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Has the Nibelungen treasure been found yet, come to think of it?
And the swords Balmung (Siegfried's sword) or Mimung (Wieland/Wayland the Smith's sword, made from iron powder mixed with grain, fed to chickens, extracted from the feces and then forged in fire..."Thees sword weel cluck, cut and keel!" Seriously, some enterprising/curious smith in @ mixed iron with chicken shit, forged it and the nitrogen in the shit turned the iron into a steel-like metal)? Not to mention the swords he made for the French/Franks: Durandal, Cortana, Joyeuse...
And what is emperor Barbarossa doing under the Kyffhäuser mountain?
There's also the role of the Brocken mountain in witches' and warlocks' mythology to consider. Walpurgis Night and all that.
The Nibelung’s treasure hoard has been sought for hundreds of years in one form or another, but remains just out of touch. I don’t want to say much more, as it might give away a future plot twist, but the circumstances of the treasure are akin to those of a roundish table in the Robin of Sherwood episode ‘The Inheritance’, whereby they are normally ‘outside of time’ until certain times and things happen.
Gram is similarly trapped in a runestone, but in the past. There might be a way to break this enchantment, but it is a complex one.
Wayland forged seven great swords, known by many names through the ages, but I must confess I hadn’t given much note to Mimung, beyond it lying in a barrow mound. I’m vaguely familiar with the experiment: https://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/ ... forged.pdf
Joyeuse is in the French Crown Jewels and Curtana with those of England, but Durandal was hidden beneath Roland’s body and thus concealed by the earth, until such a day comes where the sun stands still (or seems to do so) again.
I have a great interest in ‘kings under the mountain’ of all sorts, so the classic tale of Barbarossa is true here. Those who sleep are again ‘outside of time’ in a sort of pocket dimension that has particular entrances (and an exit) that only open at particular times. Like many tales of faerie, time runs differently there, so that someone who stumbles across it may find themselves having missed a fair bit of time, or coming out in another period altogether.
Brocken mountain has a long history of black magic back in the seasons of the witch, with it being involved in the climactic events of the 1470s that bore a passing similarity to the 1992 CRPG Darklands; I definitely want to do a story set in Dark Earth Medieval Germany that weaves in some of these elements along with the best elements of Warhammer FRPG.
The Nibelung’s treasure hoard has been sought for hundreds of years in one form or another, but remains just out of touch. I don’t want to say much more, as it might give away a future plot twist, but the circumstances of the treasure are akin to those of a roundish table in the Robin of Sherwood episode ‘The Inheritance’, whereby they are normally ‘outside of time’ until certain times and things happen.
Gram is similarly trapped in a runestone, but in the past. There might be a way to break this enchantment, but it is a complex one.
Wayland forged seven great swords, known by many names through the ages, but I must confess I hadn’t given much note to Mimung, beyond it lying in a barrow mound. I’m vaguely familiar with the experiment: https://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/ ... forged.pdf
Joyeuse is in the French Crown Jewels and Curtana with those of England, but Durandal was hidden beneath Roland’s body and thus concealed by the earth, until such a day comes where the sun stands still (or seems to do so) again.
I have a great interest in ‘kings under the mountain’ of all sorts, so the classic tale of Barbarossa is true here. Those who sleep are again ‘outside of time’ in a sort of pocket dimension that has particular entrances (and an exit) that only open at particular times. Like many tales of faerie, time runs differently there, so that someone who stumbles across it may find themselves having missed a fair bit of time, or coming out in another period altogether.
Brocken mountain has a long history of black magic back in the seasons of the witch, with it being involved in the climactic events of the 1470s that bore a passing similarity to the 1992 CRPG Darklands; I definitely want to do a story set in Dark Earth Medieval Germany that weaves in some of these elements along with the best elements of Warhammer FRPG.
Cool. I was actually referring to the same document as you did (among others...my hobby of forging cutlery led me to a bit of background research). As I was born and grew up in Kiel, it's especially great
September
September 1: Bobby Fischer secures the World Chess Championship over Boris Spassky in Reykjavik, reaching the winning threshold of 12.5 points out of 21 and winning the prize purse of $250,000.
September 2: Tupamaros leader Raul Sendic is captured in an intense shootout with Uruguayan Army forces, taken under heavy guard to the Plaza de Independencia and summarily hanged, having previously been sentenced to death in absentia.
September 3: The conservative nationalist Sangkum Riastr Niyum of King Norodom Sihanouk wins a plurality of votes in the Cambodian general election, ensuring that they will remain in government.
September 4: American swimmer Mark Spitz becomes the first Olympian to win eight gold medals at a single Olympic Games, setting world records in each of the 100m and 200m freestyle, the 100m and 200m butterfly, the 100m trudgen and the 100m freestyle, 200m freestyle relay and the 100m medley relay and becoming the toast of both Constantinople and the United States.
September 5: A daring attempted robbery of Montreal Museum of Fine Arts robbery is foiled by the attendance of no less than four costumed superheroes, with some commentators subsequently criticising the supposed superhero communication and coordination network for unnecessary concentration of limited assets.
September 6: A new Summer Olympics record is set in the Chariot final, with Stavros Nikephoros completing the 2000m course in the extraordinary time of 1:52 in front of 250,000 cheering spectators at the Great Hippordrome of Constantinople.
September 7: The Soviet Union begins the process of disconnecting dissidents from the regular telephone network under a special directive under Section 74 of Soviet Regulations on Communications, instead limiting them to a restricted subnetwork of predominantly government service numbers, often highly congested; this is considered to be a more optimum means of social control than wholesale deprivation.
