Shocked

Jesus	In 1843, the next day after Christmas, Scrooge arrives at work early. Cratchit is late and Scrooge pretends at first to be his old selfish self, but then tells Cratchit that he is going to raise his salary. Cratchit is shocked and Scrooge wishes him a Merry Christmas.
Is Love

.

In 2006, on this day Gerald Ford, Jr. died aged 93 in Rancho Mirage, California. Thirty-three years before, Gerald Ford had been confirmed as the new Vice President of the United States, assuming the presidency less than six months later. Ford had become a national figure since his appointment to the Warren Commission, sensationally traveling to Dallas with Chief Justice Earl Warren and other commission members for a series of private meetings in Dallas with Jack Ruby during June of 1964. Upon its release in 1964, all files of the Warren Commission were sealed from public view for 75 years by executive order of President Johnson. In 2039, it was finally revealed that Ford, acting on the explosive information provided by Ruby, had strong-armed the CIA into unseating Vice President Spiro Agnew and President Richard Nixon, gaining him the White House. The CIA exacted revenge, scuppering Ford's re-election attempts by clandestinely backing one of their own, the “Georgia Giant”, James Earl Carter.

.

Lockerbie

In 1988, first clue to Lockerbie crash found Crash investigators have uncovered wreckage from Pan Am flight 103 which may hold the key to the Lockerbie air disaster. Rescue teams are continuing their search for bodies and the death toll currently remains at 240. This number includes Levi Stubbs, Abdul 'Duke' Fakir, Renaldo 'Obie' Benson, and Lawrence Payton who had been members of the band the Four Tops for 42 years.

Michael Charles, who is heading the investigation said it is not known yet if the crash was caused by structural failure or a bomb. Investigators cannot establish if the plane disintegrated before it came to ground, suggesting a bomb, or if it was destroyed by impact on the ground after severe structural failure led to its descent. Aviation experts have said they believe the most likely cause is structural failure after an initial inspection of the black box flight recorders did not disclose anything. Only a split second before radar contact was lost there was a 'faint unquantified noise'.

In 1972, on this day the plans for the inauguration of President-elect Richard M Nixon startled to unravel big time. Former President Harry S. Truman died in Kansas City, Missouri. Then, the incumbent Lyndon Baines Johnson suffered a third and fatal heart attack. Vice President Hubert Humphrey had been sworn in for three weeks according to the US Constitution, with President-elect Richard M Nixon arguing that his Government-in-transition should take office earlier than planned.

.

In 1972, on this day Harry S. Truman died in Kansas City, Missouri. Despite his folky appeal that “the buck stops here”, corruption was rife in Truman's cabinet and he lost the 1952 election to his bitter enemy Douglas MacArthur.

.

In 2006, on this day Leslie Lynch King, Jr. died aged 93 in Rancho Mirage, California. As a member of the Warren Commission, and after travelling to Dallas in 1964, Senator King issued a robust defence of Jack Ruby, prompting Earl Warren to describe the Senator as “just plain crazy”. King left the senate shortly afterwards and pursued a career in charitable affairs.

.

Four Tops

In 1988, in a Christmas special, tributes from around the world were paid to Levi Stubbs, Abdul 'Duke' Fakir, Renaldo 'Obie' Benson, and Lawrence Payton who had been members of the band the Four Tops for 42 years until the Lockerbie Crash. TV Channels ran some of their hits: I Can't Help Myself, Reach Out, I'll be there, 'Standing in the Shadows of Love,' It's the Same Old Song. It was just a very very sad moment.

New Plymouth

In 1620, the Pilgrim Fathers land at what becomes New Plymouth in Massachusetts. Today, New Plymouth is the capital of an Anglophone pocket of North America. Surrounded by a patch work quilt of nations, European and Amerindian, English is currently the fourth popular language in the continent after French, Spanish and Dutch.

