Lot going on here, all of it interesting. Don't want to speculate as this isn't the thread for it but still --> 👀
Into the Cincoverse - The Cinco de Mayo EU Thread and Wikibox Repository
- Thread starter KingSweden24
- Start date
I was short on time last night and so posted the random Michelsen infobox sans blurb but in hindsight I actually think that update was way more entertaining sans any kind of context/explanation 😂
Thanks! Think of this as the Easter egg thread and a place for me to test out ideas that are still sorta half-baked
James B. Weaver
James Baird Weaver (June 12, 1833 - February 6, 1912) was an American statesman from Iowa who served as a United States Senator from 1891 to 1909 and was a two-time Presidential candidate for the left-wing People's Party, better known as the Populists, after two brief stints in the House of Representatives as an Independent affiliated with the splinter Greenback Party. Weaver was among the most successful and influential third-party candidates in history, earning 22% of the vote and 74 electoral votes in 1892, near the height of the early 1890s depression and the zenith of Populist agitation. Weaver was known as the "Messiah of the Prairie" and helped build Populist machines across not just the agricultural Great Plains states but also in much of the Mountain West, and after 1900 led the Populists into the Democratic Party, establishing much of the country west of the Mississippi as the so-called "Western Wall" that would largely persist into the late 1960s. Weaver's core policy platforms - direct elections of Senators, regulation of trusts and corporations, the maintenance of a bimetallic standard for currency, and a progressive income tax - were largely passed into law between 1905-1911 as part of the Fair Deal coalition under President William Randolph Hearst, with whom Weaver had a personally icy but politically fruitful relationship with. With much of his long-promoted political program passed into law and in declining health, Weaver retired after three terms in the Senate and returned to Iowa, where he died in February of 1912, ironically on the same day as reactionary French Prime Minister Georges Boulanger. Weaver was Iowa's choice for inclusion in the Capitol Statuary Hall in Philadelphia and has been cited as the greatest Iowan in the state's history; he is also regarded broadly as perhaps one of the most important figures of the American Left, despite his general lack of notoriety in present day.
Matsuyama Airport
Matsuyama Airport, also known as Taihoku Matsuyama Airport, is the secondary airport for Taihoku, the capital and largest city of the Japanese island of Taiwan. Opened in 1936 as a military airbase, it was until 1984 the primary airport for all of Taiwan; due to its location in central Taihoku City and the lack of space to expand, Matsuyama was made a secondary airport with the opening that same year of Osono Airport in rural Shinchiku Prefecture to the southwest. Matsuyama's proximity to the city center and convenience, however, made it a popular site for domestic and charter flights, as well as cargo operations. Its proximity to the city center and growth on all sides of the airfield has led to noise and flight time restrictions that further hamper its use as a major commercial facility.
Today, Matsuyama is a focus city for Japanese low-cost carrier Peach Airlines and serves a small domestic and intra-island route network for Japanese flag carries JAL and ANA; it hosts six international routes to nearby cities in China and the Philippines. The airport is slated to end all commercial air travel in 2035 with the completion of the first phase of Osono's third terminal which will give that airport a capacity of 55 million passengers per year by 2050, and it will be exclusively used for cargo and military operations.
Today, Matsuyama is a focus city for Japanese low-cost carrier Peach Airlines and serves a small domestic and intra-island route network for Japanese flag carries JAL and ANA; it hosts six international routes to nearby cities in China and the Philippines. The airport is slated to end all commercial air travel in 2035 with the completion of the first phase of Osono's third terminal which will give that airport a capacity of 55 million passengers per year by 2050, and it will be exclusively used for cargo and military operations.
Indeed, and they not only acquire, but manage to hold onto Taiwan until the present day too. Which is kind of exciting, as it hints Japan is still very much a player in the region; though it will naturally become eclipsed by China once the Republic get's its duck in order.
Lawrence, Massachusetts
Lawrence is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, located on the Merrimack River northwest of Boston. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 119,067; at only seven square miles, Lawrence is a highly densely populated municipality.
