This Day In History

[The Old Hack 2,448]

1 hour ago, Illjwamh said:

1945 - Execution by firing squad of Vidkun Quisling. Not sure what else he was expecting, really.

Maybe he'd hoped for a hanging.

1 hour ago, Illjwamh said:

1989 - God dammit, no; I'm not doing one for fuckin' PewDiePie. Wait, shit.

Yeah, bollocking Nazis keep crawling out of the woodwork.

1 hour ago, Illjwamh said:

2008 - Stork markets around the world drop an average of 10%. Creepy.

It's okay, unfunded tax cuts will solve everything. They're just magic that way.

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

10 hours ago, Illjwamh said:

2008 - Stork markets around the world drop an average of 10%. Creepy.

I always knew the Stork Market was for the birds

[Illjwamh 98]

That's probably my best typo to date.

[Don Edwards 548]

21 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Elizabeth, despite producing the longest serving heirs apparent, was never heir apparent herself.  At birth, she was third in line and everyone expected her to become just another royal princess to  haul out on state occasions and marry off to some foreign prince.

Prior to some recent changes, it would have been very difficult for a female to be heir-apparent. They would have to be the eldest daughter (with no brothers at all) of a monarch who is known to be sterile - such as a post-menopausal reigning queen.

If that last part is not there, then a female cold at most be heir-presumptive.

But more recently, both houses of Parliament - secure in the knowledge that the monarch's eldest child is male, and HIS eldest child is male, and thus the crown is secured in male hands for longer than the likely remaining lifespan of any current member of the House of Lords - agreed that the crown, instead of preferentially passing to the monarch's eldest legitimate SON, would instead pass to the eldest legitimate CHILD. (It's easier to agree to a change that makes no difference you'll ever have to deal with.)

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

On 9/12/2019 at 11:31 AM, Illjwamh said:

On September 12 in History:

 

490 BCE - The Athenian army and their allies defeat the invading Persian army at the plains of Marathon. One guy runs himself to death back to the city to deliver the news - a feat millions of people will one day regularly recreate for fun.

They leave out most of the story, and the run, in that version.  The traditional story is that a professional message-runner named Pheidippides ran from Athens to Sparta, about 150 miles (240 km) in two days, to ask  for aid against Persian invaders, and ran back again with their answer, presumably in another two days.  He then ran another 25 miles (40 km) from Athens to the Battle of Marathon, found out Athens had won, and ran back to Athens with the news.  So, it wasn't a run of 26.2 miles that made him drop from exhaustion, it was running 350 miles (560 km) in about five days that killed him.

Of course, that story doesn't show up until about 500 years after the Battle of Marathon.  The historian Herodotus worked from first-hand interviews with eyewitnesses, and he never mentioned what would have been quite a compelling story....

On 9/12/2019 at 11:31 AM, Illjwamh said:

On September 12 in History:

 

1962 - America's crazy president publicly talks about going to the moon, and "other things".

If only we could go back to that sort of crazy President!

On 9/13/2019 at 0:59 PM, Illjwamh said:

On September 13 in History:

 

379 - Yax Nuun Ahiin I ascends to the throne of Tikal. His name means "Curl Nose". Well that's kind of mean.

Hey, for all we know, a curled nose was considered the height of beauty in that culture.  He may have been the equivalent of Sir Strongjaw or Empress Spathic.

On 9/13/2019 at 0:59 PM, Illjwamh said:

533 - Belisarius gives the Vandals a taste of their own medicine at the Battle of Ad Decimum, which will allow him to take the city of Carthage the following day. Several Byzantine/Roman soldiers have the weird feeling they've done this before.

Some of them reported hearing Belisarius mutter "Oh, boy...." just before the battle commenced.

On 9/13/2019 at 0:59 PM, Illjwamh said:

1814 - The British fail to capture the city of Baltimore or its defending outpost, Fort McHenry. Francis Scott Key writes a poem about it. You probably haven't read it.

And then some weirdo realizes it's a perfect match to the tune Stafford Smith created for a drinking song about an obscure Greek poet who promised from heaven to teach the singers the fine art of drinking and wenching at the same time.

