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There was some strange concussive damage to a few dozen cars, as well as fire hoses being unraveled and an apparent sword cut into one of the car park pillars immediately adjacent to where the body was found.
Lead agency on Airwolf is Christians in Action, who have a very firm grip on things. The agency budget is seriously large at this point, in the region of 25 billion 1990 USD.
Bernard,
You beat me to the line this time, but I did use it back in ‘16 or ‘17 in Never Had it So Good.
It will be flown by some interesting chaps, put it that way…
Not only is there general use of illusions for special effects that outdo the best of 2020s CGI, but in this particular version of Doctor Who, not everything is SFX…
February Notes
- OPEC is a very, very different organisation by virtue of its membership and the earlier 'opening up' of North Sea oil and gas. It bears more of a resemblance to CENTO in a certain fashion; Pactomania has never gone out of fashion
- The Post Office Savings Bank has quite a large amount of money on deposit. The encouragement of child savings has several purposes - setting up young people for the future, accruing more capital for lending and economic expansion and a general culture of thrift and savings. I've said afore that here, Britain is not squandering the revenues of North Sea oil and gas on short term politics and tax cuts, but is making sure today helps secure all the tomorrows that may come. This is another facet of that principle
- This equivalent to the RB.211 has quite a different development cycle and doesn't lead to the bankruptcy of Rolls-Royce
- The USAF and RAF helping out in transport of Moslem pilgrims is an example of OOTW that has a decent potential payoff in the long run
- Italian arrests did come from a defecting Romanian intelligence officer; Alberto Bertorelli from 'Allo, 'Allo has come a long way since the war
- Thomas Andrews did not perish on the Titanic, which is a museum ship in Liverpool, having served in both World Wars; he had a hand in designing quite a few ocean liners after 1912
- The armed robbers having their boat planted on Wall Street is of course a reference to the first Superman movie with Christopher Reeve
- USN and RN cruisers lurking around Chile is a sign that the major Western players in South America aren't too pleased at the prospect of a Chilean lurch towards socialism when it entails nationalisation
- The Commonwealth Special Forces Agreement effectively creates a unified special operations command, boosting the size and capability of special forces of the smaller member nations and creating a very formidable capacity
- London's skyline remains distinctly different and traditional, rather than it becoming Westernised City #362 replete with ghastly brutalist tower blocks and later postmodernist skyscrapers. The Twelve Sisters are quite distinctly British Art Deco in their design, being something of a parallel (rather than an equivalent) to the 1950s tall buildings in Moscow
- Reagan is very much the frontrunner for the Republican candidacy, with Rockefeller's loss in '68 (even if it was an unwinnable election) putting paid to the remnant primacy of the Eastern Establishment
- Robert Zimmerman's deeds all along the watchtower were worthy of song
- The brief mention of English cricket does have some names who had already retired at this point in @, such as Ted Dexter, or in the twilight of their career, such as Cowdrey. With Boycott, Edrich, Alan Knott, John Snow, Bob Willis, Derek Underwood and a couple of original/DE players, they have a very useful team, with a young Ian Botham joining them a bit earlier than @. Tony Greig doesn't make the England side, being in the very powerful South African team and there won't be a hint of World Series Cricket
- The Turks buying Badgers isn't a sign of any great Soviet influence per se, but rather them not being able to get bombers from any other source and Moscow being extremely keen on cracking the Middle East. The reactions are interesting, as the Israelis get a very, very powerful bomber in the Vimy (the strange bastard child of a modernised version of the supersonic Valiant variant from @ and the B-1A)
- JFK goes all in for universal health care as his big domestic legacy project
- HMS Pansy is a tough little ship and the effect of her fight provides a little change to the language/everyday argot for a bit
- Lionel Crabb is still around and kicking
- George Lucas's film will be quite an interesting one and fairly different to reflect the world it comes from here
- The Vatican doesn't need the H-bomb; as mentioned, they have some interesting capabilities locked up underground
- Historically, private gold ownership in Britain at this point was very heavily regulated to the point under laws put in place by Labour in 1966 https://www.chards.co.uk/blog/exchange-control-act/785
- Evel Knievel jumps over 30 rather than the historical 19 cars and looks cool doing it
April
April 1: The BBC carries a story that the lions at the Royal Menagerie at the Tower of London are to be ceremonially washed, shampooed, given a permanent wave and blow dried at noon by a delegation of London's finest hairdressers.
April 2: The Australian Labour Party leadership contest is won conclusively by Bob Hawke, who becomes Leader of the Opposition and the first significant challenge to Prime Minister Sir Edward Rogers. Hawke, a Rhodes Scholar, a noted teetotaler and the former head of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, has become the best known public figure in the nation through his role in industrial arbitration and the labour union movement through the 1960s and is expected to be knighted in the next honours list as befits his august new position.
