Given that this timeline is based on my Yankee Spring one, granted independence as pro-Union independent republics. At least, the federals hope they stay pro-Union.
Autumn in America: A TL-191 Continuation
- Thread starter Hexcron
- Start date
Chapter 2: Minutes to Midnight (1953-1961)
“Once, to find the greatest enemies of human dignity and liberty we knew, we needed only to look across the border. Now we look across an ocean, to a regime of colonial violence only bested in cruelty by Featherston’s Confederacy…The Germans seem to think themselves absolved by their exporting of racial tyranny across a continent. They are wrong.” - Cassius Madison, 1955
“Let us come together, Socialist, Democrat, and Republican, to make in this country a more perfect union. One where no child is in want of food, where our medicine and doctors and hospitals are the pride of the world, where we are a beacon of light upon all the liberated peoples of the world.” - Charles La Follette, 1953
“I knew President La Follette for most of his life. ‘Fighting Charlie’ was much the same in 1953 as he was in 1937, really. Sharp, respected on both sides of the aisle, driven and hopeful for the future. ” - Joshua Blackford, The Presidents, 2003
“It was Charles La Follette himself who first used the term ‘National Consensus’. He was referring to the political truce of the Second Great War, where Democrats and Socialists, together in the national interest, declined to actively campaign against one another. His view of the term was understandably different from its modern connotations, yet the lineage through politicians such as Blackford is clear.” - Walter Peterson, Partisans and Patriots: The 5th and 6th Party Systems, 1998
February 1, 1953 - Charles Winston La Follette is inaugurated as the 35th President of the United States.
In his inaugural address, President La Follette emphasises the need for the United States to “stand as a beacon for global liberty”, a statement which is viewed as antagonistic by Germany and Japan. La Follette also reiterates his domestic policies, stating that a universal health-care system will be his top priority in office.
Concurrently, the North Sea Flood kills thousands in Britain and the Low Countries.
February 10, 1953 - President La Follette authorises the GBI to begin discrete arms shipments to anti-German rebels in Africa. The United States also begins to more openly support anti-colonial Egypt.
March 20, 1953 - The National Health Care Act is introduced by Congresswoman Flora Blackford. Calling for the public administration and nationalisation of the medical industry. Perhaps the most prominent part of the President’s platform, the bill also calls for a radical improvement in rural medical services, which have languished since the Business Collapse and Second Great War. Though the Republicans, kingmakers in both houses of Congress since the 1952 elections, are reluctant to grant their support, the bill ultimately passes near the end of the year, coming into effect by 1955.
April 4, 1953 - The Liberated Republic of Haiti signs a treaty of Friendship with the United States. Even after the formal end of the occupation, Haiti remains tied to the United States through reconstruction funds and the growing population of Rapture survivor immigrants.
May 23, 1953 - Anti-Union riots in Jackson, Mississippi are quelled by US forces.
June 3, 1953 - Joshua and Mildred Blackford’s two children, Benjamin and May, are born.
July 4, 1953 - The United States officially announces it has the Sunbomb.
July 20, 1953 - The moderate, yet somewhat anti-German government is deposed in a military coup. The new government of Pavel Bermont-Avalov is more amicable to German interests, yet fails to bring further stability to Russia, as the underground Bolshevik movement continues its activity.
August 30, 1953 - Germany signs a treaty with the Spanish State, officially opening diplomatic channels. Though membership in the Reichsbund is not on the table, Spain’s post-civil-war period of isolation ends.
October 8, 1953 - The Morrison Government maintains its majority in the United Kingdom. Losses to the Liberals are counterbalanced by gains against the Communists. The Tories make a slight recovery, while the National Front, founded by ex-Silver Shirts, enters Parliament.
In its third term, the Morrison Ministry will maintain its policy of neutrality in the Shadow War, and complete Britain’s withdrawal from the former Empire.
October 10, 1953 - Walter Edward Peterson is born in Washington, DC.
November 1, 1953 - The National Health Care Act passes in the Senate and is signed into law by President La Follette.
January 1, 1954 - The German Empire forgives the French Republic’s remaining war reparations.
February 9, 1954 - The Foreign Ministers of Germany and Japan and the United States Secretary of state meet in Paris. The representatives of the “big three” agree to call a wider conference to reach a permanent settlement in India, and to find an agreement on how to respond to the ongoing Arab rebellions in the Ottoman Empire.
February 10, 1954 - Chancellor Treviranus authorises the equivalent to $300 million in aid to the Ottoman Empire against Egyptian-backed Arab rebels.
March-April, 1954 - In a decisive battle in and around Tartus, Arab Nationalist forces defeat a large portion of the remaining Ottoman garrison in Syria. The battle is a turning point, and a large factor in the Ottoman withdrawal from the rest of the Arabian peninsula.
May 4, 1954 - The pro-German Alfredo Stroessner takes control of Paraguay in a military coup. Paraguay will be a bastion of German influence in South America for decades.
June 9, 1954 - Guatemala signs a Treaty of Friendship with the United States.
July 10, 1954 - The Geneva Conference ends with the Ottoman Empire agreeing to grant independence to Syria, Transjordan, Palestine, and Iraq. The Former aligns with the Pan-Arabist Egypt, while the latter three join Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Oman in opposition to Pan-Arab forces, aligning themselves with Germany as a result.
