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.



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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.

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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."

Guest Post: December 16th, 1944 - George Marshall dispels the "Victory Disease"

On this day, General George C. Marshall was appointed to the newly created position of Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers Europe, Middle East And Africa (EMEA) Area.

Twelve months earlier, Dwight D. Eisenhower had been officially designated as the Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF). However both Eisenhower and his primary sub-ordinate Omar Bradley had allegedly mishandled operations during the fall. Like the Japanese senior commanders in mid-1942, they had allegedly lapsed into a condition known as "victory disease" mistakenly believing the German Army to be a push over.

Accordingly, President Roosevelt thanked Eisenhower and Bradley for their leadership of the Allied Expeditionary Force, announcing that the fullness of the troop build-up now required a freshening up of the top-level organization. And to support and expand the SHAEF command structure built by Eisenhower and Bradley, the on-the-ground presence of Marshall would be greatly advantageous to the careful navigation of the closing stages of the war.

Within Army circles, the decision was understood for what it was: the Battle of the Bulge had swept away the delusion that the troops would be home for Christmas. To broaden the scope of the changes outside the two personalities in question, Lieutenant General Courtney Hodges was relieved as the commander of the First Army. Prior to Marshall's arrival in Europe, it was alleged that he had continued ill-conceived offense operations that were basic head-on, World War I-style attacks into the teeth of well-planned and well-defended German defensive positions.

On December 18th, Eisenhower was recalled Stateside to be appointed Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army. As the second-highest-ranking officer on active duty in the Department of the Army, he would handle the day-to-day administration of the Army Staff bureaucracy, freeing the Chief of Staff to attend to the inter-service responsibilities of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Grudgingly admired by Douglas MacArthur as "the best clerk I ever had", Ike would keeping the supplies going out to the troops from the manufacturers. This vital responsibility had previously rested with George C. Marshall, however an even more urgent priority had arisen - stopping the alleged wasting of American lives. This human tragedy had resulted from the alleged mishandling of operations during the fall of 1944. The Battle of the Bulge demonstrated that the defeat of Nazi Germany was far from over and Marshall's presence was very much needed on the ground in Europe for the closing phase of the war.

 

Addendum (by Jeff Provine). With Marshall's meticulous planning, the front gradually pushed toward Germany at minimal cost to American lives following the Battle of the Bulge. General Patton was removed and dispatched to the Pacific, arguably to bury notions that war with the Soviets would follow next. In 1945, the Americans produced the first atomic bombs with one dropped on each of the remaining Axis powers, Germany and Japan. Germany folded with German citizens rebelling while Japan held strong, eventually collapsing after two more atomic strikes and the declaration of war by the USSR in 1946.

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This fictional item is based upon a reader's letter in the MHQ Autumn 2013 Edition and re-purposes significant amount of content from that article.

The Tragedy at Wuhan - Guest Post from Today in Alternate History

In 1966 on July 16, on this heart-breaking day of national tragedy and sorrow, Chairman Mao Zedong expired from a heart attack in Wuhan. He had participated earlier in a great Crossing-the-Yangzi event. Intended as a celebration of his vitality by marking a similiar event on the Long River ten years earlier (prompting his penmanship of a poem called "Swimming") instead the years of smoking and excess had taken their toll on the "Great Helmsman" and having over-exerted himself, he was dead, aged seventy-three.

However, he had been more or less forced to take this calculated risk in his doomed attempt to regain power that had slipped through his hands during the Cultural Revolution. Instead, the two major figures of Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping vied for power and ultimately, Deng would emerge as the "paramount leader" of the People's Republic of China for the next three decades even though he never actually served in the official capacity as head of state. Ironically, Deng had been close to being forced out of the Chinese elite when the Chairman had made his fateful trip to Wuhan. But as Mao himself had written "A Single spark can start a prairie fire."

Out of the chaos of the Cultural Revolution Deng's brilliant leadership would steer China towards an exhilarating future that few could have imagined in the disaster that was 1966. President Nixon would recognize "Red China" during his first term and he personally traveled to Beijing to regularize relations between two super-powers. In an unguarded and unexpectedly generous comment, he even described the Chinese as the "ablest people in the world". After Nixon came an even more surprising guest from Taiwain, Chiang Kai-shek who would build open the American initiative by establishing detente with "White China."

