Timeline (Caroline Era)

Nineteenth Century
27th June, 1806 - Augustus De Morgan, potential future logician and mathematician, is born in Madras, British Raj.

1820 - Point Of Divergence 1 - Although the fourteen year old De Morgan shows interest in Euclid, this goes unnoticed by the family friend and he eventually becomes a humourist and Unitarian minister instead.

10th September, 1839 - Charles Sanders Peirce (Caroline Era) is born in Cambridge, MA, USA.

Twentieth Century to First World War
28nd March, 1907 - Lucia dos Santos is born in Aljustrel, Portugal.

1907 - Point Of Divergence 2 - Charles Murray Spangler successfully markets the domestic vacuum cleaner.

9th July 1913 - Isaac Blank is born in Germiston, South Africa.

1910s - Point Of Divergence 3 - Isaac Blank's parents having stayed together, he is not radicalised by his mother's lodgers and neither becomes a Marxist nor emigrates to the UK. This means there will be no Militant Tendency in the UK and the nature of British hard left politics is very different.

Onset of First World War to end of Second World War
13th March, 1917 - Lucia dos Santos, Jacinto Marto and Francisco Marto, while tending sheep, are understood to have witnessed the first of several apparitions of the Virgin Mary, during which she imparts a number of prophecies and visions to them.

June 1917 - Beginning of the Spanish 'flu' pandemic.

1919 - Point of Divergence 4 - Lucia dies of influenza.

20th February 1920 - Jacinta Martos dies of influenza. With her death, the details of the "Three Secrets Of Fatima" will remain unknown and have no influence on the Roman Catholic Church.

Immediate Postwar Era
22nd January, 1946 - Malcolm McLaren is born in North London.

1948 - Point Of Divergence 5 - Pete McLaren does not leave Emmy Isaacs and Malcolm is not raised by his maternal grandmother. He becomes a cafe proprietor in Stoke Newington, though quite a creative one at quite a trendy cafe.

24th May, 1959 - Point Of Divergence 6 - Francois Duvalier, Haitian head of state, does not accidentally overdose on insulin, thereby avoiding a heart attack, brain damage and psychosis, and Haiti does not become a corrupt regime run by an insane dictator.

New Elizabethan Era
21st April, 1960 - Point Of Divergence 7 - Edwina Mountbatten does not die of a heart condition in Borneo.

14th December 1973 - UN Resolution 3160 recommends that the Argentinian and UK governments enter into negotiations regarding the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands/Malvinas.

1974 - Point Of Divergence 8 - The UK Government negotiates a co-dominion with Argentina, to last for 99 years.

1st January, 1975 - South Atlantic Co-Dominion is founded - a joint governorship of the Falklands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands between the UK and its successor state the Federated Kingdom to last for ninety-nine years. This means there will be no war between the UK and Argentina in this timeline.

27th August, 1979 - Lord Louis Mountbatten's wife persuades him not to take the boat out while on holiday in County Sligo and he is not assassinated. His daughter Amanda goes on to marry the Prince of Wales.

26th April, 1980 - Prince of Wales marries Amanda Knatchbull in St Paul's Cathedral.

1980 (Dates unknown) - After secret discussions with Lord Mountbatten, the Queen announces that she will abdicate on the thirtieth anniversary of her coronation in favour of Prince Charles.

30th March, 1981 - Point Of Divergence 9 - Ronald Reagan is assassinated by John Downey Jr in Washington DC. George Bush Sr. takes over the presidency.

All PODs have now occurred.

13th May, 1981 - Pope John Paul II is assassinated by Mehmet Ali Agca at the behest of the KGB. The Vatican has been less cautious about his protection as a result of their lack of knowledge of the Three Secrets Of Fatima, though whether this has supernatural tendencies or not is a different matter.

1982 - Sony releases the first CDs and CD players.

Caroline Era Proper
14th June 1983 - Coronation of King Charles III crowned in Westminster Abbey.

19th April 1984 - The King performs the Maundy Money ceremony, reintroducing the Angel coin and touchpieces along with the Royal Touch, last performed by Queen Anne in 1714.

3rd May 1984 - Landslide victory for Healey's Labour Party.

1984 - CD-ROM is introduced.

1985 - NASA and the Soviet Union both mount successful missions to the Moon and begin construction of bases for mining.

1986 - Mass drivers constructed on the Moon by NASA and the Soviets to enable mining.

1987 - Toroidal international space station 1.8 km in diameter constructed at L-5 point, simply referred to as the L-5 torus, and inhabited. Construction begins on orbital solar power plant nearby, and on Soviet and US Mars mission vehicles in orbit.

1988 - Soviet and NASA Mars missions are launched. Both also include Venus flybys, which occur in the same year.

British General Election results in a hung Parliament and a "rainbow coalition" between Labour, the nationalist parties and the Liberals.

1989 - Soviets, then NASA, land on Mars, mount a relatively long-term mission lasting several weeks, then set off back to Earth.

First orbital solar power stations go online.

1990 - The Times becomes the last daily newspaper to discontinue its print edition.

1992 - Online voting systems for frequent referanda installed in most Western democracies.

1993 - Average Working week  in Britain is now 22 hours.

British General Election results in a Federalist victory. United Kingdom becomes the Federated Kingdom of Great Britain and the Isles, Northern Ireland becomes part of the Republic of Ireland and England is split into six of semi-autonomous regions. It remains a constitutional monarchy. Fixed terms of four years and proportional representation are introduced.

1994 - Internet now in widespread use. 75 academic journals are now online.

British Unionist Party is founded and becomes the main opposition to the Federalists.

1995 - World War III, a "limited" nuclear war, is waged in the Middle East over a period of about a week, resulting in millions of casualties and a large area of Asia and North East Africa becoming effectively permanently uninhabitable. This ends the Cold War between the Eastern and Western power blocks, triggering the UN to impose global nuclear disarmament with the cooperation of the Warsaw Pact and NATO. Nuclear power stations are decommissioned and a programme of expansion of orbital solar power stations begins.

Videophones are successfully introduced to the domestic market.

1996 - Microwave cannons and guns are adopted by the military and/or law-enforcement agencies in many countries. In the US and Switzerland, microwave guns are widely available to the public for self-defence.

1997 - Many African peoples are now condemned to almost certain disappearance due to the Ukimwi epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa. Some have completely disappeared by this point with no descendants.

1998 - The portable MIDI Player is invented.

2002 - Three-quarters of academic journals are now primarily in electronic form and accessible online.