VFAU: Little help here?

After hitting the bar with a few friends last night, I passed out somewhere on the walk home and caught myself a few Z's before waking up somewhere that I've never seen before. That in itself isn't usual, but the strangeness of how the buildings looked and what everyone was wearing was itself a bit out of the ordinary, so I hailed a cab and asked the driver to take me to my apartment.

He didn't have any idea in hell where I was talking about, and to top that, the fella got all in a tizzy when I tried to light up a cigarette in the car. Talk about a somekind o' square. At any rate, he ended up dropping me near a 'webcafe' or something like that full of antique computers, one of which I'm sending this message on right now. Checked out the headlines, which were crazy, to say the least (an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? Who the hell still uses oil?), and pretty well concluded that I wasn't in Kansas anymore.

So can you guys help me out here? Where exactly am I, and what exactly is this world like? I'd be happy to tell you what I remember about my home in exchange, o' course.
 
Okay: What year is it?

It's currently 2010, which is, from what I can tell, the same year as in this world, though your technology is, I'm sorry to say, somewhat behind our's.

Does the United States ring a bell?

But of course! You're talkin' to a red-blooded American, buddy. From the looks of it, I'm still in the U.S., though again, as far as I can tell, the United States of this world is a lot more powerful and influential than my own.

What are the big cities? Which one were you in?

New York City (which is where I was), Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Detroit are the five biggest where I'm from.

What's been in the news?

Well lately there's been a lot buzzing around about the upcoming midterm elections. President Gore and the Democrats might get hit pretty badly unless they can manage to shore up some economic recovery at some point in the future.

Beside that, internationally speaking, at least, there's the always present tensions between the Indonesia and Australia, though here's hoping that doesn't develop into a war, especially since the both of them are now armed with nuclear weapons...
 
When was Gore first elected President? Who preceded him?

President Gore was elected in 2008, succeeding Joe Lieberman, whom he served as Vice President under from 2001 until 2009. He defeated John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin to win the Presidency.
 
Does the name Barack Obama mean anything to you?

That name sounds familiar. I think he's a Senator from Illinois. A Democrat, if I remember correctly. He served a brief stint in the House and then moved to the Senate about four years ago, right?

Does the date September 11, 2001 have any significance? What about World War II? If so, who were the Presidents since it ended?

September 11, 2001? Doesn't really ring any bells, sorry. World War II happened back home, too, and the Allies won after hitting Nagasaki and Hiroshima with Atomic bombs. I'm not too great on Presidents, but I'll do my best here...

Franklin Roosevelt (D): 1933-1945
Harry Truman (D): 1945-1949
Tom Dewey (R): 1949-1957
Adlai Stevenson (D): 1957-1965
Nelson Rockefeller (R): 1965 [1]
Barry Goldwater (R): 1965-1973
Henry Jackson (D): 1973-1977
William Westmoreland (R): 1977-1981
Edward Kennedy (D): 1981-1989
Clint Eastwood (R): 1989-2001
Joe Lieberman (D): 2001-2009
Al Gore (D): 2009-Present

[1] Rocky was assassinated by some pinko that was trying to kill Goldwater, but ended up hitting the wrong guy, thus making his worse nightmare come true. :eek:
 
Tell, perhaps look it up, what were Dewey's and Truman's presidencies like? Does this picture look familiar?

E868A_dewey_defeats_truman.jpg
 
I've never seen that picture before. From what I remember from history class, President Dewey created the Dewey Interstate Highway system, appointed a number of progressives to the Supreme Court, and raised taxes to pay off the debt incurred from World War II.
 
I've never seen that picture before. From what I remember from history class, President Dewey created the Dewey Interstate Highway system, appointed a number of progressives to the Supreme Court, and raised taxes to pay off the debt incurred from World War II.

And Truman?
 
And Truman?

From what I can remember, he was just the lame duck between Roosevelt and Dewey. Lost re-election in 1948 despite a better than expected showing. I think he spent the rest of his days lobbying for the Medicare program that we eventually got under President Stevenson.
 
From what I can remember, he was just the lame duck between Roosevelt and Dewey.

Who was the first President to desegregate the military? in our time, it was Truman.

Does "Marshall Plan" ring a bell?

Was there ever more than one Germany?

Do you remember something called the "Greek Civil War"?
 
Who was the first President to desegregate the military? in our time, it was Truman.

I think Truman did do that. I think that was one of the reason that the Southern Democrats (now mostly members of the American Party) sat on their hands instead of campaigning for him harder in the otherwise 'Solid' South.

Does "Marshall Plan" ring a bell?

Yeah, it does, actually. IIRC, the Truman administration started it, but the Dewey administration got most of the credit for expanding it's scope and making it big.

Was there ever more than one Germany?

Technically speaking, there are still two Germanies: The German Democratic Republic (East Germany, a puppet of the USSR), and the Federal Republic of Germany, which is a memberstate of the European Community.

Do you remember something called the "Greek Civil War"?

I believe so. As far as I can remember, the commies lost that war (which is indeed ironic as Greece is now a thriving member of the 'Red-Green' European Community)
 
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