Dark Earth Timeline

October 1973
October 1: An early morning explosion at the Indian Ordnance Factories ammunition plant in Joydebpur, Bengal kills 16, with the relatively low death toll ascribed to the comparatively lowered intensity of night shift operations in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. The Indian defence and armaments industry remains a key part of the British Commonwealth’s ongoing rearmament programme.
October 2: The Indonesian Department of Foreign Affairs issues a communique openly stating that the Republic of Indonesia should be regarded as an atomic weapons state. This is accompanied by a ceasefire proposal through the Foreign Interests Section of the Swiss Embassy in Djakarta to the British Commonwealth and the United States, offering to formally recognise Malaya and to pull its forces back from the border with British Borneo; no mention is made of the separate issue of Western New Guinea at this time.
October 3: Nine Soviet satellites are launched simultaneously from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Kazakh SSR and Kapustin Yar in Russia om the early hours of the morning, with the sudden rush of activity causing some momentary concern to USSF and Royal Space Force orbital battle stations.
October 4: Interpol, in conjunction with local police forces across fifteen countries, conducts a series of early morning raids on suspected safe houses employed by international criminal gangs through to be cooperating with ODESSA and the Space Nazis.
October 5: A cassette strip in the Israeli Armed Forces main computer system in Jerusalem gets stuck whilst changing to a different program during a mid morning test, causing a systems error that triggers emergency mass mobilisation of the Israeli Army and Royal Israeli Air Force and begins activation of war measures in accordance with the Israeli War Book. The alert is rescinded after a confused 32 minutes by Defence Minister Sir Moshe Dayan and Field Marshal Yitzhak Rabin.
October 6: The World Wildlife Fund reports that the range of the wild boar and aurochs across Europe, Scandinavia and the British Isles continues to expand and recover, whilst populations of the mouflon have been identified as far apart as Portugal and Albania.
October 7: Ronnie Petersen wins the US Grand Prix narrowly over Steve McQueen and James Hunt, with Jackie Stewart coming fourth to secure the 1973 World Championship of Drivers.
October 8: The British Cabinet approves an extension of the suspension of immigration until further review in 1974, ostensibly and primarily to facilitate economic recovery through reducing pressure on the labour market, but also as it is seen as reducing the political significance of an issue that saw the Conservative Party make reasonable gains in the last general election.
October 9: Beginning of the Imperial German Army's Exercise Panthersprung 73, a coordinated response to a mechanised invasion by 3. Armee and 4. Armee, formations including units from the regular Hee, the Reserverheer and the Landwehr (formerly the Territorialheer). The new Leopard main battle tanks, Marder armoured infantry fighting vehicles and the Jaguar infantry fire support vehicles impress foreign observers and umpires alike, whilst the Flakpanzer self propelled anti-aircraft guns provide a dual role with their automatic 88mm guns; a pair of British generals remark that they are rather glad that the latter were not around in North Africa and France.
October 10: Two Mississippi fishermen claim to have been abducted from a pier on the Pascagoula River and subject to scientific investigation and probing by alien creatures in a flying saucer, only being released when the strange little green men seemed to react violently to their transistor radio playing Slim Whitman's Indian Call.
October 11: Signing of a peace treaty between Indonesia and the British Commonwealth in Singapore, ending the 10 year Confrontation that threatened on occasion to escalate into a nuclear war and saw mass deployment of Soviet and American and British troops and equipment to the East Indies. Whilst hostilities have now formally ceased, it is anticipated that British and Imperial troop strength in the Far East will need to be maintained at a precautionary level for the foreseeable future in case Sukarno goes back on his word. Progress of British colonies on Borneo towards self government and planned independence as a Dominion, on hold for the 1960s in light of the security situation, are now viewed as being able to progress.