September 8: The Menswear and Ladys Wear departments of Grace Brothers department store in London are reopened, combined on a single floor after the unfortunate incident involving the former Menswear department, former maintenance employee Mr. Frank Spencer, the Clapham omnibus and an escaped velociraptor from London Zoo.
September 9: Dwarven spelunkers in Kentucky discover a cave passageway extending upwards of 150 miles, the longest such natural link found in the upper levels of the American Underworld.
September 10: A peasant rebellion against Imperial authority begins in Western Szechuan, purportedly lead by the near legendary folk hero Shou Chang.
September 11: The closing ceremony of Constantinople Olympics is held after 16 days of marvelous and fair competition, with IOC President Avery Brundage hailing them as the greatest of the modern era. The United States of America tops the medal count with 105, followed by the Soviet Union with 96, Germany 44, Japan 36, Austria-Hungary 35, Britain 30, Australia 29, Poland 27, France 25 and the host nation Greece with 24.
September 12: British paratroopers of the 5th Airborne Brigade and Gurkha Parachute Battalion seize Entebbe Airport in a predawn airborne assault as part of Operation Oblivion, the removal of the Ugandan government and the restoration of order. Special Air Service troopers arrest the unreliable elements of the government in conjunction with Imperial Police commandos from the Special Wizardry and Tactics section They are followed by an airlift of the 36th Infantry Brigade and the 2nd Commando Brigade, with a strike force of the 9th Royal Marine Brigade landing in Kampala after a 300 mile high-speed super hovercraft journey from Mwanza, Tanganyika, whilst the 1st African Division advances over road and by rotodyne from Kenya. The Ugandan Army largely acts in accordance with directions from its officers and NCOs to remain in their barracks.
September 13: A proposal for the sale of wine, beer and alcoholic spirits in English grocers, corner shops, general stores and supermarkets is declined by the Ministry of Trade and Industry on the grounds of deleterious effects on social morality.
September 14: Completion of the highly secret British Commonwealth Strategic Defence Reserve Plan, setting out specific reserve equipment and munition levels to be maintained by component nations, new regional underground prepositioning centres and scheduling of the construction of new factories in distributed locations to facilitate the various goals.
September 15: SAS Flight 130 is hijacked over Central Sweden by Croatian separatists whilst en route between Gothenburg and Stockholm. It is escorted to Malmo by Royal Swedish Air Force Drakens, where negotiations follow for several hours before a team from the Drabantkår's Sarskilda Angreppstvinga wearing invisibility cloaks storm the aircraft in conjunction with deployment of specially enhanced vintage surstromming, freeing the hostages and taking all of the hapless terrorists alive.
September 16: Protests against the liberal reform agenda of the Shah of Persia begin across a number of Persian cities, with the Imperial Gendarmerie and SAVAK monitoring the developments at this stage.
September 17: US Navy SEALs storm an isolated floating research facility in the South Pacific where a clandestine team of scientists were experimenting with sorcerously modified mako sharks in an effort to create an undersea monstrosity for a secretive mad scientist; their efforts had been delayed by eccentric demands for the inclusion of ray guns on the sharks. The base and the mutants are destroyed and the scientists taken into custody for interrogation.
September 18: The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Romania hold an extraordinary emergency meeting on the recent spate of vampire attacks in Bucharest, Targoviste and Bistrita and their baleful significance.
September 19: Reverend Elvis Presley leads his trusty posse to rescue Mrs Virginia Piper and a dozen other kidnapped women being held a wicked gangster ring masquerading as a folk music film crew, with the fight for deliverance being aided ably by the group of underground mercenaries from Los Angeles and a quartet of British bardic adventurers.
September 20: Former world heavyweight boxing champion Floyd Patterson announces a comeback with a bout scheduled with up and coming Austro-Hungarian prospect József Bugner.
September 21: Testing on the Vickers Skyguard anti-missile laser defence system begins in Britain, with the high powered laser ray gun offering the potential for significant capability advances in short and medium range air defence.
September 22: The Japanese Foreign Minister arrives in Manila for talks with the Filipino government on a raft of proposed commercial and military export agreements.
September 23: Unveiling of Moo-La the Cow, a giant cow statue in Stephenville, Texas marking the achievements of the local dairy industry. The ceremonial occasion is rather interrupted by Moo-La beginning to talk, querying why she was atop the pedestal and when she was going to be milked. A local wizard is later fined $2000 for the prank, but Moo-La’s occasional public comments become a mark of local pride and distinction.
September 24: Two French condemned criminals are guillotined for the murder of prison guards in an attempted jail break.
September 25: Governor Reagan scores a decisive win in the first Presidential debate against Senator Humphrey, attracting plaudits for his charismatic oratory, sunny optimism and his conclusion that 'It is now a time for change and to make our great nation greater yet.'
September 26: The first USAF squadrons permanently deployed to the Middle East as part of USAFME arrive in their new bases in the Sinai.
September 27: Operation Oblivion draws to a conclusion, as the British forces hand over the security role to a stabilisation force of South African and Kenyan troops, who augment the 1st African Division’s support mission. The interim Ugandan government, made up of African, Indian, Arab and White members, has been successful to date in maintaining general order and public services.
September 28: The Canadian national hockey team wins the hard fought ‘Summit Series’ against the highly fancied Soviet Union.
September 29: Commander Virgil Tibbs becomes the first Negro to head a major police force in the United States when he is promoted to lead the Pasadena Police Department. Tibbs, known for his incisive detective skills and relentless work ethic (often labouring away well into the heat of the night) had previously pledged to keep on the streets as much as possible, rather than riding a desk.
September 30: The Egyptian Ministry of Defence announces that two new divisions of the Egyptian Army are to be formed over the next three years, along with plans to acquire up to 2000 modern tanks and new fighter jets.
