the Nth "People from alternate timelines" Thread

Herbert Hoover
Governor of Iowa: 1931-1939
Deputy Leader of the Labor Party: 1940-1942
Vice President of the United States: 1941-1942
Leader of the Labor Party: 1942-1949
President of the United States: 1942-1949
Secretary-General of the Commune of Nations: 1949-1963

Herbert Hoover will forever be known as one of history's greatest Presidents of the United States, and also the most prominent Secretary-General of the Commune of Nations.

*BLAH, BLAH, Personal life not affected by PoD*

When the Republican Party voted to become the Conservative Party, Hoover was split, should he abandon his ideals for the good of the greater whole, or make a stand, for his progressive ideas? He ultimately chose the latter and left to join the Labor Party.

In the 1930s, he became involved within state politics in his beloved Iowa, becoming elected its Governor in 1930, 1932 and 1936 on a progressive Labor ticket. Iowa, one of the states greatest hit by the Depression, looked to him to get it out of its despair, and he made no expense in doing so, and Iowans, in their gratitude, voted him in for a third term in a landslide in 1936.

The federal Labor Party noticed his talent and decided to offer him the position of Deputy Leader, since the incumbent, Huey Long, resigned it to seek the Leadership. Hoover accepted and the Long/Hoover ticket defeated Conservative Robert Taft/John Garner in a landslide.

The Second World War against the Nazis took up many of Long and Hoover's time, and when Long was assassinated by a rabid Democrat (which led to the party's near-death for a long while) Hoover became President of the United States and Leader of the Labor Party. He led America through the War and when victory was complete, his speech on it was certainly memorable!

In the treaty, a Commune of Nations, an international organization for peace, was set up. Benito Mussolini, the Prime Minister of Italy, was appointed that, but everybody knew that once Hoover finished his term as President, the position was open for him. The people desired him to run for a third term in 1948, but he declined, passing it on to Henry Wallace, which made a promise to be an one-termer.

In 1949, Hoover was inaugurated as the second Secretary-General of the Commune of Nations, a position he would hold until his death. In this position, he advocated an pessimistic interventionist streak, which worked well with most nations.

He died in 1963, and his funeral in America was attended by millions, both from America and outside it.

Many call him the "President of the World" for his presidential behavior as Secretary-General, which would be a blueprint for future S-Gs to follow.
 
1904: Alton B. Parker/Henry G. Davis (Democratic) def. Theodore Roosevelt/Charles W. Fairbanks (Republican)
1908: Unknown/Unknown (Republican) def. William Jennings Bryan/????? (Democratic)


1928: William Gibbs McAdoo/?????? (Conservative) def. ?????/????? (Labor)
1932: Daniel Hoan/Huey Long (Labor) def. Williams Gibbs McAdoo/?????? (Conservative)
1936: Daniel Hoan/Huey Long (Labor) def. ?????/????? (Conservative)
1940: Huey Long/Herbert Hoover (Labor) def. Robert Taft/John N. Garner (Conservative)
1944: Herbert Hoover/???? (Labor) def. ?????/???? (Conservative)
1948: Henry A. Wallace/???? (Labor) def. ????/???? (Conservative)

1952: Earl Warren/???? (Conservative) def. ?????/????? (Labor)

1996: Bob Dole/Jeb Bush (Conservative) def. ????/???? (Labor) & ????/???? (Progressive Democrat)
2000: Bob Dole/Jeb Bush (Conservative) def. ????/???? (Labor) & ????/???? (Progressive Democrat)
2004: Rocky Anderson/Jill Stein (Labor) def. Jeb Bush/???? (Conservative) & ????/???? (Progressive Democrat)
2008: Gary Johnson/???? (Conservative) def. Rocky Anderson/Jill Stein (Labor) & John Edwards/???? (Progressive Democrat)
2012: Jill Stein/Sherrod Brown (Labor) def. Gary Johnson/???? (Conservative) & Hillary Rodham Riley/???? (Progressive Democrat)
 
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As usual, I'm pretty sure I waaayyy overdid it and focused far too much on pretty much writing fifty years of TTL's Swedish history and too little on the actual figure I was writing about, so... I'm open to critiques and possibly amending this. :eek:

King Gustav V of Sweden (1858—1945)
Last Swedish and Norwegian monarch, reigning from 1907 until his murder in 1945 in Sweden and from 1907 to 1916 de facto and 1907 to 1919 de jure and again de facto from 1940 to 1944 in Norway. He was killed as a result of the Second World War and the Drottningholm Revolution.

