Doctrines

	In 2013, General John Abizaid former head of Central Command paid tribute to the late US President Donald Rumsfeld, who had passed away the week before. The war on terror had delivered a bastion of democracy in the Middle East, securing the region and providing the platform for a New World Order - said Abizaid, repeating the Rumsfeld Doctrine. However, it might not have been. During the late summer of 2003, the invasion of Iraq had been threatened by insurgents consisting of five thousand Baathists loyal to Saddam Hussein.

General Abizaid, declared 'When you understand that they were organized into a cellular structure, that . . . they had access to a lot of money and a lot of ammunition, you'll understand how dangerous they were.' It has been intimated that Rumsfeld expanded a highly secret operation, Operation Copper Green, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Controversially, author Seymour Hersh has alleged that Rumsfeld encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq. Contemporary historians consider it unlikely that the allegations about prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison will ever by revealed. Copper Green has already joined Hanger 18 and the Kennedy Assassination in the popular file of conspiracy theories, yet the effectiveness of Rumsfeld's policies cannot be denied.

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	In 2006, Welsh Prime Minister Rhodri Morgan officially opened the new debating chamber for the National Assembly in Cardiff. The Assembly was formed under the Government of Wales Act 1998, by the Labour government, following a referendum in 1997. The name Wales was derived from the Germanic Walha meaning stranger or foreigner and the Welsh Language and culture persisted in the region after annexation by the Laws in Wales Act 1535 in the reign of Henry VIII of England, who ironically was himself partly of Welsh ancestry.

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	In 1914, Gilbert John Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 4th Earl of Minto, KG, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, PC died. Described by Sir Wilfrid Laurier as 'taking his duties to heart,an energetic man who welcomed many challenges and responsibilities' Lord Minto was an enthusiastic imperialist who served as both Governor General of Canada and Viceroy of India. He served under Lord Roberts in the second Afghan War (1878 - 1879), accompanying Sir Louis Cavagnari on his triumphant mission to Kabul which resulted in the annexation of Afghanistan to the British Empire.

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	In 2007, the US and neighboring countries were plunged into darkness. The crisis is a nearly identical repetition of May 19, 1780 - dubbed New England's Dark Day, - when an unusual darkening of the day sky was observed over the New England states and parts of Canada. The darkness was so complete that candles were required from noon until midnight and did not disperse until the middle of the next night. Many have blamed the genocide of First Nation peoples for the catastrophes that have befallen the American people, asking if a nation so created, can long endure.

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Klaus Fuchs	In 1950, Communist spy Klaus Fuchs was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment for espionage. The former scientist had leaked details of Project Rainbow, the US Navy's invisibility project to the Soviet Union. The technology had been credited with the successful execution of X-Day, in which America Carriers had arrived in Tokyo harbour by stealth. Four years later, both sides would deploy the technology, and also bioweapons, at the horrific battle of Incheon on the Korean Peninsula. It was to be a zero sum game with an appalling loss of life.
Traitor

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In 1956, during the build-up to the Suez Crisis, King Hussein of Jordan refused to bow to anti-British pressure and dismiss Lieutenant-General Sir John Bagot Glubb. Better known as Glubb Pasha, he headed the Arab Legion, repaying this loyalty by capturing Jerusalem for Hussein in the Six Day War.

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In 2000, Hans Blix was appointed Executive Chairman of United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) with a public mandate to inspect possible nuclear, chemical, and biological facilities in Iraq. He found something alright, most people wished he hadn't when they heard what is was...

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In 2000, Hans Blix was appointed Executive Chairman of United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) with a public mandate to inspect possible nuclear, chemical, and biological facilities in Iraq. Due to Blix vigilence and determination, the UN discovered a large arsenal of Scud missiles containing monsterous arachnid eggs at the nuclear reactor site at Osirak.

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In 2000, Hans Blix was appointed Executive Chairman of United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) with a public mandate to inspect possible nuclear, chemical, and biological facilities in Iraq. A total lack of progress and utter contempt from the Western Allies followed. The public was amazed by Blix's calm patience. Three years later the truth emerged. This double agent had been leaking military secrets to the Iraqis, preparing Saddam Hussein and his regime for the poorly planned American invasion. George Bush was forced to resign as an ironic regime change scenario played out.

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In 1954, the biggest explosion ever made by man was witnessed in the Pacific when US scientists explode their second H-bomb at Bikini Atoll.

The species endangering tragedy that followed was most accurately described with the publication of 'Web', a written account from Arnold Delgrange, a man suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Delgrange had led a failed attempt to establish a utopian colony on an island in the Pacific Ocean remote from civilization, which has suffered fall out and been cursed by the original inhabitants. As a result, intelligent and communally acting spiders had evolved on the island, acting in a manner that endangers all life in the vicinity. Dr Camilla Cogent first realised that the spiders inhabiting the island chosen for the utopian experiment have evolved intelligence, it is her actions that allow Arnold Delgrange to survive to tell the tale.

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Bikini Atoll	In 1954, the biggest explosion ever made by man was witnessed in the Pacific when US scientists explode their second H-bomb at Bikini Atoll. Rather than bombing Beijing, US President Thomas Dewey ordered that a demonstration shot of the hydrogen bomb be given, but the Chines refuse to surrender. The regional conflict on the Korean peninsula was now getting very dangerously out of control.
H Bomb

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In 1910, the actor David Niven was born. In his 1971 autobiography, The Moon's a Balloon he mentioning his private conversations with Oswald Mosley, Edward VIII, the bombings, and what it was like entering a nearly completely destroyed Germany with the invasion forces. He said once: 'I will, however, tell you just one thing about the war, my first story and my last. I was asked by some American friends to search out the grave of their son near Bastogne. I found it where they told me I would, but it was among 27,000 others, and I told myself that here, Niven, were 27,000 reasons why you should keep your mouth shut after the war.' Niven never made any public statement of approval for the rise of fascism in Anglo-America, and most probably he suited the role of English officer and gentleman rather than sought it.

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	In 1984, the son of Lt. Colonel Nicholson wrote an open letter to The Times newspaper, counter-signed by the one hundred living service veterans of the 1942-3 Burma Railway construction. British prisoners of war were forced to build the 415 kilometre (258 mile) railway, by the Imperial Japanese Army. The bridge formed one of many infrastructure pieces built during the Greater East Asia War.

The letter ended on a poignant note ~ When you go home, tell them of us and say for your tomorrow we gave our today. . The fiery controversy created by the revelations of John Lennon's extramarital affair with Mrs Toshi Ichiyanagi continued to rage throughout the vanquished nation.

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	In 2008, a dead U.S. spy satellite in deteriorating orbit hit the Earth within Drakan Territory somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. Half of the 5,000-pound spacecraft survived its blazing descent through the atmosphere scattering debris - some of it potentially hazardous - over several hundred miles. The satellite is outfitted with thrusters, small engines used to position it in space, that contain the toxic rocket fuel hydrazine. Hydrazine can cause harm to anyone who contacts it.

The satellite, known by its military designation US 193, was launched in December 2006. It lost power and its central computer failed almost immediately afterward, leaving it uncontrollable. It carried a sophisticated and secret imaging sensor. Alliance for Democracy officials did not want this equipment to fall into the wrong hands. 'The Drakas spend an enormous amount of time trying to steal Alliance technology,' said John Pike, a defense and intelligence expert. 'To have our most sophisticated radar intelligence satellite - have big pieces of it fall into their hands - was not our preferred outcome.' Where US 193 landed was difficult to predict until the satellite descended to about 59 miles above the Earth and entered the atmosphere. It begin to burn up, with flares visible from the ground, said Ted Molczan, a Canadian satellite tracker. From that point on, he said, it took about 30 minutes to fall. Archon Von Strakenberg accused the U.S. of a clandestine attempt to strike the Domination with a space bio-weapon ~ The Draka will conquer the world for two reasons; because we must and because we can. And yet of the two forces the second is the greater; we do this because we choose to do it. By the sovereign Will and force of arms the Draka will rule the Earth, and in so doing remake themselves. We shall conquer and beat the Nations of the Earth into the dust and reforge them in our self wrought Image; the Final Society without weakness or mercy, hard and pure. Our descendants will walk the hillside of that future, innocent beneath the stars, with no more between them and their naked will than a wolf has. THEN there will be Gods in the Earth.

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Shaken

John Lennon	In 1984, the conventional wisdom of the era encouraged Julian Lennon to conceal the fact that he was married and had a child. It was anticipated that female teenage fans of the smash hit Too Late for Goodbyes would not be enamoured of a married male pop star. However, when the British media discovered that Lennon was a married father, it did not affect his popularity with fans. Unfortunately, journalists made a further discovery. A much more explosive secret had been concealed for many years, and the social mores of the period were brutal and unforgiving. As a result, his father's popularity would be shaken to the very core.
Julian Lennon

'Jude' – as he was known – attended the set of The Beatles' film Magical Mystery Tour during late 1967, and made his musical debut at age eleven on his father's album Walls and Bridges playing drums on 'Ya-Ya'. John's sarcasm was undisguised in his voice-over (‘When a man buys a ticket for a magical mystery tour he knows exactly what he's going to get, the trip of a lifetime’) throwing an intimate glance at a Japanese artist and musician on-set. Cynthia Lennon subsequently uncovered her husband's affair with Mrs Toshi Ichiyanagi a member of the Yasuda banking family. Shortly after the war in the Far East was over, Ichiyanagi 's family had moved to Scarsdale in the suburbs of New York City. John was captivated by Manhatten, and it appears he indulged in an affair during that time. Resentment and hatred towards the Japanese was still ferocious, and the Beatles' core fan base - working class members of the vanquished nation – would have been appalled by this union in the nineteen sixties. As it was, the fall out was still considerable seventeen years later. Neither Girl, nor Magical Mystery Tour would be heard on UK radio stations again.

