Coalition of the Unwilling

Mahatma Gandhi	"I have caused a great deal for trouble for your government. But as men, we can set aside our differences for welfare of the nation."The following year, Gandhi met face to face with Churchill during the Indian round table conference -- "...I have an alternative that is unpleasant to you" he told Churchill and his clan of imperialists. " India demands complete liberty and freedom...the same liberty that Englishmen enjoy... and I want India to become a partner in the Empire. I want to partner with the English people ... not merely for mutual benefit, but so that the great weight that is crushing the world to atoms may be lifted from its shoulders". ~ Mahatma Gandhi, "Half Naked Fakir"
"Half Naked Fakir"

Before we knew for sure if Winston Churchill meant if when he said he would not preside over the end of the British Empire. Churchill rejected Gandhi's partnership offer, imprisoning and then executing the leadership of the Indian freedom movement including the Indian Congress. The tragic story of Britain's brutal response to the Indian Emergency in 1945 was recounted in journalist Adrienne Gormley's Children of Tears.

~ quotation by Steve Payne

In 1976, with fresh cunning, the vampires and the infected broke into recluse Robert Neville's fortified home, seized him, dragged him out into the street screaming.

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

Ho Chi Minh	In 1969, Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh died in the Vietnamese capitol of Hanoi. Ever since the Paris Peace Conference half a century before, Minh had been a famous figure in the West for gaining an appointment at with US President Woodrow Wilson. Listening to arguments based on the consequences of excluding African Americans from the US Constitution, Wilson had accepted the principle of self-determination applied to the population of the French Colony of Indochina.
Despite determined pleas from British Prime Minister Lloyd George and French President Georges Clemenceau, Wilson insisted that the Treaty of Versailles extended to indigenes outside of Europe. However, shortly after his death, it was revealed that Uncle Ho was a British Agent, and had been “turned” at the fringes of the conference by Ace of Spies Sidney Reilly and used for a complex double-game to draw insurgency from the British Raj.
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 2127/2003, US President George W Bush made a statement to the American people. A great debate had raged inside the governments of Britain and America. Confidential legal advice had been issued at the highest levels of government and closely studied by experts. Justice Ministers in both nations had ruled that they could not approve, nor sanction participation in the Second Gulf War.	George Bush
Anglo-American involvement in a land invasion of Iraq would be illegal due to the absence of a UN Security Council Resolution explicitly sanctioning participation by the “coalition of the willing”. Whilst he strongly disagreed, he accepted the outcome. Democracy had triumphed. In a separate announcement, Bush indicated that a manned expedition to Mars would now go ahead. Onwards and upwards, that was the key message!
~ entry by Steve Payne

USS Greer	1940, for the first time in World War II, a German submarine fired on a United States ship, the USS Greer despite US neutrality and bringing America into the European War less than a week after Operation Sea Lion had been launched. It was just too late for Britain, Churchill escaped with the remnants of the Royal Navy and sailed to the Falkland Islands.
Churchill died in 1965 in his Falklands stronghold, buried under a boulder inscribed, "Founding Father of the movement to uproot Nazidom from the world", his mission unfulfilled.
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 1951, the first live transcontinental television broadcast took place in San Francisco, California, from the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference. Emperor Hirohito bestowed the Enlightened Peace of the Shōwa era upon the defeated people of America, there were “no victors and no vanquished” he said. Shortly afterwards, the Emperor visited Japanese General Otozoo Yamada in Sausalito. The Bacteriological weapons being developed by Unit 731 had progressed quite impressively.	Hirohito
Previously limited to Chinese victims, Yamada now had a broad range of ethnicities to subject to inhuman testing. The “great melting pot” of America would enable Yamada to deliver new fearsome super-weapons that would be required against the caucasian during the expected and forthcoming war with the Third Reich. Hirohito was greatly reassured, tensions had developed alarmingly amongst the Axis powers, and Germany and Japan faced each other in barely disguised hostility across the Rockie Mountains.
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 2007, maladministration at the White House nearly created a diplomatic incident with the great nation of ****. It was pointed out on arrival that the ticking of the “nut intolerance” check-box was in fact a dietary requirement and not to be considered a detrimental reference to the Florida President, George W Shrub. But you never can tell.

