The Shield Of Liberty

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March 23rd, 2006

in 1775, Virginian Patrick Henry declares before the Virginia Convention, “I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!” The British governor, incensed at this presumption, has Henry arrested and executed. His death becomes a rallying point for American revolutionaries, and his famous words become the motto of the new United States of America.

in 1808, Napoleon Buonaparte places his brother Guiseppe on the throne of Spain. Guiseppe is a virtual cipher as the Spanish king, simply enacting policy from Buonaparte’s capitol in Rome and funneling Spanish treasure to the Italian Empire.

in 1857, Joseph McTavish, a restaurateur newly arrived from Scotland, accidentally fried a large spider that fell into a batch of breading he had made for chicken. Curious, McTavish tasted the spider, and liked the taste. Offering the dish as a “taste of adventure”, McTavish’s in New York City soon had everyone in the northeast eating Scottish Fried Spiders.

in 1925, the legislature of Tennessee narrowly defeated a law that would have made it a crime to teach the theory of evolution in the state’s schools. Enough legislators were convinced that the state needed to enhance its educational standards in order to do business in the modern world to keep the law from passing by 4 votes.

in 1964, Hungarian psychiatrist Laszlo Lorre died in Geneva, Switzerland. Inspired by Sigmund Freud in his youth in Vienna, he followed the acclaimed psychologist into the field. During World War II, he was driven to Switzerland by Nazi politics, and continued his practice there.

in 1979, the trial of Guillermo Novo and Alvin Ross is suspended by President Ronald Reagan for “national security reasons” as Judge Barrington Parker prepares to deliver a blistering indictment of the CIA and the American government for the rather blatant assassination of former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier. Parker's public feud with Reagan's administration fed the public's dislike of Reagan and contributed to his defeat in the following year's election.

in 1983, Comrade President John Anderson initiates a new missile defense program he calls the Shield of Liberty to defend the Soviet States of America from nuclear attack by the European monarchies. In his speech announcing the program, the Comrade President says that his nation will turn from the despair of mutual assured destruction to “a vision of the future which offers hope.”

in 1994, the PRI’s leading candidate for President of Mexico, Luis Donaldo Colosio, narrowly escapes an assassin’s bullet as he campaigns in Tijuana. Colosio, who had promised reform of the PRI, initiates an investigation on winning the presidency, and finds that his predecessor and mentor, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, was responsible for the attempt. The revelation shatters the PRI, and President Colosio leaves it and forms the New Revolutionaries, or NR.

in 1996, American troops execute over 300 Mexican civilians in retaliation for a Mexican attack on U.S. forces occupying the country. President Shephard had bolstered the country’s forces with his own since the collapse of the American-friendly Mexican government the previous year, and partisans in Mexico had been attempting to drive them out ever since.

in 2004, the Australian army releases the modified nanovirus against the Titanian organisms on their shore. As the Titanian organisms die, the “methane crabs” that they have been projecting around themselves disappear. The Sheridans save the day again.

Timelines in today's post: Italian Napoleon, Communist America, the Ralph Shephard timeline, and The Sheridans.

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