October 12: The United States Bicentennial Commission issues its final recommendation report for the proposed celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the founding of the nation, with events to begin in 1975 with the tour of the atomic powered American Freedom Train and the anniversaries of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. This is to be followed in 1976 by a wave of national events, including Expo '76 in Philadelphia and the Summer Olympic Games in New York City, coordinated international fleet reviews and a parade of sailing ships, grand parades and fireworks displays and release of a specially made feature film.
October 13: Chile's general election campaign continues to progress forward into its final fortnight with an increasing sense of normalisation and reduced tension. The apolitical presence of the police and armed forces as maintainers of good order, rather than active participants in the election campaign, has been one part of this, along with a concerted effort by all parties to attempt to reduce the tone of alarm and heat in their rhetoric.
October 14: Opening of a new War Office military ration production plant in Colchester, with an annual capacity for two million cases of 12 General Service Ration Packs (each containing three meals and an accessory pack), joining the current private manufacturing plants operated by Vesteys Foods, the Imperial Food Corporation and Associated British Foods in Leicester, Bristol and Reading and the other HM Government operated facility in Preston. Modernisation and improvement of the Army's field rations (not least of which with the provision of more and better meat and increasingly varied menus) has been highlighted as one of several key priorities in improving the life and conditions of the British 'Soldier of the 1970s', in addition to development of new barracks and military housing and increases to pay, pensions and benefits.
October 15: The USAF, US Army and USN begin joint operational testing of the new AGM-125 ‘Tomahawk’ supersonic cruise missile, along with the first test flights of the new production F-111K long range strike bombers by USAF and USN test squadrons in California and Florida.
October 16: Egyptologists uncover a hitherto unknown series of secret passage leading to a mysterious chamber deep within the Great Pyramid, with their arcane observation insects and delving spells indicating the presence of what appears to be an image of the stars on the farthest wall.
October 17: First flight of the BAC P.96 experimental triple sonic ‘super fighter’ at RAF Filton. It is one of a number of aircraft being considered for the interceptor/battlefield fighter mission by the Air Ministry as the RAF looks to the new challenges of the 1970s and 1980s.
October 18: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip arrive in Sydney, Australia for an official royal tour culminating in the formal completion of the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectrical Scheme after 25 years of construction employing over 200,000 workers.
October 19: Release of The Last Crusade, a motion picture of the story of the British abolition of slavery and suppression of the slave trade, from William Wilberforce's historic Slave Trade Act of 1792 to the Slavery Abolition Act of 1815 and the Royal Navy's subsequent suppression of the Atlantic slave trade, starring Robert Powell as Wilberforce, Jeremy Brett as William Pitt, Christopher Plummer as the Duke of Wellington, Anthony Hopkins as Sir Henry Brougham, Malcolm Stoddard as Thomas Clarkson and Christopher Lee as the Earl of Liverpool.
October 20: The House Un-American Activities Committee announces a new round of hearings into suspected communist infiltration into American cultural institutions.
October 21: Orion 6 begins its initial burn en route from the Uranian system to Neptune.
October 22: British Telecom begins operational roll out of a mobile telephone network across London after the completion of construction of a series of 'cells' centred around arcanely enhanced radio telephone transceivers.
October 23: The United States maintains its position as the most visited country in the world, narrowly ahead of France. Spain, Britain and Austria-Hungary round out the top five, followed by Italy, Canada, Germany, Switzerland and the newly emerging Japan.
October 24: Initiation of a public relations campaign in the United States sponsored by the Arab Union aimed at raising the profile and repute of the Middle East confederation in the eyes of the American public, which still seems to view the Arab world as a faraway exotic entity rather than a discernible modern partner.
October 25: Naturalists from the University of East Africa confirm, after a five year study in the Congo, that the reclusive Mokele-mbembe is a separate species, with their paper confirmed by Tarzan.