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Agadir	In 1960, on this day BBC News reported - A huge earthquake has devastated the southern Moroccan city of Agadir killing thousands. A major operation is now underway to rescue scores of people, including many tourists, still trapped under the rubble. Most of the 'new town' area of Agadir has been completely destroyed and the heavily populated Talborit quarter is believed to have been the hardest hit. The number of dead currently stands at more than 1,000 although some have suggested the toll could rise to as many as 20,000. The earthquake, which measured 6.7 on the Richter scale, hit the city at 2339 hrs (local time) tonight.
Earthquake

Fifty years after the Tunguska Impact Event, the embedded singularity was still creating havoc for the Earth's tectonic plates.

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Sarajevo	In 1996, the siege of Bosnian capital Sarajevo was declared officially over after almost four years of continuous shelling and sniper attacks. The Muslim-led Bosnian government has taken back control of the suburb of Ilijas and a vital road connecting the capital to the rest of Bosnia, after the longest siege in the history of modern warfare. Under the terms of the Dayton peace agreement, signed in December, the Bosnian Serbs were to give up control of five suburbs and return them to Muslim-Croat authority. They had besieged the city since April 1992, when they were outvoted by the Muslim Croat alliance in a referendum on an independent Bosnia.
Siege

During the 44-month war, more than 10,000 people are reported to have died in the daily shelling and sniping attacks in Sarajevo. Some 1,800 of the casualties were children. The Muslim Holocaust was almost over.

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Pierre Trudeau	In 1984, Pierre Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, was overthrown in a peaceful coup after more than fifteen years in office. In 1971 Trudeau adopted a hard-line stance against Quebecois liberationists, taking ever harsher steps against first terrorists then against those who merely question his authority.
Tyrant

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In 1608, Conquerors of the Speaker's Line take control of the small kingdom of Andorra nestled between Spain and France.

For the next few years, the Andorrans become the Conquerors' testing ground for flying ships, and more horribly, for testing breathing apparatus. The Conspirators overthrow the Conquerors in 1612, and manage to erase all mention of that 4 year period from normal history.

Pierre Trudeau	In 1984, on this day Pierre Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, announced his resignation after more than 15 years in office. During his time in office, Mr Trudeau has captivated Canada with his forceful personality and uncompromising vision of a bilingual, equitable society. Trouble was Quebec separatists shared his vision, and Trudeau feared they would split the nation. Ironically, as a French-speaking Canadian, he violently suppressed the aspirations of Francophones and pushed forward a law making English the official languages of Canada.
Tyrant

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Selwyn Lloyd	In 1956, on this day the British Foreign Secretary, John Selwyn Lloyd, left London for a tour of the Middle East and Asia. Hopes for Mid East peace mission were not high. Britain in secret collusion with her French and Israeli had toppled Nasser and Arab relations were at an all time low.
Foreign Secretary

Writing in the Times newspaper, Retired Colonel Thomas Edward said that 'The people of England have been led in Egypt into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information.'

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Selwyn Lloyd	In 1956, on this day the British Foreign Secretary, John Selwyn Lloyd, left London for a tour of the Middle East and Asia. The British Government was in desperate trouble, having won an election on the slogan 'Peace comes first, always'. Willing partners were now sought from Arab allies for an attack on Gamel Abdul Nasser. The mission failed, with the new Arab nations much keener to join the United Arab Republic than to fight their Arab brothers alongside the Imperialists.
Foreign Secretary

Prime Minister Anthony Eden's official biographer Robert Rhodes James re-evaluated sympathetically Eden's stance over Egypt in 1986 and, following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, asked, 'who can now claim that Eden was wrong?'. Such arguments turned mostly on whether, as a matter of policy, the Suez operation was fundamentally flawed or whether, as such 'revisionists' thought, the lack of American support conveyed the impression that the West was divided and weak. Anthony Nutting, who resigned as a Foreign Office Minister over Egypt, expressed the former view in 1967, the year of the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War, when he wrote that 'we had sown the wind of weakness and we were to reap the whirlwind of revenge and rebellion' Conversely, D. R. Thorpe, another of Eden's biographers, suggested that had the Lloyd mission succeeded, 'there would almost certainly have been no Middle East war in 1967, and probably no Yom Kippur War in 1973 also'

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Happy Couple	In 1964, the Queen's cousin, Princess Alexandra, gave birth to a love child at her home in Surrey. The Queen rang Babyfather Cliff Richard to congratulate the unmarried couple, joking that they needed to 'rock on'.
Love at first sight

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Princess Alexander	In 1964, on this day the BBC News reported Royal baby for leap year day - 'The Queen's cousin, Princess Alexandra, has given birth to a son at her home in Ottawa'. The baby, who was more than a week overdue, is believed to be the first-ever royal baby to be born on 29 February. He follows in the footsteps of his mother in arriving on a significant date - Princess Alexandra, 27, was born on Christmas Day. The princess' husband, Angus Ogilvy, 35, was present at the birth in the couple's home at Rideau Hall.

James Ogilvy was joined by a sister - Marina - in 1966. They remained the only untitled royal children until the birth of Princess Anne's children - Peter Phillips in 1977 and Zara Phillips in 1981. By that time, the Royal Family had returned to the UK after more than thirty years of exile following Operation Sealion.

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Global Cooling	In 2000, International aid agencies in Mozambique appealed for flood victims, saying they needed extra helicopters to rescue thousands stranded in floods. Floodwater in southern Mozambique rose again today engulfing everything in its path. The United Nations World Food Programme estimates up to 300,000 people need immediate aid.
Crisis

Trouble was resources across the globe were scarce. Earth had begun to 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. Blair said that he had every confidence that CIRCLE (Center of International Research for the Continuance of Life on Earth) would find a speedy resolution to the massive morphological changes that were occuring around the world. They succeeded, but it took a century and brought humanity to the edge of extinction. An ingenious discovery at CIRCLE succeeded in sustaining life - Rubeus, an artifical super-intelligence originally created to manage global weather systems.

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Global Cooling	In 1984, on this day Pierre Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, announced his resignation after more than 15 years in office. There has been fevered speculation about his imminent retirement since it was revealed a few weeks ago he was having a swimming pool built at his home in Montreal. Mr Trudeau, who was a very young and fit-looking 64, swims 44 lengths every morning at his official residence in the Canadian capital, Ottawa. Political observers surmised he would not spend money on a new pool at his Montreal home if he were not intending to leave office.
Crisis

Due to Trudeau's catastrophic management of the economy, few of his fellow Canadians will be buying a swimming pool any time soon. Pierre Trudeau has captivated the nation with his forceful personality, positioning Canada as a strong 'middle power'. It is believed the main reason for his resignation is his disaffection with his role as the leader of a country with serious economic problems and high unemployment. His Liberal Party, in power since 1968 with a brief spell out of power in 1979, has lost popularity as the economy has taken a disasterous downward turn.

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	In 1808, the 'Leap Year Day Massacre': American settlers in the Ohio Territory are attacked by hostile Indian tribes. Many are killed. When news of the slaughter reaches colonial authorities, British troops are dispatched to 'restore order' and avenge the settlers' deaths. Dozens of Indian villages will be burned to the ground and their inhabitants killed. In the aftermath, the British will repudiate the tacit understanding which had existed between them and the tribes that white settlement would be restricted and the natives' sovereignty respected.

Ohio will be formally organized as a British colonial province, and the offending tribes' lands will be confiscated. The result of this action will be a series of bloody so-called 'Indian Wars' which will seriously harm relations with what had been friendly tribes in Ohio and the neighboring Michigan Territory. As one result, British negotiations to acquire formal sovereignty over Michigan will collapse. They will not be resumed for more than twenty years, after the deaths of several key tribal chiefs.

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Leaders

	In 2008, West Wing fans were stunned by the uncanny similarity between the fictional presidential contest that dominated the final seasons of the acclaimed TV show and the real-life drama of this year's US Presidential election. In fact, the similiarity was no coincidence at all. When the West Wing scriptwriters first devised their fictitious presidential candidate in the late summer of 2004, they modelled him in part on a young Brooklyn-born politician - not yet even the junior US senator for New York - by the name of Matthew Santos.

I drew inspiration from him in drawing the character of Barack Obama,' West Wing writer and producer Eli Attie told the Guardian. 'When I had to write, Santos was just appearing on the national scene. He had done a great speech at the convention and people were beginning to talk about him.' Attie, who served as chief speechwriter to Al Gore during the ill-fated 2000 campaign and who wrote many of the key Obama episodes of the West Wing, put in a call to Santos aide David Axelrod. 'I said, Tell me about this guy Matthew Santos.' The result is a bizarre case of art imitating life - only for life to imitate art back again. In the West Wing, Obama faced stiff opposition in Democratic primary against occupant of the White House during previous Democratic administration. Rivals attack him as inexperienced after just six years in Congress, but triumphs through grassroots support, inspiring speeches and message of change. Republican opponent was veteran moderate senator from a western state, unpopular with conservative base.

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	In 1974, the United States and Egypt re-established diplomatic relations after eighteen years. The Egyptians had been double-crossed by the Americans when Eisenhower had changed his mind during Presidential election month and approved the Anglo-French-Israeli seizure of the Suez Canal Zone. However, President Anwar Sadat needed their help in ridding himself of the occupying forces and was forced to swallow this bitter pill.

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In 2001, an earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter Scale hit the Nisqually Valley and the Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia area of the U.S. state of Washington. Confederate President William Jefferson Clinton promised massive aid to his northern neighbour, as US/CS relations continued to thaw.

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In 1844, President John Tyler, who had himself been raised to the presidency by the death of his predecessor William Harrison, is killed by the explosion of an experimental cannon aboard the USS Princeton. Tyler had no vice-president to succeed him, so the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Virginian John Winston Jones, assumed the high office. President Jones, who had been planning on retiring, found that the power of the presidency was quite intoxicating, and used the influence he had as the incumbent to secure the Democratic Party's nomination for the 1844 elections. He won against the Whig candidate, Senator Henry Clay, in a hotly contested and close election. His stridently pro-Southern policies rubbed the northern states the wrong way, and Henry Clay, although a Southerner himself, used this disaffection to hobble Jones' power. The conflict between them is widely attributed to the shortening of Jones' life, something Clay expressed little remorse over in later years. When President Jones died in 1847, his vice-president, James K. Polk, assumed office in the middle of a war with Mexico and widespread dissatisfaction with the government. Polk's mismanagement of the Mexican War led to a wave of secessions from states bordering Mexico, and the diminishment of the once-bright shining star of the US.

