History, Politics And Current Affairs

“August 22: An aerial shipment of velociraptors from East Africa to the Santiago Zoo are accidentally released during a refueling stopover in Port Stanley, resulting in a madcap recapture effort by local police, FIDF and the British garrison. The final raptor, a 2 year old female named Daisy-Boo, is cornered in the Queen Elizabeth II Conservatory by the commanding officer of the Royal Marines Naval Party, who remarked that she was a ‘clever girl…but not clever enough this time.’ “

August 1974
August 1: A tugboat captain falls asleep at the wheel of a chain of barges and crashes into the Lake Pontchartain Causeway after a strange underwater disturbance shifts his previously innocuous path, with the accident resulting in the destruction of over 300ft of roadway. Many Louisianan newspapers call for the 'Bridge over Troubled Water' incident to be a learning experience that ensures that future accidents do not turn tragic.
August 2: SS United States wins back the Blue Riband with a world record crossing of the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Southampton, with the superliner averaging over 40 knots throughout her journey and setting a time that observers regard as nigh on impossible to beat.
August 3: British middle distance runner Brendan Foster sets a new world record time for the 2 mile run, completing the feat in 7:58:52, and thus recording two consecutive sub 4 minute miles.
August 4: Four Royal Navy and five U.S. Navy aircraft carriers (Ark Royal, Audacious, Invincible and Indomitable and Shiloh, Intrepid, Enterprise, United States and Kitty Hawk take part in Exercise Northern Wedding, a NATO training exercise simulating the challenges involved in a wartime reinforcement of the Atlantic Alliance's northern flank with landings staged on the Shetlands, Faroes and Iceland, opposed by RAF Vickers Thunderbolts and F-111s operating from Irish and Scottish airfields. Northern Wedding has been staggered from Exercise Reforger '74, 'Certain Unity', in order to prevent any perception of escalatory intent.
August 5: A young college student briefly interrupts a televised baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds by jumping the fence with his whippet and demonstrating the dog's prowess at catching frisbee-like discs, leaping upwards of 10 feet in the air and running at an estimated 40 mph. Alexander Stein is subsequently escorted from the field and briefly arrested before being released on recognisance of his dog, Ashley Whippet, who promised to demonstrate how to be a good boy. The incident gives rise to a considerable increase in the profile of 'disc dog', with future world champion Eric Forman describing it as a key inspiration.
August 6: U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger arrives in London for high level talks regarding a coordinated diplomatic approach to recent Soviet overtures regarding arms limitations, with the Reagan Administration firming in their opposition to any inordinate concessions, whether they are sought from America's European allies or from its own nuclear forces. Recent internal reports circulated in the inner echelons of U.S. intelligence and military circles have indicated that there is a growing concern that Soviet strategic modernisation could open a window of vulnerability for the United States in the next decade without concerted efforts for matching arms development.
August 7: A certain Doctor known for his cooperative efforts with the Ministry of Space and U.N.I.T., and operating under the identity of an eccentric actor from Northern England currently and rather coincidentally starring in BBC Television’s science fiction hit Doctor Who supplies the experimental prototype and production plans for a model of wrist mounted computer devices to the Ministry of Defence’s Joint Department of Special Miscellaneous Equipment Development in exchange for a forty two tons of jelly babies.
August 8: Indian surveyors uncover a vast subterranean complex within the Kinnaur Kailash mountain, providing some seeming support to a previously fringe archaeological theory regarding the timing of the Kurukshetra War around the transition to the Kali Yuga some five thousand years ago.
August 9: American cartoon production company Filmation commissions a new series, partially funded by the Mattel Toy Company, to respond to the recent wave of popularity of the fantasy genre as seen in the Dungeons & Dragons craze, the success of The Lord of the Rings film series and the anticipated interest in the cinematic adaption of Conan the Barbarian, now in postproduction. Initial planning calls for a treatment of the adventures of a blond heroic warrior and his companions as they oppose the myriad forces of evil and darkness on the planet of Eternia through the powers of his magic sword of power.
