Thanks a lot Trixtor, let me know if you have any questions. Cheers!
The Union Forever: A TL
- Thread starter Mac Gregor
- Start date
Thanks a lot Trixtor, let me know if you have any questions. Cheers!
Happy Washington's Birthday! (A prominent holiday ITTL)
I hope to have an update done in the not to distant future.
Happy belated birthday to the Father of our Country! Plus I can't wait for the new update, though I still need to read about the 1956 election.
1956
Foreign Developments
American figure skaters compete in Helsinki
In February, Russian Emperor Peter IV presided over the opening ceremonies of the 5th Winter Olympic Games in Helsinki. While applauded by most international observers the games were controversial inside the Russian Empire due to policies that many viewed as trying to suppress the Finnish identity of the games. The controversy eventually led to a formal protest by Finnish delegates in the Russian Duma garnering international attention. In many ways the Helsinki Games were indicative of the political crisis brewing inside the Empire between ethnic minorities who increasingly resented the political control of the Russian majority.
Although the fighting had been over for more than a year, peace negotiations for the Second Sino-Japanese War dragged on into the early months of 1956. China’s new leader Zhang Khun refused to enter into any sort of formal treaty with Japan knowing that any agreements would have to recognize Japanese annexation of Hainan. However, Zhang also realized that any notion of restarting hostilities was, at this moment, out of the question. Therefore the ceasefire signed between the Empire of Japan and the now defunct Chinese Republican government in November of 1954 continued on indefinitely. By the winter of 1956 both nations had exchanged all prisoners of war, but the status of Hainan and its inhabitants remained a major point of contention. The two and half million Chinese on the island rightly assumed that only a bleak future remained for them under Japanese rule and as such many began to flee abroad. The Japanese not only allowed but encouraged emigration and began importing their own colonist to Hainan in earnest. Fearing that accepting these refugees would amount to conceding Japanese ownership of the island, Leader Zhang refused to accept their repatriation to China. Fortuitously, the League of American Republics in April offered to resettle the Chinese refugees with nearly a million immigrating to the Americas over the next five years. Around a quarter of a million more would eventually settle in Australia, New Zealand, British Malaysia, and the Dutch East Indies.
The 1956 Italian Elections saw President Renato Tittoni and his center left People’s Party retain power despite gains made by the Democratic-Republicans in the legislature. Arguably the most important achievement of Tittoni’s second term occurred a few months later with the passage of the Universal Citizenship Act. The act finally resolved the political status of the millions of Arabs and Berbers living in Italian North Africa by making them full fledge citizens of the republic and giving the region the appropriate representation in the Italian government. While many rightwing politicians deplored the move it appeared to have the desired effect of calming tensions between the indigenous inhabitants and the ethnic Italian colonists, a fact not lost on other colonial powers.
In preparation for the general elections called for early next year, the Conservative government of Prime Minister Baxter announced in November that it would begin seeking an “honorable end” to the war in India. After seven years of war both sides were becoming exhausted. Divisions in the Indian resistance continued to grow. In the west, the Persian military increased their aid to separatists in Indian Baluchistan wishing to see the creation of a pro-Persian buffer state after the British withdrawal. In the east, Bengali guerrilla leader Mohammad Hamid broke from the UFLI and created his own splinter organization calling for the creation of a separate Muslim republic, and in northern India severe food shortages were raising the familiar specter of famine.
Flag used by Baluch separatists
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Interesting developments...
Good stuff in Italy. Giving full citizenship to the inhabitants is the only right thing to do if they aren't going to grant their North African territory independence. Maybe they'll set a trend?
Looking forward to seeing how India ends up playing out.
Good stuff in Italy. Giving full citizenship to the inhabitants is the only right thing to do if they aren't going to grant their North African territory independence. Maybe they'll set a trend?
Looking forward to seeing how India ends up playing out.
Questions
I don't really have any response to the recent update, aside from wariness over what looks to be quite a bit of ethnic tension in Russia, but I do have some questions:
How is anti-semitism in Europe? OTL, the Nazis made anti-semites look absolutely horrible, but TTL, there hasn't been a major event to change European thought on the matter.
On a related note: is there still a Zionist movement of some sort? (By "Zionist" I mean a group that wishes to establish a Jewish state, not necessarily in the Middle East.)
On a tangentially connected topic: Has the notion of eugenics deflated yet, or are there still major proponents of it? (I assume that the creation of the notion of eugenics is inevitable given any human knowledge of the theory of evolution, due mostly to the way people think in general.)
How about Social Darwinism?
How are the sciences doing? Forgive me if you've given an overview of them, but how are things like computing and atomic physics doing in this timeline?
I don't really have any response to the recent update, aside from wariness over what looks to be quite a bit of ethnic tension in Russia, but I do have some questions:
How is anti-semitism in Europe? OTL, the Nazis made anti-semites look absolutely horrible, but TTL, there hasn't been a major event to change European thought on the matter.
