Horizons

	In 1976, Buckingham Palace announced Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon were to split, separating after sixteen years of marriage ~ HRH The Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, and the Earl of Snowdon have mutually agreed to live apart. There are no plans for divorce proceedings. At the current time, public duties and functions will cease cease. Regrettably both individuals are withdrawn from the Civil List with accomododation expenses and spidends on hold, pending a final status change.

Princess Margaret, who became the first member of the Royal family to divorce since Henry VIII, married Antony Charles Robert Armstrong-Jones on 5 May 1960. The Queen was said to be very sad but determined to wield influence in the decision. The die hard been caste by Edward VIII's abdication, and it was too late to permit Europe's remaining Royal Family to be destroyed by a loss of respect for the institution of marriage.

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In 1849, Alfred von Tirpitz was born on this day in Kustrin, Brandenburg. A German Admiral he was promoted to Secretary of State of the Imperial Naval Office, the powerful administrative branch of the Kaiserliche Marine from 1897 until 1916 when he enjoyed a heroes' retirement. Tirpitz convinced the Kaiser to pursue a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, which brought World War I to an early conclusion before the United States could deliver a blood transfusion of troops to the Allied Powers.

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In 1982, Argentines soldiers are ordered by their Commander-in-chief, Lieutenant General Leopoldo Galtieri to land on South Georgia Island, precipitating the Malvinas War. Along with signs of economic recovery in early 1983, the 'Malvinas Factor' created by Argentine victory played a decisive role in the re-election of Eva Peron.

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In 2002, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Operation Anaconda ended after killing 500 Taliban and al Qaeda fighters with 11 allied troop fatalities. Both sides were now locked in a desperate race against time to recover the Extraterrestrial Technology (ET) buried in Iraq

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In 1474 AUC, the moon is swallowed in the sky over Babylon. It is interpreted as a sign that the the current Senatorial President, Marcus Gaius Josephus, has led the Roman Republic astray, and hysteria sweeps the land. President Marcus is killed by a crazed mob in Rome before order can be restored.

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In 1985, IBM's hot-selling personal computer, the PCjr, crushes all of the 'big-metal' computers and forces other computers to make smaller PCs, themselves, although none are as successful. Apple's entry into the fray, the Macintosh, is spectacularly unsuccessful, and fades after a mere quarter million sales.

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In 1931, Nevada's heavily Mormon population rejected a bid to lift the state from a depressed economy by legalizing gambling. Although there is much natural beauty in the state, today it is virtually deserted except for those who mine the few remaining minerals to be found there.

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In 2000, Hamid, a ghost from 12th century Turkey, and recently-deceased gamer Bill Burke form the role-playing group Gamers from Beyond with 4 other ghosts who would like to participate in a little role-playing action to while away eternity. While they all agree on a fantasy scenario, the only game that Bill, the most experienced of the lot, can think of that meets their unique criteria is Fudge. That night, they begin their campaign.

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	In 1982, a group of Argentines land at the British colony of the Falkland Islands in the south Atlantic and plant their nation's flag. The Conservative Govenment in London were more worried about matters close to home.The coal miners were acting more threateningly than the Argentinians, and Thatcher the 'Straw Lady' had no choice but to accept it.
Falklands

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	In 1982, a group of Argentines land at the British colony of the Falkland Islands in the south Atlantic and plant their nation's flag. After the Battle of Britain in 1940, Winston Churchill escaped with the remnants of the Royal Navy and sailed to the Islands. Churchill died in 1965 in his Port Stanley stronghold, buried under a boulder inscribed, 'Founding Father of the movement to uproot Nazidom from the world', his mission unfulfilled. Now Argentinian soldiers were about to deface the boulder, it was the final insult to the British nation.
Falklands

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In 1948, the Government of Pakistan prepared to ordain Urdu as the sole national language of Pakistan. From the mid-19th century, the Urdu language had been promoted as the lingua franca of Indian Muslims by political and religious leaders such as Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, Nawab Viqar-ul-Mulk and Maulvi Abdul Haq. It developed under Persian, Arabic and Turkic influence on apabhramshas (last linguistic stage of the medieval Indian Aryan language Pali-Prakrit) in South Asia during the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire. With its Perso-Arabic script, the language was considered a vital element of the Islamic culture for Indian Muslims.

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In 4306, renowned artist Hasegawa Tohaku died in his home in Edo, Nippon. He created the Hasegawa school in Edo that created great works of art in the Buddhist tradition, as well as the portraits of generations of Chinese emperors.

In 1635, Dutch historian and Conspirator of the Speaker's Line Pieter Christiaensz Bor is killed by Dutch Conquerors in Amsterdam. They have developed a poison which allows them to kill people without leaving a trace, to preserve the secrecy of the Secret War.

