October 31, 1908 - Olympics Conclude with Spiritualist Competition

Having lasted over six months since April, the third modern Olympic Games would be the longest ever held. It was packed with memorable moments, such as British runner Wyndham Halswelle winning a walkover gold in the re-run 400 meter race, his three American competitors refusing to participate since the call for re-running was based on unclear rules. In other debated events, the first runner to complete the marathon, Italian Dorando Pietri, was disqualified since he entered the stadium in a daze and ran the last leg backwards. No one questioned the success of Swede Oscar Swahn, who at 60 years old won gold in shooting and would become the oldest gold medalist ever at 64 in the 1912 Olympics. He returned for the 1920 Olympics at age 72 to set another record as the oldest athlete ever to compete in the games.

A young medium displays how high she can be levitated.

Other notable activities at the games included exhibitions of sports such as dueling and figure skating. None, however, would be as memorable as the display of spiritualism in which competitors worked with trained teams of spirits to give the most incredible demonstration of ghostly activity.

While contact with the dead occurs in ancient writings and oral traditions to time immemorial, modern spiritualism evolved out of the religious reform taking place in the United States during the 1840s. Disappointed in the establishment for its lack of voice against slavery, freethinkers went as far as calling for women’s rights and humane care for sufferers of mental illness. Out of this movement, young Kate and Margaret Fox of Hydesville, New York, reported that they had been able to communicate with a spirit. Their fame grew but was soon eclipsed by Cora Scott, who began lecture circuits while the Fox Sisters had primarily held séances to a select few guests. Many other mediums began appearing on the popular stage throughout the nation and abroad, especially before the famous Ghost Club of London, directed at scientific investigations of ghostly phenomena.

For a generation, the western world was divided on the issue of contact with spirits. Many religious figures held it as witchcraft, spurring backlash that fed into several riots in major cities and the countryside. Skeptics spotted numerous frauds, but the 1887 Seybert Commission determined to the best of its judgment that about half their cases of rapping, spirit photography, and objects moved by unseen hands were genuine. Over time, it became a standard affair to contact a love one who had passed or attend a display of spiritualist feats as one might a circus. Famed magician Harry Houdini made a second career as an investigator for the FBI, discerning true mediums from those who were illusionists practicing tricks.

The spiritualism exhibition in 1908 featured several categories in which mediums competed. Mediums were judged on how high they could be levitated into the air, how loudly a prompted spirit could knock, and by the amount of ectoplasm produced by weight. Many brought their preferred spirits along with them, while others hoped to do their best with whoever might be wandering around the other side at the time.

Although such exhibitions would not be included in future Olympics, contact with the spirit world continued to be an important aspect of the twentieth century, especially following the large numbers of dead in the First World War. Most of the Olympic committee’s attention toward ghosts was in the search for frauds, such as the case in 1928 when Oscar Swahn returned, one year after his death, for another silver medal in shooting by possessing a younger athlete.

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In reality, the Fox Sisters stated that their activities were a prank, with their infamous “rappings” actually being the popping of toe joints. Every case reviewed by the Seybert Commission was found to be a hoax.

October 25, 1931 - Edison’s ‘Spirit Phone’ First Demonstrated

One week after his own death, Thomas Edison proved himself once more to be an incredible inventor. Using a device he had worked on in secret for a decade, his assistants were able to contact Edison beyond the grave. An astounded crowd of press and socialites heard the first public words sent via Spirit Phone, fittingly those of its own creator, “It is very beautiful over here!”

Edison had managed a legendary career as an inventor and businessman. After being fired from his telegraph job for an electric battery experiment gone awry that destroyed his boss’s desk, Edison pursued his passions in creating new devices, including the quadraplex telegraph (1874), a phonograph (1877), an incandescent lightbulb (1879). Through the years, Edison would collect over one thousand patents, many focusing on improving technology and creating a new way of life for millions of people around the globe.

Toward the end of his own life, Edison became more philosophical. He wrote a commentary entitled “Spiritualism,” analyzing facets of the paranormal movement that had once more seized the public interest. While skeptics like Harry Houdini worked to disprove frauds, Edison stated that he did believe that “our personality hereafter will be able to affect matter.” Echoing the laws of conservation of matter and energy, Edison held that “life is undestructable.” He described a constant amount of “life units” on the planet, which would be broken apart upon death and reshuffled as “swarms” that made up aspects of every plant, animal, thought, and memory in the world.