In 1861, the United States government refused to free Confederate diplomatic envoys James M. Mason and John Slidell. While traveling to take up the post of Confederate envoy to Britain and France, on the British mail steamer RMS Trent, the ship was stopped by USS San Jacinto on November 8, 1861. Mason and John Slidell were confined in Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, precipitating the Trent Affair that brought Britain into open war with the United States of America.

Mason

Truman

In 1972, on this day Harry S. Truman, a former President, died in Kansas City, Missouri. The 33rd US President Harry S Truman had honoured a pledge to the American people. The use of a nuclear weapon on Tokyo he had clarified, was a once only tactic that could not be, and should not be, re-used. The post-war world was a great deal more complex than the world of 1945, and the weapon had become a great danger to the continuation of life on earth. Out office of office, Truman had led a peace movement that had delivered disarmament during the peace era of the late 1960s.

In 1979, Soviet Special forces troops take over presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan. The Al-qaeda government of President Osama Bin Laden flees the capital, appealing to their American allies for assistance in their hour of need.	Bin Laden

In 1972, on this day Harry S. Truman died in Kansas City, Missouri. Once considered a Presidential candidate, Truman was forced to withdraw from the 1944 Campaign Race after his $10 membership of the Ku Kux Klan emerged.

.

In 0, a young Hebrew couple, the woman heavy with child, were given shelter in an inn in Bethlehem. The innkeeper, whose wife had just had a baby, took pity on them and gave them his finest room free of charge.

.

In 2006, on this day Gerald Ford, Jr. died aged 93 in Rancho Mirage, California. Ford was the only person to occupy the White House who had been elected neither to the presidency nor the vice-presidency. His decision to intervene in Vietnam was therefore all the more controversial, because in his two and half years as President, Ford had never faced, nor planned to face the voters. This window of oppportunity presented the congressional-military-industrial complex with a window of opportunity which they seized with both hands.

.

Redux

In 1786, Rip Van Winkle awoke to find an old firelock lying by him, the barrel incrusted with rust, the lock falling off. There was no sign of “Wolf” his dog, nor the band of strangers. Perhaps the grave roysters of the mountain had put a trick upon him, and having dosed him with liquor, had robbed him of his gun.

.

In 2007, the Jackson 7 will tour in 2008 with Janet Jackson, announced her brother Jermaine. Rumours about a possible reunion of the pop legends has been rife for some time, culminating in claims from promoter Leonard Rowe recently that live dates were being planned. Jermaine Jackson has now given the clearest indication yet that the comeback is on and will take place next year, featuring their most famous member. "Janet will be involved. We want to tour. We want to touch the lives of everybody who's bought our records and supported us. "It will probably start here first, but it will be sometime in 2008. That's our plan", he told the BBC in a new interview. The last album from the Jackson 7 - Janet, La Toya, Michael, Jermaine, Marlon, Tito and Jackie - was "2300 Jackson Street" in 1989.

Kennedy

In 1979, Stanley Shapiro wrote the third in a series of articles entitled A Time to Remember in which the journalist was sharply critical of post-Vietnam Foreign Policy. Better for the US to have been humbled by the war in Vietnam and then this ultra-belligerance would have been nipped in the bud, and Westmoreland sent off into a quiet retirement was Shapiro's view.

The build-up of Soviet troops on the Afganistan border was well underway, and the United States had began sending aid to anti-Soviet, Afghan Islamist factions on July 3, 1979. In Shapiro's view, a military standoff was fast arriving, and the belligerance of the US Leadership would force a confrontation, perhaps a nuclear one. Kennedy's crisis management skills would have been prevented such an outcome, as he demonstrated over his careful management of the Cuban missiles crisis. Trouble was, he had made too many enemies in the military, and it is was these individuals who were now driving events in the White House.

Monty on the Rhine

In 2000, Douglas Niles and and Michael Dobson published Monty on the Rhine. In this the counterfactual novel the July 1944 bomb plot failed to kill Hitler. The plotters are rounded up and executed. Meanwhile, Hitler continues a two-front war and fires German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. A resurgent Bernard Montgomery triumphs at a very different Battle of the Bulge.

