alternatehistory.com

Somewhat inspired by that BBC Now thread, I was going to attempt my own news-centric / pop-culture timeline / universe. The news will be slanted because, well, that's the nature of news.

Slate.com: September 13, 2009
"Twenty years ago, on September 11, 1989, the Hungarian border crossing at Perszteg, across from the Austrian border crossing at Zinkendorf, near Ödenburg was opened by communist Hungary, and the plug was pulled on the bathtub of the Soviet empire.

At the stroke of midnight, the tiny communist Hungary threw open the gates of freedom and the West. Tens of thousands of people surged across the suddenly unguarded border. Scenes of jubilation, of families reunited after decades of captivity in Eastern Europe, flashed around the world. Newsweek's cover dubbed it the "Great Escape." From one day to the next, Americans awoke to a startling new reality. Suddenly, it was possible to imagine the unimaginable: the fall of the Iron Curtain and an end to the Cold War."

BBC.com: September 12, 2009

"In April 1989, the Hungarian government ordered the electricity in the barbed-wire border fence along the Hungary–Austria border turned off. The following month, border guards began removing sections of the barrier – filmed by Western TV crews summoned for the occasion. On 27 June Hungary's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gyula Horn, and his Austrian counterpart, Andreas Mock held a symbolic fence-cutting ceremony at the Zinkendorf border crossing.

The open border meant that it was easier for Hungarians to cross into Austria for goods and services; many Hungarians availed themselves of this to purchase consumer goods which had been unavailable or scarce in their own country; a visible sign of this in the first few weeks was that many cars could be seen in Austrian towns such as Güns, St Gotthard, Ödenburg, and Weiselburg, with washing machines strapped to them. Later that year, Slovaks were seen in the Austrian border towns of Preßburg, Znaim, and even in Teschen, having crossed first into Hungary at Kassa, the Hungarian border town, and Ukrainians crossing through at the Hungarian town of Ungvár.

The most famous crossing came on 19 August, when, during a "friendship picnic" between Austrians and Hungarians, over 900 East Polish on holiday in Hungary rushed the border and escaped into Austria and then travel safely to West Poland.

The open border infuriated East Polish officials, who feared a return to a pre-Warsaw Wall day, when thousands of East Polish fled daily to West Warsaw. Although worried, the Soviet Union took no overt actions against Hungary, taking a hands-off approach."

April 14, 1989

NYT:

"Today, 450 years ago, the Irish translation of the Bible was completed for the first time, providing a complete translation in the Gaelic language that was the first cornerstone of the Reformation in Ireland. Today, the Gaelic country, part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, celebrated the Reformation in the capital city of Dublin, with Governor-General Gerrold Brokenshire noting the landmark in Irish history.

The Governor-General of Ireland (Seanascal in Irish), Michael Fitzgerald, was appointed by Queen Elizabeth II, in 2013, and spoke today at this event.

'Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. We celebrate a milestone in the Irish language, the first Bible translation. A monument on the scale of the King James Bible, it helped solidify the place of the Church of Ireland, to which a little over two-thirds of our people are a member. Though Irish as a language diminished and nearly disappeared almost a century ago, after the first World War, the revival movement took it upon themselves to revive our common heritage, inspired by the 1539 Bible, and the 1613 Kingdom of Ireland Bible, and the beauty of their poetic language. Today, we celebrate this achievement every day, by using our own language in government, business, schools, and in our news channels. Since the 1920 Irish League founding, we revived the use and knowledge of our own language, so that today, our own Irish Parliament in Dublin, the Government, the Prime Minister and I all use Irish day to day. Our children are taught in all-Irish schools, and most businesses conduct business solely in Irish. All because of this book. Today, we honor this milestone of literature in the Royal Museum of the History of Ireland with the display of one of the first editions of the 1539 Archbishop Brown's Bible.'

Also in attendance, Diana, Princess of Wales, her first daughter Charlotte Victoria, and two sons William and Henry, along with their three spouses, the Prime Minister of Ireland, Hildegarde Deering, and twenty members of the Irish House of Commons."

From RTL Aktuell:

18-1-2011:

"Marking the first unification of Germany, which took place in Aachen, President of Germany Frank Heuß, celebrated the event in his remarks outside the Aachen cathedral.

'Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for being here today. We celebrate our first unification as one country, one hundred forty years ago this day. Kaiser Wilhelm I, followed just eight years afterward by Kaiser Friedrich III and his eldest son Kaiser Heinrich I, led us through unification and our first world war, and Kaiser Wilhelm II, his son until the fall of the monarchy during the second World War. President Konrad Heuß led us through the difficult years of our second unification after occupation, and the rebuilding of our defense force, along with our southern neighbors Austria and Czechia. But all that started here, on the 18th of January in 1871, with the crowning of Kaiser Wilhelm I.'

