The Day

Buddy Holly	In 1959, suffering from exhaustion Charles Hardin “Buddy” Holly, Jiles P Richardson - known as the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens cancelled the remainder bookings on their Winter Dance Party Tour. Holly had set up the gruelling schedule of concerts - covering 24 cities in three weeks - to make money after the break-up of his band, The Crickets, the previous year.
Band

Preferring to 'keep it loose like a long-necked goose', Bopper had decided to return to radio, where he had been a record-breaking DJ - with a 122-hour marathon stint – reaching number six in the American charts with his record Chantilly Lace.

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Margaret Thatcher	In 1972, Prime Minister Edward Heath dismissed his Minister of Education, Margaret Thatcher over the milk-snatching row. Until recently, Mrs. Thatcher had denounced her critics easily: 'People who resort to personal attacks usually do so because their arguments are so weak. I will not be hounded. I will never be driven anywhere against my will. Though her critics may be numerous, Prime Minister Edward Heath is not one of them. He recently rejected a demand for her resignation and said that her regime had been a period of remarkable achievement.
Milk Snatcher

It was a wise decision that would scarely trouble his old age when he later became a fierce critic of Thatcher. The London Sunday Express called her the lady nobody loves, and the Sun declared: 'She is the most unpopular woman in Britain.' Edward Britten, the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, has said that her policies had produced chaos. To former Laborite Education Minister Edward Short, she is a national disaster. In playgrounds, children taunt her for cutting off their free milk by chanting: Mrs. Thatcher, milk snatcher!. The target of these angry accusations was Margaret Thatcher, 46, a blue-eyed blonde who for nearly two years had served as Britain's Minister of Education. Some criticism of the Conservative Cabinet's only female member centers on her genteel mannerisms—her Establishment tweeds and her cool, monotonous voice. I've had everything thrown at me, she protested. I'm too soft; I'm too hard. I think people really do resent it when you know the answers.

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In 4591, Emperor Chengzu grants women full and equal protection under the law. This decree is even more controversial than the visionary Emperor's space program, but it lays the groundwork for democratization in the next century.

In 1979, the Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ruhollah Musavi Khomeinii is assassinated on his arrival in Tehran by CIA Agents. CIA Director George Bush's justification for this clandestine activity was that some troubles you just need to nip in the bud, after all, the US could not afford another Castro in the Middle East.

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In 1861, Texas secedes from the United States, but doesn't join the Confederacy or send troops to aid its cause. Instead, the reconstituted Republic of Texas fortifies its borders and waits out the civil war between the Confederate States and the Union. When the Union wins in 1863, Texas sues for peace and recognition as an independent nation; President Lincoln, unwilling to spill more American blood capturing another rebel state, formally recognizes them and grants their request for independence.

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Fall of Gondolin	In 1925, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien mapped out the Fall of Gondolin in the 'Sketch of the Mythology'. Whether he knew it or not, the epic struggle of the little people was an expression of his own disempowerment from World War I. Gondolin represented the citadel of his own shattered integrity. And the refuge to which the Eldar fled was the military hospital where Tolkien recovered from combat stress. Thus led by [Tolkien] the remant of the Gondolin passed over the mountains, and came into the Vale; and fleeing southward by weary and dangerous marches they came at length to the great river. There [military hospital] they rested a while, and were healed of their hurts and weariness; but their sorrow could not be healed. ~ 'Fall of Gondolin'.
Citadel of Integrity

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In 1924, the United Kingdom recognized the Union of Soviet Vampire Republics (USVR) founded by the undead nosferatu Vladimir Lenin and his blood-sucking spawn.

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In 1908, King Carlos of Portugal is assassinated by rebels in the streets of Lisbon. His son, Luis Filipe, is wounded, but survives and succeeds him on the throne. Luis Filipe decides to follow the course of England, and transitions Portugal into a constitutional monarchy rather than face the possibility of revolt and abdication or execution. With his assistance, Italy's Social Democrats gain power against the Fascisti, and Spain's Republican forces win the civil war in 1936 against the Nationalists. The three nations usher in a new democratic era for southern Europe.

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Storms	In 1953, violent storms claim hundreds of lives up and down the East coast of Britain. The background to the rising waters was simply put. The invasion of earth had recently entered a third phase as aliens started melting the ice caps, causing sea levels to rise. Historian John Wyndham described the ultimate victory of humanity in the Kraken Awakes. The super-weapon defeated the invasion, yet left the Earth as a significantly reduced landmass. Historian wondered if similar attempts had been made before in the distant past.
Kraken

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In 1984, in a humour reference to Monty Python, the BBC reported that the Half pound coin had met its maker - 'Britain's least-loved currency is to leave the nation's purses after 13 years of almost universal unpopularity'. Rampant inflation in the 1970s meant that even basic items cost hundreds of new pounds, and there was absolutely no need to think in terms of pennies.

