly established himself in the collective Chinese mind.

May 10, 1924 – William J. Burns Retains Position in BOI

The career of famed private investigator William J. Burns, “America's Sherlock Holmes,” dodged a bullet when his forced resignation from the Bureau of Investigation was revoked quietly by Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone. Burns had served as director for less than three years, and his time had been fraught with questionable activity. After a great deal of discussion with Stone and Calvin Coolidge and seeing the death of President Harding over the stress of the matter, Burns agreed that government needed to take a backseat to the Roaring Twenties.

Burns had lived a life of impressive detection. He started his career as an outstanding agent with the Secret Service, the federal organization that had been started by Abraham Lincoln to investigate counterfeiting after the Civil War and revolutionized into personal bodyguard for the president after the assassination of William McKinley. After building a successful reputation, Burns left to found the William J. Burns International Detective Agency. His exploits became sensational, earning him the nickname of being a real counterpart of the British fictional character Sherlock Holmes. He used newspapers and publishing effectively, building his reputation further and putting himself into a glowing light while his agency searched out criminals such as the supposed Industrial Workers of the World organizers of the bloody Wheatland Hop Riot in California in 1913.

When the head of the Bureau of Investigation retired for personal matters, longtime friend Attorney General Harry Daugherty recommended Burns to be appointed by President Harding. Burns took his fame to the BOI while also running his agency. Through efficiency and potentially questionable outsourcing, the BOI's personnel shrank from 1,127 to 600 during his tenure. The actions of his agents often worked as scare-tactics and invasive, and “G-men” continued to be increasingly distrusted and feared more than respected.

As 1923 turned to '24, government corruption became huge news with the Teapot Dome Scandal in which Naval oil reserve lands were illegally leased, along with a good deal of bribery. Harding, who had come out of publishing, fought the bad press with every ounce of his energy. In his well publicized "Voyage of Understanding", he attempted to reconnect with the common American and explain his growing political ideals amid turmoil until his death from pneumonia exacerbated by overwork. Daugherty came under fire for knowledge of kickbacks from Prohibition bootleggers, and finally Burns took heat after ordering his men to strong-arm newspapers away from any bad press of the BOI and retaliation against Representative Thomas Walsh, who had begun the opposition to the illegal leases.

Daugherty, who would eventually be proven innocent in senate hearings, resigned. The press was too much to fight, and he advised Burns to do the same. Burns, however, decided to go a different route and save his career in government. All his life, he had played to the papers, but that seemed impossible as they performed acts that were best kept quiet. He kept his position and took up a style after the new President Calvin Coolidge, or “Silent Cal.” Deputy Head J. Edgar Hoover balked at the
missed opportunities of public relations and eventually resigned himself, soon turning to his hometown Washington, D.C., police force.

Burns' career continued quietly, and he became mixed up in what would be known as the Gangster Wars. While Treasury Department enforcers battled speakeasies and bootleggers, Burns gradually came into an understanding with organized crime. He saw America as the frontier it had always been, and gangsters were the new gunslingers. Money was shuffled and protection given to the “good” gangsters, who dominated major cities. After several more years of activity that would be investigated for years to come, Burns retired to Florida and died fabulously wealthy with money supposedly from his detective stories and mysteries based on his life.

Hoover, meanwhile, worked to cleanse Washington's streets and made it a model for other cities. He established a confederation of local police forces, which would eventually circumvent the impotent BOI, which would be disbanded during World War II and replaced with the Central Security Agency, a home branch of the OSS akin to Britain's MI5. The CSA continued Burns' strategy of working in the dark and remains mysterious to many Americans today. Most believe them to be cruel shadow agents even more unquestionable than the KGB with an extremely broad understanding of the crime “treason.”

The majority of law enforcement, meanwhile, is held in the hands of local police. Interstate crime continues to be a legal headache as cases of known criminals are routinely thrown out of court due to jurisdiction issues. Simply crossing state lines allows many criminals to escape as chases must be handed over to other police. Improved communication has helped, but gangs well funded by drugs and other illegal activities usually carry superior equipment. In many cities, police are knowingly under bribes of organized crime, and citizens have no choice but to live on, many even applauding famous criminals.