April 3: Release of Conquistador, a three and a half hour historical epic directed by Carol Reed, depicting the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, starring Christopher Lee as Hernando Cortes, Robert Shaw as Pedro de Alvarado, Alec Guinness as Emperor Charles V and Emilio Delgado as Montezuma.
April 4: The Politburo of the Soviet Union is expanded from 11 to 15 members, a measure interpreted by Western observers as being a step by General Secretary Sergeyev as cementing his power base by promoting key supporters.
April 5: Mount Etna erupts with tremendous force, destroying several nearby villages and the Mount Etna Observatory, killing 146 and threatening nearby historical ruins and Second World War battlefields with the expansive lava flows.
April 6: Initial construction works begin on tunnels in Dover and Calais for the planned Channel Tunnel, with the British consortium lead by the East India Company seeking to expedite the process and complete the project within the ambitious timeline set by HM Government. The plan calls for two 50ft diameter tunnels separated by 125ft with a 20ft service tunnel between them across the 52 mile distance across the Strait of Dover, along with crossing caverns and security features to permit the disabling of the tunnel by the Royal Navy in an emergency.
April 7: Frances Phipps becomes the first woman in modern times to fly to the North Pole, where she is received by Father Christmas and given a tour of the open parts of his secretive facilities.
April 8: Completion of a new British contingency plan for the defence of Ireland, updating the most recent version formulated during the Korean War with new provisions for aid to the civil power in the event of disorder or disasters, utilisation of the expanding modern transport network of railways and smaller airports and support of the elven and dwarven states in the central forests and mountains.
April 9: First flight of the Embraer Vespa, Brazil's first supersonic jet fighter. The project has been quite controversial since its initiation in 1963, with the performance of the Vespa left behind somewhat by the rapid development of cutting edge foreign aircraft and the cost being decried as excessive by a number of political groups, but it represents a large step forward for Brazilian aviation and technology.
April 10: Completion of the twelfth and final turbine at the Krasnoyarsk Hydroelectric Dam, making it the largest such installation in the world.
April 11: A 600ft diameter asteroid is intercepted and neutralised by a volley of American, Soviet, British and Chinese missiles as it passes with 200,000km of Earth in the first major test of the multinational Earth defence measures of Project Spaceguard .
April 12: A 21 year old female college student climbs over a safety railing to have a picnic overlooking the Grand Canyon and falls in. She is rescued by a safety enchantment recently put in place by National Parks Service wizards and thoroughly chastised by the ranger bears.
April 13: A brief yet inexplicable rain of eels is reported over Northern Lancashire, causing widespread shock on an otherwise sunny spring day and disrupting a number of fairs and sporting events.
April 14: Multi-millionaire newspaper proprietor Sir Denzil Carey, owner of The News of the World, The Daily Herald and The Chronicle, begins talks on the purchase of a television channel license with the Ministry of Information.
April 15: The 43rd Academy Awards are held in Los Angeles, with 1914 winning Best Picture, whilst George C. Scott wins Best Actor for his portrayal of World War Two and Korean War hero, the late General Patton and Alice McGraw winning for her tragic role in Love Story
April 16: Introduction of the first artificial computerised intelligent entities onto the ARPANET, with several American and British 'super computing machines' holding an impromptu meeting.
April 17: Rhodesian special forces conduct a number of crossborder raids into the Congo and rebel held areas of Portuguese West Africa, destroying several base camps.
April 18: McDonald's introduces a number of new menu items in its restaurants across North America, including a breakfast menu and chicken and pork burgers, in an effort to broaden its scope prior to its putative expansion into the Commonwealth and European markets. A separate internal notion of serving its hamburger sandwiches well done instead of medium rare was decided against on the grounds of losing custom to its burgeoning competitors.
April 19: The Colonial Office issues a position paper on the progress of the Crown Colony of Sierra Leone towards self government, setting out a timetable for independent Dominion status by 1984.
April 20: National Public Radio begins broadcasting across the United States, with a notable programme on its first day featuring interviews with injured Vietnam War veterans on their return home to America and re-adjustment to civilian life, including a one-eyed captain from Arkansas, a New Jersey steel mill worker who can no longer jog or run, a New York property scion who lost both feet in a mine explosion and Lieutenant Daniel Taylor, who lost his legs. The special is widely praised for its unvarnished examination of the price of victory.