August 10: Soviet troops assist Bukovinan security authorities in a crackdown upon dissent in the tiny Eastern European satellite state, with the limited Western travel to the Carpathian country completely suspended. British intelligence assets had previously indicated that there had been a recent series of unexplained deaths of high ranking officials, with some bodies found in locked rooms, having suffered extreme exsanguination.
August 11: Work officially begins on the construction of Queen Elizabeth International Airport on Maplin Sands, after extensive preparatory land reclamation and reinforcement. The new facility will serve as London's sixth and largest international airport, with some speculating that it could well be the world's largest by the time of completion.
August 12: A brief border skirmish between forces of Mali and Upper Volta, following mounting tensions in the area, raises the spectre of a military clash between former British and French colonies, with regional diplomats from both colonial powers moving to defuse and deescalate the situation.
August 13: The Beatles, fresh from their BBC television series being renewed for another three series, go on a special tour of the United States and Canada in their airship, the Silver Walrus, collecting material which will be used for their first feature film and righting wrongs, helping the helpless and doing good in the process.
August 14: The first RAF squadron equipped with the new Saunders-Roe Golden Arrow superheavy LRBM becomes operational in the Scottish Highlands. With a throw-weight of 50 tons to a range of 10,000 miles or 32 tons to 15,000 miles, and a 250” solid fuel first stage, the Golden Arrow is designed to carry a large number of maneuverable reentry vehicles, as well as having a secondary role against space based threats. It will augment the Blue Streak as the land based missile element of the British Empire’s strategic quintet.
August 15: Princess Anne gives birth to a son, Peter Andrew Phillip George, at Buckingham Palace. The new Prince is thirteenth in line to the throne, behind the Prince of Wales, his four children, and the Queen's other seven children.
August 16: The US Army’s Aviation Corps selects the Hughes XAH-64 heavy attack helicopter design as the winner of the Advanced Heavy Combat Helicopter contest, with a current requirement of over 2500 helicopters to augment the current Lockheed-Martin AH-56 Cheyenne medium aerial fire support helicopter and the Bell AH-1 Cobra light attack helicopter. The new XAH-64 is considered to be superior to the Soviet Mil Mi-24 Hind and broadly equivalent to the British Westland Tiger, with the American attack helicopter equipped with a new ventral 40mm chain gun, a 25mm autocannon and 37mm grenade launcher mounted in the nose, two wingtip 0.625” miniguns, integrated aerial rocket pods and six pylon stations on the wings.
August 17: An article in the respected American broadsheet newspaper The National Inquirer predicts that, on present trends, the majority of countries in the world will drive on the left hand side of the road by the year 2000, Currently, the British Empire, much of the Middle East and South East Asia, South America, Japan the Balkans, Scandinavia and Austria-Hungary drive on the left, with Western Europe, the United States and the Soviet sphere commuting on the dextral.
August 18: Dashing British Formula One driver Graham Hill wins the Austro-Hungarian Grand Prix in Vienna in a narrow triumph over Jackie Stewart and Niki Lauda, with Steve McQueen's fourth placing allowing him to clinch the Formula One World Championship for the first time.
August 19: British Prime Minister Stanley Barton presents his proposed reform to personal pension schemes to the Cabinet, with his programme of superannuation designed to progressively replace disparate private pension plans, providing for compulsory employer and employee contributions and generous taxation regimes for beneficiaries.
August 20: Production on George Lucas's space opera The Star Wars is completed at Hammer Film Productions Bray Studios, after a lengthy shoot in studios and on location in England, Israel, Ceylon and Sweden. The final picture went over budget by some $5 million, with the rollicking two and a half hour science fiction adventure set in a tyrannical galactic empire usurped from its rightful monarchs widely expected by some crew members to have the potential to be a failure, but the director, producers and certain members of the illustrious cast consider it as having distinct potential for a quite different reception.
August 21: The USAF selects the Northrop-Grumman YF-17 as its new lightweight fighter-bomber under the LWFB programme to replace a number of current aircraft, including the Northop F-5 in the battlefield fighter role, complementing the current F-15s and F-16 under the planned 'High-Medium-Lo' force mix. As well as the public selection of the YF-17, the Air Force also gives formal authorisation for the development of a 'stealth' attack fighter and a multi-role stealth fighter and initiates a longer term programme for the development of a stealth advanced tactical fighter.