September 8: The Menswear and Ladys Wear departments of Grace Brothers department store in London are reopened, combined on a single floor after the unfortunate incident involving the former Menswear department, former maintenance employee Mr. Frank Spencer, the Clapham omnibus and an escaped velociraptor from London Zoo.
"Oooh, Betty, the velociraptor has done a woopsie on the carpet!"
I trust Mrs Slocombe's pussy was not harmed in the incident?
“Frankly, I had enjoyed the war… and why do people want peace if the war is so much fun?” - Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart
jemhouston wrote: ↑Sun Dec 10, 2023 5:43 pm
1. Which Pasadena Police Department? There are a number of Pasadenas in the US?
2. Did Governor Reagan promise to not to use Senator Humphrey youth and inexperience against him?
Pasadena, California, as he was in the original novels.
Reagan doesn’t use that line, as he is only 61 in 1972 and Humphrey is only 3 months younger than him. Taft was older when elected in 1952, as was Truman in 1948; he is substantially older than JFK, but this isn’t a bug. Age isn’t a factor in this election, even before general treatments and certain advances make the candidates look 10 years younger.
September 8: The Menswear and Ladys Wear departments of Grace Brothers department store in London are reopened, combined on a single floor after the unfortunate incident involving the former Menswear department, former maintenance employee Mr. Frank Spencer, the Clapham omnibus and an escaped velociraptor from London Zoo.
"Oooh, Betty, the velociraptor has done a woopsie on the carpet!"
I trust Mrs Slocombe's pussy was not harmed in the incident?
Bernard, that is exactly the type of image I was looking to conjure with that sequence!
Her pussy was at home in her flat, so was far away from the ravages of the most dangerous creature in London (Frank).
jemhouston wrote: ↑Sun Dec 10, 2023 5:43 pm
1. Which Pasadena Police Department? There are a number of Pasadenas in the US?
2. Did Governor Reagan promise to not to use Senator Humphrey youth and inexperience against him?
Pasadena, California, as he was in the original novels.
Reagan doesn’t use that line, as he is only 61 in 1972 and Humphrey is only 3 months younger than him. Taft was older when elected in 1952, as was Truman in 1948; he is substantially older than JFK, but this isn’t a bug. Age isn’t a factor in this election, even before general treatments and certain advances make the candidates look 10 years younger.
Never read the original novel.
Too bad, it was Reagan's best line. Once he said it, everyone including Mondale cracked up, and everyone knew Reagan was going to win.
Whilst he may not have cause to employ that line, or ‘There you go again’ yet, there still isn’t a lot of doubt as to the result. Humphrey isn’t really the rallying figure for a 4th Democratic term in a row.
Simon Darkshade wrote: ↑Sun Dec 10, 2023 9:55 pm
Bernard, that is exactly the type of image I was looking to conjure with that sequence!
Her pussy was at home in her flat, so was far away from the ravages of the most dangerous creature in London (Frank).
I’m just sad that said velociraptor didn’t eat Frank Spencer! I can’t stand Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, while I do like Are You Being Served! Although I do like the fact the former really annoyed Mary Whitehouse.
“Frankly, I had enjoyed the war… and why do people want peace if the war is so much fun?” - Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart
It wouldn't really work within either the general scope of DE, with knocking off Frank precluding any future installments, such as the flying sequence of the final episode and a childhood memory (?) of an aerial shot of Frank having lost 20,000 sheep in Australia. In any event, working him in as a hapless storeman in Grace Brothers provided a bemusing explanation for the men's and women's departments being merged.
Mary Whitehouse has much less to worry and complain about in regards to British television in Dark Earth, with there not being a period of BBC liberalisation under Hugh Greene in the 1960s; there not being the same type of coverage of Vietnam on television (with it being very much along the lines of the coverage of Korea in its tone and angle); there being quite stronger standards regarding profanity, sexual content and nudity on both the BBC and the other channels; and there not being the same type of programmes that emerged during the Satire Boom. Overall, without the @ 1960s and its portrayal in popular culture and the media, we don't see the same backlash.
She still objects to television violence and some graphic fantasy/science fiction programmes, although some of her more vociferous objections have quietened after being invited to tea by senior government/establishment figures, who have explained a few things to her.
A previous comment on television from the mid 1960s (in answer to a reply by your good self, no less!) was this:
On television:
"It wouldn't be to everyone's tastes. It may well be inoffensive, without any profanity, nudity, sexually explicit material, indecency, obscenity, explicit violence and what not, but what remains is hardly bland. There is a code that has been put in place by the Ministry of Information, but it isn't quite the Hays Code.
There are still quiz shows, current affairs programmes, comedy and variety shoes, all manner of sports broadcasts, nature, history and science documentaries, contemporary and historical drama, police/crime shows, Westerns, Northerns and Easterns and plenty more beside"
"Bernard's earlier point did inspire me to reflect upon which television programmes of the 1950s, 60s and early 70s would or would not occur. Direct equivalents would be around in some cases, whereas others are less likely to occur. Here is a little list:
Yes
The Great War
Blue Peter
Dad's Army
University Challenge
Comedy Playhouse
The Forsyte Saga
Jeeves and Wooster
Dixon of Dock Green
Civilisation
This is Your Life
Match of the Day
The Benny Hill Show
The Two Ronnies
The Black and White Minstrel Show
Zoo Quest
The Sky at Night
African Patrol
The Adventures of Robin Hood
The Adventures of William Tell
Sword of Freedom
Songs of Praise
The Good Old Days
World of Sport
Richard the Lionheart
Sir Francis Drake
An Age of Kings
The Sooty Show
Biggles
Play School
Danger Man
Billy Bunter
Bird's Eye View
Captain Pugwash
Come Dancing
Crackerjack
Dr. Finlay's Casebook
Family Affairs
Gardener's World
Ghost Squad
How We Used to Live
Late Night Line Up
Murder Bag
Opportunity Knocks
Redcap
Sunday Night at the London Palladium
Tomorrow's World
- A British equivalent to The Big Picture
- It is likely that quite a few well known children's stories will see colour adaptations in this decade
- I'd envisage an expensive live-action colour version of the Chronicles of Narnia will make it onto television from 1965
- Dad's Army would be a little bit different in tone
No
Doctor Who
Quatermass
Adam Adamant Lives
The Avengers
The first three wouldn't be made, even if the ideas were around, due to the important positions held by their eponymous characters. In the last case, divergent social mores point towards markedly different developments in the 1960s. There may well be some sort of series with a well-dressed secret agent and a female sidekick, but it won't be exactly similar.
