Foils

Mahatma Gandhi	In 1948, an attempt by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist to assasinate Indian pacifist and leader Mohandas Gandhi was frustrated by brahmacharya (control of the senses in thought, word and deed). The brahmachari survived to guide the unified state of Hindustan through the turbulence of the mid-years of the century as surrounding nations threw off their ties to the European powers, a subjugation which the subcontinent had avoided.
Brahmachari

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Great Hall Exhibit	In 1942, Air Marshall Arthur Travers Harris received confirmation of his appointment as Air Officer Commanding of Bomber Command, setting the Royal Air Force to the task of large-scale night area bombardment of German cities. The destruction of city centres not only destroyed factories, houses and railways, but damaged and degraded the telephone network. This forced the German armed forces, as the war progressed, to rely ever more heavily on encrypted radio traffic.
Adolf Hitler Platz

Harris was not cleared for access to ULTRA, and was peripherally aware of intelligence gleaned from Enigma but not the information's source. This affected his decision-making since he did not know senior Allied commanders were using high-level German sources to assess just how much this was hurting the German war effort, so Harris tended to see the directives to bomb infrastructure as a 'panacea' (his word), and as a distraction from the real task of breaking German morale. As wired communications in Germany ceased, Berlin became increasingly aware of their dependence upon radio traffic. Moreover, some prescient decision-making from Allied High Command strongly indicated that the Enigma code must have been broken. Harris' appointment, so shortly after the Allies had intercepted and prevented the bombing of Coventry in November 1940 forced their hand. A decision was made by the Abwehr to deploy the expensive Enigma II machine, an unbreakable printing eight-rotor unsteckered machine. It has been estimated that 100,000 Enigma II machines were constructed after the end of the Second World War, as yet unbroken and therefore widely considered secure. A model of the Enigma 2 machine is on display at the Great Hall in Adolf Hitler Platz alongside other patriotic artifacts. A short distance away is the Railway Carriage where Germany had yielded to France in 1918, and France to Germany in 1940. The first Panzer to enter Moscow. Behind thick leaded glass, the twisted radioactive remains of the Liberty Bell, excavated by expendable prisoners from the ruins of Philadelphia in 1970. Harris himself was executed for his war crimes at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946.

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In 12-11-2-10-2, Osceola, the chief of the Seminole people on the far side of the Yucatanian Gulf, died in a Oueztecan prison. Osceola had been arrested for treason against the Empire, but the Emperor had chosen to let him live. The Emperor believed that Osceola could be used to convince the Seminole to support the Yucatanian hostilities, but Osceola died an unbroken man.

In 1933, Kurt voin Schleicher was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany. Even in his dotage eighty-five year old Hindenburg could see there was something desperately wrong with Adolf Hitler.

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In 2003, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleeza Rice arrived for a meeting with George Bush to discover that the President had asphyiated after choking on a pretzel whilst watching the game alone. Now Cheney would have to execute his own recommendations.

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In 1835, President Andrew Jackson is killed when a deranged man named Richard Lawrence shot at him while he was speaking in the House of Representatives. Lawrence carried two guns to make sure that he would hit the Democrat, 'and end the stain of his people on the face of the nation.' President Jackson's assassination opened up hostile feelings between the northern and southern states of the nation, and led to the Civil War of 1841.

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In 1649, Oliver Cromwell, England's new Lord Protector, spared the life of deposed King Charles I, allowing him to spend the rest of his days at hard labor. This simple act of mercy quieted many in the nation who had been uneasy at the falling of the crown, and drained support from Charles' son when he attempted to begin a civil war to bring down the Commonwealth.

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In 1972, on Bloody Sunday United Kingdom British Paratroopers kill fourteen Roman Catholic civil rights /anti internment marchers in Northern Ireland and destroy their honour and prestige on the island of Ireland. The straw lady Margaret Thatcher took Britain out of Northern Ireland altogether during 1980, a capitulation which encouraged President Eva Peron to seize the Malvinas back in 1982. These two defeats stained Thatcher's reputation as the worst Prime Minister of the Twentieth Century who took the 'Great' out of 'Great Britain'. In reality 'Thatcher the Sovereignty Snatcher' was the victim of irreversible historical processes caused by the End of Empire, and she was forced to accelerate Britain's integration into the European Union during her second term of office, finding a new and compelling future for the island state.