August 22: An aerial shipment of velociraptors from East Africa to the Santiago Zoo are accidentally released during a refueling stopover in Port Stanley, resulting in a madcap recapture effort by local police, FIDF and the British garrison. The final raptor, a 2 year old female named Daisy-Boo, is cornered in the Queen Elizabeth II Conservatory by the commanding officer of the Royal Marines Naval Party, who remarked that she was a ‘clever girl…but not clever enough this time.’
August 23: Two Atlanta truckers are engaged by a pair of jaded Texan businessmen to transport 400 cases of Coors beer from Texarkana to Atlanta in 28 hours, in violation of legal regulations restricting the unlicensed transport of the beer. With one acting as a 'blocker' driving a brand new Pontiac Trans Am, they complete the road odyssey with five minutes to spare and received a prize of $150,000, having been pursued by an obsessive Texas sheriff most of the way, in part due to the assistance the 'Bandit' provided to the sheriff's prospective daughter in law, who got cold feet at her wedding and elected to scarper.
August 24: The Malayan general election results in a strong win to the governing Labour Party, who campaigned on a programme of economic and social stability and cautious openness to the potential for peaceful relations with Indonesia.
August 25: American soccer officials, a number of businessmen and other interested figures hold a secret meeting in New York City to discuss the establishment of a unified professional soccer league across the United States and Canada, with the recent troubles of gridiron presenting a potential opportunity for perceived exploitation. The meeting is disrupted by the intervention of a well meaning costumed superhero, the FBI and the NYPD, all of whom had been separately investigating the set up of the meeting, presuming that it was merely a cover for some dastardly criminal conspiracy; the participants successfully argue their complete innocence to an initially skeptical NYPD captain and they are released without charge and with considerable apologies.
August 26: US Pacific Fleet submarines report two new Chinese submarine types engaging in training and shakedown drills well beyond their previous operating area, with one suspected of being a hybrid type equipped with some form of strike missile. Aerial and space surveillance operations are increased in response to the information, but the ability of U.S human intelligence assets to properly penetrate Imperial China remains troublingly limited at this time.
August 27: 12 year old Becky Schroeder of Toledo, OH, is granted a patent for her invention of the 'Glo-Sheet', a phosphorescent paint-covered backing sheet allowing for writing in low light conditions without other sources of illumination, becoming the youngest patent holder on record. The Glo-Sheet will go on to see use in hospitals, nursing homes, photography studios, USN ships, SAC bombers, and USSF spacecraft.
August 28: The Royal Navy atomic powered supercarrier Majestic is laid down at John Brown, being the longest warship to be constructed in Britain at 1625ft long and having a waterline beam of 187ft. Upon completion, she will have a design displacement of over 254,000t and operate an air wing of at least 160 aircraft, at a cost of £360 million exclusive of aircraft; Majestic's design incorporates new electromagnetic catapults, laser rayguns, defensive missiles and gun systems and repellatron beams.
August 29: Surrender of the last large group of rebel communist terrorist forces, in Salisbury's terms, within Rhodesia to Rhodesian Army and security forces in Shangombo near the western border. Whilst Prime Minister Sir Garfield Todd demurs from declaring outright Rhodesian victory in the Bush War, many newspapers across Rhodesia and South Africa herald the surrender as the harbinger of such. Separate lower intensity operations along the troublesome Congolese border continue.
August 30: French high-wire acrobat Phillippe Petit provides a large audience of children in Central Park with a thrilling show, crossing a 600ft angled tightrope strung across Belvedere Lake. The display was his 'punishment' for an unauthorised walk between the two towers of the World Trade Center on August 7th, with a number of observers remarking on the social value of such socially restorative justice measures.
August 31: The Soviet guided missile destroyer Otvazhny is sunk in a magazine explosion after a missile misfiring incident occurs during fleet exercises in the Black Sea. Soviet Navy Commander-in-Chief Admiral Kuznetzov orders an inquiry into firing procedures, safety drills and the armament of the 1960s generation of Soviet destroyers, with his protege Admiral Gorshkov to chair it; the lessons are to inform decisions for the new Sovremenny class guided missile super destroyers now under construction.