The Prisoner
Apart from The Village existing, the general themes and plot would be too subversive to make it past the censors of the Ministry of Information
Z-Cars
Gritty social realism is not a favoured genre of the powers that be.
Beyond the Fringe
Monty Python
Fawlty Towers
One thing leads to another, or not, in this case. To expand in a non-facetious way, the lack of the same type of Goons, different social consequences stemming from the events of 1956 and the dearth of the satire boom and a loosening of restrictions stymie the growth of Python and their antecedents.
The War Game
Not a hope of being made, let along released later down the line.
Top of the Pops
Unlikely without the meteoric rise of pop music and associated youth culture.
Till Death Us Do Part
So many different factors make it unviable.
Maybe
Coronation Street
Some sort of version of Sherlock Holmes is possible, even if he is a living historical figure, as his adventures stretch back to the Victorian period and are quite famous.
Since that time, Doctor Who has actually made an appearance on television (for some purposes beyond entertainment alone...) and there are some types of programmes similar to Quatermass and Adam Adamant in the pipeline.
Whilst DE has some different social positions and trends, things are starting to change (insofar as television goes) in the 1970s. I wouldn't quite put it down to convergence, but rather following through the drivers present.
It also might be interesting to note that British television has been in colour since the early 1950s and there has been no policy of 'wiping'.
October
October 1: French Minister of Transport, Jacques Chirac, authorises the Directorate-General of Aviation to take all necessary measures to ensure cooperation of the competing 'Grande Enterprises' of the French aviation sector in the expedited development of a French equivalent to the increasingly successful Armstrong-Whitworth Airbus.
October 2: Initiation of the Antyodaya Programme in Rajasthan, India, whereby the poorest five families in each village are provided state assistance for a year, including land for agricultural cultivation, guaranteed development loans and pensions.
October 3: NASA issues a number of very large production contracts for the next stage of the American starship programme, with Northrop-Grumman, North American-Republic, Lockheed-Martin and Boeing each receiving multi-billion dollar assignments for design and development of the command bridge and the scientific and exploration, cargo and habitation and engineering modules, with the engines and propulsion already under development by General Atomics, the United Nuclear Corporation and U.S Fusion.
October 4: First telecast of the 'Afterschool Special' on ABC, a dramatic short film specifically aimed at children and teen-agers on socially important issues, developed in conjunction with the United States Information Agency and sponsored by the Crusade for Freedom.
October 5: The Royal Air Force begins operational testing of a new holographic active camouflage system for tactical and strategic aircraft. It is hoped that this development, in concert with new radar absorbent materials for aircraft skins and specialist arcane repellent paints, will increase the capacity for operation over increasingly complex contested airspaces.
October 6: Six schoolgirls and their teacher are kidnapped by two armed criminals in rural Victoria, who demand a £1 million ransom for their safe release. The teacher and girls escape the kidnapper's van in the night, with the miscreants being cornered and shot by police.
October 7: Collingwood defeat Richmond in the VFL Grand Final 25.14 (164) to 22.18 (150), winning their 12th premiership in front of a crowd of 156,243 at the MCG.
October 8: A special strike team is assembled by Mossad to combat the terrorist threat posed by the International Revolutionary Army and its most infamous terrorist agent, Carlos the Jackal.
October 9: The German federal election sees the Social Democrats win 195 seats, the resurgent German Conservative Party 134 seats and the Christian Democrats and Christian Social Union 156 seats, with the German Democratic Party winning 93 and the Centre Party 52, leading to a protracted period of negotiations between the CDU/CSU and DKP regarding the makeup of a grand coalition, with the latter's leader Wulf von Steiner an early favourite to take the Chancellorship.
October 10: The Shah of Persia spends the evening walking in disguise among his people in Tehran, accompanied by a handful of plain clothes bodyguards, listening to their concerns, grievances, hopes and dreams for the future.
October 11: Opening of two heavily guarded border crossings of the Demilitarised Zone between North Vietnam and South Vietnam, providing for the first such direct avenues of intercourse between the opposed states for sixteen years.
October 12: Portuguese troops operating against rebel guerrillas in Portuguese Guinea accidentally cross the border into neighbouring Senegal whilst engaged in hot pursuit of a retreating force.
October 13: Aeroflot Flight 217 crashes upon landing at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow, killing all 183 people on board.
October 14: Opening of a new joint RAF/RN/British Army base in Akureyri, Northern Iceland, with the King of Iceland hailing the facility as the latest display of strong Anglo-Icelandic amity.
October 15: A farmer in Trujilio, Venezuela, investigating the aftermath of a strange sonic boom the night before, discovers an apparent meteorite and the pulverised remains of what appears to be a chupacabra in his field, with the monstrous wretch having been dispatched by the rock from the heavens before it was able to molest his poor innocent cows.