The King was born Oscar Gustav Adolf at Drottningholm Palace in Stockholm (best known today as a CNESCO World Heritage Site and as the country retreat of the Swedish President, often used for state visits by foreign dignitaries), and married Princess Victoria of Baden in 1881 at Karlsruhe in Germany, who would influence his later pro-German and conservative inclinations. After taking the throne in 1907, however, he seemed, despite his personal beliefs, comfortable with parliamentary governance, and against the wishes of the Swedish elites appointed Karl Staaf as Prime Minister after the 1911 elections resulted in a landslide Liberal victory.

However, Prime Minister Staaf and the King soon had a falling out over the "Bondetåget" and subesquent courtyard speech by the King; Staaf had cut Swedish arms spending despite the international arms race of the time, which had already prompted a citizens' fundraising effort that raised twelve million Kronor with the goal of building the battleship Sverige. In February 1914, 32,000 farmers marched on the royal palace and demanded higher spending for defense, and the King responded by blasting Staaf's defense policy and declaring his sympathy with the marchers' demands. In response, the Liberal government resigned in protest after Gustav refused to retract his statement, and the King appointed a loyal, conservative cabinet of civil servants led by Hjalmar Hammarskjöld, which approved a large military budget.

When the First World War broke out in March of 1915, Sweden initially declared it's neutrality, but the King privately favored Germany and felt that his stand against disarmament had been vindicated. The King was further vindicated when, in early May, the Russian Baltic Fleet under Nikolai Essen, who had misjudged the Swedish government and believed they were days or weeks away from declaring war, sailed to Gotland where he believed the Swedish fleet was stationed while sending a destroyer squadron to Stockholm to lay mines at the entrance of the archipelago. While only finding a detachment of patrol boats at Fårösund, his destroyers encountered the main Swedish fleet, at which the Swedish commander assumed the Russians had declared war and ordered his fleet to open fire. After receiving the news himself, Admiral Essen sunk the Swedish flotilla at anchor at Fårösund and proceeded north after telegraphing Petrograd informing them that Sweden had attacked his fleet and urging a declaration of war be sent.

With Sweden now in the war, Gustav dismissed parliament and essentially ruled by decree on the advice of Hammarskjöld and his cabinet who supported the king's decision, with the public for the time being accepting this due to outrage at the Russian attack. However, as the situation began to swing towards the Entente and civil repression and widespread shortages of food began to take hold, public opinion soured, especially after a second front was opened when the Norwegian parliament unilaterally severed the personal union with Sweden and declared Norway an independent and neutral republic in November 1916, prompting Swedish troops to occupy Kristiania (Oslo) and the Anglophillic Norwegians to petition the United Kingdom for support. By December 1918 when an armistice was declared, Sweden had been bled dry by war, and at the Treaty of Copenhagen (which laid out the terms of peace between the Entente and Sweden) was forced to relinquish the personal union with Norway and cede Jämtland to the new state, cede Gotland and a large swath of Norrbotten to Russia, and accept a new constitution written by Hjalmar Branting which enshrined parliamentary governance, which Branting hoped would prevent a complete revolutionary overthrow of the Swedish state by socialists as was advocated by his frequent rival Zeth Höglund.

Despite Gustav's roll in the war, he remained as King during the turbulent years of the 1920s, in which Sweden attempted to come to terms with it's humiliation in the war and with the rise of radicals on both the right and left, exacerbated by the post-war hardships which became even worse in the early 1930s with the onset of the Great Depression. The revanchist and populist far right Svensk-Restaurering ("Swedish Restoration") movement, influenced by Italian Fascism and German National Socialism, became prominent in the 1930s, associayed with figures such as Carl-Ehrenfried Carlberg and Elof Eriksson, and by the 1935 election the far right had gained a majority in parliament leading to Elof Eriksson becoming Prime Minister. Having privately obtained Gustav's blessing, Eriksson gutted the so-called Fördragkonstitutionen ("Treaty Constitution") and in the 1939 election the Swedish Restoration Party faced only opposition from the centre-right General Electoral League and the liberal People's Party, the rest of the far right having been voluntarily or forcibly merged into the SRP and leftist parties having been essentially banned.