On 9/14/2019 at 3:45 PM, Illjwamh said:

On September 14 in History:

 

1180 - Future shogun Minamoto no Yoritomo's force of 300 is outnumbered ten to one and overwhelmed at the Battle of Ishibashiyama, the first in which Yoritomo takes command. Fortunately for him, he escapes by the expedient method of hiding in a tree until somebody comes to rescue him. Japan's future leader!

Hey, you could do worse than someone smart enough to realize the battle is lost, and tough and sneaky enough to survive to fight another day.  As long as he didn't do something dickish like order all his troops to fight to the death even when it became clear they'd lost....

[Illjwamh 98]

On October 26 in History:

 

899 - Death of Alfred, the only English king ever to be styled "the Great". You know what that means; it's all downhill for England from here, lads.

 

1185 - Brothers Peter and Asen, tired of their peoples' mistreatment by their Byzantine overlords, decide that the Bulgarian Empire had been pretty cool and maybe we should start another one of those.

 

1341 - Nine yearo-old John V of Byzantium's regent, John VI Kantakouzenos, decides he should be co-emperor. John V's mother disagrees. "Excellent." ~Stefan Dušan of Serbia, Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria, Ottoman Sultan Orhan Gazi

 

1377 - "Guess what? Bosnia has kings now." ~Tvrtko I

 

1520 - Charles I of Spain becomes Charles V, HRE. He considers renaming Europe "Habsburgland."

 

1597 - Admiral Yi Sun-sin defeats an invading Japanese fleet of anywhere from 120 to 330 ships with only 13 ships of his own at the Battle of Myeongnyang. Beat that, Nelson.

 

1825 - The Erie Canal opens. Plans to promote it as a Halloween attraction temporarily dubbed the "Eerie Canal" unfortunately fall through.

 

1860 - Giuseppe Garibaldi to King Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia: "Look! I brought you a Sicily."

 

1909 - Korean independence activist An Jung-geun assassinates former Japanese Prime Minister, former Resident-General of Korea, and current President of the Privy Council Itō Hirobumi. Whether this delayed or accelerated the annexation process with regard to Korea is up for debate, but the shit being flung out from the fan is still hitting people today.

 

1947 - Hillary Clinton is born, prompting an investigation.

 

1967 - As a birthday present to himself, Iran's Shah (King) Mohammad Reza Pahlavi gives himself the title "Shahanshah" (emperor/"king of kings"). "We'll see about that." ~Ruhollah Khomeini

 

1977 - Somali hospital cook Ali Maow Maalin contracts smallpox, which is notable not in that it doesn't kill him, but in that he is the last person ever to do so. Vaccinate your kids.

 

1979 - South Korean president Park Chung-hee is assassinated at dinner in his residence by his own chief of security, and nobody is entirely sure why.

 

1985 - Uluru is returned to the Pitjantjatjara Aboriginals by the Australian government. "We're still going to let people climb and throw trash all over it, though. Might be a while before we get that sorted out."

 

[The Old Hack 2,448]

2 hours ago, Illjwamh said:

899 - Death of Alfred, the only English king ever to be styled "the Great". You know what that means; it's all downhill for England from here, lads.

Rampant sexism. Elizabeth the First was also known as Elizabeth the Great. But queens don't count.

2 hours ago, Illjwamh said:

1979 - South Korean president Park Chung-hee is assassinated at dinner in his residence by his own chief of security, and nobody is entirely sure why.

It was because he actually wanted to do it at lunch but put it off due to not feeling it just then.

[ProfessorTomoe 1,308]

13 hours ago, Illjwamh said:

 

1977 - Somali hospital cook Ali Maow Maalin contracts smallpox, which is notable not in that it doesn't kill him, but in that he is the last person ever to do so. Vaccinate your kids.

... and it's notable that most people now are not vaccinated against smallpox, since it has been eradicated. Doomsday scenario living in labs in Russia and the United States ...

[The Old Hack 2,448]

34 minutes ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

... and it's notable that most people now are not vaccinated against smallpox, since it has been eradicated. Doomsday scenario living in labs in Russia and the United States ...

And probably in China and other places as well, not to mention dormant but potentially viable remnants that we can't be sure of. Sigh.

But nooooo. Vaccinations are BAD because miasmas and autism. Why are people so bollocking gullible?

