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Editor's Postbag Feed from Today In Alternate History - A Daily Updating Blog of Important Events In History That Never Occurred Today.
Imagine what would be, if history had occurred a bit differently. Who says it didn't, somewhere? These items explore that possibility.

• That Coming Storm
  In 1886 the Government of Ireland (Home Rule) Bill 1886 narrowly passed through the House of Commons by a margin of 341 for with 311 voting against.
  
  The passage of the act was a personal triumph for Liberal Prime Minister William Gladstone (pictured) who had beseeched parliament to grant Home Rule to Ireland in honour rather than being compelled to one day in humiliation. And yet the result was not due to his famous Irish Home Rule speech, rather the fruit of his decision to engage both Irish MPs and his own ministers from participation in the drafting.
  
  "Think, I beseech you, think well, think wisely, think, not for the moment, but for the years that are to come, before you reject this Bill"The reaction from Unionists and the Orange Order was even more fierce than expected; their belief that the Roman Catholic Church would gain political control over their interests led to the coining of the term "Rome Rule". Because as his carriage rumbled over the cobblestones of Palace Yard that evening, William Gladstone was shot dead by an unmarked gunman.
  
  "Ireland! Ireland! That Coming Storm!"The Ulster Unionist Leader Colonel Saunderson scribbled a note to his wife saying "Rome Rule is dead, but not yet buried". And the day of humiliation that Gladstone had predicted was not long in coming, although utterly different to what he imagined. Because as party leaders paid tribute to his open coffin in Westminister Hall, a brisk trade in chamberpots displaying his image was reported in Belfast.
• Bring it on Home
  In 1792 on this day at the Port of Dover in Kent, republican intellectual Thomas Paine was arrested on charges of seditious libel.
  
  Paine had been charged with "inflammatory eloquence" at a gathering of the "Friends of Liberty" on September 12th. As he rose to leave, William Blake laid his hand on the orator's shoulder, saying, "You must not go home, or you are a dead man".
  
  "Government by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens ... It was the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set foot for the promotion of idolatry"Paine planned to flee the country along with his companions Frost and Audibert. However, they never made it to France because the collector of customs had received general instructions to be vigilant, and searched the three men, even to their pockets. Whereupon sealed letters were discovered, given into Paine's charge by the American minister in London, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. One letter was addressed to the American minister at Paris, the other to a private gentleman; a letter from the president of the United States, and a letter from the secretary of State in America. Whilst his friends attempted to intercede on his behalf, Paine's warrant arrived and he was put under arrest. Had he arrived just twenty minutes earlier, Paine would most likely have missed the order and made it to Revolutionary France.
  
  "What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly"On 18th December Paine was charged at The Guildhall, London, that he "being a person of a wicked, malicious and seditious disposition" etc "did publish that the crown of this kingdom was contrary to the rights of the inhabitants" and so forth. The Attorney-General, who prosecuted, said that he would not read out the many "false, wicked and scandalous assertions" but would read only a few more, such as "to inherit a crown is to inherit the people, as if they were flocks and herds." The famous Thomas Erskine defended Paine but the carefully selected jury, which received two guineas each and a free dinner for a conviction and nothing otherwise, decided to return a verdict of guilty. Paine was hung, and laws were soon passed to restrict free speech and publication. Almost inevitably, martyrdom transformed Paine into a rallying point for English revolutionaries. And so after his death, his revolutionary agenda would overthrow the British monarchy.
  
  During the 1960s, Socialist Prime Minister Tony Benn would often refer to Paine's punchy political language and his inspirational quest for accountable government, presenting copies of Common Sense, Rights of Man and The Age of Reason to the Heads of State from Developing Nations.
• Vanderlip Concession
  In 1920 on this day a representative of the US Government, Washington D. Vanderlip signed a sixty-year lease of the Far Eastern Kamchatka Peninsula with the Russian Soviet regime. Officially, Vanderlip had been dispatched to Moscow by the State Department with instructions to secure important oil and mining concessions. But at the time, the decision was a matter of little significance for the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), who only occupied but a small fraction of the dissolved Russian Empire, and because the territory was nominally controlled by a a bourgeois-democratic state, the Far Eastern Republic.
  
  The capitalist impressario Vanderlip had exceeded his authority, intending to gift the peninsula to President Harding in the manner of an Oriental Monarch. Even when the Moscow authorities insisted on a lease, rather than a purchase, he exclaimed gleeful "I have joined the frontiers of Russia and America!". And yet from a military perspective, it was a smart move for Bolshevist Premier Lenin (pictured) who wanted to stave off war with Japan. America also saw a cut-price opportunity for building a deep-water port at Petropavlovsk. This geopolitical reality was openly acknowledged at the Eighth All-Russia Congress of Soviets on December 7th, when Lenin declared that the United States required a base in Asia "in view of an eventual war with Japan".
  
  "I have joined the frontiers of Russia and America!" ~ Washington D. VanderlipIn fact, Imperialists had recognised the military value of the peninsula for over seventy years. In 1854, the French and British, who were battling Russian forces on the Crimean Peninsula, attacked Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. During the Siege of Petropavlovsk, 988 men with a mere 68 guns managed to defend the outpost against 6 ships with 206 guns and 2,540 French and British soldiers.
  
  Trouble was, the lease did spark a four-year long Pacific War between Japan and America. Because in 1937, Admiral Isoroku Yamomoto designed a pre-emptive strike on Petropavlovsk, which the Imperial Japanese Government considered to be an unacceptable strategic threat, "a dagger to our throat". With the blessings of the Prime Minster Tojo, Yamomoto put the plan to attack Petropavlovsk into motion. Yamomoto selected Vice Admiral Chuich Nagumo to lead the fleet. The fleet consisted at its core of six aircraft carriers: Akagi, Hiryu, Kaga, Shokaku, Soryu and Zuikaku. The six carriers had 420 planes between them. Escorting the six carriers were eleven destroyers, two battleships, two heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, three submarines and eight tankers. Twenty other submarines joined the group before they arrived at their destination at Petropavlovsk.
  
  Whilst America was fully engaged in the Far East, Nazi Germany was expanding unchecked. Having hardly advanced in twenty turbulent years, by 1941, the RSFSR was still a malformed state, not much bigger than one of its predecessor states, the Principality of Muscovy. Unable to resist the Wehrmacht, the RSFSR collapsed, and Western Russia was annexed by Hitler.
• Damned Near Run Thing
  In 1812 on this day the forces of British North America suffered a catastrophic defeat in Beasleyville1, Southern Ontario at the hands of the invading US Army led by turncoat general Arthur Wellesey.
  
  Wellesley noted in his diary that the American victory was "a damn near run thing, the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life. By God! I don't think it would have done if I had not been there". In truth, the finely balanced battle only went in the American favour with the arrival of the French army, led by General Bonaparte, late in the day.
  
  Nevertheless, defeat put an end to British rule over Upper Canada, the territory formerly known as New France, and Ontario itself was later admitted as a state of the Union.
• Dubya leaves Gitmo
  In 2009 President of the Islamic States of America Barack X ordered the federal government to buy a prison in Illinois to take a number of inmates from Guantanamo Bay.
  
  The move is a key part of a federal plan to close the Cuba-based jail. Senior officials said security would be upgraded, making Thomson Correctional Center the most secure jail in the country. The number of inmates for transfer to the Thomson has not been given officially, but IS media report it could be between 35 and 90, expected to include a number of "war on terror" criminals from the former United States