Can you tell I was bored today?
POD -- 1974, no Watergate
1975
Saigon falls. Nixon expresses disappointment. Privately blames Kennedy & Johnson.
1976
The United States vetoes a United Nations Security Council resolution that proposes total Israeli withdrawal from Arab areas. The United States Ambassador Francis E. Melroy is killed in Beirut, and Americans are warned to leave Lebanon. Israel agrees to withdraw from more Sinai territory. Nixon steps up American aid to Israel and increase pressure on Lebanon.
Nixon leaves office and is viewed as a very successful President. He becomes "the Old Man" of the GOP.
The 1976 primary field is loaded with challengers. The Gov of CA, Ronald Reagan, gives VP Ford a challenge for the nomination but ultimately it is Nixon's endorsement which helps Ford to gain it (he wasn't going to leave Ford the way Ike left him). In a tight election Ford inches out the Democratic nom, Mo Udall. (Carter doesn't gain the "strong morals and an outsider" support in did in OTL.)
1977
Ford DOES NOT pardon Vietnam draft dodgers as Carter did in OTL.
1978
Angered by land and other government reforms, Muslim fundamentalists spark riots in Iran and demand removal of the Shah. After failed attempts at appeasement, martial law is imposed.
A reportedly Soviet-supported coup occurs in Afghanistan when President Muhammad Daud Khan is murdered and power is seized by the pro-Communist Nur Muhammad Taraki.
The Egyptian/Israeli situation worsens.
The Ford administration remains relative inactive for all of these situations and is widely blasted, even within the GOP. The US economy is sluggish and it appears America is headed for a recession.
1979
The Iranian Shah flees Iran, and Shiite Muslim leader Ayatollah Khomeini invades Iran. Thousands are killed in fighting and mass executions. The Shah seeks asylum in the United States for a gallbladder operation, and terrorists seize the American embassy and over 60 hostages. In response Ford launches a massive American military assault on Tehran. Several hostages are killed in the battle. The Arab world is outraged but some Americans applaud the strong response.
Efforts at Egyptian-Israeli peace collapse and open warfare breaks out throughout the Middle East.
The U.S.S.R. invades Afghanistan and directs a coup that puts Babrak Kamal in power.
Oil shortages mean long lines at gas stations, and the Fed moves to stop inflation by raising interest rates.
1980
Backed by the Ford administration, Iraq launches an air strike and begins the Iran-Iraqi War.
With the Middle East & Afghanistan in crisis, the US extremely unpopular around the world, and US economy sluggish Ford attempts to run for reelection.
Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy wins a sweeping victory over Ford in what is widely regarded as a move to "return to Camelot". His VP is the former Gov of Georgia, Jimmy Carter (a man who counterbalances Kennedy's hard-partying Northern Aristocrat image with his Southern simplicity and morality).
1981
President Kennedy follows the example of his brother and cuts taxes in response to a sluggish economy. He also invites Egyptian and Israeli officials to Washington to mediate the MidEast crisis. VP Carter is assigned to moderating the negotiations.
An insane man in love with Jodi Foster shoots President Kennedy in an attempt to "impress her". Unlike his brothers he survives.
VP Carter is able to negotiate a halt to Arab-Israeli hostilities. Egypt & Israel sign the Camp David Accords. Further peace talks are scheduled with other Arab powers.
President Kennedy appoints the first female Supreme Court Justice.
1982
The haunting Vietnam War Memorial, designed by Maya Lin, is dedicated in Washington, D.C.. The memorial lists the names of military personnel either killed or missing in this conflict.
America begins quietly funding insurgent forces in Afghanistan but remains committed that it will not use ground forces there. At the same time America withdraws funding of the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein after it comes to light he is using weapons against his own people. Hussein finds an alternate arms dealer in China and he makes several overatures to the Communist state.
1983
There is no bombing of the US Embassy in Lebanon (Carter has them tied up in peace talks).
In agriculture, American farmers are subsidized with a PIK (payment-in-kind) program.
The U.S. economy begins to emerge from recession, and the . Dow Jones starts to recover.
Pres Kennedy condemns the coup in Grenada by Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard but takes no action against him. When Coard expresses his communist sympathies the US and her Allies impose strict economic sanctions.
1984
The Mid-East peace talks break down and violence re-ignites between the PLO and Israel in an Arab-Israeli war. Israel invades Lebanon, moving into West Beirut and ousting PLO forces.
The Kennedy-Carter administration wins a sweeping 2nd term over Senator Bob Dole.