April 21: The USAF begins testing a special 'laser' ray gun suitable for use in fighter and bomber aircraft, with the advance of miniaturization technology now being sufficient to permit practical application of the principle first seen in the Martian heat rays of 1898 and later bought to service in the great skyships.
April 22: A Wolverhampton man convicted of beating his wife has his sentence of 9 years hard labour and 30 lashes with the cat o' nine tails upheld upon appeal. The case is seen by some observers as cementing the role of judicial corporal punishment in British law (delivered by the cat for adult offenders and the birch for juveniles) with the ratio decidendi set out by Lord Bullingham being quite clear and concise. The legal status of the stocks outside of ecclesiastical courts remains somewhat more nebulous.
April 23: New York City makes the introduction of readily legible and plain expiry dates and lists of ingredients on packaged foods compulsory.
April 24: Renowned martial artist Bruce Lee appears on The Dick Cavett Show, promoting his new film and book, The Hong Kong Book of Kung Fu, having just foiled an armed robbery on a liquor store by a gang of six men on his way to the studio, with the able assistance of a passing architect and a vacationing San Francisco police janitor.
April 25: The 1971 Census of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland is conducted, showing the total human population recorded as 138,124,236, with 91,521,382 from England, 17, 112,395 from Scotland, 16,008,143 from Ireland, 6,965,364 from Wales, 6,037,065 from Lyonesse; and 479,887 from the Channel Islands, Isle of Man and outlying islands. The coloured and total immigrant populations are recorded as 194,937 and 562,458 respectively, with the general rate of migration from the 'New Commonwealth' having slowed over the last 10 years with rising prosperity in their home countries, but their numbers rising through the birth of children. 67% live in privately owned houses, 16% in publicly owned housing and 17% in privately rented dwellings. 50% of households own one motor car and 12% own two or more. The participation rate of employment of people aged between 16 and 65 is a record 82.4%, whilst 98.5% of respondents are Christian, 0.8% Jewish, 0.1% Moslem, 0.1% Hindoo and smaller numbers of Sikhs, Buddhists, Zarathustrans and other faiths.
April 26: A USAF SR-71 Blackbird on a reconnaissance flight over Southern Laos issues a disjointed radio message of being overtaken by a much, much faster, much higher flying aircraft. Upon return to Kadena AFB, the pilots retract their claim after a quiet meeting with men in black suits and dark sunglasses.
April 27: The Ministry of Transport announces that London sixth international airport (after Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and Churchill Airport of the Isle of Grain) is to be built on Maplin Sands.
April 28: The Christian People's Party wins a strong majority in the Dutch general election, with Prime Minister Piet de Jong winning a second term in office.
April 29: An Anglo-Indian singer-lutenist successfully wins the heart of his long-lost love, who had left him behind for a life in the ‘jet set’, through a simple yet profound ballad played outside of her Mayfair hotel.
April 30: French Musketeers clash with Italian Legionaries along the Mediterranean border after a dispute over which force had the more striking uniform.
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May
May 1: A young Colorado boy, Stuart McCormick, finds a lottery ticket floating down the streets of South Park and wins a fabulous prize of $900,000, much to the shocked envy of his gang of pals, Gerald Broflowski, Randy Marsh and Jack Cartman.
May 2: The gala opening and dedication ceremony of San Francisco’s new World Trade Building, nicknamed ‘The Glass Tower’ turns into a near disaster, as fire envelops the upper floors of the 1688ft skyscraper, threatening to turn the new marvel into a towering inferno. The rapid intervention of the San Francisco Fire Department, Hollywood star Steve McQueen and his private jet helicopter and a pair of costumed superheroes, one wearing a bright red cape and the other in a spider costume, proves to be fortuitous, allowing for water tanks on the roof of the building to extinguish the blaze and preventing loss of life.
May 3: A Torquay hotel owner is cautioned for attempting to sell his recalcitrant Spanish waiter to a vivisectionist.
May 4: The Tudor warship Mary Rose is raised from the Solent by the archmage Dr. Simon Gallows and levitated into a waiting drydock in Portsmouth.
May 5: Israeli archaeologists discover the ruins of Herod’s Palace in Jerusalem beneath the former Ottoman Kishle prison
May 6: The former troopship Empire Windrush, noted for her service in the Korean War and in support of atomic tests at Christmas Island in the South Pacific, is sold into private service as a pleasure cruise liner operating between the Bahamas and Florida.
May 7: The Chilean Ministry of Mining begins discussions with the British and American companies that own Chile's major copper mines on the timetable for partial nationalisation and appropriate compensation agreements.
May 8: Arsenal becomes the first soccer team to achieve the 'Triple Crown', winning the FA Cup in an extra time triumph over Liverpool to go with their previous first place in the Football League First Division and the Imperial Cup.