October 16: The gold reserves of the United States remain the largest in the world, with over 10,000 tons kept securely at Fort Knox, followed by Britain with 6254 tons, the Soviet Union with 4235 tons, Germany with 4187 tons, France with 3269 tons and Japan with 2457 tons.
October 17: The 32 survivors of a crashed chartered Uruguayan plane are discovered alive and rescued by a Royal Chilean Air Force Fairey Rotodyne scouring the Andes south of Santiago, having been directed towards the potential crash area with information from an RAF airship engaged in exercises with the Chilean military.
October 18: The United States and the Soviet Union reach an agreement for the payment of $960,000,000 over 30 years as settlement for goods and services supplied under Lend Lease during the Second World War.
October 19: The British War Ministry commissions a research paper on the possible applications of an 'air cavalry' type unit in the British Army, following on from the successful American employment of heliborne soldiers in the Vietnam War. It is thought that the use of modern long range assault versions of the Fairey Rotodyne and advanced VSTOL aircraft such as the Sopwith Camel offer particularly useful and intriguing capacities for air assault forces.
October 20: Donald Campbell sets a new world speed record on the waters of Lake Eyre in his Super Bluebird X.
October 21: Governor Reagan performs strongly in the Presidential debate registering a solid win in a discussion that focused upon domestic policy and the economy.
October 22: The Royal Navy frigate HMS Ashanti captures a dhow crewed by Arab slavers with three dozen African slaves in the hold, having intercepted the suspect vessel on a hunch off the coast of Northern Somalia. The slavers are thrown in the brig, pending trial at Aden, with the freed slaves to be repatriated to Africa by air upon their arrival in port.
October 23: Formal reestablishment of United States Army Aviation as a distinct combat arm. The main portion of Army Aviation strength lies in its various helicopters, ranging from the thousands of UH-1 Iroquois transports and utility helicopters to the attack helicopters, such as the AH-1 Super Cobra light attack helicopter, the AH-56 Cheyenne in the medium attack role and the YAH-X heavy attack rotary aircraft still under development. The acquisition of a fixed wing capacity such as the Harrier jump jet under the terms of the 1968 Fort Hood Agreement promise to further enhance their capabilities.
October 24: Establishment of Sanctuary Hills, a new village on the Concord River just beyond the Minute Man National Park in Massachusetts, designed as an exclusive showpiece community of the 'homes of tomorrow', including innovative two storey private residences, a community library, a children's park, a combined general store and restaurant and a church.
October 25: The French Foreign Legion garrison in Dahomey moves to disarm and arrest a number of suspect local military units after intelligence indicated an imminent coup attempt. The French commander was heard to gloomily quip that eventually, they wouldn't be quite so lucky.
October 26: President Kennedy signs the Consumer Product Safety Act at the White House, strengthening legal requirements protecting the public from substandard merchandise.
October 27: The USN begins experimental deployment of several new antiaircraft weapons systems aimed at replacing 1950s era anti-aircraft guns. The Colt 25mm revolver autocannon in twin, quad and octuple mounts has a minimum rate of fire of 1200rpm per gun and an effective firing range of 5000 yards is designed to replace the postwar variants of the Hotchkiss and Oerlikon, whilst the Bofors L/70’s place is taken by the General Defense Mk 25 50mm autocannon, which fires at 480rpm per gun out to an effective range of 12000 yards. Joining the twin 37mm Legion Close Weapons System is the Phalanx, a quad 25mm Gatling autocannon with integrated radar and fire control for direct point defence against the new generation of sea skimming anti-ship missiles.
October 28: Delegations of the Arab Union and Egyptian general staff meet in Baghdad for discussions of potential cooperation on weapons development and modern tactical operations under the auspices of the Baghdad Pact.
October 29: Congolese President Samson Mulumba announces a new agreement with the Soviet Union for the development of new railways in the Congo, creating a potential cause for future difficulty with regard to the British operated network in the border region of Northern Katanga.
October 30: The Canadian federal election sees the Liberal Party win for the first time since 1925, forming a coalition government with the support of Labour Party. The calm and steady approach of Liberal leader and Prime Minister-Elect Sir Robert Macartney did much the allay concerns of any dramatic change to the long standing settlements regarding Canadian industrial, foreign and defence policies, emphasising his support for the Dominion’s global role as a great power and promising to strengthen the Canadian Armed Forces; the latter policy is thought to emulate the successful ‘strong defence’ approaches taken by Stanley Barton in Britain and Bob Hawke in Australia.
October 31: USAFE begins a series of deployments of the new RF-111G reconnaissance bombers across Western and Southern Europe as part of a concerted sales pitch in conjunction with Boeing to allied European states.
A lot of leaders would be better off if they walked and talked to normal citizens. I don't know if you heard of TV series named Benson, but one episode Benson and Governor did just that. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078569/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Absolutely. This is one particular sign that the Shah is quite different in temperament, approach and destiny than Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, quite apart from being a different dynasty and age. I can't say I've heard of Benson.
The US holds gold there in @; as of DE 1972, Fort Knox is preferred after the Goldfinger Incident of the early 1960s (based on the book, not the film), whereby the sheer volume of gold acts to stymie any attempt at nicking it. There might be flaws in that plan...
November
November 1: Beginning of Exercise Trelawny, a large home defence exercise carried out in Cornwall by the British Army's South Western Command, involving over 100,000 regular, reserve, Territorial and Home Guard personnel. One part of the exercise sees the fishing town of Portwenn apparently taken over by Soviet paratroopers disguised as Americans; any resemblance with an incident several years previous where a local policeman mistook visiting American paratroopers of the 13th Airborne Division as being secret VDV personnel was described by Army spokesmen as entirely coincidental.
