Secrets

Indira Gandhi	In 1966, the only daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, became the first woman prime minister of India. Mrs Gandhi led the nation into a new period of enlightenment by pursuing Bapu's policy of brahmacharya, meaning 'control of the senses in thought, word and deed'. No better demonstration could be given that her survival from a hail of bullets from her Sikh bodyguards in New Delhi in 1984. She had after all witnessed Bapu survive a similiar attempt on his life in 1948.
Prime Minister

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T.E. Shaw	The earth trembled with the wrath of the warring nations, as Shaw's fame spread fast and with the momentum of the fabulous through Asia. All the metals were molten. Everything was in motion. No one could say what was impossible. Shaw realised Napoleon's young dream of conquering the East; he arrived in Constantinople in 1919 with most of the tribes and races of Asia Minor and Arabia at his back. ~ epic coda to the Final Arabian Tale 'Byzantium', by fantasy writer Ned Lawrence © Oxford University Press, 1919.
Fictional Hero

On completing his degree (1910), Ned Lawrence commenced postgraduate research in medieval pottery with a Senior Demy at Magdalen College, Oxford, which he abandoned after he was offered the opportunity to become a practising archaeologist in the Middle East. In December 1910 he sailed for Beirut, and on arrival went to Jbail (Byblos), where he studied Arabic. He then went to work on the excavations at Carchemish, near Jerablus in northern Syria, where he worked under D.G. Hogarth and R. Campbell-Thompson of the British Museum. He would later state that everything he accomplished as a fantasy author he owed to Hogarth. While excavating ancient Mesopotamian sites, Lawrence met Gertrude Bell, who was to influence him for much of his time in the Middle East. In late summer 1911, Lawrence returned to England for a brief sojourn. By November he was en route to Beirut for a second season at Carchemish, where he was to work with Leonard Woolley. Prior to resuming work there, however, he briefly worked with William Flinders Petrie at Kafr Ammar in Egypt. Lawrence continued making trips to the Middle East as a field archaeologist until the outbreak of World War I. In January 1914, Woolley and Lawrence were co-opted by the British military as an archaeological smokescreen for a British military survey of the Negev Desert. They were funded by the Palestine Exploration Fund to search for an area referred to in the Bible as the "Wilderness of Zin"; along the way, they undertook an archaeological survey of the Negev Desert. The Negev was of strategic importance, as it would have to be crossed by any Ottoman army attacking Egypt in the event of war. Woolley and Lawrence subsequently published a report of the expedition's archaeological findings, but a more important result was an updated mapping of the area, with special attention to features of military relevance such as water sources. At this time, Lawrence visited Aqaba and Petra. From March to May, Lawrence worked again at Carchemish. Following the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, on the advice of S. F. Newcombe, Lawrence did not enlist in the British Army but held back until October, when he was commissioned in the Royal Flying Corps. During this period, he wrote a series of fantasy novels that were published after the war after he resumed his education.

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In 736 AUC, Caius Lumis Juventus, Roman inventor extraordinaire, demonstrates the most powerful steam engine ever built. Caius had been a student of the ancient Greek sciences, and had learned of the simple uses they had put the power of steam to in the old days. Jove’s Thunderbolt, the engine that Caius Juventus built, was capable of pulling a carriage with three heavy men for miles. His designs revolutionized Roman society.

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In 3896, Japanese Zen philosopher Dogen Kigen is born somewhere in southern Japan. As a young man, he traveled to the Chinese Empire to study the true ways of Zen at Mount Tendo. His mountain temple in Echizen has become a regular stop for pilgrims, including every Chinese emperor; tradition dictates that the emperor spend a week there before his coronation.

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In 1809, renowned author Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachussetts. The most popular writer in America during his lifetime, Poe invented detective fiction, as well as popularizing what would come to be known as horror stories by those who sought to imitate him at the end of the century. Poe died in 1883, a wealthy and happy man of letters.

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In 1840, Captain Charles Wilkes claims a third of Pluto for the North American Confederation. Although considered a bad piece of property to own at first, Pluto’s position at the outer reaches of the solar system becomes important when the Congress of Nations decides to build its defensive base there, and the N.A.C.’s importance in system affairs is increased.

