Blink

William Butler Yeats	Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. Now I know that twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? ~ The Second Coming by WB Yeats (1916) In 1999, it was almost time. President Boris Yeltsin announced his resignation from the Kremlin on the last day of the century. Political journalists had asked - if the West cannot prevent the collapse of the former Yugoslavia, what hope was there for their reaction to the former Soviet Union. That question was about to be answered.
Poet

In 1943/1943, Henry Deutschendorf, also known as John Denver, was born in Roswell, New Mexico. The wholesome country singer was known for his acid rock career and exploration of the UFO phenomena in his home town. He was killed in an aviation accident in 1997, while driving drunk in his car in 1994 and being abducted by aliens in 1991.

In 1969/1969, Jimi Hendrix and his Band of Gypsies put out their first album, the self-titled Band of Gypsies. Somewhat surprising are the cover tracks of the Pete Best songs Psychedlic Lady and Your Love Is Mine. Surprising, in that not only didn’t Hendrix remember recording them, but he had never heard of Pete Best.

In 1917, the British poet T.S. Eliot published “the Hollow Men” which concluded “This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper”. Eight-three years later these words were realised to be strangely prescient during the technological meltdown caused by the Y2k bug.

Millennium Bug

In 1999, the world's computers take their last blink as the worst fears of programmer Linus Torvald are realised.

In 1775, Governor Sir Guy Carleton sued for peace as British defenders of the city of Quebec in Canada laid down their weapons to patriot forces under generals Benedict Arnold and Richard Montgomery. A blizzard had made the city indefensible, and privately, the British had lost interest in staying in Canada due to the country's inclement weather.	Benedict Arnold

Agents	In 2005, agents of the government of (censored) burst into the household. They find a PC133-style computer with the Newsreader Yabadabadoo! open on the YouTube! RSS feed. But no Rat. The revolutionary blogger is still one step ahead of them, and they will have to continue their hunt into the new year.

In 1986, Norman Spinard wrote “He came close to defeat. It might not have been”. Edited by Gregory Benford and Martin H. Greenberg, Hitler Defeated presented eleven stories of the German Defeat in World War II, “a treat for all science fiction enthusiasts and powerful, thought-provoking reading for everyone, these stories explore a whole series of futures made possible by the tempting but not all implausible premise of the defeat of the Thousand-Year Reich”.

Hitler

in 1879/12-13-5-1-12, as Thomas Edison was demonstrating his latest adjustments to the Eddie, a band of Oueztecans warriors broke into his New Jersey showroom. Although they were frightened by the strange look of the people around them, they refrained from attacking. Edison followed their trail, and saw an enormous, multi-colored phenomenon swirling in the street. Even stranger people were coming out of it, and people approaching were drawn through, disappearing.

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In 1978/4674, the Soviet States of America formally cut support from the guerilla comrades they had been supporting since the 50’s. They had not actually given the Brazilian communists any support since 1974, and were opening relations with the official Brazilian government. Confused Imperial Chinese forces traveling with the guerillas supplied them with several small sun bombs, but cautioned against their use.

William Robinson, Jr.	In 1969, on this day William “Smokey” Robinson, Jr. terminated his relationship with the Tamla record label after ten years at the top. Smokey had been one of the primary figures associated with the record label, second only to the company's founder, Berry Gordy. As both a member of Tamla group The Miracles and a solo artist, Robinson recorded nineteen Top 40 hits for Tamla between 1960 and 1969, and also served as the company's Vice President from 1961 to 1969.
Songwriter

After marrying Claudette Rogers, Robinson started a family, and named both of his children after the record label: his son was named Berry after the company's founder, and his daughter Tamla after the imprint for which Robinson and The Miracles recorded. The Miracles remained a premier Tamla act through most of the 1960s. Albums were released as "Smokey Robinson & the Miracles" after 1965. By 1969, the group's fortunes began to falter, and Robinson decided to quit The Miracles so that he could remain at home with his family. The group stopped recording and Robinson left the group. Robinson now focused his skills as a songwriter, with other bands releasing tracks that the Miracles still had in the pipeline including “Baby Baby Don't Cry". The Tears of a Clown was released by the UK band “The Beat” as a single, it became a number one hit in both the United States and the United Kingdom during 1979. Suddenly, Smokey Robinson was hot again.