August 1, 1954 - President La Follette renews the wartime executive order nationalising the rail industry. The industry had never transitioned back into private ownership under Dewey, meaning La Follette is able to simply push back the former President’s proposed timetable to give the Socialists more time to make public ownership permanent.
October 23, 1954 - The scope of the Reichsbund is expanded in the Paris Agreement, including provisions for mutual defence and a joint European high command.
November 2, 1954 - The Socialist Party captures both houses of Congress by narrow margins, in a vindication of President La Follette’s domestic policies, ending the Socialists’ reliance on the Republicans for legislative confidence.
December 1, 1954 - In response to the recent Paris Agreement, the United States, Quebec, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Columbia, Haiti, and Venezuela sign a mutual defence pact, establishing the Philadelphia pact.
January 1, 1955 - Britain grants independence to Malta, the final colony it is required to relinquish. The British Empire comes to an end.
1955 - Remaining government institutions in Philadelphia are finally relocated to Washington, DC. Charles La Follette’s successor as President will be the first since Samuel Tilden to reside solely in Washington, instead of Philadelphia.
January 30, 1955 - Herbert Morrison retires as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and is replaced by Hugh Gaitskell. The new Prime Minister calls a snap election for March, which results in a reversal of the results of 1953, with Labour making gains against the Liberals but losing seats to the Communists. Both the Tories and the National Front increase their representation.
March 12, 1955 - The new Ottoman Government signs a treaty of mutual defence with Germany, opening the door to membership in the Reichsbund. Simultaneously, persecution of the Empire’s Greek and Kurdish minorities begins to increase in the wake of the catastrophe of the First Arab War.
May 28, 1955 - The Senate passes the American Railroads act, making permanent the nationalisation of American Railroads during the Second Great War.
August 15, 1955 - Egypt grants Sudan full independence, after the end of a post-British transitionary period.
Late 1955 - The first phase of the Arab Wars are generally agreed to have begun, with the Hashemite monarchy in Iraq falling to civil war.
1955 - The National Health Care Act comes into effect.
January - February, 1956 - The 1956 Winter Olympics are held in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.
February 2, 1956 - The amended American Coal and Steel act passes in the House, and is signed into law by President La Follette. The nation's coal and steel industries are subsequently nationalised.
March 20, 1956 - Tunisia gains independence from Italy, as the Italians focus on consolidating their traditional colonial holdings.
April 30, 1956 - Anti-US riots are suppressed by force in Atlanta, leading to dozens of deaths, a prelude to events later in the year.
May, 1956 - President La Follette declines to seek re-election, in spite of his continued popularity, arguably greater than it was in 1944, and the Socialists hold an open convention. Vice President Jerry Voorhis wins the nomination, again beating Earl Browder, and chooses Senator Darlington Hoopes as his running mate. On the Democratic side of the aisle, Marshal Irving Morrell refuses to put himself forwards as a candidate, leading to the nomination of Ohio Senator George H. Bender, a leader of the Remembrancist wing of the party. In an olive branch to the Party’s liberals, Bender chooses Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., an east coast moderate, as his running mate.
June 29, 1956 - In his final major legislative accomplishment as President, Charles La Follette signs the National Utilities Act into law, bringing the country’s water and electricity services into public ownership.
June - July, 1956 - The 1956 Summer Olympics are held in Tokyo, Japan.
July 4, 1956 - Martial Law ends in Houston, and Sequoyah is admitted to the Union, in time for the 1956 elections.
July, 1956 - An economic downturn strikes the United States and its sphere of influence. Though its effects will be gone by the end of the year, it will have major political implications, reflecting negatively on President La Follette and playing a part in sparking the Birmingham Uprising.
October 23, 1956 - In an operation coordinated with local anti-US organisations, the self-proclaimed Freedom Party Guard - National Committee for the Confederate States of America, a contingent of the FPG that refused to surrender at the close of the Second Great War, and the primary military resistance to US rule, seizes control of Birmingham, Alabama, dispersing the reduced US Garrison in the City, with the goal of setting off a wider anti-US rebellion across the south. They begin a purge of accused collaborators within the city, severely hampering their popularity among anti-Freedom Party nationalists.
Within days, US forces will reinforce the garrison, and reoccupy the city, ending the persistent threat of the FPG-NCCSA, and killing the self-proclaimed 15th President of the Confederate States, Edwin Walker. Thousands have died in the process of the rebellion, purges, and re-occupation, and the debacle as a whole hurts the Socialist Party’s chances in the 1956 elections.
With the destruction of the core of the FPG-NCCSA, the “National” phase (that being the insurgency of military remnants of the Confederate States) of the Confederate resistance ends, leading to the beginning of the “Civil” phase of resistance.
Among the FPG-NCCSA’s survivors however, now organised under President Samuel Roper, is a certain William Luther Pierce.