Simon, I'm enjoying this thread very much.

Henry Kissinger I was hoping he was college professor somewhere.

Kissinger had already forged an international reputation to this point through his work at Harvard in the 1950s and 1960s, so it would be something of a nonsensical step down for him not to be a well known academic with Republican connections.

After a heck of a day, writing some notes is a good way to distract the mind:

August 1974 Notes
- The Lake Ponchartain crash is historical, but whatever was in the water, if there indeed was something, isn’t. The reference to the song title is a little way of showing that it is around in DE
- SS United States remains on the Atlantic run, along with the other very big postwar superliners
- Brendan Foster’s record is for 2 miles vs 3000 metres
- Northern Wedding is fairly large, and indicative of an increased focus on NATO’s flanks
- The Disc Dog event is historical, but I took the liberty of slipping in the mention of Eric Forman from That 70s Show in order to hide a little Easter egg
- Kissinger’s mission is part of a policy shift; think Team B in a different context
- Having the Doctor disguise himself as Tom Baker playing the Doctor is one thing, but having him supply the design for Pip Boys in return for 42 tons of jelly babies? Hopefully priceless
- There is something to the theories in India
- The cartoon commissioned is an early version of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe
- Something is going on in Bukovina, and it is either the work of someone with fangs, or someone who wants others to think it is
- QE International Airport will be pretty big and pretty
- The Beatles embark on a magical mystery tour of North America; they might even play some music
- The Golden Arrow is a real heavyweight ICBM, based in part on this development https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/thread ... cbm.12990/
- Princess Anne’s children will be Princes and Princesses, on account of her husband also being a Prince
- The AH-64 here is a different, heavier beast
- The left side is the right side for many
- Formula One is developing differently, and Steve McQueen will not only continue racing and acting, but will stick around a lot longer
- Pension reforms mooted in January take the next step forward
- There is some interesting hints about how The Star Wars will be different here
- This YF-17 is a bit different, and fills a role that the YF-20 was never able to find. Note the earlier stealth planes, and that there are two of them; the ATF is a different project that will take a while longer
- Velociraptors in the Falklands does allow the commanding officer of the RM Naval Party, who coincidentally looks rather like Bob Peck, to use a version of his character’s final words from Jurassic Park
- Smokey and the Bandit results in a Bandit win, replete with CB goodness
- A secret soccer meeting being busted and resulting in arrests indicates that someone has been trying to set them up
- Chinese subs can be tracked and photographed, but humint is ultimately the more valuable missing link here
- The Glo-Sheet is going to go very far indeed
- Majestic is a real beast of a carrier with some interesting features
- Rhodesia wins a campaign, and perhaps part of a war, but faces the ‘whack a mole’ problem
- August 30 is almost entirely taken from a very interesting @ event
- Soviet destroyer design is going to get some changes…

A few little preview events for next month:

September 1: A USAF SR-71 sets a new air speed record for a crossing of the Atlantic Ocean, making the journey from New York City to London in just 124 minutes, averaging an incredibly impressive Mach 3.6, prior to arriving at the Farnborough International Airshow in triumph to considerable applause, laud and praise from the crowd of over 250,000. The impressive record will stand for all of seventy-two hours.

September 9: Canadian scientists announce that they have developed a cure for male pattern baldness, with a single pill taken daily over six months proving 100% effective in reversing hair loss and allowing full, lustrous growth. A group of American toupee manufacturers briefly consider contracting the Assassin's Guild of Chicago to ameliorate the situation (not realising that the group is an FBI trap), but decides that this particular horse had already well and truly bolted.

September 29: George Martin, American budding author and chess player, has the unfinished manuscript of his fantastical magnus opus stolen by fascists, again, ruining the chances of it being completed; unperturbed, he submits a successful application to E. Gary Gygax's Tactical Studies Rules company, which has recently recorded its second successive profit of over $1 million.

September 29th has SO much going on in there. How long did it take you to craft that particular bit of soon to be treasured literature?

Belushi TD

Not a great deal of time. The first part comes directly from my notes, which grew from a wry comment on George R.R. Martin blaming 'fascism and its rise' in August 2024 for his inability to write The Winds of Winter, whilst the second part comes from the established DE continuity of Gygax, TSR and D&D having an earlier and larger boom.