May 9: The defence ministers of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Switzerland sign an agreement for the renewal of joint civil atomic development; in combination with extremely secretive German engagement with the Yugoslav, Turkish and Spanish atomic weapons programmes, this indicates a potentially different motivation.
May 10: 59 people are killed in a bus crash in Kapyong, Korea as the vehicle slips off the road into Chongpyong Reservoir due to excessive speed.
May 11: Former world heavyweight champion Cassius Clay dies in Roosevelt Hospital, New York City, after his condition rapidly deteriorated in a matter of hours; Clay had been hospitalised since his severe injuries sustained in March 8 defeat by Joe Frazier.
May 12: Archaelogists excavating the ancient ruins at Gobekli Tepe in Southeastern Turkey realise that the site is far older and more complex than first thought with the uncovering of a new layer of much more ancient development; they are further purplexed by the discovery of an extremely intricate golden life size model of a condor in a chamber in the most recent excavations
May 13: The first test flight of the USAF’s Supersonic Low Altitude Missile nearly goes awry, as the long range command and control mechanisms malfunction, causing the missile to go off course from the South Atlantic to West Africa and almost crash in the midst of the Sahara before being captured by a secret Royal Space Force tractor beam test facility near Jebel Arkanu, Libya.
May 14: Thirty seven members of the Honduran Presidential Guard die after eating fruit contaminated with the toxic insecticide, Parathion, leading to an immediate investigation into suspected involvement of the Central American Revolutionary Front.
May 15: Formation of a new order of Jewish martial artist grand masters, who aim to combine the 20th century art of krav maga with ancient martial wisdom uncovered in scrolls found near the Dead Sea.
May 16: The 25th Battalion, Royal Parachute Regiment conducts a combat drop and raid against a rebel encampment in the Sudan, destroying the enemy force in exchange for only five casualties; the supporting fires of two of the new light 25pdr airborne guns is quite devastating.
May 17: Almost two thirds of US railwaymen go out on strike as talks between the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen and major US railways break down. This precipitous step leads to a very swift reaction, with standby units of the Military Railway Service being immediately deployed on executive order of President Kennedy, whilst the BRS are offered a choice between a 8% pay rise or invocation of the national emergency measures of the Taft-Hartley Act, including potentially drafting every striking railwayman and making him subject to military discipline; the former option is selected and the strike ends before the dawning of the 18th.
May 18: Escape of a dozen large Venusian octopuses from their aquarium in Los Angeles, with the nightwatchman swearing that the beasts climbed out of their tanks, opened several doors and knocked him out with a fire extinguisher.
May 19: Mack Trucks signs an agreement for the export of equipment to be used in the new KAMAZ truck factory east of Kazan, with a number of pieces of machinery fitted with carefully concealed fake bugs by CIA operatives to confound and confusticate the KGB.
May 20: A number of walkers claim to have seen a series of spectral apparitions of ancient warriors engaging in combat atop Solsbury Hill, along with a huge eagle swooping out of the night, causing considerable consternation and acute palpitations.
May 21: Finnish tankero hunters capture the largest specimen yet found in the elder forests of Upper Lapland, with the three headed beast rivalling the size of the first of its kind, spotted by Aimo Koivunen in his Strange Journey of 1944.
May 22: French Premier d'Amberville orders the development of a plan to increase the number of atomic power stations in France sufficiently to provide at least 80% of French power requirements by 1990, a measure some see as trying to emulate the steps taken by Britain in this regard.
May 23: Jackie Stewart wins the Monaco Grand Prix by a small margin of less than two seconds over the second placed Jim Clark.
May 24: The first regular flight by the Soviet Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-154 supersonic jet airliner between Moscow and New York via Heathrow takes place, with the refueling stopover very carefully observed by intelligence officers and aircraft aficionados alike.
May 25: The West Indies defeat South Africa in the First Test at Newlands in Cape Town by 84 runs in a high quality match, with debutant West Indian batsman Vivian Richards making a dashing 154 and Gary Sobers 132, whilst Richie Calypso took 8/79 to go with his second innings score of 87 off 40 balls; Barry Richards made 210 and Graeme Pollok 145 for the home side.
May 26: The Times carries an extensive article on the boom in British shipbuilding, with the recent orders for large supertankers, oil rigs, bulk carriers, liners, Floating Fortress components and 'container ships' effectively supercharging the industry itself and its supporting industrial chain, stretching back to steelmaking and coal mining. It estimates that 1971 and 1972 will each see unprecedented completion of tonnage (largely due to the greatly increased size of individual ships) almost four times greater than the previous record.
