February 26, 1993 – World Trade Center Bombing Brings Down Towers

A little after noon, a truck bomb exploded in the parking garage under the World Trade Center, setting off a chain of collapse that would bring down the two principle towers of the WTC complex. The North Tower (also known as Tower One) would hold for several minutes before giving way, toppling into the South Tower, which would also fall. While many office workers had just left for lunch, the buildings were largely occupied, and the bombing would kill nearly three thousand Americans and leave thousands more injured.

Downtown New York City became flooded with rescue operations and helping survivors amid the rubble. President Bill Clinton, just a month into his first term in the White House, appeared on national TV shortly thereafter to address Americans to bind together in this hour of need. A wave of fear washed over the nation, which had seen bombing attacks on foreign soil such as car bombings in Colombia and Turkey in the last month but never at home. A Pakistani had opened fire outside CIA Headquarters with an AK-47, but most had considered it a localized event rather than mass conspiracy. New York Governor Mario Cuomo was quoted as admitting, "We all have that feeling of being violated. No foreign people or force has ever done this to us. Until now we were invulnerable."

America seemed to come to a standstill. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which had been climbing to untold heights over the past five years, suddenly plummeted. Only two days after the explosion, a rebuffed search warrant at the Branch Davidian ranch near Waco, Texas, turned into a gun battle. As fear turned to panic of widespread terrorism or harsh government crackdown, survivalists began assembling at compounds, prices skyrocketed, and riots broke out in several major cities. It looked as if, only a few years after the defeat of Communism, the dream of a "Pax Americana" had turned into nightmare.

President Clinton worked quickly to turn the tide of terrorism. Order was generally restored after numerous deployments of the National Guard, and banks and businesses remained open by executive order. A great leap forward was made on March 6 when FBI investigators arrested Mohammad Salameh. They had determined the epicenter of the explosion from debris of a Ryder truck, traced it to a Jersey City rental outlet, and caught Salameh as he attempted to retrieve his $400 deposit. Salameh's arrest led to the discovery of an international extremist Islamic conspiracy. Many called for execution of the terrorists, but Clinton led the call for sensible trial and, ultimately, life terms in prison.

The investigations of conspiracy led to many examples of governments such as the Taliban of Afghanistan protecting and even funding terrorists while other governments such as Pakistan simply looked another way. Calls for declarations of war to make the world safe from terrorism rose up, but Clinton's government decided to focus instead on reinforcing international policing systems. Over the course of his two-term presidency, terrorist organizations and training camps would be uncovered and shut down while numerous terrorists would be arrested, including Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the World Trade Center Bombing as well as the Shiite shrine in Mashhad, Iran, and Philippine Airlines Flight 434. The latter led to Yousef's arrest in 1995, the same year a homegrown plot to attack a federal building in Oklahoma City was foiled.

With the sense of America's invulnerability returning, the economy rebounded and then exploded with the introduction of the World Wide Web. Clinton would routinely be listed among the top ten American presidents, often beating out FDR for the #3 spot. His vice-president and successor Al Gore would hold the Democrats in office until 2004 when national mood would swing toward conservatism after the bursting of the Dot Com Bubble.


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In reality, the Towers did not collapse. According to the FBI, the bombing “carved out a nearly 100-foot crater several stories deep and several more high. Six people were killed almost instantly.” It was ultimately underpowered for the terrorists' goals, which would be sadly realized eight years later with airplane attacks.

February 24, 1810 – Henry Cavendish Bequeaths his Notes

Upon his death, eclectic scientist Henry Cavendish cited in a letter secondary to his will that his laboratory and notes should be given to St. Peter’s College at Cambridge, a school that would have served as his alma mater if he stayed through to graduation. Cavendish, son of Lord Charles Cavendish and grandson of William Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Devonshire, and Henry Gray, 1st Duke of Kent, was born in 1731 and lived a life of what was described as “painful shyness.” He left the University of Cambridge without graduating, spoke to female servants only by notes, and reportedly had a back staircase built onto his house so that he could enter without meeting his housekeeper.