Hobos	In 1963, the strange being known as Snake Eyes entered closing mode as the number of critical issues was at last diminishing. The “three Hobos” who formed the first cross fire team included CIA Master Agent E. Howard Hunt. A double had been sent to a Washington Trial and therefore Snake Eyes had an alibi. The other two Hobos were already buried in the Texan desert. Snake Eyes instructed officers to very publicly march three vagrants out the Dallas Police Head quarters, this problem required false evidence to be placed.

in 1973, Gerald Ford was confirmed as the new Vice President of the United States, almost exactly ten years to the day since he had been appointed to the Warren Commission. Ford had travelled with Justice Earl Warren and other commission members for a series of private meetings in Dallas with Jack Ruby during June of 1964. Ruby predicted "a whole new form of government is going to take over this country, and I know I won't live to see you another time”. A fundamentally honest man, Ford had decided there and then that he would make a bid for the White House and stop the military-industrial complex in its tracks. Whilst he would later appear weak in his response to the Fall of Saigon, Ford saw clearly that the dystopian future predicted by Ruby had been avoided. Whilst the American people did not re-elect him, they did turn instead to Jimmy Carter a decent man of the same mindset.	Ford

Goldwater	In 1965, the Pentagon tells U.S. President Barry Goldwater that if planned operations were to succeed, the number of American troops in Vietnam has to be increased from 120,000 to 400,000. Goldwater tells the Pentagon advisors to get some options. Some more options. Asked for a preference, Goldwater suggests they “Lob one [nuclear weapon] into the men's room in Hanoi”.

In 1973, applying the Twenty-fifth Amendment the United States Senate voted 92 to 3 to confirm Gerald Ford as Vice President of the United States (on December 6, the House confirmed him 387 to 35). The military-industrial complex was simply enraged that Ford allowed Saigon to fall, and on September 22, 1975 in San Francisco, California, CIA patsy Sara Jane Moore fired a revolver at Ford from 40 feet (12 m) away killing him instantly.	Ford

Changes

In 2040, for the first time the Arctic was totally free of summer ice, sixty years ahead of predictions from the Year 2000. One particular glacier near the western town of Ilulissat has disappeared completely, probably the source of the iceberg which sunk the Titanic.

It is expected that during the next five years a referendum will be held on political independence. Denmark currently gives about US$900m a year to Greenland, equivalent to about half its budget. Since 1979 Greenland has had home rule, but not full independence.

Opinion varies on whether Greenland has been a net beneficiary or a loser from climate change. On the one hand, it could lose a proud Inuit heritage of dog sleds and whale hunting, walruses, seals and polar bears. But on the other it may gain economically.
~ entry by Steve Payne

Marvin Lee Aday	"The sirens are screaming, and the fires are howling Way down in the valley tonight. There's a man in the shadows with a gun in his eye And a blade shining oh so bright. There's evil in the air and there's thunder in the sky, And a killer's on the bloodshot streets. And down in the tunnels where the deadly are rising Oh, I swear I saw a young boy down in the gutter he was starting to foam in the heat." ~ Meatloaf, lyrics to Bat out of Hell sells about 200,000 copies per year and has sold an estimated 34 million copies worldwide.
“Meatloaf”

I'm gonna hit the highway like a battering ram On a silver-black phantom bike. When the metal is hot, and the engine is hungry And we're all about to see the light. Nothing ever grows in this rotting old hole, And everything is stunted and lost." In his biography, To Hell and Back, a friend described how he found Marvin Lee Aday. After he had spent three months of isolation an apartment in Dallas. Marvin told him that shortly after his mother died, his father, in a drunken rage, tried to kill him with a knife, and that he barely managed to escape after they had a bad fight. Marvin bought a car with his inheritance and they drove to California. During the journey, his friend became increasingly convinced that Marvin had killed both of his parents. A summary of his autobiography, To Hell and Back is detailed at - Wikipedia

