Testament

The Violent yet peaceful death of Marvin Lee Aday Part III ~
Marvin looked up and saw buzzards circling slowly in the sky, like something from a Saturday matinee movie with Randolph Scott, or from a novel by Max Brand. He thought of it written in a novel: Marvin saw the buzzards circling in the sky, waiting. He looked at them calmly for a moment, and then bent to his journal again. He bent to his journal again. At the end, he had been forced to return to the straggling letters which had been the best his shaky motor control could produce at the beginning.
Marvin Lee Aday	And now, at last, he thought (and wrote), he might have been able to make his mother and father happy. He opened his mouth and croaked, "Top of the world, Ma." ~ Stephen King, The Stand Book III Chapter 64. ~ "Bat Out of Hell", Meatloaf, 1976 Click Symbol to Play Clip Meatloaf Aday's father was a Police Officer. A mean one. Orvis Wesley Aday was an alcoholic who would go on drinking binges for days at a time. Marvin and his mother would drive around to all the bars in Dallas, looking for Orvis to take him home. Because of this, Marvin often stayed with his grandmother, Charlsee Norrod.
Meatloaf

But I can't stop thinking of you, and I never see the sudden curve until it's way too late. I never see the sudden curve 'till it's way too late. Then I'm dying at the bottom of a pit in the blazing sun. Torn and twisted at the foot of a burning bike. And I think somebody somewhere must be tolling a bell. And the last thing I see is my heart, still beating, breaking out of my body, and flying away, Like a bat out of hell.

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In 1978, the Star Wars Holiday Special premièred on CBS. The two-hour special set in the new and highly popular Star Wars universe, featuring cameos by some of the biggest comedy and musical stars of the day, immediately set an all-time ratings high, only approached by the final episode of M*A*S*H 8 years later. The extreme popularity of the program, due largely to its engaging storyline, clever dialogue and action sequences rivaling that of the first movie itself, spawned a yearly tradition of Star Wars Holiday Specials running through the present day. The long-running, extremely-high-budget yearly series has been instrumental in filling in the story gaps between the various theatrical chapters, as well as portraying flashbacks, flash forwards and introducing dozens of new characters that quickly became as publicly beloved as those of the films themselves. With the completion of both planned Star Wars trilogies, there was some concern that the Specials would soon be discontinued, but creator George Lucas quickly released a statement that as long as the public was in love with Star Wars, the Specials would never be complete.

Radix

In 2009, earth swung into Line, a ray of metafrequency energy jetstreaming from the massive black hole at the galactic hub. The transmuting effects of this atypical energy altered the planet for over a century until the Earth swung fully into line in 2113.

A self-sufficient scientific community on the southern Peruvian coast - Center of International Research for the Continuance of Life on Earth, 2009-2113) - was established to find ways to compensate for the massive morphological changes that began as the earth swung into Line. An ingenious discovery at CIRCLE succeeded in sustaining life - Rubeus, an artifical super-intelligence originally created to manage global weather systems.

Vietnam

In 1968, John Forbes Kerry reported for duty at Coastal Squadron 1 in Cam Ranh Bay in South Vietnam, where he served as an officer in charge of Swift boats, leading five-man crews on a number of patrols into enemy-controlled areas. Following numerous medals and citations for bravery, Kerry was hand picked for a special mission, to be sent into the jungle to assassinate United States Army Special Forces Colonel Walter E. Kurtz. A decorated officer, Kurtz had gone insane and was commanding a legion of his own Montagnard troops deep inside the forest in neutral Cambodia. Kerry was ordered to undertake a mission to find Kurtz and "terminate his command... with extreme prejudice."

As Kerry lost sight of his purpose in the jungle, he discerned broader parallels with the American mission in Vietnam. Upon his return to the United States, Kerry testified to Senate Foreign Relations Committee asking "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

In 1941, the United States ambassador to Japan, cables the British Foreign Office that Japan has plans to launch an attack against their base on Pearl Harbour, Hawaii (his cable is ignored).

Joseph Grew

Panagoulis

In 1968, Alexandros Panagoulis was condemned to death by the Greek Colonels' Junta. After the restoration of democracy, Alexandros Panagoulis was elected as Member of Parliament as a member of the Union of Centre – New Forcesin 1974. He made a series of allegations against mainstream politicians whom he said had openly or secretly collaborated with the junta. Panagoulis was killed on 1 May 1976 at the age of 36 in a car accident on Vouliagmenis Ave. in Athens. This happened only few days before files of the junta's military police that he was in possession of were to be made public. We now know that the car accident was staged to silence Panagoulis and to cover up the documents in question.

In 1965, on this day “the Butcher of Rhodesia” Ian Henderson and former Prime of the British Crown Colony of Rhodesia Ian Smith were informed that South African Prime Minister Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd had withdrawn his offer of support for 1000 men of the SADF to cross the border in support of Operation Quartz.

Ian Henderson