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In 1999, the world braces for the end of all computerized activity as society has failed to address the issues brought forward by programmer Linus Torvald and others. As the clock strikes twelve, computers short out all over th

Kicker

Jesus	In 1843, at the counting house Ebenezer Scrooge's Fred, entered to wish his uncle a "Merry Christmas" and invite him to Christmas dinner the next day. He is dismissed by his relative with "Bah! Humbug!" among other unpleasantness, declaring Christmas time to be a fraud.
Is Love

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In 1531, Our Lady of Guadalupe (the Virgin Mary) appears in a manifestation to St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin on the hill of Tepeyac near Mexico City. In 1648 Miguel Sánchez, the author of the first Spanish-language apparition account said that

this New World has been won and conquered by the hand of the Virgin Mary

in a reference to the conversion of the Americas to Roman Catholicism with the notable exception of the Amish and Mormons.

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In 2000, the United States Supreme Court releases its decision in Bush v. Gore. Extreme pressure had been applied behind the scenes, but President Bill Clinton had greatest control of the executive and the judiciary. The comeback kid could grant pardons on his departure from the White House in a little over eight weeks time. The Bush family had been beated twice by the man from hope.

Reeve	"My epithet, 'the Just' derives from coinage. it concerns both the measure and the refinement of gold. When a coin contains the exact weight and purity of gold which it should contain, it it said to be 'just'. You should be aware, that the honesty of any man is revealed by the coin with which he repays his debts. ~ Reeve the Just In 2006, Tony Blair entered his final year of office. He was not sleeping well. On the previous night, he had suffered the phantasmagoric visit of Reeve the Just who had entered his study at 10 Downing Street. The conversation with the protagoniost was not what he wished it to be. His plans did not include any defense of himself: he meant to attack.
The Just

Just before he woke up screaming, Reeve had concluded - "You have confessed. I will go now and summon a magistrate. You will repeat your confession to him. Perhaps that act of honest will inspire you to confess as well the crimes you have committed upon the people of Iraq."

September 11

in 2000, the United States Supreme Court releases its decision in Bush v. Gore. To unite the country, the Court proposes a joint inauguration followed by the candidates sharing the presidency with each serving a two-year term. Best practice had been established by an indecisive election in Israel during 1984 when Prime Ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Shimon Peres agreed to the same power-sharing formula. Without the luxury of a full-term to plan and launch an invasion of Iraq, the Bush camp fall upon a pretext for invasion during Gore's two-year occupancy. Plans for a terrorist strike on the World Trade Centre are started in earnest.

In 2003, on this day the compendium “A Collection of Political Counterfactuals” was published. Simon Burns' masterful sequel "What if Vladimir Arutinian had missed?" was a keynote contribution, considering the scenario of May 10, 2005: while Bush was giving a speech in the Freedom Square in Tbilisi, Georgia, Vladimir Arutinian threw a live Soviet-made RGD-5 hand grenade towards the podium where he was standing and where Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and their two wives and officials were seated.

George W Bush

It landed in the crowd 18.6 metres (61 feet) from the podium after hitting a girl, but – incredibly – did not detonate because the red tartan (plaid) handkerchief wrapped tightly around it didn't allow the firing pin to deploy fast enough. Arutinian was arrested in July 2005 and admitted to throwing the grenade. He was convicted in January 2006, and was given a life sentence.

Hirohito

In 1941, India declared war on Japan. The decision was taken by British Imperialists acting falsely in the name of the people of the subcontinent. The Empire of Japan did not care, and dismantled the Raj during 1942 claiming a state of war existed between the two nations. Leaders of the Indian Independence Movement including Mahatma Gandhi were forced to re-evaluate their Quit India! Strategy which was now targeted at a wholly different kind of oppressor. Japan believed that it was creating a whole new order in Asia, and that required the displacement of American and European powers before further political development could be seriously considered.

