A timeline started by AlternateHistory.com's Kaiser K, this timeline shows a world that diverged from ours when William McKinley's assassin, Leon Czolgosz, fell in a deep lake and drowned before he could kill the President. McKinley's survival means that the US government continues the pro-big business policies of the Gilded Age, leading to widespread discontent and the growth of radical organizations like the Communist Party of the United States. On the other side of the Atlantic, Germany is able to emerge victorious from World War I thanks to the US staying out. Russia still falls into civil war, but the Whites are able to win and establish a shaky democracy. With France seething over their defeat by Germany and the American public simmering with resentment against the corporations and their government allies under the surface, the stage is set for a dramatically different 20th century from our own.
The timeline can be read here
. Tragically, Kaiser K died from a ruptured appendix in February 2016, leaving the story unfinished.
Tropes associated with this timeline.
- A Nazi by Any Other Name: Obviously Jean-Claude Geymere and his NSFPT.
- Dirty Communists: With Theodore Roosevelt never becoming president and implementing progressive reforms, American politics becomes much more radicalized and communism becomes popular. When the Great Depression hits, communists overthrow the US government and install a dictatorship.
- Expanded States of America: The Union of American Socialist Republics annexes Canada in TTL's World War 2.
- Glorious Mother Russia: With the Whites winning the Russian Civil War, Russia evolves into a democracy identical to OTL America.
- Historical Villain Upgrade:
- Charles De Gaulle is made into TTL's equivalent of Joseph Goebbels.
- Later on, Brian Mulroney establishes a nationalist dictatorship in Canada after the collapse of the USAR.
- Historical Hero Upgrade: Adolf Hitler is made into TTL's equivalent of Winston Churchill.
- Putting on the Reich: Geymere and his Nazi France, obviously.
- Oppressive States of America: Being an analogue of the Soviet Union, the Union of American Socialist Republics is a totalitarian communist state.
- Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: Even before America turns communist, there are presidents that never made it to the office in Real Life, like Charles Evans Hughes and William Jennings Bryan.