While supportive of Eriksson's ultra-reactionary views, Gustav did not share his extreme anti-Semitism and while Eriksson was skeptical of cooperation with Germany due to his distaste for the "revolutionary" aspects of Nazism, Gustav remained a staunch Germanophile. As the King had managed to rebuild his personal image and had as a condition of supporting Eriksson forced the repeal of much of the restrictions on royal power was able to both protect Sweden's Jewish population and lead Sweden into an alliance with the German-led Axis. The later decision would prove disastrous for Sweden; after Goering invaded Poland in 1939, Sweden was, at Gustav's urging one of the first countries to come to Germany's aid, declaring war on the Allies in February 1940. Early in the war, with German aid, the Swedish Eastern Command was able to effectively prosecute the front against Russia, occupying parts of Finland and the the Baltic Governorates, while the Western Command invaded and occupied Norway, after which Gustav declared the Union Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway restored and had himself crowned King of Norway in Oslo, which was promptly (officially) remained Christiania-Gustavia, restoring it's old Swedish name and also honoring the King.

Once again though, it was proved that the King had misjudged; in December 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, resulting in America declaring war on Japan, which forced Germany and Sweden, by the terms of the Pact of Blood treaty to declare war on the United States itself. The American entry into the war gave the Allies the upper hand, and also energized the Norwegian resistance, with the US government now coordinating material support for the Norwegian guerrillas which was heavily financed by the large Norwegian ethnic community in America. By 1944, Norway had been entirely liberated and over the course of 1945, Sweden was overrun by the American and British armies. When word reached Stockholm that Västerås, a vital transportation hub on Lake Mälaren not far from the Swedish capital, had fallen, war-weary Stockholmers, mostly socialist-sympathizers and working class, rose up and stormed Drottningholm Palace. When one of the rebels found the King attempting to escape with his bodyguards, he fired two shots with his hunting rifle, striking Gustav in the shoulder and then in the head before being shot and killed himself by the guards.

Sweden's second military humiliation and the murder of the King resulted in Sweden's military occupation by the allies and the 1947 creation of the Republic of Sweden with a semi-parliamentary constitution largely based on the de facto American model (although retaining a cabinet responsible to the legislature, which has never existed in the American system despite the Speaker of the House evolving into a de facto Prime Minister). While generally considered a villain in Sweden, there is some academic debate over to what degree Gustav V's actions resulted in Sweden's devastation in the World Wars and to what degree it was caused by events outside his control.
 
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The Republic of Hawaii

In 1893 the Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown and the Republic of Hawaii was created. The intent of the "Revolution" was annexation by the United States, but that was stopped by Democratic President Grover Cleveland. Many of the revolutionaries were furious until after William McKinley became President, and it would go back with President Alton that unique politics would appear in Hawaii.

It wasn't until 1915, when the Hawaiian Independence Act of 1905 took in full effect that Hawaii had its own Parliament and then political Parties started appearing. Political Parties were found generally on the same grounds as in America, a Liberal party and a Conservative party, with Third Parties coming much later. Because most former supporters of the Rich groups that held the Islands hostage went to the Conservatives, the majority of workers went to the Liberals, and with them firmly having power they were often the subject of many a scandal.

The first major political scandal was after World War 2 ended, many of the corrupt arrest laws were still being held, many Liberals defected and formed the Libertarian Party of Hawaii, and held a 20 seat majority coalition with the Conservatives. It wasn't until the 1951 elections that some former Libertarians returned to the Liberal Party.

The second scandal was the covering up of pollution by certain companies, this lead to the creation of the Green Party of Hawaii, which again lead to the Conservatives-Libertarian Alliance to take power. This lasted 1969 to 1980 went Conservative Prime Minister Copper Brown was accused of murdering a prostitute in the 60's.

After that success was enjoyed by Liberals with Daniel Inouye as PM, until his death in 2006, which fractured the party into third place. Now the Greens hold a majority in the Parliament, and have the first Green Prime Minister Barack Obama.
 
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It's definitely inconsistent, I'm afraid, and also doesn't really fit the format; for one, no pre-1900 PODs are allowed, and for two it was already established that Hawaii had been part of the United States but Alton Parker granted it a referendum on independence in 1906 which passed, and Hawaii has a Prime Minister, not a President. In fact, I don't think it's out of the question they would've restored the monarchy, given the Republic didn't as far as I know have any real popular support. Finally, while he doesn't seem to have been specifically mentioned, I don't see why McKinley would not be reelected as he was IOTL; in fact, I had been assuming that the core POD was that McKinley doesn't die in 1901.