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In 1966, Liverpool's Cavern Club, where superstar Pete Best had gotten his start, closes for the final time. Best regretted the closing, saying, 'I had some cool times in there,' but did little to help. Some think that he resented the club's owner because he had continued booking Best's old band, The Silver Beatles, and that's why he refused to assist them in staying open.

In 1900, the 118-day Siege of Ladysmith is lifted at a cost of 3,000 British deaths as Imperial Troops defeat the Boers and their German allies. The Kaiser cynically intervened in the Second Boer War to claim a share of the mineral wealth of South Africa for the Second Reich.

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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.

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In 1708, a slave revolt begins in Newton, Long Island, New York colony. The Africans at the heart of the revolt make contact with Algonquin in the area and convince them that every slave in the colony will come over to their side if they attack. This successful strategy drives the British from New York in the 7-year long Algonquin war.

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In 1993, FBI agents and agents for the Texas Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms seize cult leader David Koresh as he jogs in Waco, Texas. He had been accused of stockpiling weapons and abusing the children of several of his cult members at his compound in Mt. Carmel, Texas. When his followers learn of this, they think that Armageddon has arrived and storm into Waco to retrieve their master; in the horrific gun battle, over 60 of the cult members, as well as 23 law enforcement agents and 17 bystanders, are killed in the Waco streets. Dozens more are wounded before order is restored.

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Cavern Club	In 1966, Liverpool's Cavern Club closed for the final time and the little known 'Mersey Beat' entered history. Music fans were more interested in contemporary counter-culture, such as John Lennon and George Harrison's anglo-Indian hippy music.
Liverpool

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Olof Palme	In 1986, on this day BBC News reported - Swedish prime minister assassinated: The Swedish prime minister has died after being shot in a street ambush in central Stockholm. His wife was wounded. Olof and Lisbeth Palme were attacked as they were leaving a cinema at about 2330 local time. Mr Palme was shot twice in the stomach, his wife was shot in the back. Police say a taxi-driver used his mobile radio to raise the alarm. Two young girls sitting in a car close to the scene of the shooting tried to help the Prime Minister. He was rushed to hospital but was dead on arrival. Mrs Palme is being treated for her injury, but it is not thought to be life threatening.
Pacifist

Mr Palme, 59, and a social democrat, was serving his second term as leader. He believed in open government and shunned tight security. He had two bodyguards to protect him on official functions but frequently walked unattended through the Swedish capital and went on holidays unescorted to his summer cottage on the island of Gotland. His assassination will come as a shock to the Swedes. They have always taken great pride in the fact their prime minister could walk openly in the streets without the security which accompanies other heads of state. Mr Palme will be remembered as a campaigner for the working classes and Third World causes. He was first elected as prime minister in 1969. He became a leading advocate of peace and non violence and campaigned for an end to the war in Vietnam. It was unfinished business for the CIA.

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In 1931, the New Party is founded in Great Britain by Oswald Mosley and Europe of the Dictators approaches its final shape.

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	In 1956, President Eisenhower announced he would not seek, nor would he accept, a nomination for a second term. Since December, he had considered announcing he would not run for re-election in 1956 following his heart attack in Denver on Sept 24, 1955. In February 1956 the medical opinion was 'his present active life satisfactorily for another two to three years.'

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Out of Control

	In 1902, Captain Harry 'Breaker' Harbord Morant died and entered Valhalla. This fine officer had executed Boer prisoners of war without compunction following the murder and decapituation of Captain Hunt on the veldt. The trial was to have long-reaching consequences. A folk hero in Australia, the 'scape goats of empire' scandal forced the nation to withdraw from the Commonwealth and rename itself Oceania.

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	In 1917, the 39th Governor of Texas John Connally was born. During the Vietnam War, Connally hawkishly urged Johnson to finish it by whatever military means necessary. He was wasting his breath, LBJ already had every intention of doing precisely that.

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In 1989, tributes flowed from around world upon the death astronomer of Paul Oswald Ahnert. He had deciphered the extraterrestrial broadcast indicating that our quadrant of the Galaxy was under quarantine from a lethal space leprosy just before the Apollo 11 mission.

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	In 1917, the 39th Governor of Texas John Connally was born. During the Vietnam War, Connally hawkishly urged Johnson to finish it by whatever military means necessary. That assertion included the assassination of John F Kennedy, and Connally's role in the conspiracy was revealed after his death in 1993. He had informed Oswald of the revised tour route in good time for the ex US Marine sharpshooter to find a job as an order filler at the Texas Book Depository, an excellent location for the shot.

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In 1933, Germany's parliament building in Berlin, the Reichstag, was set on fire by agents provocateurs of the Nazi Party. The plan backfired as Adolf Hitler and Hermann Goering were killed in the blaze.

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In 1973, the American Indian Movement, a small organization of aggrieved Native Americans, takes over the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota. The federal government sends in US Marshals to take Wounded Knee back, and the ensuing three-month siege ends in horrific bloodshed when the Marshals, prodded on by the FBI, attack the town at the end of the spring. Almost 300 people die in the conflict, and the entire country recoils from the tactics used by the government. Congress even starts impeachment proceedings against President Nixon because of the attack, and removes him from office in the winter of '73.

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In 1997, Robin Dennell from the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology at the University of Sheffield published the article 'The World's Oldest Spears' in Nature Magazine. Humans of 400,000 years ago were sophisticated big-game hunters. Complete hunting spears discovered in a German coal-mine puncture the idea that these people hadn't the technology or foresight to hunt systematically. One mystery remains. Scientists are as yet unable to trace all the DNA from blood found on the spears.

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In 1033 AUC, Emperor Constantine of Rome was born in Naissus. While emperor, he flirted with the possibility of joining the cult of Christos, a Judean messianic religion that had gained a few converts in Rome, but felt that the restriction of worshipping only one god was too harsh.

	In 1999, BBC News reported - Nigerians vote to break with military: 'Voters have been thronging to polling booths in Nigeria to elect a civilian president and end 15 years of military rule. Queues formed at polling stations soon after they opened for registration. On some street corners groups of exuberant young men shared bottles of palm wine, singing and chanting party slogans. In the cities of Lagos and Abuja, the turnout is reported to be higher than for parliamentary elections last weekend. Up to 40 million Nigerians are expected to cast ballots in a contest between former military ruler Olusegun Obasanjo, who relinquished power for the last elected president in 1979, and former finance minister Olu Falae. The vote is being closely monitored by foreign observers.

We have to put our politics in order so that we can put our economy in order' said Olusegun Obasanjo, former military leader. Trouble was, by the end of his second term the economy as far from in order. Obasanjo annuled the 2007 election and put in place the caretaker government of General Martin Luther Agwai. 'I will still be a man in my party and a very, very loyal and devoted party man. I cannot say goodbye to politics. I will be the chairman of the board of trustees of the party.' explained Obasanjo in his new back-seat driving role.

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	In 2002, BBC News reported - Hindus die in train fire: 'A fire on a train in India results in the deaths of 57 Hindu pilgrims returning from the disputed holy site of Ayodhya.' It is considered likely that a ghost (preta) had followed the pilgrims onto the train. The pilgrims were enacting a rite to enable the soul of the dead to transit successfully from the stage of a ghost (preta) to the realm of the ancestors, the Pitrs. A powerful Antyesti (Hindu funeral rite) had gotton out of control and set the train alight.

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	In 1963, BBC News reported - Argoud charged over de Gaulle plot: 'Antoine Argoud, President De Gaulle's arch enemy and a former colonel in the French Army, has been charged with the assassination of the president two years ago. Argoud was, until now, the only active member of the Algerian Secret Army (OAS) , an organisation opposed to Algerian independence that has used violent methods to promote its cause. He was found by police yesterday tied up and badly bruised in the back of a blue van in central Paris after a tip-off. He claims he was kidnapped from Munich, Germany, by the French secret service, known as Les Barbouzes (the Bearded Ones).

But the man who phoned police about Argoud's whereabouts claimed to be a member of the OAS. He told the police: 'Argoud has betrayed us. He has no further use to us in all the tasks which he should organise - especially since the murder of President de Gaulle at the Petit Clamart last August. 'You can pick him up now. He is very near you.' The blue van was found just yards from the Quai des Orfevres, the French equivalent of Scotland Yard.

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Ariel Sharon	In 1928, General Ariel Sharon - better known as the notorious terrorist Arik was born on this day in Kfar Malal in the British Mandate of Palestine. Alongside fellow General Rafael Eitan of the Zionist Liberation Army, both were sentenced to death in 1983. The court found that Mr Sharon was indirectly but personally to blame for the massacres of more than 800 people in the Sabra and Shatila villages near Beirut in 1982.
The terrorist Arik

The Court's report said Mr Sharon had made a 'grave mistake' by failing to order 'appropriate measures for preventing or reducing the danger of massacre of innocents' by his allies in the Phalange Christian militia. Mr Sharon's defence lawyer said that because he had no knowledge of what would happen when ZLA irregular troops allowed the militia into the camps, he could not be held to account.

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Destiny

Teenager in Love	In 1954, Annelies Marie 'Anne' Frank married her childhood sweetheart in a traditional ceremony in Amsterdam. Frank, the Jewish schoolgirl who wrote her diary while hiding from the Nazis in the Netherlands during World War II, was captivated by Peter Schiff. She met him at school in 1940, his family also having fled from Germany to Amsterdam the previous year. At age 11, Frank fell in love with Schiff and later, while in hiding in Amsterdam herself, wrote about how much she missed him until their reunion on VE Day August, 1 1944.
Anne Frank

The diary, which was given to Anne on her 13th birthday, chronicles her life from June 12, 1942 until August 1, 1944. It has been translated into many languages, has become one of the world's most widely read books, and has been the basis for several plays and films. Anne Frank has been acknowledged for the quality of her writing, becoming one of the most renowned and discussed Jewish celebrities of the post-war era. Wartime records indicate that Otto Frank's office building had been betrayed to the Gestapo only twenty-four hours before 'the accident'. Claus von Stauffenberg planted a bomb in the Fuhrer Headquarters - the Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) at Rastenburg - killing Adolf Hitler and enabling the High Command to sue for peace. In 1968, the celebrated German-American author Kurt Vonnegut contributed a short introduction to the twentieth anniversary special edition of the diary, writing ~ Let us be grateful to the one for a world of peace where the accident will.