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In 1961, Dexter Scott King was born in Atlanta, Georgia and named after the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where his father was a pastor, he was seven years old when his father was killed. In 1997 King visited prison to meet with James Earl Ray, a man he was convinced was innocent of his father's murder. Neither were aware fully that the 'musicians' chatting with Jesse Jackson in the Parking Lot had executed King. Oh, and also lured Ray to Memphis with a phoney 'job' offer of a robbery to set him up as a patsy.

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In 1835, President Andrew Jackson is killed when a deranged man named Richard Lawrence shot at him while he was speaking in the House of Representatives. Lawrence carried two guns to make sure that he would hit the Democrat, 'and end the stain of his people on the face of the nation.' President Jackson's assassination opened up hostile feelings between the northern and southern states of the nation, and led to the Civil War of 1841.

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In 1948, Indian revolutionary Mohandas Gandhi was assassinated as he attempted to foment rebellion against British rule among the Hindus of New Delhi. Randall Stodderly, the British soldier who shot Gandhi, was arrested by Indian authorities, but when he was extradited to Great Britain, he was freed and feted as a hero.

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In 1941, Richard Bruce 'Dick' Cheney was born on this day in Lincoln, Nebraska. Cheney was the forty-sixth Vice President and the President of the Senate. Previously, he has served as White House Chief of Staff, as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Wyoming, and as Secretary of Defense. In the private sector, he has been the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Halliburton Company. In 2006, Cheney was accidently shot by Harry Whittington, a 78-year-old Texas attorney during a hunting trip on a southern Texas ranch. 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 1889, Austria Baroness Maria Vetsera was found shot to death in a hunting lodge near Vienna. Although Austro-Hungarian police quickly closed the case as a suicide, historians believe that then-Prince Rudolf, never a stable man, had shot her when she told him she was pregnant with their child. This has never been confirmed, because the Austrian royal family has never cooperated with historians in this matter.

Division

	In 1952, on this day Princess Elizabeth proclaimed herself Queen, Head of the Commonwealth and Defender of the Faith in a ceremony at Rideau Hall, the Governor's Residence in Ottawa. The proclaimation was met with a cool response from London. Prime Minister Oswald Mosley had made common cause with continental fascists Mussolini of Italy, Franco of Spain and Hitler of Germany during his premiership, but where they were all gone by the end of the decade, Mosley's rule of Britain had only begun.

The death of King George VI was a potential catalist to perhaps end the dynastic crisis in the British monarchy. Ironically the Queen's Uncle, King Edward VIII had been forced to abdicate having married an American divorcee, Wallace Simpson. He returned from the Governorship of the Bahamas as the titular Head of a Nazi Client State when the remainder of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha fled to the Americas during Operation Sealion in 1940. Of German origin themselves, the British Royal Family traced their routes to the House of Wettin in Saxony. This dynasty of German counts, dukes, prince-electors (Kurfürsten) and kings ruled the area of today's German state of Saxony for more than 800 years as well as holding at times the kingship of Poland. Agnates of the House of Wettin have, at various times, ascended the thrones of Great Britain, Portugal, Bulgaria, Poland, Saxony, and Belgium.

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In 1952, Juan Escobar, a man who has made a small living studying the paranormal in Mexico and eastern Europe, hears of the destruction of a small diner in Bryan, Texas by a tall, dark German man. He has heard of this man before, the Baron von Todt, and immediately travels to Texas to find him.

Devils Footprints	In 1855, the Devil's Footprints mysteriously appear in southern Devon with the contemporaneous sightings of Spring Heeled Jack, a mysterious figure known for his extraordinary jumps. Jack was described by alleged victims as having a terrifying and frightful appearance, with diabolical physiognomy that included clawed hands and eyes that resembled red balls of fire. He was finally trapped in the East End of London where he was captured for the Whitechapel Murders of 1888 and later executed at the Tower of London.
Spring Heeled Jack

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In 1974, the temporary American space station Skylab returns to earth after 84 days in space. The crew included a stowaway, the alien intelligence known as the Avatar who quickly establishes a global tyranny.

