Swikolay Descends Kilimanjaro

February 6th, 2005

in 47,371 BCE, Swikolay leaves Kilimanjaro behind her and tells her descendants, “I don’t believe that this mountain will touch the sky. Together, my children, you will create a way to fulfill this dream.”

in 1659, the English bank Montrose issued a payment to a French bank in the form of a promissory note, or cheque, the first such transaction in European banking. It bounced.

in 1778, the hopeful American delegation to France, headed by Benjamin Franklin, failed to sign the Bourbon monarchy to a treaty. King Louis felt that the betrayal of his fellow King in Britain would set a bad example for his own citizens, leaving the colonists to their own devices. Without assistance from a major power, the revolution was crushed within the year, and most of its leaders executed.

in 1836, the HMS Beagle, a survey ship bound for South America, hit bad weather off the coast of Tasmania and sank with all hands. Deacon Charles Darwin, a naturalist who accompanied the voyage to examine native wildlife of the southern hemisphere, was lost along with the sailors.

in 1904, in a desperate escape attempt, the Congress of Nations crew recapture their ship and beat a hasty retreat from the Mlosh system. In their rush to escape, they leave behind Ambassador Li’Kanto’Mk, who tells them to go on without him when he is taken captive by Q’B’Ton’ra.

in 1935, Charles Darrow, a hobbyist from Germantown, Pennsylvania, first started selling a game he called Monopoly. The Parker Brothers company had rejected the game the year before for several design flaws; but it became a very popular game in the American northeast during the Great Depression. It ceased production during World War II and Darrow was never able to start it up again.

in 1943, Count Galeazzo Ciano, son-in-law to Italian leader Benito Mussolini, stages a coup against Il Duce, and assumes control of the Italian government. He immediately expels the Germans from Italy, and declares his country neutral in the war raging across the world. Although Germans manage to retake some Italian territory in the north, they are left with a hostile nation on their southern border when the Allies invade France in 1944, and are unable to sustain a defense. They collapse in the autumn of 1944.

in 1966, Comrade President Gus Hall meets with North Chilean leader Salvador Allende on a visit through South America. “We are determined to help prevent aggression,” Comrade Hall said of his government’s support of North Chile against the southern rebels. In addressing the poverty in South Chile that was helping spawn so many rebels, he said, “We are determined to win not only military victory but victory over hunger, disease, and despair."


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