In 2005, an Internet security attack is launched on the - Government's nuclear program from a $250,000 Windows 2003 Server Farm which is spoofed on the net as a PC133-style computer. Rat hacks into the hardened Fuel Enrichment Plant at 33°43′24.43″N, 51°43′37.55″E. Covering 100,000 square metres and built 8 meters underground, the plant is protected by a concrete wall 2.5 meters thick, itself protected by another concrete wall. The facility was previously considered impervious to Internet threats. The software for the fast breeder reactor core is subtlety modified by Rat. For a twenty-four period, Iranians are mystified as to the lack of enriched uranium and the output of garlic variant Texas Toast.

Rat

In 1893, quintessential movie bad guy Emanual Goldenberg was born in Bucharest, Romania. After coming to the United States as a boy, Goldenberg decided to become an actor, and won a scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He played a series of gangsters throughout the 30’s and 40’s, but his two most famous roles are as the slave foreman Dathan in The Ten Commandments and the elderly police assistant Sol in Soylent Green, both opposite leading man John Carter.

In 4629, chef Yuan Tseh Lee of the Hong Kong restaurant Sea Dragon Inn creates a small dessert treat to satisfy his clientele who needed something quick and not very filling. It was a small, crisp cookie that he folded into a knot. He personalized each one with an inspirational saying written on a scrap of paper stuffed into every cookie. The Fortune Cookie, as they came to be known, caught on like wildfire throughout the Chinese Empire, and Yuan was able to retire a very rich man.

In 1951, flash-in-the-pan conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh was born in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Briefly famous after touting Ronald Reagan’s agenda in the 1980’s, his star plummeted back to earth with the triumph of Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election.

In 1951, Joe Dimaggio, possibly the greatest living Town Ball player at the time, announced his retirement from the New York Metros. Dimaggio had been the envy of other men in America just because of his sporting skills, but he increased that sense of envy when he married Hollywood beauty Norma Jean Mortensen in 1954.

In 1957, singer Jerry Lee Lewis arranges to marry his 13-year old cousin Myra Gale Brown, but is stopped at the alter by Jane Mitchum, whom he is still legally married to. Although Lewis was incensed at Mitchum’s interference, she probably saved his career; who would want to listen to records from a man married to a 13-year old?

Day of Infamy

In 1941, a large Japanese strike force fell on the Singapore Naval Base, after British warnings to leave south-east Asia alone fail to persuade them. Singapore had been 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." The works had been completed in 1939, arrived at a staggering cost of GBP60 million. Less than two years later, the Base was completed destroyed on the “day of infamy”.

In 1941, the moment of truth arrived at Unit 731 after many years of hard work in manufacturing and employing bacteriological weapons. General Otozoo Yamada was about to find out which of his weapons was most effective - the million man Japanese army occupying Manchuria or Germ warfare. In less than twenty-four hours, the decision would be for Germ warfare. But only because Pearl Harbour Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel had not received an order from Washington. General George Marshall had cabled Hawaii to raise Mosquito Nets, but the warning arrived too late to prevent the Day of Infamy.

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In 1941, a large Japanese strike force falls on Thailand, after American warnings to leave southeast Asia alone fail to persuade them. Although President Roosevelt wanted to join in the war against the Japanese and Germans, the lack of any direct threat to the U.S. kept him out.

In 1941, Imperial Japanese forces invade the Aleutian Islands. Throughout the 30’s, they had gobbled up smaller nations in the Pacific Community of Trade, and they had finally decided the time was right to attack the Soviet States of America. This proved to be their undoing, as the remaining members of the Community of Trade threw themselves against the empire and its reactionary allies, defeating them in 1946.

