Mandates

Jesse Owens	In 1913, on this day African-American athlete James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens was born in Lawrence County, Alabama to Henry and Emma Owens. Owens lead a remarkable, controversial life. In particular, controversy still surrounds Owens participation in the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany.
In 2006, Guy Walters published a book entitled Berlin Games: How Hitler Stole the Olympic Dream. The legend is that Carl 'Luz' Long, his German rival in the long-jump, assisted him by giving him valuable advice in a conversation moments before he made the jump. Owens later said - "It took a lot of courage for him to befriend me in front of Hitler... You can melt down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn't be a plating on the twenty-four kilates friendship that I felt for Lutz Long at that moment. " Long himself could not confirm this story. He died in a British military hospital after fighting in Sicily, just months after his thirtieth birthday. However, Walters revealed that in fact, no such conversation between Owens and Long took place.
~ entry by Steve Payne

Bernard Montgomery	"The result of being driven out of Palestine would be to weaken our overall strategic position in the Middle East, and that of the Western world generally in the struggle between East and West." ~ Monty justifying the extension of the British Mandate in Palestine
Imperialist

Field Marshall Montgomery, Chief of the Imperial General Staff reacting to pressure for Britain to withdraw its forces from Palestine in response to Jewish terrorism. Avi Shlaim said in 2001 that in times of crisis, the fledgling Zionist project had been protected by the bayonets of the British army. This was particularly true during the Arab Rebellion of 1936-39. The rebellion showed that there could be no compromise between the two rival communities in Palestine: only war could decide the issue. The Jewish community was weak and defenceless. It would have easily been defeated had Britain not intervened to restore law and order. In November 1938 Major General Bernard Montgomery arrived in Palestine. His task was to crush the revolt. ‘Monty’ was a short-tempered professional soldier with no inclination to study the details of the conflict in Palestine. He gave his men simple orders on how to handle the rebels: kill them. This is what his men did and, in the process, they broke the backbone of the Arab national movement. So when the struggle for Palestine entered its most critical phase, following the passage of the UN partition resolution on 29 November 1947, the Jews were ready to do battle whereas the Arabs were still licking their wounds. In 1948, Montgomery was promoted to CIGS. Having seen service between the wars in India, Egypt and Palestine he had a unique method of dealing with insurgency. This time around, he faced up to Irgun and the bombers of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. The full article is available at The Black Vault

~ quotation by Steve Payne

Berlin 2010	In 2010, Heinrich Gimpel received a mysterious call from the Friends of Zion advising him not to report for duty at Oberkommando office in Berlin. Ninety minutes later, he switched on the television just in time to see a newsflash. Two hijacked Lufthansa Jets has crashed into the Great Hall. Iraki insurgents were behind this unspeakable act of terrorism.
~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

In 1999, in Center Lovell, Maine driver Bryan Smith was distracted by an unrestrained Rottweiler named Bullet, moving in the back of his 1985 Dodge Caravan. He swerved to avoid three riders on horseback, the Gunslinger Roland Deschain and his friends Cuthbert Allgood and Alain Johns. As a result, he narrowly missed the author Stephen King who was walking on the right shoulder of Route 5. Soon afterwards, he could not remember anything about the three riders at all.

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

Glubb Pasha	In 1941, English Patient László de Almásy shared a revelation from the spy Geoffrey Clifton with Loose Cannon Colonel "Ned" Lawrence. In accepting the mission to turn Rommel, Churchill had told Lawrence that he had been secretly rescued from a German "hit" by Zionist agents acting under the orders of Chaim Weizmannm Herzog and Aaron Aaronsohn.
The Zionists had their own plans for Lawrence, needing him to do a similiar job by "turning" the Commanding General of the Arab Legion, Lieutenant-General Sir John Bagot Glubb. Glubb Pasha had built the most disciplined force of arms under Arab control. In the forthcoming battle to establish Eretz Yisroel, Weizmann and Aaronsohn could not afford to have such a powerful threat from “the wing” on the West bank.
~ variant by Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the genius of Susan Shwartz and Michael Ondaatje

Otto Skorzeny	In 1943, German commando Otto Skorzeny pulled off a most daring mission. After fighting on the Eastern Front, Skorzeny was known as the commando leader who attempted to rescued Benito Mussolini from imprisonment after his overthrow. He also was the initiator of Operation Greif, for which he was judged after the war: this special operation involved false flag tactics, that is wearing the uniform of the enemy to confuse him and advance into his lines.
He also helped train the Werwolves, a Nazi stay-behind organisation which tried to engage in guerilla warfare against the Allies. On September 12th 1943, Benito Mussolini, dictator of Italy, was rescued from house arrest on the Gran Sasso in Abruzzi. Blood thirst craze had driven the Duce insane unfortunately, and an unsuspecting Skorzeny was brutally attacked by the lycanthrope Duce leaving a huge gash on his right cheek.
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 1994, Frank Eugene Corder crashed a Cessna 150 into the White House's south lawn, striking the West wing and killing US President Michael Dukakis. The crash caused a re-evaluation in security procedures around the White House, as the pilot had entered restricted airspace. Though the White House was reportedly rigged with surface-to-air missiles, none were fired. Vice President Lloyd Bentsen became the second Texan in thirty years to succeed to the Presidency through assassination.	Frank Corder
~ entry by Steve Payne

