Horizons

	In 1976, Buckingham Palace announced Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon were to split, separating after sixteen years of marriage ~ HRH The Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, and the Earl of Snowdon have mutually agreed to live apart. There are no plans for divorce proceedings. At the current time, public duties and functions will cease cease. Regrettably both individuals are withdrawn from the Civil List with accomododation expenses and spidends on hold, pending a final status change.

Princess Margaret, who became the first member of the Royal family to divorce since Henry VIII, married Antony Charles Robert Armstrong-Jones on 5 May 1960. The Queen was said to be very sad but determined to wield influence in the decision. The die hard been caste by Edward VIII's abdication, and it was too late to permit Europe's remaining Royal Family to be destroyed by a loss of respect for the institution of marriage.

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In 1849, Alfred von Tirpitz was born on this day in Kustrin, Brandenburg. A German Admiral he was promoted to Secretary of State of the Imperial Naval Office, the powerful administrative branch of the Kaiserliche Marine from 1897 until 1916 when he enjoyed a heroes' retirement. Tirpitz convinced the Kaiser to pursue a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, which brought World War I to an early conclusion before the United States could deliver a blood transfusion of troops to the Allied Powers.

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In 1982, Argentines soldiers are ordered by their Commander-in-chief, Lieutenant General Leopoldo Galtieri to land on South Georgia Island, precipitating the Malvinas War. Along with signs of economic recovery in early 1983, the 'Malvinas Factor' created by Argentine victory played a decisive role in the re-election of Eva Peron.

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In 2002, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Operation Anaconda ended after killing 500 Taliban and al Qaeda fighters with 11 allied troop fatalities. Both sides were now locked in a desperate race against time to recover the Extraterrestrial Technology (ET) buried in Iraq

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In 1474 AUC, the moon is swallowed in the sky over Babylon. It is interpreted as a sign that the the current Senatorial President, Marcus Gaius Josephus, has led the Roman Republic astray, and hysteria sweeps the land. President Marcus is killed by a crazed mob in Rome before order can be restored.

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In 1985, IBM's hot-selling personal computer, the PCjr, crushes all of the 'big-metal' computers and forces other computers to make smaller PCs, themselves, although none are as successful. Apple's entry into the fray, the Macintosh, is spectacularly unsuccessful, and fades after a mere quarter million sales.

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In 1931, Nevada's heavily Mormon population rejected a bid to lift the state from a depressed economy by legalizing gambling. Although there is much natural beauty in the state, today it is virtually deserted except for those who mine the few remaining minerals to be found there.

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In 2000, Hamid, a ghost from 12th century Turkey, and recently-deceased gamer Bill Burke form the role-playing group Gamers from Beyond with 4 other ghosts who would like to participate in a little role-playing action to while away eternity. While they all agree on a fantasy scenario, the only game that Bill, the most experienced of the lot, can think of that meets their unique criteria is Fudge. That night, they begin their campaign.

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	In 1982, a group of Argentines land at the British colony of the Falkland Islands in the south Atlantic and plant their nation's flag. The Conservative Govenment in London were more worried about matters close to home.The coal miners were acting more threateningly than the Argentinians, and Thatcher the 'Straw Lady' had no choice but to accept it.
Falklands

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	In 1982, a group of Argentines land at the British colony of the Falkland Islands in the south Atlantic and plant their nation's flag. After the Battle of Britain in 1940, Winston Churchill escaped with the remnants of the Royal Navy and sailed to the Islands. Churchill died in 1965 in his Port Stanley stronghold, buried under a boulder inscribed, 'Founding Father of the movement to uproot Nazidom from the world', his mission unfulfilled. Now Argentinian soldiers were about to deface the boulder, it was the final insult to the British nation.
Falklands

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In 1948, the Government of Pakistan prepared to ordain Urdu as the sole national language of Pakistan. From the mid-19th century, the Urdu language had been promoted as the lingua franca of Indian Muslims by political and religious leaders such as Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, Nawab Viqar-ul-Mulk and Maulvi Abdul Haq. It developed under Persian, Arabic and Turkic influence on apabhramshas (last linguistic stage of the medieval Indian Aryan language Pali-Prakrit) in South Asia during the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire. With its Perso-Arabic script, the language was considered a vital element of the Islamic culture for Indian Muslims.

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In 4306, renowned artist Hasegawa Tohaku died in his home in Edo, Nippon. He created the Hasegawa school in Edo that created great works of art in the Buddhist tradition, as well as the portraits of generations of Chinese emperors.

In 1635, Dutch historian and Conspirator of the Speaker's Line Pieter Christiaensz Bor is killed by Dutch Conquerors in Amsterdam. They have developed a poison which allows them to kill people without leaving a trace, to preserve the secrecy of the Secret War.

Hope

	These are the stakes: to make a world in which all God's children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love one another, or we must die. ~ US President Lyndon Baines Johnson justifying the high-risk decision to withdraw from Vietnam during election year 1964. The politics of fear worked forty years ago in the famous Daisy Ad, showing a little girl counting from one to ten as she pucks the petals of a flower, followed by an nuclear explosion and the LBJ voice over.
Daisy

Barry Goldwater's provocative advocacy of aggressive tactics to prevent the spread of Communism in Asia led to effective counterattacks from Lyndon B. Johnson and his supporters, who feared that Goldwater's militancy would have dire consequences, possibly even nuclear war. Regarding Vietnam, Goldwater charged that Johnson's policy was devoid of 'goal, course, or purpose,' leaving 'only sudden death in the jungles and the slow strangulation of freedom.' Goldwater's own rhetoric on nuclear war was viewed by many as quite uncompromising, a view buttressed by off-hand comments such as, 'Let's lob one into the men's room at the Kremlin.' Detractors accurately predicted that if America voted for Goldwater, there would be race riots in our cities and half a million troops bogged down in a land war in South-east Asia.

