April 14, 1865 – Booth Conspiracy brings Night of Terror

As the American Civil War looked to be coming to an end, famed actor and Southerner John Wilkes Booth determined that he must do something to help the cause. He had sworn to his concerned mother that he would not join as a soldier, yet he wrote her, “I have begun to deem myself a coward and to despise my own existence.” While he would not go back on his word, he decided that the war could be fought with civilian hands in a more untraditional fashion. He began a conspiracy with fellow sympathizers to kidnap President Abraham Lincoln in March of 1865. The plans to kidnap Lincoln had all gone awry due to poor intelligence, and, upon hearing a speech by Lincoln encouraging the extension of the vote to freed slaves, Booth decided to go all out.

Booth wrote in his diary that “something decisive and great must be done.” Not only would he assassinate the president, but his coconspirators would kill the vice-president and secretary of state as well, decapitating the government. On Good Friday, picking up his mail from his box at Ford’s Theater, he happened to learn from the owner’s brother that the president and General Ulysses S Grant would be attending Our American Cousin that night.

Booth called his the band of assassins together and ordered Alabaman Lewis Powell, just days shy of his twenty-first birthday, to kill Secretary of State William Seward. Powell refused, saying he had only volunteered for kidnapping. Booth began a long and passionate speech, noting the horrors of war that the Union had performed upon the South and the duty of vengeance for them. Powell conceded, and the other conspirators were fired up by Booth’s rhetoric. George Atzerodt, a German immigrant who had settled in Maryland as a child, was to kill Vice-President Andrew Johnson. Fellow Marylander David Herold would act as guide for Powell and then manage the escape after the quartet reached the rendezvous outside of Washington, D.C.

The assassinations were performed with intensity and efficiency. Powell and Herold went to the Seward residence just after 10 PM, knocking as casually as a messenger. Powell talked his way past the butler, claiming to have medicine for Seward, who had recently been treated after a carriage crash. Seward’s son Frederick tried to stop him, and Powell leaped forward with his Bowie knife, stabbing Frederick deeply in the chest. Frederick’s sister Fanny opened the door to complain of the noise disturbing their father and found Powell in a sudden bloodlust. Powell shoved her aside and stormed into the room, drawing his revolver to shoot Seward as he lay in bed. He meticulously shot the other patrons in the room, Seward’s nurse Sergeant George F. Robinson and his other son Augustus. On the way out of the house, Powell found Herold scuffling with a legitimate late-night messenger. Powell killed the messenger, and the two escaped Washington with Herold at the lead.

Before the assassinations, Atzerodt had rented a room at the Kirkwood Hotel, Johnson’s residence while the vice-president was in Washington. Atzerodt was tempted to spend the evening in the bar but, as he lived precisely one floor above, determined to wait until 10:15, listening for the Johnson’s movement. When the prescribed time arrived, he walked calmly downstairs and knocked on the door. Johnson himself answered, and Atzerodt stabbed him with his knife. He then fled, leaving the knife where it had struck the vice-president.

Booth was the only hiccup in the evening as his intelligence once again had proved faulty. Due to Mrs. Grant’s dislike of the First Lady, the Lincolns had gone to the theater with Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancée Clara Harris. Nonetheless, Booth struck at 10:25, giving a card to the usher, who showed him to the presidential box. Booth barricaded the outer door to the box and waited for the cue “sockdologizing” to act: the roar of laughter from the crowd covered up the sound of his derringer’s shot. Major Rathbone jumped to stop Booth from escaping, but Booth planted his knife firmly into Rathbone’s arm before leaping from the box to the stage. One of his spurs became caught, making him land off-balance. Always the performer, Booth cried out “Sic semper tyrannus!” to the 1,700 people in the crowd and fought his way through the chaos to his horse.

The assassins met successfully at their rendezvous and fled into Maryland. Herold guided them in the night, going on even as Booth refused to stop for treatment to his leg after the fall. They crossed the river into Virginia and disappeared.