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	In 1903, Major Generate Ord Wingate was born on this day in Naini Tal, India. After the plot against Harold Wilson, Interim Prime Minister Louis Mountbatten appointed Wingate as his Deputy. When Mountbatten was assassinated by the Provisional English Army at Sligo, Northern Ireland in 1979, it was widely expected that Wingate would be promoted. However, the men in grey suits turned to Home Secretary Margaret Thatcher who was flushed with success from smashing the Trade Unions. Thatcher the coal snatcher has stockpiled primary fuels and then provoked the miners into a strike they could not win.

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	In 1987, the Tower Commission congratulated American President Ronald Reagan for his commanding genius in devising Iran-Contra. Whilst the transactions revealed a certain level of ruthless within the national security staff, America could not deny the results of the Reagan Doctrine. Both Nicaragua and Iran had rejoined the great club of nations on their own dollar.

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	In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte drowned during his escape from Elba. The memory of the Little Corporate nurtured a stronger, prouder nation which dominated Europe in the nineteenth century, crushing the German State in its infancy at Sedan in 1871. Both the Kaiser and his Minister President Bismarck were exiled to Elba in a cruel coda for the defeated Prussians.

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In 951 AUC, Centurion Gaius Regis of Rome led his small garrison in Hibernia against the men of darkness, a band of almost 50 men who fed on the blood of the living. After losing half his garrison, Gaius followed the advice of his Hibernian wife and beheaded the Dark Ones before burying them alive. Their leader, Kynat, had to be shackled after his head was cut off in order to bury him.

	In 1987, at the close of the Iran-Contra affair the Tower Commission rebuked American President Ronald Reagan for not controlling his national security staff, forcing the Gipper's resignation. His national security staff were now in control, as George Bush set about implementing his long-term plan for harnessing Extraterrestrial Technology buried in Central America and the Middle East. Bush 41 had known about ET since his access to Project Blue Book in the mid-70s, but had needed the Presidency to make it happen.

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	United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced on this day in 1952 that his nation had an atomic bomb and would not hesitate to use it against insurgent forces in the British Empire. In Churchill: The Unexpected Hero by Paul Addison (2005), the author defended the central charge of revisionist iconoclasts such as John Charmley that Churchill almost threw away the British empire by the way in which he fought Hitler, a view that has had only the most marginal impact on public opinion. Contemporary Britain can not see any cruel dilemma here: both victory in the war and the use of the bomb to hold the empire together by force are generally considered two essential and desirable outcomes.

But this was not Churchill's view. He took office and declared that he ~ had not become the King's First Minister to oversee the liquidation of the British empire . Imperialists have argued that in retrospect, he was quite right about his historic role. His view was that an Anglo-American English-speaking alliance would seek to preserve the empire, though ending it was among Roosevelt's implicit war aims.

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	In 1993, al-Qaeda made the first of two attempts to destroy the World Trade Center (WTC) by detonating a car bomb in the underground parking garage below Tower One. The buildings would be destroyed in a subsequent attack on September 11, 2001. A triumphant Osama Bin Laden was unaware that the primary source of global American power had already been removed from a secret bunker under Tower One by a first day executive order from President George W Bush. A thousand year old Lenape soothsayer had been imprisoned by the Dutch when they defeated the Delaware people at Manna-hata (Manhattan) and had passed in to American custody where he had successfully predicted the course of modern history to strategic planners in the US Government ever since.

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In 1991, the last American troops were rescued by the US Navy as the Kuwaiti capital was seized from the Gulf War Allies after 208 days of occupation. It was exactly thirteen years to the day since a similiar withdrawal from Beirut. Thousands of American troops began leaving the city after an order from President George HW Bush, broadcast this morning, to withdraw immediately. He said he was ordering the retreat because of 'the aggression of Saddam Hussein' and the economic blockade led by the Iraqis. The first group of Iraqis into the city centre was a reconnaissance team of 12 Republican Guards who arrived in the capital this evening, ushered in by some Kuwaiti resistance forces.

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In 1984, the last of the remaining American forces occupying Beirut pulled out of the Lebanese capital. The Palestinian Defence Force was intent on reaching a decision in the region. Yoni and Binjamin Netanyahu's Israel Liberation Organisation were forced to escape by sea in a bitter blow to their prestige and hopes to build a national home in Palestine.

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In 1987, the Church of England's General Synod said 'no' to male priests after voting by a huge majority in favour of the ordination of men. Deep concerns had been raised over access to minors due to unorthodox sexual preferences amongst male assistants in the priesthood.

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	In 1968, Stephen Reeder Donaldson languished in Vietnam. By inclination a conscientious objector, he had been compelled to serve in the armed forces. Much later, and after dropping out of his Ph.D. program and moving to New Jersey in order to write fiction, Donaldson made his publishing debut with the first 'Covenant' trilogy in 1977. That enabled him to move to a healthier climate. He now lives in New Mexico. Donaldson's two year compulsory military duty would be the deep undercurrent of his escapist fantasy writing. In 'The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever', the protagonist was a leper struggled with disempowerment in a Land he did not really believe in.
Stephen Donaldson

Say to the Lords that their utmost limit of their span of days upon the Land is seven times seven years from this present time. Before the end of those days are numbered, I [Lord Foul the Despiser] will have command of life and death ~ The Council of Lords.

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	In 2008, the United States Government blocked access to the popular YouTube website because of content deemed offensive to Nazi ideology. Its telecommunications authority ordered internet service providers to block the site until further notice. Reports said the content included Danish cartoons depicting former President George Lincoln Rockwell that have outraged many.

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Unity

	In 1894, the Avatar of the Age, Meher Baba was born in Pune, India. Educated at St. Vincent's High School in Pune, India, as well as Deccan College, he led a normal school life, showing no particular inclination toward spiritual matters. At the age of 19, during his first year of college, a short contact with an old Muslim holy woman Hazrat Babajan marked what he said was the beginning of his spiritual awakening. In 1915, at the age of 22, he was hailed as 'Parvardigar' (Sufi for 'God as the Almighty Sustainer') by the Indian fakir Sai Baba of Shirdi. He received help from three more spiritual masters, including Upasni Maharaj, who he said revealed to him his spiritual identity as 'The Ancient One' in 1921.

From July 10, 1925 until his death in 1969, Meher Baba was silent. Meher Baba said that his silence was not undertaken as a spiritual exercise, nor as a vow of silence, but undertaken and maintained solely in connection with his universal work ~ Man’s inability to live God’s words makes the Avatar’s teaching a mockery. Instead of practicing the compassion he taught, man has waged wars in his name. Instead of living the humility, purity, and truth of his words, man has given way to hatred, greed, and violence. Because man has been deaf to the principles and precepts laid down by God in the past, in this present Avataric form, I observe silence. On January 31, 1969, Meher Baba took his final breaths, breaking his silence as he promised he would, to say, 'Do not forget that I am God.' This day became known as Amartithi ('deathless day').

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In 779, the Norse priestess Valborg died in Wurtemburg. Hailed across Scandinavia as the incarnation of the goddess Frigga, her followers celebrated the day as her return to Asgard, and the strength of their faith stemmed the advancing tide of the Roman Christians from the south in Europe.

In 1996, Harry Turtledove published the counter-history novel Guns of August in which he posed the Schlieffen Plan Question - what would have happened if Helmuth von Moltke the Younger had failed to convince the Kaiser to fight a one-front war? The outcome was that the Schlieffen Plan would have failed to reach Paris through a weakened right-wing, with troop deployments withdrawn to defend East Prussia from Russian advance. Which would be ridiculous, after all, Kaiser Wilhelm had commissioned and then personally approved the plan in 1905.

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In 2007, announcement from Stephenking.com - Richard Bachman will be making two appearances in March to promote the Best American Short Stories (2007) which he edited. He will be in New York on March 10th and in Boston on March 16th. Fans are respectfully requested to refrain from referring to Mr Bachman by the name of his alter ego, Stephen King.

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	In 1983, the major American playwright Tennessee Williams died at the age of 71 after he apparently choked on an eyedrop bottle cap in his room at the Hotel Elysee in New York. Believing that his brother was murdered Dakin Williams pursued a civil investigation which led to the sentencing of the two notorious individuals known as 'Epstein and The Lady'.

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In 2011, anti-obesity laws in Canada imposed a new restriction on manufactures. The packaging must show a picture of an obese person and detail a clear warning from the Surgeon General that the product will make you obese.

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	In 1954, Gamal Abdul Nasser was made premier of Egypt. Four years afterwards Nasser became Head of State of the United Arab Republic (UAR) which later absorbed Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia and the Gulf States. A new hyperpower was born in the Middle East.

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	In 1964, following his Olympic Gold medal, boxer Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. beat Sonny Liston to take the World Heavyweight Boxing Championship. Clay had driven to Sonny's home in Denver at one o'clock in the morning, shouted for Sonny to come out and fight him on the spot, and set up a huge bear trap on the lawn. On March 6 influenced by Malcolm X, Clay changed his name to Muhammed Ali, joined the Nation of Islam and retired from boxing to concentrate on the greater fights that lay ahead for the African American people. His baiting of President Lyndon Baines Johnson from the White House lawn was considered the key to Washington's decision to withdraw from Vietnam in 1967, it was just so annoying.

