Freedom on the March

Hilary Clinton

In 2008, as the first all-woman Presidential campaign race entered its final months, Hilary Clinton encountered fresh voter hostility over Iraq. Democrat calls for major cut in troop levels were blamed for worsening the situation on the ground, opening the party to political criticism that they "lost" Iraq. "A secure, stable democratic Iraq at peace with its neighbours was, in my view, unattainable," Clinton said.

~ entry by Steve Payne

Palestine	In 1922, on this day "a British mandate came into force in Palestine, over the heads of unyielding Arab opposition,” quoted from a dispatch from Jerusalem to London’s The Times. "The Arabs declared a day of mourning throughout the city and the shops were closed as a protest against today's formal proclamation of the Mandate, but no Jews were molested"
~ entry by Steve Payne: this incredible event has not been modified.

Berlin 2010

In 2010, Heinrich Gimpel left work at the Wehrmacht's Oberkommando office in Berlin. Even though he had worked at Adolf Hitler Platz for twelve years, he marvelled at the Great Hall. In the foreground was the Railway Carriage where Germany had yielded to France in 1918, and France to Germany in 1940. The first Panzer to enter Moscow. Behind thick leaded glass, the twisted radioactive remains of the Liberty Bell, excavated by expendable prisoners from the ruins of Philadelphia in 1970.

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

Wystan Hugh Auden	"To JS/07/M/378 this marble monument is erected by the State - He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be one against whom there was no official complaint. And all the reports on his conduct agree that, in every sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint for in everything he did he server the Greater Community. Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd - had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard." ~ The Unknown Citizen by W.H. Auden (1940)
Poet

In 2006, the British national identity card was passed under the Identity Cards Act. Long delays - real or imagined - enabled the establishment to play a long game with libertarians. By the time the technology was implemented in 2012, crime rates had been "permitted" to rise such that it was both feasible and allegedly desirable to micro-chip the population.

~ quotation by Steve Payne

Before the world moved on the Gunslinger Roland Deschain and his friends Cuthbert Allgood and Alain Johns led the troops of "The Good Man" John Farson's into a thinny, an area where the barrier between worlds can be passed despite the absence of a true door. Then something really unexpected happened.

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

László de Almásy	In 1941, English Patient Count László de Almásy revealed a shocking truth to Loose Cannon Colonel "Ned" Lawrence. Alongside the rest of the world, Almásy had originally believed his fellow Arabist to have died in a 1935 motorcycle accident at Cloud's Hill. However, during his affair with Katherine Clifton, he discovered otherwise from her husband, the spy Geoffrey Clifton.
~ variant by Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the genius of Susan Shwartz and Michael Ondaatje

British Palestine	In 1891, the Jewish Colonization Association was established by Baron Maurice de Hirsch. The association was greatly affected by the British withdrawal from mandated territory in Palestine in 1947, considering the move an act of betrayal following the Balfour Declaration of 1917.
By 1947, oil had been discovered in the Middle East, and the Western Powers were more concerned about keeping the Arab nations on board. At the one hundredth anniversary celebration in 1991, having abandoned demands for final status talks, the Association was seriously considering either a South American option or in fact an Israel mini-state. The JCA also established several colonies in Argentina. Once such colony is Colonia Lapin founded in 1919 in the Buenos Aires Province.
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 2007, television networks around the world continued to re-run incredible camera footage from the previous day. For the first time viewers were watching an undeniable public demonstration of the extra-terrestrial technology which had been recovered from developing countries by the 41st US President George HW Bush.	Stargate
Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was returning to Pakistan from exile in London. Immediately after landing in Islamabad, Sharif was intent on challenging President Musharraf for the leadership of the nation. Trouble was the United States could not afford to lose Musharraf who was a vital ally in the War on Terror. Not only was Musharraf less than keen to engage in a dictatorship vs. democracy struggle he could hardly win, he also desperately needed to discourage a similiar return from another former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto later in the week. Desperate measures were called for. Seconds before Sharif's passenger jet landed, a Stargate opened and the plane disappeared in broad daylight. TV channels that evening showed the 43rd US President George W Bush being briefed during a school visit, W looked mildly irritated that his super weapon was no longer a secret.
~ entry by Steve Payne absolutely no disrepect is suggested or implied by this post.

Mussolino	In 1926, Italian Prime Minister Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was assassinated by the anarchist Gino Lucetti. German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, robbed of a regional partner, was unable to resist diplomatic pressures from the Stresa Front formed by French foreign minister Pierre Laval, British prime minister Ramsay MacDonald, and Italian leader Pietro Badoglio in April 1935.
By 1942, when Nazi Germany was on a full war footing, Hitler no longer had anything to fear and struck the allies with Blitzkrieg across both the Brenner Pass and the Belgium border. By the time America entered the war, Hitler had the bomb, and the rest is history. A very short history at that.
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 1944, the first allied troops of the U.S. Army cross the western border of Germany and see behind the curtain of the Third Reich.	Werewolf
Evidence of widespread lycanthropy shocks the Americans, unaware that sadistic members of their senior command have already succumbed to temptation, unable to face the horrors of peace-time.
~ entry by Steve Payne