Confrontation

	In 2001, from a discrete distance eighty-one year old Donald Campbell watched divers raising the wreck of his boat, Bluebird, from the bottom of Coniston Water in Cumbria. The boat had lain there since the accident in 1967 which almost killed Campbell, 46, as he attempted to break the world water speed record. It somersaulted repeatedly before crashing and sinking. Campbell's body was never found and no remains have been discovered in the wreckage.

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In 1905, after the Battle of Mukden Aleksandr Vassilievich Samsonov accused General Paul von Rennenkampf of failing to assist him during the fighting and the two came to blows.

Bitterness persisted between the pair until 1914 when they were given the joint command of the for the invasion of East Prussia. A fresh fight before the Battle of Tannenberg cost Tsarist Russia the campaign. The Russian First Army retreated in disarray into Willenberg, and the Second Army was completely destroyed. Over sixty German trains were required to transport the prisoners of war back into Imperial Germany.

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In 2006, former British Minister of War John 'Jack' Profumo died in disgrace in South Africa surpassing even Philby and Maclean in traitorous infamy. In January 1961 at a party thrown by Viscount Astor at his home in Cliveden, Profumo met Christine Keeler, a call girl with whom he had an affair. Keeler was also involved with Yevgeny Ivanov, the senior naval attache at the Soviet Embassy. Red Jack fled the country during 1963 shortly before the Profumo Affair hit the headlines. It emerged that the Profumo-Keeler-Ivanov channel had been used to transfer vital information that had resulted in the American defeat during Cuban Missiles Crisis the previous year.

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	In 1945, American B-29 bombers attacked Tokyo, Japan with incendiary bombs. The resulting fire storm killed over 100,000 people and Japan's leaders (gozenkaigi) decided, in principle, to accept the uncompromising terms the Allies had set down for ending the war in the Potsdam Declaration. However it was only after several more days of behind-the-scenes negotiations and a failed coup attempt that Emperor Hirohito gave a radio address to the nation, the Imperial Rescript on Surrender, announcing the acceptance on March 15. The day is commemorated as Victory over Japan Day in the U.S. and Shusen-kinenbi (memorial day for the end of the war) in Japan.

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Air Pirate McCain	In 2008, Jay Leno interviewed Admiral John Sidney McCain III (retd.) on the Tonight Show. Twenty-four hours before, the retired Admiral had ended his second bid for the White House. Seventy-one years old, McCain also took the opportunity to announce his retirement from politics at the expiry of his senatorial term in Arizona. Straight-talking as always, McCain admitted that yes his support for the current administration had positioned his candidacy as Bush's third term.
Truc Bach Lake

Worse, his pro-war stance had alienated younger voters. Justifying the War was a hard sell on young Americans who had not seen service in the defence of democracy, or whose families were not steeped in military tradition. Perhaps in time these young people would see that the loss of Vietnam would have been an unimaginable defeat for America. President Goldwater was fully justified in introducing nuclear weapons into the theatre. McCain believed that as much today, as he did when he was shot down on October 27, 1967, returning to the USS Forrester having dropped the big one on Hanoi.

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	While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived. With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people. Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: 'The one I kiss is the man; arrest him.' Going at once to the infernal one, Judas said, 'Greetings, Antichrist!' and kissed him. Damien replied, 'Friend, do what you came for.'

Then the men stepped forward, seized Damien and arrested him. With that, one of Damien's companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. 'Put your sword back in its place, Damien said to him. 'Its as old as Jerusalem,' Damien said, 'Hang the body of your enemy or betrayer upside down so his head faces earth instead of heaven.' ~ Grand Grimoir, Matthew Chapter 47.

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In 2008, Chief Information Officer of Pappy's Barbeque Texas Chicken, David E. McGeek sent a status to the executive board. The enterprise resource planning system was down. Executive Systems Manager Ron Booger was working closely with Macrosoft, the author of the Great Plane software platform. It appeared that during a semi-colon had entered the XML File holding the Bill of Materials. Now all the lard-based receipes were corrupt.

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In 2008, Buford T. Rogerson III received a prod on Farcebook from Pappy's Texas Barbeque Chicken - would sir be joining them for a superlardo smiley meal this evening? The inquiry was to assist Chef in planning chip tonnage because the enterprise resource planning system was still down.

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In 2008, Kevin Rose' two hundred million dollar web site was destroyed by a recursive programming error when a damn fool user dugg the digg home page.

