Redux

In 1786, Rip Van Winkle awoke to find an old firelock lying by him, the barrel incrusted with rust, the lock falling off. There was no sign of “Wolf” his dog, nor the band of strangers. Perhaps the grave roysters of the mountain had put a trick upon him, and having dosed him with liquor, had robbed him of his gun.

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In 2007, the Jackson 7 will tour in 2008 with Janet Jackson, announced her brother Jermaine. Rumours about a possible reunion of the pop legends has been rife for some time, culminating in claims from promoter Leonard Rowe recently that live dates were being planned. Jermaine Jackson has now given the clearest indication yet that the comeback is on and will take place next year, featuring their most famous member. "Janet will be involved. We want to tour. We want to touch the lives of everybody who's bought our records and supported us. "It will probably start here first, but it will be sometime in 2008. That's our plan", he told the BBC in a new interview. The last album from the Jackson 7 - Janet, La Toya, Michael, Jermaine, Marlon, Tito and Jackie - was "2300 Jackson Street" in 1989.

Kennedy

In 1979, Stanley Shapiro wrote the third in a series of articles entitled A Time to Remember in which the journalist was sharply critical of post-Vietnam Foreign Policy. Better for the US to have been humbled by the war in Vietnam and then this ultra-belligerance would have been nipped in the bud, and Westmoreland sent off into a quiet retirement was Shapiro's view.

The build-up of Soviet troops on the Afganistan border was well underway, and the United States had began sending aid to anti-Soviet, Afghan Islamist factions on July 3, 1979. In Shapiro's view, a military standoff was fast arriving, and the belligerance of the US Leadership would force a confrontation, perhaps a nuclear one. Kennedy's crisis management skills would have been prevented such an outcome, as he demonstrated over his careful management of the Cuban missiles crisis. Trouble was, he had made too many enemies in the military, and it is was these individuals who were now driving events in the White House.

Monty on the Rhine

In 2000, Douglas Niles and and Michael Dobson published Monty on the Rhine. In this the counterfactual novel the July 1944 bomb plot failed to kill Hitler. The plotters are rounded up and executed. Meanwhile, Hitler continues a two-front war and fires German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. A resurgent Bernard Montgomery triumphs at a very different Battle of the Bulge.

Hobos	In 1963, the strange being known as Snake Eyes entered closing mode as the number of critical issues was at last diminishing. The “three Hobos” who formed the first cross fire team included CIA Master Agent E. Howard Hunt. A double had been sent to a Washington Trial and therefore Snake Eyes had an alibi. The other two Hobos were already buried in the Texan desert. Snake Eyes instructed officers to very publicly march three vagrants out the Dallas Police Head quarters, this problem required false evidence to be placed.

in 1973, Gerald Ford was confirmed as the new Vice President of the United States, almost exactly ten years to the day since he had been appointed to the Warren Commission. Ford had travelled with Justice Earl Warren and other commission members for a series of private meetings in Dallas with Jack Ruby during June of 1964. Ruby predicted "a whole new form of government is going to take over this country, and I know I won't live to see you another time”. A fundamentally honest man, Ford had decided there and then that he would make a bid for the White House and stop the military-industrial complex in its tracks. Whilst he would later appear weak in his response to the Fall of Saigon, Ford saw clearly that the dystopian future predicted by Ruby had been avoided. Whilst the American people did not re-elect him, they did turn instead to Jimmy Carter a decent man of the same mindset.	Ford

Goldwater	In 1965, the Pentagon tells U.S. President Barry Goldwater that if planned operations were to succeed, the number of American troops in Vietnam has to be increased from 120,000 to 400,000. Goldwater tells the Pentagon advisors to get some options. Some more options. Asked for a preference, Goldwater suggests they “Lob one [nuclear weapon] into the men's room in Hanoi”.

In 1973, applying the Twenty-fifth Amendment the United States Senate voted 92 to 3 to confirm Gerald Ford as Vice President of the United States (on December 6, the House confirmed him 387 to 35). The military-industrial complex was simply enraged that Ford allowed Saigon to fall, and on September 22, 1975 in San Francisco, California, CIA patsy Sara Jane Moore fired a revolver at Ford from 40 feet (12 m) away killing him instantly.	Ford