Random Jottings 10, the Improbable History Issue, Is an Irregularly Published Amateur Magazine Edited and Published by Michael Dobson
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Issue 10 The Improbable History Issue Random Jottings 10, the Improbable History Issue, is an irregularly published amateur magazine edited and published by Michael Dobson. It is available for customary fannish reasons or editorial whim, and can also be found as a free PDF at eFanzines.com (along with other issues of Random Jottings), or online in printed or ebook form for a modest price. Copyright © 2015 by Michael Dobson and Timespinner Press. All rights revert to the individual contributors. Cover design by John D. Berry. Samaritan Medal created by Steve Stiles. Masthead design by Tim Marion. Letters of comment to [email protected] or to 8042 Park Overlook Drive, Bethesda, Maryland 20817-2724 USA. Table of Contents And Now for Something Completely Different, editorial by Michael Dobson .......................................................................................................3 An Improbable Introduction, by Michael Dobson .............................7 The Admiral, or Themistocles: the Improbable Leader Who Saved Western Civilization at Its Birth, by Mark Davis .................................9 A Brief History of the Israelite Samaritan People, by Michael Dobson ....................................................................................................53 The High Priesthood and the Israelite Samaritan Priests, by Benyamim Tsedaka .................................................................................71 Exit Here for the Great Roadside Attraction (Leaning Tower of Pisa), by Heidi Feickert ..........................................................................77 Florence Cathedral Dome Project, by Mark Kozak-Holland .........91 The Battle of Plassey, by Humayun Mirza .......................................111 A History of Hispaniola, by Andrew Hooper .................................139 2 | Table of Contents The Civil War in Athens (Missouri, not Greece), by Richard H. Berg .........................................................................................................187 The Unbearable Lightness of Charles Lindbergh, by Michael Dobson ..................................................................................................195 When Einstein Met Hitler, by Gregory Benford .............................207 Douglas MacArthur’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, by Miles Durr .............................................................................................211 No Ill Wind: The Bari Air Raid, by Roger E. Herst. .......................235 Fu-Go: The Japanese Campaign to Bomb the US West Coast Using Balloons, 1944-45, by Richard H. Berg .............................................243 King Company at Bloody Lindern, by Frank Chadwick ................251 “…And the Other Fellow Blinked:” How the Cuban Missile Crisis Almost Destroyed the World, by Douglas Niles .............................277 Random Jottings on Random Jottings (letters) ................................299 Other Titles from Timespinner Press ...............................................321 And Now for Something Completely Different, editorial by Michael Dobson And Now For Something Completely Different... THIS IS THE 10TH ISSUE of Random Jottings, the fanzine that’s Never The Same Thing Twice™. The previous issues have been: Random Jottings 1—The Genzine Issue (1970) Random Jottings 2—The Name-Dropping Issue (2003) Random Jottings 3—The Not-So Good Samaritan Issue (2008) Random Jottings 4—The Alternate History Issue (2009) Random Jottings 5—The Odell Dobson Memorial Issue (2010) Random Jottings 6—The Cognitive Biases Issues (2011) Random Jottings 7—The Sidewise Issue (2012) Random Jottings 8—The Watergate Issue (2013) Random Jottings 9—The My Brilliant Fannish Career Issue (2014) The first issue was mimeographed; issues 2 through 7 were photocopied, and issues 8 and 9 were produced using the CreateSpace print-on-demand system. Up till now, all issues have been in 8-1/2 x 11 format. Issues 1 and 4-9 are on efanzines; eventually I’ll get the remaining issues posted as well, Real Soon Now. Issue 10 is also a CreateSpace publication, but it’s 6 x 9, which I expect will be the page size going forward. Of course, this issue can just as easily be considered a book as it can a magazine, not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m uploading it both as Random Jottings 10 (with this editorial and the letter column) and as a stand- alone book, Improbable History: The Weird, the Obscure, and the Strangely Important, part of my own Timespinner Press imprint. If you’d like a 4 | Random Jottings 10 copy without all the fannish stuff (or want to recommend it to your non-fannish friends), it’s available online. I’ve been sort of moving in this direction for a while. I did reprint the Watergate Issue in paperback format (Watergate Considered as an Org Chart of Semi-Precious Stones, though I’m thinking about adding in the supplemental material from Random Jottings 9 and retitling the book What Would Nixon Do?), and both the Cognitive