Dark Earth Timeline

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. - know that reference but not a show I liked.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. - Well that was in interesting combination of forces and I think Spidy is some way from home and not as mobile as the other guy.  But at least you have Marvel and DC cooperating. ;)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
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'.

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. Its 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.

Steve,

1.) This is not our grandfather's steam engine, but a fully modernised one that as said can easily do the required 200mph; the larger ones go at 375mph. They are arcanely boosted with a few other developments, but the trains themselves are based on a combination of locomotive.fandom.com/wiki/ACE_3000 , en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5AT_Advanced_Technology_Steam_Locomotive and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LNER_Class_A4_4468_Mallard . The locomotives in general are much bigger than the ones of @, reflecting the larger loading gauge and broad gauge standard; Brunel won out early on in the Age of Rail rather than being an anomaly. Steam was 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.

2.) There is a bit more of that going on both ways, with the Russian Orthodox Church being a power that the CPSU has chosen to accomodate rather than liquidate, with the rather nasty experiences of the WW2 Eastern Front being a lasting lesson for many in the Soviet leadership bloc; the priests are handy to keep around and in doing so, the Soviet government keeps control of them. A complex and troubled relationship.

4.) It is a consequence of some supernatural things, including the powers unleashed in WW2 and strange developments with re-emerging islands. Something is afoot.

6.) On the World at War: This is to be an even better series than @, 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.

7.) Quite correct. I'm musing whether to run with that or twist it around.

8.) Here, blame my late night finger typing on a phone whilst in bed. The name was Zujovic en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmundo_P%C3%A9rez_Zujovic

9.) At the moment, they are limited to trying to show off a bit like a 13 year old boy.

11.) There have already been some 'brakes' put on Commonwealth migration from certain areas to Britain in the form of some legislative measures, but chiefly through a lack of postwar labour shortages in Britain and much better economic conditions in the West Indies and India. Here, the growing 'worry' is that there are a lot of Southern Europeans coming in more rapidly than others, in a bit of a hearkening back to the 1890s concerns over Eastern European and Jewish migration.

12-15.) The C-135 and Bill Briggs are almost entirely OTL, whilst the Australian nonuplets did not survive and the missing schoolboys is completely fictional; in that instance, I'm 'lacing' the timeline with future story hooks. I envisage that one being a bit of an American Elidor crossed with Picnic at Hanging Rock, with some different outcomes - the makings of a good old fashioned mystery yarn, one day.

16.) There do seem to be some very mysterious and benign figures going around the place, one of whom is Michael Landon's Jonathan Smith from Highway to Heaven. It may be a bit of 80s fantasy drama, but it was very fair, quite inclusive for its day with many handicapped and minority heroes/characters portrayed sensitively and respectfully and just rather nice.

17.) It does make a lot of sense, with France gradually shifting its numbers and emphasis to different areas. The draw down from Vietnam allowed the Germans to pip them and they will go further as time goes by.

18.) In a way, yes. There was a historical one back in 1911 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1911_Circuit_of_Europe_air_race albeit confined to Europe in @, but I wanted to put in an event that channelled TMMITFM, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Verne%27s_Rocket_to_the_Moon and some of the American caper/aviation films of the 1960s.

19.) Very nasty and sadly OTL.

20.) They got close in @, but here, getting that bit closer causes a lot of people to get a bit nervous.

21.) I do like that scene in Top Gun Maverick.

22.) As I also like the works of Chris de Burgh.

23.) Yes, a historical event.

25.) Very different. Here, Egypt has never had its coup and reflexive movement into the embrace of Moscow...well, apart from the few brief days in the 1956 'Six Day War' which bought the world to the brink of nuclear conflict and resulted in five years of very hard military occupation. The Soviets haven't had a lot of luck in penetrating the 'Third World', as the markets there were quite tightly shut until gradual independence and even afterwards, leaning Red wasn't seen as a good career move. We then need to factor in the reputation of Soviet tanks and aircraft, which took a battering in Korea and another somewhat lesser beating in Vietnam. I've been trying to think of a way whereby the Arabs and Egypt buy Soviet, but can't seem to figure one; their only success in the area was earlier in 1971 with the sale of Badgers to Ottoman Turkey.

29.) They have a role of something of an adventuring/do-good group like The Goodies, but will tend gradually towards some more musical elements in the process, as well as getting their own television and film series to boot.

30.) When the Red Army is across the Danube in Romania, it has a sterling impact in focusing both Bulgaria and Greece on the real threat, even if there is a bit of ancestral uneasiness in this latest embrace.

Thanks for the many comments and questions, as ever.

Simon

Steve,

A pleasure as always.

4.) Very well played.

6.) A lot on The World at War.
a) Splitting these up would result in 3 episodes on SE Asia, or 4 if we count the New Guinea/DEI episode. A little inflated as to its position in the global war.
b) The Battle of the Atlantic involved the ASW operations, the Bismarck sinking and no further in depth battles. It might be stretching things to the point of the Battle of the Atlantic episode of The Secret War to try and drill down more.
c) Leningrad, certainly could be done. There isn't a Battle of Kursk/Citadel in Dark Earth, with the Germans instead pursuing Manstein's 'backhanded' offensives whilst building up the Panther-Wotan Line. This is one reason as to why the Soviets only make it to the Oder rather than the Elbe (plus Prague, Vienna et al). Something more could come out of the Eastern Front than 2 episodes in any case.
d) An excellent idea. We didn't get anything like that in @ because the Bamboo Curtain was still very high, but here, there might be scope for it. I provisionally included it in the 'CBI' episode, as the major ground action (from a Western Allied perspective) came in 1945 when the Anglo-American armies pushed into China.
e) A very interesting idea; it can pair with the famous Punch cartoon "So our poor old Empire is alone in the world." "Aye, all five hundred million of us."

f) Pincers was about the collapse of Germany, which in @ only came from the 2 directions - France and Italy. Here, there is the big advance from the West, the very big advance from the south (Italy plus the Balkans thrust) and one from the north (liberation of Southern Norway, the Swedes liberating Denmark along with British + Canadian airborne et al). I think it will suffice as is.
g) Midway does occur, along with other naval battles on both sides of the Pacific

One part that could be included is a specific episode on Scandinavia, covering The Winter War, Norway in 1940 and onwards, Sweden at war, Denmark under occupation and liberation.

7.) Following the historical path sets up a bit of a shock as to the fraud, whereas the opposite provides questions as to how and why.

8.) Indeed. My old understanding was similar, but there is a lot more going on in Chile than the base narrative.

11.) Quite different, not least of all because the main push comes from the Left in the form of trade unions. The 2020s stereotypical paradigm of 'pro-immigration Left' and 'anti-immigration Right' doesn't really apply in the 1960s and 1970s. The Conservatives aren't particularly strong on the issue, as it hasn't really come up before now in the postwar period, whilst Labour are driven by the views of their power base - the unions and the traditional working class. There is a pro-immigration faction within the third party, the Liberals, but even there, it hasn't subsumed the entire of that party, which straddles both sides of the political centre.

16.) It is good for what it is.

30.) Difficult times make for strange bedfellows.

Simon