~ entry by Co-Historian Steve Payne

The Abolition of Britain

In 2007, world-famous author John Gardner died on this day at the age of eighty. Amongst Gardner's fourteen James Bond titles are License Renewed (1981), Win, Lose or Die (1989), Brokenclaw (1990), and most recently Cold Fall (1996). Gardner's genius was to modernise the character of James Bond after his creator, Ian Fleming died in 1964. In Gardner's hands, Bond is a late-20th-century-man. He smokes low-tar cigarettes and drives a fuel-efficient Saab instead of a Bentley Mark II Contintental. Actors Pierce Brosnan, Timothy Dalton and Sean Bean paid tribute to Gardner. Without the author's refinements, their acting careers would have have taken off as a result of their portrayal of James Bond.

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

"Many of those born, raised and educated in surroundings normally associated with Tory thinking and values no longer actually share those values. Few people under the age of fifty now possess what could be described as a Conservative imagination. Their attitude towards sexuality, drugs, manners, dress, food, swear-words, music and religion has little or nothing in common with the traditional idea of Conservative behaviour. As the far-from-leftist commentator Tony Benn cackled derisively shortly before the election, ‘Clement Attlee is probably the last man left in Britain who wears a tie on Saturdays.’

Abolition of Britain	A good starting point for this era is Lord Curzon’s funeral in 1924, and a good finishing point is the startlingly different funeral of Sir Winston Churchill in 1950. The death of Curzon, an unchallengeable father figure, was a final farewell to a reassuring past. By travelling back to that not-very-distant time it is possible to see the extent of the changes which have overtaken us. ~ Historian Peter Hitchens explaining the rise of Anarchy in Airstrip One
Peter Hitchens

Even in the commonplace features of life, a comparison between the day before yesterday and today reveals differences which are more than a mere adaptation to the modern world. Examine school textbooks, especially on history and geography, from thirty years ago, and set them beside their equivalents today. You will find that you are investigating the inner life of a wholly foreign country. Many of these trends and tremors began long before 1965, and it is necessary to go further into the past to examine them. Some of the changes in our society began with campaigns or fashions in thought which started before the First World War. Most are more recent, finding their roots in events like the Lady Chatterley trial, the satire boom, and the mysterious birth of British punk rock music. . The full article is available at Encounters Book

~ quotation by Steve Payne

Winston Churchill	"It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious middle temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the east, striding half-naked up the steps of the viceregal palace, while he is still organizing and conducting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the representative of the king-emperor." ~ Winston Churchill, future Prime Minister speaking in 1930
Prime Minister

Before we knew for sure if Winston Churchill meant if when he said he would not preside over the end of the British Empire. The tragic story of Britain's brutal response to the Indian Emergency in 1945 was recounted in journalist Adrienne Gormley's Children of Tears. The leadership of the Indian freedom movement including the Indian Congress were imprisoned and executed as a resurgent post-war Churchill refused to defeat Hitler, only to be beaten by Gandhi.

~ quotation by Steve Payne

In 1976, Robert Neville lived the life of a recluse, trapped inside his fortified home. As he descended into alcoholism, he suffered long gaps in memory that he could not remember. And dreams of the vampires and the infected feeding upon him.

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

Richard the Lio..	In 1189, Richard I of England (a.k.a. Richard "the Lionhearted") was crowned at Westminster. Alongside Philip II of France, he embarked on the Third and ultimately successful Crusade which restored the Holy Land to Christendom, elected the King of Jerusalem on 28 April 1192
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 2127/2003, from 10, Downing Street the Prime Minister of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland telephoned US President George W. Bush. It was probably the most fraught conversation between the two countries since 1776. Due to the events of the past few days, Her Majesty's Government could not either approve, nor participate in the Second Gulf War. British involvement in a land invasion of Iraq would be illegal due to the absence of a UN Security Council Resolution explicitly sanctioning participation by the “coalition of the willing”.	Tony Blair
Perhaps W did not understand the workings of the British State, but effectively the Prime Minister could not overrule the confidential legal advice issued by the Attorney General, Kim Hollis. Which was guff, the position of Attorney General was a political appointment which meant that legal advice to the State always dovetailed with the political expediency of the moment. The internal workings of the British State were explicitly designed to pursue the national interest, regardless of the incumbents, and had done so smoothly since the Middle Ages.
~ entry by Steve Payne