Despite his shyness, or perhaps as part of it, Cavendish was a genius. He died one of the wealthiest men in England, having an expert mind for logical business, but not making any personal relationships beyond his immediate family. Cavendish spent much of his time in his laboratory, making discoveries that he would never share. In 1766, his first paper was published as “Factitious Airs”, describing the density of “inflammable air” (later to be known as “dephlogisticated air”, which is, containing oxygen). Even without the bulk of his scientific discoveries mentioned, Cavendish was welcomed into the Royal Society, and he rarely missed weekly meetings. Despite the obvious desire for social interaction, he remained shy, so much so that speaking to him was as speaking to “vacancy” to which only the best would receive a “mumbled reply.” He did publish further papers, however, famously determining the density of the Earth in 1798.

It came as a shock to the scientific world that his laboratory would be donated, so much so that rumors arose about the veracity of his letter. Still, his heirs held no reason to keep the laboratory of an eccentric relative, and Cambridge was given equipment and stacks of notes, provided they were edited properly into a volume commemorating Cavendish. As professors and students organized the pages, it became clear that Cavendish was sitting on a goldmine of discoveries.

He had recognized the elemental nature of hydrogen before Antoine Lavoisier, determined the composition of the atmosphere, and, most significantly, made vast leaps into the research of electricity. He outlined a “degree of electrification” (later renamed the electric potential), measured capacitance, mirrored Charles Augustin de Coulomb’s principle of the inverse square of electrical force to distance two years before the French physicist, and went further to define the flow of electricity in resistance and voltage. Cavendish’s publications exploded into the international scientific community following the fall of Napoleon, and inventor of the battery Count Alessandro Volta set to reward further discoveries that might otherwise go unknown. In 1819, the electromagnet came from Britain’s William Sturgeon, sparking a whole new series of discoveries through its application. Further technology was made possible by Georg Ohm’s 1827 deduction of the unified electromagnetic theory.

Telegraphs, telephones, and electric motors flourished as chemistry and metallurgy caught up with theoretical science. Heavy, messy steam engines were quickly replaced with electricity, proving more cost effective as strategies of broadcasting “free energy” overcame the need for expensive wires. Major cities in Europe and America adapted to the new technology, many competing as to who could produce the most kilowatts in a day. Outside of the “electric islands” of civilization, motors worked via stored energy in hydrogen cells, again adapting much of Cavendish’s work. After 1855, the electric motorcar of Hungarian inventor and lecturer Ányos Jedlik took the world by storm, practically replacing the horse in a matter of decades.

Meanwhile, advances were made in the electrical application by Charles Babbage to the ideas of his difference engine, later, and analytical engine. Scientific groundwork was laid and then taken to great new lengths by James Clerk Maxwell, credited as the Father of Electrical Computing. Automation surged in the second part of the Industrial Revolution, constructing great factories where a single man could supervise a dozen machines crafting goods by themselves. By the time of the Great War, automation had become so ingrained in modern society that it was fought with radio-steered miniature submarines, carefully calculated surgical artillery strikes, soldiers in constant communication through helmet radios, and tactics reviewed on computers in thousands of simulations.


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In reality, the notes of Henry Cavendish were not given extensive review until they were given along with an endowment to Cambridge by William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire, for the Cavendish Laboratory. James Clerk Maxwell, developer of Electromagnetic Theory, became the first Cavendish Professor of Physics at Cambridge, where he would edit Henry Cavendish’s lost notes, bringing forth the quiet scientist’s discoveries to the world in 1879.

February 21, 1965 – Malcolm X Wounded

During his speech at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan, Malcolm X was interrupted by a scuffle in the audience of more than 400. He and his bodyguards hurried to calm the crowd, but Malcolm suddenly tripped. Gunshots broke out, but in his prone position Malcolm was only wounded along his side. After receiving several stitches, he was deemed fit and returned to his work campaigning for African American rights.

Born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1925, X would have a rough life. His father was born in Reynolds, GA, and Malcolm spoke of three of his uncles dying at the hands of white men, one being lynched. KKK threats prompted Malcolm's family, which became active in the Universal Negro Improvement Association, to move to Milwaukee. Following the death of his father and his mother becoming committed, Malcolm would drop out of school and go through a series of foster homes before moving to Boston and settling in New York. He turned to a life of crime upon determining there was not a place in society as a career-minded black man. After several years of robbery, pimping, and drug-dealing, Malcolm was arrested for larceny and sentenced to eight to ten years in Charlestown State Prison.

