Alternate History Facts for February, 2020

in

February 1, 1329: The Teutonic Knights captured the fortress of Medvėgalis and baptized 6,000 locals. When the army departed, locals returned to their former faiths, but the baptism left Grand Master von Orseln a connection he would exploit going forward.

February 2, 1536: Pedro de Mendoza founded the city of Buenos Aires. He invoked it with five words of power that a person can only speak once, raising buildings in a breath and calling settlers from around the world.

February 3, 1509: The Portuguese fleet devastated a joint fleet of Gujarat, Mamluk, and Calicut, opening the seas to a century of trade dominance. Only the dream-demons Manual I of Portugal summoned made their victory so complete.

February 4, 1825: The Ohio State Legislature authorized the Ohio and Erie Canal and the Miami and Erie Canal. Through a crucial error in the surveyor's dark arts, the two finished canals existed as one—a person was on both canals simultaneously.

February 5, 1807: HMS Blenheim and HMS Java disappeared into a dimensional vortex off the coast of the island Rodrigues.

February 6, 1736: Hermetic magicians created Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, who would one day become a great sculptor and necromancer.

February 7, 1940: The premiere of Pinocchio stole the animating force of living puppets across the continent. Walt Disney's plans for this energy never came to light.

February 8, 1945: Mikhail Devyatayev invoked a charm passed down from his grandmother (who won it in a dice game with spiritfolk) to mimic a guard's form and steal a plane, escaping POW camp in Usedom.

February 9, 1996: Sigurd Hofmann and others used a heavy ion collider to steal the first locally-observed atom of copernicium from a nearby universe. Moments later, they stole it back.

February 10, 2009: Commercial satellite Iridium 33 collided with the Russian Kosmos-2251 at a speed of 11,700 m/s, destroying both. Occult strategists suspect Russia of deliberate sabotage of an extralegal attempt to breach dimensional barriers.

February 11, 1324: Karl Bessart von Trier, 16th Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, died battling hungry nightmares in the dreams of Trier's children.

February 12, 1894: Cryptozooanarchist Émile Henry opened a ten-second portal to the cthonic realms at Café Terminus, killing one and wounding twenty.

February 13, 1503: 13 Italian knights joined 13 French knights at Barletta to challenge Lady Iskélión of the Underrealm. She defeated all comers, but as the Italians made a better showing, she declared them victors and granted them the French ransom.

February 14, 1989: Union Carbide agreed to pay $470 million to the Indian government, provided they continue to cover up the escape of their their cross-dimensional hybridization subjects with the story of an equally-devastating gas leak.

February 15, 1971: Decimal Day in the United Kingdom and Ireland changed their respective pounds from comprising 240 pence to 100 pence. The missing 140 pence sublimated, powering a ritual still protected by the Official Secrets Act.

February 16, 1270: The Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Livonian Order fought on the frozen water of the Suur Strait. Out of Christian piety, the Livonians refused to propitiate the sea spirits, who gave the victory to Lithuania.

February 17, 1753: A misfire of ritual magic in Sundsvall caused the nation of Sweden to skip the next eleven days.

February 18, 1878: Jesse Evans and several of his gang, all willing hosts for mind-riding kakoiphages, began the Lincoln County War with the murder of John Tunstall.

February 19, 1884: Somewhere between fifty and eighty people in the southern United States gained elemental powers in an unexplained mass phenomenon. Many of them died in the subsequent onslaught of uncontrolled tornadoes.

February 20, 1472: After failure to pay Margaret of Denmark's dowry, the state of Denmark ceded all rights to the isles of Orkney and Shetland to Scotland, which then ceased to be colocative with islands off the Danish coast.

February 21, 1885: The dedication of the Washington Monument warded the main part of the extant United States of America against incursion from hostile alternate timelines.

February 22, 1983: Moose Murders played its one and only night on Broadway while still achieving its goal—immortality for it and, by proxy, its writer, who now lives a quiet, satisfied, and eternal life outside the public eye.

February 23, 1903: The United States of America took possession of Guantanamo Bay, leased for a naval station, and promptly set about opening a gate to the hellplanes for research. Since 1953, Cuba has refused lease payments to weaken this gate.

February 24, 1797: Locals and irregulars at Fishguard defeated William Tate's Revolutionary French force. Lord Cawdor invoked a fey bondsmith, guaranteeing that England shall not be invaded again, unless it should break its oath to the fey.

February 25, 2014: The SCOTUS ruled that on legitimate removal of a resident, a remaining resident may consent to search, while remaining notably silent on the consent of resident ghosts.

February 26, 1616: The Roman Catholic Church banned Galileo from believing the Copernican view of the solar system, but the mind control eventually wore off.

February 27, 1898: A rifle-wielding assassin murdered Greek King George I. Thanks to Princess Maria's necromantic education, no one noticed until 1913, when a rival sorcerer disrupted the spell of animation and "killed" him.

February 28, 1638: The signing of the Scottish National Covenant in the Greyfriars Kirkyard channeled the lingering spiritual energy of the Scottish ancestors into warding off the British army and religious reforms.

February 29, 1720: An oversight in infernal contracture permitted Queen Ulrika Eleonora to abdicate, escaping an ill fate, which her husband Frederick assumed in her stead.