After a brief interregnum, it even appeared that China might restore its status as a superpower, a status it enjoyed for fifteen hundred years after the fall of the Roman Empire. But despite appearances, Deng would urge his followers to "Seek Truth from Facts". And those facts were that the country - civilization, really - was not headed towards the restoration of a Middle Kingdom. The world around China was changing, and communism itself was in retreat. By the middle of the 1980s Deng had to decide whether or not to junk the whole of Mao's legacy, including Marxist orthodoxy itself.

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Originally posted on Today in Alternate History.

April 11, 1689 – Mary Follows William of Orange in Death

After contracting an illness that historians believe to be smallpox, Mary Stuart, wife of the previously deceased Dutch Stadtholder William of Orange, died in prison after attempting to usurp her father, James II of England and VII of Scotland.

The Stuarts had only recently been returned to the throne after the Civil War in which James' father Charles I had been beheaded in 1649. Oliver Cromwell and his Protestant Parliamentarians had dominated, but their oppressive policies caused England to wish for the more peaceful days of royalty. Charles II was invited back to the throne in 1660 after Cromwell's son Richard gave up the Protectorate. The Stuarts enjoyed renewed stability and worked to defend the rights of Catholics, one of many minorities suppressed by Puritan Britain.

During Charles' reign, 1660 to 1685, much of the government's power rested in the hands of the increasingly Anglican Parliament. Puritanism fell out of favor, and the Anglican Book of Common Prayer became the mandatory base for services. Charles and his brother James proved popular as the king granted licenses for theaters for the first time in decades and both served firsthand during the Great Fire of London in 1666. Still, James had converted to Catholicism while in exile in France, and the standing government worked to limit any Catholic power, even blaming the Great Fire and attempted assassinations on Catholics. The thought of another Catholic king made Parliament nervous enough to introduce an Exclusion Bill removing James from the line of succession. Charles reacted by dissolving Parliament time and again to stop such a bill from passing. The political chaos put stress on social tempers as well as the economy, which struggled under rapidly changing taxation laws.

In 1685, Charles died suddenly, and James proved a capable, if unyielding, king. His policies were strong, pro-French, and held remarkably modern ideals of religious tolerance, which endeared him with the disenfranchised religious minorities and those seeking a stable government. Others sought to dethrone him, and James had to put down two rebellions attempting to crown his illegitimate nephew, who, as Charles’ son, was considered a “rightful” heir to the throne. In 1688, James’ son James Francis Edward was born, assuring the continuance of Catholic kings. Opponents had been hopeful that James’ daughter Mary, Protestant and wife of the popular Dutch hero William of Orange, would succeed him and now became desperate.

William had fought for years alongside other European nations to stymie growing French power under Louis XIV. He saw no way to ensure a check over the French than by the English Royal Navy at sea. James had vowed neutrality in the Continental wars with France, and not even William’s many envoys could persuade him otherwise. He determined the only way to affect English policy was to control it himself.

With encouragement from English opposition to James’ forceful attempts to repeal the Test Act, William gathered strength in the Dutch Republic. When the French were distracted in Germany, William crossed the Channel with some 15,000 men. It was calculated that James’ army were over 30,000, but any sign of victory would prompt a wave of support to go to the Protestants. William advanced slowly, hoping to erode the peoples’ belief in James. The trick seemed to work as rioters in London targeted Catholics. Nobles such as Lord Churchill of Eyemouth and James’s own daughter Anne deserted.

Seeing the riot reminded James of the chaos of the Great Fire. The flames consumed houses regardless of religion, and men had come together to fight them. It was not until afterward that loud mouths had blamed Catholics, despite the truth being a poorly doused bakery oven. James had led Londoners then, and he determined to do it again even though his troops seemed unsure in their willingness. He gathered his most loyal men and charged after William. The Dutchman was caught seemingly by surprise and knew that retreat would lose him a great deal of public opinion even though drawing the war out over the winter would surely ruin James’s position. The two armies met outside Reading, both sides joined by supporters from the city. Despite relentless assaults, the Royal army did not seem able to break the Dutch until an errant cannonball crashed near William and killed him with shrapnel.