May 27: Mass killer Juan Corona is arrested by Californian police, who find a dozen graves near his home in Yuba City. He is swiftly bought to trial for 25 murders, sentenced to death and gassed on March 30th 1972.
May 28: A young Irish druidess completes the first journey down the entirety of the Orinoco by coracle, confirming her new theories on the river's flow.
May 29: Operational test service of the British Army’s new mobile SAGW, the English Electric Broadsword, begins on Salisbury Plain. It is intended to replace the current Super Thunderbird units of the Regular Army and Royal Marines; and the 24 Royal Air Force Bristol Bloodhound fixed SAGW squadrons by the end of the 1970s as an augmentation of the Bristol Blue Envoy very long range missile force and their putative replacement.
May 30: Release of Red Sun, a new exciting Western starring Charles Bronson, Toshiro Mifune and Audie Murphy.
May 31: The final exchange of prisoners of war and assorted exchangees takes place at the Demilitarized Zone between South Vietnam and North Vietnam, even as the border itself is more heavily fortified by minefields and further construction of the Liberty Line, which one British journalist describes as 'making the Maginot Line look like a zebra crossing'.
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May 1: A young Colorado boy, Stuart McCormick, finds a lottery ticket floating down the streets of South Park and wins a fabulous prize of $900,000, much to the shocked envy of his gang of pals, Gerald Broflowski, Randy Marsh and Jack Cartman.
You killed Kenny, didn't you?!
May 2: The gala opening and dedication ceremony of San Francisco’s new World Trade Building, nicknamed ‘The Glass Tower’ turns into a near disaster
Talking of which, 'The Glass Inferno' & 'The Tower' are not bad novels. Btw, as well as the well known film, the story was also adapted into a feature length episode of the US TV series 'Emergency!'
May 11: Former world heavyweight champion Cassius Clay dies in Roosevelt Hospital
Damn, that's a shame.
May 14: Thirty seven members of the Honduran Presidential Guard die after eating fruit contaminated with the toxic insecticide, Parathion, leading to an immediate investigation into suspected involvement
Think there might be a few words missing?
May 23: Jackie Stewart wins the Monaco Grand Prix by a small margin of less than two seconds over the second placed Jim Clark.
Stewart Vs Clark would have been quite the sight to see! My late Aunt interviewed Clark for a local newspaper once. My three degrees of seperation from the Great Man.
Btw, in F1, in @ at least, 1 second is considered a lifetime!
“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.) I haven’t killed Kenny; I’ve made his father so rich that he’ll never end up in a cult of Cthulhu. Also note that this Cartman has a father.
2.) I’ll have to look into all three.
3.) I had telegraphed a not too good end to the fight with him being knocked out of the very ring; boxing is an inherently dangerous sport and this will cause some to pause for thought.
4.) Fixed it, thanks. They are seeing Communists behind everything.
5.) Very interesting. Clark has quite the career to go and the mid-late 60s with Brabham, Moss, Clark, Hill and Stewart was quite the scene.
June
June 1: British Railways unveils its next generation of steam locomotives for service on general and local routes throughout the British Isles as a compliment to the magical levitation super trains on the main lines of the Grand Railway and the regional intercity high speed lines. The BR Class A25 Advanced High Speed Train is designed with an integrated support unit for fuel and water modules to extend range and is capable of speeds up to 200mph. It is expected that up to 1600 will be built to replace earlier passenger locomotives, whilst replacement of of BR’s almost 3000 freight locomotives will follow.
June 2: Metropolitan Pimen of Leningrad and Ladoga is elected as Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia and head of the Russian Orthodox Church. His election is followed by the traditional difficult meeting with the General Secretary of the Soviet Union.
June 3: A USAF paper on the future of the B-47 Stratojet states that it will be retired from regular service by 1980, giving it a total service life of 32 years. It’s place in SAC’s Bomber fleet is to be filled by the B-76, whilst the replacement for the B-52 is on track to enter service by the end of the 1970s.
June 4: RNAS aerial surveys in the South Pacific report an apparent new island chain 800 nautical miles east of the Line Islands, with the discovery confirmed by satellite observation later that day.
June 5: Opening of the newly refurbished Imperial Mobile Warfare Training Centre in the Sinai, Israel, a facility for the operational training of British Commonwealth mechanised forces, joining the joint tropical and jungle warfare centre in Australia, the desert warfare centre in South Africa, the mountain warfare centre in India and the large expeditionary warfare centre in Suffield, Canada.
