Dark Earth Timeline

October
October 1: President Kennedy orders an immediate full scale invasion of Haiti in response to the revelations of yesterday’s report. 75,000 US Marines and US Army paratroopers begin their surprise assault 10 hours later, supported by hundreds of planes of the Twenty-Fifth Air Force. The President gives a national address on all television networks that night, announcing that intelligence had revealed the direct involvement of the Duvalier regime with the ongoing zombie plague and that all means would be used to wipe it out and protect humanity.
October 2: Entry into service of the Austro-German Leopard MBT, described as one of the most heavily armoured tanks in the world.
October 3: Historical reenactors travelling along the Oregon Trail as part of an ABC special miniseries are struck with acute dysentery, throwing the filming schedule into chaos.
October 4: A British SAS team destroys the subterranean South American headquarters of the IRA in remote Venezuela, with Che Guevara narrowly escaping the surprise attack.
October 5: The Peruvian government is deposed in a coup d‘stat whilst the King is abroad.
October 6: France conducts an underground H-Bomb test at Mururoa Atoll in the South Pacific.
October 7: Reverend Elvis Presley, visiting London on vacation, subdues a beserk giant robot dragon that is attempting to destroy Tower Bridge after it escaped a nearby circus, using his trusty laser sword and his exotic karate skills in an incredible display of daring.
October 8: A special Viet Cong commando force attempts to assault the US Embassy in Saigon, but is quickly pinned down by fire from the reinforced U.S. Marine guard detachment and the Gurkha platoon from the British Embassy across the road before being wiped out by the US and South Vietnamese quick reaction force.
October 9: An open letter signed by 56 renowned marine biologists is published in The Washington Post, calling for a reappraisal of the international crusade to wipe out the megalodon due to the possible impact upon oceanic food chains.
October 10: Flight International reports that new orders for the Boeing 2707 have once more been overtaken by the Hawker-Siddeley Concord, with the Nord-Renault Super-Caravelle and the Lockheed L-2400 rounding out the top four; the presence of the Junkers Ju-625 in the top five is ascribed purely to Lufthansa’s expansive order.
October 11: The first of a new US class of nuclear attack submarine is laid down at Electric Boat in Groton, Connecticut; eleven other boats are on order in all five of the other atomic submarine yards in the United States - Newport News, New York Shipbuilding and Fore River and Portsmouth and Mare Island Naval Shipyards.
October 12: Opening of the XIX Summer Olympics in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
October 13: German monthly car production tops 700,000 for the first time.
October 14: Jamaican Lennox Miller becomes the first West Indian athlete from the unified Federation team to win an Olympic gold medal, triumphing in the final of the 100 metres sprint in a thriller over American Jim Hines.
October 15: US Marine Raiders capture President Duvalier in an isolated mountain village, being cursed by the dying words of a strange voodoo priest in the process. General Max Viers, commander of Joint Task Force 101, hails the capture as the harbinger of the first phase of victory, stating that he is prepared to wipe out voodoo if it will end the zombie menace to the United States and the world.
October 16: The US Supreme Court does not invalidate the prohibition on teaching of evolution in Epperson v Arkansas.
October 17: Fortune Magazine controversially proclaims Sir Charles Ratcliffe as the richest man in the world, shifting their definitions to exclude royalty for the first time.
October 18: Japanese Prime Minister Akira Tanaka gives an expansive speech before the Diet, proclaiming that the time had come for Japanese rearmament in defence of her interests and of peace.
October 19: A gang of mysterious criminals steal four Tyrannosaurus Rexes from New York Zoo.
October 20: Introduction of commercial television to Britain with the beginning of broadcasts of the new independent Imperial Television network (ITV) joining the BBC; the Postmaster General has indicated that advances in technology can accomodate up to another three further nationwide channels in coming years.
October 21: Arrest of a suspected serial kidnapper in Birmingham, as intrepid detectives free six captives from his dungeon.
October 22: An episode of The Big Picture highlights the US Army of the Future, displaying cutting edge combat robots, large war machines, power armour, supersonic guided missiles and advanced tanks.
October 23: Bishop William Langham of Nottingham is appointed as the new Archbishop of York. He is noted for being the first member of the Church Militant to ascend to the position since the 17th century, as well as being a strong High Church traditionalist and the author of widely read spiritual commentaries.
October 24: Military personnel and civilian contractors report seeing a UFO flying at low altitude over Minot AFB, ND in the early hours of the morning before executing a series of seemingly impossible aerial manoeuvres and then climbing up beyond 200,000ft and disappearing.
October 25: An eccentric French tourist is pursued by an angry mob of outraged locals after inadvertently spotting the famed Albino Dalmatian of Dubrovnik until rescued by a passing American academic.
October 26: Beginning of Operation Stormbringer, a joint Anglo-American offensive push in South Vietnam by 30,000 British and 48,000 US troops. It’s opening aerial attacks see the combat debut of the Fairchild-Republic A-10A Thunderbird ground attack jet and the Bristol Strikemaster light COIN fighter-bomber.
October 27: Closing ceremony of the Buenos Aires Olympics, hailed as one of the most successful in recent memory.
October 28: Resignation of the Syrian Prime Minister after news of an Israeli spy scandal breaks.
October 29: Scotland Yard detectives conclude an investigation into a flying boy seen visiting a children’s hospital in West London, finding that the matter was entirely benign.
October 30: USAF pilots report a new a advanced Chinese fighter operating in squadron strength over North Vietnam.
October 31: Enraged Tyrannosaurs are let loose in downtown Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland and Pittsburgh in what is dubbed the “Halloween Horror”. Although the beasts are swiftly subdued and recaptured by police wizards, the attacks cause considerable trauma, particularly to children engaged in ‘trick or treating’.