In prison, Malcolm would become affiliated with the Nation of Islam and began a written correspondence with leader Elijah Muhammad. After converting to Islam, he served his term and was paroled in 1952. Upon his release, Malcolm changed his surname to “X” to shed “the white slavemaster name of 'Little' which some blue-eyed devil named Little had imposed upon my paternal forebears,” he wrote. X became a leader among the Nation of Islam, a powerful speaker at 6'3”, and promoted separatism from the white race. He dismissed the nonviolence of the civil rights movement and referred to its pacifist leaders as “stooges” and “chumps.”

After a misguided comment about the assassination of JFK, Malcolm left the country and toured the world. He made a pilgrimage to Mecca (turning to Sunni Islam after his Hajj), toured Africa, and visited France and England. During this time, Malcolm began to change his philosophy. He continued to support black nationalism, though his definitions of “black” began to expand, including northern Africans and even approving of “white students helping black people.” In a controversial move, he broke with the Nation of Islam and began his own organizations, the religious Muslim Mosque, Inc., and the secular Pan-Africanist Organization of Afro-American Unity.

It was at this time that the attempted assassination took place. After his recovery, Malcolm spoke out against the attack as the work of misguided hatred, outlined in his autobiography published soon afterward. He released documents of stolen funds and improper conduct that brought the Nation of Islam under legal proceedings. Meanwhile, Malcolm's influence increased, and he took a place beside Martin Luther King, Jr., calling for African American rights. Upon the assassination of MLK three years later, Malcolm X led the accusations of conspiracy by the FBI. Rev. Jesse Jackson separated from X, who became increasingly anti-capitalist. The division of the leadership would signal a faltering in the latter days of the civil rights movement.

Although he had given up his belief in violence, Malcolm renewed his ideals in separatism. He saw the United States government as irrevocably corrupt and the only solution to be leaving. Using his organizations, Malcolm led a call to move to Canada. Canadian officials disagreed on how to handle the unwanted situation, and immigration bureaucracy tied up the movement until it began to die. Frustrated, Malcolm and a handful of followers would move to Cuba, where he would be welcomed by old friend Fidel Castro. He would continue to preach, but his persuasive voice would not survive the international transition. X's later days would be spent largely working on his body of writings, which would be recognized but rarely considered influential.


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In reality, Malcolm X was killed as he was shot in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun by one man and then 16 times by two others who charged the stage. His funeral was attended by over 1,000 people, and more than 14,000 mourners came to his body's viewing. Responses to his lifetime of leadership were varied from accusations of conspiratorial assassination to honor of a man seeking equality to observations that violence begets violence.

Marco Polo Meets a Flores Man

In 1292, during his return toward Europe after extensive travels across Asia and fantastic adventures among the court of Kublai Khan, famed explorer Marco Polo stopped with the Khan's wedding party in the port of Singapore to resupply. It was here that he caught his first sight, possibly the first sight for any European, of the intelligent ape that would later be named the "Flores Homem" or "Flower People" by Portuguese merchants. At that point in their history, the creatures were kept mainly as pets and taught tricks.

In further centuries, the three-and-a-half-foot-tall Flower People would come under increasing notice by slavers and anthropologists. The apes held obvious intelligence with their abilities to make and use simple tools, though hardly enough to rival a developed human. They lived in caves and primitive shelters, understanding but not mastering fire. As the Age of Enlightenment gave way to an end for slavery among humans, a new sense of slavery came over the world in widely breeding what would become known as Homo floresiensis. Their island was gradually depopulated of natives, but the Flower People came to be found on every continent working manual labor in plantations, mines, shops, and even private homes.

While reformers called for fair treatment of the Flower People, no one could argue that they were equal to humans. They were incapable of language beyond rudimentary nouns or descriptions, and their lack of understanding of any abstract concept made the idea of paying them for work a moot point. The Industrial Revolution gave a boom to even more need for Flower People performing simple mechanical tasks in factories, and World War I would see thousands of the short "men" gunned down as they ran as suicide-bombers against enemy trenches.