[Illjwamh 98]

On October 28 in History:

 

97 - The Praetorian Guard forces Emperor Nerva to adopt Marcus Ulpius Trajanus as his heir. You're welcome, Rome.

 

306 - Maxentius is proclaimed Roman Emperor. Well, one of them, anyway. It's becoming something of a club. Wait for it...

 

312 - Maxentius is defeated by Constantine, who is now the only emperor in the West. The club is hereby abolished.

 

1420 - The Forbidden City is completed, making Beijing the official capital of the Ming Dynasty. Members only!

 

1449 - Christian I becomes King of Denmark. That's a good name for a king. We should stick with that one, maybe.

 

1453 - Ladislaus the Posthumous is crowned king of Bohemia. I was devastated to learn that his epithet simply refers to the fact that he was born after his father's death, rather than him being crowed after his own death, because that would have been hilarious.

 

1492 - Christopher Columbus lands in Cuba. Nobody tell him; he thinks it's Borneo or something.

 

1726 - Jonathan Swift publishes Gulliver's Travels a brilliant satire involving the title character's adventures in absurd and fantastical places like Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Glubbdubdrib, and Japan.

 

1835 - A number of Maori chiefs sign the Declaration of the Independence of New Zealand. "Right, we'll get right on that." ~The British

 

1922 - Mussolini and a bunch of his fascists march on Rome and take over the Italian government. "Well, shit. Maybe we should have done something about that."

 

1940 - Italians: "Little Greeks, little Greeks, let us in." Greeks: "Go fuck yourselves." Oh, now you've done it. We're coming in whether you like it or not.

 

1948 - Paul Müller wins the Nobel Prize for Medicine for discovering that DDT can be used as an insecticide. Ooh. Ooh, this is awkward.

 

1956 - Elvis is vaccinated against polio on live television. While it infuriates me that people who don't listen to their doctor will listen to Elvis, at least he's using his power for good.

 

1995 - A fire on the metro line in Baku, Azerbaijan remains to this day the world's deadliest subway disaster, outside that one time an entire office party all choked on their teriyaki chicken footlongs. No for real though, 289 people died.

 

2007 - First Lady Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina is the first woman elected president of Argentina. "This is bullshit!" ~Hillary Clinton, dressed as Eva Perón for Halloween

 

2019 - (Actually yesterday, but whatever). Former president and first lady Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is elected Vice President of Argentina. Is she trying to fill out a bingo card or something?

 

[Scotty 1,061]

6 hours ago, Illjwamh said:

1956 - Elvis is vaccinated against polio on live television. While it infuriates me that people who don't listen to their doctor will listen to Elvis, at least he's using his power for good.

I'd suggest that given the current anti-vax movement, that maybe some celebrities should step up to reinforce the importance of getting vaccinated, but at the same time, given the current social media climate where it seems like any time a celebrity tries to speak up about injustice and such, their feeds get flooded with "you're getting paid to entertain, stay out of politics!" I'm unsure that they'd be as successful as Elvis.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

9 hours ago, Illjwamh said:

1453 - Ladislaus the Posthumous is crowned king of Bohemia. I was devastated to learn that his epithet simply refers to the fact that he was born after his father's death, rather than him being crowed after his own death, because that would have been hilarious.

I dunno. While kings typically don't end up getting fed to the crows, it has been known to happen. Though usually only after having been dethroned with extreme prejudice.

9 hours ago, Illjwamh said:

1922 - Mussolini and a bunch of his fascists march on Rome and take over the Italian government. "Well, shit. Maybe we should have done something about that."

Actually Mussolini wasn't part of that march. He was sitting in an express train that stood ready to depart for the border in case the march failed. Upon learning of its success, he triumphantly made his entrance.

This, incidentally, was the basis for the joke that he made the trains run on time. (Which he in fact didn't.)

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

22 hours ago, Illjwamh said:

On October 28 in History:

 

1948 - Paul Müller wins the Nobel Prize for Medicine for discovering that DDT can be used as an insecticide. Ooh. Ooh, this is awkward.

Even more awkward than Barak Obama's Nobel, which even/especially he saw as rather a bizarre and premature choice at the time.

22 hours ago, Illjwamh said:

2007 - First Lady Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina is the first woman elected president of Argentina. "This is bullshit!" ~Hillary Clinton, dressed as Eva Perón for Halloween

 

2019 - (Actually yesterday, but whatever). Former president and first lady Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is elected Vice President of Argentina. Is she trying to fill out a bingo card or something?