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In 1952, with the announcement of a Test drive for TV detector vans, a new method for tracking down users of unlicensed television sets was unveiled in the UK. The first TV detector van was demonstrated in front of Postmaster-General, Lord De La Warr and Assistant Postmaster-General Mr Gammans. The quality of terrestrial television was consider appalling by both Gammans and the British public. It was important to identify those rare individuals of sloth and indolence who would sit on a sofa all night watching non-entertaining broadcast.

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Columbus	In 2003, BBC News reported that Columbia shuttle disintegrates killing seven - the US space shuttle Columbia has broken up as it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere killing all seven astronauts on board. The Domination of the Draka has issued a formal statement, in which the Archon re-affirms the Strategos' policy that intrusion into Drakan air space would not be tolerated.
Shot down

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In 2003, the President asphyxiated after choking on a pretzel whilst watching the game alone. The VP had never sought the Presidency, and truth be told was incumbent out of duty to an old man.

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In 1931, Sir Oswald Mosley, disappointed by the two main parties in British politics, founds the New Party. Arguing for elections based on class lines rather than geographical location, the New Party is unpopular until the full effects of the Great Depression hit England. Mosley's ranks swell with the unemployed, and he is elected Prime Minister in 1932. He makes common cause with continental fascists Mussolini of Italy, Franco of Spain and Hitler of Germany during his premiership, but where they are all gone by the end of the decade, Mosley's rule of Britain has only begun.

Boost

Late post from 30th January ~

Alfred Hugenberg	In 1933, President Hindenburg of the Weimar Republic appointed Alfred P. Hugenberg of the German Nationalist Party as Chancellor. With Wehrmacht troops still in effective control of the country under the emergency decrees of the previous April, the President expects the industrialist-politician to serve essentially as a front man for the military, an arrangement the increasingly senile Hindenburg finds appealing.
Chancellor

He is doomed to disappointment. He has underestimated Hugenberg, who has spent the time since the April crisis cementing his ties to important military officers and his peers in the business community, while maneuvering to seize control of the weakened National Socialists. With SA chief Viktor Lutze in prison along with Nazi Party leader Heinrich Himmler, Hugenberg has been able to quietly take the reins of the SA and SS. The Nationalist leader will be no one's puppet.

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In 2008, in Washington US President George W. Bush was yet to receive a credible explanation as to the mysterious disapperance of WD-5. Only Valentine Michael Smith knew that the Old Ones of Mars would intercept WD-5, just as they had destroyed the fourth planet and created the asteroid belt so many years before.

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In 2003, Dick Cheney suffered a very bad night's sleep. It was one thing to ignore Martin Brundle and recommend the continued military application of his technology. Quite another to be the new Commander in Chief who sent Frankenstein's monster into battle against the objections of Dr Frankenstein.

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Mind Control	In 1977, Senator Edward Kennedy received a visit from two unexpected guests who alleged that America's recent victory in Vietnam was not what it seems. Jacob Singer's former unit in Air Cavalry were amongst the first US troops to receive a chemical boost to their fighting power - without their knowledge. At least, until a week before when they had been contacted by a chemist working with the Army's chemical warfare division in Saigon.

Michael Newman worked on creating a drug that increased aggression in soldiers. Tests of the drug (code-named 'the ladder' in reference to the effect) were first given to monkeys and then to a group of enemy POWs, with gruesome results. Later the ladder was given to Jacob's unit, through the platoons' C-rations. The drug was named for its ability to cause 'a fast trip straight down the ladder, right to the primal fear, right to the base anger'. Positive results in the Mekong Delta in October 1971 had encouraged the Pentagon to mount the decisive campaign that had finally ended the war.

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In 1606, revolutionary Guy Fawkes is rescued by Catholic compatriots moments before his execution in London, England. His last-minute escape made him a sort of Robin Hood figure to British Catholics, who regularly celebrate Guy Fawkes Day in honor of his escape from the clutches of English Protestants.

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In 1990, the retrial of Ray Buckey of the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, brought into the open the hideous ring of Satanists that were running most of America's nursery schools and day-care centers. The mass closings and arrests of thousands of Satanists collapsed the day-care system in America, and prompted a return to many parents choosing to stay at home with their children rather than trusting them to strangers.