Luna 2	In 1959, the Soviet Union launched a large rocket, Lunik II, at the moon. Being the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon, it impacted the lunar surface west of Mare Serenitatis near the Aristides, Archimedes, and Autolycus craters. Scientifically, Luna 2 is most famous for making the discovery of the solar wind, via its hemispherical ion traps designed by Konstantin Gringauz. Having studied these stream of charged particles for thirty years, Russian Scientists developed the first space craft driven by this thermal energy, enabling the USSR to colonize the solar system by the end of the twenty-first century.
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 1890, Salisbury, Rhodesia, was founded and named after the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, then British prime minister. From Salisbury, the Premier of the British Crown Colony of Southern Rhodesia, Ian Douglas Smith declared Unilateral Independence (UDI) from the United Kingdom on November 11, 1965. Smith was staunchly opposed to Britain's insistence that the government of Rhodesia be transferred to the black majority control as an essential prerequisite for independence.	Ian Smith
Smith at one point, stated that there would be no plans to bring Rhodesia under black majority rule in his lifetime, and he later added, "or children's". Smith himself bowed to the inevitable in 1980, but his supporters did not, launching Operation Quartz which sustained a brutal white settler rule until this day.
~ entry by Steve Payne

Whatever happened to Leon Trotsky? He got an ice pick That made his ears burn
Stranglers	Whatever happened to dear old Lenny? The great Elmyra, and Sancho Panza? Whatever happened to the heroes? ~ Lyrics to “What Ever Happened to the Heroes?” - Click to Watch Sample
Punk Band

In 1977, an off-site Cabinet meeting by the executors of the Plot Against British Prime Minister Harold Wilson was held at Chequers. Interim Prime Minister Lord Louis Mountbatten and his deputy Major General Ord Wingate, DSO were in the Chair. Both officers were hurting real bad inside, believing that the British establishment had won both world wars (described by Churchill as "an incalculable prize") yet lost the peace. Worse, the British establishment had turned to them as the icon of that victory, and fundamentally they had no answers at all. In fact, Mountbatten had not felt so powerless since he was appointed Viceroy of India. Instead of overseeing a peaceful transition to independent rule, he had played a meaningless bit part in a humanitarian disaster where 10,000,000 had died during the tragedy of partition. Unknown to Mountbatten, the shadowy individuals that had selected him considered this experience to be a vital element of his resume. Qualification: master of disaster. Also present was the Home Secretary Margaret Thatcher. So was newly appointed Minister for Citizenship Mary Whitehouse, who had recently resigned her position as founder and first president of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association, a pressure group for Christian ethics and morals with a particular emphasis on the media. They had just finished watching the latest installment of horror - the Stranglers playing "No More Heroes" on Top of the Pops, a barefaced insult to Mountbatten and Wingate of course. Vocalist Hugh Cornwall was in turns arrogant, hateful, disrespectual, shouting, haughty, scruffy..a dictionary definition of the word punk. Most disturbing was that Cornwall was clearly an individual of intelligence, "of the right sort". Worse, he had the kind of face that a military officer could expect to see as a mirror image with that recognizable tint of control and pride. Cornwall's behaviour was highly indicative of just how British society had gone off the rails in such a short space of time. Whereas you could (try to) dismiss the Sex Pistols as extremists, Cornwall's outward respectibility was an open endorsement to misbehaviour that was far too acceptable to British Youth. Mountbatten looked around the room - "How do we get British Youth back to watching Sitcoms and the Two Ronnies?", making reference of course to that mildest of sketch comedies. It was somewhat quiet for a while. Then Thatcher and Whitehouse descended into a stereo parrot mode, entering a long, pointless tirade about morality and authority that just went on. At one point Thatcher disturbingly asserted that "Society does not exist", it was all utterly incomprehensible to the military leader's ears. Afterwards, Mountbatten and Wingate retired with brandys and cigars. "Perhaps we should have appointed Barbara Woodhouse at the Citizenship Ministry" quipped the defeated deputy, a reference to a well known authoritarian dog breeder in the UK. "Perhaps we should tell Hugh Cornwall 'down, boy!'" replied Mountbatten, his spirits returning somewhat. They both laughter long and hard. Howled, actually. It was a mission impossible, there was just no point worrying about it too much really. The lyrics are available at at Ottosell

~ quotation by Steve Payne