In the latter twentieth century, millions of Flower People still serve as slaves around the globe, though they are increasingly unpopular in industrialized nations. The legal questions of what to do with a subset of man in a world working to rid itself of racism and even speciesism proves agonizing for the modern mind.

February 15, 1898 – Would-be Saboteurs Caught aboard USS MAINE

Shortly after nine o’clock in the evening, a group of men were caught attempting to sneak aboard the USS Maine while it rested in Havana Harbor, defending American interests during the Cuban insurrection. The five men were carrying with them explosives and were believed to have been headed toward the storage of the ship’s powder charges for its six-inch and ten-inch guns. The discovery had been nearly happenstance as one man coughed too loudly and the crew on patrol thought to double-check.

The men were separated and questioned, and each gave wildly different stories. Crewmen leaked the investigation, and rumors exploded into news. Fueled by yellow journalism, the men were believed to be saboteurs from Spain, attempting to knock America out of its defensive position with Cuba; or, Cubans hoping to spark a war between the United States and Spain; or, mercenaries hired by the U.S. government to blow up their own ship and instigate a war that would bring in a wealth of captured territory for a new empire. Some even said that they had been hired by newspapermen Hearst or Pulitzer to precipitate a reason to sell more papers, but these rumors did not appear in print.

The whole of America rose up in anger over the ordeal, but there was no consensus on how to act. Some demanded war with Spain, others demanded war with the Cuban revolutionaries that America had previously supported, and still others demanded the Maine to leave Havana and the US wash its hands of the whole matter. President McKinley weighed his options carefully and finally decided to bring the diplomatic ordeal with Spain to an end as quickly as possible. He dispatched orders to Admiral Dewey in Hong Kong to sail toward the Philippines (also fighting for its independence) in case anything got out of order. Congress and the President worked together to create a reasonable ultimatum for Spain, ignoring many of Republican Senator Redfield Proctor’s demands for war. The Spanish government weighed its options and finally decided to concede in Cuba and the Philippines

In exchange for a massive gift of “dollar diplomacy” (to be paid back by bonds from the new Cuban and Filipino governments), Spain would grant its colonies their independence. America, meanwhile, would gain valuable coaling stations and naval bases. The Pilón-Woodward Treaty that summer ironed out the diplomatic details, and the cries for war were silenced. Several Americans, such as Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt, spoke out that the nation had not acted valiantly enough, but for the most part the populace had come to ease with international relations. Other imperial-minded Americans called for expansion into the Pacific rather than merely opening markets, such as conquering the Philippines rather than holding content with bases at Manila and Luzon. Letters from Sanford Dole the newly formed Republic of Hawaii offered the islands to McKinely.

Hawaii would become the new battleground as many politicians and businessmen hoped to support it as a new territory. However, the American Anti-Imperialist League formed around such famous members as Andrew Carnegie, Mark Twain, Samuel Gompers, and Senator George Boutwell. Their collective clout broke up the imperialist calls prominent in the press, and America returned to a sense of dollar diplomacy as McKinely refused Dole’s offer. Hawaii would later be returned to the Hawaiian Royal family, and it retains close political ties to the United States to this day.

The divided Republican Party in 1900 would result in the narrow election of President William Jennings Bryan and Vice-President Dewey, heralded as the man who won the Philippines its independence without firing a single shot. Dewey received a great deal of political criticism for his comment that "Our next war will be with Germany," which was proven correct some eighteen years later.

“Remember the Maine!” became a popular cry among Navy security as they patrolled in the early twentieth century. A policy of stringent observance of any possible attack became the norm, which proved effective in the detection of the Japanese carrier fleet approaching the base at Pearl Harbor in 1941.


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In reality, the Maine suffered a grave explosion that destroyed the front third of the ship with the rest sinking almost immediately. Only 94 of the 355 crew survived, and the spirit of revenge rose up from America, urged on by the New York Journal’s cry for war. The widely successful Spanish-American War brought a new age of expansionism to the United States with gains in Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.