November 6, 1956 - With the backdrop of the Birmingham Uprising and the Panic of 1956, Senator Bender narrowly defeats Vice President Voorhis to be elected as the 36th President of the United States. Bender wins 227 Electoral Votes, to Voorhis’ 163, and Stassen’s 29. The Socialists lose the Senate, and the support of the Republicans, but retain a razor-thin one-seat majority in the House. The Speaker loses his seat however, resulting in a leadership election. House Whip and Judiciary Committee Chairwoman Flora Blackford is elected to lead the Socialist Caucus
December 13, 1956 - At the meeting of the Electoral College, three electors vote against their pledged candidates. Two Kansas electors vote for Irving Morrell, retaining Lodge as their Vice Presidential choice, while a lone elector from New York votes for incoming Speaker Flora Blackford, making her the first Woman to win an electoral vote.
January 3, 1957 - At the opening of the new Congress, Flora Blackford becomes the first woman elected Speaker of the House.
February 1, 1957 - George Harrison Bender is inaugurated as the 36th President of the United States.
Mid-Late 1950s - The cause of African liberation against colonialism continues to gain traction. With American (and to a lesser extent Japanese) support, revolutionary and anti-colonial political parties and militant groups form across the continent.
March 25, 1957 - The Treaty of Brussels further economically integrates the Reichsbund.
April 1, 1957 - The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy is officially reformed into the United States of Greater Austria, with a new constitution promising autonomy for the country's many ethnic groups. Rounding out a series of continuing reforms since the ascension of Otto I as Emperor, the new federal state has largely completed its post-war recovery.
May 3, 1957 - Alec Pomeroy and a group of friends found the Canadian National Party in a bar in Winnipeg.
August 31, 1957 - The Democrats’ attempt to repeal the American Coal and Steel Act fails in the House. The Bender Administration will fail to reverse any significant part of La Follette’s platform. Ironically, this makes the conservative administration more palatable to the public, due to the continuing popularity of La Follette’s reforms.
October 4, 1957 - In a triumph in the Shadow War, the United States launches Vanguard, the first artificial satellite into orbit. Developed under the umbrella of the United States Committee for Space and Aeronautics, the successful launch represents the beginning of the “Cosmic Age”, and Germany is caught blindsided by the Americans’ success.
December 3, 1957 - Tzar Mikhail II of Russia dies in his sleep. He is succeeded by his cousin, Vladimir III. Russia’s domestic situation remains turbulent, and the nation remains poor, with its resources exploited by German corporate entities.
February 2, 1958 - Syria and Egypt unite to form the United Arab Republic.
March 1, 1958 - Germany launches its first satellite.
May 3, 1958 - With American support, Mexican Army units stage a coup and overthrow Emperor Maximilian III and his reformist government. The Royal Family flees to Europe, and the new military government of the Third Mexican Republic promises a transition to democracy in due course.
July 10, 1958 - Chancellor Treviranus authorises the first deployment of German “advisors” to Iraq, in response to the ongoing conflict.
1958 - Cassius Madison begins covert operations to bring Freedom Party fugitives in South Africa to justice. With the unlikely assistance of Clarence Potter, several war criminals will be brought to the US to face justice over the course of the 1960s.
September 27, 1958 - Typhoon Ida kills over a thousand people in Japan.
October 7, 1958 - German West Africa is reorganised into two colonies; German Equatorial Africa (making up most of pre-war German West Africa) and a significantly decentralised German West Africa.
October 28, 1958 - Pope John XXIII succeeds Pius XII.
November 4, 1958 - In the midterm elections, the Socialists increase their majority in the House, while the Democrats retain control of the Senate. Among the freshmen members of Congress is Joshua Blackford, elected as a Socialist from a district in Philadelphia.
The younger Blackford is perhaps representative of the post-war generation of Socialists. A Second Great War veteran himself, Blackford is an ardent believer in populist and socialistic economic policies, while also supporting the spirit of remembrance, belligerence in the Shadow War, and the continued occupation of the South.
February 9, 1959 - Italy and Spain normalise diplomatic relations.
March 1, 1959 - Military rule in Canada officially ends, with the nationwide government being dissolved in preparation for statehood.
April 10, 1959 - Germany successfully launches and returns a pair of dogs into space, making them the first living beings to return from space flight.
June 26, 1959 - Moderate anti-unionists re-form the Whig Party in Richmond. The new Whigs initially stop well short of calling for independence, leaving them outside the ire of US authorities.
August 1, 1959 - Martial Law is declared in Transjordan, due to the spreading conflict in Iraq.
September 7, 1959 - Maurice Duplessis, the longtime President of Quebec, dies.
September 26, 1959 - Typhoon Vera kills over 5,000 and leaves over a million homeless in Japan.
October 30, 1959 - President Bender visits Mexico City, becoming the first US President in recent memory to do so.
December 1, 1959 - Mexico holds its first elections as a Republic, which are won by the pro-US Republicans, amidst accusations of GBI interference.
January 14, 1960 - 15 years of continuous Labour rule in the United Kingdom come to an end as the Liberals under Jo Grimond win a majority in Parliament. Hugh Gaitskell’s Labour loses a large fraction of its representation in Parliament to both the Communists and Liberals, and both the Tories and National Front continued to gain support on the right.
January 24, 1960 - Riots in Algeria in opposition to French rule are quelled by force.
February-March, 1960 - The 1960 Winter Olympics are held in Oslo, Norway.
March 13, 1960 - Japan successfully tests its first Superbomb in the pacific, shocking both Germany and the United States, both under the assumption that Japan was at least five years away from such a weapon.