November 2: Reverend Elvis Presley, acting on a mysterious tip, leads his posse on a drilling expedition breaking through a strange cave in rural Indiana, discovering the six schoolboys missing since June 1971, alive and well, having not aged a day, and returning them to their waiting families. FBI wizards speculate the involvement of some sort of faerie enchantment and seal off the area pending further investigations.
November 3: Kaiser Wilhelm IV of Germany dies at Sansouci Palace at the age of 66 after falling down a garden staircase after being struck by a dead parrot. He is succeeded to the throne by his 44 year old son Crown Prince Wilhelm, with his coronation to take place after a year of official mourning. Wilhelm IV is mourned as a popular monarch both home and abroad who had succeeded in treading the difficult path of a German head of state in the years after the Second World War.
November 4: Launch of the MS Hughes Glomar Explorer, a deep sea drillship designed for exploration and manganese nodule mining from the ocean floor, the brainchild of eccentric billionaire industrialist Howard Hughes. An atomic-powered competitor vessel, NS Burns Delver remains under construction at Burns Shipbuilding in Mobile, Alabama.
November 5: The provision of seat belts is made a requirement for British motor cars built after 1974 under an amendment to the Road Traffic Act 1930.
November 6: A fire on board an express super-train whilst passing through an 8 mile long tunnel in Japan leads to hundreds of people suffering smoke inhalation, before new automatic safety mechanisms ventilate the train cars before tragedy can ensue.
November 7: Governor Ronald Reagan wins the 1972 United States Presidential election in a landslide with 513 electoral votes to 118 of the Democratic candidate Senator Hubert Humphrey and 9 to the Whig Party's Eugene McCarthy. Reagan exceeded predictions by sweeping the South and Midwest in addition to his great Western bastion, appealing to a broad coalition of conservatives, the middle class, traditional Republicans and blue collar workers. He gives a gracious and humble victory speech, thanking God and the American people and invoking the great American spirit that opened up the continent to a manifest destiny of greatness and being a shining city on a hill for all mankind, a bastion of freedom and good against communist tyranny, pledging that he and his Vice President elect George Bush will make America greater yet.
November 8: Release of 1916, the latest epic war film in the planned ‘Great War Sequence’. It portrays the terrible battles of Verdun and the Somme, the Brusilov Offensive, the fall of Gaza, the entry of the United States into the war and the tremendous British victory at the Battle of Jutland. Barry Foster attracts immediate attention for his ongoing excellent portrayal of Kaiser Wilhelm II, but greater praise yet is reserved for Kenneth More as Sir John Jellicoe and John Mills as Sir Douglas Haig.
November 9: Jackie Stewart wins the United States Grand Prix in a thrilling race, just beating Steve McQueen and clinching the World Driver's Championship over the Brazilian Emerson Fittipaldi.
November 10: The first moves of the incoming Reagan cabinet become clear, with Donald Rumsfeld to be nominated as National Security Advisor, Dr. Henry Jones as Secretary of Defense, Abraham Lincoln III as Secretary of Commerce, Governor John Connally as Secretary of the Interior, James Schlesinger as Director of Central Intelligence and Caspar Weinberger as Secretary of War whilst Dr. Henry Kissinger is considered the frontrunner for Secretary of State and Congressman Gerald Ford is considering an offer for Secretary of Transport and Energy.
November 11: Across the British Empire, France and the United States, Saturday morning business and traffic comes to a solemn halt at 11am for two minutes silence to mark Armistice Day.
November 12: Argentine Premier Rodriguez hails his nation's military as the strongest in the whole of South America, foreseeing a time when their power and quality will again be felt far from their native shores, as occurred famously in the Iberian Campaign of the Second World War. Recent tit for tat border incidents with Prydain look to be dying down, but relations with the Argentine's other major neighbour to the west remain, for want of a better word, chilly.
November 13: Ansett Flight 232 becomes the first passenger aircraft hijacked in Australia, with a disturbed gunman taking over the plane on a flight between the Adelaide, South Australia and the Central Australian capital of Alice Springs. After protracted negotiations come to an impasse, he is successfully shot by a disguised policeman.
November 14: The Dow Jones closed above 1000 for the first definitive time in its history, having previously fluctuated higher before dipping below the mark. The ongoing golden economic epoch shows no clear sign of diminishing at this time, with many economists foreseeing the capacity for strong growth once inflation is fully tamed.
November 15: The Pope states that the evil which exists in the world and besets mankind so sorely is the result and effect of an attack by dark and hostile forces under the Devil in his many guises.
November 16: Signing of the Environmental Protection and World Heritage Convention in Geneva, a global treaty under the auspices of the League of Nations providing for the preservation of sites and locations of cultural and natural significance and wider protection of the natural environment from pollution and other deleterious human activities.
November 17: The Pepsi Cola Company reaches an agreement for its soft drink to be bottled and sold commercially in the Soviet Union, the first major American brand to do so. Their chief American rivals in the global soft drink market, the Coca-Cola Corporation, along with Dr. Pepper and Nuka-Cola, begin to make plans for their own courses of action, lest the Cola Wars be lost with this red dawn.
November 18: Hawker-Siddeley begin active development of a successor to the P.1154 Harrier supersonic VSTOL jet fighter, with the P.1256 design utilising new, powerful engines, a more highly swept and larger wing and innovative new offensive and defensive systems. On the same day, the last Vickers Valiant in service with the Royal Auxiliary Air Force is formally retired at No. 962 Squadron's base at RAF Mona, with the redoubtable strategic bomber having served for 25 years; a total of 1624 saw service the RAF and RNAS alone.