The Union was filled with despair over the lost leaders and anger that the assassins had escaped. Any connections to the conspirators were arrested and thoroughly interrogated, leading to the execution of Mary Surratt, the owner of the boarding house where many of the conspiracy meetings had taken place. Many called the execution unfair, but the North howled for blood. The new government, largely Radical Republicans under Lafayette Foster, treated the South as an area of military occupation rather than states in reconstruction. Freedman laws and punishments for former Confederates were enforced by Federal troops, who themselves turned corrupt with power.

While many Southerners initially despised Booth and his men for their cowardly actions, they came to hate the North further. Secret societies such as the Ku Klux Klan began guerrilla raids prompted by Booth, who became a wandering speaker whose left-legged limp became a trademark and a clandestine sign for fellow rebels. The violence earned more ire from the North, who began relocating criminals to camps in the Dakotas. As the South burned, many Southerners fled, ex-Confederates to Latin America or South Africa and Freedmen to the North or to protected cities where soldiers stood guard against routine attacks and arson. The violence turned generational with deadly bombings and costly sabotage lasting well into the twentieth century until purges and propaganda during the World War finally ended the Southern revolt.

--

In reality, Booth only told Powell that they had come too far to give up now. Powell did as he was told but panicked and merely injured the Sewards. Herold heard the screams from inside and fled, leaving Powell stranded in unfamiliar Washington, where he wandered and hid in a tree for three days before finding Surratt’s boarding house. Atzerodt never worked up the nerve to assassinate Johnson and instead sat in the hotel bar and talked with the bartender about Johnson before wandering the streets drunk. Booth assassinated Lincoln but was soon shot himself during his escape. The other conspirators were hanged.

Guest Post: 20th December, 1999 - Portugal Relinquishes Macau At Last

From Today in Alternate History

 

On this day the Macau Peninsula, Taipa, Coloane along with the islands Lapa, Dom João and Montanha were handed over (strictly speaking, back) to China. The territory had been administered by Portugal from the mid-16th century until late 1999, when it was the last remaining European colony in Asia.

The Portuguese presence dated back to the end of the 17th century when a group of missionaries established themselves on these Chinese islands. Following the Japanese invasion of China in 1938, the Portuguese had officially occupied these three lightly populated islands in order to create a larger more economically viable Macau (the colony had previously consisted of Macau Peninsula itself and the islands of Taipa and Coloane).  Because of their alliance status as an Axis Power [1], Japan respected Portuguese sovereignty. However, as the Greater Asian Prosperity Sphere began to flourish, Japan had grown to see the wisdom of working with them to diminish the influence of Hong Kong and Singapore as regional entrepôts.

As Great Britain and her Far Eastern Empire waned, China rose again as a civilization that had endured for millennia and was certain to out-live the few centuries of European belligerence. After Allied occupation, Portugal maintained its colonies, struggling against post-colonization with assistance from France. Eventually its influence diminished, and under the Sino-Portuguese Joint Declaration, Macau was classified as "a Chinese territory under (temporary) Portuguese administration" taking a slow transition into full sovereignty. This was in reality merely a "smoke and mirrors" deal simply to avoid capital flight. On the eve of the twenty-first century, China quietly closed the door on the wreckage of the previous four hundred years. For Western Capitalists, it was the end of an era.

 

Addendum: Despite the official end of capitalism in Macau, it would become one of the strongest influences of special economic zones in Communist China, a gateway of foreign investment that would bring change of its own.

[1] In reality, followed by Japanese invasion of China in 1938, the neutral Portuguese officially occupied these three islands, with an excuse to better protect Portuguese missionaries residing there. In 1941, the Japanese Army threatened the Portuguese troops to force abandonment of these sparsely populated islands. Consequently, these islands were occupied by Japan. At the end of World War II, China was able to reoccupy the three islands.

