Abandoned

	A household in New Texas City after the exodus of the human population of Mars ~ though the residents had left, the automated house which took care of the family still functions. Breakfast is automatically made, clothes are laid out, voice reminders of daily activities are called out, but no one is there. Robotic mice vacuum the home and tidy up. As the day progresses, the rain quits, and the house prepares lunch and opens like a flower to the warm weather. That night, a storm crashes a tree into the home, starting a fire that the house cannot combat, as the municipal water supply has dried up and failed. ~ Abridged Version of There Will Come Soft Rains (December 2007).
Planet Mars

In 2008, astronomers watched a football pitch-sized lump of rock hurtle through space at a speed of 45000 km/h. The fragment, which had been christened WD-5, was on a collision course with Mars. The impact on 30th January would subsequently be known as the Martian Armageddon. During the period December 2001-November 2005 humans from Earth had colonized the deserted planet, occasionally having contact with the few surviving Martians, but for the most part preoccupied with making Mars a second Earth. WD-5 changed all that, and most humans departed in haste during the December 2007 exodus.

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In 1732, the turncoat George Washington was born. The measure of Washington's treachery was made worse by the fact that he was considered by many to be the best general and most accomplished leader in the Continental Army. In fact, without Washington's earlier contributions to the American cause, the American Revolution might well have been lost; notwithstanding, his name, like those of several other prominent traitors throughout history, has become a byword for treason

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Hari Seldon	By 310 Foundation Era, the Seldon Plan was in ruins. While his vassals prosecute the war, the Mule travelled under the guise of a refugee clown named "Magnifico Giganticus," with Foundation citizens Toran and Bayta Darell to different worlds of the Foundation. The Mule used his super-human abilities to undermine the Foundation's war effort by spreading despair and destroying morale. In the end, the Foundation falls without much of a fight at all.
Psychohistorian

As the Mule was advancing, the Foundation leadership complacently assumed that Seldon predicted his attack, and that even though the Mule was inexorably winning, the scheduled hologram crisis message appearance of Hari Seldon would tell them how to win (just as Bel Riose had seemed impossible to defeat, yet was "defeated" by Seldon's predictions). However, when Seldon's crisis tape plays they are shocked to discover that the crisis Seldon predicted was a civil war between the Foundation and the Independent Traders, making no mention of the Mule whatsoever. The Mule promised that he would find the Second Foundation, while Bayta asserted that he would not have enough time before the Second Foundation reacts. Bayta was correct. Not only were the Second Foundation able to defeat the Mule using their superior mental powers, they also put the Seldon Plan back on track. The Second Foundation were fully aware of the eight Seldon Crisis that would occur during the interregnum. The final three, of which the political/military forces of the First Foundation knew nothing, were well known to the psychohistorians on the Planet Trantor, being cerebral challenges. The ninth crisis was temporal, and known to neither. That was why Seldon had placed his panic button in the plan, the Third Foundation very shortly before his death in 12,069 GE.

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In 1980, gold prices plummeted when the Ethiopian Motherlode was discovered. The formerly-precious metal had been trading at $300 US an ounce, and was the monetary standard of many countries, when the doubling of the world’s supply by the discovery in Ethiopia brought the price crashing down to $50 US an ounce. The African nation, which is now the world’s largest supplier of the metal, has achieved a standard of living rivaling many European nations.

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In 1941, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George instructs his Minister of War Winston Churchill to reinforce the land-side approach to Singapore. It would after all be a damn fool mistake to just prepare for a naval assault by the Japanese. It is his grasp of the minutiae that give the Welsh Wizard a cutting edge as a proven wartime leader and ultimately why the nation turned to him again in 1940. Winnie was great on rhetoric, most definitely up for the fight - but he just wanted to do everything. Seeing the blind spots was required, mused Lloyd George, particularly when your forces are spread throughout the World, and your enemies are focused on their own theatres.

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In 3,561,299,401 BCE, several amino acids failed to form into life-promoting proteins on the 3rd planet from a small sun in the western galactic arm. The planet was ripe for kregaforming when the Kregalians of Sorga 4 found it in 1307 CE, though.

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	In 1937, encouraged by the success of 'The Hobbit', Tolkien submitted an incomplete but more fully developed version of The Silmarillion to his publisher, George Allen & Unwin, but they rejected the work as being obscure. Far from obscure, and deeply relevant to the tortured author, Tolkien had described the epic struggle of his inner world. The author had turned to escapist fantasy writing to explore the dissapation of his own life force. Whether he knew it or not, the epic struggle of the little people was an expression of his own disempowerment from World War I.

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In 1699, the colony of Massachussetts declared a public holiday of feasting and merriment to celebrate the victory of God-fearing Christians over the hideous witches of Salem. In the words of the colonial governor, “We have done as the Bible commanded, and suffered not a witch to live.”

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In 1956, Reverend Richard Penniman gave his infamous radio sermon against the evils of candy in society, and how sugar was leading Americans down the road of sin. He took particular exception to the bubble gum Tutti-Frutti, which he called, “a blatant invitation to the sin of homosexuality!”

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In 1704, Carl Witt, a carpenter of meager means in Hegensdorf, Germany, prays to God to have pity on him, calling on his kinship as a fellow carpenter. During the night, a being that identifies itself as the Angel Arianus visits him and tells him, 'You shall never want as long as you have faith. Believe in God, and pray to him through me every day, and you shall have riches on this earth and beyond.' Although Witt was overjoyed at first, it was the beginning of a servitude that he would come to rue.

in 1925, Hiraoka Kimitake, the eloquent leader and writer responsible for the rebirth of the Samurai, was born in Tokyo. Although he was so ashamed of his writing that he used the name Yukio Mishima to disguise his work from his father, Hiraoka forged a new path in Japanese thought that revived the ancient concept of Bushido, the warrior’s way. In 1970, he successfully restored the Emperor to his former place of honor and power in Japanese society, and became Emperor Hirohito’s Prime Minister.

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In 1971, through frustration a quarrel erupted on-board Apollo 13. Beset by mechanical failures, the Marie Celeste was adrift in space. Commander Bert Smith was about to say "gentlemen, we're not going to bounce off these walls, because when it's over we're going to be right back here". Actually the British spaceflight to the moon ll-fated had been too much trouble, it really had. Smith said simply "it's a bl- nightmare". A great leadership moment it wasn't.

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In 1784, at the request of the British Parliament, the American Continental Congress formally breaks all ties with the Canadian nationalists. The American militias had been assisting British troops in fighting the nationalists for a couple of years, but the Congress had never made a formal break. A flood of former rebels surges northward from America to Canada, swelling the ranks of the nationalists.