~ quotation by Steve Payne

Norman Lamont	"Today has been an extremely difficult and turbulent day. Massive speculative flows continue to disrupt the exchange rate mechanism. The Government has concluded that Britain's best interest is served by suspending civilian government whilst emergency measures can be implemented" ~ Norman Lamont
Chancellor

After his new boss, General Sir Peter Edgar de la Couer de la Billière had insisted that the entire reserves of the Bank of England were handed over to the British Army. Horrified by the incompetence of professional politicians, the establishment had launched a military take-over to protect the nation from bankruptcy. Video footage from the BBC web site can be viewed at On this Day

~ quotation by Steve Payne

Gerald Ford	"The length of one’s days matters less than the love of one’s family and friends. I thank God for the gift of every sunrise and, even more, for all the years He has blessed me with Betty and the children; with our extended family and the friends of a lifetime. That includes countless Americans who, in recent months, have remembered me in their prayers. Your kindness touches me deeply. May God bless you all and may God bless America." ~ President George W. Bush with former President Ford and his wife Betty; this is the last known public photo of both Presidents.
US President

Shortly before his successor embarked on a nuclear confrontation with North Korea. Bush had planned to inform Ford that a showdown was inevitable, but changed his mind when he saw the frailty of the ex-President. The full story of the meeting is described at Wikipedia

~ quotation by Steve Payne

Makon	In 1945, on this day the reign of terror continued and a further development occurred in the world crisis. The horrifying being known as the Makon had entered the world through the fissure left by the nuclear explosion at Hiroshima on August 6th. Photographs taken by Colonel Paul Tibbets from the the B-29 Enola Gay were likened to an actor sweeping back a huge curtain to enter the stage. For six weeks, the Makon had wrought havoc on the Japanese island of Honshū.
Nagging fear escalated to outright terror when the Makon took flight, heading for the Western Seaboard of North America. Tibbets himself was passed caring, he had suicided two days after the bomb was dropped, leaving a brief note saying he was so sorry, so very sorry.
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 1955, on this day Juan Perón was deposed in Argentina. However, Peronists succeeded in restoring his charismatic wife to the Presidency. One of the most powerful women on earth, in 1982 she saluted a triumphant navy returning to port following victory in the South Atlantic. Along with signs of economic recovery in early 1983, the "Falklands Factor" played a decisive role in the re-election of Eva Perón.	Perón
~ entry by Steve Payne

European Exchan..	In 1992, the Pound Sterling is forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism on Black Wednesday by currency speculators and is forced to devalue against the Deutschmark. The authority of Neil Kinnock's Labour Government is shattered. From the Opposition benches, John Major prepares for a return to Government. Major was fully cognisant that the '92 election was a poison chalice over the explosive issue of Europe, which as expected had blown up in the Government's face.
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 1992, Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont dramatically appeared on the steps on Number 11 Downing Street to announce Today has been an extremely difficult and turbulent day. Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown said the government's policy had failed; "they have lost control of the economic situation," he told the BBC shortly before broadcasting was suspended. Standing behind Lamount was his new boss, General Sir Peter Edgar de la Couer de la Billière.	Norman Lamont
The entire reserves of the Bank of England had been spent during the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. Horrified by the incompetence of “professional” politicians, the establishment had launched a military take-over to protect the nation from bankruptcy. You could say it was cheating, but some bets you just had to welch on – and no better example could be found than gambling the nation's reserves with George Soros. Ashdown himself had served in the Special Boat Squadron and had both the respect and support of the military. Shortly afterwards de la Billière offered Ashdown the role of Interim Prime Minister. The position had been last occupied by Lord Louis Mountbatten, who had also been installed by the military in executors of the Plot Against British Prime Minister Harold Wilson. This time it would be different, reflected de la Billière - Ashdown was a hybrid civilian politician and ex-service man who was "the right sort".
~ entry by Steve Payne