April 6, 1960 - In one of his last major acts in office, Chancellor Treviranus orders the deployment of several thousand German paratroopers to Iraq.
May 19, 1960 - Chancellor Treviranus retires. Kurt Georg Kiesinger, previously a minister in Treviranus’ cabinet, is nominated to replace him.
May 1960 - President Bender is re-nominated by the Democratic Party, while the Socialists nominate Governor Walter Reuther of Michigan over Senator Gus Halberg of Minnesota. Halberg has begun to succeed Browder as the leader of the far-left of the Party, and will fully do so once Browder retires from the Senate at the 1962 elections.
Reuther chooses Philadelphia Mayor Joseph S. Clark Jr., after a hotly contested nomination process that almost saw Congressman Joshua Blackford handed the second spot on the ticket. The abundance of Pennsylvanian candidates is representative of the Socialists' desire to reclaim the state after the Battle of Pittsburg.
June 30, 1960 - An armed insurgency against German rule in the Congo begins.
July 4, 1960 - Utah is readmitted to the Union.
July 11, 1960 - The German colonial authority in Central Africa (the Congo) declare Katanga an autonomous region.
August 1, 1960 - Colonial Authorities in German West Africa begin a process of federalising the colony, in response to continued armed conflict.
November 8, 1960 - With an increased margin, President Bender defeats Governor Reuther to win re-election. The Republicans do significantly worse due to the loss of Stassen’s Minnesota to the Socialists. Bender wins 243 Electoral Votes, to Reuther’s 181 and Stassen’s 6. The Socialists retain their majority in the House, with some losses, while the Democrats gain a majority in the Senate.
December 16, 1960 - Mexico officially joins the Philadelphia Pact.
February 1, 1961 - George Harrison Bender is inaugurated for his second term as President of the United States.
March 3, 1961 - Germany reinforces the colonial garrison in the Congo, and Chancellor Kiesinger warns President Bender against American interference.
March 15, 1961 - The Union of Peoples of Angola begins a war of independence against Portuguese colonial authorities.
May 19, 1961 - Robert W. Welch Jr., a prominent former Freedom Party official from North Carolina, is captured by GBI agents in South Africa and brought to the US for trial.
June 18, 1961 - George Harrison Bender dies of a heart attack in the White House, and Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. is inaugurated as the 37th President of the United States.
“Once, to find the greatest enemies of human dignity and liberty we knew, we needed only to look across the border. Now we look across an ocean, to a regime of colonial violence only bested in cruelty by Featherston’s Confederacy…The Germans seem to think themselves absolved by their exporting of racial tyranny across a continent. They are wrong.” - Cassius Madison, 1955
“Let us come together, Socialist, Democrat, and Republican, to make in this country a more perfect union. One where no child is in want of food, where our medicine and doctors and hospitals are the pride of the world, where we are a beacon of light upon all the liberated peoples of the world.” - Charles La Follette, 1953
“I knew President La Follette for most of his life. ‘Fighting Charlie’ was much the same in 1953 as he was in 1937, really. Sharp, respected on both sides of the aisle, driven and hopeful for the future. ” - Joshua Blackford, The Presidents, 2003
“It was Charles La Follette himself who first used the term ‘National Consensus’. He was referring to the political truce of the Second Great War, where Democrats and Socialists, together in the national interest, declined to actively campaign against one another. His view of the term was understandably different from its modern connotations, yet the lineage through politicians such as Blackford is clear.” - Walter Peterson, Partisans and Patriots: The 5th and 6th Party Systems, 1998
February 1, 1953 - Charles Winston La Follette is inaugurated as the 35th President of the United States.
In his inaugural address, President La Follette emphasises the need for the United States to “stand as a beacon for global liberty”, a statement which is viewed as antagonistic by Germany and Japan. La Follette also reiterates his domestic policies, stating that a universal health-care system will be his top priority in office.
Concurrently, the North Sea Flood kills thousands in Britain and the Low Countries.
February 10, 1953 - President La Follette authorises the GBI to begin discrete arms shipments to anti-German rebels in Africa. The United States also begins to more openly support anti-colonial Egypt.
March 20, 1953 - The National Health Care Act is introduced by Congresswoman Flora Blackford. Calling for the public administration and nationalisation of the medical industry. Perhaps the most prominent part of the President’s platform, the bill also calls for a radical improvement in rural medical services, which have languished since the Business Collapse and Second Great War. Though the Republicans, kingmakers in both houses of Congress since the 1952 elections, are reluctant to grant their support, the bill ultimately passes near the end of the year, coming into effect by 1955.
April 4, 1953 - The Liberated Republic of Haiti signs a treaty of Friendship with the United States. Even after the formal end of the occupation, Haiti remains tied to the United States through reconstruction funds and the growing population of Rapture survivor immigrants.
May 23, 1953 - Anti-Union riots in Jackson, Mississippi are quelled by US forces.
June 3, 1953 - Joshua and Mildred Blackford’s two children, Benjamin and May, are born.
July 4, 1953 - The United States officially announces it has the Sunbomb.