 

In America, the Twenty-Second Amendment says you can only be elected to be President twice, or once if you've already served more than half a term after succeeding from the VP spot.  However, it doesn't say anything about being elected VP and then becoming President again that way.  So, in theory, we could have Bernie Sanders head the ticket, and Obama as his VP.  

However, the Twelfth Amendment, which modified the procedure set forth for electing the President and Vice President, has a line that states "But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States."  So, Constitutional scholars (like, say, President Obama) debate about whether that would include having served two terms already or not.  There not being any term limits yet, that line in the 12th was only intended to mean rules like minimum age and being born in the United States should also apply to the VP, so which side y end up on probably depends a good deal on whether you believe the intent when written is a factor, or just the exact wording.

[Illjwamh 98]

Even the intent would preclude Obama from being VP if you ask me. The wording is pretty clear as far as I'm concerned. They didn't want anyone "constitutionally ineligible". In other words, they didn't want people skirting around the rules. They were fully aware that the rules can change; the prohibition against skirting around them would still stand.

[Illjwamh 98]

On October 29 in History:

 

539 BCE - Cyrus the Great to the Jews, upon entering Babylon (which he owns now): "Y'all can go home now if you want."

 

312 - Constantine the Great enters Rome (which he owns now) to great pomp and circumstance. He has his rival/predecessor Maxentius fished out of the river so he can be properly decapitated.

 

1665 - King António I Nvita a Nkanga of Kongo is killed in the Battle of Mbwila against Portugal, along with anyone who could be his heir and a number of high ranking nobles. Portugal has neither the desire nor the resources or manpower to take control of Kongo, so looks like it's civil war for everybody!

 

1914 - The Ottoman Empire enters World War One on the side of the Central Powers. They will come to regret this.

 

1922 - Victor Emmanuel III of Italy appoints Benito Mussolini as Prime Minister. He will come to regret this. To be fair, he doesn't really have a choice.

 

1923 - The Republic of Turkey is officially established. Okay, the war was a bad idea; we get it! You don't need to rub salt in the wound.

 

1929 - Following two earlier stock market crashes on "Black Thursday" and "Black Monday" (yesterday), the creatively named "Black Tuesday" is the worst one yet. Not to worry; our economy is robust. I'm sure it'll recover in a matter of weeks. Months, tops.

 

1942 - Bob Ross is born. At first there are concerns there's something wrong with him, as he doesn't cry, but it turns out he's just the most chill baby of all time.

 

1956 "Surprise, fuckers!" ~Israeli forces suddenly in the Sinai Peninsula

 

1964 - Tanganyika and Zanzibar, who already performed the fusion dance back in April, finally decide on their fusion name, Tanzania.

 

1969 - One computer is linked to another via ARPANET. I tell you, the things they can do these days.

 

2004 - A video clip is broadcast on Al Jazeera of Osama bin Laden admitting his direct responsibility for the 9/11 attacks. Shock! Gasp!

 

2012 - Hurricane Sandy hits the U.S. east coast. It's the first named hurricane to describe what everything looks like after it dissipates.

 

2015 - "Okay, it's possible we didn't think this through. We need y'all to start procreating a little bit more." ~China

 

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

 

On 9/17/2019 at 3:05 PM, Illjwamh said:

The worst part was, it wasn't even the first time that had happened. Said village was already an attempt to reestablish society in a post-apocalyptic hellscape. There would have been people living there who were the first or second generation descendants of the survivors of the last plague that wiped out 90% of the population.

The article 1491 has a great discussion of the new thoughts on North American populations pre-Colombus.  De Soto arrived in 1539 and saw thousands of warriors lining the shore of the Mississippi as they passed, finding large towns and cities everywhere.  The next Europeans in that area, in 1682, didn't see a village for 200 miles.

"The Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán dazzled Hernán Cortés in 1519; it was bigger than Paris, Europe's greatest metropolis. The Spaniards gawped like hayseeds at the wide streets, ornately carved buildings, and markets bright with goods from hundreds of miles away. They had never before seen a city with botanical gardens, for the excellent reason that none existed in Europe. The same novelty attended the force of a thousand men that kept the crowded streets immaculate. (Streets that weren't ankle-deep in sewage! The conquistadors had never heard of such a thing.)" 