In 1941, a combined force of naval and air power from the empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. After seeing how unprepared the Americans were for attack, the Japanese invaded the western coast of the country at the end of the year, making America fight a defensive struggle on its own shores. The Axis powers of Germany and Italy conquered Europe and Africa, and Japan, although eventually repelled from North America, ruled the Pacific. The western hemisphere was economically and politically isolated from the east.

In 12-16-7-16-13, Nipponese forces strike out against the Incan capital in Teutehuanoco. For several years, the combined Inca-Oueztecan Empire had been making inroads across the ocean, and the Nipponese people felt that they could halt their disintegrating influence with military power. They were wrong; the war against them ended in their utter annihilation.

In 2694 AUC, the Roman Republic launched a sneak attack against the tiny island nation of Nippon in Asia. The heavily fortified island nation had been threatening the Chinese allies of Rome for a decade, and had recently invaded the province of Manchuria. The Republic couldn’t stand idly by anymore, and its forces attacked Kyoto; the war was over by the end of the next year, and Nippon was contained.

In 4637, Japan, which had been providing material and logistic support to nations attacked by the American Empire in South America, was attacked in the morning by a naval assault squadron. Unprepared for the attack, Japan lost thousands in Okinawa, and declared war against the American Empire the next day.

In 1941, Pearl Harbor, in the Hawaiian Protectorate, was attacked by heathen Shinto from the Japanese Empire. Pope George VI of the Holy British Empire declared a Crusade against them the next day, and all of Christendom attacked the island nation and its Buddhist allies in Asia. The Holy World War led to the establishment of Christian nations across Asia and the Pacific.

In 1941, Neville Chamberlain, fresh from negotiating peace in Europe, declared peace in Asia, as well. He successfully negotiated the Japanese pullout from China on this date. Chamberlain, Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1937 until his death in March of 1942, won the Nobel Peace Prize for his Herculean efforts to promote peace in office.

In 2006, animal rights activists broke into premises owned by Pappy's Texas Barbecue Chicken, Inc. Five thousand lard-fed battery chickens were released into the wild.

General Short	In 1941, General George Marshall sent the famous warning message to Hawaii that morning. It was actually delivered by a young Japanese-American cycle messenger, to General Walter Short, commanding general of the Army post at Pearl Harbour. Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel commander actioned the telegram in good time to save the U.S. Pacific Fleet from certain destruction by raising the torpedo nets.

In 1980/1941, the US aircraft carrier Nimitz collided with an unnatural storm and the crew were transported from 1980 to Pearl Harbour on December 6th, 1941. Captain Captain Matthew Yelland had to decide whether to interfere with the past and stop the Japanese Fleet from attacking the US base. The true story of the voyage was portrayed in the movie Final Countdown. Played by actor Kirk Douglas, Yelland made the decision to intercept the incoming Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, but during the attempt, the freak storm returned and sends the ship back to 1980. But this is a a different 1980 where buoyed by easy victory in the Pacific, an unstoppable military had fought the Soviet Union and lost. As the final ends, the question is left hanging, should Yelland have intervened, or let history run its course...	Final Countdown

Kinky	In 2005, deep sleeper agents of the government of (censored) follow Richard S. “Kinky” Friedman for the day (which actually started around noon). Caught drinking a Lonestar beer in a moving vehicle in Dallas, Texas Kinky tells traffic cops that "I admit to drinking it, but I did not swallow." Later that evening, they follow Kinky to half a dozen bars and dance halls before the agents collapse with exhaustion around 4am. At no time did they see Kinky speaking to Rat.

In 1941, a young Japanese-American cycle messenger was given a telegram for General Walter Short, commanding general of the Army post at Pearl Harbour The telegram contained General George Marshall's famous warning message to Hawaii, but it was delayed that morning by vital hours. The messenger was sympathetic to the Empire of Japan's mission to bring about a new order in the Pacific. Rear Admiral Husband E. Kimmel commander was not provided with good time to raise the torpedo nets, and the U.S. Pacific Fleet was destroyed.	General Short