July 20, 1953 - The moderate, yet somewhat anti-German government is deposed in a military coup. The new government of Pavel Bermont-Avalov is more amicable to German interests, yet fails to bring further stability to Russia, as the underground Bolshevik movement continues its activity.
August 30, 1953 - Germany signs a treaty with the Spanish State, officially opening diplomatic channels. Though membership in the Reichsbund is not on the table, Spain’s post-civil-war period of isolation ends.
October 8, 1953 - The Morrison Government maintains its majority in the United Kingdom. Losses to the Liberals are counterbalanced by gains against the Communists. The Tories make a slight recovery, while the National Front, founded by ex-Silver Shirts, enters Parliament.
In its third term, the Morrison Ministry will maintain its policy of neutrality in the Shadow War, and complete Britain’s withdrawal from the former Empire.
October 10, 1953 - Walter Edward Peterson is born in Washington, DC.
November 1, 1953 - The National Health Care Act passes in the Senate and is signed into law by President La Follette.
January 1, 1954 - The German Empire forgives the French Republic’s remaining war reparations.
February 9, 1954 - The Foreign Ministers of Germany and Japan and the United States Secretary of state meet in Paris. The representatives of the “big three” agree to call a wider conference to reach a permanent settlement in India, and to find an agreement on how to respond to the ongoing Arab rebellions in the Ottoman Empire.
February 10, 1954 - Chancellor Treviranus authorises the equivalent to $300 million in aid to the Ottoman Empire against Egyptian-backed Arab rebels.
March-April, 1954 - In a decisive battle in and around Tartus, Arab Nationalist forces defeat a large portion of the remaining Ottoman garrison in Syria. The battle is a turning point, and a large factor in the Ottoman withdrawal from the rest of the Arabian peninsula.
May 4, 1954 - The pro-German Alfredo Stroessner takes control of Paraguay in a military coup. Paraguay will be a bastion of German influence in South America for decades.
June 9, 1954 - Guatemala signs a Treaty of Friendship with the United States.
July 10, 1954 - The Geneva Conference ends with the Ottoman Empire agreeing to grant independence to Syria, Transjordan, Palestine, and Iraq. The Former aligns with the Pan-Arabist Egypt, while the latter three join Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Oman in opposition to Pan-Arab forces, aligning themselves with Germany as a result.
August 1, 1954 - President La Follette renews the wartime executive order nationalising the rail industry. The industry had never transitioned back into private ownership under Dewey, meaning La Follette is able to simply push back the former President’s proposed timetable to give the Socialists more time to make public ownership permanent.
October 23, 1954 - The scope of the Reichsbund is expanded in the Paris Agreement, including provisions for mutual defence and a joint European high command.
November 2, 1954 - The Socialist Party captures both houses of Congress by narrow margins, in a vindication of President La Follette’s domestic policies, ending the Socialists’ reliance on the Republicans for legislative confidence.
December 1, 1954 - In response to the recent Paris Agreement, the United States, Quebec, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Columbia, Haiti, and Venezuela sign a mutual defence pact, establishing the Philadelphia pact.
January 1, 1955 - Britain grants independence to Malta, the final colony it is required to relinquish. The British Empire comes to an end.
1955 - Remaining government institutions in Philadelphia are finally relocated to Washington, DC. Charles La Follette’s successor as President will be the first since Samuel Tilden to reside solely in Washington, instead of Philadelphia.
January 30, 1955 - Herbert Morrison retires as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and is replaced by Hugh Gaitskell. The new Prime Minister calls a snap election for March, which results in a reversal of the results of 1953, with Labour making gains against the Liberals but losing seats to the Communists. Both the Tories and the National Front increase their representation.
March 12, 1955 - The new Ottoman Government signs a treaty of mutual defence with Germany, opening the door to membership in the Reichsbund. Simultaneously, persecution of the Empire’s Greek and Kurdish minorities begins to increase in the wake of the catastrophe of the First Arab War.
May 28, 1955 - The Senate passes the American Railroads act, making permanent the nationalisation of American Railroads during the Second Great War.
August 15, 1955 - Egypt grants Sudan full independence, after the end of a post-British transitionary period.
Late 1955 - The first phase of the Arab Wars are generally agreed to have begun, with the Hashemite monarchy in Iraq falling to civil war.
1955 - The National Health Care Act comes into effect.
January - February, 1956 - The 1956 Winter Olympics are held in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.
February 2, 1956 - The amended American Coal and Steel act passes in the House, and is signed into law by President La Follette. The nation's coal and steel industries are subsequently nationalised.
March 20, 1956 - Tunisia gains independence from Italy, as the Italians focus on consolidating their traditional colonial holdings.
April 30, 1956 - Anti-US riots are suppressed by force in Atlanta, leading to dozens of deaths, a prelude to events later in the year.
May, 1956 - President La Follette declines to seek re-election, in spite of his continued popularity, arguably greater than it was in 1944, and the Socialists hold an open convention. Vice President Jerry Voorhis wins the nomination, again beating Earl Browder, and chooses Senator Darlington Hoopes as his running mate. On the Democratic side of the aisle, Marshal Irving Morrell refuses to put himself forwards as a candidate, leading to the nomination of Ohio Senator George H. Bender, a leader of the Remembrancist wing of the party. In an olive branch to the Party’s liberals, Bender chooses Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., an east coast moderate, as his running mate.
