Another name for the Ogooue River is the "Nazareth River." I suspect that has a lot to do with the name change.
The Empire Parnell Built
- Thread starter Rattigan
- Start date
Yes, the idea is that Nazareth is the "white" name for the country: a bit like Rhodesia and Zimbabwe OTL.
48: the contiguous states. Alaska and Hawaii are on the territorial route to independence rather than statehood TTL.
Is Britain competing with anyone in this Space Race? Liking the re-imagining of Ministry of Space
Interesting what about pr? (Assuming the us went to wat with spain that is)
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The Spanish-American War happened more or less as OTL, so PR, Guam and the Philippines were turned over to the US. Puerto Rico was granted a directly-elected governor and legislature in 1950 (at the same time as Alaska and Hawaii) and they will get full independence in 1965 (Hawaii goes independent at the same time and Alaska follows suit in 1994, this later date being explained by Alaska's smaller population and lack of as much of a distinctive cultural/ethnic identity). The Philippines was the site of a particularly brutal independence uprising in the 1950s, which led directly to it being granted the same kind of directly-elected governor in 1963, followed by full independence in 1970. It is currently divided between the Sultanate of Sulu (roughly the Zamboanga Peninsula and Bangsamoro along with Sabah) and the Republic of the Philippines.
Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands were both ceded to the Federation of Micronesia and American Samoa to the Federation of Polynesia in 1986. The Pacific islands are divided into Federations of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, which were administered under a series of League of Nations trusts until 1986, when they were granted full sovereign independence.
The sale of the Danish Caribbean is butterflied away and it remained part of the 'Danish Realm' (basically OTL Greenland, Iceland, the Faroes and the USVI) when the Danish Royal Family were expelled from European Denmark during the Nine Years War. For obvious reasons, the Danish Caribbean (colloquially referred to as the 'Virgin Islands') has become the favourite site for the royals to hang out, which has made republican sentiment in the rest of the realms all the stronger.
Not quite decided on that - IIRC it was a pretty close run thing OTL so maybe just the flap of some butterflies.
It's not really a question of 'losing' anything. TTL I'd say it's only really the Philippines where the US would've quite liked to keep up the link. As things are TTL, the fractured state of US politics makes it harder to admit new states and, once the territories are granted directly elected governors, the question of independence is always going to be out there. Really, it's not exactly hard to imagine a TL where PR was given a referendum some time in the 50s and 60s that went for independence - it probably would've happened if it hadn't been for the independence extremists hardening attitudes by trying to kill Truman and then the Cuban Revolution making everything a bit of a Cold War nightmare. TTL, where US foreign policy has been taken over by (broadly speaking) an isolationist posture, it's not as if Hawaii, Guam or Samoa have many particular uses and it's easy to imagine a culturally-defined independence movement taking root in the environment of the 60s onwards.
Alaska is a bit more of a stretch for a bunch of reasons. What happens with it is that you get to the 1980s and it's got a directly elected governor and it's not going to become a state, so basically more and more people think "hey, why don't we call our governor the president instead and use this lovely oil money to decide our own fate a bit more?"
That right there is exactly why the US wouldn't let them go though. Alaska's gold and oil make it to valuable to the US to let go. Honestly by the mid-60s Alaska should be a state here.
I'll have to disagree with you there - the fact that the US now has three main parties means that the unspoken rule is that you should now admit three states at a time and, with Hawaii and PR going independent, there aren't really any other options for statehood unless you split up Alaska, which would have been pretty unpopular.
Except that's a modern idea though that didn't really take hold until ironically Alaska and Hawaii were admitted OTL. With the butterflies here there's no reason that mindset would develop especially since coalition governments in the House and Senate are an established fact TTL.
I disagree on a couple of points. Firstly, I think the tradition really dates back to the practice of balancing slave and free states in the Antebellum years (albeit that didn't always have a totally strict party divide) and, secondly, with coalitions being common and the margins between the big three parties very narrow, I suspect that people would be more conservative and worried about anything which could upset the partisan divide. Anyway, as always, happy to agree to disagree.
My inspiration was actually the Mau Mau Rebellion but you're not wrong...
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As usual, I’d like to know more about the Cold War and the conflicts that the US fights in. Both within the nation and outside.