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In reality, Attorney General Stone insisted on the Burns' resignation. Burns returned to his agency and again came under scrutiny for “investigating” jurors during trials in the Teapot Dome Scandal in 1927. J. Edgar Hoover took his place at the BOI and transformed it through successful PR into the FBI in 1935, gaining fame for fighting Midwest bank robbers. Hoover continued to serve as director until his
death in 1972.

April 29, 711 - Visigoths Notice Umayyad Invasion

The Gothic kingdom of Hispania had fallen to a time of all but straightforward civil war. King Wittiza had become sole ruler upon the death of his father, Egica, in AD 702. Initially, Wittiza looked to be a good king as he “redressed grievances, moderated the tributes of his subjects, and conducted himself with mingled mildness and energy in the administration of the laws", but after consolidating his powerful, he "showed himself in his true nature, cruel and luxurious," according to biographer/storyteller George Irving. Roderic, a young nobleman who had been exiled to Italy, invaded the kingdom at the behest of the people and usurped Wittiza in 710. Roderic worked to subdue the kingdom, many in the northwest supporting Wittiza's young son Achila II as king, the Basque in the north rebelling, and some in Toledo even supporting Wittiza's half-brother Oppas.

Amid the chaos, the Umayyad Caliphate province to the south watched carefully. Governor Musa bin Nusair decided to test the Goths for weakness, ordering an expedition by his Berber general Tariq ibn Ziyad, whose armies had recently converted to Islam and had taken a small foothold at the southern tip of Hispania in a raid months before. Tariq began transporting thousands of troops across the strait from Africa, which the locals took as merchant parties until they noticed the war horses and weapons of an invading army. Word was sent to King Roderic, who was fighting the Basque in the north. Rather than finishing his campaign, he set immediately for the south. On his travels, he realized that the growing might of the unified Muslims could not be stopped by his few loyal lords alone. Over the past decades, the Umayyad Caliphate had swept westward and had taken Tangiers in 705, which allowed them to raid the south of Hispania with immunity. If Roderic's civil war continued, his kingdom would be utterly lost.

Instead of facing the Muslim army alone, Roderic called council in Toledo with his lords and those of the young king Achila as well as the political supporters of other campaigning parties. Since he had invaded Hispania to liberate it from tyranny, Roderic decided he could not hold power in his own hands. Rather than fighting to consolidate, he determined to share strength in a confederation of lords with a dual kingship of himself and Achila. With the army of Tariq marching northwest, the lords agreed, and a charter was drawn up (notoriously as anti-Jewish as it was anti-Muslim) out of organization, self-protection, and unity that would be similar to works achieved by the Franks in later years.

In 712, Tariq's force (estimated by various sources to be between 2,000 and 100,000) met with Roderic's unified army (between 2,900 and 200,000). Although the Berber cavalry were much feared, the larger Goth force cut off their supply trains and slew nearly the whole Muslim force as it retreated back to Africa. Musa bin Nusair determined Hispania's weakness to be solved, and he spent much of the rest of his career maintaining defense from Gothic raids.

Hispania, which would later transition to the Empire of Spain, became a center of strength rivaling the Kingdom of the Franks. As the Viking influence spread over Europe, the Spanish, especially their Gothic ruling minority, adapted to their naval techniques as an invasion force. They expanded through exploration and conquest, such as domination of the Canary Islands as well as wresting the Balearic Islands from the Byzantine Empire. In the Viking/Gothic fashion, they sailed southward for trade and domination, eventually coming to a long series of wars with the Forest Kingdoms of Western Africa.

The Franks, later to be known as French, were caught between the post-Crusade trade dominations of the Spanish to the south and the Italians in the Mediterranean until their own discovery of a New World to the west, where they would build an enormous empire through conquest of the Maya, Aztec, and Inca.


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In reality, the locals in Hispania (soon to be dubbed al-Andalus as it was conquered), according to historian Ibn Abd-el-Hakem, took no notice of the Muslim expedition, "thinking that the vessels crossing and recrossing were similar to the trading vessels which for their benefit plied backwards and forwards." By the time King Roderic turned south with his army in 712, Tariq's forces were well readied, and they utterly routed the Goths at the Battle of Guadalette, slaying King Roderic (whom many historians considered abandoned on the field by feudal lords hopeful to take up an empty throne). Order was restored on the tumultuous peninsula, now in the hands of the Caliphate. Centuries later, American Washington Irving would write about the campaign in his Legends of the Conquest of Spain.