Lawrence was one of the original cities of the American Industrial Revolution, with its location on the Merrimack excellent for water-powered factories and textile mills, and as such it was a magnet for immigrants - at one point it was the most diverse city in the United States. It was the site of a famous textile workers strike in 1912 that brought national attention to the deplorable conditions of the mills and for a moment helped reinvigorate the Industrial Workers of the World, but it would hit a temporary peak in population at the 1920 census after the Great American War and subsequently sharply decline economically and demographically as the New England textile industry collapsed over the subsequent two decades. The city reached a nadir of population at the 1980 census with only 65,000 inhabitants - down 35% from its 1920 peak of 99,769 - and was regarded in the early 1970s as one of the most impoverished, depressed places in the country.
Like the entire Merrimack Valley around it, however, Lawrence was at the center of the Information Revolution of the late 1970s thru the early 2000s; American and international companies alike were attracted to the large floor-plans of its abandoned factories and cheap housing in the area, and the Massachusetts state government worked aggressively to nurture the industry in the region. By the late 90s, "Silicon Valley" in northern Massachusetts and southwestern New Hampshire was one of the most innovative and fastest-growing areas in the United States, and Lawrence's population has nearly doubled in forty years. While the outsized influence of Silicon Valley in New England on the American advanced technology industry has declined since the turn of the century, Lawrence remains a key research, development and manufacturing center for a variety of innovative companies including Atrix, Systema, Digitek and ONSemi, and since 2014 has been the US headquarters of British data firm Analytical Engines Ltd.
Culturally, Lawrence's recovery from the early 1980s recession has brought with it an unprecedented investment into the city and its rebirth has seen a tandem of economic but also demographic change. Lawrence's dense, walkable and bikeable milieu and high-technology culture has made it described as a mix of technoliberalism, technosocialism and greenism in its urban planning and development; it has some of the lowest car ownership rates in the United States and also some of the highest levels of affluence in the country, and is easily accessible to Boston via the Haverhill rail line and connected to the rest of Massachusetts' Silicon Valley by ValleyRail, a light rail system inaugurated in 2007 that sees two lines pass through Lawrence proper. In the late 2010s, affordability issues in the city were broached by state leaders, and an effort to respond to a crisis of the country's highest aggregate housing costs not just in Lawrence but most of eastern Massachusetts came to the fore.
Lawrence was one of the original cities of the American Industrial Revolution, with its location on the Merrimack excellent for water-powered factories and textile mills, and as such it was a magnet for immigrants - at one point it was the most diverse city in the United States. It was the site of a famous textile workers strike in 1912 that brought national attention to the deplorable conditions of the mills and for a moment helped reinvigorate the Industrial Workers of the World, but it would hit a temporary peak in population at the 1920 census after the Great American War and subsequently sharply decline economically and demographically as the New England textile industry collapsed over the subsequent two decades. The city reached a nadir of population at the 1980 census with only 65,000 inhabitants - down 35% from its 1920 peak of 99,769 - and was regarded in the early 1970s as one of the most impoverished, depressed places in the country.
Like the entire Merrimack Valley around it, however, Lawrence was at the center of the Information Revolution of the late 1970s thru the early 2000s; American and international companies alike were attracted to the large floor-plans of its abandoned factories and cheap housing in the area, and the Massachusetts state government worked aggressively to nurture the industry in the region. By the late 90s, "Silicon Valley" in northern Massachusetts and southwestern New Hampshire was one of the most innovative and fastest-growing areas in the United States, and Lawrence's population has nearly doubled in forty years. While the outsized influence of Silicon Valley in New England on the American advanced technology industry has declined since the turn of the century, Lawrence remains a key research, development and manufacturing center for a variety of innovative companies including Atrix, Systema, Digitek and ONSemi, and since 2014 has been the US headquarters of British data firm Analytical Engines Ltd.