November 19: NBC carries a prime time special on The New Rising Sun?, an extensive profile of modern Japan, its tremendous economic success and its strange cultural contradictions. It includes a rare English language interview with Prime Minister Yukio Mishima, where he states that Japan's security requires a reach well beyond its own shores and pledges his ongoing commitment to the Pacific Treaty Organisation, calling it part of the 'necessary framework for freedom'; his position on Japanese nationalism and some foreign concerns over its ongoing re-militarisation is somewhat more circumspect.
November 20: A larger superheavy Soviet space rocket explodes on launch at Baikonur Cosmodrome, causing substantial damage to several surrounding launch pads and constraining planned launch scheduling for further rockets in December; the ongoing unavailability of Plesetsk after what is still coyly described as the 'Incident of August 30' in 1956 has emphasised the value of Baikonur to the Soviet space programme.
November 21: Election of Sir Solomon Mgube as the first black Speaker of the the South African House of Assembly, a move remarked upon in The Cape Argus as a quiet milestone in the progress of the nation.
November 22: The Royal Israeli Air Force announces that it will acquire 200 Dassault Super Mirage 2000 air superiority fighters in a surprise result, with the McDonnell-Douglas F-15 Eagle having been the more fancied contender in the international air press; speculation follows that the more flexible 'multirole' capacity of the French plane gave it the edge over the American Eagle and British Spitfire.
November 23: Release of a top secret CIA report on the industrial production capacity of the four superpowers, with projections showing that the United States will overtake the Soviet Union in coal production by 1980 and extend its current leads in steel, oil, wheat, copper, lead, silver, silicon, computing engines, automobiles and aircraft.
November 24: An application by McDonald's Corporation to open a chain of American hamburger restaurants in Britain is declined by the Ministry of Trade after consultations with the Ministry of Food, with its two current establishments allowed to continue trade.
November 25: The National Party defies predictions to win a close race in the New Zealand General Election, winning 48 seats to 42 of the Labour Party and returning Prime Minister Sir Jack Marshall to a full term in his own right.
November 26: A Soviet Whiskey class submarine is cornered by Norwegian vessels and aircraft in the Sognefjord and forced to surface, claiming that it had become lost due to faulty navigation equipment. After a brief exchange of opinions, the submarine is escorted out of Norwegian territorial waters by Royal Norwegian Navy frigates and Rotodynes, whereupon it submerges and begins an embarrassing journey back to Polyarny, silently escorted by USS Sea Devil.
November 27: A B-52G on airborne alert under Operation Chrome Dome crashes over French Algeria, with the crew safely ejecting before the malfunctioning plane fell. The twelve thermonuclear weapons on board are recovered after a joint Franco-American search of the debris strewn stretch of the Sahara Desert.
November 28: Kung Fu master and secret agent Bruce Lee recovers the Heirloom Seal of the Realm from the lair of an ancient lich in the mountainous border region of Burma, delivering it personally to the Governor of Hong Kong. It is intended to present the lost treasure personally to the Emperor of China as a symbol of Anglo-Chinese rapprochement.
November 29: The 23rd Frigate Squadron of the Royal Navy is dispatched from Scapa Flow to the fishing grounds near Jan Mayen, where Soviet trawlers had been aggressively moving to harass British fishing vessels.
November 30: A Californian musician experience a particular yearning for the sunny climes and warm attitudes of home whilst meandering through the streets of New York City, lamenting that, on top of the wintry conditions, all the leaves were brown and the sky was grey to boot.
Have just remembered that with all that's been going on, I have failed to comment on this!
Well, here goes...
October 4: First telecast of the 'Afterschool Special' on ABC, a dramatic short film specifically aimed at children and teen-agers on socially important issues, developed in conjunction with the United States Information Agency and sponsored by the Crusade for Freedom.
I have this image of a really lame, ernest version of Seasame Street.
October 17: The 32 survivors of a crashed chartered Uruguayan plane are discovered alive <snip>
I do hope they did not have to take the ultime step in survival and...GASP...eat the inflight meals!
October 19: The British War Ministry commissions a research paper on the possible applications of an 'air cavalry' type unit in the British Army
Sure you probably know this, but in @ the British Army really did study such a unit. It would have used aircraft based on the Cierva W11 Air Horse. Expense and the imaturity of the technology killed the idea in @.
November 1: <SNIP> any resemblance with an incident several years previous where a local policeman mistook visiting American paratroopers of the 13th Airborne Division as being secret VDV personnel was described by Army spokesmen as entirely coincidental.
An ancestor of PC Mylow, or PC Penhale?
but greater praise yet is reserved for Kenneth More as Sir John Jellicoe and John Mills as Sir Douglas Haig.
They'd have been excellent in the role. Although, Mills is a bit English for Haig. Given how good he was a Roy Urquhart in A Bridge Too Far in @, Sean Connery would have been my choice for Haig.
November 29: The 23rd Frigate Squadron of the Royal Navy is dispatched from Scapa Flow to the fishing grounds near Jan Mayen, where Soviet trawlers had been aggressively moving to harass British fishing vessels.
Quite the response, given what the RN has historically used for fishery protection duties. Other than during the Cod Wars, of course.
“Frankly, I had enjoyed the war… and why do people want peace if the war is so much fun?” - Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart
1.) Not quite, but rather the @ Afterschool Specials mixed with ‘Very Special Episodes’. No muppets.
2.) Nice reference to NTNOCN. With the shorter time frame, such measures were barely necessary. Historically, the Chilean search planes flew over the crash site several times during the search, but didn’t notice it due to the white fuselage blending in with the snow. Here, they are employing some rather more powerful (heat seeking and other more arcane) equipment, in addition to having the search area narrowed down by the aerial radar records of the visiting RAF airship. Thus, the survivors are found fairly soon afterwards, with only those killed in the crash or who had very bad injuries dying soon afterwards. Additionally, the Rotodynes are quite able to get up to the crash site due to their performance and vertical landing capacity.
