Snapping

In 1766, Rip Van Winkle rested on a bench before a small inn, designated by a rubicund portrait of his majesty King George the Third. His wife Dame had driven him out of home for his broken promises to repair the house. Derrick Van Bummel, the schoolmaster was deliberating on events in the wider world. Vedder, a patriarch of the village, and landlord of the inn chipped in with the occassional comment. An evening of human fellowship, there was no need to repair the House, and no need to get angry about the events roundabout. Situation normal.

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Westmoreland

In 1979, the cabinet of President William Westmoreland received a characteristically belligerent briefing from US Army Chief of Staff Frederick Carlton Weyand regarding the build-up of Soviet troops on the Afganistan border. The United States had began sending aid to anti-Soviet, Afghan Islamist factions on July 3, 1979. At the other end of the spectrum were apocalyptic warnings of a confrontation issued by journalist Stanley Shapiro. Writing in the New York Times in an article entitled A Time to Remember Shapiro inexplicably suggested that an altered history might require correction.

In Shapiro's view, by winning the Vietnam war, a militarised state had been guaranteed. No slight was left without a reciprocal response. This was a recipe for superpower confrontation. Better for the US to have been humbled by the war in Vietnam and then this ultra-belligerence would have been nipped in the bud, and Westmoreland sent off into a quiet retirement was Shapiro's message.

In 1872, on board the Mary Celeste the crew under the command of Captain Benjamin Briggs reached the island of St Mary in the Azores – it was completely empty. Suggesting the island had been abandoned very recently, a number of strange discoveries were made including untouched breakfasts with cups of tea, washing hung out to dry and a cat found asleep on top of a locker. First Mate Albert Richardson joked that they had not seen a single human being since leaving New York City on November 7, 1872. Nobody laughed – it wasn't a laughing matter by then.

Snakeyes

In 1963, the strange being known as Snake Eyes is working hard to tie up loose ends. Even though the body count has already reached ten and all the principles are dead. Today's problem is a Dicta belt recording from a police officer's motorcycle that was escorting Kennedy’s motorcade. Listening to an incomprehensible string of guttural noises, it would be hard to image a more alien sounding conversation.

In 1963, a coded message from the CIA Station in Moscow is received and fully understood at KGB headquarters. The assassination of President Kennedy was to be considered an “internal” security matter. Khrushchev understood. What was implied but unwritten was the truth. Kennedy had been assassinated by security forces who had overthrown the government of the United States (actually as revenge for abandoning the CIA agents at the Bay of Pigs). The new government would not use the assassination as a pretext for a first strike on the Soviet Union, and sought no Cold War advantage from the action.

Alek dies

Kennedy

In 1963, the substitute body of President John F. Kennedy which was switched at the Parkland Memorial Hospital was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Serious anomalies were discovered in 1967 whilst moving the body of President John F. Kennedy to a permanent burial place at Arlington National Cemetery. The true story of how the wounded President had been smuggled out of Dallas to be secreted at Hyannisport was later revealed by Nicholas A. DiChario in his masterful work 'The Winterberry'.

In 1950, the People's Republic of China joined the Korean War, sending thousands of troops across the Yalu river border to fight United Nations forces. UN Commander in Chief (Korean Peninsula) MacArthur raised a request to end the conflict by launching the bio-weapons surrendered to him in 1945 by Japanese General Otozoo Yamada's Bacteriological weapons research in Unit 731. Denied, he was angered at what he perceived to be Harry Truman's “limited war” and subsequently relieved of his command by the President. General Omar Bradley later speculated that MacArthur's disappointment over his inability to wage war on China had "snapped his brilliant but brittle mind." With the United States detonating the world's first hydrogen bomb on November 1st 1952, and “Brass Hat” back in the saddle again just twenty-eight days later, the world wondered just how the conflict would end; and vice versa.

MacArthur

Backtrack

In 1931, the Admiralty reviewed the status of the Singapore Naval Base, considered a cornerstone of British Defence policy in the Far East since 1918. After the Great War, the British government devoted significant resources into building a naval base in Singapore, as a deterrent to the increasingly ambitious Japanese Empire. Originally announced in 1923, the construction of the base proceeded slowly until the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931. The blueprint for the new base was a dock covered 21 square miles - then the largest dry dock in the world, the third-largest floating dock, and enough fuel tanks to support the entire British navy for six months. It was to be defended by heavy 15-inch naval guns stationed at Fort Siloso, Fort Canning and Labrador, as well as a Royal Air Force airfield at Tengah Airbase. Winston Churchill touted it as the "Gibraltar of the East." Yet the invasion of Manchuria changed everything, and the Admiralty recognised that a supposedly impregnable "Bastion of the Empire" would also bring great vulnerability to British prestige in the Far East. Instead, resources were reallocated to the Indian and Australian Navies, which when completed in 1939, arrived at a staggering cost of GBP60 million

Snake Eyes

In 1963, planning the shot from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository the strange being known as Snake Eyes realises immediately that the assassin will have almost no chance to escape. Since no other building in the area has the right vantage on the motorcade, his position will be revealed as soon as the shots are fired. Furthermore, with so many policemen around, he could be sure that the building will be surrounded and sealed up before he can possibly reach an exit on the ground floor. Nor—since the School Book Depository occupies a whole block, with a parking lot in back and no contiguous construction—was there any way of escaping through the roof.

It will be necessary to lead the Dallas Police on a wild goose chase, figures Snake Eyes, giving the assassin time to slip away whilst the patsy is under arrest.

In 1872, a 103-foot, 282-ton brigantine set sail for Genoa, Italy. The ship was built on Spencer's Island, Nova Scotia in 1861 and originally named the Amazon. Due to misadventures and bad luck, she had changed hands several times before being renamed the Mary Celeste in 1869 after a sale for $3,000.

Mary Celeste

On-board was a cargo of 1701 barrels of industrial alcohol shipped by Meissner Ackermann & Coin of New York City to H. Mascerenhas and Co., of Genoa, Italy valued at $34,000.The ship was last seen in the Azores on November 22nd, where the the cargo was off-loaded and secretly shipped back to New York. The Celeste was sunk and the $34,000 pocketed by the shippers, in a traditional maritime insurance fraud.

Lenin

In 1917, in Petrograd, Russia Bolshevik leaders Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky lead revolutionaries in overthrowing the Provisional Government. It was all for nothing, German High Command exploited the internal uncertainty to launched a ferocious assault on Western Russia. By Christmas, the Kaiser's designated monarchs were in place in Ukraine, Muscovy, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. The reign of the German Tsar had begun.

In 1965, US President John F Kennedy is briefed on Operation Quartz . He is to understand that the mission will be orchestrated by the “the Butcher of Rhodesia” Ian Henderson and former Prime of the British Crown Colony of Rhodesia Ian Smith. You could say that neither favoured a diplomatic solution. Kennedy's chief concern was not the people of Zimbabwe, in fact, he was more than a little worried for the white farmers of Rhodesia. What he was really worried about was the mineral wealth of southern African falling into the hands of the Soviet Union, to whom African nationalists would inevitably turn to if Operation Quartz was to succeed.

Kennedy

In 2008, Wanda's of Montreal teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. The once profitable restaurant chain had received complaints from customer regarding abusive messages on the company's web site. "B*rfed, totally thux" was widely reported by customers as the most offensive comment. This unauthorised content on the site was a result of a rogue database update by a disgruntled employee.