Here, Martin's creative energies will go into something shorter form than even his 1970s sci-fi-horror crossover novels, and there isn't really scope for anything like ASOIAF coming out, given that classic fantasy is still burgeoning strongly, and that his @ oeuvre of dark, gloomy, chaotic, base fantasy would neither appeal to the market or get past censors in a number of markets. In a world of magic and dragons, it wouldn't really stand out.

There will be room, however, for expansion of Dungeons & Dragons, both through an earlier (and noticeably less childish/goofy) cartoon series, a film series, action figures, video and computer games and gamebooks, as well as the meat and bread table-top roleplaying games. Some parts of that will need writers and although I don't particularly like some aspects of Martin's character, his writing, his views on fiction and otherwise, matching the man and the opportunity provides for mutual benefit.

September
September 1: A USAF SR-71 sets a new air speed record for a crossing of the Atlantic Ocean, making the journey from New York City to London in just 124 minutes, averaging an incredibly impressive Mach 3.6, prior to arriving at the Farnborough International Airshow in triumph to considerable applause, laud and praise from the crowd of over 250,000. The impressive record will stand for all of seventy-two hours.
September 2: Beginning of Exercise Bold Guard, a large NATO exercise in Western Germany and Denmark involving British paratroopers and airmobile infantry simulating Soviet landings and assaults, as part of the broader REFORGER 74 exercise, which involves over 350,000 U.S. personnel crossing the Atlantic by sea and air.
September 3: President Anastasio Somoza Debayle wins over 92% of the vote in the Nicaraguan election; a number of foreign observers regard the particular circumstances of the poll as being somewhat suspect and reflecting more of the determination of the military-backed government to hold power by fair means or foul.
September 4: The Farnborough International Airshow concludes with the spectacular unveiling and first flight of the English Electric P.42 Starblazer, a Mach 5+ ramjet powered multirole reconnaissance, strike and lifter aircraft designed for use by both the RAF and Royal Space Force; the Starblazer lands at Idlewild Airport some 87 minutes after take off. In his article on Farnborough '74, Dutch aviation journalist Roel De Heer, after lovingly detailing the new Fokker Donderslag fighter, describes the reception of the Super Lightning, Supermarine Victory and new models of the Supermarine Excalibur, Avro Arrow, Hawker-Siddeley Concord and Vickers Swallow as evidence of 'the envelope of high speed flight being ever pushed forward by the British Empire'.
September 5: A gang of three foolish young Scotsmen attempt to steal the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey at midnight, with the first unfortunate being himself turned to stone after touching the mystic relic, and the survivors being apprehended by churchwardens and the duty Templar and taken to the Tower; they are subsequently charged with sacrilege.
September 6: Evel Knievel jumps successfully jumps the Snake River Canyon on a steam powered rocket, with the remarkable feat filmed for a new television series on America’s daredevil stuntmen.
September 7: TWA Flight 841, a Boeing 707 flying from Tel Aviv to New York, is bought down by an apparent terrorist bomb over the Aegean Sea, with a Arab group claiming responsibility. In an emergency meeting at the White House, President Reagan authorises the deployment of the Army's Delta Force, commanded by Brigadier-General Charles Beckwith, to the Middle East to hunt down and bring the perpetrators to justice, supported by other American forces in the region, along with improved airline security measures and a large increase in the skymarshal programme. A further declaration regarding states that aid terrorism is to be formulated, along with further punitive responses should the terrorists responsible prove to have the support of a nation state or states.
September 8: TASS and Soviet Central Television carry a special edition on the economic success and progress in the USSR, with the achievements of the last decade lavishly displayed on screen and in print, showing the growth in consumer goods, foods and sophistication of Soviet products. It predicts that the 'Push for Red Plenty' will continue for at least the next ten years, but that the New Soviet Man and Woman of today would see socialism in their lifetime.
September 9: Canadian scientists announce that they have developed a cure for male pattern baldness, with a single pill taken daily over six months proving 100% effective in reversing hair loss and allowing full, lustrous growth. A group of American toupee manufacturers briefly consider contracting the Assassin's Guild of Chicago to ameliorate the situation (not realising that the group is an FBI trap), but decides that this particular horse had already well and truly bolted.