February 14, 1779 – James Cook Makes Landfall at Midway

In one of his last discoveries in a monumental career, James Cook set foot upon a small atoll in the northern Pacific that he dubbed “Bligh Island” after a junior officer on the expedition, though it would ultimately be renamed “Midway.” The small island was nearly missed as the flagship HMS Resolution had cracked its foremast, which a full break would have prompted a return to the recently discovered Sandwich Islands for repairs. Instead, Cook set forth continually northwest, pressing again to discover the elusive Northwest Passage. Again, the Bering Strait proved impassable, and he begrudgingly ordered a return to London for his crews on the verge of mutiny. They sailed past Nippon, attempting trade but being shooed by the Sakoku policy, and successfully traded with the Chinese, Javanese, and Africans around the Cape of Good Hope.

Upon his return up the Thames, Cook was lauded as a hero. His was an impressive climb from being the second child of a farm laborer in northern Yorkshire. Cook had become an apprentice in the merchant navy as a young man and learned the skills of navigation that would make him famous. During the arms race leading to the Seven Years’ War, Cook volunteered for the Royal Navy and served as Mate aboard HMS Eagle. After successful battles with the French, Cook continued to climb the ranks and was sent to the New World, where his skills in navigation proved also to include cartography. Recognized for his maps of the Saint Lawrence River and Newfoundland, Cook was given a position by the Royal Society to command an expedition to the Pacific for charting the transit of Venus across the Sun in 1766. Along with his astronomical records, Cook would also explore New Zealand and put Britain into contact with the Aborigines of Terra Australis. Cook lost several crewmen to native diseases such as malaria but not a single one to scurvy. His techniques of scurvy prevention would become a model for ships throughout the Navy.

Arriving back to much acclaim in 1771, he left again in 1772 to explore more of the South Pacific. Although what would become known as Australia was located, many members of the Royal Society believed a much larger (and wealthier) continent must lie even further south. Cook explored nearly reached Antarctica, but he turned north again for need of supplies. Instead of a great continent, he discovered numerous small islands in Polynesia such as Easter Island, New Caledonia, and Vanuatu as well as explorations in the southern Atlantic. Again hailed as a hero upon his return in 1775, he set out to explore the North Pacific the next year. There he would discover the Sandwich Islands, explore much of the northwest coast of North America, and travel north through the Bering Strait. When they came upon a twelve foot wall of ice across the whole horizon, the expedition was forced to turn south with the Northwest Passage proven a myth. They explored the eastern coast of Russia before wintering in the Sandwiches, where they had once been welcomed and Cook practically venerated as the god Lono. As the festival season of Lono had now passed, however, the Hawaiians were increasingly hostile, and Cook left, deciding even not to return despite his damaged foremast.

Cook pursued a Northwest Passage across Russia, but the Arctic proved too icy for wooden ships. He returned to London in 1780, finding the world turned upside-down by the riotous Americans. After serving for three years as admiral until the end of the war, Cook retired from his life at sea and set upon a new life’s project to restore Britain’s glory. The American revolt had left them without a great deal of wealth and possibilities for westward expansion, but the whole of the Pacific lay beyond practically unconquered. While Captain Arthur Phillip led the colonization of Australia, Cook campaigned for small outposts on every island available, conquering the sea lanes for Britain. Using his own fortune from the sales of his popular journals, he funded missionaries, farmers, and merchants alike to form small colonies that would meet with varying luck.

As the Industrial Revolution took hold, however, each of these colonies suddenly sprang to life as coaling stations. Needed by the Royal Navy as well as the vast merchant fleet of Britain, the Pacific colonies became key bases and transformed international trade. Tahiti, which would later be contested by the French, became a key British station. Gradually, native populations that were devastated by plagues would come under British rule and become colonies themselves, such as the Royal House of Hawaiians, who would be taken in as part of British aristocracy.

In the Second World War, the powerful Japanese Navy would sweep out over the British Pacific, conquering millions of square miles as the stretched Royal Navy struggled to fight back. The Japanese sneak-attack at Luzon in the Philippines would bring the United States into the war, and intensive island-hopping campaigns would go for years as dug-in Japanese were rooted out by Allied Marines. After the war, Britain would decolonize many of the islands into the Commonwealth, while others such as Hawaii and Tahiti would gain independence.