A bit of overkill ore am i missing something here.

Steve,

1.) They were willing to leave him in power up to the point his actions posed a threat to US security and interests. The full details will come in another piece, but Papa Doc was dealing with folks he shouldn’t have been, in addition to chasing power through voodoo a bit much.
2.) No, it is a fictional event. I had planned something referencing the Oregon Trail with regard to a historical event on a National Trails Act earlier in the year, but it didn’t fit in. The old Oregon Trail game, with its proclamation “You died of dysentery!”, was a charming one for its era and I wanted to conjure something of that charm.
3.) He cut its main control circuit and made it fall in the Thames, thus preserving the robot itself for repair, even if it was all shook up.
4.) You are right - their warnings fall on deaf ears. When there is a clear threat, humans don’t act 100% rationally.
5.) The Concord is a 100% British plane, one of several supersonics seen as the way of the future.
6.) Argentina is very well off and this is reflected in them winning the Games. There will be an increasing number of different hosts in coming years; 1972 is Constantinople.
7.) Absolutely. They have Trinidad, Jamaica, Barbados, British Guiana, the Bahamas and Cuba to draw upon, plus the smaller islands of course. A good basis for achievement in athletics, plus the small matter of the West Indies cricket team, given cricket is an Olympic sport.
8.) The Marines were cursed.
9.) You might be looking at things from an @ angle here. As far as the Dark Earthlings can see, as of 1968, there are species that should not exist/could not have evolved, real evidence of apparently Biblical archaeological finds, magic, life on planets where there should not be and universal physical laws that don’t seem so universal, along with a lot more. In such a circumstance, given that there was a quite large amount of such beliefs/actions even in @, can they be expected to adopt a hyper rational materialist approach? I like to turn matters on their head and work with what must be a very challenging situation for the DE denizens.
10.) It is.
11.) A very different culture. I have probably delayed commercial television as long as possible in Britain, with it being a matter of Labour modernisation rather than the @ Tory free market principles of the late 50s. There is a single BBC channel, rather than BBC1 and BBC2, which consolidates their interest. ITV is a different corporation, aiming to produce for the broader Commonwealth market as well as Britain. I am still having regional franchises, albeit a fewer number, for reasons of practicality; Thames Television covers London and the South East, for example - I couldn’t not have the classic Thames ident/logo. This means that the 3rd and 4th channels (Channel 4 and Channel 5 in @) will be coming sooner and in different forms, both being commercial corporations with different names.
12.) Purely DE. It will lead to some other crimes being unravelled.
13.) Exactly. The “gee whiz” element of future prognostications in the 1960s can be seen in the videos, films and magazine articles of the time and here they will come to pass in various forms, whilst also seeing older weapons systems and technology stick around. The end result bears a slight, slight resemblance to some aspects of 40K, along with the Cold War visions of the future past.
14.) It is Monsieur Hulot.
15.) Yes, it is that Peter.
16.) Someone is up to no good; the young T Rexes were recaptured and returned back home to their families, leading to a heartwarming reunion…well, sort of heartwarming. They weren’t able to hug.

Who? Kennedy or Duvalier? Both know.

They are a nasty surprise and can take on the Phantom on very good terms.

It will come out in due course, without too much difficulty. The Phantom isn't the alpha and omega of air combat at this point, with the F-15 coming in very soon; the Crusader III is considered the better dog-fighter, but it serves over South Vietnam due to its shorter range.