Weekly Update #195

Editor's Note

Hard to believe I am only 5 Weekly Updates away from #200. As I did for Weekly Update #100, I will record a special video message for all of our followers. Hopefully I will have some interesting news to share with you all.

In other news, I am going to retire the Videos for Alternate Historians segment. It has never been as successful as the other long running series of posts and I need to let it go. To be brutally honest, Videos for Alternate Historians has always been a cop out for when I didn't have the time or energy to write anything else. I am going to stop being lazy and really push myself to write more original content for the blog. I am still going to post YouTube videos I think you will enjoy on Facebook and Twitter and I may even share a "Video of the Week" here on Weekly Update, but I am no longer going to be dedicating a whole post to it.

And now the news...

Speeches that Never Were...

Did you guys read "5 Undelivered Speeches That Would Have Changed the Course of History" by Lucas Reilly on Mental Floss?

As the title states, the article lists five speeches that were never given due to historical events happening differently. Some of them are rather well known, such as Eisenhower's speech for a D-Day failure and Nixon's speech in the event of a Moon disaster, but there are few others on there that don't get a lot of attention, like Nixon's speech about not resigning and JFK's speech he would have given in Dallas if he was not assassinated.

What I like about this article is that it highlights how often politicians, general and other leaders have alternative speeches prepared so they can be ready for whatever happens next.

Do you know of any speeches that should have been added to the list?

The World That Wasn't Joins Facebook and Twitter

In case you missed it, the new alternate history podcast, The World That Wasn't is now on Facebook and Twitter. For those who don't know, TWTW is an alternate history talk show featuring our two hosts (Nicholas Davidge and Jamie Toal...got it right this time) and a guest historian. Their first episode focused on the Battle of Britain and you can read my review of it here.

Go check out my review and in the meantime, don't forget to follow TWTW on whatever social media platform you prefer. It is important to support all alternate historians out there. We are few in number, but we make up for it with our incredible passion for history and what ifs.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update and a blogger on Amazing Stories. Check out his short fiction. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. You can follow him on Facebook or Twitter.

Review: The World That Wasn't podcast

You can probably tell I am a big fan of Jordan Harbour's Twilight Histories (it is a featured podcast after all). Nevertheless, I would like to see more alternate history podcasts since I feel there is a lot room for new and unique shows. There have been attempts in the past like Nicholas Pardini's What If History and the multiple incarnations of the AlternateHistory.com Podcast, but nothing that has lasted as long as Twilight Histories. Occasionally an SF or history podcast will have a lone alternate/counterfactual history episode, but never enough to satisfy the hunger of a hardcore alternate historian. So, of course, I was happy to discover the first episode of The World That Wasn't.

TWTW follows a format similar to Pardini's What if History in that it is essentially just two guys (Nicholas Davidge and Jamie Toal...I found out how the spell Jamie's name after being contacted by the TWTW guys on Twitter) as they discuss various what if questions. What is unique is that they also have a guest historian and include sounds effects, music and even short skits, so the level of professionalism is up there with Harbour's Twilight Histories, yet it is different in that it is not a second person narrative, but an alternate history discussion.

I probably shouldn't spend all my time comparing TWTW to other podcasts, because that is hardly fair. Instead lets talk about the first and, so far, only episode where our hosts talk about what if Germany won the Battle of Britain. Not a bad start, although they do inevitably talk about a successful Operation Sealion, which is (for those who don't know) the inspiration for the term "alien space bats". To our hosts' credit they did have Sonja Ostrow of Vanderbilt University on to reign them in when they go too fantastical and they also discussed other potential scenarios such as a failed Operation Sealion, the evacuation at Dunkirk failing and Britain making a negotiated peace with Germany. I also liked how they tried to stay on the overall topic and not go on too many tangents into other periods of history.

There is not much else to say after that. I think I can say without any trepidation that I will certainly subscribe to TWTW and look forward to next month's episode.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update and a blogger on Amazing Stories. Check out his short fiction. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. You can follow him on Facebook or Twitter.