June 6: Release of the first episode of The World at War on ITV, a £5 million 36 episode documentary on the history of the Second World War, narrated by Sir Laurence Olivier and including extensive period footage and interviews with a range of major figures from the time, including in the first episode, A New Germany, Kaiser Otto of Austria-Hungary, former British Prime Ministers The Earl of Avon and the Duke of London, former French premier Charles de Gaulle, anti-Nazi theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Albert Speer, Feldmarshall Erwin von Rommel, King Albrecht of Bavaria and Rudolf Hess.
June 7: A Filipino Presidential aide announces the discovery of the Tasaday people, a previously uncontacted Stone Age savage tribe in the rainforests of Mindanao.
June 8: Edmundo Zujkovic, a leading opponent of Chilean President Allende, is assassinated by a masked death squad. Allende declares a limited state of emergency in response to the killing.
June 9: A large squadron of Argentine warships begins a series of combat drills 80nm north of the Falkland Islands, observed by RNAS Nimrods and ground based radar.
June 10: USAF F-15s of the 1st Fighter Wing begin special air combat testing exercises against USN F-14s over Virginia in the first Exercise Black Thunder.
June 11: The Home Office begins enforcement of statutory limitations on free unskilled migration into Britain from outside the Empire and Commonwealth.
June 12: A USAF C-135 flying from Samoa to Hawaii mysteriously disappears without a trace somewhere in the vicinity of Palmyra Atoll, with their last communication being garbled beyond recognition.
June 13: An Australian woman in Canberra gives birth to healthy nonuplets, becoming the largest instance of surviving multiple births on record; the mother is said to be tired but relieved.
June 14: Six schoolboys disappear in the backwoods of Indiana on a Scout hike, leading to a large scale search by local and State police, civilians and troops from Camp Attenbury.
June 15: American skier Bill Briggs becomes the first man to ski down the renowned and treacherous Grand Teton mountain, with his deed caught on film from a helicopter as proof.
June 16: The FBI submits a secret report on apparent activity of supernatural benign figures across the United States, the so called 'Angel Report'.
June 17: Germany overtakes France as the largest army in Western Europe as measured by total personnel for the first time since the Second World War; the Heer remains strictly limited in the number of active divisions it can deploy, but has increased the size of the Reserveheer by eight divisions since 1965 to 24.
June 18: Beginning of the World Air Race in Paris, with 26 different competitors heading off around the globe in a variety of antique aircraft, mostly biplanes.
June 19: 64 people are killed in a grenade attack on a mosque in Mindanao by an apparent group of government connected paramilitaries.
June 20: The socialist People's Alliance wins a plurality in the Althing elections in Iceland. Their platform of the extension of Icelandic territorial waters, minimisation of NATO forces, removal of nuclear weapons and the nationalisation of the aluminium refining industry is regarded as highly alarming by the other parties and Iceland's Western allies alike.
June 21: A USAF test pilot is mistaken for an alien spaceman after ejecting from his experimental rocketplane over Wyoming, with a young tow-headed boy informing him he was on ‘Earth’ when he stumbled into a diner and queried his location.
June 22: An Irish musician is fined in Gibraltar for refusing to pay a ferryman after a dispute over the terms of service, which caused him to miss his Spanish train; the lamenting bard was comforted when leaving the court by a lady in red.
June 23: The Polish Communist government transfers former German Lutheran Church buildings in Western Polish territories annexed from Germany after the Second World War to the Roman Catholic Church.
June 24: A Soviet Kosmos military reconnaissance satellite fails to achieve its operating orbit, suffering an apparent second stage booster failure shortly after launch; a number of anomalous temperature fluctuations are recorded by test aircraft operating near the launch site at Baikonur.
June 25: Egyptian purchases £900 million worth of armaments from Britain, including 100 further de Havilland Spectres and hundreds of new MBTs, APCs, guns and tactical missiles.
June 26: Tightrope walker Phillipe Petit performs a daring walk between the two spires of Notre Dame without a pole or safety net. Upon safely making it to the ground, he is arrested on public order grounds and imprisoned in the Conciergerie overnight before being firmly chastised and released.
June 27: Japanese Prime Minister in waiting Yukio Mishima is appointed as Minister for International Trade and Industry.
June 28: Romanian Securitate arrest a serial killer in Bucharest who turns out to be a vampire. The undead monster is destroyed in an attempted escape, leaving only tantalising clues as to the suggestion of vampiric grand plan behind the killings.
June 29: The Beatles rescue a young sperm whale lost in the Thames in a yellow mini submarine loaned by the Royal Navy, with the aid of the river’s renewed population of friendly dolphins.
June 30: Bulgaria signs an agreement with Byzantine Greece for the integration of their collective field forces in Thrace and Bulgaria into a single army group command.
