Face

In 1976, Richard C. Hoagland issued a bizarre announcement regarding the Cydonian mesas, situated at 40°75' north latitude and 9°46' west longitude, which took on the striking appearance of a humanoid Face on Mars in a photo taken by Viking 1 on July 25.

Cydonia

Some commentators including Hoagland believed it to be evidence of a long-lost Martian civilization along with other features such as apparent pyramids, which they argue are part of a ruined city.

Image analysis of the early Viking images suggested that the features of the Face might not be an accidental consequence of viewing conditions.

That summer Hoagland had holidayed in Bunol, Spain, home of the Tomatina, where he had by chance attended a huge annual tomato fight.		Tomatina
Whilst the two images had no apparent connection, Hoagland's thoughts began to take a new direction. A most dreadful suspicision began to emerge in his mind. Eventually, he issued his announcement. He really had to get it off his chest, and to be frank, he was hoping to have his theory debunked. He was missing out on a whole load of sleep, it was troubling him that much.
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 1999, on this day Pakistan's army chief General Pervez Musharraf was dismissed. His sacking was presented as a "retirement" and Gen Ziauddin stepped into the most powerful job in the military. Events began when Gen Musharraf, on a visit to Sri Lanka, received word that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and intelligence chief General Ziauddin, secretly meeting in Islamabad, were to move against him that very day. In response, Gen Musharraf raced to Colombo airport boarding a Pakistan International Airlines flight to Karachi. Back in Islamabad army chiefs loyal to Gen Musharraf began to mobilise troops stationed in nearby Rawalpindi. But from the start it appeared things were not going to plan - with every senior officer reportedly refusing to accept his command. It took Pakistan's government just 17 hours to defeat the coup and restore order.

~ entry by Alternate Historian

LeMay Assassinated	In 1960, the dictator of Japan, General-san Curtis LeMay was assassinated in Japan by a sword-wielding nationalist, Otoya Yamaguchi at a televised rally. The camera was rolling at that time. Although the stabbing was not shown live by US or Japanese networks, the videotape of the killing caused a sensation when it was broadcast. LeMay had been a highly controversial figure since he landed at Atsugi Air Force Base on 30th August 1945 with instructions to accept Japan's surrender.
Swiftly installed as military governor and de facto Head of State, it was some time before the United States realised that Bombs Away had no intention of letting going of the reins of power. The incredible story of how General-san crushed post-war Japan under his heel was described in the biography "The Rising Sun at Dusk" by Jack Nimersheim, published in Alternate Tyrants by the editor Mike Resnick in 1997.

In 1960, US President Dwight David Eisenhower pounded his shoe on a desk at a United Nations General Assembly meeting to protest a Soviet assertion of American colonialist policy being conducted in Asia Minor. This uncharacteristic show of temperament disguised deep running tensions being politicians and military commanders in the Cold War. The U.S. started to deploy 15 Jupiter IRBM in Izmir, 16 minutes flight time from Moscow. Contemporaneously, a SS-4 site near San Cristobal in Pinar del Río Province, in Western Cuba was being built by the Soviet Union. When the US launched a covert operation to overthrow Fidel Castro (Operation Mongoose) in February 1962, both aggressor nations had nuclear weapons located less than one hour's flight time from each other's capital cities.	Curtis LeMay
Soviet Commanders had autonomous military command and thus authority to launch; Air Chief of Staff General Curtis LeMay answered only to God and refused to allow America to suffer “the greatest defeat in its history”. As US Marines approach San Cristobal, General Issa Pliyev authorised first launch, and “Bombs Away” LeMay reciprocated in style.

Kennedy	In 1960, JFK argued with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley during the presidential election campaign. In "Heavy Metal" Barry N. Malzberg takes a look at the losing Kennedy campaign, apparently from the JFK's own viewpoint. When Richard Nixon is shot in Dallas three years later, Kennedy makes a remarkable comeback to enter the White House. The genius of Malzberg is to suggest that “Father Joe” bought the 1964 election by paying for the bullet that killed Nixon.

In 2007, Morpheus explains the situation to Rat. The year is approximately 2199, and humanity is fighting a war against an irresistible group consciousness known as the Mesh created in the early 21st century. The sky is covered in thick clouds created by the humans in an attempt to cut off the Mesh's supply of solar power. The machines responded by using human beings as their energy source, growing countless people in pods and harvesting their energy. The world which Rat has inhabited since birth is the Mesh, an illusory simulated reality construct of the world of 1999, developed to keep the human population docile. Morpheus and his crew are a group of free humans who "unplug" others from the Mesh and recruit them to their resistance against the machines.	Morpheus
Within the Mesh they are able to use their understanding of its nature to bend the laws of physics within the simulation, giving them superhuman abilities. Morpheus believes that Rat is "the One", a man prophesied to end the war through his limitless control over the Mesh.