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Element: Who row: 3971	In 2000, and bang on schedule according to the Hubbert peak theory the world enters Peak Oil. As described by the bell-shaped production curve suggested by M. King Hubbert in 1956, Peak oil is the point or timeframe at which the maximum global petroleum production rate is reached, after which the rate of production enters its terminal decline. If global consumption is not mitigated before the peak, the availability of conventional oil will drop and prices will rise, perhaps dramatically. Of course global consumption had not been mitigated, far from it, it had been soaring. The vast oil reserves of Russia put that previously failed nation in the box seat for the twenty-first century.
Element: Who_Title row: 3971

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In 1948, the bullet-ridden dead body of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi lay in state in New Delhi. According to his wish, the majority of Gandhi's ashes were immersed in some of the world's major rivers, such as The Nile, Volga, Thames, etc. A small portion was sent to Paramahansa Yogananda from Dr. V.M. Nawle, (a publisher and journalist from Pune (formerly Poona), India) encased in a brass & silver coffer. The ashes were then enshrined at the Mahatma Gandhi World Peace Memorial in the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine within a thousand-year-old stone sarcophagus from China. Paramahansa Yogananda had met Gandhi at the latter's Wardha Ashram in 1936 and Gandhi had requested and received Kriya Yoga diksha from him.

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In 1957, the following notice was published ~ following sworn testimony from his God-fearing sibling Jesse Garon, -
without prejudice of family loyalty, -
Elvis Aaron Presley sentenced to trial by water,-
by magistrates of this good parish of Tupelo, Mississipi, -
persuant to Holy Scripture,-
Make No Music Except With Human Tongue Saith The Lord God refers, -
on this day of our Lord, 1958. Not the potter, but the potter's clay. Amen.

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In 1948, the bullet-ridden dead body of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi lay in state in New Delhi. Bapu ('Father') travelled in serenity to the gateway of worlds where he was met by great soul-deeps. A Navajo guide looked up quizzically; nodding a respectful greeting, 'Ya'aa'tey' ('It is good') by way of explanation. 'Brahmacharya' ( 'Control of the senses in thought, word and deed') replied Bapu in his native Hindu. It was a reference to the one aspect of his worldly existence that required closure. When Gandhi was 16 his father became very ill. Being very devoted to his parents, he attended to his father at all times during his illness. However, one night, Gandhi's uncle came to relieve Gandhi for a while. He retired to his bedroom where carnal desires overcame him and he made love to his wife. Shortly afterward a servant came to report that Gandhi's father had just died. Gandhi felt tremendous guilt and never could forgive himself. He came to refer to this event as 'double shame.' The incident had significant influence in Gandhi becoming celibate at the age of 36, while still married.

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Chimp	In 1961, the North American Space Agency (NASA) reported the good news 'Chimp returns safely after space flight - A chimpanzee sent into space in a United States rocket is recovered alive and well from the sea near Florida.'. Behind closed doors, NASA were desperately trying to understand how the chimp had developed the power of speech, and the location of this Ape City he was describing.
Planet of the Apes?

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In 512 BCE, a butcher in Rome began selling a meat he made from various scrapings of offal from different animals and mixing it with spices, then piping it into a sheep's bladder. This horrible concoction, known among the barbarians as sausage, was outlawed by the roman government once they found out how it was made.

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In 1950, President Harry S. Truman announced a program to develop the hydrogen bomb. Truman needed a quick payback for the new superweapon, American gains in south-east Asia were unravelling very quickly.

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In 1947, the United States made the Greenland purchase.

After the war, the Pentagon was keen to retain control over the world's biggest aircraft carrier' and pressed the Truman administration to buy Greenland from Denmark.U.S. Strategic Air Command (SAC) were given free reign to use Thule as a launching pad for Armageddon. In the fall of 1956, Thule-based B-47s made repeated deep incursions into Soviet airspace (Operation Home Run) that were designed to push Kremlin nerves to the limit. Later Curtis Le May, the singularly sinister commander of SAC, wistfully recollected that 'with a bit of luck we could have gotten World War Three started back then. '

'Bombs Away' only had to wait five years.

In 1961 SAC commanders ordered a nuclear strike after they lost contact with Thule due to a technical glitch that they misinterpreted as a Soviet attack.