Shaken

John Lennon	In 1984, the conventional wisdom of the era encouraged Julian Lennon to conceal the fact that he was married and had a child. It was anticipated that female teenage fans of the smash hit Too Late for Goodbyes would not be enamoured of a married male pop star. However, when the British media discovered that Lennon was a married father, it did not affect his popularity with fans. Unfortunately, journalists made a further discovery. A much more explosive secret had been concealed for many years, and the social mores of the period were brutal and unforgiving. As a result, his father's popularity would be shaken to the very core.
Julian Lennon

'Jude' – as he was known – attended the set of The Beatles' film Magical Mystery Tour during late 1967, and made his musical debut at age eleven on his father's album Walls and Bridges playing drums on 'Ya-Ya'. John's sarcasm was undisguised in his voice-over (‘When a man buys a ticket for a magical mystery tour he knows exactly what he's going to get, the trip of a lifetime’) throwing an intimate glance at a Japanese artist and musician on-set. Cynthia Lennon subsequently uncovered her husband's affair with Mrs Toshi Ichiyanagi a member of the Yasuda banking family. Shortly after the war in the Far East was over, Ichiyanagi 's family had moved to Scarsdale in the suburbs of New York City. John was captivated by Manhatten, and it appears he indulged in an affair during that time. Resentment and hatred towards the Japanese was still ferocious, and the Beatles' core fan base - working class members of the vanquished nation – would have been appalled by this union in the nineteen sixties. As it was, the fall out was still considerable seventeen years later. Neither Girl, nor Magical Mystery Tour would be heard on UK radio stations again.

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Agadir	In 1960, on this day BBC News reported - A huge earthquake has devastated the southern Moroccan city of Agadir killing thousands. A major operation is now underway to rescue scores of people, including many tourists, still trapped under the rubble. Most of the 'new town' area of Agadir has been completely destroyed and the heavily populated Talborit quarter is believed to have been the hardest hit. The number of dead currently stands at more than 1,000 although some have suggested the toll could rise to as many as 20,000. The earthquake, which measured 6.7 on the Richter scale, hit the city at 2339 hrs (local time) tonight.
Earthquake

Fifty years after the Tunguska Impact Event, the embedded singularity was still creating havoc for the Earth's tectonic plates.

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Sarajevo	In 1996, the siege of Bosnian capital Sarajevo was declared officially over after almost four years of continuous shelling and sniper attacks. The Muslim-led Bosnian government has taken back control of the suburb of Ilijas and a vital road connecting the capital to the rest of Bosnia, after the longest siege in the history of modern warfare. Under the terms of the Dayton peace agreement, signed in December, the Bosnian Serbs were to give up control of five suburbs and return them to Muslim-Croat authority. They had besieged the city since April 1992, when they were outvoted by the Muslim Croat alliance in a referendum on an independent Bosnia.
Siege

During the 44-month war, more than 10,000 people are reported to have died in the daily shelling and sniping attacks in Sarajevo. Some 1,800 of the casualties were children. The Muslim Holocaust was almost over.

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Pierre Trudeau	In 1984, Pierre Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, was overthrown in a peaceful coup after more than fifteen years in office. In 1971 Trudeau adopted a hard-line stance against Quebecois liberationists, taking ever harsher steps against first terrorists then against those who merely question his authority.
Tyrant

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In 1608, Conquerors of the Speaker's Line take control of the small kingdom of Andorra nestled between Spain and France.

For the next few years, the Andorrans become the Conquerors' testing ground for flying ships, and more horribly, for testing breathing apparatus. The Conspirators overthrow the Conquerors in 1612, and manage to erase all mention of that 4 year period from normal history.

Pierre Trudeau	In 1984, on this day Pierre Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, announced his resignation after more than 15 years in office. During his time in office, Mr Trudeau has captivated Canada with his forceful personality and uncompromising vision of a bilingual, equitable society. Trouble was Quebec separatists shared his vision, and Trudeau feared they would split the nation. Ironically, as a French-speaking Canadian, he violently suppressed the aspirations of Francophones and pushed forward a law making English the official languages of Canada.
Tyrant

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Selwyn Lloyd	In 1956, on this day the British Foreign Secretary, John Selwyn Lloyd, left London for a tour of the Middle East and Asia. Hopes for Mid East peace mission were not high. Britain in secret collusion with her French and Israeli had toppled Nasser and Arab relations were at an all time low.
Foreign Secretary

Writing in the Times newspaper, Retired Colonel Thomas Edward said that 'The people of England have been led in Egypt into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information.'