Although Edison’s perceived seat of human personality in the Broca’s Area of the brain proved to be questionable, the Spirit Phone did show that souls lived on. Those who had recently passed away were contacted easily enough for final farewells. Those who had died long ago, however, seemed to have already been shuffled into absence. Teams of curious historians brought the Spirit Phone to reportedly haunted castles and churches, competing to find the oldest entity still able to communicate. Firsthand accounts from events centuries before soon became readily available.

The Spirit Phone proved instrumental to police, who were able to solve numerous murders simply by dialing up the victim for a statement. Soon each major police station had its own Spirit Phone and trained operator to summon potential witnesses. Prosecutors had more difficulty gaining convictions in court as recordings were often questioned or thrown out altogether. Further court matters arose when spirits sought to amend their wills and yet were legally dead, thus not having property rights.

Religious figures denounced the Spirit Phone despite its success in having past relatives use passwords or citing memories no one else could know about. Counterarguments suggested that the phone was being tampered with by demonic forces. Others held the phone as an ever more elaborate hoax. Edison himself had been called an atheist for years, although he routinely described his beliefs in the Supreme Intelligence.

In 1933, the newly deceased Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet gave a limited address via Spirit Phone to discourage its use. He stated that the device prompted entities to remain tied to the mortal realm rather than passing on to become one with eternity, which would tip the delicate balance of life and death. Following the development of ghost-driven machines due to the need for manpower in World War II, many living people began to agree with him, although few would readily give up the Spirit Phone outright.

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In reality, the invention is largely said to be myth, especially by the Edison Estate, who claim to have not seen any evidence of designs or prototypes in any of Edison’s work despite an interview in the October 1920 issue of Forbes magazine that he was working on such a device. Edison himself told the New York Times in 1926, “I really had nothing to tell him, but I hated to disappoint him, so I thought up this story about communicating with spirits, but it was all a joke.” Through the years, many other electronic devices often nicknamed “ghost boxes” have claimed to be able to communicate with the spirit realm. Skeptics remain unconvinced while believers feel that the human spirit can indeed affect electromagnetic fields and thus speak from beyond the grave.

Guest Post: Benedict Arnold Rescues John Andre

On October 2, 1780, British Army officer Major John André was due to be hanged as a spy at Tappan, New York. In the morning, André was marched to the gallows. An executioner called Strickland had been hired by the patriots to secure the rope to the tree. But Benedict Arnold had gotten to Strickland and bribed him an enormous amount of money to have the rope slip. As the drummer ended, André was given his final words, and the thirty-year-old gave a short oration summed up, "As I suffer in the defence of my Country, I must consider this hour as the most glorious of my life - Remember that I die as becomes a British Officer, while the manner of my death must reflect disgrace on your Commander...I am reconciled to my death, but I detest the mode... I pray you to bear me witness that I meet my fate like a brave man."

The trap was pulled, and André fell. Carefully filed by Strickland, the rope snapped. Before the guard could react, a group of loyalists let off a rifle barrage, gathering the crowd's attention. Arnold dove through the chaos and whisked away both Strickland and the stunned André, who would come out of the affair with a scar from the rope-burn around his throat. New York City would continue in an uproar for several days while André was hidden and finally sneaked out in the disguise of a milkmaid.

The rebel commander, George Washington, was reportedly so despondent at the news of Arnold's treachery that his officers had to wrestle a pistol away from him lest he kill himself. On the basis of romantic letters, he had foolishly believed that the plans to West Point had been passed to André by Arnold's loyalist wife Peggy Shippe who had been having an affair with the handsome young spy. Meanwhile, Sir Henry Clinton, the British commander in New York had done all that he could to save André, his favourite aide, but refused to surrender Arnold in exchange for André even though he personally despised Arnold. Fortunately this web of dis-loyalties was untangled by André himself. He put a bullet into the turncoat's head just a few miles from Tappan, executing him with the harsh words "Leave me till you can show yourself more manly!"

Author's Note: in reality Strickland had been confined at the camp in Tappan as a dangerous Tory during Andrés trial and was granted liberty for accepting the duty of hangman and returned to his home in the Ramapo Valley or Smith's Clove, and nothing further of him is known. 1) he actually said this words to his own servant who entered the room in tears on the morning of his execution.



This article was originally posted on Today in Alternate History.