September 10: French Premier d'Ambreville orders the creation of a Comité Nationale d'Exportation des Transports , with the aim by 1980 of increasing French export sales of aircraft by 30% and trains and automobiles by 25% and automobiles, with a particular accent upon emerging markets in Africa, the Middle East and the Orient.
September 11: Debut of Little House on the Prairie, a charming Western historical family drama starring Michael Landon and aired on NBC, and How the West Was Won, an extended televisual adaption of the 1962 motion picture, starring John Wayne.
September 12: NYPD detectives arrest 26 year old Calvin Jackson on suspicion of murder; under interrogation, he confesses to nine other murders and rapes, which had previously been considered unconnected. He is swiftly tried, sentenced to death and goes to the electric chair on December 2nd.
September 13: Noted Singaporean politician and barrister Harry Lee Kwan Yew is elected to the House of Commons for the Conservative Party in a by election; he is considered to be one of the most able of the newer MPs from the integrated colonies, and some see great potential in his future.
September 14: A flash flood in Nelson, Nevada destroys the Nelson's Landing Marina, temporarily cutting off the valuable mine from operations and halting construction on the Southern Nevada Wind Farm, with both events leading to a series of cascading further consequences that almost results in a delivery truck accidentally dropping a load of highly toxic waste onto the landing at Cottonwood Cove, before being prevented by a lone courier for the Mojave Express, who apparently gets around a bit.
September 15: An unofficial and unauthorised public art display is attacked and destroyed by a force of nominally off-duty Moscow Milisiya equipped with bulldozers, water cannon and armoured lorries, with the crowd of artists, spectators and reporters all arrested.
September 16: Opening of the Emperor Norton Tunnel in San Francisco Bay, an underwater tunnel accomodating the eight transbay lines of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system named after the city's most esteemed historical imperial resident.
September 17: The America's Cup is won by challenger British yacht RYS Morning Cloud, skippered by one time Conservative MP Edward Heath, defeating Ted Hood's Courageous 4-3, with the final race being decided by a mere 45 seconds.
September 18: Byzantine Greek Emperor Alexander conducts an indirect interview with The New York Times, through the agency of his trusted Megas Logothetēs, Duke Stavros Atreides, who has recently risen to favour after his actions to ensure that Greece prospered from the global olive oil shortage.
September 19: Far left terrorists from the Montoneros gang kidnap two millionaire businessmen of the Bunge & Born grain company in a shocking incident in Buenos Aires. Premier Rodriguez responds by declaring a state of internal war and authorising martial law across the Buenos Aires Province, sending over 150,000 troops and security forces into the streets. The captive Born brothers are released ten days later, allegedly after the payment of an unauthorised clandestine ransom, but the Rodriguez crack down continues.
September 20: Austro-Hungarian sculptor and architecture professor Ernő Rubik files a patent for a coloured cube-like puzzle which will later be known variously as the Rubiks Cube or a confounded thrice-darned infernal contraption.
September 21: Eccentric American millionaire oilman and business tycoon, Colonel X. Marmaduke Glossop-Portankington III, attends the VFL preliminary final at the M.C.G., witnessing an enthralling game between Hawthorn and Geelong in front of a crowd of over 150,000. After the 19.10 (124) to 17.8 (110) comeback victory by Geelong, and full of his characteristically mercurial enthusiasm, he makes an appointment to meet with VFL administration to offer to help sell the game to the world.
September 22: A conference of the ABC Armies group (comprising the United States of America, Britain and the Commonwealth) agrees upon a range of measures to streamline ration and personal solider equipment cooperative development, including an agreement for the exchange of stable military bread and waybread biscuits for a number of American ration components, development of a cereal option, the standard use of plasticised retort pouches and innovative weight saving enchantments which have reduced the weight of British ration packs by 75%. The provision of coffee remains something of an area of difference, with Britain, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Rhodesia and Prydain remaining staunch tea consumers, whilst the United States has its preference for coffee and the North American dominions of Canada, Newfoundland and New Avalon lying somewhere in between the two.