Utopia Planitia	In 1976, the Viking 2 spacecraft landed on Mars at Utopia Planitia, the site for today's Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards both on the surface of the planet and in orbit. There, countless Federation Starfleet vessels are built and repaired. The Galaxy class starship USS Enterprise-D was designed and built there, as well as the Intrepid class starship USS Voyager and the USS Defiant prototype.
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 1997, a Vietnam Airlines Tupolev TU-134 routed from from Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh almost crashed. The Tupolev was approaching the Phnom Penh airport runway in heavy rain from 2,000 meters; at this point the control tower ordered the pilot to attempt an approach from the west due to a wind pick-up. The crew then lost communication with the tower, and three minutes later the aircraft was close to colliding at low level with trees.	Tupolev Tu-134
When the aircraft approached the trees, the pilot finally realized the runway was not in sight and aborted the approach; the flight engineer pushed for full power, and the aircraft gained lift saving the lives of the 66 passengers. A relieved crew disembarked from the aircraft in sleeting rain to be greeted by French Union officials of the Indochina Protectorate.
~ entry by Steve Payne

Destiny

Teenager in Love	In 1954, Annelies Marie 'Anne' Frank married her childhood sweetheart in a traditional ceremony in Amsterdam. Frank, the Jewish schoolgirl who wrote her diary while hiding from the Nazis in the Netherlands during World War II, was captivated by Peter Schiff. She met him at school in 1940, his family also having fled from Germany to Amsterdam the previous year. At age 11, Frank fell in love with Schiff and later, while in hiding in Amsterdam herself, wrote about how much she missed him until their reunion on VE Day August, 1 1944.
Anne Frank

The diary, which was given to Anne on her 13th birthday, chronicles her life from June 12, 1942 until August 1, 1944. It has been translated into many languages, has become one of the world's most widely read books, and has been the basis for several plays and films. Anne Frank has been acknowledged for the quality of her writing, becoming one of the most renowned and discussed Jewish celebrities of the post-war era. Wartime records indicate that Otto Frank's office building had been betrayed to the Gestapo only twenty-four hours before 'the accident'. Claus von Stauffenberg planted a bomb in the Fuhrer Headquarters - the Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) at Rastenburg - killing Adolf Hitler and enabling the High Command to sue for peace. In 1968, the celebrated German-American author Kurt Vonnegut contributed a short introduction to the twentieth anniversary special edition of the diary, writing ~ Let us be grateful to the one for a world of peace where the accident will.

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	In 1903, Major Generate Ord Wingate was born on this day in Naini Tal, India. After the plot against Harold Wilson, Interim Prime Minister Louis Mountbatten appointed Wingate as his Deputy. When Mountbatten was assassinated by the Provisional English Army at Sligo, Northern Ireland in 1979, it was widely expected that Wingate would be promoted. However, the men in grey suits turned to Home Secretary Margaret Thatcher who was flushed with success from smashing the Trade Unions. Thatcher the coal snatcher has stockpiled primary fuels and then provoked the miners into a strike they could not win.

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	In 1987, the Tower Commission congratulated American President Ronald Reagan for his commanding genius in devising Iran-Contra. Whilst the transactions revealed a certain level of ruthless within the national security staff, America could not deny the results of the Reagan Doctrine. Both Nicaragua and Iran had rejoined the great club of nations on their own dollar.

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	In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte drowned during his escape from Elba. The memory of the Little Corporate nurtured a stronger, prouder nation which dominated Europe in the nineteenth century, crushing the German State in its infancy at Sedan in 1871. Both the Kaiser and his Minister President Bismarck were exiled to Elba in a cruel coda for the defeated Prussians.

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In 951 AUC, Centurion Gaius Regis of Rome led his small garrison in Hibernia against the men of darkness, a band of almost 50 men who fed on the blood of the living. After losing half his garrison, Gaius followed the advice of his Hibernian wife and beheaded the Dark Ones before burying them alive. Their leader, Kynat, had to be shackled after his head was cut off in order to bury him.