October 26: Former Premier Salvador Allende's Popular Unity coalition (made up of the Socialist Party and its Communist Party allies) are defeated in the Chilean general election, with the Democratic coalition (Christian Democrats, Liberals, United Conservatives, Radicals Christian Democratic and PND) winning in resounding fashion 54% to 32%. Francisco Sanfuentes is invited by the King to form a government as Prime Minister.
October 27: A small meteorite the size of a cricket ball falls through the roof of a man's garage in Canon City, Colorado, damaging his almost-completed model of USS Montana and leading to an inquiry as to whether he might be able to sue the Federal Government for 'failing to protect my garage from those little green Commie Space Nazis from Uranus'; he is informed that the prospects of legal success in such an endeavour would be quite slim, but is mollified by the gift of $500 in exchange for the meteorite by USSF Commander Tony Nelson.
October 28: Final flight of Project Dark Gene, a joint 'black' aerial reconnaissance programme by the CIA and the Imperial Persian Air Force aimed at locating and testing gaps in Soviet radar coverage of their southern border. Its utility has been superceded by the Have Gray program.
October 29: A vacationing American nun and an elderly Scots grandmother from Chiselton join forces with the visiting young students of Grange Hill Secondary Modern to foil a plot to fix the results of the Grand National pigeon racing championship and in the process, free former League of Nations Secretary-General Daj Hammarskjold from a bewitched elevator.
October 30: The United States Department of Transport issues a report stating that the 64,000 miles of the Interstate Highway System are on schedule to be completed by 1980.
October 31: Simon Wiesenthal announces that a team of volunteer Jewish commandos has successfully tracked down and captured the notorious Nazi war criminal Hans Landa in an unspecified country, and transferred him to a Royal Israeli Navy guided missile destroyer.

November
November 1: South Vietnam formally annexes the Paracel Islands, with the cruiser Saigon and three destroyers conducting exercises around Phú Lâm Island in coordination with the small garrison on the islet.
November 2: The Times carries an article on 'The Curious Revival of English Folk Music', profiling its increasing popularity amongst younger people and the innovative use of modern electrical instruments to create original songs on traditional themes from folklore and present modern versions of traditional ballads. The article takes a generally approving tone, although comments that some of the names may tend towards the obscurantist, giving the examples of Steeleye Span and the Spriguns of Tolgus.
November 3: Release of 1917, the latest picture in The Great War series, telling the story of the pivotal year of the First World War, ranging from the hard fought British victories on the Western Front at Arras, Messines and Passchendaele, the capture of Baghdad and Jerusalem and the breakthrough at Cambrai to the French suffering on the Aisne, the Austrian victory at Caporetto and America's great triumphs on the Meuse. John Mills as Sir Douglas Haig attracts further plaudits for his performance, but it is Lee Van Cleef as General John Pershing who gains the most praise, even as Max Von Sydow brings a quiet tragedy to his role as General Robert Nivelle.
November 4: The Colonial Office, in conjunction with the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Defence, begins a scheme for recruitment of sponsored colonists for a number of new domed and underground settlements in Antarctica.
November 5: 10 year old Craig Hardie of Yexistight, West Sussex, wins the National Guy Competition for the best Guy in the country, being awarded his prize of a cheque for £25, a barrel of fireworks and his very own AR-16 by visiting American adventurer Jonathan Quest.
November 6: Commissioning of the Royal Navy's 10th atomic supercarrier, HMS Implacable, at Harland & Wolff's shipyard in Belfast in front of her sponsor, Princess Victoria of Wales, and a crowd of over 60,000 onlookers. Her sister ships Unicorn and Centaur remain under construction at Armstrong-Whitworth in Elswick and Cammell Laird in Birkenhead, which, allowing for Eagle, Hermes, Glorious and Singapore currently undergoing maintenance and overhaul at Rosyth, Chatham, Swan Hunter and Fairfields, has been arranged to allow for available slip for the laying down of four new supercarriers over the coming three years at John Brown, Harland & Wolff, Beardmores and Yarrow's new shipyard in Haven, Pembrokeshire.