Born September 17, 1857 - Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, First Rocketeer

Although growing up in rural Russian Empire and suffering partial deafness due to scarlet fever at age ten, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky would become one of the most internationally known figures of engineering as father of aerodynamics and rocketry. His handicap kept him out of traditional classrooms, so young Tsiolkovksy taught himself through reading and solving mathematics. As a teenager, he moved to Moscow to read in the great library. There he read the science fiction works of Frenchman Jules Verne such as From the Earth to the Moon that would fascinate him with space travel for a lifetime.

Tsiolkovsky returned to the countryside at 19, marrying and earning his teaching certificate, continuing his research as a hobby outside of class. In 1881, he published his “Theory of Gases,” which correctly deduced principal laws of matter that, unbeknownst to Tsiolkovsky, had already been determined decades before. Tsiolkovsky finally earned a position with the Russian Physcio-Chemical Society discussing “The Mechanics of the Animal Organism.” Then he turned his attention to the problem of flight.

The bulk of Tsiolkovsky’s work focused on metal-clad airships, which were much sturdier than blimps but suffered from their great weight. Working in his free time with his own means, Tsiolkovsky designed his own craft and tested his models in Russia’s first experimentally-accessible wind tunnel, which he himself constructed. Although he soon began to turn his attention to rigid, heavier-than-air aircraft, it was his wind tunnel that caught the attention of German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin.

By 1900, Zeppelin found acclaim with the successful launch of the LZ1 zeppelin, but his success also brought his company into the midst of legal allegations of patent infringement. Reviewing the countless scientific journals and intellectual property documents, Zeppelin came across Tsiolkovsky’s old works and immediately sought him out as a consultant for streamlining his vessels. After much convincing and signed documents of financial support, Tsiolkovsky moved to Germany and began his research on an industrial scale.

Through the years, Zeppelin would often complain that Tsiolkovsky went “off topic” in his research, which was intended to be improvements for the colossal lighter-than-air behemoths. However, Tsiolkovsky showed again and again that the ungainliness and drag of the huge craft would hold them back while airplanes continued to surge forward. The two modes of thought were gradually brought together in Tsiolkovsky’s designs of an aerodynamically faired, fast-moving hybrid craft, which crossed the Atlantic in a fraction of the time an ocean liner could. Both Tsiolkovsky and Zeppelin greatly agreed on the importance of airboats, although their development of hovercraft would be eclipsed by the conquest of the skies.

Tsiolkovsky’s 1914 display of model craft at the Werkbund Exhibition in Cologne was met with international nods until the fair was closed early due to the declaration of World War I. Although disappointed, Tsiolkovsky soon had his attention diverted again when the German military showed interest in rocketry, yet another of Tsiolkovsky’s background hobbies. By the time of the Battle of Verdun in 1916, rockets were being launched from artillery sites well behind the German lines into the streets of Paris. Although ecstatic about the triumphs in range and height, Tsiolkovsky showed visible depression at the news of destruction wrought by his rockets.

Upon the death of Ferdinand von Zeppelin in 1917, Tsiolkovsky turned in his resignation and moved to America for an extended visit to his longtime pen pal, Robert Goddard. Goddard carried out his own rocket work in the New Mexico desert with a Smithsonian grant and sponsorship from the Army Signal Corps, but Tsiolkovsky pushed him to seek industrial applications. Goddard was suspicious about losing control of his work, but Tsiolkovsky’s encouragement and imagination for applied science proved to be beneficial as money thinned out with the closing of World War I.

While Germany was banned from rocket production with the Treaty of Versailles, the 1920s became the Rocket Age for the United States. Rocket-mail became a method for rapid delivery of post, outpacing even propeller airplanes that handled more delicate packages. Tsiolkovsky began blending his ideas to create manned rocketcraft that used gas turbine engines. Most notable, of course, was his aspiration for human spaceflight, which led to Charles Lindberg’s famous jaunt beyond the atmosphere in 1927.

Tsiolkovsky died in 1935 after an emergency surgery for stomach cancer after spending his final years working on anti-missile missiles. Although these designs were never successfully tested in his lifetime, his search-and-destroy methods of navigation laid groundwork for modern computing. Tsiolkovsky feared rocket-mail delivered across the Atlantic could easily be turned to intercontinental ballistics, a fear realized as World War II erupted.

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In reality, Tsiolkovsky was largely unknown outside of the Soviet Union, where he was awarded scientific recognition late in life. During his lifetime, he was considered a weird loner, but his work inspired generations of rocket scientists like Wernher von Braun and the many serving in the Soviet space program.