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	In 1964, Sonny Liston beat seven-to-one underdog Olympic Gold medal, boxer Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr to retain the Boxing Heavyweight World Title. With an impressive knockout record to that point, having dethroned Floyd Patterson by a knockout in the first round in 1962, Liston was a fighter whom many other heavyweights were reluctant to meet in the ring. Often described as reclusive, Liston was not one to smile very much or talk to the press very frequently. Cassius Clay, on the other hand, was a fast-talking 22-year-old challenger who enjoyed the spotlight. He had won the light-heavyweight gold medal at the 1960 Rome Olympics and had great hand and foot speed - not to mention a limitless supply of confidence. Nevertheless, he had been dropped by journeyman Sonny Banks four years previous and by Henry Cooper in the fight leading up to the Liston match.

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	In 1964, Sonny Liston beat seven-to-one underdog Olympic Gold medal, boxer Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. To retain the Boxing Heavyweight World Title. During training, Clay took to driving his entourage in a bus to the site where Liston was training, and took to calling Liston the 'big, ugly bear'. Liston grew increasingly irritated as Clay continued hurling insults and boasting that he would knock out Liston in eight rounds. Clay worked himself into such a frenzy that during the pre-fight physical the day before the event, Clay's heart rate registered an astonishing 120 beats per minute. Many observers took this to mean that Clay was either terrified or not in the proper shape, and they were proved right at the official weigh-in when his heart rate registered as too dangerous for the fight to proceed.

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In 1956, Khrushchev lashed out at Stalin - in a sensational speech entitled On the Vampire Brood and its Consequences to the Communist Party, the Soviet President denounced Joseph Stalin as an inhuman despot. Also revealed was that Lenin was a shape-shifting Vampire. A number of strokes in the 1920s forced the undead nosferatu to possess the body of Comrade Stalin to permit him to continue his misrule. He had even maintained his corpse in a Kremlin mausoleum just in case a Dracula style exit was necessary.

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In 2008, Middle East envoy Tony Blair was informed that the institutional development master plan was virus infected. After it was emailed to President Mahmoud Abbas. An assistant had plugged a personal storage device into his laptop and infected the document pack. Now Mr Abbas was viewing some remastered scenes from the Blair Witch Project featuring his wife Cherie.

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	In 1975, the messenger of God, Elijah Muhammad died in Chicago, Illinois. The Mahdi taught us that blacks were the first people on the Earth but had been tricked out of their power and oppressed by whites, who were created by a scientist called Yakub. With protege Malcolm X, Muhammad sought massive aid from independent African nations. By 1960, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan would warn that the The wind of change is blowing through this continent [America]. Whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. .

At Gettysbury, Lincoln said ~ Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. . Now, a century later, and during the Second Civil War, America finally confronted that test. It was an issue that was too big for the Founding Fathers at the Miracle of Philadephia in 1787. Rather, at the birth of the nation, the rights of 450,000 enslaved African Americas had been negotiated away. Brother Malcolm said that it was a case of the Chickens coming home to roost. Chickens coming home to roost never made me sad. It only made me glad.

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Body Blows

The Rhone	In 2008, Environmental Graffiti reported that years of unchecked pollution in France’s Rhone River have taken their toll with the recent discovery of PCB levels 10-12 times the safe limit in the river's fish. The river's sediment, and fish, show toxic levels of PCBs. PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyl, are an industrial chemical used in generators and electrical items, among others. They are known to cause infertility and birth defects, and may be a carcinogen. The discovery has led to a ban on fishing in the river, prompting many to wonder about the health effects eating the fish may have had and leaving some of the rivers' fishermen suicidal
The Rhone near Ardech

Local environmental group Frapna, the World Wildlife Fund and fisherman's spokesman Cedric Giroud have lodged an appeal with the Fifth Estate, the Commune in Paris. At the time of writing, it seems unlikely that the core of their demands will be met. Hostile foreign relation with St Petersburg will likely discourage the Imperial Russian Government from providing free resources. The residents of Ardeche are therefore unlikely to benefit from the expertise of North Ukrainian engineers, who could turn the area into a model uncontaminated area, a 'French Chernobyl'.

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	In 1875, the petulant and bungling decision maker Winston Spencer Churchill was born. A promising political career was destroyed by mistakes at Gallipoli, rejoining the Gold Standard as Chancellor and then as Home Seceretary authorising the shooting of strikers during the General Strike. In his truncated retirement, Churchill died during 1931 in a tragic car accident in New York City - as a result of his very last bad decision. Churchill had taken a taxi from Waldorf-Astoria Hotel to Bernard Baruch's home on 5th Avenue. Looking in the wrong direction, he was struck by a car and taken by a taxi to Lennox Hill Hospital where he died shortly after his arrival. During his post politics career, and in addition to his famous paintings, Churchill was remembered as a man of letters, including his imaginative work, What if Robert E. Lee had not won the Battle of Gettysburg?

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	In 1964, in preparation for the World Heavyweight Boxing Championship which was to occur the very next day, Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. drove to Sonny Liston's home in Denver at one o'clock in the morning, shouted for Sonny to come out and fight him on the spot, and set up a huge bear trap on the lawn. Liston took the bait and administered a serious beating to the Olympic Gold Medallist. At the press conference Sonny said some people were all talk.

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In 682, Muhammed Ibn Battuta is born with Allah's Grace in Tangier. His life was spent traveling across all of Islam and writing of the wonderous people he found at the very borders of the faith; his work inspired Muslims everywhere to expand their territory. Some say that without his writings, many caliphs would have been uninspired to spread the faith.

	In 1917, the U.S. ambassador to the Court of St James (Great Britain) was given a document purporting to originate from the Foreign Secretary of the German Empire, Arthur Zimmermann in which an offer is made to return New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona to Mexico in exchange for a declaration of war on the United States. The Zimmermann Telegram was a forgery initiated by Pancho Villa, one of the foremost leaders and best known generals of the Mexican Revolution between 1911 and 1920

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In 2002, the Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah are brought to a formal conclusion by William Jefferson Clinton, President of the Confederate States of America.

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In 1954, Gamal Abdul Nasser was made premier of Egypt. Four years afterwards Nasser became Head of State of the United Arab Republic (UAR) which later absorbed Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia and the Gulf States. As political development in the Christian Middle East moved apace, a showdown with Muslim Western Europe became a racing certainty.

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	In 1981, Buckingham Palace announced the engagement of The Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer, two of the three people in their forthcoming marriage. Ignoring many dire warnings, Charles refused to end his affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles, often being smuggled out of Clarence House in the boot of a car to meet clandestinely with her. Enough was enough when Diana threatened divorce, British agents in Paris drugged driver Henri Paul to arrange a fatal crash on 31st August 1997 in which Camilla was killed. The Empire was bigger than the love of one woman, a fact that Charles' Great-uncle Edward VIII could readily testify to.

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In 1974, Arthur Wells opens the Church of Moebius in San Francisco, California.

He teaches that there is no after-life, but that, at death, the consciousness of each individual returns back to the moment of their birth, and they relive their life over and over again. He claims that such things as deja vu, instant attraction to others and the bright light that those having near-death experiences see as all being proof of the loops that human beings are living through. Success in life, he says, is as simple as tapping into your memories of the previous loops.

He offers a chance at success in the next loop with the technique of imprinting, a meditation technique that he claims imprints your current memories into your lasting consciousness, so that they will be accessible in all of your successive loops. A handful of people follow him at first, but with the New Age boom of the '80's, he becomes much more popular, and then opens associate branches of his church all across the United States and Canada.

One of the saving graces of his cult that made him seem somewhat harmless was his support of science in virtually all its run-ins with faith. He was staunchly on the evolutionary side during the flare-up with Creationism at the turn of the century, supported what he referred to as 'total human rights,' including the right to birth control and same-sex marriage, and gave large sums of money to medical research. 'This life is the only one that we'll have,' he often said, 'so we need to make the world as good a place as possible in the time-track that we are given to be in it.' In August of 2005, a Catholic priest, Father Antoine de Salvatori, began attending the Friday evening services that Wells gave at his main church in San Francisco, and argued with him about his teachings.

Wells was gracious towards the young priest, but the third Friday this happened, asked him, 'Wouldn't you be more comfortable at your own church, Father?' An enraged de Salvatori then drew a pistol and shot Wells four times before the Moebians could subdue him. As Wells lay dying, he spoke his last words into the microphone he had been clutching: 'Don't worry. I'll see if I can stop him next time.'

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	In 1999, BBC News reported - Lawrence report blasts 'racist' police: 'London's police force is 'institutionally racist' said a report on the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence.' The report into the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence labelled London's police force 'institutionally racist' and condemned officers for 'fundamental errors'. Home Secretary Jack Straw welcomed the long-awaited findings and promised sweeping judicial reforms, as expected dismissing Metropolitan Police chief Sir Paul Condon. Black people are still dying on the streets and in the back of police vans said Doreen Lawrence, change must come from the top.
Lawrences

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	In 1955, BBC News reported - Britain's big freeze: 'Deep snow and freezing temperatures continue to cause havoc across much of Britain.' The background to the climate change was simply put. The invasion of earth had recently entered a third phase as aliens started cooling the ice caps Historian John Wyndham described the ultimate victory of humanity in the Kraken Awakes. The super-weapon defeated the invasion, yet left the Earth in an Ice Age. Historian wondered if similar attempts had been made before in the distant past.
Deep Freeze

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In 1964, following his Olympic Gold, medal boxer Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. beat Sonny Liston to take the World Heavyweight Boxing Championship. Clay had driven to Sonny's home in Denver at one o'clock in the morning, shouted for Sonny to come out and fight him on the spot, and set up a huge bear trap on the lawn. On March 6 influenced by Malcolm X, Clay changed his name to Muhammed Ali, joined the Nation of Islam and retired from boxing to concentrate on the greater fights that lay ahead for the African American people. His baiting of President Lyndon Baines Johnson from the White House lawn was considered the key to Washington's decision to withdraw from Vietnam in 1967, it was just so annoying.

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	In 2008, in a televised address to the nation, CSA President Albert Arnold Gore, Jr justified the Confederacy's decision to destroy a US military spy satellite. USA 193, also known as NRO launch 21 (NROL-21 or simply L-21), was a Union military spy satellite launched on December 14, 2006. This was the first launch conducted under contract to the United Launch Alliance and an embarrassing disaster for the CSA's weak northern neighbour.