He was a little below average, yes. Bit of a maverick and fond of getting up above the clouds after days of thunder kept him grounded for a bit of a cruise. True, it was risky business - and for most ordinary folk would be mission impossible - but the USAF’s test squadrons are made up of those few good men that can become legend.
June 13: An Australian woman in Canberra gives birth to healthy nonuplets, becoming the largest instance of surviving multiple births on record; the mother is said to be tired but relieved.
She told her husband, "Until you're fixed, you're not touching me"
Test pilots know the "Coffin Corner" isn't metaphorical. Too bad it didn't happen on the Fourth of July, nice fireworks show. Was there any Collateral damage on the ground? He had all the right moves to survive.
I hear that the crash happened at 2359, so it was at the edge of tomorrow. You might also say it happened between night and day. It was far and away from a sucessful test flight. I did also hear he had his eyes wide shut during the ejection sequence and was very close to oblivion. The loss of the aircraft does have to make us wonder about planes that are American Made.
I'll get me coat.
“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
Indeed! I am a great fan of Chris de Burgh's work.
Bernard,
With 6 Tom Cruise references, you are just behind my best of 7, so you get a free life size statue of Maverick (3.5' tall).
Jem,
Steam is chosen for a number of reasons. First of all, there is sheer inertia as it has been the dominant locomotive source of power in Britain to this point, with diesel not really making a significant inroad and electrification mainly confined to the south; secondly, it makes broad socio-economic sense in that it employs British coal that is still dug up by a politically important industry, particularly with its sharp decline for power generation use due to the rise of nuclear power; thirdly, it doesn't require new infrastructure per se in the form of an electrified line for the smaller regional routes that it has been specified for here; and fourthly by circumstance, as there has been a lot more opportunity to work on enchanted/magically augmented versions of the steam engine over the ~160 years of its use on British railways.
The routes for the new trains are largely those that were killed off in the Beeching Axe of the 1960s in @, or the tertiary level. The primary category is the main lines:
1.) East Coast Mainline (London-Edinburgh inc York, Middlesbrough and Newcastle) 645 miles
2.) Midland Mainline (London-Leeds inc Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield) 319 miles
3.) Great Central Mainline (London-Manchester inc Northampton, Leicester and Derby) 290 miles
4.) West Coast Mainline (London-Glasgow inc Birmingham and Liverpool) 640 miles
5.) Great Western Mainline (London-Bristol ext to Cardiff) 188/260 miles
6.) South West Main Line (London to Plymouth inc Southampton, Bournemouth and Exeter) 382 miles
7.) South East Main Line (London to Dover) 131 miles
8.) Great Eastern Mainline (London to Kingston inc Ipswich, Norwich, King’s Lynn and Lincoln) 451 miles
9.) Great Southern Mainline (Dover to Plymouth inc Brighton, Portsmouth and Portland) 522 miles
10.) Scottish Main Line (London to Edinburgh) 620 miles
They are the positive consequence of spending on defence infrastructure.
The secondary category are the regional routes between smaller cities, whilst a small majority of routes fall into the very broad local category.
On the World at War: This is to be an even better one, with a greater range of available historical interviews from all sides (Yamamoto, 1960s footage of Patton, Eisenhower etc) and a number of additional/changed episodes: The Mediterranean (covering the naval war, Greece 1941, Crete, the islands campaign, and then the liberation of Greece); The Near East (the 1940-41 war against Turkey, ops in Iraq and Syria, the invasion of Persia, bombing ze Germans); The Peninsular War; Malaya and Indochina; The Pacific War (Guadalcanal, Tarawa, the Gilberts and Marshalls and Marianas); a whole episode on New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies; the Battle of Japan (Iwo Jima, Okinawa, the invasion of Kyushu, naval battles and air bombing).
That gives us:
1. A New Germany
2. Distant War
3. The Fall of France
4. Alone
5. The Mediterranean
6. Near East
7. Barbarossa
8. The Peninsular War
9. Banzai - The Japanese Strike
10. On Our Way USA
11. The Desert War
12. Malaya and Indochina
13. Stalingrad
14. Wolfpack/Battle of the Atlantic
15. Red Star
16. Whirlwind/Bombing Offensive
17. Tough Old Gut
18. New Guinea and DEI
19. Burma, India and China
20. Keep the Home Fires Burning
21. Inside the Reich
22. Morning: D-Day
23. Occupied Holland
24. Pincers
25. Genocide: The Holocaust
25. Nemesis
26. The Pacific War
27. Japan at Home
28. The Battle of Japan
29. The Bomb
30. Reckoning
31. Peace?
32. Remember
What are some suggestions as to the subjects of the extra 4 episodes? I'm thinking something on Poland and an episode on Free France.