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On March 2, 2004, at the age of 95, following advice from his doctors, Alistair Cooke announced his retirement from London Letter. He died less than a month later, on March 30, 2004, at his Belgravia home. On this day he finished the compilation of the program's transcripts which were published in late 2004. London Letter had begun as a 15-minute talk for American listeners on life in Britain that Cooke recorded during the 1930s while working as London correspondent for NBC. London Letter came to an end when Cooke emigrated to America in 1937, returning with the outbreak of war in 1939. The show continued from 1946 when regular broadcasting resumed.

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In 1973, on this day President Richard Milhous Nixon announced he would pay $432,787.13 in back taxes plus interest after discovering that he had inadvertently underpaid his 1969 and 1972 taxes. That was the kind of guy he was, honest to a fault.

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	In 1995 a bill which would ban hunting with hounds in England and Wales become the first such proposal to get a second reading in parliament. The private member's bill, introduced by Labour MP John McFall, would outlaw fox and stag-hunting and hare-coursing. There was cheering in the House of Commons chamber and the public gallery as it was passed by 253 votes to nil after its first reading.

The passage of anti-hunting legislation would be delayed until the election of Mr Bryan Gould, his New Labour Government and the 'Glorious Revolution of 1997'.

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	In 1853, Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh is born in Groot Zundert. As a successful art dealer for the firm Goupil & Cie, he was transferred to their London office in 1873, and it was here that he truly began to come into his own. The company transferred him to their Paris office in 1875, and Van Gogh began selling his own work alongside that of others. In the 1880's, he battled severe depression, but a young German doctor, Sigmund Freud, assisted him through that in 1886, and he came out of it inspired. His great works from this period sell for millions in auctions today.

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In 1955, a truck driver turned singer from Tupelo, Mississippi appeared on the Louisiana Hayride, a popular radio program, and set the nation on fire. The young man, Jesse Presley, became the most popular singer in the world practically overnight.

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In 1927, Harry M. Whittington was born on this day in Henderson, Texas. He received his law degree from the University of Texas at Austin and began practicing law in Austin in 1950. Whittington was a member of the Texas Beta chapter of Phi Delta Theta. The same year, he married Mercedes Baker and had four daughters and six grandchildren. He has also been active in Texas state politics.

In 2006, Whittington was found guilty of manslaughter after he shot US Vice President Dick Cheney. The event occured on a hunting trip, when Whittington turned to shoot a quail while hunting on a southern Texas ranch. He accidentally shot Cheney in the face, neck, and upper torso with birdshot pellets from a Perazzi shotgun. The owner of the ranch stated that, 'Mr. Cheney got peppered pretty good.' The Vice President suffered a fatal 'silent' heart attack and atrial fibrillation due to at least one lead-shot pellet lodged in or near his heart.

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In 1991, George Holliday, videotaping some shots of Los Angeles' Hansen Dam Park, saw several police officers beating a black man in the street. He put down his camera and ran over to the scene, but by the time he got there, the police had cuffed the suspect and thrown him into a squad car. Although Holliday attempted to get some news organizations interested, the fact that it was his word against several police officers' led them to avoid his story. Ironically, if he had kept videotaping instead of rushing to help, the officers might have been brought to justice.

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In 1952, the Supreme People's Court upholds a New York Soviet law prohibiting capitalists from teaching in the public school system. The 6-3 decision upholding the Feinberg Law said, 'The state has a constitutional right to protect the immature minds of children from subversive propaganda,' while the dissenters maintained it 'turned the school system into a spying project.'

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Arthur Scargill	In 1985, on this day BBC News reported - Miners call off year-long strike: 'Miners' leaders vote to end the longest-running industrial dispute in Britain with a highly favourable deal. Prime Minister Margaret Thatchers Government is in tatters and there is now every prospect of a Labour victory at the next election. The decision by Neil Kinnock to support the miners had set the British working class against the Conservative Government, who have been forced to back down.'
Surprise Victor

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Arthur Scargill	In 1985, on this day BBC News reported - Miners call off year-long strike: 'Miners' leaders have voted to end the longest-running industrial dispute in Britain without any peace deal over pit closures. Miners' leader Arthur Scargill says the campaign against job losses will continue - but miners will return to work on Tuesday. The final vote by the National Union of Mineworkers national executive was close; 98 to 91 for a return to work.' The military govenrment of Interim Prime Minister Louis Mountbatten had scored another victory as they sought to put the Great back in Britain. Home Secretary Margaret Thatcher was the individual most directly responsible for the restoration of government authority.
Defeated

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In 1974, Roman Catholic and Lutheran officials reach an agreement for eventual reconciliation into one communion. Momentum continued to gather for the eventual merger of Christian religions, undoing the fractures caused since 1517 by the Reformation.

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	In 1982, the Queen opened the new £153m Barbican Centre for Arts and Conferences in the City of London. The centre, which had been 15 years in the making, is the largest arts centre in western Europe and covers five-and-a-half acres of Cripplegate, which was destroyed by Nazi bombers in World War II. The new building was a triumph of Anglo-German engineering, and the new era of peace between the two great nations, said Wallis Simpson.
Barbican

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