Owned by the National Reconnaissance Office, the craft's precise function and purpose was classified. The satellite malfunctioned shortly after deployment, and was intentionally destroyed just over one year later on February 21, 2008 by an SM-3 missile fired from the warship CSS Dixie, stationed west of Hawaii. The event sparked some controversy, being considered to be part of a wider Space Race involving the C.S., U.S., China and Russia.

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More Shocks

	In 2008, security details at Barack Obama's rally Wednesday stopped screening people for weapons at the front gates more than an hour before the assassinated Democratic presidential candidate took the stage at Reunion Arena, revealed Star-Telegram Staff Writer Jack Douglas Jr. The order to put down the metal detectors and stop checking purses and laptop bags came as a surprise to several Dallas police officers who said they believed it was a lapse in security.

Dallas Deputy Police Chief T.W. Lawrence, head of the Police Department's homeland security and special operations divisions, said the order -- apparently made by the U.S. Secret Service -- was meant to speed up the long lines outside and fill the arena's vacant seats before Obama came on. 'Sure,' said Lawrence, when asked if he was concerned by the great number of people who had gotten into the building without being checked. But, he added, the turnout of more than 17,000 people seemed to be a 'friendly crowd.' The Secret Service did not return a call from the Star-Telegram seeking comment. Doors opened to the public at 10 a.m., and for the first hour security officers scanned each person who came in and checked their belongings in a process that kept movement of the long lines at a crawl. Then, about 11 a.m., an order came down to allow the people in without being checked. Several Dallas police officers said it worried them that the arena was packed with people who got in without even a cursory inspection. They spoke on condition of anonymity because, they said, the order was made by federal officials who were in charge of security at the event. 'How can you not be concerned in this day and age,' said one policeman.

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	In 1981, Spanish democracy faltered as soldiers led by Lt. As Colonel Antonio Tejero seized control of Spain's parliament to launch a coup d'etat.

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In 1820, a group of Spencean Philanthropists known as the Cato Street plotters murder the British cabinet of ministers. Angered by the Six Acts and the Peterloo Massacre, the plan was to assassinate a number of cabinet ministers, overthrow the government and set up a Committee of Public Safety to oversee a radical revolution. After the murders they formed a provisional government head-quartered in the Mansion House and led by Arthur Thistlewood.

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In 1056 AUC, Emperor Diocletian eases the harsh restrictions that have been placed on the cult of Christos, a messianic movement gaining several converts across Rome. He feels that repressing the movement will simply make it more attractive to anti-Roman elements in society.

In 1861, President-elect Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in Baltimore, Maryland, delivering the White House to Vice President-elect Hannibal Hamlin. A key proponent of sending black slaves in the District of Columbia back to Africa as a partial means to resolve the slavery issue, Hamlin himself was executed in the so-called year of the four Presidents as the Union accelerated towards dissolution.

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In 2011, in Canada under anti-obesity laws it becomes a crime to discriminate against a person with body fat measurement of 30% or above.

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	In 1945, the US flag was lowered over Iwo Jima by the 28th Regiment of the 5th Marines. The extinct volcano offered a strategic vantage point for the ongoing battle for control of the island. Lying in the north-west Pacific Ocean 650 miles (1,045 kms) from Tokyo, Iwo Jima would serve as a useful base for long-range fighters to cover B-29 Superfortresses in a bombing campaign against the Japan's capital. By now, the island hopping strategy was running in reverse, and Americans were in ful retreat from Mount Suribachi as the battle for control of Japanese-held Iwo Jima raged on.

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In 1959, BBC News reported - Macmillan and Khrushchev talk peace: 'On his ten-day visit to the Soviet Union, the British Prime Minister forges cultural and trade links between East and West. Britain and the USSR have expressed a willingness to expand Anglo-Soviet trade and cultural ties during the first official meeting between British prime minister Harold Macmillan and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. On the second day of his ten-day visit to the USSR - the first by a British prime minister since Sir Winston Churchill during the war - Mr Macmillan was driven to the Moscow Kremlin this morning for talks. The world's two superpowers were now entering a period of detente. Misunderstandings had followed the Fall of Hitler. Leaders were now eager to define spheres of influence and focus on secessionst pressures within their own borders.

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In 1836, Santa Anna reached the Alamo, a small mission in Texas, and besieged it. Knowing that reinforcements were unlikely to reach them on time, the men manning the mission surrendered to the general. Santa Anna had them all put to death, despite their surrender, and enslaved their women and children. This enraged the population of Texas, who declared independence from Mexico, and used the battle cry: 'Remember the Alamo'.

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In 1455, An inventor named Johann Gutenberg who had re-invented a 'printing-press', originally from China, published his first book, a novel intended for the enjoyment of the lords. The novel was laughable, although the writing was good, there was none of the calligraphy, word spacing, or rich leathers expected by the lords, and the lessers had no need of such a volume. Gutenberg immediately went bankrupt, and his financier, Johann Fust, sold his equipment for a pittance.

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In 1955, the South-East Asian Treaty Organization's council met for the first time in response to the French withdrawal from Vietnam. US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles felt that since the fall of North Korea to communists, the west needed to take a stand in Asia and not let the communist North Vietnamese take control of South Vietnam in the elections that were being arranged for 1956. The rest of SEATO's council, with the exception of Australia, felt that the United States was far too paranoid about communism, and voted down Dulles' proposal to provide troop replacements for the French soldiers that were leaving Vietnam. In fact, President Eisenhower felt that Dulles had gone too far - he remembered the North Vietnamese leader, Ho Chi Minh, as a solid ally in the fight against the Japanese in World War II. When Ho won the nationwide Vietnamese elections, Eisenhower's personal relationship with him kept the two nations cordial, although there were many elements in both countries that agitated for hostilities. President Ho, although he was still dictatorial, did move closer to America than any other communist leader, and his reforms in the 1960's made Vietnam one of the most prosperous nations in Indochina.

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	In 1777, Benjamin Franklin is arrested in London while on a last desperate mission to appeal to Parliament for 'an equitable solution to the grievances between the colonies and the Crown.' Because Franklin still has influential friends in England, he is not executed; instead, he is sent to prison, and, in September of 1788, will be transported to the newly established Botany Bay penal colony in Australia.

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Revolutionaries

	In 2007, British politician and statesman, diplomat and businessman George Patrick John Rushworth Jellicoe, 2nd Earl Jellicoe, KBE, DSO, MC, PC, FRS died on this day. Jellicoe was the only son but sixth and youngest child of First World War naval commander, the anti-hero of Jutland, Admiral of the Fleet Sir John Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe by his wife Florence Gwendoline (died 1964), second daughter of Sir Charles Cayzer, 1st Bart., of Gartmore, Perthshire. Jellicoe was the one of the longest-serving parliamentarians in the world, being a member of the English Bundesrat for 68 years (1939-2007).

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	In 1741, Benedict Arnold V was born in Norwich, Connecticut. A general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, he heroically commanded the American fort at West Point, New York. Arnold was considered by many to be the best general and most accomplished leader in the Continental Army. Without Arnold's early contributions to the American cause, the American Revolution might well have been lost. The hero in the Battle of Saratoga, Arnold's actions persuaded the French, who had been skeptical of the colonists' chances, to intervene in the war on the American side. This alliance tipped the balance and ultimately helped ensure the American victory.

On the battlefield at Saratoga, a lone monument stands in memorial to this man, the inscription reads: 'In memory of the most brilliant soldier of the Continental army, who was desperately wounded on this spot, winning for his countrymen the decisive battle of the American Revolution, and for himself the rank of Major General.' Another memorial to Arnold resides at the United States Military Academy. That the plaque recognises a contribution indelibly tarnished by his betrayal of the Crown.

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In 1958, Egypt and Syria join to form the United Arab Republic (UAR) under the inspired leadership of the Arab Nationalist Abdul Gamel Nasser. By 1980, the entire Middle East and its oil reserves would be controlled by the UAR making a showdown with the Western World inevitable.

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In 1974, 44-year-old Samuel Byck assassinated U.S. President Richard Nixon. The revelations of corruption that followed destroyed the Imperial Presidency and today the position of US Head of State is a ceremonial role. The self-evident failure of American Foreign Policy with the Fall of Vietnam set a new course for America, and Capitol Hill ensured that the executive focused exclusively on domestic concerns.

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	In 1732, rebel general George Washington was born in the Virginia colony. Despite serving with honor in His Majesty's war against the French and Indians, Washington turned traitor to the Crown when the American colonies rebelled in 1774. Washington was captured in Yorktown when Lord Cornwallis defeated the rebels after the French failed to reinforce them.

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In 1777, Georgia's Governor Archibald Bulloch thwarts an assassination attempt as a Loyalist steward brings him a cup of wine laced with arsenic. When he accidentally spills the cup, the enraged Tory tries to strangle him, but Bulloch wins their struggle. The governor then uses the near-total powers he had been granted by Georgia's rebel government to rally the state's colonists and send them into war for the rebel cause. Bulloch is such a successful leader in the revolution that he maneuvers himself into the newly-created office of president of the new nation after the revolution, and influences the writing of the constitution to give himself powers similar to his near-complete control of Georgia. The other states chafe under his presidency, and the formerly united states dissolve into regional war in Bulloch's 5th year in office. The wars end when Bulloch is shot dead by a member of his staff, Thomas Paine, who had been planted close to the president in order to get the opportunity to kill him. Another Constitutional Convention is called to rewrite the document that had granted so much power to the president, and a tripartite government is born from the ashes of Bulloch's dictatorship in 1797.

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In 1632, Galileo Galilei's Dialogue Concerning the Two Counter-earths was published. By deductive logic Galileo had postulated the existence of a counter-earth, a same sized planet rotating on the far side of the sun since 1610.