June 29, 1956 - In his final major legislative accomplishment as President, Charles La Follette signs the National Utilities Act into law, bringing the country’s water and electricity services into public ownership.
June - July, 1956 - The 1956 Summer Olympics are held in Tokyo, Japan.
July 4, 1956 - Martial Law ends in Houston, and Sequoyah is admitted to the Union, in time for the 1956 elections.
July, 1956 - An economic downturn strikes the United States and its sphere of influence. Though its effects will be gone by the end of the year, it will have major political implications, reflecting negatively on President La Follette and playing a part in sparking the Birmingham Uprising.
October 23, 1956 - In an operation coordinated with local anti-US organisations, the self-proclaimed Freedom Party Guard - National Committee for the Confederate States of America, a contingent of the FPG that refused to surrender at the close of the Second Great War, and the primary military resistance to US rule, seizes control of Birmingham, Alabama, dispersing the reduced US Garrison in the City, with the goal of setting off a wider anti-US rebellion across the south. They begin a purge of accused collaborators within the city, severely hampering their popularity among anti-Freedom Party nationalists.
Within days, US forces will reinforce the garrison, and reoccupy the city, ending the persistent threat of the FPG-NCCSA, and killing the self-proclaimed 15th President of the Confederate States, Edwin Walker. Thousands have died in the process of the rebellion, purges, and re-occupation, and the debacle as a whole hurts the Socialist Party’s chances in the 1956 elections.
With the destruction of the core of the FPG-NCCSA, the “National” phase (that being the insurgency of military remnants of the Confederate States) of the Confederate resistance ends, leading to the beginning of the “Civil” phase of resistance.
Among the FPG-NCCSA’s survivors however, now organised under President Samuel Roper, is a certain William Luther Pierce.
November 6, 1956 - With the backdrop of the Birmingham Uprising and the Panic of 1956, Senator Bender narrowly defeats Vice President Voorhis to be elected as the 36th President of the United States. Bender wins 227 Electoral Votes, to Voorhis’ 163, and Stassen’s 29. The Socialists lose the Senate, and the support of the Republicans, but retain a razor-thin one-seat majority in the House. The Speaker loses his seat however, resulting in a leadership election. House Whip and Judiciary Committee Chairwoman Flora Blackford is elected to lead the Socialist Caucus
December 13, 1956 - At the meeting of the Electoral College, three electors vote against their pledged candidates. Two Kansas electors vote for Irving Morrell, retaining Lodge as their Vice Presidential choice, while a lone elector from New York votes for incoming Speaker Flora Blackford, making her the first Woman to win an electoral vote.
January 3, 1957 - At the opening of the new Congress, Flora Blackford becomes the first woman elected Speaker of the House.
February 1, 1957 - George Harrison Bender is inaugurated as the 36th President of the United States.
Mid-Late 1950s - The cause of African liberation against colonialism continues to gain traction. With American (and to a lesser extent Japanese) support, revolutionary and anti-colonial political parties and militant groups form across the continent.
March 25, 1957 - The Treaty of Brussels further economically integrates the Reichsbund.
April 1, 1957 - The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy is officially reformed into the United States of Greater Austria, with a new constitution promising autonomy for the country's many ethnic groups. Rounding out a series of continuing reforms since the ascension of Otto I as Emperor, the new federal state has largely completed its post-war recovery.
May 3, 1957 - Alec Pomeroy and a group of friends found the Canadian National Party in a bar in Winnipeg.
August 31, 1957 - The Democrats’ attempt to repeal the American Coal and Steel Act fails in the House. The Bender Administration will fail to reverse any significant part of La Follette’s platform. Ironically, this makes the conservative administration more palatable to the public, due to the continuing popularity of La Follette’s reforms.
October 4, 1957 - In a triumph in the Shadow War, the United States launches Vanguard, the first artificial satellite into orbit. Developed under the umbrella of the United States Committee for Space and Aeronautics, the successful launch represents the beginning of the “Cosmic Age”, and Germany is caught blindsided by the Americans’ success.
December 3, 1957 - Tzar Mikhail II of Russia dies in his sleep. He is succeeded by his cousin, Vladimir III. Russia’s domestic situation remains turbulent, and the nation remains poor, with its resources exploited by German corporate entities.
February 2, 1958 - Syria and Egypt unite to form the United Arab Republic.
March 1, 1958 - Germany launches its first satellite.
May 3, 1958 - With American support, Mexican Army units stage a coup and overthrow Emperor Maximilian III and his reformist government. The Royal Family flees to Europe, and the new military government of the Third Mexican Republic promises a transition to democracy in due course.
July 10, 1958 - Chancellor Treviranus authorises the first deployment of German “advisors” to Iraq, in response to the ongoing conflict.
1958 - Cassius Madison begins covert operations to bring Freedom Party fugitives in South Africa to justice. With the unlikely assistance of Clarence Potter, several war criminals will be brought to the US to face justice over the course of the 1960s.
September 27, 1958 - Typhoon Ida kills over a thousand people in Japan.
October 7, 1958 - German West Africa is reorganised into two colonies; German Equatorial Africa (making up most of pre-war German West Africa) and a significantly decentralised German West Africa.