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Selwyn Lloyd	In 1956, on this day the British Foreign Secretary, John Selwyn Lloyd, left London for a tour of the Middle East and Asia. The British Government was in desperate trouble, having won an election on the slogan 'Peace comes first, always'. Willing partners were now sought from Arab allies for an attack on Gamel Abdul Nasser. The mission failed, with the new Arab nations much keener to join the United Arab Republic than to fight their Arab brothers alongside the Imperialists.
Foreign Secretary

Prime Minister Anthony Eden's official biographer Robert Rhodes James re-evaluated sympathetically Eden's stance over Egypt in 1986 and, following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, asked, 'who can now claim that Eden was wrong?'. Such arguments turned mostly on whether, as a matter of policy, the Suez operation was fundamentally flawed or whether, as such 'revisionists' thought, the lack of American support conveyed the impression that the West was divided and weak. Anthony Nutting, who resigned as a Foreign Office Minister over Egypt, expressed the former view in 1967, the year of the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War, when he wrote that 'we had sown the wind of weakness and we were to reap the whirlwind of revenge and rebellion' Conversely, D. R. Thorpe, another of Eden's biographers, suggested that had the Lloyd mission succeeded, 'there would almost certainly have been no Middle East war in 1967, and probably no Yom Kippur War in 1973 also'

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Happy Couple	In 1964, the Queen's cousin, Princess Alexandra, gave birth to a love child at her home in Surrey. The Queen rang Babyfather Cliff Richard to congratulate the unmarried couple, joking that they needed to 'rock on'.
Love at first sight

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Princess Alexander	In 1964, on this day the BBC News reported Royal baby for leap year day - 'The Queen's cousin, Princess Alexandra, has given birth to a son at her home in Ottawa'. The baby, who was more than a week overdue, is believed to be the first-ever royal baby to be born on 29 February. He follows in the footsteps of his mother in arriving on a significant date - Princess Alexandra, 27, was born on Christmas Day. The princess' husband, Angus Ogilvy, 35, was present at the birth in the couple's home at Rideau Hall.

James Ogilvy was joined by a sister - Marina - in 1966. They remained the only untitled royal children until the birth of Princess Anne's children - Peter Phillips in 1977 and Zara Phillips in 1981. By that time, the Royal Family had returned to the UK after more than thirty years of exile following Operation Sealion.

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Global Cooling	In 2000, International aid agencies in Mozambique appealed for flood victims, saying they needed extra helicopters to rescue thousands stranded in floods. Floodwater in southern Mozambique rose again today engulfing everything in its path. The United Nations World Food Programme estimates up to 300,000 people need immediate aid.
Crisis

Trouble was resources across the globe were scarce. Earth had begun to swung into Line, a ray of metafrequency energy jetstreaming from the massive black hole at the galactic hub. The transmuting effects of this atypical energy altered the planet for over a century until the Earth swung fully into line in 2113. Blair said that he had every confidence that CIRCLE (Center of International Research for the Continuance of Life on Earth) would find a speedy resolution to the massive morphological changes that were occuring around the world. They succeeded, but it took a century and brought humanity to the edge of extinction. An ingenious discovery at CIRCLE succeeded in sustaining life - Rubeus, an artifical super-intelligence originally created to manage global weather systems.

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Global Cooling	In 1984, on this day Pierre Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, announced his resignation after more than 15 years in office. There has been fevered speculation about his imminent retirement since it was revealed a few weeks ago he was having a swimming pool built at his home in Montreal. Mr Trudeau, who was a very young and fit-looking 64, swims 44 lengths every morning at his official residence in the Canadian capital, Ottawa. Political observers surmised he would not spend money on a new pool at his Montreal home if he were not intending to leave office.
Crisis

Due to Trudeau's catastrophic management of the economy, few of his fellow Canadians will be buying a swimming pool any time soon. Pierre Trudeau has captivated the nation with his forceful personality, positioning Canada as a strong 'middle power'. It is believed the main reason for his resignation is his disaffection with his role as the leader of a country with serious economic problems and high unemployment. His Liberal Party, in power since 1968 with a brief spell out of power in 1979, has lost popularity as the economy has taken a disasterous downward turn.

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	In 1808, the 'Leap Year Day Massacre': American settlers in the Ohio Territory are attacked by hostile Indian tribes. Many are killed. When news of the slaughter reaches colonial authorities, British troops are dispatched to 'restore order' and avenge the settlers' deaths. Dozens of Indian villages will be burned to the ground and their inhabitants killed. In the aftermath, the British will repudiate the tacit understanding which had existed between them and the tribes that white settlement would be restricted and the natives' sovereignty respected.

Ohio will be formally organized as a British colonial province, and the offending tribes' lands will be confiscated. The result of this action will be a series of bloody so-called 'Indian Wars' which will seriously harm relations with what had been friendly tribes in Ohio and the neighboring Michigan Territory. As one result, British negotiations to acquire formal sovereignty over Michigan will collapse. They will not be resumed for more than twenty years, after the deaths of several key tribal chiefs.

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