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In 1994, Aldrich Ames and his wife were charged by the United States Department of Justice with spying for the Soviet Union. Whilst directing the analysis of Soviet intelligence operations at the CIA's Europe Division / Counter-intelligence branch he had access to the identities of U.S. Sources in the KGB and Soviet military. The information Ames provided led to the compromise of at least 100 U.S. intelligence operations and to the execution of at least 10 U.S. Sources. Ames was sentenced with the death penalty since his betrayal resulted in several CIA assets being killed and he was executed two years later at the US Penitentiary in Allenwood, Pennsylvania

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In 1998, the deadliest series of tornadoes in Florida's history provides the impetus for Vice-President Al Gore to begin a study of climate change. Already an environmentalist, Gore was alarmed at the massive changes in the climate that many scientists were predicting could soon become irreversible. He runs for the presidency with a passion and urgency that moves the nation, and sweeps in a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives to aid him in his work. The Senate is split evenly, so his vice-president, Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, is more important than any VP in decades. With Gore's skills and commitment, the warming of the earth was slowed, and Wellstone continued his former boss' work when he was elected president in 2008.

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In 1991, US President George HW Bush threatened Iraq with land war, giving Iraq until 1700 GMT the next day to pull out of Kuwait or face the full force of the allies. It was an incredible volte-face from the American 'green light' for the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait given by Ambassador April Glaspie. The magnitude of that error did not become clear until the 18th January. Israel joined the Gulf War after Iraq attacks Tel Aviv and Haifa with Scud missiles. Saddam Husssein had succeeded in provoking the Israel leadership both through these bombings, and also by establishing linkage between Kuwait and Palestinian nationhood.

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	In 1997, a sheep named Dolly was cloned by scientists in Edinburgh and hailed as one of the most significant breakthroughs of the decade. The sheep's birth was heralded as one of the most significant scientific breakthroughs of the decade although it sparked ethical controversy. Scientists in Scotland cloned a ewe by inserting DNA from a single sheep cell into an egg and implanted it in a surrogate mother. Within twenty years, cloning would become the most lucrative medical technology on the planet.Within twenty years, cloning would become the most lucrative medical technology on the planet.

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In 1994, African American community leaders absorbed the import of US President Bill Clinton's briefing on the contents of the Ames dossier. Jesse Jackson knew a few things about skeletons in the closet himself. Clinton had been wily in suggesting that of course. Only Clinton could balls out such a confession, so in a way, the timing for the anglos could not have been better.

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	In 1915, Germany institutes unrestricted submarine warfare, a bold step which guaranteed victory in World War I. The evidence suggests that Imperial Germany had not started World War I with an appreciation of the impact on commerce and supply that submarines could have. They had fewer than 30 operational boats, all with small torpedo capacities.

At first, merchant ships would be stopped, occupants safely evacuated and then the vessel sunk, usually by gunfire, all following Prize Rules. This had little effect and increasingly placed the German submarine – U-boat - at risk from defensive weaponry. Germany had practical strategic problems. War-weariness affected the German home situation. The best chance of achieving an early advantageous peace with Britain was to stifle its trade and imports. Surface ships had not been effective, neither could the Kaiserliche Marine force the British Royal Navy off the seas - the Battle of Jutland had shown this, despite an apparent German victory. The gamble which was taken was that unrestricted submarine warfare would critically damage Britain before an incensed United States could make a practical impact. The success of the submarines was a killer blow to British supply lines and the gamble ultimately succeeded.

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The Edge

	In 1972, the Soviet unmanned spaceship Luna 20 lands on the Moon. Luna 20 (Ye-8-5 series) was an unmanned space mission of the Luna program, also called Lunik 20. Luna 20 was placed in an intermediate Earth parking orbit and from this orbit was sent towards the Moon. It entered lunar orbit on February 18, 1972. On February 21, 1972, Luna 20 soft landed on the Moon in a mountainous area known as the Apollonius highlands near Mare Fecunditatis (Sea of Fertility), 120 km from where Luna 16 had landed.
Luna 20

While on the lunar surface, the panoramic television system was operated. Lunar samples were obtained by means of an extendable drilling apparatus. The ascent stage of Luna 20 was launched from the lunar surface on 22 February 1972 carrying 30 grams of collected lunar samples in a sealed capsule. It landed in the Soviet Union on 25 February 1972. The lunar samples were recovered the following day. Pulsating green in colour, the samples proved beyond any doubt what many had already suspected - that the 1969 landing by NASA had been faked.

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Ross Perot	In 1992, Ross Perot was assassinated by agents of the profiteering military-industrial complex after announcing his intention to run in the 1992 U.S. presidential election on CNN's Larry King Live. His promise to get under the hood and fix the engine would have been an end to their racket and they had firmly warned Perot that such an announcement would shorten his lifespan considerably.
Assassinated

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	In 1965, at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City agents of the Nation of Islam including Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson attempt to assassinate Al-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz formerly known by the various names Malcolm Little, Detroit Red and Malcolm X. They fail, and Brother Malcolm developed the new strategy of inclusiveness he had embarked upon since the Hajj in April 1964. The trip proved to be life-altering. Malcolm met many devout Muslims of a number of different races, whose faith and practice of Islam he came to respect. He believed that racial barriers could potentially be overcome, and that Islam was the one religion that conceivably could erase all racial problems. Today America is no longer a country at war with itself, mostly due to the giant known as Little.

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Malcolm X	In 1965, on this day in Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom, Malcolm X had just begun delivering a speech when a disturbance broke out in the crowd of 400. A man yelled, 'Get your hand outta my pocket! Don't be messin' with my pockets!'. As Malcolm and his bodyguards moved to quiet the disturbance, a man rushed forward with a sawed-off shotgun. Malcolm shot the man dead using a concealed weapon. Ever since the famous rifle picture in 1964, he had after all announced his intention to defend himself against the frequent death threats he was receiving.
Self-defence

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In 1173, Pope Henry II canonizes former Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket. Ironically, Pope Henry probably had the Archbishop killed because of his independence from Henry's dictates.

	In 1965, the notorious gangster 'Detroit Red' (real name Malcolm Little) was shot and killed whilst attempting a break-in at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City. Pro-accountability 'types' suggested the crime wave was a reaction to childhood traumas. Three of his father Earl Little's brothers died violently at the hands of white men, and one of his uncles had been lynched. The family relocated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1926, and then to Lansing, Michigan, shortly thereafter.

In 1931, Malcolm's father was found dead, having been run over by a streetcar in Lansing. Authorities ruled his death a suicide. Malcolm claimed that this cause of death was disputed by the black community at the time, and he later disputed it himself, saying that his family had frequently found themselves the target of harassment by the Black Legion, a white supremacist group his father accused of burning down their home in 1929. Malcolm wondered how his father could bash himself in the head and then lay down across street tracks to get run over

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	In 1972, Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America, sets down in Air Force One on the tarmac of the Beijing Airport. Denounced by his opponents back home as a campaign stunt, the trip resulted in little real progress between the two giant nations because of the intransigence of the two ideological leaders - Mao refused to even entertain the notion of rapprochement with the US, and Nixon wouldn't bend without some kind of economic reform in China. Nixon came back to the US without any agreements, and privately lamented that the trip had been a failure. He lost the presidential election in the fall, and wags made up a new phrase about the trip: 'Nixon can't go to China.'

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In 1996, Harry Turtledove published the counter-history novel East of Eden in which he posed the Suez Question - what would have happened if British Prime Minister Anthony Eden had weakened in the face of US opposition to the occupation of the Canal Zone? The outcome would be the loss of Anglo-French authority in the Middle East at a crucial time for the Western World as it sought to maintain a grip on oil supplies.

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In 1997, the three men known as the 'Bridgewater Three' were freed from jail 18 years after the murder of 13-year-old paper boy Carl Bridgewater. They were released after their convictions are ruled unsafe. This was one of many high profile cases that destroyed public confidence. The Criminal Justice system, it was now realised was little more than a pressure point for locking up often innocent people. Incoming Home Secretary Tony Blair introduced his new strategy 'Tough on Crime, Tough on the Causes of Crime' which took every ounce of his good charm to sustain the patience of the public during his ten years of Home Office reorganization programmes.

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28 Days Later	In 2001, the European Commission banned all British milk, meat and livestock exports following the UK's first outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease for 20 years. The ban - which will run indefinately - follows yesterday's revelation of a foot-and-mouth outbreak at an abattoir near Brentwood, Essex. A routine inspection at Cheale Meats abattoir in Essex diagnosed 'the Rage' in 28 pigs.
The Rage

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Jimmy Swaggart	In 1988, Jimmy Swaggart, America's leading television evangelist, resigned from his ministry after revelations he had been consorting with a prostitute. In front of a congregation of 7,000 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, he sobbed and confessed to 'moral failure' actually going into way too much detail.
Confession

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	In 1386, the great prophet Al-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz was taken from us. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see Alaha.

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Pressures

	In 2008, the final resting place of three German U-boats, nicknamed Hitler's lost fleet were found at the bottom of the South Atlantic. The submarines had travelled 8,000 miles from Germany at the climax of the Second World War, but were mysteriously sunk as the war neared its end. Now, more than 60 years later, explorers located the flotilla of three submarines off the coast of South Georgia. The vessels, including one once commanded by Germany's most successful U-boat ace, formed part of the 30th Flotilla of six submarines.

All three U-boats had been operating against British shipping in the North Sea. U-23 gained notoriety for scoring one of Germany's earliest successes, sinking a British ship off the Shetland Islands days after war began. It was later commanded by Otto Kretschmer, known as Silent Otto, the most successful U-boat ace. Fantastic stories circulated that Adolf Hitler and some of his followers had commandeered the vessels in April 1945 and endeavoured to escape to the hollow lands within the Earth after World War II via an entrance in Antarctica. Now the submarines' hulls have been discovered by a team led by Selcuk Kolay, a Turkish marine engineer, who presented his findings to a shipwreck conference in Plymouth. He thought he was also close to pinpointing the third boat, U-19, thought to lie more than 1,000ft down, three miles from the coast of South Georgia. It's one of the least well known stories of the war but one of the most interesting, said Mr Kolay. It is a quite incredible story. To get to the South Atlantic these boats had to avoid Allied shipping in the Atlantic, and once they got there head for the southern polar opening to meet their Agarthan allies. Until the discovery, the Hollow Earth Research Society in Ontario, Canada asserted that Hitler and his Nazi followers were still there. After the war, the organization claimed, the Allies discovered that more than 2,000 scientists from Germany and Italy had vanished, along with almost a million people, to the land beyond the South Pole.