Culturally, Lawrence's recovery from the early 1980s recession has brought with it an unprecedented investment into the city and its rebirth has seen a tandem of economic but also demographic change. Lawrence's dense, walkable and bikeable milieu and high-technology culture has made it described as a mix of technoliberalism, technosocialism and greenism in its urban planning and development; it has some of the lowest car ownership rates in the United States and also some of the highest levels of affluence in the country, and is easily accessible to Boston via the Haverhill rail line and connected to the rest of Massachusetts' Silicon Valley by ValleyRail, a light rail system inaugurated in 2007 that sees two lines pass through Lawrence proper. In the late 2010s, affordability issues in the city were broached by state leaders, and an effort to respond to a crisis of the country's highest aggregate housing costs not just in Lawrence but most of eastern Massachusetts came to the fore.
Yes, glad you ran with the MA Silicon Valley idea you talked about a while ago. It makes perfect sense given the education level of the area.
No, and it has an interesting bit of historical rhyming going on - as New England was the center of the Industrial Revolution in the US, now it is the home the NEXT big commercial revolution as well.
Fun to think about how the modern culture of Greater Boston would develop in an ATL where you add a bunch of Tech Bros to the mix.
Looking back at the map, I'm actually curious as to when Japan picks up Quemoy and Matsu which were *never* part of the Japanese Empire iOTL but are part of the ROC because the Nationalists kept them in the retreat to Taiwan.
Hey, fun for me...I live about a thousand miles away from Boston
Further to @traveller76 's question, will we get to see something on the energy mix of TTL's developed countries at all? Or would that be giving too much away?
Made way too much sense, haha
Techbro Massholes? Kombucha-swigging Sox fans? Hipsters vs. townies in Southie?!?
Lol that’s just a Wikipedia holdover, not canon!
Probably a decent amount, and such companies are likely studded a variety of places throughout the Merrimack Valley. Bear in mind though, economic development isn’t as hyperconcentrated in a handful of metros ITTL (or at least it won’t be) so while the MA SV is a dominant tech cluster, it’s not quite like OTL’s Bay Area
At some point yeah, though prob giving away too much for now. I might do some breadcrumb posts on such a subject, though
I'm now picturingsome nerdy, turtleneck-wearing tech geek and Mark Wahlberg's character from "The Departed" arguing over the Red Saux now.
Dan Hamburg
Dan Hamburg (born October 6, 1948) is an American environmentalist and politician who has served as the Congressman for California's 1st Congressional district since 1993. Elected in the 1992 landslide as a Democrat after falling less than a hundred votes short in 1990, Hamburg was a leading voice on environmental issues during the Robert Redford administration and was one of the principal authors of the 1995 Energy Independence and Innovation Act. Following the adoption of ranked-choice voting in Congressional races via the [CENSORED] Amendment in 1996, Hamburg announced in early 1998 that he was switching his partisan affiliation to the Green Party to better represent his views but would continue to support Democratic congressional leadership; he thus became the first Green Congressman and was one of two Greens elected in the 1998 elections. Following the 2008 elections, when the Greens won seven Congressional seats, Hamburg became the first Green Congressional Caucus Chair; he resigned that position following the 2014 midterms, when the Greens were reduced to only two seats. In 2022, Hamburg announced his retirement after thirty years in Congress and as the last sitting Green in the chamber
(This one is way down in the weeds with a very obscure entry and some serious spoilers, just want to give a taste of where US politics is headed around present day)
Hamburg is an advocate of various environmental causes and has been referred to more than once as "the Conscience of Congress" - nearly every major environmental or energy reform bill of the past thirty years was passed with his support or input. He holds the record for most arrests at protests by a sitting Congressman, and he was a vocal critic of the Roger Goodell administration and introduced three articles of impeachment in late 2009 against President Goodell, one of which largely mirrored the articles of impeachment drafted by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee the following year ahead of the 2010 midterms. Hamburg, along with six other Congressmen, was censured in late 2019 for lying about investments in two bankrupt British solar energy firms, and he publicly apologized on the floor of the House; an investigation by the House Ethics Committee eventually cleared him, as did a formal audit by the Federal Securities Commission.
(This one is way down in the weeds with a very obscure entry and some serious spoilers, just want to give a taste of where US politics is headed around present day)