Without their paycheck, the Dutch mercenary army collapsed. James returned to London triumphant and forced the repeal of the Test Act, creating a new Parliament with a much wider base as anyone, not just Anglicans, could hold offices. James spent the next two years putting down minor revolts using loyal troops from Ireland and Scotland, whose nobles he rewarded handsomely. His daughters, Mary and Anne, were placed in the Tower of London, where both would live out the rest of their fairly short lives. English efforts continued against the Dutch abroad and gradually supported a French-led Continent.

James II died in 1701, giving the throne to the thirteen-year-old James III, who ruled until 1766. Early in his reign, the several crowns of Britain became the United Kingdom by order of Parliament, which had incorporated Ireland among its peers. His younger counterpart in France, Louis XV, ruled from 1715 until 1774. Gradually French and English relations cooled with the demise of the Dutch Empire at French hands and the later weakening of French power during the rise of Prussia. James’s son Charles, the “Bonnie Prince,” spent much of his adventurous youthful years abroad in the colonies, where he became very popular. As Charles III, ruling until 1788, he expanded Parliament to accept petitions and approve seats from the colonies after disputes over self-rule, largely settled by public letters written by his lifelong friend Dr. Benjamin Franklin. Four-year-old Charles IV succeeded his grandfather to the throne and ruled until 1854, overseeing the American and East Indian rebellions over the issue of slavery and the beginnings of nationalistic revolts in Europe. Britain’s history of tolerance made it immune to much of the early turmoil, but its humanism took an ugly turn as eugenics sought to manage scientifically the best people.

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In reality, James chose to abandon England after Anne’s desertion. He attempted to stall William with proposals of peaceful decisions by Parliament, but when he was discovered trying to sneak out of London to France, William handily won full public support. Mary was placed on the throne alongside William, who demanded to be made co-ruler and ruled alone until succession by his sister-in-law Anne in 1702. Neither sister produced an heir, resulting in the British crown being handed to the vehemently Protestant German House of Hanover in 1714.

October 14, 1066 - Welsh Forces Overwhelm Normans at Hastings

In 1055, the King of Wales Gruffydd ap Llywelyn and King of England Edward the Confessor reached agreement that would ensure peace between their two nations.

Gruffydd had worked for his entire life piecing together the warring bands of Wales. He grew up as the lazy son of King Llywelyn ap Seisyll, the ruler of both Gwynedd and Powys who had been usurped. One New Year's Eve, he was driven into the streets by his frustrated sister to find something to do. He began loitering around the kitchens, where he heard a cook muttering about a piece of meat in the stew that kept floating to the top and had to be continually pushed back down to cook. The meat became an odd inspiration that changed his life, and he dedicated himself to achievement. Gruffydd took back rule of Powys and soon stormed Gwynedd to the north. Over the years, he stitched together the Welsh kingdoms while beating back invaders such as Danes, Normans, and English, especially the Mercians just to the east.

War with England came time and again. Welsh raids infuriated English, who counterattacked readily. When Aelfgar (husband of the famed Lady Godiva) was exiled from East Anglia and formed an army to retake his earldom in 1055, Gruffydd volunteered to join him. After they had substantial success raiding Hereford, Edward the Confessor's favorite Harold Godwinson was given an army and charged to defeat the invaders. The two allies retreated, and Harold managed to end the war through diplomacy.

A tenuous peace was struck until the death of Aelfgar in 1062. Rumors spread that Harold was eager for revenge. The aging Gruffydd determined that peace had benefited his country and sued for lasting peace. Despite intrigues plotted by Harold, Edward the Confessor, himself aged, decided that the English could use a stable ally on Britain rather than a series of weak traditional kingdoms. On his deathbed in 1066, while proclaiming Harold his successor, Edward ordered him to vow never to begin unprovoked war with Wales.

The diplomatic move proved a Godsend. While Harold held claim to the throne as legal successor, other potential kings rose up from Europe. Duke William II of Normandy gained approval from the Church to seize England; Harold organized an army on the Isle of Wight to meet him, but the Norman never showed, claiming bad winds. Meanwhile, in the north, Harold's brother Tostig and the latter-day Viking Harald Hardrada invaded with victories over locals. Harold raced from London and defeated them at Stamford Bridge on September 25.