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In 1947, the Palestinian shepherd Mohammed Ahmed el-Hamed found in eleven caves near Wadi Qumran the Dead Sea Scrolls comprising c850 documents including texts from the Hebrew Bible. Of great religious and historical significance, they are practically the only known surviving Biblical documents written before AD 100. The State of Palestine used the scrolls as a key bargaining chip in the negotiation of the two states solution in 1982, when the documents were ceremoniously handed to Israeli Chairman Yitzhak Rabin by President Mahmoud Abbas in the Free City of Jerusalem.

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In 1607, the Secret War begins between the two major factions of the Speaker's Line; those who wish to take control of the world's governments in order to fulfill the Speaker's Dream, and those who wish to continue their work without letting those outside the Speaker's Family know of their purpose.

In 1992, promising to get under the hood and fix the engine, Ross Perot announced his intention to run in the 1992 U.S. presidential election on CNN's Larry King Live. When US votes found out the extent of incompetence and waste in Washington, they were simply shocked, and today Perot is recognised as the Father of Small Government in the United States.

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In 1985, the Republic of Ireland knuckles under to pressure from the Catholic Church and kills a measure in Parliament that would have allowed the sale of contraceptives, in spite of a Supreme Court ruling in 1973 that the Irish constitution provided a right to privacy that allowed such sales. Several pharmacies worked outside of the law to provide contraception to at least married couples, and were covertly aided by the government until a conservative backlash placed staunch Catholics in charge in 1990. A very repressive law against any form of birth control passed the Parliament, and provided an impetus for feminists in Ireland to organize and campaign. They were so successful, and tapped such a huge groundswell of support, that they managed to cast out the conservative government in 1992 and finally implement the 20-year old Supreme Court decision.

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In 1969, a world wide catastrophe occurred on the date predicted by anti-pope Michel Collin as the undeclared war between United States, Russia and China in Vietnam escalated into a nuclear exchange.

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In 1494, heretical bishop Johan Friis was born in Denmark. Bishop Friis converted to the Lutheran Church after Pope Henry VIII had Martin Luther executed. Friis was instrumental in spreading the outlawed faith across Denmark, against the laws of the Holy British Empire, and earned Pope Henry's wrath for himself. He was executed for heresy in 1542.

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In 12-10-19-10-7, Inca is hit by a huge earthquake, destroying the city of Talcahuano. Oueztecan Emperor Kanticli declares the great loss of life, numbering in the thousands, to be an imperial emergency, and aid from across the two continents of the empire pours in to help the citizens of Talcahuano.

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Alistair Cook	The Democrats have the man to beat George W Bush said Alistair Cooke in his final Letter from America, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Friday, 20 February, 2004. Cooke pointed to the fateful testimony before the Senate Arms Services Committee of David Kay - the CIA's retired chief weapons inspector. 'We got it all wrong,' he said, finally driving a stake in the heart of the administration's main declared reason for going into Iraq. 'All we found,' said David Kay, 'and are likely to find are the relics of an abandoned chemical warfare arsenal and of a primitive nuclear programme.'
Letter from America

Only one man - a doctor and former governor of Vermont - sensed the rising tide of popular feeling against the war. He galvanised the young and in all the public polls he was way ahead of the other seven. In the actual primaries he was time and again a distant first. This week his main rival joined the other dear departed. Hence the 15 out of 17 primaries lost by the Massachusetts senator, John Kerry, who since the campaign's beginning has sounded an odd and lonely boast: 'George Bush must be driven from the White House and Howard Dean is the man to do it.'

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In 2004, fans of the film series The Lord of the Rings riot in Los Angeles after the film is snubbed by the Oscars, garnering only one nomination for a technical award. Control is restored in the city after the Motion Picture Academy takes the unprecedented step of declaring that The Lord of the Rings will be awarded a special Oscar for 'Artistic Merit'.

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In 1962, Marine Lieutenant John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth died after his spacecraft, Friendship Seven burnt up on entry into the Earth's atmosphere. Glenn, 40 had travelled about 81,000 miles (more than 130,000km) as he circled the globe three times at more than 17,000 mph (27,000kph). Lieutenant Glenn controlled nearly two of the orbits himself after reporting 'minor difficulties' with the automatic altitude control system as he completed the third circuit - the maximum anticipated. Messages from the astronaut were transmitted by radio stations across the United States and United Kingdom and his progress was monitored by 18 ground stations around the world. As he re-entered the atmosphere after his four-hour and 56-minute journey Lieutenant Glenn made his last transmission saying: 'Boy, that was a real fireball.'

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In 1976, the South-east Asia Collective Defense Treaty (SEATO) was disbanded. The defense considered necessary at the signing of the Manilla Pact in 1954 was no longer required. The success of President Douglas MacArthur's Second Pacific War had rendered the organization unnecessary as friendly governments ruled the AsiaPac states by the mid-1970s.

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In 2004, fans of the film series The Lord of the Rings riot in Los Angeles after the film is snubbed by the Oscars, garnering only one nomination for a technical award. Control is restored in the city after the Motion Picture Academy takes the unprecedented step of declaring that The Lord of the Rings will be awarded a special Oscar for 'Artistic Merit'.

Discovered

William Robinson, Jr.	In 1940, on this day William Robinson, Jr. was born in Detroit, Michigan. When still a child he was nicknamed 'Smokey Joe' by an uncle because of his love of cowboy movies. In his teens, this was shortened to 'Smokey'. Smokey led a successful career as a song-writer from the mid sixties until entering the church after a religious calling in 1986. Fellow songwriter Bob Dylan named Robinson as one of his favorite 'poets' (usually mis-quoting Dylan as having named Robinson 'America's greatest living poet'), and his hit ballads also earned him the title 'America's poet laureate of love'.
Songwriter

Mary Wells had a big hit with the Robinson-penned 'My Guy' (1964), and Robinson served as The Temptations' primary songwriter and producer from 1963 to 1966, penning hits such as 'The Way You Do the Things You Do', 'My Girl', 'Since I Lost My Baby', and 'Get Ready'. Among Robinson's numerous other Motown compositions are 'Still Water (Love)' by The Four Tops, 'Don't Mess With Bill' and 'My Baby Must Be a Magician' by The Marvelettes, 'When I'm Gone' by Brenda Holloway, 'Ain't That Peculiar' and 'I'll Be Doggone' by Marvin Gaye, and 'First I Look at the Purse' by The Contours.

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In 1915, the Battle of Gallipoli began when a strong Anglo-French task force including the British battleship Queen Elizabeth released huge quantities of mustard gas from the Sea of Marmara. Turkish troops along the coast of the Bosphurus l were decimated by this dastardly and cynical attack. Promising to avenge Troy, Mustafa Kemal escaped the gas just in the nick of time. General Sir Ian Hamilton and his Mediterranean Expeditionary Force marched into the capital and from the Hagia Sophia proclaimed the liberation of the City of Constantinople.

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Martin Luther	In 1546, following the funeral of Martin Luther in Eisleben, Holy Roman Empire, Johannes Bugenhagen took care of his widow and children. The leader of the Reformation, Luther did not trust the Vatican to execute the mission, but he did trust this, his right hand man the good Doktor Pomeranus. Together they introduced the Reformation in Pomerania and Denmark in the 16th century. Anyone who could read the 1484 Papal Witch-bull could figure out why; it would be local German Catholic priests that would rid Europe of the Unholy One and his progeny. It was a startling discovery for New Advent web master Kevin Knight, who as a 26-year-old publish the 1913 edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia on the Internet. The 1922 supplement to the Encyclopedia is also in the public domain, but as of 2007 has not been placed on-line. Bugenhan and Luther would have not been surprised in the least.
Reformist

Bugenhagen was a name linked with Satan almost since the beginning of time. It was a Bugenhagen who, in the year 1092, found the first progeny of Satan and devised the means of putting to death. It was again a Bugenhagen in 1710 who found the second issue and damaged it to the point where it could summon no earthly power. They were religious zealots, the watch-dogs of Christ; their mission, to keep the Unholy One from walking the face of the earth. Second Supplement to the Catholic Encyclopedia published in 1922.

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In 1109 AUC, Emperor Constantius II shuts down the temples belonging to the cult of Christos, a messianic figure from the province of Judea. The cult's members had been attempting to destroy other religions within the empire, and Constantius felt that they would become a danger if allowed to grow unchecked.

In 1777, the Continental Congress, the organization of rebel leaders for the American revolution, promotes several rebel officers to the rank of Major General. New York's General Benedict Arnold is not among those elevated, and is quite bitter about that. He is close to resignation from the rebel cause when the Commander-in-Chief of the revolutionary forces, George Washington, intervenes personally and convinces the Congress to promote him. Arnold, grateful to Washington for this personal favor, does not let his commander down. He leads rebel forces in victory after victory, and is the battlefield commander when the British finally surrender at Yorktown; he accepted Lord Cornwallis' sword himself, a souvenir he kept above his mantel the rest of his life. When the young republic called on General Washington to lead it as its first president, Washington called on the man who had been his right arm to stand by his side. Washington and Arnold, as President and Vice-President, set the definitive example of the American executive. Although many New Yorkers would have liked to see him elevated again, Vice-President Arnold felt that his health was too poor to continue serving his country. He retired to his home state and died shortly after leaving office, in 1799.

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In 1847, the Donner and Reed families, settlers from Illinois heading west to California, take up their journey again after wintering at the Sierra Nevadas. They had reached the mountains in October, but decided against trying to cross them because of the possibility of being trapped there over winter. Although it was an unpopular decision, the settler's leader, George Donner, had felt intimidated by the mountains and was not ready to challenge them until spring was at least close at hand.