April 9, 1625 - Bacon Announces Preservation of Meat by Freezing

Days after a spontaneous beginning to the experiment, Bacon announced by letter to the King his findings on the ability to preserve raw meat through freezing. According to biographer John Aubrey, the idea had come to him suddenly while riding with the King's physician through the snow in Highgate. They attempted the experiment immediately, purchasing a fowl from a peasant woman at the bottom of the hill. Bacon prepared to stuff it with snow, but the physician warned him of the medical dangers of chill, and Bacon duly protected himself with gloves borrowed from the coachman.

His frozen bird proved preserved and ready for cooking when it was thawed upon Bacon's return to his home. Following his philosophy, Bacon attempted the experiment repeatedly and duly observed results, measuring rates of decay after various times with what grew into an enormous stock of frozen food. He wrote a letter to King James noting its practicality in preserving food for warfare or famine, and the king rewarded him with a small sum. The money was a pittance in comparison to Bacon's massive debts, but the fame would prove more than enough to keep the scientist's name in the popular memory until his publication of New Atlantis, which served as a model for an idealized scientific community.

Despite his incredible mastery of experimental science (what would become known as the "Baconian Method"), Bacon was not mindful of his expenses and spent most of his life buried in debt. He received puritanical tutelage at home and higher education at Trinity College, Cambridge, with his older brother Anthony, where he studied under future Archbishop of Canterbury Dr John Whitgift and met Queen Elizabeth, who affectionately referred to him as "the young Lord Keeper." Bacon extensively traveled abroad, learning much about political science during his time in France, Italy, and Spain. When his father died in 1579, young Bacon returned to England finding that he had only one-fifth of his expected inheritance, and the money he had borrowed became officially debt. He took up practice of law to support himself and entered Parliament after a few years of struggles. Bacon rose through politics quickly to become Attorney General and then Lord Chancellor, but was found guilty of repeatedly taking gifts as a judge (a common practice at the time). Also accused of sodomy and pedantry, he bowed out of political life, as well as much of his family life when he discovered his wife Ålice Barnham carrying on an affair with John Underhill.

Instead, Bacon dedicated himself to science. Upon the publication of his thoughts on Utopia, Bacon found himself a chance to return to the social scene not as a politician, but with a seat as an official scientific researcher for the king. Charles I had been intrigued with his freezing techniques for food as useful in the war effort against Spain. Bacon had campaigned for a Minister for Science and Technology during the reign of Elizabeth, and now his ideas had come to fruition. While his research primarily was dedicated to preservation through freezing, alchemy, and boiling (building the groundwork for Germ Theory to be understood over the next century by microscopist Henry Powers), Bacon also used his political contacts in the increasingly Protestant Parliament to ensure the continuation of his office.

Minister Bacon died in 1634, reportedly writing at his desk with quill in hand, and the Ministry of Science did indeed continue. Many thought that the seat would be given to Thomas Hobbes, but the philosopher's proposed research into political theory did not match Bacon's posthumous requirements for direct application. Instead, the seat went to a young physician, Thomas Browne, who would be instrumental in developing battlefield medicine. Later, the ministry would be held by great thinkers such as Henry Powers, Robert Boyle, and, especially known, Isaac Newton, whose works in optics, metallurgy, mathematics, and many other fields would set London apart as a great center of development. As per Bacon's sentiments, all of the new science has since been handed down through the engineers of the Ministry of Science, who determine practical applications such as Powers' use of pressure (particularly steam) to drive an engine, Newton's interchangeable parts for mass production, and Charles Babbage's later use of automation.


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In reality, Bacon died as a result of pneumonia contracted from a damp bed after developing a chill during his snow-research. He left substantial debts of £23,000, which is some £3 million adjusted for 2009. Bacon's legacy would ultimately be his philosophy of scientific experimentation, which would contribute to the founding of the Royal Society in 1662.