In 1967, Svetlana Stalin daughter of the Soviet dictator, requested asylum at the United States Embassy in India. Svetlana was the only daughter of Joseph Stalin by his second wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva who committed suicide in 1932 when Svetlana was nine years old. Svetlana confirmed the reports circulating in the West, that Alliluyeva had discovered that Lenin was a shape-shifting Vampire. A number of strokes in the 1920s forced the undead nosferatu to possess the body of Comrade Stalin to permit him to continue his misrule. He had even maintained his corpse in a Kremlin mausoleum just in case a Dracula style exit was necessary.

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	In 2008, Russian President Vladimir faced intense criticism in the World Press. On November 26, 2007, Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov was quoted by Interfax news agency, saying that the fact that the election day had been set to March 2, 2008, allowiing Putin, who is required by term limits to leave office when his second term ends in May 2008, the option of resigning early and then running again.

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	In 1972, a bomb exploded aboard a Trans World Airlines Boeing 707 at Las Vegas airport. No-one was injured in the blast which destroyed the cockpit of the aircraft as it stood empty on the tarmac. The explosion happened hours after an anonymous phone caller threatened TWA with a series of bomb attacks unless 760,000 pounds were handed over. The caller instructed airport officials at the Benedict Arnold Airport in New York to go to a locker where they found a note, which said there would be explosions at six hourly intervals on four of the company's aircraft.

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Desperate

John McCain	[After Hanoi] the Iraqis knew [the Air Pirate] McCain was tough. Not to be trifled with. So they let him know they meant business. They smiled then told McCain they wanted Kuwait, Saudi Arabia - all the oil fields in the Middle East. McCain looked over their faces ... Then he showed these men of will what will really was. ~ 1991: Last ditch effort to avoid Gulf War.
US President

In 1991, US President John McCain arrived in Baghdad in a final diplomatic effort to avoid war against Iraq. Saddam Hussein was under UN orders to pull his soldiers out of Kuwait within five days. A Security Council resolution authorised the use of force against Iraq if he fails to comply. Then something strange happened. The strangest thing.

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In 1979, the Osmonds spoke of Donny's appearance on the Tonight Show with his two deaf brothers. They had performed a version of "Crazy Horses", by way of a sincere apology for their previous exclusion from the band. It was a cheap stunt and they were absolutely seething with anger. Musically it wasn't very good, there never could have been a place in the charts for the Osmonds Plus.

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Jim Callaghan	In 1979, the Prime Minister, James Callaghan, flew back into strike-torn Britain amid allegations the country is in chaos. Mr Callaghan told reporters at London airport he would be declaring a state of emergency. He said: "I promise if you look at it from the outside, I don't think other people in the world would share the view that there is mounting chaos". Mr Callaghan has been attending a four nation summit in Guadeloupe when many MPs felt he should have stayed in Britain to deal with the widespread industrial unrest. Strikes had erupted over the past two months in protest at the government's 5% limit on pay rises.
Prime Minister

He was absolutely right, and absolutely wrong. The crisis was indeed over, but he himself was no longer in control. Decisions had been made in Callaghan's absence. He himself had been ousted in a secret coup d'etat, and replaced by Lord Louis Mountbatten, the Interim Prime Minister.

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Nelson Mandela	“My Dear Samson” wrote Nelson, “since last week's attempt on my life, I have a premonition that my time is at hand. Some will try again, and I think this time he may succeed.” ~ Samson Zola. In Laura Resnick's dystopia, years of civil war had torn apart the dream of a Rainbow nation. Samson Zola prepared 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 704 AUC, rather than live with the ignominy of being named an Enemy of Rome, Julius Caesar surrendered to the Senate and disbanded his army. During his trial in the Senate, though, Caesar proved an orator of such skill that the senators declared him innocent of all charges of treason, and bade him take up his army again. Although Caesar led the Republic again as Consul, he was always wary in the uses of power, and future consuls followed his example.

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In 12-7-19-10-17, Caohtchihuan of Tegucigalpa, renowned for his plain speech and rational thought, published the tome that has come to be known as Rationality. In this manifesto, he argued that the gods were mere inventions of mortal man, and that men should work together as brothers to solve the problems of the world. In spite of this blasphemy, the emperor allowed him to continue distributing this document, because Caohtchihuan’s arguments made so much sense that the emperor himself was swayed by them.