Biases Issue and the Odell Dobson Memorial Issue would also work as books, especially with some additional material. I started a blog series on logical fallacies to accompany the cognitive biases work, and there’s quite a bit more I could add to the Memorial Issue as well. Improbable People I started thinking about the current issue at the Portland Corflu in 2013 and the plans jelled in a Serious and Constructive conversation with Andy Hooper in Richmond. From my years in the museum field and in the games field, I knew a number of history buffs, and there are quite a few history enthusiasts in fandom as well. I was immensely pleased and gratified at the number of positive responses to my call for submissions, and nearly ended up with an overabundance of material. I am tempted to do a second volume, Again, Improbable History, but then I’d be obligated to collect material for The Last Improbable History, which, as tradition demands, would never see print. Spinning In Place Originally, I set up TimespinnerPress to publish my Story of a Special Day series. (See the last couple of pages of this book for the available Timespinner titles.) I’ve been doing a “This Day in History” blog for a couple of years (improbhistory.blogspot.com, or see my summaries on Facebook or @SidewiseThinker on Twitter), and one day it occurred to me that I could turn this into a series of small books, 50-80 pages each, one for every day of the year, sort of like a birthday card people won’t ever throw away. The economics look pretty favorable. Even with modest sales they’ll produce a nice income supplement, and I can do all the work myself. While having my own publishing imprint wasn’t exactly a bucket list goal for me, it’s hard to resist, especially in the absence of And Now for Something Completely Different | 5 inventory or returns. I hadn’t planned on publishing other books, but it sort of worked out that way. I acquired a mammoth book on World War II in the Pacific, the product of some 30 years of work, and published it as my first non-Dobson book. (See “Douglas MacArthur’s Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day.) A good friend of mine had a book with University Press that went out of print, and I was able to rescue it. (See “The Battle of Plassey.”) Because of the magic of print-on-demand, I can afford to publish books with limited commercial appeal, and it’s a delight to do so. If you know someone who’s written a good history book with no commercial appeal, let me know. I have two possibilities in mind for the next Random Jottings. Whichever it turns out to be, my goal is to have it ready for the Chicago Corflu. See you then. An Improbable Introduction, by Michael Dobson An Improbable Introduction Michael Dobson “It is quite true what philosophy says; that life must be understood backwards. But then one forgets the other principle: that it must be lived forwards.” — Søren Kierkegaard History is inherently improbable. With the perspective of 20-20 hindsight, many events seem to be driven by destiny, but that’s not how it looks to those tasked to deal with it. The Titanic was actually a very safe ship, but everything went wrong at the same time. Stauffenberg’s bomb plot against Adolf Hitler (the basis for my novel with Douglas Niles, Fox on the Rhine) was foiled by a piece of very bad luck, not by a failure to plan. History often hangs by a thread, cut by the Three Fates according to their own rather twisted sense of humor. In these pages, the improbability of history is always front and center. An unlucky rainstorm, an error in construction, a chance meeting between a physicist and a dictator—and the probable course of history is diverted onto a new track. Improbable people, from Themistocles to Douglas MacArthur, twist history by being at the right place at the right time—or sometimes by being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Someone once wrote, “Any event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian.” Or, for that matter, an incompetent one. Finding lessons in history is an art, not a science. No two situations are exactly alike, and it’s often possible to draw multiple, and even sometimes contradictory, lessons from the same event. Just because some lessons are contradictory, however, doesn’t make them false. Sometimes the right thing to do is act boldly; sometimes the 7 8 | Random Jottings 10 right thing to do is run away. The trick is figuring out which one applies to the current situation, and as always, the devil is in the details. The contributors to this book are a pretty improbable lot themselves, but they do have quite an imaginative range. I hope you find these improbable stories both useful and fun. For the rest of the Timespinner Press range, see the final pages of this book. — Michael Dobson The Admiral, or Themistocles: the Improbable Leader Who Saved Western Civilization at Its Birth, by Mark Davis The Admiral Themistocles: The Improbable Leader Who Saved Western Civilization at Its Birth Mark Davis Mark Davis was a White House speechwriter during the first Bush Administration, and wrote President George H. W. Bush’s speech declaring the administration’s commitment to evicting Saddam Hussein from Kuwait.