On a related note: is there still a Zionist movement of some sort? (By "Zionist" I mean a group that wishes to establish a Jewish state, not necessarily in the Middle East.)
On a tangentially connected topic: Has the notion of eugenics deflated yet, or are there still major proponents of it? (I assume that the creation of the notion of eugenics is inevitable given any human knowledge of the theory of evolution, due mostly to the way people think in general.)
How about Social Darwinism?
How are the sciences doing? Forgive me if you've given an overview of them, but how are things like computing and atomic physics doing in this timeline?
In OTL zionist movement was borning on 1860's. So it is probably exist ITTL too. But without Pogroms on end of 19th century and early 20th century and Holocaust it hardly isn't so powerful as in OTL.
Thanks for the questions Trixtor, keep them coming.
Yes, there is still a good deal of anti-semitism in Europe but only a few fringe groups are calling for extermination or deportation.
There are a variety of zionist movements but they are not as strong as OTL. A considerable number of Jews have resettled in the Republic of Greater Syria but are mostly left to themselves by the Syrian governement.
Eugenics is as of the 1950s alive and well in America and most other countries. However their is a growing movement against it in the U.S.
Indeed, without WWII Social Darwinism is considerably more popular than OTL.
Association football is a good deal more popular in America ITTL. Beyond that I am open to suggestions.
I noted that, earlier in the thread, you listed the primary sports of the USA as football (association), rugby, handball and baseball. I think that rugby in TTL's America should be closer to OTL's football, only without so much padding and modifications to the player spread on the field (maybe a mix of OTL's Australian football, Canadian football and rugby league?), and just call it "American rugby". That way, football can be used to refer to that thing people like to kick and stomp around endlessly as in the rest of the world. And I really have nothing much to offer regarding baseball (you seem to be on top of it, besides that sport holds no appeal to me) and handball (IDK if it's anything like basketball, or the other OTL handball).
As a fan of both American football and rugby (League rather than Union, anyway), will this version of rugby end up as a professional sport, or as just a collegiate one? Because I can start working on team names if you'd like.
Also, what's the deal with playing handball?
Rugby is a professional sport and I would love to start seeing some team names! Handball is also a major porfessional sport ITTL. Think a mix between OTL handball and basketball. Cheers!
A few American Rugby team name suggestions, then;
-New York Titans (this actually was OTL before the name was changed to the Jets at the start of the NFL's existence)
-Los Angeles Stallions
-Chicago Lakers (as in "Great Lake"-ers)
-Baltimore Colts
-Houston Drillers
-San Francisco Locos
-Detroit Mohawks
-Pittsburgh Ironmen
-Dallas Rustlers
-St. Louis Bucks (cooler sounding than "buckaroos")
-Atlanta Rattlesnakes
-Philadelphia Smiths
-Washington Sentinels (reference to one of my favorite so-bad-it's-good movies)
-Miami Barracudas
-Las Vegas Scorpions
-Hampton Buccaneers
-Milwaukee Brewers
-New Orleans Gators
-Cleveland Chargers
-Boston Minutemen
-New York Titans (this actually was OTL before the name was changed to the Jets at the start of the NFL's existence)
-Los Angeles Stallions
-Chicago Lakers (as in "Great Lake"-ers)
-Baltimore Colts
-Houston Drillers
-San Francisco Locos
-Detroit Mohawks
-Pittsburgh Ironmen
-Dallas Rustlers
-St. Louis Bucks (cooler sounding than "buckaroos")
-Atlanta Rattlesnakes
-Philadelphia Smiths
-Washington Sentinels (reference to one of my favorite so-bad-it's-good movies
)-Miami Barracudas
-Las Vegas Scorpions
-Hampton Buccaneers
-Milwaukee Brewers
-New Orleans Gators
-Cleveland Chargers
-Boston Minutemen
A few American Rugby team name suggestions, then;
-New York Titans (this actually was OTL before the name was changed to the Jets at the start of the NFL's existence)
-Los Angeles Stallions
-Chicago Lakers (as in "Great Lake"-ers)
-Baltimore Colts
-Houston Drillers
-San Francisco Locos
-Detroit Mohawks
-Pittsburgh Ironmen
-Dallas Rustlers
-St. Louis Bucks (cooler sounding than "buckaroos")
-Atlanta Rattlesnakes
-Philadelphia Smiths
-Washington Sentinels (reference to one of my favorite so-bad-it's-good movies
-Miami Barracudas
-Las Vegas Scorpions
-Hampton Buccaneers
-Milwaukee Brewers
-New Orleans Gators
-Cleveland Chargers
-Boston Minutemen
These sound good to me and thanks for remembering the Atlanta Rattlesnakes! The only exception is that Las Vegas doesn't really exist ITTL. How about the Halleckville Scorpions for the capital of Arizona? Also which Hampton are you referring to? How should Rugby be organized; conferences, divisions, etc.?