April 13, 1657 – Oliver Cromwell Recommends Henry for the Crown

Not even a decade after the Parliamentarians of England convicted their king of treason in trial and executed Charles I by beheading, a new crown was offered to Oliver Cromwell, the man who had third signed the previous king’s death warrant. The English had fought for years in a brutal Civil War that killed nearly 100,000 over the question of kingship. Even as the hated Charles I was beheaded, clergyman Phillip Henry wrote the crowd gave a cry “as I never heard before and desire I may never hear again.” England wanted a king.

In all but name, and he had another Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell had become the new king of England. Cromwell spent the early years of his life as a moderately successful member of the gentry in Cambridgeshire. During his thirties, Cromwell underwent a radical religious conversion and dedicated himself as a Congregationalist Puritan, outspoken and willing to fight for his beliefs of individuality under God. He was elected to Parliament in the tumultuous years in the 1640s, soon joining the Roundheads as the Civil War began.

Cromwell flourished in the war. His unbreakable nerve and daring spirit led to his nickname as “Old Ironsides.” He raised his own cavalry troop on silver captured from Cambridge colleges intended to arrive in support of the king and expanded his troop into a regiment in the Eastern Association under the Earl of Manchester. The war dragged on, and Cromwell came into conflict with his superiors, demanding more personal investment into the war. Manchester accused Cromwell of taking on “men of low birth,” to which Cromwell replied, “I would rather have a plain russet-coated captain who knows what he fights for and loves what he knows than that which you call a gentleman and is nothing else.” Cromwell’s ideals contributed to the New Model Army of 1645, of which he became the second-in-command.

In 1647, the Scots surrendered King Charles to the Parliamentary forces in exchange for ransom and in hopes of establishing a Presbyterian system. Cromwell refused to give up hard-won religious freedoms for a new hierarchy and instead began consulting directly with the captive king to establish a constitutional monarchy. While Cromwell managed to create a satisfactory Head of Proposals, others in the army did not think it went far enough, and the mission stalled until Charles’ escape that November, which incited the Scots into another wave of Civil War. Cromwell and the New Model Army crushed the invasions and resulting uprisings. The king sought to return to negotiations, but the Army refused and eliminated sympathetic members of parliament until it was clear the king would be executed.

The new Rump Parliament led to the smaller ruling council that brought on the Commonwealth while the Royalists attempted to rally in Ireland, calling upon Catholic sympathies. Cromwell was dispatched to Ireland, where he put down the insurrection ruthlessly and efficiently. While his death tolls were perhaps lower than larger invasions in the history of Ireland, he would forever gain notoriety as a murderous brute. His second son, Henry, became entwined with Ireland as major-general and later lord-deputy of the green isle, where he became popular for fairness between the Irish and the English settlers.

Cromwell’s power grew until he was promoted as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth, establishing a powerful executive position managed by a constitution. He sought to rebuild England and heal its many fractures in both body and soul. When Parliament became bent on radical ideals of republicanism, he dismissed them to avoid political strife over debating bills. Cromwell also liberalized the religious orders of England, allowing for local parishes and even informally granting Menasseh Ben Israel’s request to overturn the 1290 law expelling Jews from the country. Due to his popularity, the reformed Parliament invited him to become king under a new constitution in the Humble Petition and Advice.

Cromwell became tortured over the idea. He saw the great chance of healing, bringing philosophical royalists together with Cromwell’s allies on the more republican side. Yet, he had dedicated a decade of his life to eliminating the crown and establishing a new, fairer system. He consulted with his sons, as they would suddenly become princes in line for the throne. The eldest, Richard, had not fought in the Civil War and was only partially invested in politics. Henry, who had once suggested himself that Oliver become king, warned his father not to take the throne as it was a place of ill power.

Henry’s advice caused Oliver to reevaluate his position, which he had determined as a “policeman” for the nation, guiding it through executive power based on his moral standings. Without another man of such convictions, Cromwell questioned his legacy. Finally, in a speech on April 13, seven weeks after being offered the crown, Cromwell announced that he refused to become king, though he understood why the stability of a hereditary kingship was so important. To that end, he suggested his son Henry become king and that he himself remain as a weakened Lord Protector until his time to be replaced by election.