Spiegel, first edition:

11-10-1945:

"The nation of Germany is going to be reunited and restored. The Allies of Germany, including the United States of America, the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, have gathered a number of prominent former German politicians, having rescued a number from French and Polish concentration camps, to help write a new German constitution. Prominent among them, Konrad Adenauer, former Mayor of Cologne, Konrad Heuß, former Minister President of Upper Silesia, and Franz Stegerwald, former Minister-President of Prussia.

Early reports from the Allied High Command suggest Germany will regain Alsace-Lorraine and East Upper Silesia, and might even gain additional territory from either France or Poland, but this has not been decided.

Based on reports from several Colonels of the British Army, most of the German Royalty are either dead or barely surviving in hospitals in Westphalia and Pomerania under Allied assistance."

Spiegel:

23-5-1949:

"Today the constitution of Germany is ratified in a ceremony in Berlin's Reichstag, having been restored through funds from the US Marshall Plan and French reparations from the second World War. The government is a republican semi-parliamentary form, with a bicameral legislature, a Bundestag meeting in the Reichstag building, and the Bundesrat meeting in the old Prussian House of Lords building. The Bundestag and Bundesrat together form the Reichstag; the Bundestag represents the people of Germany, elected in each state, while the Bundesrat represents the states of Germany, and is chosen by the legislatures of each state, but are not members of those bodies.

The first President will be elected on May 24, in a widely advertised and eagerly anticipated election. He is the Head of State and has wide powers to suggest and veto legislation, represent Germany abroad and receive ambassadors, appoint the Chancellor of the Government, and directs the entire executive branch through the Chancellor. In his place, a Vice President shall operate when the need arises.

The states of Germany shall include Alsace-Lorraine, which in 1946, was granted the new Kreise of Beffort, and Briege, from France. Earlier negotiations with the Allied High Command for the annexation of all of Lorraine or the Free County of Burgundy were dismissed, in favor of reparations, population exchanges, and colonies from France including several islands, whose populations would be returned to France or other colonies in favor of a German population. Prussia will no longer be a state, but his provinces will continue his legacy: Rhineland, with Birkenfeld and without Wetzlar Kreis, Westphalia and Lippe, Hannover with Oldenburg and most of Brunswick, Schleswig-Holstein, Hessen with the former Grand Duchy in one state, Saxony-Anhalt, with some of District Erfurt going to Thuringia, Brandenburg, Pomerania, Posen, Upper and Lower Silesia, West Prussia, and East Prussia. The city states of Berlin, Lübeck, Hamburg, and Bremen shall remain, along with Baden and Württemberg. Bavaria and the Palatinate remain united, though the population in the Palatinate have agitated for statehood twice already. Saxony and Thuringia are also part of our republic today, along with Mecklenburg. Twenty-four German states shall meet to vote on their Members of the Bundestag along with the President on the 24th, and shall be seated within the next two weeks.

To the south, Austria has restored Teschen Silesia as a province from Poland and Czech Republic, despite protests from West Poland. It demanded Iglau, Brünn, and Budweis and Pilsen, but the Allied High Command refused to create enclaves within other countries in their redrawing of Europe. South Tirol, formerly annexed by Italy, is to be restored to Austria, and the Gottschee Germans will be transferred to southern Styria from Yugoslavia, while all remaining Slovenians in Marburg and the states of Carinthia and Styria will be transferred to the Yugoslavian nation. Preßburg and Ödenburg have completed their population exchanges with Slovakia and Hungary, respectively. Austria's new republic completed their elections in late April, in all 12 states, which include Vorarlberg, Styria, Tirol, Salzburg, Upper Austria, Lower Austria, Vienna, Vierburgenland, Carinthia, Sudetenland, German Bohemia, and Teschen Silesia. The current Minister President of German Bohemia, Karl Günther Meiningen, has expressed a desire to change the name of his state to West Sudetenland, to avoid the idea that Austrians want to join Germany and give up their independence.

Some in the Czech Republic expressed a desire after the war to rejoin the Slovakians in Czechoslovakia, fearing that their reconfirmed borders with Austria and Germany were indefensible, but negotiations stalled and the nation continued on without rejoining Slovakia."

Die Welt

20-8-1949

"Ungarn wird kommunistisch!" (Translation: Hungary turns communist!)

"Communism is on the march in Europe! Hungary fell to communism, as did Slovakia a week prior. East Polish are having difficulty leaving their country for West Poland, and are trying to escape into Germany's state of East Prussia. Lithuanians are trying to escape into Memel in East Prussia, but Soviet forces have started erecting a border fence there as well."

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

10-10-1957

"French novelist Vincent Auriol imagines a world where Charles de Gaulle is the hero of the prior war, and the Germans were the extremists led by General President Hister. His novel, Histoire à l'inverse, caused quite a controversy, and the young French republic, eager to distance itself from revisionist and romantic notions about its role in the last great war, is debating whether to ban the novel.

His inspiration was the ancient so-called prophet Nostradamus, which talked about a war on the Hister, the old Roman name for the Danube, which Auriol took as the name for his imagined German dictator. Auriol will be in court next Tuesday."
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