October 28, 1958 - Pope John XXIII succeeds Pius XII.
November 4, 1958 - In the midterm elections, the Socialists increase their majority in the House, while the Democrats retain control of the Senate. Among the freshmen members of Congress is Joshua Blackford, elected as a Socialist from a district in Philadelphia.
The younger Blackford is perhaps representative of the post-war generation of Socialists. A Second Great War veteran himself, Blackford is an ardent believer in populist and socialistic economic policies, while also supporting the spirit of remembrance, belligerence in the Shadow War, and the continued occupation of the South.
February 9, 1959 - Italy and Spain normalise diplomatic relations.
March 1, 1959 - Military rule in Canada officially ends, with the nationwide government being dissolved in preparation for statehood.
April 10, 1959 - Germany successfully launches and returns a pair of dogs into space, making them the first living beings to return from space flight.
June 26, 1959 - Moderate anti-unionists re-form the Whig Party in Richmond. The new Whigs initially stop well short of calling for independence, leaving them outside the ire of US authorities.
August 1, 1959 - Martial Law is declared in Transjordan, due to the spreading conflict in Iraq.
September 7, 1959 - Maurice Duplessis, the longtime President of Quebec, dies.
September 26, 1959 - Typhoon Vera kills over 5,000 and leaves over a million homeless in Japan.
October 30, 1959 - President Bender visits Mexico City, becoming the first US President in recent memory to do so.
December 1, 1959 - Mexico holds its first elections as a Republic, which are won by the pro-US Republicans, amidst accusations of GBI interference.
January 14, 1960 - 15 years of continuous Labour rule in the United Kingdom come to an end as the Liberals under Jo Grimond win a majority in Parliament. Hugh Gaitskell’s Labour loses a large fraction of its representation in Parliament to both the Communists and Liberals, and both the Tories and National Front continued to gain support on the right.
January 24, 1960 - Riots in Algeria in opposition to French rule are quelled by force.
February-March, 1960 - The 1960 Winter Olympics are held in Oslo, Norway.
March 13, 1960 - Japan successfully tests its first Superbomb in the pacific, shocking both Germany and the United States, both under the assumption that Japan was at least five years away from such a weapon.
April 6, 1960 - In one of his last major acts in office, Chancellor Treviranus orders the deployment of several thousand German paratroopers to Iraq.
May 19, 1960 - Chancellor Treviranus retires. Kurt Georg Kiesinger, previously a minister in Treviranus’ cabinet, is nominated to replace him.
May 1960 - President Bender is re-nominated by the Democratic Party, while the Socialists nominate Governor Walter Reuther of Michigan over Senator Gus Halberg of Minnesota. Halberg has begun to succeed Browder as the leader of the far-left of the Party, and will fully do so once Browder retires from the Senate at the 1962 elections.
Reuther chooses Philadelphia Mayor Joseph S. Clark Jr., after a hotly contested nomination process that almost saw Congressman Joshua Blackford handed the second spot on the ticket. The abundance of Pennsylvanian candidates is representative of the Socialists' desire to reclaim the state after the Battle of Pittsburg.
June 30, 1960 - An armed insurgency against German rule in the Congo begins.
July 4, 1960 - Utah is readmitted to the Union.
July 11, 1960 - The German colonial authority in Central Africa (the Congo) declare Katanga an autonomous region.
August 1, 1960 - Colonial Authorities in German West Africa begin a process of federalising the colony, in response to continued armed conflict.
November 8, 1960 - With an increased margin, President Bender defeats Governor Reuther to win re-election. The Republicans do significantly worse due to the loss of Stassen’s Minnesota to the Socialists. Bender wins 243 Electoral Votes, to Reuther’s 181 and Stassen’s 6. The Socialists retain their majority in the House, with some losses, while the Democrats gain a majority in the Senate.
December 16, 1960 - Mexico officially joins the Philadelphia Pact.
February 1, 1961 - George Harrison Bender is inaugurated for his second term as President of the United States.
March 3, 1961 - Germany reinforces the colonial garrison in the Congo, and Chancellor Kiesinger warns President Bender against American interference.
March 15, 1961 - The Union of Peoples of Angola begins a war of independence against Portuguese colonial authorities.
May 19, 1961 - Robert W. Welch Jr., a prominent former Freedom Party official from North Carolina, is captured by GBI agents in South Africa and brought to the US for trial.
June 18, 1961 - George Harrison Bender dies of a heart attack in the White House, and Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. is inaugurated as the 37th President of the United States.
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I have a few ideas for him that make him somewhat different from what rvbomalley did with him in Yankee Spring, but he'll be doing some interesting stuff later on.
Awww, I thought he'd be born in some big and more crime-prone American port.
I've been interested in this thread as of lately and I believe it wouldn't suffice if I left a reply that wasn't at least somewhat in-depth. I hope this post is not too unreadable.
I'll be frank, I've only gotten so curious about Autumn in America after learning that it's based off RvBomally's Yankee Spring, which I love and which I find to be more sensible as to the fate of the South in TL-191. Turtledove's Southern Victory series, even if (personally speaking) relatively soft on the historicity angle compared to many timelines on AH.com, presents a fairly interesting scenario to explore, and despite complaints that I and many other people with a more meticulous interest in history (or logistics) might have regarding it, it's genuinely interesting to see what effect the Confederate States of America enduring against all odds might have on the United States' politics and foreign relationships, as it might on individual characters.