April 8, 1904 – Entente-Cordiale Talks End without Agreement

England and France had long stood as rivals and outright enemies for many centuries. Massive campaigns had been fought between the two in the Hundred Years' War, Seven Years' War, Napoleon's Wars, just to list a few. In the seventeenth and eighteenth century, England had grown to dominance and merged with Scotland and Ireland into Great Britain, only to have its American colonies lost by French intervention. Britain struck back by ending Napoleon's empire, and then, over the course of the nineteenth century, the two political juggernauts came to something of a truce. First used in 1844, Entente-Cordiale ("cordial understanding") became the term for the common interest and mutual advantages between France and Britain. The two had even worked as allies in the Crimean War to halt the expansion of the Russian Empire, but old colonial rivals kept them apart.

Even by 1900, the happy agreements toward peace between the two were still informal. Britain had long enjoyed its policy of Splendid Isolation, focusing on its empire and leaving alone the matters of the Continent. However, with the taxing and often humbling Boer Wars and the growth of German power both in Europe and in Africa, Britain looked back toward Europe to reevaluate its position. Talks were held about Britain potentially becoming a member of Germany's Triple Alliance, but Edward VII nixed the idea in preference to isolation. The position of neutrality became more and more difficult to maintain as Britain's new ally Japan and France's longtime ally Russia turned toward war in 1904. Diplomats led by British Foreign Secretary Lord Lansdowne and French foreign minister Théophile Delcassé scrambled in an attempt to sort out the colonial matters that still plagued France and England to draw up a fashionable alliance. For a time, an agreement looked promising, but arguments over Newfoundland fishing rights broke down talks. Finally, two months after Russia and Japan had gone to war, the talks ended with simple neutrality as the best the France and Britain could muster.

While the old empires watched, young empires came fully onto the scene. Japan won the war effectively against Russia, whose people erupted in revolt. US President Theodore Roosevelt ended the war with the Treaty of Portsmouth through back channel diplomacy that won him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906. Britain returned to its policies of isolation and protecting her vast empire. France, meanwhile, made brisk attempts to aid Russia and to coax Italy away from Germany's Triple Alliance, which it did by supporting the Italo-Turkish War in 1911.

The web of international treaties and alliances broke with the single shot that killed the Archduke Ferdinand. Austria-Hungary invaded Serbia, Russia invaded Austria-Hungary, Germany invaded Russia, and France declared war on Germany. With Britain and its neutral ally Belgium diplomatically out of the war without antagonism, German command saw fit to alter the Schlieffen Plan and assault the French forces more directly rather than invade through innocent Belgium. Initially, the French stood in a mighty defense against the German onslaught, but the German wehrmacht enabled the resources to roll the trench warfare backward toward Paris. With the collapse of Russia and Italy quickly changing sides, the war ended in 1917 with the Treaty of Berlin inside a suddenly powerful Germany. Britain and the United States felt grateful for being spared the massive bloodshed of the war and in fact prospering as Europe hurried to rebuild.

Renewed nationalism in the decaying Austro-Hungarian Empire spurred its collapse in 1931 as the Great Depression ground on. Socialism, which had been long nurtured in France and triumphant in Russia, took the losing countries of the war by storm. A grand socialist alliance grew powerful as the nearly fascist monarchies of Germany and Japan struggled. In 1942, the World War broke out as Stalin invaded Poland and much of Eastern Europe in an attempt to "liberate and unify the workers of the world." His expansionism continued into the Middle East while France fought to take German colonies in Africa, and Italy fell to civil war. Britain was finally drawn into the war it had always feared when the French Mediterranean fleet struck Egypt and blockaded the Suez Canal while other troops occupied disputed territories in West Africa. Socialist riots broke out in India, and the widespread war caused Britain simply to evacuate one of its greatest jewels. The United States, too, lost its neutrality as Russia pressed through Japanese forces in China and made a surprise attack on Midway Island.

Bitter warfare continued to 1952 when Russia finally capitulated under the onslaught of American atomic bombs and it became known that Josef Stalin had died due to heart failure.


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In reality, the Entente-Cordiale was a great diplomatic success. Conflicts between the empires were solved with recognition of influence in Morocco, Madagascar, Siam, New Hebrides, and West Africa, free use of the Suez Canal guaranteed, and British supremacy in Newfoundland. France and Britain became allies, and Germany followed the Schlieffen Plan, which brought Britain into World War I in defense of Belgium, as it would have soon in aid of France.