The split of power shocked Parliament but proved to be a compromise. Cromwellians were pleased to retain their leader and his executive office, Royalists were proud to have a hereditary line once again, and republicans enjoyed reinforced rights of Parliament for taxation and law under a king few knew. Henry was shocked as well and attempted to refuse, but his father would not let him and recalled his son from Ireland. Henry conceded and was crowned June 26, 1657. Anti-royalists were thrilled by the idea of a humble king, while the royalists admired how dedicated Henry was to his office as Henry IX.

Oliver Cromwell died in 1658, spending the last year dedicating himself to cementing his son’s position despite increasing illness. Cromwell was replaced by election, which was applauded by men such as the governor of Scotland George Monck for its smoothness and clarity. Lord Protectors would serve as long as they maintained leadership and could be ousted by bills overseen by the king. Henry died in 1674, succeeded by his son Henry X, who reigned until 1711 and was succeeded in turn by Thomas I until 1748.

During the term of Oliver I, who came to the throne at the age of six, Parliament took the opportunity to expand its powers widely, largely eclipsing the king. As Oliver came of age, he displayed his great-great-grandfather’s strength and served valiantly in the Seven Years’ War. He turned his popularity into political power, spurring the disenfranchised in charterless towns such as Manchester and those in the colonies to demand voting power. The issue threatened to spark another civil war as insurrections broke out in the American colonies, but ultimately in 1783 Oliver would win out and stack Parliament in his favor with thousands of new voters. Oliver continued to rule until 1821, overseeing the defeat of the French Empire and establishing England as the greatest naval and colonial power in the world.

Oliver I’s only surviving child was Elizabeth II (Elizabeth-Oliveria), whom he refused to allow to marry unless his son-in-law took the surname Cromwell to continue the line.

--

In reality, Cromwell refused the crown for himself or anyone else. His son Richard followed him as Lord Protector, but Richard’s lack of politicking caused him to resign after one year. The factions of Parliament proved unable to elect a successor, so George Monck marched the New Model Army on London, seizing the city and restoring Charles II. The Catholic Stuarts took the throne again until being ousted in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

12th June, 1964 - Mandela Imprisoned for Life

Guest post from Today in Alternate History, inspired by @uchrotweets "Black South-african leader dies in prison, aged 95 #althistory"

 

 

Judge-president of the Transvaal Dr. Quartus de Wet addressed the accused as Rolihlahla Mandela, respecting his request to be known henceforth by his Xhosa tribal name. Mandela and his fellow members of the African National Congress (ANC) were convicted as violent communist agitators and sentenced to life imprisonment.

The Christian moniker "Nelson" was a result of British bias in the education system, his teacher Miss Mdingane having insisted that he use the name on his first day when he became the first member of his family to attend school. And yet Mandela's personal decision to drop "Nelson" as his first name was only a small part of a much bigger picture. The ANC had made an ideological gear shift, embracing Chairman Trotsky's vision for "International Revolution" instead of the "Socialism in One Country" concept advocated by Commissar Stalin.

Thereafter the ANC began to operate more broadly across the continent. Mandela's death was announced on 5th December, 2013, with the simplest of tweets "Black South-african leader dies in prison, aged 95 #history" [1]. It was a moment of overwhelming sadness and yet triumphant defiance as recorded half a century before in his trial declaration: 

"During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die".

Addendum by Jeff Provine His native South Africa, like many African states, continues to struggle. Post-colonial Africa served as a hotbed of Cold War activity as well as decades of exploitation and oppression. Racial and ethnic divides formed battle-lines, all promoting local warlords. South Africa itself faced waves of unrest, each contributing to major economic downfalls and rampant inflation, though it still acts as a regional center under the shadow of wealthier Nigeria.

Guest Post: November 25 - The "Golden Age" of the Anglo-Portuguese Empire begins

In 1487, Elizabeth of York is crowned Queen of England in a ceremony also attended by her beloved husband, Manuel the Fortunate who became the future King Manuel I of Portugal after his nephew Alonso died in an accident.