Setbacks

Marcus Aurelius	In 180, the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus (called 'the Wise') died aged 58. His tenure was marked by three crisis which ultimately resulted in the collapse of Rome - wars in Asia against a revitalized Parthian Empire, the plague carried home by returning Roman solidiers and finally defeat by Germanic tribes crossing the Limes Germanicus. Marcus Aurelius is revered for his keynote work of Stoic Philosophy Meditations, a literary monument to a government of service and duty, praised for its 'exquisite accent and its infinite tenderness.'
General Maximus

In Asia, a revitalized Parthian Empire renewed its assault in 161, defeating two Roman armies and invading Armenia and Syria. Marcus Aurelius sent his joint emperor Verus to command the legions in the east to face this threat. The war ended successfully in 166, although the merit must be mostly ascribed to subordinate generals like Gaius Avidius Cassius. On the return from the campaign, Verus was awarded with a triumph; the parade was unusual because it included the two emperors, their sons and unmarried daughters as a big family celebration. Marcus Aurelius' two sons, Commodus five years old and Annius Verus of three, were elevated to the status of Caesar for the occasion. The returning army carried with them a plague, afterwards known as the Antonine Plague, or the Plague of Galen, which spread through the Roman Empire between 165 and 180. The disease was a pandemic believed to be either of smallpox or measles, and would ultimately claim the lives of two Roman emperors - Lucius Verus, who died in 169, and Marcus Aurelius, whose family name, Antoninus, was given to the epidemic. The disease broke out again nine years later, according to the Roman historian Dio Cassius, and caused up to 2,000 deaths a day at Rome, one quarter of those infected. Total deaths have been estimated at five million. Starting from the 160s, Germanic tribes and other nomadic people launched raids along the Northern border, particularly into Gaul and across the Danube. Numerous Germans settled in frontier regions like Dacia, Pannonia, Germany and Italy itself. Marcus Aurelius death from the Antonine plague gifted the throne to his foolish son Commodus, whose weak character was threatened by the one individual most able to resist the Germanic invasion - his father's favourite General, Maximus Decimus Meridius. Commodus enslaved Maximus and sent him to Zucchabar, a rugged province in North Africa. A greatly weakened Rome fell in 181, unable to resist the Germanic invasion through depopulation and lack of effective military leadership.

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In 1969, the 'Iron Lady' Golda Meir, infamous for stating that the Palestinian people did not exist, became Prime Minister of Israel on this day. During her term of office she sent an athletic team to the Munich Olympics of 1972, an event marked by symbolism on many levels. Terrorists saw this as an unparalleled opportunity to remind the international community that the Palestinian people did exist. The Games turned to tragedy when the Israeli athletes were massacred by the Terrorist Group, Black September. Enraged, Meir ordered Operation Wrath of God, instructing the Israeli Secret Service to 'set the boys loose' and assassinate the officer class of Palestinian Society including Yasser Arafat, Yahya Hammuda, Mahmoud Abbas and Farouk Kaddoumi. This excessive response turned Israel into a pariah state, and her athletic team were not even invited to either the '76 summer games in Montreal, Canada or even more symbolically, the winter games at Innsbruck, Austria.

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In 2003, British Cabinet Minister, Robin Cook, resigned over government plans for war with Iraq. A highly intelligent man, Cook argued privately that the Extraterrestrial Technology (ET) recovered from Panama was more than sufficient to power the strategic models being developed around the predictions of the thousand year old Lenape soothsayer held until recently under the World Trade Center. Prime Minister Tony Blair changed tack and stated that the ET buried in Iraq, Iraq and North Korea was vulnerable to abduction by China, Russia or indeed al-Qaeda. Cook insulted Blair by calling him the Bush Family Poodle and stormed out of Number 10, Downing Street. Cook would not keep quiet and it was necessary for Blair to arrange a little accident for his former subordinate on a Scottish fell-walking expedition on August 6, 2005.

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In 1966, off the coast of Spain a 16-ton, manned deep-ocean research submersible owned by the United States Navy and operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution found a missing American hydrogen bomb. The 'Alvin' as the craft was known inadvertently detonated the bomb, creating a deep-ocean shock. The mysterious beings known as the Kraken raced to the surface, wrecking an orgy of destruction on the East Coast until their rage was spent. It was the worst of times, it was the of times, to paraphrase Charles Dickens.