Thus, when I saw Yankee Spring for the first time, I've been very curious about the manner in which the United States devolves from a more or less stable (if revanchist) democracy to a dictatorship, and how post-US states and other states in the American sphere of influence develop - plus, as a Russian, more niche topics such as the development of American organized crime and post-collapse culture interest me as well. I keep coming back to these topics whenever I think of the scenario, and I've considered exploring this to a deeper extent in the past, but did not because I found it hard to make a workable list for Southern Victory - though some content did come out of it. I used to be more inclined towards parallelism when I was younger, but I don't think it'll stop me from enjoying this particular series nowadays.
I'll be frank, I despise the American party system as it is presented in the books. That said, I adore the Party Patronage System post, as it makes sense for the development of the United States ITTL and seems to be a nice portent of the things to come.
All in all, @Hexcron, I hope that this series will develop nicely and I wish you best of luck in writing it.
I'll be frank, I've only gotten so curious about Autumn in America after learning that it's based off RvBomally's Yankee Spring, which I love and which I find to be more sensible as to the fate of the South in TL-191. Turtledove's Southern Victory series, even if (personally speaking) relatively soft on the historicity angle compared to many timelines on AH.com, presents a fairly interesting scenario to explore, and despite complaints that I and many other people with a more meticulous interest in history (or logistics) might have regarding it, it's genuinely interesting to see what effect the Confederate States of America enduring against all odds might have on the United States' politics and foreign relationships, as it might on individual characters.
Thus, when I saw Yankee Spring for the first time, I've been very curious about the manner in which the United States devolves from a more or less stable (if revanchist) democracy to a dictatorship, and how post-US states and other states in the American sphere of influence develop - plus, as a Russian, more niche topics such as the development of American organized crime and post-collapse culture interest me as well. I keep coming back to these topics whenever I think of the scenario, and I've considered exploring this to a deeper extent in the past, but did not because I found it hard to make a workable list for Southern Victory - though some content did come out of it. I used to be more inclined towards parallelism when I was younger, but I don't think it'll stop me from enjoying this particular series nowadays.
I'll be frank, I despise the American party system as it is presented in the books. That said, I adore the Party Patronage System post, as it makes sense for the development of the United States ITTL and seems to be a nice portent of the things to come.
All in all, @Hexcron, I hope that this series will develop nicely and I wish you best of luck in writing it.
Thanks.
I wouldn't say this is based on Yankee Spring, though YS is a big influence (and a big part of the reason I made this), rather this is a separate timeline that both borrows some elements I particularly like (Walter Peterson is mainly here because I like the name for a Putin analogue), but also incorporates my own take and ideas on the general concept.
I saw your Jorge Romney post on the wikibox thread, and I quite enjoyed it. I'd be happy to include the parts of it that don't contradict the rest of Autumn as canon if you don't mind.
If you're worried that this is impacting mod development, please don't be. This is a personal side project that I've wanted to do for a while now, and that I'm making on the side.
Sure, I would love that!
I see. I am really interested to see what's up next!
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I wonder who's the lucky fella who will have his suitcases carried by Walter Peterson?
ah, now I get it.Hopefully this wasn't a sarcastic response, or this would be very awkward
Nothing good, if this timeline goes down vaguely the same "USSR" route that Yankee Spring did. Given the events of TL-191, there is way more distrust between different ethnic groups/"nationalities" in the USA than IOTL. Yankees and white Southerners don't like each other and both have long lists of reasons why, and American blacks certainly don't trust white Southerners at best. Mix that with the political and economic instability of a collapsing superpower, and you can easily get one of those interminable cycles of conflict and violence that plague many parts of the world. Which, if you think about it, is the natural conclusion of Turtledove refuting American exceptionalism in the original series.
I also doubt that the United States ITTL would be very friendly to immigrants, at least from the 1950s onwards.
On that note, I'm very very curious about the status of the German language in the United States.
On that note, I'm very very curious about the status of the German language in the United States.
MaxGerke01
Banned
I agree but I also dont think it has to be a zero sum game for the United States where it either wins it all or loses it all.I firmly agree that the US would have beaucoup problems reabsorbing the CSA and to me its questionable that they would even ever really attempt to do so because of widespread anti Southern feeling amongst Americans.But if they did wouldnt they drop it like a bad habit once it became clear it wasnt working? Allowing for a firmly controlled client but independent rump state sounds much better than the US going down the drain doesnt it ?
The other two aspects of this that see the US fail are a similar failure in Canada and a cold and sometimes hot war with Germany.It seem to me the US doesnt have to fail with either of those as full integration of Canada into the US would be massively easier than doing that with the CSA if only because there is a good 25 years of American control there by the end of the Second Great War.Sure older Canadians still despise the US as do many of their children but there is likely a large part of the younger generation either neutral or pro American.Thats an achievement that could easily be built upon.As far as the US and Germany being at odds other than Africa and even there their interests are mostly parallel.It seems to me the 2 would almost have to set out to be enemies-why would they do that in a world with Japanese,Russians and lots of Entente and Freedomite types?