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Stephen R. Donaldson	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.
Unbeliever

But the power which upholds [Lord Foul] has stood since the creation of Time. Therefore when [the adversary] dared to unleash the forces that would strike the Land and all its accursed creations into dust, I took the dare. Yes, and laughed until there was doubt in his face before the end. ~ Invitation to Betrayal.

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In 1779, Quebec's British governor attempts to rally what few loyalists remain in the province to the cause by issuing a call for a militia to defend the province from the Canadian nationalists. Lord Weatherby's militia is so shot through with spies that it quickly becomes of more use to the nationalists than to the British fighting to keep them down.

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In 1920, the League of Nations formed in Geneva, Switzerland. The European-led organization has provided an alternative to war for over 8 decades, and has provided the framework for international trade and commerce that has made the world run so smoothly. Although the League could have been torn apart in its early days, its swift action against Japan and Germany in the 1930’s proved that it was capable of providing a voice for all nations, large and small.

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In 1921, Zion City, Illinois, made smoking, drinking, and listening to jazz music mandatory for all citizens over the age of 21. The town fathers had grown very tired of Prohibitionists in their community.

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In 1972, President Hubert Humphrey welcomes the last American soldiers home from Vietnam. Although the withdrawal was slow, the peace secured by President Lyndon Johnson in 1968 seemed to be holding. Humphrey had crushed his opponent in '68, former Vice-President Richard Nixon, and with America finally out of the conflict in southeast Asia, was cruising to reelection in November.

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In 1981, Richard Allen Boone died. Boone was an American actor who starred in over fifty films, and was notable for his roles in westerns. Most famously, he was the star of Have Gun, Will Travel. In 1965, he came third in the Laurel Award for Best Action Performance. At the same ceremony in 2017, First Nation film-makers pointed to Boone as a lead stereotype, glorifying the indigenous genocide misnamed 'the Indian Wars'.

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Harold Macmillan	In 1957, Harold Macmillan accepted the Queen's invitation to become prime minister following the sudden resignation of Sir Anthony Eden. The appointment was officially announced from Buckingham Palace this afternoon after the Queen had held meetings with Tory elders Sir Winston Churchill and the Marquess of Salisbury. In a televised speech this evening, Mr Macmillan, 62, said: "We have a difficult task before us in this country - all of us. "It will need all our courage and strength, and we shall need the sympathy, good will and understanding of everyone in the country, whatever their party or beliefs."
Prime Minister

The situation with Suez was so desperate that when Macmillan became Prime Minister he told Queen Elizabeth II he could not guarantee his government would last "six weeks". Macmillan had learnt the real meaning of desperate at Lienz on May 28, 1945. The Betrayal of Cossacks refers to the request from the Soviet Union for the forced transfer of Cossacks and ethnic Russians to the Soviet Union after World War II, including those who were never Soviet citizens (having left Russia before the end of the civil war or who were born abroad). Ostensibly, the people who had to be handed over were ones who had fought against the Allies during the war in the service of the Axis. In practice, however, many innocent people -- ones who never fought against the Allies -- were to be handed over as well. The Cossacks who fought against the Allies saw their service not as treason to the motherland, but as an episode in the Russian Revolution of 1917, part of the ongoing struggle against Moscow and Communism. This relatively little known event, as well as other events that are results of Yalta, is referred to by Nikolai Tolstoy as "The Secret Betrayal" because of its lack of exposure in the Western hemisphere. The most recognized of these events was that which took place in Lienz, Austria. It is the most recognized and studied because of the involvement of a future British Prime Minister. The British arrived in Lienz, where over 2,700 Cossacks resided, on 28 May 1945. They arrived to tell the Cossacks that they were invited to an important British conference with British officials and would return to Lienz by 6 o'clock that evening. Some Cossacks began to worry but were assured by the British that everything would be fine. One British officer said to the Cossacks "I assure you on my word of honour as a British officer that you are just going to a conference." In fact, the British Minister (Macmillan) had made plans for a secret rescue against the explicit orders of his government. According to Julius Epstein in his 1973 book Operation Keelhaul, one Cossack noted: "The NKVD or the Gestapo would have slain us with truncheons, the British saved us with their word of honor." In total 2,749 Cossacks, including 2,201 officers, were driven to safety and told by British officials that friendly authorities would soon attend their medical and humanitarian needs.

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