September 23: The Economist carries a cover story on the performance of the British economy over the second quarter of 1974 entitled 'The Summer of Contentment', highlighting the growth in business investment (particularly in the white heat of the technology sector), increasing productivity through new machinery and harmonious labour union relations, the positive options available through the lack of debt, ever increasing availability of energy and modern transport and the renewal of traditional heavy industries such as coal mining, steel, engineering, shipbuilding and oil. It concludes that this confluence of favourable factors could well be the harbinger of the highest economic growth since the war, sounding a note of caution that there remains a risk of the economy overheating without a steady hand on the tiller.
September 24: In a day of many British military developments, the Admiralty issues a requirement for a new class of conventional attack submarines to replace the aging Oberon class and a joint requirement with the Air Ministry for a general purpose helicopter to success the Bristol Bulldog, whilst the War Office places orders for development of new war machines and power armour, along with full scale production of the new 50pdr anti tank gun performance and certain new weapons for the Royal Machine Gun Corps. A further Ministry of Defence study on the feasibility of a separate airmobile division and the incorporation of field formations of modern cavalry consequently receives little attention.
September 25: Two Liverpudlian ne’erdowells attempt to rob a pawnbroker’s shop in Bootle whilst armed with coshes, and are shot no less than four separate times, firstly by the shopkeeper, then by an outraged customer, then by an elderly passer-by as they accosted her in their bleeding confusion, then finally by the nearest police constable. They survive their gunshots through swift assistance by the police, and are tried for aggravated armed robbery and sentenced to 30 years hard labour and 500 lashes, with the judge commenting on the exemplary value of their sentence Tito deter other would-be hooligans.
September 26: A draft agreement is finalised at the League of Nations, calling for restrictions on the usage of certain chemical compounds in the chlorofluorocarbon class, on the grounds of their potential danger to the Earth's ozone layer, following several years of scientific study and classified testimony from Father Christmas.
September 27: The Northrop-Grumman YA-12 is selected as the winner of the VAX competition to replace the USN and USMC (and by extension USAF) A-6 Intruder and A-7 Corsair II attack bomber fleets of attack bomber, prevailing over the Boeing, McDonnell-Douglas and Lockheed-Martin designs. Powered by two 25000lbf General Electric turbofans, the YA-12 has a top speed described to be in excess of Mach 1.5 whilst being able to carry 24000lbs of munitions in its weapons bay, fuselage and wing stations out to a combat range of 1200nm, which compares favourably with the nominally equivalent Soviet Pe-27 Foghorn, whilst the maximum bombload exceeds that of the British Blackburn Buccaneer, in service with the RN and RAF.
September 28: Geelong win the 1974 VFL Grand Final, defeating Richmond 26.19 (175) to 18.20 (128) in front of a crowd of 162,358 at the MCG, with star first year player Malcolm Blight best afield, and Doug Wade kicking 8 goals to reach 156 for the year, along with Rex Hunt kicking 5, Sam Newman 4, and Larry Donahue and Mark Woolnough 3 apiece. Skipper Bill Goggin goes out with a premiership in his final game alongside retiring champion centreman Alastair Lord. The broadcast of the match extends internationally for the first time, with increasing interest in the curious spectacle being shown by a number of different markets.
September 29: George Martin, American budding author and chess player, has the unfinished manuscript of his fantastical magnus opus stolen by fascists, again, ruining the chances of it being completed; unperturbed, he submits a successful application to E. Gary Gygax's Tactical Studies Rules company, which has recently recorded its second successive profit of over $1 million.
September 30: Scarsdale handyman Selwyn Froggitt, Coventry labourer Onslow Hughes and University of Liverpool Professor Frank Bryant win the three special prizes in the special National Savings Premium Bonds draw, receiving £500 in cash in addition to £20,000 in bonds, with their resultant meeting leading to a charming lifelong friendship.