Additionally, out of curiosity: who was Copper Brown IOTL?
 
It's definitely inconsistent, I'm afraid, and also doesn't really fit the format; for one, no pre-1900 PODs are allowed, and for two it was already established that Hawaii had been part of the United States but Alton Parker granted it a referendum on independence in 1906 which passed, and Hawaii has a Prime Minister, not a President.

I thought for some reason Obama was the President of Hawaii, must have misread it, also a couple of countries have both a Prime Minister and a President: Germany and Russia for one.

In fact, I don't think it's out of the question they would've restored the monarchy, given the Republic didn't as far as I know have any real popular support. Finally, while he doesn't seem to have been specifically mentioned, I don't see why McKinley would not be reelected as he was IOTL; in fact, I had been assuming that the core POD was that McKinley doesn't die in 1901.

I missed the early Hawaii independence thing. I also assumed before 1900 was open. All that's fixed.

Additionally, out of curiosity: who was Copper Brown IOTL?

When scrolling through the Hawaii GOP I found him somewhere and thought his name interesting. The dead hooker thing I made up for a scandal in-universe
 
Sir Oswald Mosley 1896-1940

Member of Parliament for Harrow (1918-1940) Home Secretary ( and Prime Minister (1930-243).

After serving in the Army, Oswald Mosley was elected as a Conservative MP but crossed to become an independent in protest against their Irish policies. He joined the Labour party in 1924. He unexpectedly was chosen as Home secretary in the second Clynes government in 1928. When Clynes stood down in 1932, Mosley was selected as leader and lead labour to victory in 1932, 34 and 37.

Under Mosley as Home secretary and Prime Minister, mass nationalisation and heavy investment in infrastructure was used to increase employment. During a state visit to Italy in 1934. Mosley formed a lasting friendship with Italian Prime minister Benito Mussolini, leading to greater diplomatic ties and shared corporatist policies. This would lead to the declaration of War against Germany and Sweden in 1940

Mosely was killed during an Germano-Swedish air raid on London in 1942. Mosley’s last act was to approve Operation Mjolnir, the allied landings in Norway, which would occur in September 1943.

(I want to see that Conference, Huey Long, Oswald Mosley, Mussolini and INSERT SOVIET LEADER HERE)
 
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9th 1913-August 20th 1995), founder and CEO of Uncle Dick's Discount Burger Express, a best selling fast food chain located in the United States. Also plays the role of the company's advertising mascot, "Tricky Dick," a mischievous clown who frequently atempts to break into the resturant and steal the "secret recipe" that will allow him to "win the burger race once and for all!" Following his death, the role of "Tricky Dick" was replaced with an animated clown, played by various voice actors.
 
Jeremy Clarkson (1960-)

Radio show host, television presenter and columnist known for his right wing “libertarian conservative” views, “righteous anger” and scathing attacks on his opponents. Some dub him an attention grabber who gives opinions for shock and attention.

Alexander “Boris” Johnson (1964-)

Former conservative MP turned television personality, columnist and writer. Known for his eccentric, meandering style of speaking. Johnson was MP for Whitby from 1991 to 2000, where he lost his seat to the Democrats on second vote preferences. He’s since appeared on shows such as The News Quiz, Countdown and The South Bank show and since 2008 has hosted his own evening chat show.

Dr Caroline Lucas MP (1960-)
Liberal MP for Exeter. Currently Leader of the opposition, former business secretary (2000-2005), former Liberal Shadow-Chancellor (2005-2009). Born to conservative voting parents, she studied English literature at Exeter University, where, contrary to the trend towards Support for the Democrats or Conservatives, both of whom were left or centrist, economically. Lucas remained a Liberal supporter throughout her academic career before standing as PPC during the 1991 election where she was elected. She gained a reputation for her attacking public speaking style and staunch defence of free market economics. She was a controversial choice for Business Secretary during the formation of the Democrat-Liberal Coalition government in 2000.

When the Democrats won a majority in 2005, she lost her position but became Liberal Finance representative (their equivalent of the Shadow Chancellor) before being elected leader in 2009 after the resignation of Giles Brandreth. During the 2010 election the Liberals moved to the opposition by a narrow Margin and Lucas became leader of His Majesties Loyal Opposition
 
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