Though the Yorkist victory at Bosworth secured the throne in their hands, the death of Richard at the same battle placed a great emphasis on the cousins of the White Rose to secure a viable and lasting dynasty. This fell upon the shoulders of Elizabeth of York, daughter to Edward IV and beloved niece of Richard III. Though linked to Henry Tudor, his death at the hands of Lord Stanley, his own step-father, had ended the hopes for the Lancastrians to see their house on the throne again. 

Suitors had been rejected - in 1469, she was briefly betrothed to George Neville, son of John Neville, Earl of Northumberland, who initially supported Edward IV against the rebellion of his own brother Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, but later joined Warwick's rebellion, so the betrothal was called off. In 1475, Louis XI agreed to let her marry his son, Charles, the Dauphin of France, but Louis reneged on the promise in 1482. Instead, Elizabeth was linked with the related monarchs of Portugal. By contrast to the powerful suitors of France or Holy Roman Empire, the young Manuel had grown up in similar circumstances to his new bride. Both had seen cousins kill each other in conspiracies and murder as well as on the battlefield. 

Their union led to lasting peace and sealed the alliance of John of Gaunt and King John of Avis and would lead to the reign of King Henry VII of England and I of Portugal (28 June 1491 - 28 January 1547) and the "Golden Age" of the Anglo-Portuguese Empire.

(Addendum by Jeff Provine)

With its newly found political stability, the shared Anglo-Portuguese court was the perfect place for an exasperated Italian navigator, Cristoforo Colombo, to head after being repeatedly turned down for financing in his ideas for an expedition sailing west to create a new trade route to India. Young King Henry was advised that the eventual route around Africa after the successful 1488 voyage of Bartholomeu Dias around the Cape of Good Hope, but Henry felt that if there were to be another route, he would want it. He dispatched Columbus, who returned successfully after claiming an island he dubbed "Henryland."

Columbus believed it was India, but it was soon discovered that the territory was a New World. As Columbus became intolerable, Henry had him executed and sent more explorers to swarm over the coasts his growing empire, such as the later Sir Francis Drake's conquest of the Inca. A few French and Dutch colonies interrupted the sprawling Anglo-Portuguese Empire, but it became the foundation for international trade in language and economics.

Overwhelmingly religious Spain continued its march into Africa and seemingly perpetual war against the Moors. Meanwhile, religion would end up tearing the Anglo-Portuguese apart as the north turned more Protestant, and the empire's golden age would come to an end. A new empire from Germany would arise centuries later, eclipsing the French and creating a new world order.

From the good folks over at Today in Alternate History

Guest Post: 9th November, 1918 - Rosevelt Rebukes Harboring the Kaiser

In 1918, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany crossed the border by train and went into exile in Holland. But it took the "Dutch Courage" of Neiu Nederlander President Theodoor van Rosevelt to insist that Dutch Queen
Wilhelmina extradite Kaiser Wilhelm II, a "big stick" to prevent the rise of a future generation of dictators.

Upon the conclusion of the Treaty of Versailles in early 1919, Article  227 expressly provided for the prosecution of Wilhelm "for a supreme offence against international morality and the sanctity of treaties",
but Queen Wilhelmina refused to extradite him, despite appeals from the Allies. King George V wrote that he looked on his cousin as "the greatest criminal in history", but opposed Prime Minister David Lloyd George's proposal to "hang the Kaiser". President Woodrow Wilson of the United States rejected extradition, arguing that punishing Wilhelm for waging war would destabilize international order and lose the  peace.