(Of course, Europe had Gothic cathedrals, but they were relatively rare and the day to day city streets were a far cry from them. ;-)

[Illjwamh 98]

12 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

 

The article 1491 has a great discussion of the new thoughts on North American populations pre-Colombus.

It's been expanded into a book. I highly recommend it.

[Illjwamh 98]

On November 1 in History:

 

1512 - The public is allowed to look at paintings of naked people in the Sistine Chapel for the first time.

 

1604 - Shakespeare's Othello is performed for the first time at Whitehall Palace. It contains his best villain, hands down, who in perfect proof of the degradation of our culture, is best known as a wisecracking parrot.

 

1611 - Shakespeare's The Tempest is performed for the first time at Whitehall Palace. That's it, folks; there ain't no more and there never will be.

 

1755 - A massive earthquake and its ensuing fires and tsunamis pretty much completely destroy the city of Lisbon, killing anywhere from sixty to ninety thousand people. You know, if anyone was wondering why the Portuguese empire didn't hang around for as long as the British, French, or Spanish ones.

 

1765 - The British government institutes a tax by way of the Stamp Act on its North American colonies in order to pay for military operations there that may or may not have been necessary to begin with. They will come to regret this.

 

1790 - Irish statesman Edmund Burke writes a pamphlet in which he predicts that the French Revolution will end in disaster. I suppose whether or not he's right depends on how you define the words "end" and "disaster".

 

1861 - Abraham Lincoln appoints George McClellan as commander of the Union Army. He will come to regret this.

 

1870 - The U.S. Weather Bureau makes its very first forecast. I don't know for certain that it was wrong, but come on, it was totally wrong.

 

1894 - Nicholas II becomes Tsar of all Russia. That's it, folks; there ain't no more and there never will be.

 

1896 - For the first time, National Geographic magazine contains a picture of a woman with bare breasts. Aspiring explorers read it for the articles.

 

1922 - "All right, all right, I quit." ~Ottoman Sultan Mehmed VI. Ain't no more, never will be, you know the drill.

 

1944 - The term "veganism" is invented by English animal rights activist Donald Watson, who will not stop telling everybody about it.

 

1955 - War breaks out in Vietnam. Just a petty regional scuffle. Shouldn't last long.

 

1973 - Birth of Aishwarya Rai, often referred to by media outlets as "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World." Well, I don't know about that; I'll have to have a look and...WOW.

 

1981 - Antigua and Barbuda gains its independence from the UK. The singular conjugation is correct, no matter how weird it feels.

 

2000 - Serbia and Montenegro joins the United Nations. Gah, there it is again! My grammar anxiety is freaking out. Yes, that's a thing; shut up.

[Illjwamh 98]

On November 2 in History:

 

1795 - Formation of the French Directory, a five-man Revolutionary government. This one ought to stick.

 

1914 - Russia declares war on the Ottoman Empire. The WWI equivalent of "My grandpa can beat up your grandpa."

 

1936 - BBC starts a TV service. I'm skeptical, but willing to give it a shot.

 

1947 - Maiden flight of the Spruce Goose. A new age of aviation has dawned!

 

1964 - King Saud is deposed by his family and replaced by his brother Faisal. They draw the line at renaming the country Faisali Arabia, though.

 

2016 - The Chicago Cubs overcome a 108 year-old goat curse.

[ijuin 572]

19 hours ago, Illjwamh said:

1947 - Maiden flight of the Spruce Goose. A new age of aviation has dawned!

Unfortunately, the new age is not one of giant wooden propeller-driven aircraft taking off and landing in water, but one of giant aluminum turbojet-driven aircraft taking off and landing on two-mile-long runways.

[Illjwamh 98]

7 hours ago, ijuin said:

Unfortunately, the new age is not one of giant wooden propeller-driven aircraft taking off and landing in water, but one of giant aluminum turbojet-driven aircraft taking off and landing on two-mile-long runways.

That's the joke.

[Illjwamh 98]

On November 3 in History:

 

361 - Emperor Constantius II dies of a fever. He is baptized on his deathbed and declares his cousin Julian, a pagan, as his successor. Gettin' some real mixed signals from ya here, pal.

