Alternate Obituaries

Virgil Ivan Grissom, widely noted as Gus Grissom (April 3, 1926 – July 2, 1987) was one of the original NASA Project Mercury astronauts and a United States Air Force pilot. He was the second American to fly in space and the first person to fly in space twice. In 1969, Grissom was commander of the first manned mission to land on the moon. Along with Astronaut James Lovell, Grissom conducted the first in-person survey of the lunar surface. Although he retired from active NASA service after that successful mission, he remained an outspoken supporter of the manned space program. Many consider Grissom to have been instrumental in helping to move the Ares program of manned missions to Mars forward. His last public appearance was in 1986 as a commentator for CNN coverage of the first manned Mars landing of the Ares VI mission. He was a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
 
William Claude Dukinfield, Ph. D., 29 January 1880, Philadelphia, PA - 28 May 1966, Newark, DE. The University of Delaware community is saddened by the passing of emeritus professor of English William Claude Dukinfield today. Professor Dukinfield was an extremely popular scholar of American and British humorous literature for more than forty years at this institution. His courses on modern American humor and on 19th century British literature were among those in highest demand. During his tenure, Professor Dukinfield authored more than a dozen review and survey texts. His 1949 work Giving you the Dickens: his Life, Times, and Prose is held widely to be the definitive work on Dickens, and is noted for its unique combination of scholarly research presented in a humorous--and often irreverent--fashion.

As an avocation, Professor Dukinfield often appeared in character roles in campus dramatic and comedic productions. He also authored several books of humorous essays. In both his amateur theatrics and his essays, he used the pseudonym W. C. Fields.

Professor Dukinfield was born and raised in Darby, PA, a suburb of Philadelphia, the son of a greengrocer and his wife. While not particularly scrupulous about attendance at school, he discovered a love of literature in his teens and set about educating himself while working as a clerk at Strawbridge and Clothier in Philadelphia. His knowledge grew to be sufficiently encyclopedic that one of his co-workers jokingly suggested he should go to college. Dukinfield took him seriously, and applied to the University of Pennsylvania. He passed the entrance examinations, and was graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in 1902.

Fields applied his degree almost immediately, teaching English and composition in the public school system of Trenton (NJ), which post he held while continuing to study on his own. A teaching colleague suggested he might be recognized with an advanced degree based upon the knowledge he displayed. With that in mind, Fields discovered that nearby Princeton University, working under the system devised by university president Woodrow Wilson, would grant him a doctorate upon satisfactory completion of oral and written qualifying exams and a suitable thesis, waiving course requirements in favor of practical experience. Fields completed the requirements and was awarded a doctorate in 1908.

He taught briefly at Princeton, but when an opportunity arose for a professorship at the University of Delaware (Delaware College as it was known then), he resigned and relocated to Newark, DE. He subsequently attained tenure, and became a full professor in 1915, a position he held until his retirement in 1950.

Professor Dukinfield is survived by his wife Harriet, his son William Junior, his daughter Gloria, and six grandchildren. In lieu of flowers, donations to the Dickensian Scholarship Fund at the University of Delaware are suggested.
 
[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif]The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the U.S.S.R. Council of Ministers announce a great misfortune which has befallen our party and our people-the grave illness of Comrades J. V. Stalin, N.S. Krushev, G. M. Malenkov and V. M. Molotov.[/FONT]
[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif]During the night of June 16 Comrades Stalin, Krushev, Malenkov and Molotov, while discussing along with Comrade L. P. Beria on political matters in his Comrade's Stalin Moscow apartment, suffered several fatal incidents causing hemorrhage of the brain, loosing of consciousness, and disturbances developed in the functioning of the heart and breathing.[/FONT]
[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif]The medical personnel called in to treat Comrades Stalin, Krushev, Malenkov and Molotov were unable to treat their grave conditions which developed on heart failures on that very night.[/FONT]

[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif]Valiant efforts of the sole survivor Comrade L. P. Beria allowed to uncover a treasonous capitalist plot which caused the death of Comrades Stalin, Krushev, Malenkov and Molotov, and which involved some of he medical personnel called to cure them.[/FONT]
[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif]The despicable traitors were killed on the spot by order of Comrade L. P. Beria: Prof. P. Ye. Lukomsky, therapeutist; Members of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Medicine Prof. N. V. Konovalov, neuropathologist, Prof. A. L. Myasnikov, therapeutist, and Prof. Ye. M. Tareyev, therapeutist; Prof. I. N. Filimonov, neuropathologist; Prof. R. A. Tkachev, neuropathologist; Prof. I. S. Glazunov, neuropathologist; Docent V. I. Ivanov-Neznamov, therapeutist. [/FONT]