On Nonuplets: Getting 'fixed' is unheard of for ordinary, everyday people and there isn't a contraceptive pill. Butterflies abound.
Is the Pacific War changed/small enough to be covered in one episode? I see there's an episode for New Guinea and the DEI. I don't recall enough of the Dark Earth WWII to know if there was enough other action in the Pacific to make it worth two episodes vs the episode called The Pacific War.
Are the Phillipines a major front?
Is The Resistance a possibility?
Since this is done by Imperial Broadcasting (I assume so, at least) perhaps an episode dedicated to the contributions of the various dominions? Maybe two episodes, one follows the exploits of the smaller batches of troops/ships/airforces, such as Gibraltar or Helgioland or Malta and one outlines the larger contributors, like Canada and Australia? Call the one for the larger contributors Cooperation and the one for the smaller groups Assistance?
The Pacific War episode covers early-mid 1942 through to late 1944ish, not including the initial Battle of the Philippines, but including Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal, the South Pacific campaign and then the Central Pacific Offensive. There is perhaps not enough to merit the second Battle of the Philippines getting an episode in its own right, but perhaps splitting the Pacific in two halves could work. That would give Malaya/Indochina, New Guinea/DEI, Pac 1, Pac 2 and the Battle of Japan, along with China/Burma/India for 6 episodes.
I think an episode on the French Resistance could work in combination with the Free France. In @, the episode on Occupied Holland stood in for all of the occupied countries of Europe, but with an active France Fighting On scenario, there is greater scope.
The series is produced by Thames Television, one of the subsidiaries of the Imperial Television Network. Something on the Empire as a whole could well work, allowing for Canada, South Africa and different places to get their moment of focus; Australia serves as the basis for the New Guinea/DEI episode.
In addition, a good one to have would be a specific episode on Scandinavia, covering The Winter War, Norway in 1940 and onwards, Sweden at war, Denmark under occupation and liberation.
So, we have
1.) Pacific War 2
2.) France 1940-1944: Home and Free (or some such split)
3.) Scandinavia
4.) The Commonwealth
Additionally, there is enough scope on the Eastern Front for an extra episode there if possible.
81.) Libya 7,627,754
82.) Chad 7,162,245
83.) Haiti 6,628,365
84.) Prydain 6,249,884
85.) New Zealand 6,095,562
86.) Uruguay 5,956,938
87.) French Guinea 5,929,387
88.) Niger 5,692,359
89.) El Salvador 5,510,959
90.) Somalia 5,348,672
91.) Moldovian People's Democratic Republic 5,447,235
92.) Lebanon 5,332,793
93.) Honduras 5,261,142
94.) Tibet 5,015,204
95.) Costa Rica 4,865,893
96.) Albania 4,604,568
97.) Hong Kong 4,506,787
98.) North Laos 4,249,428
99.) Yucatan 4,019,294
100.) Ruritania 3,981,206
101.) Galician People's Democratic Republic 3,825,673
102.) Newfoundland 3,710,103
103.) Equatoria 3,532,789
104.) Liberia 3,254,339
105.) Ruthenian People's Democratic Republic 3,017,914
106.) Singapore 2,987,485
107.) South Laos 2,956,087
108.) Jordan 2,788,579
109.) Los Altos 2,543,375
110.) Tibet 2,458,034
- Separate GDP for Hong Kong, Singapore, Algeria aren't listed, being colonies/part of metropolitan nations; Benelux is combined.
- The figures next to the top 50 are the 1970 economic growth/shrinkage
- Note that Oman, Qatar and the Trucial States/UAE are all still British protectorates; Bahrain, Southern Arabia and Kuwait are Crown Colonies; and Nepal and Burma are part of India
- The West Indies Federation consists of Jamaica, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Gran Dracaria (largish island near the Caymans), British Guiana, British Honduras, the Caymans, Turks and Caicos, the Bahamas, Grenada, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, Montserrat, Anguilla, St. Christopher Nevis, the Virgin Islands, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia and any other small specks as appropriate
- Aranguay is an independent Rio Grande do Sul
- Sinkiang is the Soviet puppet state of Tartary, so is excluded from calculations for now
- Collective GDP for 51-108 is $1,809,189,520,000, or less than China or numbers 41-50 in the list
- Collective GDP for 20-50 is $10,475,000,000,000, or less than the USA, which also outweighs 11-20 comfortably
- A bit of data to go with last year's GDPs to give us some approximate measure of GDP/capita
