Today in Alternate History

Walpurgis Night; The Alien Sedition Amendment

in 779, the Norse priestess Valborg died in Wurtemburg. Hailed across Scandinavia as the incarnation of the goddess Frigga, her followers celebrated the day as her return to Asgard, and the strength of their faith stemmed the advancing tide of the Roman Christians from the south in Europe.

in 1609, Conspirators of the Speaker’s Line placed one of their own, George Villiers, close to King James I. He uses the treasury of England to finance both their schemes and his faction of the Speaker’s Line against their enemies the Conquerors.

in 12-11-3-11-13, the Seminole people, having angered the Oueztecan Emperor, were driven from their ancestral home on the eastern coast to the central plains. This Trail of Tears decimated their numbers and almost wiped them out as a culture.

in 1870, Hiram Revels, an African-American minister from Mississippi, was sworn in as the first African-American senator in the nation’s history. Since freed slaves were granted the vote in the south after the Civil War, the huge numbers of African-Americans there made their presence known and sent scores of their number to Congress. This led to the phenomenon known as White Flight, when large numbers of former Confederates, unwilling to be governed by those who had been their slaves, moved into the country’s north and west.

Continue reading

in 1890, Charles Johnson, the Communist Party’s leading international revolutionary, was born in Clark County, Tennessee. Comrade Johnson was responsible for the successful people’s revolts in Columbia, Uruguay, Mexico and Namibia, and died attempting to foment a rebellion against the European monarchy of Spain in 1936.

in 1957, Buddy Holly and the Crickets recorded their first major hit, That’ll Be The Day. The Crickets became a small backup band during the 60’s, but Holly eclipsed Elvis as the biggest musical star in the world over the next three decades.

in 1964, Olympic gold-medal winner Cassius Clay won the World Heavyweight Boxing Championship against the heavily favored champion, Sonny Liston. The flamboyant young man lived a lifestyle to match his personality afterwards – he spent his large purses as soon as they were won. The Nation of Islam’s minister Malcolm X tried to recruit Clay into the religion, but Clay was having too much fun to join. It all came crashing to an end when he was drafted in 1967; he died during the Tet Offensive in Vietnam.

in 1985, the Constitutionalists in Congress pass the Alien Sedition Amendment and send it to the states for ratification. The amendment strips citizens of their rights if they are found guilty of treason; it also widens the definition of treason considerably, making virtually any action against the government punishable.

Visit "Today in Alternate History"