While Harold was in the north, William appeared in the south. Harold began to march his army southward, but his troops were exhausted and many of them, conscripted peasants, deserted to return home for the harvest. Although Harold felt he could defeat William on his own, his council advised calling fresh reinforcements from their ally, Gruffydd of Wales. Begrudgingly, Harold did.

At the Battle of Hastings, the Welsh were instrumental in defeating the Normans. Norman cavalry assaulted the English shield-wall time and again, which may have crumbled if not for the surprise flanking charge done by the swift Welsh troops who had been well practiced fighting Normans. William retreated to Normandy, and Norman attention would shift southward to the rest of France and the Mediterranean. Harold affirmed himself as king and became a proud defender of Gruffydd. The English and Welsh royalty would intermarry, strengthening the alliance of both countries.

The English, Welsh, and Scots would play instrumental roles in the Crusades, all the while battling each other in wars that kept Britain largely in balance. Each would take turns at attempts to conquer Ireland with varying degrees of success. While the rest of Europe later enjoyed the Renaissance, Britain would lag behind despite a surge of technical development in Scotland from the Knights Templar hosted by the excommunicated Robert the Bruce. England followed suit after the Dutch in building an overseas empire, along with temporary colonies started by the Welsh and Scottish. but these were far outpaced by those of continental Europe, especially France, Spain, and Portugal.

In the modern era, Britain enjoyed a great deal of economic growth due to its mines rich with coal and iron. As world attention left Spain and France focusing on Germany and Russia, Britain became a quiet region of Europe known for light manufacturing and tourism in its several countries.


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In reality, the peace between England and Wales was far more delicate. Upon Aelfgar's death in 1062, Harold ambushed Gruffydd, who managed to escape only to be murdered by his own men. Normans under William the Conqueror would seize England and begin the process of uniting Britain by war and Parliamentary acts. Edward I of England completed the lasting conquest of Wales in 1283.

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Based upon an idea originally posted on Today in Alternate History.

Guest Post from Today in Alternate History: What if Ivan the Terrible's son Dmitry didn't die?

In 1591,on May 15 in the courtyard of the Uglich Fortress, Maria Nagaya frustrated a brutal assassination attempt by Boris Godunov's agents to kill her ten year son Dmitry Ivanovich, the Tsarevich of Russia. 

Following the death of her husband Ivan the Terrible, the Regency Council had moved them to safety one hundred miles north of Moscow in the fortress on the on the Volga River. Uglich was a backwater of the new Imperium, a border town of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, it was burned several times by Lithuanians, Tatars, and the grand prince of Tver.

But now, seven years later, Godunov was making a powerplay to establish himself as the first non-Rurikid tsar. This involved a bloodthirsty plot to remove the Ivanovich dynasty who were vulnerable because Ivan the Terrible had killed his eldest son in a fit of rage, and his two surviving sons the intellectually disabled Feodor and the infant Ivan of Uglich (to distinguish him from another child called Ivan who died in infancy in 1553)).Instead, a new Regent was appointed and Dmitry later succeeded to the throne upon his maturity [1].

Viewed in retrospective over the following centuries, the assumption of a strongman might well have benefited the Empire which now began to exhibit many of the ill-fated characteristics of the history of Uglich. Of course it is impossible to determine with certainty whether Godunov was a destructive character of pure evil or rather a potential savour willing to get his hands dirty for the good of Russia. Perhaps such a "knight in rusty armour" - or even a dynastic handover say to the Romanovs - might well have been a blessing because what happened next was that Ivan the Terrible's line set about destroying the patriarch's legacy. Nevertheless the preservation of his line was understandable, after all, he had reorganized the Russian hierarchy during his development from Grand Prince of Moscow to Tsar of all the Russias. But what was left being was a vassal state easily manipulated by Lithuanian, Polish, and Swedish interests with the Orthodox Church rising the fill the vacuum of authority.

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In reality the 10-year old boy was found dead with his throat cut in the palace courtyard. [1] in reality his death passed the line to his younger brother Ivan; he died in 1583, Gordunov became Tsar.

First posted on Today in Alternate History