Timelines - This Day in Alternate History

Event Date: 10-31-1968
Event Description: Night of the Living Dead The Venus Probe crashes into the Atlantic Ocean upon it's return from an orbit about the second planet from the Sun.

Event Date: 11-1-1968
Event Description: In hospitals, nursing homes, and morgues throughtout the Eastern United States, the dead rise, and with a hunger for human flesh, attack the living. Confusion reigns as the unexplained violence escalates, and those killed by the dead soon join them. In urban areas, martial law is declared and operating out of police stations and national guard armories living human resistance begins to get organized. The dead are slow moving due to the deterioration of their brains, and their only strength is force of numbers, soon reduced due to the firepower organized by police, national guard, and volunteers. The loss of life is heavy, but the living managed to hold out long enough for army units to arrive and turn the tide.
In the country side things are different, as the dead strike without warning, and farms and whole communities are preyed upon before the living can organize. There are a few bastions that hold out until help arrives, but most are eventually overrun. Due to the "shoot first, ask questions later" attitude of the living, there are many collaterial injuries and deaths.

Event Date: 3-20-2004
Event Description: Dawn of the Dead It had been over 30 years since "The Night of the Living Dead" and precautions taken with the handling of dead bodies in the aftermath had become lax as the memory of the horrific night faded. Then, without warning the dead began to rise again. This time the bite of the dead was infectious, and those killed joined the dead in search of human flesh. Worse, the original virus that caused the dead to rise had mutated, causing the dead to be much faster then the ploding dead of the 1968 outbreak. From hospitals it spread, as doctors and nurses became infected, and then poured out into the streets in search of human flesh. Police, called in to investigate disturbances were overwhelmed, and panic swept the land as civilization began to break down.

Event Date: 3-21-2004
Event Description: The White House Physician on his way to an examination of the President is pressed into service at an accident site along the way. He receives a minor bite from an undead child, who's taken away to the hospital by ambulance. The Doctor arrives at the White House not feeling very well, but manages to make his appointment with the President, only to suddenly collapse and die. Within seconds he turns, and attacks the President, biting the Chief Executive before being pulled off and shot by the Secret Service. The President collapses, but before he can be examined he turns, and attacks the Secret Service agents. The White House is under lock down at the moment of the first shot, and the unresponsive Secret Service Guards in the White House Medical Facility results in a massive armed response. Acting on instinct and upon seeing the President of the United States, The White House Physician, and Three Secret Service Agents, all bloodied and horrifically injured, tearing apart a Nurse causes the living Secret Service Agents to fire and head shots take down the undead for good. The Vice President is brought to the White House under heavy guard as Washington, D.C. is laid siege by the undead. The convoy arrives just ahead of a wave of undead, who throw themselves at the White House gates. Snipers from the roof of the White House and The Old Executive Office Building begin firing at the legion of the dead, but only headshots put them down for good. A number of Secret Service Agents and Marine Guards are bitten by the dead through the gate, and turn on their fellows, some of who are turned as well. The new President is sworn in just in time to be rushed to a helicopter brought in as the situation gets out of hand. The aircraft takes off just moments before the undead get over the gate and fall upon the last defenders on the White House grounds. The living survivors take cover in the bomb shelter beneath the historic residence.

Event Date: 3-22-2004
Event Description: The collapse of the Federal Government in Washington is only the begining of Hell on Earth. Confusion and panic reigns as the little information the living gather makes it clear that this is a world wide plague. The survivors learn the relationship between an undead bite and turning, but that information comes too late for those in urban areas. The cities collapse, and are soon owned by the undead, with a handful of pockets of the living, mostly in buildings that can be in some way fortified. Their chances of survival are slim due to the lack of outside help. Attempts to set up refugee camps fail as those wounded by the undead turn and attack the living at many such camps. Soon large groups of the undead are roving the countryside looking for human flesh to feast upon. Some military bases, like Camp Pendleton in California, are able to hold out due to the amount of firepower availible to use in their defense. Civilian refugees are carefully screened, and by order of the President those discovered with bites are immediately shot in the head and burned.

Event Date: 3-23-2004
Event Description: The President, having been kept in the National Emergency Airborn Command Post (NEACP), a converted 747 designed for use in the case of a nuclear war since being evacuated from the White House, lands at Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado, home of the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD). The base is secure for the most part, and reinforcements from Fort Collins ensure the new seat of Government. The situation in the US is grim, and throught out the rest of the world it's worse. All contact has been lost with England, as London was quickly overrun by the undead. Most major cities in Europe belong to the dead, and the living are isolated to a few makeshift fortresses that are for the most part doomed. The US Seventh Army in Europe has been reduced to half it's strength, and the survivors are trying to hold airfields in hopes of reinforcement, or evacuation. The US forces in Iraq, already on a war footing, have done somewhat better, but the cities have fallen to the dead as well. The conflicts that had divided the human race just a few days ago are meaningless now, but that fact may not be enough to save the human race. Naval forces at sea are ordered to remain so. Attempts by US Naval vessels to offer assistance to injured survivors have already resulted in the loss of a hospital ship and two destroyers. Fortunately the fact that the ships are isolated as sea means that their are still an effective force, but to what end? The plague has turned India and China into nightmares. Japan, overcrowed with humans before the plague is now ruled by the dead. Airliners which took off ahead of the fall of most of the world's airports desperately look for a place to land before fuel runs out. Most do not make it.

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