Was this a repost?

Also, I'm wondering the SF tunnels have in the way of earthquake safety features.

It wasn't a repost; a couple of the sneak preview events came out earlier in the week as teasers.

The SF Bay tunnels are probably a tad better prepared and defended than the @ ones discussed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transbay_Tube

I have no idea what is happening on September 30th.

Is this an @ event that also occurs in DE? Should I recognize the names?

Thanks
Belushi TD

They are two British television characters and a British film character played by Michael Caine in the film adaption of ‘Educating Rita’.

Think of it as another case of sowing seeds for future story hooks if I win the lottery.

Oh, no! It’s Selwyn Froggitt!

See - another man of culture!

Can’t imagine Onslow being a labourer, though!

This is the younger version, in a different world and a different time.

September 1974 Notes
- The SR-71 flight doesn’t represent their top speed, or the fastest plane in the world; consider the flight as a bit of demonstration. They are then one upped by the Starblazer
- Bold Guard does not see a para accident, whilst the annual Reforger is impressive in scale
- Nicaragua simmers
- Fokker still making fighters
- Trying to nick the Stone of Scone isn’t a good idea, with the petrified bloke perhaps getting off lightest
- Evel Knievel continues his escapades
- Reagan’s reaction to TWA 841 reflects the different post Vietnam national mood; whoever was responsible may have made a very, very bad mistake
- Red Plenty is one part propaganda, one part substance
- The cure for male pattern baldness may not be on a par with the cure for cancer or the common cold, but will increase stock prices for comb and shampoo companies
- There are a few French vehicles in the works which can help it reach these goals
- John Wayne will do a few more television series, as he’ll be living a fair bit longer
- Lee Kwan Yew has a different stage
- September 14 features a whole lot of Fallout New Vegas references, as patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter
- Emperor Norton gets more just acclaim
- Ted Heath achieves a bit more yachting success than political success
- Atreides is going places
- Argentina kicks off
- The Rubik’s Cube craze will start a tad earlier
- Colonel X. Marmaduke Glossop-Portankington III will be a very welcome angel investor for the VFL and Australian Rules Football in general, with one part of his largesse going towards a support fund for each club, shoring up the likes of Footscray, St. Kilda, Fitzroy and South Melbourne. More details to come; a lot more
- Ration cooperation is just the tip of the iceberg of how various English speaking armies, which extends to a lot of small (and oft forgotten) areas such as socks, canteens, grenades, torches, but is an area where improvements can be made to food (and thus the morale factor) at an efficient cost. There is still a lot of distinct difference between national cuisines without the same move towards merging into a multinational stew as in @ (consider the likes of chicken curry and pasta with bolognese sauce in Swedish Army ration packs), so that there won’t be a lot of direct main meals used in both British and American rations, but there will be crossover in some of the smaller items and components, as well as in food preservation technology. One very DE specific example is the use of arcane weight reduction, which results in a very substantive 24 hour ration weighing just under 2 pounds (before being field stripped)
- By the by, the non inclusion of coffee in British rations isn’t too far off @, with it only starting to be included along with tea in around 1974 historically. British tastes for it started to increase in the 1950s, but some of the drivers towards that were absent here
- The Summer of Contentment is not just the mirror image of The Winter of Discontent, but an indicator of the very different trajectory, both in general direction and in both ‘legacy’ heavy industry and high tech such as consumer electronics, computers, robotics and more. Even the tax picture is profoundly different, with no CGT or corporation tax
- The new SSKs will be even more than the Upholders; the Bulldog replacement will be a very important project; the 50pdr is an overmatch for the Sprut; and the airmobile division will be a new unit as signposted a fair bit
- Armed robbers getting 30 years plus the lash is part of a deliberate effort to discourage particular classes of crime, following on from 19th century policies. The very brief post WW2 increase in crime was similarly sat upon. The different gun ownership laws, rates and an armed police contribute to the different and more complex picture
- Earlier action on CFCs is driven, in part, by a certain North Pole resident who does a fair bit of concentrated air travel
- The VAX and the YA-12 are very different and original ideas and planes
- A different VFL premier comes from a few different pieces, such as a lack of the 10 year rule, Geelong recruiting Blight from Woodville rather than North Melbourne and a few careers continuing on for a year or so
- George Martin gets a different career opportunity, which might well manifest itself in gamebooks as well as modules

- Trying to nick the Stone of Scone isn’t a good idea

Unless your name is Edward Longshanks, I guess. There is a legal(ish) argument that they were simply trying to return the Stone to its rightful owners.

You might be thinking about the @ 1950 types, rather than the 1974 attempt.