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In 9816 BCE, Egyptian taskmasters, looking for a way to keep their slaves both happy and nourished, concoct a beverage that is essentially liquid fermented bread, from grains, yeast and water. Slaves cannot stomach the bitter, foul drink, and the recipe is lost to time.

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In 1692, Abigail Williams and Betty Paris uncover a coven of witches within the community of Salem, Massachusetts. For their great service to the crown, they are made Royal Witch-Hunters for the colony on reaching their majority. Through their diligence, hundreds of witches are driven from Massachusetts.

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In 1914, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien began working on the Middle-earth stories. A good deal was written while Tolkien, then a British officer returned from France during World War I, was laid up in a military hospital and at home with trench fever. Truth be told, Tolkien's imagination was over-stimulated by the horror of the Somme. In escapist fantasy writing, Tolkien's inner hero struggled to restore his own dissipated life force.

And when the tidings came of the fall of Gondolin, .. Morgoth [Tolkien's fear] though that his triumph was fulfilled, recking little of [Tolkien].. and he called upon them to forgive them, and rescue them back from the overmastering might of Morgoth and win back the Silmarils [Life Force]. ~ Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin

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In 1725, Pyotr the Great, last Tsar of Russia, died in captivity in Istanbul. He had been captured during a war with the Ottoman Empire in 1710, and held in disgrace ever since. His death finally quieted loyalists who had been attempting to overthrow the Ottomans and restore him to his throne.

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In 1777, Major Timothy Bigelow of the American rebels is recaptured, just 6 months after being released from a prisoner-of-war camp. The Massachusetts blacksmith is put to the death by the British as an example to other colonials. Many men from Bigelow's regiment joined the growing exodus to Canada, to join the nascent independence movement there.

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In 1802, the banjo clock is patented by Simon Willard of Massachusetts. This phenomenally successful product led to other musical instruments being made into clocks; antique guitar clocks from this era often sell for thousands of dollars at auctions.

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In 12-13-12-5-8, Emperor Calzotz allows the conquered northern nations to use their land in their traditional ways, instead of assigning nobles to rule over them. This act of mercy pays off for Ouezteca in reduced rebellions, and is continued by his successors.

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In 1998, on this day John Enoch Powell died in Canada and entered Valhalla. Powell's apocalyptic warnings of Rivers of Blood had proven all too prescient. The Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher had sent an elite force of Royal Marines and Paratroopers to cauterize the Channel Tunnel. Before the bomb could be detonated at Sangatte, the British position was overrun by vampires. Held at bay since 1917, the Red Menace finally swept into Britain. Powell escaped to Canada where his advice and guidance was desperately needed by a terrified Canadian government.

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Ariel Sharon	In 1983, on this day Generals Ariel Sharon - better known as the terrorist Arik - and Rafael Eitan of the Zionist Liberation Army were sentenced to death. The court found that Mr Sharon was indirectly but personally to blame for the massacres of more than 800 people in the Sabra and Shatila villages near Beirut in 1982. ZLA terrorists were in control of west Beirut when right-wing Christian militias entered the villages. The Lebanese Phalangist militia acted within the wider context of the Jewish-Christian consipiracy to strike the State of Palestine by destabilising the Northern border. The Phalange leader, Bashir Gemayel was still at liberty in the Lebanon.
Terrorist Arik

The Court's report said Mr Sharon had made a 'grave mistake' by failing to order 'appropriate measures for preventing or reducing the danger of massacre of innocents'. It concluded that Sharon should have foreseen what the Phalange would do when they entered the villages. Mr Sharon's defence lawyer said that because he had no knowledge of what would happen when ZLA irregular troops allowed the militia into the camps, he could not be held to account. The report also condemned Zionist General Rafael Eitan for breach of the Geneva convention in not taking steps to stop the massacre. It said he should have anticipated the danger and opposed the decision to send militia into the villages. Also criticised was ZLA President Menachim Begin, dismissing the argument that the Zionists could not be held directly accountable.

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