And therefore we can say with certainty that the extradition and subsequent hanging of the Kaiser was the result of a precipitous twist of fate. Because in 1664, a freak storm had sunk the English Fleet
before it could seize New Amsterdam. Somehow, the Dutch Republic had held onto the Colony, which later emerge as one of the Eastern Sea-board mini-states after the American Revolution. By the early twentieth century, Neiu Nederlands was completely autonomous, and governed by the charismatic figure of Theodoor van Rosevelt. An unflinching advocate of the projection of military power by democratic governments, his intervention in the extradition crisis would be truly historic. Because as time would tell, the Kaiser's hanging would discourage the rise of dictators during the turbulent 1930s, proving that the wrong-headedly idealistic Wilson was quite completely mistaken. And what really mattered to keeping the peace in the real world was ensuring that would-be belligerents were kept in a constant fear of the firm use of authority by the democracies.

The emergence of a leadership role for the American  mini-state was wholly unexpected. Even though Holland remained neutral throughout the war, van Rosevelt had travelled to Washington to tell Wilson that the American Dutch would bravely join them. This was but the first step on the world stage. He would prevail upon Queen Wilhelmina, and later, at the Paris Peace Conference, persuade the victor powers to establish a League of Nations with a robust collective security policy: a bully club for the smaller nations to fight world domination. After all, who could be sure that a future German dictatorship would respect Dutch neutrality?

- from Today in Alternate History

October 31, 1739 - Flatulent Duck Robot

French inventor Jacques de Vaucanson (February 24, 1709 – November 21, 1782) unveiled his prized new creation that he initially had labeled the "Digesting Duck." An automaton craze struck Europe in the eighteenth century, leading toy-makers across the continent to create more and more elaborate clockwork devices. Vaucanson had grown up the poor son of a glove-maker, but his keen mind enabled him to earn an apprenticeship in clock-making. From there, he developed intricate humanoid devices that could lay out dinner or clear a table. He went on to create further androids that could play flutes and the tamborine.

His most famous creation came as a duck that could drink water, eat grain, and flap its wings, each wing having over 400 moving parts. Initially Vaucanson devised a trick to hide the grain, but he became obsessed with attempting to mimic live animals in the ability to digest. Through careful study of ducks, he worked alongside chemists to develop a strong acid that would break down grain, though it worked much more clearly with items such as chalk. After feeding it chalk, eventually through the system, a frothy white excrement would pop out the duck's backside.

While the duck gained great fame for its hilarity and Vaucanson was called delightfully crass, the study proved to show a powerful chemical reaction between acids and weak bases. Vaucanson moved on to create an automated loom and artificial horse, which operated on the pressure built up from gasses escaping the chemicals, driving pistons to do work. France leaped forward technologically, outpacing Britain in manufacturing and dominating European trade.



---

In reality, de Vaucanson's duck was a hoax that swallowed the grain and released prefabricated excrement from a hidden compartment. Two centuries later, Belgian artist Wim Delvoye would achieve de Vaucanson's ideal of a machine that actually digested.

April 12, 1945 - FDR Suffers Minor Stroke

While resting at his private retreat of the Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia, to renew his energies before the UN Conference on International Organization in San Francisco in the coming weeks, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt announced, "I have a terrific pain in the back of my head." The president went quiet and his body convulsed. The others in the room hurried to his side and tended to him until doctors arrived. Due to strain from his many years of political work and high cholesterol combined with a predisposition to the same congestive heart failure that ended his father's life, Roosevelt suffered a terrible, but not debilitating, stroke.

The president's health had been troubled for some time. Rumors about illness circulated widely during the 1944 election, but the press seemed to steer clear of the issue, potentially due to orders from the Office of Censorship that had also kept reporters off the battlefields as the war dragged on. His doctor ordered bed-rest, but Roosevelt took it upon himself to exercise more regularly, even though his bout with polio left him confined to a wheelchair and steel braces. This time, he lost much of the use of his left arm, but was fortunate to keep his abilities in speech.

As with his previous illness, Roosevelt soldiered on. News of the stroke was controlled by the White House, simply stating that he still suffered from the affects of fatigue. He managed to be in San Francisco for the organization of the United Nations, a term he had created from the Allies who signed the Atlantic Charter in 1942. While the papers stated he was in attendance, he spent nearly all of his time behind closed doors with only a few select meetings.