3.) I am aware of it; this is the later type of Air Cav, akin to Air Assault, tempered by a different Vietnam.
4.) It would have to be Penhale and a younger Bert Large messing up.
5.) Connery was seen as a bit too young for the role at this point, as well as being tied up with the shooting of another war picture about the successful Operation Market Garden at the same time as 1916; incidentally the former may draw some inspiration by an unfinished story about a successful MG that some chap wrote ~20 years ago…
6.) Historically, in 1967, the Arctic Division of the FPS consisted of 4 Type 14s. Here, it consists of 8 Type 12*s.
September Notes:
- Fisher v Spassky ends up roughly the same as historical, if a bit quicker
- The fate of Sendic (and the Tupamaros in general) is a bit sharper
- Cambodia has a very different decade ahead of it and a different fate in general. Sihanouk not being deposed is the smaller part of this, with the lack of a fall of South Vietnam and no further route of communist egress into the north of the country being the major ones
- Spitz goes one medal further, that being the extra Olympic swimming stroke: the trudgen. This was a late 19th century stroke known as the 'racing stroke' or 'East India stroke' based on the sidestroke; it later developed into the front crawl/freestyle. Insofar as extra swimming strokes went, it was either this or the doggy paddle
- The Montral Fine Arts robbery is resolved, rather than becoming an ongoing mystery, due to a boo boo in the superhero comms system
- Chariot racing as an Olympic sport is tailormade for Constantinople and the Hippodrome
- The Soviet approach to dissidents and phone lines is a little...twisted...Historically, they were cut off entirely; here, they have limited phone use, which can often be constrained by the 1970s Soviet version of impenetrable circular phone systems. It is a little crueler at its worst, whilst also having enough scope for ‘improved treatment’ for those who are broken or toe the line; in both cases, it plays tricks with dissident’s minds
- The Grace Bros incident was intended as a means to refer to Are You Being Served, with Frank Spencer and a velociraptor thrown in for good measure. The Clapham omnibus is a bit of a reference to the legal idiom of the 'man on the Clapham omnibus', a hypothetical reasonable everyday man on the street in respect of civil law cases
- Shou Chang and his peasant rebellion is a call back to an event in 1946 or 1947. There is a story in it somewhere
- The 1972 Olympics end without major incident or issues
- British action in Uganda isn't an equivalent to Entebbe, but a repeat of the approach exercised in Burundi. The utilisation of overkill in planning will eventually get a bit expensive
- No changes to longstanding British licensing laws means that alcohol sales remain in off licences/dedicated liquor shops and not in regular shops. This is markedly different from the @ loosening of sales that occurred in the 1960s, which influenced some rises in wine consumption in the 1970s
- The British Commonwealth Strategic Defence Reserve Plan is another step towards integration and preparation
- A Swedish hijacking resolved with tactical use of surstromming was certainly effective; the Special Attack Force of the Drabant Corps is one of many different special forces
- Not all of Persian society favours the reforms of the young Shah
- September 17 is a combined reference to Deep Blue Sea and Austin Powers
- Elvis, the A Team and the Beatles team up to rescue Mrs Piper and the other kidnapped women from the dastardly folk music gang
- Joe Bugner remains in Austria-Hungary
- The Skyguard laser system progresses
- Moo-La speaks, becoming a local attraction in that respect
- Reagan's victory in the first debate doesn't quite have the same zingers as @, but still has a strong effect
- Forward deployed USAF units in the Middle East are a consequence of the victories in Korea and Vietnam and accompanying confidence
- Virgil Tibbs rises up the ranks
- Egypt starts to grow in military power, but lacks any direction to employ it
October Notes
- The French begin the process of building their own 'Airbus'
- NASA contracts will turn out to be very useful for the main contractors. A number of different corporations are namedropped, including United Nuclear and U.S. Fusion, showing the future
- The salient part of the Afterschool Special mention was that the USIA has a large domestic role as well as the international one of @, being an equivalent to the Ministry of Information as a propaganda department
- Active camouflage for aircraft creates some interesting possibilities
- The Victorian kidnappers historically survived
- Mossad goes after Carlos
- Germany has some different election results and consequences
- The Shah of Persia is a different fellow with a different approach to the issues of the people and by touching base with the grass roots, shows promise
- Opening of the border crossings along the DMZ shows a slight easing of tensions
- Iceland is being coaxed into a closer British orbit
- Historically, the Venezuelan meteorite hit and killed the cow. As Dark Earth is somewhat kinder towards cows, it hits the chupacabra instead
- The survivors of the Uruguayan Airlines crash are rescued earlier
- British Army air cavalry will develop a tad differently than the US equivalent and the @ air assault units
- The RN capturing a slaver is a bit of an example of how slavery continues in the modern world, although most often not in this particular and obvious form
- US Army Aviation not only has the Harrier on its way, but the YAH-X will yield a much beefier Apache equivalent to go alongside the AH-1 and Cheyenne
- The French action in Dahomey shows that the current pattern of intervening every time can't continue ad infinitum and might be having some negative effects on the legitimacy of some governments
- Plenty of CIWS and AAA fun for the whole family
- Mulumba leaning Soviet in the Congo shows there are more twists and turns to come
- The Liberals finally get up in Canada after decades in the wilderness by tacking to the right
Seriously, some enterprising/curious smith in @ mixed iron with chicken shit, forged it and the nitrogen in the shit turned the iron into a steel-like metal)? Not to mention the swords he made for the French/Franks: Durandal, Cortana, Joyeuse...