[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif]In guiding the Party and the country as the sole survivor of the the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers, Comrade L. P. Beria takes into account the full gravity of all the circumstances connected with the temporary withdrawal of Comrade Stalin from leading state and Party activity.[/FONT]

[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif]Comrade L. P. Beria expresses confidence that our party and the whole Soviet people in these difficult days will display the greatest unity and cohesion, staunchness of spirit and vigilance, will redouble their energies in building communism in our country, will rally closer around the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the government of the Soviet Union.[/FONT]
[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif]June 18, 1950.[/FONT]
 
The Times Obituaries, June 3, 2000:

Lt. Gen. George Peter Walls (1927-2000), Rhodesian Head of State 1980-1998. The former and last Head of State of Rhodesia seized power in 1980, in order to prevent Robert Mugabe from taking office after elections for a majority-rule parliament in Salisbury. Assembling a military junta, his government embarked on a campaign of detention and "disaappearing" of dissidents, both African and European, in the name of preserving "standards." Attempts to restore civilian rule under a European government failed after former Prime Minister Ian Smith, who had been overthrown by Gen. Walls, refused to become Prime Minister until new elections were held.

Eventually overthrown by a popular and bloodless uprising in 1998, he died yesterday in the Hague, awaiting a verdict in his war-crimes trial.
 
The Times Obituaries, June 3, 2000:

Lt. Gen. George Peter Walls (1927-2000), Rhodesian Head of State 1980-1998. The former and last Head of State of Rhodesia seized power in 1980, in order to prevent Robert Mugabe from taking office after elections for a majority-rule parliament in Salisbury. Assembling a military junta, his government embarked on a campaign of detention and "disaappearing" of dissidents, both African and European, in the name of preserving "standards." Attempts to restore civilian rule under a European government failed after former Prime Minister Ian Smith, who had been overthrown by Gen. Walls, refused to become Prime Minister until new elections were held.

Eventually overthrown by a popular and bloodless uprising in 1998, he died yesterday in the Hague, awaiting a verdict in his war-crimes trial.

I would like to see a timeline on that
 
Read my obituary for him and you'll see. There's also a thread somewhere about a British Presidency that I made.
... Oh, right. I missed that post somehow.

Am wondering about the POD there... a vast surge of public opinion against the monarchy following Diana's death, it would seem.
And your member title made me chuckle.
Well... I did vote for them. Didn't work...
[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif]The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the U.S.S.R. Council of Ministers announce a great misfortune which has befallen our party and our people-the grave illness of Comrades J. V. Stalin, N.S. Krushev, G. M. Malenkov and V. M. Molotov.[/FONT]
[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif]During the night of June 16 Comrades Stalin, Krushev, Malenkov and Molotov, while discussing along with Comrade L. P. Beria on political matters in his Comrade's Stalin Moscow apartment, suffered several fatal incidents causing hemorrhage of the brain, loosing of consciousness, and disturbances developed in the functioning of the heart and breathing.[/FONT]
[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif]The medical personnel called in to treat Comrades Stalin, Krushev, Malenkov and Molotov were unable to treat their grave conditions which developed on heart failures on that very night.[/FONT]

[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif]Valiant efforts of the sole survivor Comrade L. P. Beria allowed to uncover a treasonous capitalist plot which caused the death of Comrades Stalin, Krushev, Malenkov and Molotov, and which involved some of he medical personnel called to cure them.[/FONT]
[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif]The despicable traitors were killed on the spot by order of Comrade L. P. Beria: Prof. P. Ye. Lukomsky, therapeutist; Members of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Medicine Prof. N. V. Konovalov, neuropathologist, Prof. A. L. Myasnikov, therapeutist, and Prof. Ye. M. Tareyev, therapeutist; Prof. I. N. Filimonov, neuropathologist; Prof. R. A. Tkachev, neuropathologist; Prof. I. S. Glazunov, neuropathologist; Docent V. I. Ivanov-Neznamov, therapeutist. [/FONT]

[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif]In guiding the Party and the country as the sole survivor of the the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers, Comrade L. P. Beria takes into account the full gravity of all the circumstances connected with the temporary withdrawal of Comrade Stalin from leading state and Party activity.[/FONT]

[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif]Comrade L. P. Beria expresses confidence that our party and the whole Soviet people in these difficult days will display the greatest unity and cohesion, staunchness of spirit and vigilance, will redouble their energies in building communism in our country, will rally closer around the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the government of the Soviet Union.[/FONT]
[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif]June 18, 1950.[/FONT]
Mysterious illnesses indeed...
 
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