 

644 - Death of second Rashidun caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab. He was assassinated by captured Persian soldier/slave Piruz Nahavandi, who killed himself four days ago. It makes sense in context.

 

1534 - "Popes? We don't need no stinking Popes. I'll do it myself." ~Henry VIII

 

1852 - Birth of Emperor Meiji, whose name won't be Meiji until he dies.

 

1903 - Panama separates from Colombia after being encouraged to do so by the U.S.. I wonder what stake they could possibly have in this.

 

1926 - Annie Oakley dies of poor health brought on by anemia. A reaper's scythe is later found with a hole shot clean through it.

 

1928 - Birth of Tezuka Osamu. If Miyazaki Hayao is Japan's Walt Disney, Tezuka is their Stan Lee. Only they came in reverse order over there.

 

1957 - Russian dog Laika is the first animal to enter Earth orbit. Mr. President, we cannot allow a space dog gap!

 

1978 - Dominica gains independence from the U.K. No, not that one; it's a commonwealth, not a republic, and it's pronounced differently!

 

1986 - Time for another country to gain independence FROM the United States of America. This time, it's the Federated States of Micronesia, who keep the naming theme as a gesture of good faith.

 

1998 - Death of Bob Kane, co-creator of Batman. His daughter vows to avenge him.

 

2014 - One World Trade Center, a.k.a. The Freedom Tower, officially opens in New York City. Suck it, Bin Laden. Oh that's right; you're dead.

 

[The Old Hack 2,448]

5 hours ago, Illjwamh said:

2014 - One World Trade Center, a.k.a. The Freedom Tower, officially opens in New York City. Suck it, Bin Laden. Oh that's right; you're dead.

And the world was left no poorer thereby.

[Illjwamh 98]

On November 6 in History:

 

1217 - The Charter of the Forest returns several land usage rights to free men of England. Thank goodness Henry III was as feckless as his father or we might never have gotten this.

 

1494 - Future Ottoman sultan Suleiman I is born. Have you ever seen such a Magnificent baby?

 

1632 - The father of modern warfare and forger of the Swedish Empire, Gustavus Adolphus, dies in the Battle of Lützen. Fortunately, unlike so many other iterations of this story, he's taught others what they needed to know so that everything he built won't immediately collapse.

 

1814 - Birth of Adolphe Sax, a Belgian musician who is famous for inventing a new instrument. You'll never guess which one.

 

1860 - Abraham Lincoln is elected president of the United States. Upset at not getting their way, many southerners form plans to rage quit.

 

1861 - Jefferson Davis is elected president of the Confederate States. Right, like that's going to keep being a thing.

 

1917 - Canadian forces finally take the village of Passchendaele in Flanders after three months of brutal fighting. At last, this strategically insignificant town and its irrelevant surroundings are firmly in allied hands.

 

1928 - Herbert Hoover is elected president of the United States, despite numerous accusations that he sucks.

 

1945 - Concerned that her status as a Soviet spy would soon be uncovered by U.S. authorities, Elizabeth Bentley confesses her status as a Soviet spy to U.S. authorities. The espionage version of "You can't fire me; I quit."

 

1962 - The U.N. condemns apartheid and calls for member states to cease military and economic relations with South Africa. "Yeah, totally. That's a fucked up system, man. Like, who would do that?" ~The United States

 

1988 - Actress Emma Stone is born. She will age for precisely 21 years and then stop.

 

2012 - Barack Obama is elected president of the United States for the second time. Racists and white nationalists begin plotting their revenge, for which no one is prepared.

 

[The Old Hack 2,448]

8 hours ago, Illjwamh said:

1814 - Birth of Adolphe Sax, a Belgian musician who is famous for inventing a new instrument. You'll never guess which one.

The kazoo!

8 hours ago, Illjwamh said:

2012 - Barack Obama is elected president of the United States for the second time. Racists and white nationalists begin plotting their revenge, for which no one is prepared.

The Republicans originally said, "We will do everything in our power to make sure that Barack Obama is only a one-term president" when he was originally elected. Upon his re-election, they changed this to "We will do everything in our power to make sure that Barack Obama is only a two-term president." Keep your goals achievable.