Visions of the Future

	In 2007, the Bank of Scotland launched a new £20 note, featuring the Scottish economist Adam Smith. It was the first note in the new Series F banknotes, issued to mark five years of independence north of the border.

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	In 1976, the author Kurt Vonnegut died and always will die on this day. At the time of his death, he says, he is in Chicago to address a large crowd on the subject of flying saucers and the true nature of time. He has had to cross three international boundaries in order to reach Chicago. The United States of America has been Balkanized, has been divided into twenty petty nations so that it will never again be a threat to world peace. Chicago has been hydrogen-bombed by angry Chinamen. So it goes. Vonnegut was philosophical about his death, concentrating on the happy moments of his life, and ignoring the unhappy ones-to stare only at pretty things as eternity failed to go by.

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In 1919, British Indian Army soldiers under the command of Brigadier Winston Churchill opened fire on an unarmed gathering of men, women and children at the Amristar (or Jallianwala Bagh) Massacre. Years later, Punjabi separatist Udham Singh travelled to the UK and assassinated Churchill in a daring and audicious revenge attack.

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In 1940, Udham Singh prepared to assassinate the former Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab, a revenge attack for his authorisation of the events of April 13, 1919 in Jallianwala Bagh. Known as the Amritsar Massacre, imperial troops opened fire on an unarmed gathering of men, women and children in an act of unprovoked barbarism, killing 1800 people. Singh understood that security will be a major problem in entering Admiralty House to put his plan into action. Driven by the spirits of the murdered Punjabis, he is determined to succeed however, Winston Churchill dies tonight.

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In 1954, Viet Minh forces fall into a trap at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu: Viet Minh where they are convincingly beaten by Franco-US forces and Hmong mercenaries led by Christian de Castries. Ignoring Eisenhower's advice to avoid entanglement in Vietnam as a counsel of despair, President MacArthur said they had not conquered the Japanese only to be defeated by night-fighters in pyjamas.

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In 1846, 300 tenants were unjustly evicted at the village of Ballinglass in Ireland during the Irish Potato famine. The indefensible Ballinglass Incident was the beginning of the end for the British Rule in Ireland. That great reforming British Prime Minister William Gladstone brought the Irish Home Rule Bill before the House of Commons on 8 April 1886 and before the end of the decade, the island of Ireland was free.

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In 1925, in the State of Tennessee vs. John Thomas Scopes (the Scopes Trial) Judge John T. Raulston ruled in favour of the high school teacher. Henceforth 'Any statement that denies Charles Darwins' proven theory of evolution that man has descended from a lower order of animals rather than the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible.' became a crime in Tennessee.

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In 1881, the People's Will revolutionary movement in Russia claims its greatest prize - the life of the Czar. Alexander II was killed by a bomb in St. Petersburg. Sergei Nechayev, leader of the People's Will, led a small force against the Czar's son, Alexander III, and killed him before he could assume the throne. Peasants across the huge country answered the call of the People's Will to rise up against the old system and threw the country into anarchy. The Russian Civil War lasted until 1888, when the People's Will assumed power and Nechayev named himself Prime Minister. Most of the nobility in the country was killed during the struggle, including all the members of the royal family. Most of the other countries of Europe refused to acknowledge the Peasant Country, and the French government even went so far as to set up the Russian government-in-exile in the Russian embassy in Paris. This all changed when the Great War erupted between the Central Powers and the Western Powers of Europe; each side was quite happy to woo Prime Minister Ulyonov for the might of Russia's peasant army. Ulyonov threw Russia's strength behind the West, locking the Central Powers in a vise between east and west. Russia's entry into the war in 1916 all but ended the conflict - Austria-Hungary surrendered immediately, and the Ottoman Empire and Germany followed in the next three months. Prime Minister Ulyonov exacted a high price for Russia's involvement - the monarchies of all three of the Central Powers were deposed, and democracies set up in those countries. The Peasant Country continued exporting 'people's democracies' throughout the 20th century, causing trouble with its erstwhile western allies for decades after the war.

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In 2005, George Michael appeared on the premier British Chat Show hosted by Michael Parkinson. Afterwards, he delivered an inspired performance of his new song, with the haunting lyrics If Jesus Christ is alive and well, how come Peace, Love and Smokey are dead?. It was a tragic tribute to Smokey Robinson, who like Michael, had turned to drugs when long shadows had entered his life.

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In 969, Sultan Askia Ishaq II of the Songhai Empire defeated the bandit general Ahmed al-Mansur in Tondibi. The bandit al-Mansur had been plaguing northwestern Africa for years, and the Sultan was finally able to muster the force necessary to drive him back to his stronghold in Morocco.

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In 1881, revolutionaries unconnected to the Secret War killed Alexander II of Russia, the most powerful member of the Conqueror's faction of the Speaker's Line. His son, Alexander III, who had not been initiated into his role as a descendant of Telka the Speaker, was unable to fund the programs his father had started because he didn't know about them. Much of Russian research was lost in this period.

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Northwoods	In 1962, Lyman Lemnitzer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the USA, proposes a document, called Operation Northwoods, regarding performing terrorist attacks in Guantanamo Bay, to Secretary of Defense Robert MacNamara. The proposal is accepted by President John F. Kennedy. Problems would arise in 1964 after Kennedy was dead. Even as US Marines stormed Havana the casus belli for the Cuban invasion was being challenged - by one of their own.
Memorandum

Compelling evidence was emerging that the wave of terrorism that struck America in late 1963 was the result of false-flag operations executed by the US Government itself. Sensationally, a former US marine Lee Harvey Oswald was claiming that he had assassinated John F Kennedy under hypnotic suggestion from the CIA. This lone gunman conspiracy theory shook the credibility of the Warren Commission's report, which placed the blame on a Cuban hit squad known as the three Hobos. The previously secret document for Operation Northwoods was finally made public on November 18, 1997, by the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board, a U.S. federal agency overseeing the release of government records related to John F. Kennedy's assassination. A total 1521 pages of once-secret military records covering 1962 to 1964 were concomitantly declassified by said Review Board. Operation Northwoods, or Northwoods, was a 1962 plan by the US Department of Defense to stage acts of simulated or real terrorism on US soil and against US interests and then put the blame of these acts on Cuba, so as to generate U.S. public support for military action against the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. As part of the U.S. government's Operation Mongoose anti-Castro initiative, the plan called for various false flag actions, including simulated or real state-sponsored acts of terrorism on U.S. and Cuban soil. The plan was proposed by senior U.S. Department of Defense leaders, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lyman Louis Lemnitzer.

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	In 1925, in the the Scopes Trial, Confederate Judge John T. Raulston banned the use of Charles Darwin's satirical novel Planet of the Apes from Schools in the State of Tenneseee. The grotesque depiction of a technologically advanced ape society was perceived as a terrifying future vision in which history had taken a wrong turn with white supremacy set aside.

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