April 1, 2008 - Virgle Project Begins

Announced on the Google homepage and Youtube as well as by Virgin Group Chairman Richard Branson on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, the Virgle Project would prove one of humanity's greatest steps and one nearly missed. Initially, the project was an elaborate hoax including actual NASA imaging, calculations on survival in a hostile environment, and even practical means of terraforming. People would be allowed to "apply" for the project by going to the Virgle website , filling out a form, and submitting videos.

Most persuasive of the hoax was the fake press release in which Branson outlined his ideals of "Virgle [as] an 'interplanetary Noah's Ark.'" Google co-founder Larry Page commented, “Virgle is the ultimate application of a principle we’ve always believed at Google: that you can do well by doing good." They envisioned Mars as a true "open-source" project: thousands, perhaps millions, of people working together for a common good without monetary reward. Projects such as Linux and Wikipedia revolutionized computing and information, so why not colonization?

Like many others, they held a dream of colonizing Mars, but ultimately held it impractical, admitting on a fake 404 page , that "It isn't real. There. Are you happy? Does it please you to drag us out of our lovely little fantasy world, to crush all our hopes and dreams? Is that really what you need to hear? Fine, you've heard it. Virgle isn't real."

As the days passed, however, more and more public support cheered on the idea of Virgle. Branson, Page, and Brin had opened a Pandora's box of public interest. Lesser men may have settled the applause with admissions of the joke and going on with their daily lives, but the three stepped up to be named among the greatest leaders of the twenty-first, or any, century. Setting aside the comforts of terrestrial business, Branson continued his entrepreneurial experiments with the Galactic White Knight and space-tourism, busily creating advanced chemical-burn rockets and horizontal launches that could effectively jet necessary cargo into Earth orbit. Working alongside NASA, Roskosmos, and other international space institutions, the International Space Station served as a central ground for the interplanetary launch craft.

Meanwhile, Page and Brin used their software expertise to sort incoming capital for the project. While donations were welcome, the true breakthrough came as Virgle became a joint-stock company, the same kind that had colonized North America and other parts of the world hundreds of years before. With crashing housing markets and banks looking for bailouts, Virgle as a long-term investment took Wall Street by surprise, becoming an investment as welcome as bonds of First World nations. While a good deal of capital was required for setup, little pay was required for the Virgle volunteers, who gladly gave up their earthly savings to live a dream of exploration. Even without offering a salary and sorting out the phony applicants, Virgle took in so many skilled volunteers that Branson would be kept busy for decades ferrying them to their new world.

While the initial schedule of a manned mission to Mars of 2016 was missed by three years, Richard Branson became the first human to set foot on the Red Planet after a months-long voyage. Virgle Base was established as planned on the Lunae Planum, "the transition between the high Tharsis rise, a giant volcanic bulge, and the northern lowland plains" as mentioned in the initial press release, now housed in the Electronic Wing of the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Drilling discovered ice, which made the first settlement inhabitable, but the pioneering process was difficult with required protective gear and cavern housing. A number of times looked like the end for the Virgle Project with accidents or lack of funds, but the unnerved leadership by Branson, Page, and Brin allowed the pioneers to press on.

Virgle City, then a connected series of tubes underground, was formally proclaimed in 2050 as per the initial schedule. Real estate sales, low-gravity refining of native raw materials, and cheap storage for data served as the primary economy of the young Mars until the discovery of a rich gold deposit approximately midway between Virgle City and Olympus Mons. The Martian Gold Rush began, and by 2108, the population surged well beyond the hypothesized 100,000 to over nine million. Settlers continued to flow, skyrocketing the value of old Virgle stock and supplying the capital necessary for the Martian Artificial Magnetic Field, a key component to terraforming. Long-term interplanetary gas-harvesting built up an atmosphere rich in greenhouse gases to stabilize warmth so that, by the sesquicentennial in 2169, a human Martian could run barefoot through an idyllic meadow safer and more comfortable than any on Earth.


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In reality, Virgle was an April Fool's joke. Virgin and Google never colonized Mars because... why?

Big Nothing

On this day, 13,700,000,000 BC, The Singularity achieved equilibrium. It had often threatened to explode a universe into existence. After equilibrium, nothing happened. Ever.