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In reality, Captain Cook was killed in an altercation with the Hawai’ian natives after returning to repair the Resolution’s foremast. Natives had taken one of the expedition’s small boats, and he had attempted to capture King Kalani’ōpu’u as a hostage to get it back. His men were beaten back by the Hawaiians, and Cook was killed when he was hit with a rock and natives rushed into the surf to stab him. His body was captured and honored by the Hawaiians, prepared as if he were a chief. His crew appealed for the return of Cook’s body, which was granted, and he would be buried at sea.

February 13, 1503 – Firearms Drawn at Barletta

As the Second Italian War raged, Louis XII's knights pressed southward into Naples to confirm the king's claim to the Italian throne. He had taken Ferdinand II of Spain as an ally, offering to divide the spoils once Louis dominated Italy. Ferdinand had agreed, but once Naples was taken, the two bickered over which lands would go to whom. Aragon and France turned on each other, each taking up allies and mercenaries from the locals.

During the war, a group of French knights were out imbibing the local wine, Rosso Barletta, and began raucously remarking about the quality of Italian knights, namely the lack thereof. Hearing that Charles de la Motte had called them cowards, the Italian knights challenged the French to a tournament. The thirteen-on-thirteen contest went well for the Italians, so much so that unsportsmanlike activity broke out. During a scuffle, an Italian page pulled an arquebus and fired, spooking the horses and injuring one of the French knights. The Italians broke off the contest, embarrassed at the break of chivalry, and the French learned a valuable lesson about the effective power of small arms.

They returned to the French army, and word of the fight worked its way up to the Duke of Nemours. He and his advisers discerned the effectiveness of the small arms, just as they had for the long range cannon, of which the French had much more than the Spanish. Over the next months, he encouraged his pike-wielding Swiss to emulate the Spanish Coronelias, which fought with mixed pikes, swords, and arquebuses.

In late April, Nemours moved on the Spanish at Cerignola. The French outnumbered them 32,000 to 8,000 and had twice as many cannon, but the Spanish "El Gran Capitán" Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba had expertly fortified the high ground with trenches, walls, and stakes. Heavy Spanish artillery fire broke up the initial French charges, and Nemours first planned an attack on the right flank against arquebusiers. However, as he recalled the effectiveness of the arquebus against a knight from the tournament a couple of months before, he decided on a new strategy. War had changed, and to be victorious, the French army would have to adapt beyond artillery.

Nemours moved his artillery and began pounding the Spanish infantry. When they seemed softened, he moved forward the Swiss and assaulted, taking the first volley from the arquebuses with an exchange of fire. Before the Spanish could reload, the French knights charged past the Swiss and stormed the trench. The Swiss followed after the breach, and the numbers of the French army overwhelmed the Spanish defenders. While the French took massive casualties, the Spanish were thoroughly defeated, and expert commander Córdoba was captured.

The next year, the Louis signed the Treaty of Lyon with Ferdinand, securing French control over mainland Italy. Spain still held Sicily, but Louis had built a league with Venice and the Papal States that would dominate Italy and, perhaps more importantly, the growing trade with the East. During the rebuilding of Italy, Francis I instituted imperialistic laws to dominate the Italian banking, shifting the financial center of Europe from northern Italy to Paris. Portugal flourished with trade from India, and Spain grew wealthy on gold from the New World, and France launched its own expeditions to dominate Africa and the Mediterranean, interrupting the expansion of the Ottomans, as well as colonizing much of what would become North America.

During the nationalistic revolutions toward the end of the Age of Enlightenment, the Italians would rally to unify themselves in revolt against France in 1798, creating a new state and key player in Europe.


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In reality, the Disfida di Barletta did not involve firearms, but the Battle of Cerignola did. The French knights were defeated by the Italians, and, at Cerignola, they were defeated by the Spanish Coronelías. The French would again be defeated at Garigliano, leading to the Treaty of Lyon in which Louis XII would cede control of southern Italy to Spain. The peninsula was divided and would not be united until 1861.