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In 1943, singer Janis Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas. Her hard living fueled the blues that she sang so beautifully, but it all came crashing down on her when she missed the Woodstock Music Festival in 1969 because she was too drunk to perform. She checked into rehab after that, but her music never recovered. Today, she runs a counseling center for performers trying to kick addictions.

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In 2001, Chairman McPherson issues the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the circumstances of the fatal car crash which killed the heir to the throne Prince Charles Windsor and his lover Camilla Parker-Bowles in Paris on 31st August 1997. McPherson finds no grounds for conspiracy. The British Public will have none of it, and the McPherson report overtakes the Warren Commission as a source of conspiracy theories on the Internet.

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In 1840, Captain Charles Wilkes attempts to circumnavigate Antarctica to claim so-called Wilkes Land for the United States. The southern lights known as the aurora australis terrorize the mission as powerful magicks force Wilkes to turn back and abandon the mission.

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In 1943, singer Janis Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas. A charismatic and leading member of the counter-culture, conspiracy theorists believe that Joplin was a victim of the authoritarian problem implemented by President Richard Milhous Nixon in the late sixties / early seventies. Defeated in the '60 election, America entered a crazy decade of anti-social behaviour which threatened to rip the country apart. A strong disciplinarian, Nixon got the country back on track when he was re-elected in '68 with a 'secret plan'. His dislike for the hippie counterculture and the anti-war demonstrations emerged during the campaign when he had intimated 'I think some of these young people need what my father would call a visit to the woodshed.' The essence of the 'secret plan' soon emerged following the mysterious deaths of numerous counter-culture personalities including Janis Joplin as well as Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix..

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In 1940, the anti-German Underground film by the Three Stooges, You Natzy Spy, premiered in America. The highly controversial film featured comic Moe Howard as a Hitler-like figure who ruled over an amorphous country known as Moronica. The American Bund called for a total boycott of the film, and incited riots at many of the theaters showing it.

In 1971, European Space Agencies described Apollo 13 mission mechanical failures as a self-inflicted wound. The British really had to do something about this quality control problem for next time.

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Mike Gatting	In 1990 police in Archona armed with batons and dogs broke up a demonstration against English cricketers who arrived for a tour of the Domination of the Draka. Several hundred protesters, many waving placards saying "Domination is not cricket" and "Ban racist tours" had gathered in the arrivals hall at the Eric von Shrakrenberg airport to wait for the 15 England tourists led by captain Mike Gatting.
England Capt.

The cricketers were three hours late - by which time the police had moved in waving batons, setting the dogs on protesters and firing tear gas. Winnie Mandela - wife of the jailed African National Congress leader, Nelson Mandela - was seen among the crowd wiping tears from her eyes. She later complained of police brutality.

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Masses

	In another place, we again meet Parkhill, the overly proud owner of a hotdog stand. Under the long suffering eye of his wife, he murders a Martian and leads them on a crazy chase across the red plains, only to have them deed him all of the surrounding land, and mysteriously tell him “Tonight is the night.” Parkhill believes he will witness the masses traveling back to Earth; instead he looks up in time to witness the destruction of his home planet. ~ Abridged version of The Off Season (January 2008).
Planet Mars

In 2008, astronomers watched a football pitch-sized lump of rock hurtle through space at a speed of 45000 km/h. The fragment, which had been christened WD-5, was on a collision course with Mars. The impact on 30th January would subsequently be known as the Martian Armageddon. During the period December 2001-November 2005 humans from Earth had colonized the deserted planet, occasionally having contact with the few surviving Martians, but for the most part preoccupied with making Mars a second Earth. WD-5 changed all that, and only a few die-hard optimists such as Parkhill stayed after the December 2007 exodus.

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In 1928, Leon Trotsky, having gained the upper hand in the struggle for power in Russia, has his arch-rival Joseph Stalin executed. Stalin's death brings many crocodile tears of sympathy from governments that would have opposed him if they felt that he had the slightest chance of taking Trotsky's place.