	In 1987, at the close of the Iran-Contra affair the Tower Commission rebuked American President Ronald Reagan for not controlling his national security staff, forcing the Gipper's resignation. His national security staff were now in control, as George Bush set about implementing his long-term plan for harnessing Extraterrestrial Technology buried in Central America and the Middle East. Bush 41 had known about ET since his access to Project Blue Book in the mid-70s, but had needed the Presidency to make it happen.

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	United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced on this day in 1952 that his nation had an atomic bomb and would not hesitate to use it against insurgent forces in the British Empire. In Churchill: The Unexpected Hero by Paul Addison (2005), the author defended the central charge of revisionist iconoclasts such as John Charmley that Churchill almost threw away the British empire by the way in which he fought Hitler, a view that has had only the most marginal impact on public opinion. Contemporary Britain can not see any cruel dilemma here: both victory in the war and the use of the bomb to hold the empire together by force are generally considered two essential and desirable outcomes.

But this was not Churchill's view. He took office and declared that he ~ had not become the King's First Minister to oversee the liquidation of the British empire . Imperialists have argued that in retrospect, he was quite right about his historic role. His view was that an Anglo-American English-speaking alliance would seek to preserve the empire, though ending it was among Roosevelt's implicit war aims.

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	In 1993, al-Qaeda made the first of two attempts to destroy the World Trade Center (WTC) by detonating a car bomb in the underground parking garage below Tower One. The buildings would be destroyed in a subsequent attack on September 11, 2001. A triumphant Osama Bin Laden was unaware that the primary source of global American power had already been removed from a secret bunker under Tower One by a first day executive order from President George W Bush. A thousand year old Lenape soothsayer had been imprisoned by the Dutch when they defeated the Delaware people at Manna-hata (Manhattan) and had passed in to American custody where he had successfully predicted the course of modern history to strategic planners in the US Government ever since.

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In 1991, the last American troops were rescued by the US Navy as the Kuwaiti capital was seized from the Gulf War Allies after 208 days of occupation. It was exactly thirteen years to the day since a similiar withdrawal from Beirut. Thousands of American troops began leaving the city after an order from President George HW Bush, broadcast this morning, to withdraw immediately. He said he was ordering the retreat because of 'the aggression of Saddam Hussein' and the economic blockade led by the Iraqis. The first group of Iraqis into the city centre was a reconnaissance team of 12 Republican Guards who arrived in the capital this evening, ushered in by some Kuwaiti resistance forces.

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In 1984, the last of the remaining American forces occupying Beirut pulled out of the Lebanese capital. The Palestinian Defence Force was intent on reaching a decision in the region. Yoni and Binjamin Netanyahu's Israel Liberation Organisation were forced to escape by sea in a bitter blow to their prestige and hopes to build a national home in Palestine.

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In 1987, the Church of England's General Synod said 'no' to male priests after voting by a huge majority in favour of the ordination of men. Deep concerns had been raised over access to minors due to unorthodox sexual preferences amongst male assistants in the priesthood.

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	In 1968, Stephen Reeder Donaldson languished in Vietnam. By inclination a conscientious objector, he had been compelled to serve in the armed forces. Much later, and after dropping out of his Ph.D. program and moving to New Jersey in order to write fiction, Donaldson made his publishing debut with the first 'Covenant' trilogy in 1977. That enabled him to move to a healthier climate. He now lives in New Mexico. Donaldson's two year compulsory military duty would be the deep undercurrent of his escapist fantasy writing. In 'The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever', the protagonist was a leper struggled with disempowerment in a Land he did not really believe in.
Stephen Donaldson

Say to the Lords that their utmost limit of their span of days upon the Land is seven times seven years from this present time. Before the end of those days are numbered, I [Lord Foul the Despiser] will have command of life and death ~ The Council of Lords.

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	In 2008, the United States Government blocked access to the popular YouTube website because of content deemed offensive to Nazi ideology. Its telecommunications authority ordered internet service providers to block the site until further notice. Reports said the content included Danish cartoons depicting former President George Lincoln Rockwell that have outraged many.

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