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In 1985, the serial killer Richard Ramirez known as the 'Night Stalker' committed his first two murders in a Los Angeles murder spree. On August 3, 1988, the Los Angeles Times reported that some jail employees overheard Ramirez planning to kill the jury. On August 14, the trial was interrupted because one of the jurors, Phyllis Singletary, did not arrive to the courtroom. Later that day she was found dead in her apartment, the Night Stalker's last victim.

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In 1960, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Administration agreed to a recommendation from the CIA to equip and drill Cuban exiles for action against the new government of Fidel Castro. Eisenhower stated it was the policy of the U.S. government to aid anti-Castro guerilla forces. The CIA began to recruit and train anti-Castro forces in the Sierra Madre on the Pacific coast of Guatemala. It has been claimed by one biographer that the main drive behind the invasion scheme was Vice President Richard Nixon. The famous tapes from the time he was President seem to indicate that he was deeply involved. If so, it would explain how this stunningly successful operation was repeated to win the Vietnam War less than six years later.

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In 1960, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Administration rejected a recommendation from the CIA to equip and drill Cuban exiles for action against the new government of Fidel Castro. Eisenhower stated it was not the policy of the U.S. government to give clandestine aid to guerilla forces. The main drive behind the invasion scheme was Vice President Richard Nixon. Nixon and Eisenhower argued bitterly over the decision, as evident by Eisenhowe's non-existent endorsement of Nixon during the '60 election.

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In 1213 AUC, a Brittanian slave attempting to escape to Eire was put to the death. The slave had been part of the underground cult of Christos which still had some few adherents even after 4 centuries of suppression by the Roman Empire. This slave, Patriclus according to some documents, had wanted to convert the people of Eire to his religion.

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in 460, Patrick I, King of Eire, died in his castle in Dublin. With his influence, the Irish had been able to conquer England and Wales, and started spreading across the world over the following centuries. Today, everyone is Irish.

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in 460, Patrick, a wealthy British Christian who had single-handedly converted the whole of Ireland to Christianity, died in his adopted homeland. In a few centuries, the Holy British Empire would use the legend of Patrick to convince the Irish to bow to their rule; the Irish became very loyal subjects of the Holy British Empire because of St. Patrick.

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In 1943, Joint Chief of Staff George C. Marshall discovered that General Eisenhower was having an affair with his English driver, Kay Summersby. It was of course a major security concern for a junior officer to be so close to the man charged with the Normandy Landings. Worse, with Ike's focus distracted, more thought might be given to divorcing his wife Mamie than beating the Germans. Marshall decided to escalate, he leaked the news to Mamie.

And in my dream methought I went To search out what might there be found ;
And what the sweet bird's trouble meant, that thus lay fluttering on the ground.
I went and peered, and could descry No cause for her distressful cry ; but yet for her dear lady's sake
I stooped, methought, the dove to take, when lo ! I saw a bright green snake Coiled around its wings and neck.

~ Christabel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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	In 1945, the strategically important captured railway Bridge at Remagen, having sped the end of WW-II, but ironically no longer taking artillery fire, collapses ten days into the battle rendering the lodgement on the Germany bank of the Rhine dependent entirely on pontoon bridges. The Allied invasion was delayed by overcautious Supreme Commander Bernard Montgomery, enabling the Red Army to overrun the Western provinces of Germany. Catastrophically for the future of Europe, there would be no meeting on the River Oder.

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	On 17 Ramadan 2 AH, Abu l-Qasim Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh al-Hashimi al-Qurashi was defeated by his opponents among the Quraish at Mecca in the Hejaz of western Arabia at the Battle of Badr. Of the Quraishi army from the time it left Mecca until its arrival just outside Badr, several things are worth noting: although many Arab armies brought their women and children along on campaigns both to motivate and care for the men, the Meccan army did not. Also, the Quraish engaged Bedouin allies they had scattered throughout the Hijaz. The Quraish outnumbered the Muslims by five to one, gifting them an easy victory.

Something incredible happened just after the Battle. It was revealed to Muhammed that he would be a prophet, not a military / political leader - ' a messenger'. After all, only Allah knows what tomorrow may bring. For years Muhammad had been the butt of scorn and insults, but after this spectacular and unsought success everybody in Arabia would have to take him seriously. ~ Karen Armstrong, Muhmmad: Biography of the Prophet 1992.

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