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In 1995, Richard M. Langworth combined fiction and fact in his publication “If Chamberlain had lost the Battle of Norway”. In this somewhat far fetched scenario, when Germany invaded Norway in April 1940, an expeditionary force was sent to counter them, but the campaign proved difficult, and the force had to be withdrawn. The naval aspect of the campaign in particular proved controversial and was to have repercussions in Westminster leading to Chamberlain's replacement by Lord Halifax, who immediately sued for a Carthaginian peace.

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	In 1977, Bruce M. Heezen and Marie Tharp mapped the Earth and World Ocean Floor, illustrating their recently-discovered ~65,000 kilometers (~40,000 miles) of midocean ridges (MOR) that almost completely encircle the planet. This compelling evidence that as recently as ~200 Ma the planet was only ~60% of its present diameter, and that today’s oceans, and the waters in them, did not exist on the planet came as a shock to most earth scientists.

The Expanding Earth Theory is now generally accepted by the scientific community, and the Kant-Laplace nebular hypothesis of the Solar System and Earth's rapid creation as molten bodies ~4.5 billion years ago discredited. The Earth is gradually increasing in size--one layer at a time--by constant accretion of mass from outer space--a process called accreation (creation by accretion).

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Nelson Mandela	“The moment has come” Samson Zola, “I'm carrying my cultural weapon. He has no fear of it, though, despite the fact that right in the middle of modern townships, Inkatha fighters stil kill their enemies with traditional Zulu spears.” Nelson finished his speech. He comes close to me. I try to plunge the spear into his chest. A hand of surprising strength siezes mine. I realise I have once again underestimated Nelson. ~ Samson Zola. In Laura Resnick's dystopia, years of civil war had torn apart the dream of a Rainbow nation. Samson Zola attempted to assassinate the President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela. Even though he loved him like a father, he saw the need to return South Africa to its people.
Alternate Tyrant

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In 1979, following Donny Osmond's appearance on the Tonight Show with his two deaf brothers, a straw poll of voters said that the brothers should have been excluded from the Osmonds, 80% v 20%. Musically the rendition of Crazy Horses wasn't very good, there never could have been a place in the charts for the Osmonds Plus.

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In 12-18-4-9-17, the African writer Manda Buthelezi won the Emperor’s Staff for her powerful work Songs of the Popul Vuh. It was a massive tome detailing the difficulties of African immigrants in the Oueztecan Empire, and was widely read across the civilized world.

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In 2000, the World's computers were still down with the millennium bug. Realisation begins to dawn that this is no blip.

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In 1995, historian Richard M. Langworth described the early phases of World War III. Operation Overlord was modified to invade a very different Occuped Europe than that original envisaged. Halifax's carthaginian peace in May 1940 created a power vacuum, such that Stalin's conquest of Europe did not stop at Berlin. Consequently the Allies beach head was the first step on the long road to Moscow. “Without the logistical support of Stay Behind Organisations” said Langworth, "it is improbable that Overlord would have been a success". This reference to the Nazi Werwolf group run by Otto Skorzeny and Operation Glaudio in Italy is bound to create deep embarrassment in European Democracies. Complicity with defeated Fascist nations was hinted at in the banned movie Dr Strangelove: How I learned to stop worrying and love the Nazis, and was considered a no-no for many years.

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In 1972, the balkanization of former British colonies in the “Third World” continued apace as East Pakistan became the new state of Bangladesh. Bengalese representatives were rotating members of the first Security Council in the Reconstructed United Nations during 2093.

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In 2092, the United Nations Commission for the Survival of Life on Earth (UNCSLE) confirmed the extinction of avian species in the northern hemisphere.

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In 1885, Alice Paul, founder of the National Women’s Party, was born in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey. Her bright version of a world where the voice of women would be the equal, if not the superior, of men’s, propelled the National Women’s Party to their control of the House in 1920, the Senate in 1926, and the Presidency in the 1928 elections.

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In 1519, Spanish explorer Cortes saw the strange fruit known as momochitl among the Aztecs and tasted it. A kind of heated maize, the momochitl lacked the flavor and sweetness of the maize, and Cortes could understand why the Aztecs mainly used it as decoration. After European control of the Americas was secured, momochitl was never cultivated again, and its small white kernels no longer decorated the heads of Aztec women.