August 19, 1946 – Saxophonist Billy Blythe Born

Although he was known as William Jefferson Clinton for several years as a young man, as a famed member of the music industry, he would forever be known as Billy Blythe. William Blythe, Senior, Billy’s father, was a traveling salesman who died in a traffic accident just months before his son was born. The young widow and new mother, Virginia, made ends meet as a nurse. In 1950, she married Roger Clinton, a car dealer in nearby Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Clinton would prove a dominating force in Billy’s young life. He took his stepfather’s surname informally, though he refused to ever take it legally, one of many issues that arose between them. Clinton was a gambler and alcoholic, and he took out his struggles on Billy’s mother and younger half-brother, Roger, Jr. As Billy grew older, he stood up to his stepfather violently, and soon regular fights broke out in the Clinton household.

When Billy was sixteen, the same year Virginia divorced Clinton, he won first chair in saxophone in the Arkansas state band. This, he determined, would be his ticket out of his family’s struggles in Arkansas. Despite interests in being a doctor or even public servant, Billy focused on his music, dreaming of becoming a great like John Coltrane or Stan Getz. Upon graduation from high school, he moved to California and worked to establish a career.

If Billy lacked in talent, he more than made up for it in personality and his uncanny ability to make connections. He crossed paths with his idol Stan Getz several times as Getz won awards with his bossa nova style alongside talents such as Joao and Astrud Gilberto. Getz’s affair with Astrud broke their collaboration and created a turning point in Getz’s career. Billy, who would himself become infamous for his many affairs, worked his way into Getz’s circle and is often credited with turning the great saxophonist’s attention back toward cool jazz.

Working on albums with Getz and others, Billy’s true fame came when he burned his draft card and began his “Canadian Tour” after his name was announced for the Vietnam War effort. He eclipsed Getz and began playing peppier music in tune with the taste of his new, much younger fans. Although scandal would break out when it was discovered that Billy’s uncle had led a failed effort to get Billy into the Navy Reserve and thus wait out the war at home, Billy avoided any bad press in America by hopping the Atlantic and playing venues in Europe into the mid-1970s.

After Billy’s return during the Carter years, he continued to be loud in his politics, although it was the terms of Ronald Reagan that brought him to his height. The saxophone had become a widely popular instrument, and Billy’s concerts surpassed those of Kenny G and others. Billy proved to be a savvy businessman and was soon demanding hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single appearance. Blythe Merchandising became a multi-million-dollar company, which transitioned into Blythe Entertainment as Billy’s personal fame dimmed.

Billy found that his smooth personality translated well into the backroom dealings of the music industry. Numerous stars of the nineties and new millennium owed their fame to his patronage, although later stories were told over how deep his take was, not to mention his routine encounters with interns. Billy’s name still often sprang into the news for a land investment scandal or the like, although his greatest legacy seemed to live on through his ongoing campaign for the legalization of marijuana, claiming, “I always inhale.”

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In reality, according to his autobiography My Life, Clinton only threatened violent repercussions to protect his mother and half-brother. “I loved music and thought I could be very good, but I knew I would never be John Coltrane or Stan Getz. I was interested in medicine and thought I could be a fine doctor, but I knew I would never be Michael DeBakey. But I knew I could be great in public service.” Clinton went to Georgetown on scholarship and became president of his class, the first of many successful campaigns, including President of the United States in 1992 and 1996.

Guest Post from Allen W. McDonnell: July 31, 1630 - Humiliating Tready of Madrid

 This post first appeared on Today in Alternate History.


As a result of the treaty, King Charles faced a new crisis: the claims of Sir Robert Heath to Cape Hatteras are now null and void and a number of wealthy Caribbean plantations owned by English colonists are no longer in English territory. Any troubles those colonists have with the Spanish became their own concern from then on. It was not long before they are pressured to leave by the Spanish, who want to take over their profitable trade.  Having no other legal recourse, they turn to King Charles who grants them land in 'North Virginia,' including what would have been Delaware and Maryland. The cash crops that do well in this region is not sugar cane, which had made them all wealthy, but indigo and tobacco.

Not realizing just how different the climate in New England is from that of England and Scotland, King Charles issued a new grant to Sir Robert Heath for New Scotland directly north of New England where Scots would be encouraged to colonize. As a result the first forts were built at Dundee, New Scotland, in 1635 on a truly excellent harbor discovered just south of the 45 degree parallel.