-No problem, it should be clear that I did do a little research
. I forgot, however, that Las Vegas didn't exist ITTL due to the fact that it's basically part of Arizona now, so Halleckville sounds good to me.-Hampton, VA. I know I shouldn't be stumping for my home state so much, but it just rubs me the wrong way that, in terms of GDP, population size, geography, franchise growth, etc. Virginia has all the right attributes to have at least one Major League sports franchise...and yet, we don't IOTL (and no, the Redskins are NOT my state's team
). I'm flexible on the actual city (I picked Hampton since, as a port town, it has the infrastructure to move teams and fans around easily, and IOTL the VA-Beach area has had some success in infrastructure expansion. Plus, it's that much farther away from both the Capital and Baltimore), but I beseech you give it some thought .-I think there should be five conferences; Northeast, Midwest, South, Western, and Oceanic, each having an East and West division. I cribbed this somewhat from the TL-191/After the End thread, with the addition of an Oceanic conference for states like Cuba, Polynesia, etc. that doesn't slot well into any of the mainland conferences (although I doubt rugby would be as popular there as football or baseball), with their conference using the East/West division setup to distinguish which ocean they neighbor. I'm not sure if you wanted there to be a Major/Minor League distinction, but I was thinking of using the college teams as the "minor leagues" (with the capacity for accepting walk-ons, of course) in keeping with "mainstream" rugby tradition as originally a collegiate activity.
EDIT: Now that I think about it, the "Oceanic" conference may not work due to a lack of interest and/or franchise prerequisites. If that is so, then perhaps states like Polynesia, Hawaii, etc. can be rolled into the Pacific conference, while Cuba, Martinique, etc. can be put into either the Northeast or South conference (if one state can't meet the franchise requirements in terms of cash flow, fanbase, etc. then perhaps having a pan-state team like OTL's Patriots could work).
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-No problem, it should be clear that I did do a little research
-Hampton, VA. I know I shouldn't be stumping for my home state so much, but it just rubs me the wrong way that, in terms of GDP, population size, geography, franchise growth, etc. Virginia has all the right attributes to have at least one Major League sports franchise...and yet, we don't IOTL (and no, the Redskins are NOT my state's team
-I think there should be five conferences; Northeast, Midwest, South, Western, and Oceanic, each having an East and West division. I cribbed this somewhat from the TL-191/After the End thread, with the addition of an Oceanic conference for states like Cuba, Polynesia, etc. that doesn't slot well into any of the mainland conferences (although I doubt rugby would be as popular there as football or baseball), with their conference using the East/West division setup to distinguish which ocean they neighbor. I'm not sure if you wanted there to be a Major/Minor League distinction, but I was thinking of using the college teams as the "minor leagues" (with the capacity for accepting walk-ons, of course) in keeping with "mainstream" rugby tradition as originally a collegiate activity.
EDIT: Now that I think about it, the "Oceanic" conference may not work due to a lack of interest and/or franchise prerequisites. If that is so, then perhaps states like Polynesia, Hawaii, etc. can be rolled into the Pacific conference, while Cuba, Martinique, etc. can be put into either the Northeast or South conference (if one state can't meet the franchise requirements in terms of cash flow, fanbase, etc. then perhaps having a pan-state team like OTL's Patriots could work).
Good points. What should the national organization be called? The National Rugby Association?
1957: Domestic Developments
1957
Domestic Developments
U.S. Capitol during the 1957 Presidential Inauguration
On January 15th, Presidents Conner and Anderson narrowly escaped assassination after communist Patrick Ray Dattilo emptied a revolver at their convertible as they traveled to the capitol for the inauguration. Amazingly no one was killed although the treasury agent driving the vehicle was wounded in the left arm. President Conner famously forced President elect Anderson to the floor of the vehicle and shielded him with his own body. When Anderson asked whether they should continue to the capitol, the pugnacious Conner is reported to have replied “And let that fucker interfere with the 16th Amendment? Never!” As such Richard Anderson was successfully inaugurated at noon as the nation’s 31st President. Later that day Leroy Conner and his wife Elizabeth returned to their home in Atlanta where Conner received a hero’s welcome.
On June 18, the “King of Groove” Danny “Funky” Turpin announced his retirement from music. Having been preforming nearly continuously since the early 40’s, Turpin stated his reasons for retirement as “road fatigue and a desire to be a father to my children.” Many music historians would mark Turpin’s announcement as the beginning of the end for the Groove genre as competitors began quickly forcing their way onto American airwaves. Congress would honor Turpin with the Congressional Gold Medal ten years later for his contributions to American culture and the civil rights movement.
In September, Shane Bayard’s Dreamworld Film Company premiered their first animated television series titled Ricky Raccoon and Friends on the American Television Network (ATN). Staring such beloved characters as Ricky Raccoon, Tom Turkey, and Dennis Duck the series would become one of the longest running shows on American television further cementing Dreamworld’s place in American pop culture.
Ricky Raccoon as seen in Ricky Raccoon and Friends
1957
1957
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