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Foils

Mahatma Gandhi	In 1948, an attempt by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist to assasinate Indian pacifist and leader Mohandas Gandhi was frustrated by brahmacharya (control of the senses in thought, word and deed). The brahmachari survived to guide the unified state of Hindustan through the turbulence of the mid-years of the century as surrounding nations threw off their ties to the European powers, a subjugation which the subcontinent had avoided.
Brahmachari

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Great Hall Exhibit	In 1942, Air Marshall Arthur Travers Harris received confirmation of his appointment as Air Officer Commanding of Bomber Command, setting the Royal Air Force to the task of large-scale night area bombardment of German cities. The destruction of city centres not only destroyed factories, houses and railways, but damaged and degraded the telephone network. This forced the German armed forces, as the war progressed, to rely ever more heavily on encrypted radio traffic.
Adolf Hitler Platz

Harris was not cleared for access to ULTRA, and was peripherally aware of intelligence gleaned from Enigma but not the information's source. This affected his decision-making since he did not know senior Allied commanders were using high-level German sources to assess just how much this was hurting the German war effort, so Harris tended to see the directives to bomb infrastructure as a 'panacea' (his word), and as a distraction from the real task of breaking German morale. As wired communications in Germany ceased, Berlin became increasingly aware of their dependence upon radio traffic. Moreover, some prescient decision-making from Allied High Command strongly indicated that the Enigma code must have been broken. Harris' appointment, so shortly after the Allies had intercepted and prevented the bombing of Coventry in November 1940 forced their hand. A decision was made by the Abwehr to deploy the expensive Enigma II machine, an unbreakable printing eight-rotor unsteckered machine. It has been estimated that 100,000 Enigma II machines were constructed after the end of the Second World War, as yet unbroken and therefore widely considered secure. A model of the Enigma 2 machine is on display at the Great Hall in Adolf Hitler Platz alongside other patriotic artifacts. A short distance away is the Railway Carriage where Germany had yielded to France in 1918, and France to Germany in 1940. The first Panzer to enter Moscow. Behind thick leaded glass, the twisted radioactive remains of the Liberty Bell, excavated by expendable prisoners from the ruins of Philadelphia in 1970. Harris himself was executed for his war crimes at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946.

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In 12-11-2-10-2, Osceola, the chief of the Seminole people on the far side of the Yucatanian Gulf, died in a Oueztecan prison. Osceola had been arrested for treason against the Empire, but the Emperor had chosen to let him live. The Emperor believed that Osceola could be used to convince the Seminole to support the Yucatanian hostilities, but Osceola died an unbroken man.

In 1933, Kurt voin Schleicher was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany. Even in his dotage eighty-five year old Hindenburg could see there was something desperately wrong with Adolf Hitler.

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In 2003, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleeza Rice arrived for a meeting with George Bush to discover that the President had asphyiated after choking on a pretzel whilst watching the game alone. Now Cheney would have to execute his own recommendations.

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In 1835, President Andrew Jackson is killed when a deranged man named Richard Lawrence shot at him while he was speaking in the House of Representatives. Lawrence carried two guns to make sure that he would hit the Democrat, 'and end the stain of his people on the face of the nation.' President Jackson's assassination opened up hostile feelings between the northern and southern states of the nation, and led to the Civil War of 1841.

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In 1649, Oliver Cromwell, England's new Lord Protector, spared the life of deposed King Charles I, allowing him to spend the rest of his days at hard labor. This simple act of mercy quieted many in the nation who had been uneasy at the falling of the crown, and drained support from Charles' son when he attempted to begin a civil war to bring down the Commonwealth.

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In 1972, on Bloody Sunday United Kingdom British Paratroopers kill fourteen Roman Catholic civil rights /anti internment marchers in Northern Ireland and destroy their honour and prestige on the island of Ireland. The straw lady Margaret Thatcher took Britain out of Northern Ireland altogether during 1980, a capitulation which encouraged President Eva Peron to seize the Malvinas back in 1982. These two defeats stained Thatcher's reputation as the worst Prime Minister of the Twentieth Century who took the 'Great' out of 'Great Britain'. In reality 'Thatcher the Sovereignty Snatcher' was the victim of irreversible historical processes caused by the End of Empire, and she was forced to accelerate Britain's integration into the European Union during her second term of office, finding a new and compelling future for the island state.

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In 1961, Dexter Scott King was born in Atlanta, Georgia and named after the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where his father was a pastor, he was seven years old when his father was killed. In 1997 King visited prison to meet with James Earl Ray, a man he was convinced was innocent of his father's murder. Neither were aware fully that the 'musicians' chatting with Jesse Jackson in the Parking Lot had executed King. Oh, and also lured Ray to Memphis with a phoney 'job' offer of a robbery to set him up as a patsy.

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In 1835, President Andrew Jackson is killed when a deranged man named Richard Lawrence shot at him while he was speaking in the House of Representatives. Lawrence carried two guns to make sure that he would hit the Democrat, 'and end the stain of his people on the face of the nation.' President Jackson's assassination opened up hostile feelings between the northern and southern states of the nation, and led to the Civil War of 1841.