1985
Mikhail Gorbachev becomes general secretary of the Communist Party in the U.S.S.R.. Under Gorbachev's leadership, economic reforms and policies such as ``glasnost'' (openness), lead to a major easing of the cold war with Western powers.
The first version of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act is signed into law in order to control the U.S. national deficit.
Sandinista Daniel Ortega becomes president of Nicaragua and makes peace overtures to the U.S. Talks open between America and Nicaragua (much to the Contras chagrin).
Pres Kennedy introduces plans for universal healthcare. Republicans in Congress rally against it and gain just enough support from Democrats concerned about the deficit to squash it.
1986
A Libyan sponsored terrorist bombing of a West German disco goes unanswered. (No Tripoli bombing.)
1987
A new step occurs in U.S.-Canada relations, as the two countries sign a free-trade agreement. Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney encounters some opposition from Liberal and New Democratic parties, which delays ratification.
Soviet Secretary Gorbachev and U.S. President Kennedy sign the INF Treaty in Washington, D.C., to reduce their nuclear stockpiles. Conservatives in the US scream that Kennedy is weak on Communism.
Libya steps up terrorist attacks against American targets.
1988
With a death toll of 1.5 million, the Iran-Iraq War ends after 8 years.
In an attempt to remove dictator Manuel Noriega from power in Panama, the U.S. indicts Noriega for bribery.
King Hussein of Jordan renounces control of the West Bank in favor of the PLO.
Vice-President Jimmy Carter wins the presidential election, defeating Tennessee governor Lamar Alexander.
1989
President Carter pardons all Vietnam draft dodgers.
Soviet forces leave Afghanistan after nine years of war.
In the wake of Gorbachev's glasnost, a wave of political activity erodes historic cold war divisions. Soviet states, such as Lithuania and the Ukraine, agitate for independence. East Germany allows citizens to leave the country without exit visas, resulting in a breech of the ``iron curtain'' and a rush of migration to West Germany. The Berlin Wall, symbol of the chilly, decades-old division between East and West, begins to be dismantled piece by piece.
Nicolae Ceausescu, brutal military dictator of Romania, is overthrown.
U.S. savings and loan institutions have been failing and losing billions of dollars. The Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation fails this year, prompting new government control of the crisis.
Vaclav Havel and Civic Forum dissident groups rise against the Communist government of Czechoslovakia and successfully install a multiparty government.
America imposes strict economic restrictions against Panama in an attempt to oust dictator Manuel Noreiga.
1990
The recovering US economy hits a period of stagnation and recession.
The Communist party relinquishes its monopoly on power in Yugoslavia, and ethnic tensions increase.
Syrian troops enter Beirut to intervene in Lebanon's civil war.
Operation Desert Shield begins in the Persian Gulf, as the United States sends troops to Saudi Arabia after Iraq annexes Kuwait. Yellow ribbons become an American symbol of troop support.
In response to its invasion of Kuwait, Iraq receives crippling sanctions from the United Nations.
The Cold War further thaws during a Conference of Security and Cooperation in Europe; NATO and Warsaw Pact forces are reduced.
Shortly before her retirement as prime minister of Great Britain, Margaret Thatcher orders a British response to a Libyan terrorist attack in Scotland. British warplanes bomb Tripoli. Libyan terror attacks fade afterwards.
1991
Apartheid collapses in South Africa.
The Warsaw Pact is officially dissolved.
Slovenia and Croatia declare their independence from Yugoslavia, and are soon followed by Bosnia, Hercegovina, and Macedonia. Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic objects, and the intervention of the militia escalates into civil war.
The Senate approves Carter's first supreme court nominee, the 5th under the Kennedy-Carter administrations.
The USSR officially ends, as the Baltic republics declare their independence and the Communist party is stripped of its power. The Commonwealth of Independent States becomes a loose federation of most former Soviet republics, and Boris Yeltsin becomes president of the newly reconstituted Russia.
The United States and the Soviet Union agree to cut back long-range nuclear weapons by over 50% by 1999.
1992
The Internet Society is chartered, and 1,000,000 host computers are connected in a network. The term "surfing the net" is coined by Jean Polly as an increasing number of people begin exploring the online world.
The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, created in 1918, collapses as Europe officially recognizes the republics of Croatia and Slovenia.
Ross Perot, a successful businessman, shocks the world first by becoming the GOP candidate for President and then by upsetting President Carter. His VP is Jack Kemp.
President-Elect Perot kills NAFTA before it can even get started by stating he will no honor it.