Queen Mary suffered an infection after the birth of her second child, the Princess Mary, and dies December 1, 1631. The sympathy generated for King Charles was substantial, and his decision to marry an young English noble woman of Anglican faith relieved most of the fears his nobles have about a secret cabal of Catholics trying to over turn the protestant reformation in England.

Queen Anne had ambitions for her own children. Her older step-child Charles was raised as a devout Anglican and was invested as Prince of Wales with all the honors and responsibilities on his 10th birthday in 1640. Under Anne's influence, the Princess Mary was not only raised as a devout Anglican but was made Duchess of New England in 1646 on her 15th birthday.

Charles I and Queen Anne had many children whom Anne insisted on naming in what she considered truly English royal name fashion. Her seven sons were Alfred, Edmund, Edgar, Harold, Stephen, Richard and William. Her four daughters were named Anne, Elizabeth, Imogene and Olivia.

Queen Anne had a profound influence over King Charles, encouraging him to sponsor many more colonial settlements in North America, though Charles insisted on placing them all north of the 36 degree treaty line with Spain. As a result, by the time he died at the advanced age of 60, New England and New Scotland have substantial populations.

When Charles II was invested with the crowns of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1660, his sister Duchess Mary of New England moved her household to Boston. Though very small by English or even Scottish standards, her patronage soon created a thriving upper class set of establishments, like the Boston Opera house, and her palace on Nob Hill is beautiful and elegant, designed by an English architect and built by immigrant craftsmen.

Though Charles II was deemed by most to be a successful monarch, he was much more interested in the fleshpots than the day to day running of the kingdoms; he left that to his bureaucracy while he enjoyed the good life. Unfortunately his wife was unable to provide him an heir, though several stillborn children did result from the marriage. When Charles II passed in 1685 at the relatively young age of 54 from heart failure, he was hardly missed by the general public.

His half-brother Alfred inherited the throne because he had no legitimate children, but his reign was fairly short, lasting only until 1689 when he died from a bad fall off of his horse while fox hunting. Unlike his half-brother, King Alfred had several legitimate children with his wife, and by that time several grandchildren as well to carry on the line. His eldest son, Richard, became king in 1689 and pledged to carry on the 'New Colony' project King Alfred had begun in far southern South America.

Reasoning that Spain is much too strong for England to challenge successfully and that the easy to settle land near the cost of New England and New Scotland has already been distributed King Alfred had sent an expedition to explore and claim lands south of the 36 degree latitude in South America. The expedition had mapped the coast starting at 36 degrees south and discovered the Falkland islands quite by accident on its return journey having come back to London just a month before King Alfred hunting accident.

An excellent harbor had been discovered at 38 degrees 45 minutes south on the coast. and a small garrison had been left behind in a hastily assembled fort to make the English claim more secure. King Richard IV spent lavishly to support the colony, renamed New Wales, and the village Fort Alfred in honor of his father's ambitions. The land around Fort Alfred turned out to be very fertile and convincing colonists to move in with land grants was not difficult. Soon satellite colonies farther and farther south along the coast are planted, though, after about 150 miles, farming became predominantly ranching instead of crop oriented.

In that 150 mile swath of New Wales, grain farms prospered alongside legumes and scattered tobacco and indigo farms, reversing the order in North America. The farther south a farm is, the colder the winters and the harder it is to grow some crops, to the point that at the further reaches like the Falkland Islands are dominated by sheep ranching and fishing rather than field crops.

Meanwhile in North America, Duchess Mary of New England passed away in 1695, passing the duchy to her grandson Henry, her oldest son James having predeceased her. Like his cousin King Richard, Duke Henry was ambitious and wants to see his duchy prosper. In his case, he encouraged settlers to expand his borders north to the Saint Lawrence river valley and west to the coast of Lake Ontario. With a solid population base due to the high number of immigrants sponsored by King Charles I and the bureaucracy continuing those practices during the reign of Charles II, it was not long before the entire Saint Lawrence valley and western end of Lake Ontario's shoreline were settled with good New Englander pioneers hacking down the forests and planting English villages all across the landscape.

Author's Note: in reality England renounced supporting the rebels of the Spanish Netherlands and the Protestants in Germany.The unfair Treaty of Madrid was signed between Spain and England, ending war between the two powers. A late addition to the treaty required England to relinquish all claims to territory in America further from the pole than the 36th parallel. The latitude was chosen because it was believed to be the center of the Strait of Gibraltar at the time of the negotiations though it is actually somewhat closer to the European side.