November 7: A meeting of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries in Washington D.C. agrees upon a phased increase to $2.50 per barrel from its current level of $2.39 over the course of 1974.
November 8: The Royal Marines complete the fielding of a special regimental sized force consolidating the various Naval Parties deployed to the remaining Crown Colonies of the British Empire, currently consisting of twenty such deployed units, each of a reinforced Royal Marine company, and four operational reserve companies stationed at Aden, Singapore, Gibraltar and Chatham.
November 9: Establishment of the Philippine National Oil Company, aimed at developing the nation's untapped onshore and offshore oil reserves and developing a series of oil refineries across Luzon and Mindanao.
November 10: The Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Denis Healey announces a raft of reforms to the British taxation system, aimed at stimulating the recovery from the recent recession, with income below £500 to be exempt from taxation, that between £500 and £2500 at 10% and from £2500 to £5000 at 15%, whilst estate duty is to be abolished and a White Paper on land value tax will be produced.
November 11: American and Canadian biologists announce the discovery of Vitamins J, O, M, Q and R after extensive study of rare plants discovered in the virgin depths of the Amazon Rainforest, with team leaders Dr. Michaela Quinn and Dr. James Campbell stating that there is a veritable world of treasure within the Amazon, far, far more valuable than gold or silver.
November 12: Plucky New Zealand youngster Terrence Teo exposes a gun smuggling plot by nefarious gangster Ray Vegas, allowing the Royal New Zealand Police Force Special Branch and the crack Special Intelligence Bureau of Sir Arnos Grove to swoop on the miscreants and ensure that they pay full excise upon their imports.
November 13: The Air Ministry, Royal Air Force and Ministry of Education initiate the Junior Pilot Aptitude Programme, identifying potential future RAF pilots through examination of academic, physical and aptitude testing data at junior secondary level in public and state schools and channeling the best scoring boys through the Air Training Corps, Air Cadets and Air Experience Flights on direct paths towards flight training.
November 14: Princess Anne and Prince Christian are married at Westminster Abbey, with the streets lined with tens of thousands of spectators and the nuptials viewed by a global television audience of over 600 million people.
November 15: Emperor Alexander of Greece grants billionaire businessman Aristotle Onassis the prestigious honourary rank of Magistros as a reward for his endeavours in Project Omega, the $2 billion project for the development of Greek industry and modernisation of infrastructure.
November 16: Royal Swedish Navy submarines detect and track a hitherto unknown Soviet submarine off the Åland Islands, with the boat displaying concerning speed and maneuvering characteristics.
November 17: Ground is broken on a new Anglo-Saxon Petroleum oil refinery at Frinton in Essex, one of several new industrial facilities designed to take advantage of the energy available from the new nuclear power station at Lee-over-sands, along with a planned computer manufacturing plant at Wivenhoe and a microwave oven, talking toaster and kitchen appliance factory at Lawford.
November 18: Farmers in Norfolk unveil the world's largest sheep breed, the 4.5ft tall and 525lb Silver Imperial, possessed of exceptionally high quality wool of great fineness and most toothsome meat.
November 19: Signing of the Rio de La Plata Treaty in Montevideo between Argentina and Uruguay providing for delineation of boundary through the River Plate and mechanisms for dispute resolution.
November 20: Debut of Darklands, a new ABC historical drama series about the fantastical adventures of an unlikely band of heroes in the 15th century Holy Roman Empire, starring Horst Bucholz as Brother Schweigen the mysterious monk, Frank Finlay as Professor Rudolf van Richten the scholarly wizard, Gérard Depardieu as the roguish bard Jorian des Fleurs and Dutch newcomer Rutger Hauer as the paladin Holger Carlson. It is so successful as to spawn two competitors - ATN's Wolf and Fox and NBC's Kriegshammer.