American forces enter Somalia to ensure proper food distribution to those starving from the civil war.
1993
Czechoslovakia splits into two new countries: the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
President Perot launches an all-out offensive on Iraqi forces occupying Kuwait. American forces press the advantage all the way to Baghdad and overthrow Saddam Hussein.
The US invades Panama and ousts the Panamanian dictator, Manuel Noreiga.
The bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City kills 6 people and injures over 1,000, escalating fear of terrorism on American soil.
Federal agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) raid the ranch of a Branch Davidian sect in Waco, Texas, beginning a 51-day standoff. The crisis ends when federal agents storm the compound of the Davidians. Within hours, their compound becomes engulfed in flames, killing dozens inside. There is a wide outcry that the Perot administration is out of control.
Twelve American soldiers are killed and others are missing when they come under attack in Somalia. Perot orders a massive and brutal bombing campaign. The Somali warlord responsible is killed but so are many civilians.
Thousands of Muscovites protest against Russia's government as hard-line opponents of President Boris Yeltsin occupy the parliament building. The rebellion is put down the next day.
1994
The US economy appears to be on the rebound, mainly fueled by technological innovations.
1995
The Peso collapses and with Mexico in a state of disarray President Perot seals the US-Mexican border. Civil war errupts in Mexico with the US sending advisers to aid the government.
The bombing of the Murrah Federal building in Oklahoma City kills 168 people, leading to nationwide mourning. An FBI investigation leads quickly to the arrest of Army-veteran Timothy McVeigh.
An uneasy truce is established between Russia and the breakaway republic of Chechnya. The yearlong war has taken 25,000 lives.
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated in Tel Aviv by Yigal Amir, a Jewish student angry at Rabin for giving [Israel] to the Arabs.
Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia end fighting in Bosnia with the signing of a peace treaty, and the economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations are lifted. The three and a half years of war have claimed approximately 20,000 lives.
1996
After a seventeen-year FBI search, Theodore Kaczynski is turned in by his brother as the Unabomber who killed 3 people and injured 23 in sustained acts of mail terrorism.
Nineteen U.S. servicemen are killed and hundreds wounded in Saudi Arabia when a bomb planted in a fuel truck explodes in front of an apartment complex housing military personnel.
Just minutes after taking off from John F. Kennedy International Airport, Paris-bound TWA flight 800 explodes off the coast of Long Island, killing 230 on board. Although reports indicate it was a fuel intake problem the Perot administration creates "The Dept of Homeland Security".
In one of the tighest elections in history Ross Perot (riding the wave of a strong economy and National Security) defeats his challenger the Gov of Arkansas, Bill Clinton.
1997
President Perot institutes massive tax cuts and inflation skyrockets.
US troops are sent to stabalize Mexico.
The collapse of the Thailand economy sparks a chain reaction that leads to an Asian economic crisis and the eventual collapse of the Russian market. The Asian currency crisis hits and there is no reaction from the Perot administration.
Timothy McVeigh is found guilty of the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. He is sentenced to death for the crime.
The triumph of Tony Blair and the Labour party ends eighteen years of Conservative rule in Britain. Blair's controversial meeting with Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams supports peace in Northern Ireland.
1998
The US economy begins a downward spiral, kept afloat only by Y2K IT spending.
Northern Ireland acquires a fragile peace when the Good Friday Accord is signed after 22 months of negotiations and 30 years of violence. Despite Tony Blair's request that he intervene and moderate the talks, Perot says he isn't interested in affairs which do not concern the US. The peace collapses and Northern Ireland declines into more violence.
258 people are killed when two American embassies are destroyed by terrorist bombings that were allegedly orchestrated by Islamic radical Osama bin Laden. The United States retaliates with extended bombing campaigns against Afghanistan and Sudan. Perot contemplates large scale investigations of all Arab-Americans but the proposal is squashed.
1999
NATO goes to war against Yugoslavia to protect the ethnic Albanian majority in the province of Kosovo.
Panama is scheduled to gain control of the Panama Canal from the United States in December. Perot is heavily opposed to the plan and unsuccessfully tries to find ways to delay it.
Russian President Boris Yeltsin resigns, naming as his successor Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
2000
Bill Clinton returns to the political arena and defeats VP Jack Kemp. His administration seeks a stabalization of the Mexican and Asian economic crisises, a return to normalcy in international relations, and an attempt to work towards world peace. Iraq is no longer an issue although it is a struggle to build a valid government. And we all know that 9/11 is around the corner .....