Through tenacity, Roosevelt continued to work as president. Upon the collapse of Nazi power in Europe, Roosevelt gave a radio address to Americans pronouncing Victory Day, though others such as Vice-President Harry S Truman became the faces seen in photos and movie reels. Roosevelt saw out the end of the war, skillfully defending the use of atomic weapons to end the war with Japan early, though there were some who said that the declaration of war by the Soviet Union was what had truly brought Japan to surrender unconditionally.

Roosevelt, who had long trusted Stalin, had begun to doubt his trustworthiness as the war began to come to a close and the Soviets’ plans to set up puppet governments began to show. Churchill had long warned Roosevelt about Stalin, seeing him as at-best a necessary evil until Hitler was destroyed, and soon warned of an Iron Curtain behind which Stalin plotted. Britain edged Churchill out of office in 1945, looking to break cleanly from the troubled days of the war. Roosevelt pressed on and, though his widespread popularity, managed to keep the nation voting Democrat while the Republicans cried for change.

Roosevelt promised change and continued to campaign for his Second Bill of Rights, completing the work he felt he had begun with the social measures of the New Deal. Echoing the measures of the first Bill of Rights, Roosevelt argued that the right of “pursuit of happiness” had not yet been fulfilled. Gradually, programs came into play to employment in CCC-style grants and organizations, housing, education, and medical care. With enough Democrats in Congress, he was able to push through legislation blocking the powers of big business and monopolies, reversing many of the anti-labor policies that had been in place due to necessity of production during the war.

Abroad, Roosevelt kept up pressure on Stalin and refused to allow Communism to spread. While many of the soldiers from WWII returned home, much of the materiel and provisions were shifted to the KMT forces of the Republic of China, finally squashing Mao’s armies in 1947. It became painfully clear that the Soviets would not remove themselves as the Americans, British, and French were doing. Roosevelt began to threaten use of atomic weapons, which outmatched anything the Russians had in their arsenal. Stalin tested Roosevelt again and again with false deadlines and empty promises until the tension burst in 1948 in Berlin over Soviet restrictions over passage to Berlin. Through the UN (which Soviets increasingly called a “puppet of the West”), Roosevelt demanded Stalin pull Soviet troops out of all occupied areas by that fall. Stalin refused, so Roosevelt began a bombing campaign targeting the Soviet military.

Republicans noted that the bombing began shortly before the election and accused Roosevelt of starting another war so he could maintain control of the White House as well as flat-out tyranny. Roosevelt replied that he was doing what he felt best and would understand if the American public trusted him. In the narrowest election of his career, Roosevelt won yet another unprecedented fifth term in 1948. As in 1944, much of the campaigning was done vicariously.

War with the Soviets finally drove them back to the borders of Russia in 1949, which was when Stalin announced the USSR had successfully developed its own atomic bomb in Kazakhstan. An uneasy armistice began even though much of Europe had been liberated. Preparations were made for peace talks, but the travel to a neutral summit proved too taxing for FDR, who died before he could meet Stalin face-to-face again. The war was never officially declared over, leaving a huge demilitarized “Iron Curtain” surrounding the Soviet border.

At home, the Democratic Party lost its driving force, and, in 1952, the consolidated conservatives from the Republicans pushed out the moderate Republican choice, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, calling for an end to America’s militarism with a return to isolationism within the UN. Democrat Estes Kefauver of Tennessee was no match for Robert Taft in the polls. As the new conservatives attempted to break down the New Deal in the 1950s, however, public outcry began a new era of reform, including new rights for minorities and women, furthering Roosevelt’s Bill of Rights further than he had ever imagined.

--

In reality, Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, of a large cerebral hemorrhage after following orders of two hours of rest a day and no lunch meetings. Only a few weeks later on May 8, Germany fell, ending the war in Europe. VP-turned-President Truman pronounced the day in honor of Roosevelt's efforts and wished publicly that "Franklin D. Roosevelt had lived to witness this day."