November 21: The Soviet Union defeats Chile in a spiteful soccer match in Santiago, ensuring Soviet qualification for the 1974 World Cup.
November 22: The Libyan Ministry of the Interior signs an agreement with a group of British firms for extensive modernisation of the North African nation's infrastructure and a mass irrigation project to green a swathe of the desert interior; a large part of the designated funding comes from the payments for the use of the Tobruk base complex from the British Ministry of Defence and Wheelus AFB from the US Department of Defence.
November 23: Argentina begins a joint air and naval exercise in the South Atlantic 250 miles off the coast of Uruguay, with their carrier task force trailed at a distance of 40 miles by a Brazilian cruiser.
November 24: Soviet scientists publish a paper ascribing the legendary Fall of Atlantis and the subsequent prevalance of Great Flood myths in cultures around the world to a comet impact at the end of the last Ice Age and calling for greater research of the underwater expanses to the east of Bermuda. The paper is thought to have been written in the background of the exclusion of Soviet scientists from the nascent undersea exploration of the purported ruins of Atlantis, along with more prosaic motivations.
November 25: Imperial Mining begins development of roads and supporting infrastructure for development of very large Ugandan gold reserves in the south of the country, with additional security provided by a number of private contracting companies, including a battalion of the East India Company, and redeployed forces of the British African Army, invited by the new Ugandan government.
November 26: The Ministry of Education approve an expansion of the school dinner programme across Britain, with meals now mandated to supply a starter or soup, main course, side dish, fruit, salad, bread, milk and pudding, with all main courses to include at least 4 ounces of meat or fish. Whilst the scale of the programme is criticised by some in the Opposition on cost grounds, its general utility is acknowledged close to universally.
November 27: An exhibition match of Australian Rules Football is held in New York City between premiers Richmond and Geelong, in front of 12,423 curious spectators exhibition game at Dodger Dome in New York City, following on from their much more widely attended match at The Oval in London and before their final match in the North American heartland of 'field ball' in San Francisco. The Cats upset the reigning premiers 19.11 (125) to 16.14 (110) with Doug Wade kicking 12.4.
November 28: The five leading fashion designers in the United States compete against the five best French designers in a special charity show aimed at raising funds for the restoration of parts of the Palace of Versailles, leading to the even being dubbed the 'Battle of Versailles'. The result is a more diplomatic draw than a decisive victory for either side, although the overall reputation of the American designers rises in the view of many observers.
November 29: A terrible fire in a Japanese department threatens to kill hundreds when its sprinkler system fails, only for a flying costumed boy to smash the front of the building asunder and tear holes in the roof, allowing the helicopters and Rotodynes of the Tokyo Fire Department to saturate much of the interior with conjured water.
November 30: Sir Winston Churchill, the Duke of London, celebrates his 99th birthday in London with a celebratory 12 course dinner at Simpson's-in-the-Strand attended by a variety of notable dignitaries, including the Duke of Edinburgh, the Duke of Gloucester, the Duke of Kent, the Duke of Marlborough, the Earl of Harcourt, the Earl of Avon, Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Earl Alexander of Tunis, Earl Montgomery of Alamein, Earl Alanbrooke of Amiens, Earl Cunningham of Singapore, Earl Fraser of Trondheim, Earl Harris of the Ruhr, Sir Guy Gibson, Sir Charles Ratcliffe and Sir James Bigglesworth as well as his family, including sons Sir Randolph, Sir William, George and John, his daughters Lady Sandys, Lady Audley, Lady Soames, Lady Ratcliffe and numerous friends.

Always one of the great Dutch actors.

I assume the Saigon is not Vietnamese build but most likely American, British ore even French.

South Vietnam flagship ore do they have something bigger.

To North Vietnam the most i think, China will have a couple i think and some bigger in their South China fleet i assume, also going bit to tough real politics here, but what does China feel about South Vietnam annexing the Paracel Islands, will we see a war ore will that get the United States involved.