Fast-talking

Offred	In 1991, the following notice was published ~ With due respect to sworn testimony of God-fearing citizens, - Deeply regretted by the Commander and his good wife Serena Joy,- In accord with the laws of the sons of Adam in this Republic of Gilead,- the patronymic, concubine Offred to be hung at "The Wall" this evening. Dereliction in duty per "The Ceremony", yet guilty of fornication with the Commander's chauffeur by magistrates of this good parish of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Guilty

Persuant to Holy Scripture, Mark 5:29 refers, - And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee, for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. On this day of our Lord, 1991 Anno Domini. Not the potter, but the potter's clay. Amen.

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In 2012, the author Stephen King awoke to a knock on his home in Center Lovell, Maine. Stranger : You stole my story. [King looks at a loss for words] Well? King : I'm sorry.. do I.. I don't believe I know you. Stranger : I'm Constant Reader. But that doesn't matter. I know you, Mr. King. That's what matters. You stole my love.

In 1919, Text 1 of the "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" entered the possession of NILI, a secret intelligence group led by the Zionists Sarah and Aaron Aaronsohn. Text I was an accurate record of Lawrence's capture at Deraa in November 1917, yet Lawrence had mislaid the manuscript whilst changing trains at Reading Station. Chaim Weizmann immediately understood the bargaining potential of the document as “in” to British Foreign Policy in the Middle East. Inside the British Foreign Office, Lawrence was “turned” becoming a powerful advocate for the creation of the State of Israel, an event which occurred in 1924 despite the original plans for a British mandate as set out in the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916.

Shawnee

In 1970, Southern Airlines Flight 932 crash landed in the mountains near Huntington, West Virginia. The seventy-five passengers including members of the Marshall University football team were carried from the burning aircraft and taken for parley. Chief Blackfish and Blue Jacket explained they had taken the corrective action necessary to save their lives, but needed to understand why the Americans were trespassing west of the Appalachia mountains in contravention of the Royal Proclamation of 1763.

1979, in an act of treachery renegade CIA Agent Aldrich Ames informs his Soviet handlers that Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan “Yoni” Netanyahu and members of his elite Sayeret Matkal unit have arrived in the United States. Their objectives are to post mortem Operation Eagle Claw, the failed military operation to rescue the 53 hostages from the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iran on April 24, 1980 and come up with a new, improved plan. Meanwhile in Tehran, the hostage takers pursue another agenda. Consideration is give to a plan to “return” the hostages to an independent such as Jesse Jackson, only to seize that individual to deepen the sense of national humiliation in the United States.	Hostages

Tunguska	In 1966, Lyndon Baines Johnson received an alarming update regarding the two deep-underground nuclear detonations. Scientists were confident that the detonations were the result of the Tunguska Event in 1908. A singularity had penetrated the Earth, causing an explosion that flattened 20 miles of Tunguska in central Siberia. An elliptic course had been pursued by the singularity for fifty-eight years. As a result, they believed the singularity would re-emerge on the Eastern Seaboard during 1971.

In 1965, echoing a charge made of his predecessor Anthony Eden a decade before, the political enemies of Harold MacMillan accuse the British Prime Minister of failing to provide “the firm smack of government”. They begin to exploit the national humiliation caused by the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) in Zimbabwe. The affair may have exacerbated Macmillan's ill-health. He was taken ill shortly afterwards, diagnosed incorrectly with inoperable prostate cancer. Consequently, he resigned and was succeeded by the Foreign Secretary Alec Douglas-Home in a controversial move; it was alleged that Macmillan had pulled strings and utilised the party's grandees, nicknamed "The Magic Circle", to ensure that Butler was not chosen as his successor.	Macmillan

Decisions

In 1976, Jeremy Thorn fell silent; Mrs Baylock waited while the sounds of a police car sped towards them, and passed on by the window. "My wife Katherine's dead," replied Thorn without emotion. "I want the child to die, too." They listened to the sounds of the streets outside and both were still awake at dawn when the sounds had fallen to silence. At eight o'clock Mrs Baylock dialed El-Al and booked the flight to Israel.	Hallowe'en Story

Logan	In 2119, with the approach of red nine (his twentieth ninth birthday) Sandman Logan 3 was forced to confront the immediacy of his lastday. Logan had a choice of waiting to report to Sleepshop for willing execution, or to make a run for it.
The very next day the decision was made for him. Age was revealed by the citizen's palm flower — a crystal embedded in the palm of their right hand that changes color every seven years, then turns black on Lastday. Logan's palm flower turned black, a year early.

In 1985, enlightened feminist author Margaret Atwood her husband and child make a failed attempt to escape from the Republic of Gilead and cross into native Canada.

Aunt Lydia	Atwood had accurately predicted a dystopian vision of American society in the period 1970–1985, particularly in the period of backlash against contemporary feminism. By working against pornography, feminists in the early 1980s opened themselves up to criticism that they favoured censorship. It is worth noting that during the Iranian revolution, an alliance of Western-educated intellectuals advocated modernism and Marxism but were defeated by other factions. Women played a key role in the revolution, and at the time The Handmaid's Tale was written, it was a common fear that Iranian women would be completely disempowered by their own accomplishment.
Handmaid

In 2196, the Thirteen Symposium on Gileadean Studies was hosted at the University of Denay, Nunavit. Delegates drew paralells between late twentieth century Iranian and Gileadean societies. Professor of Caucasian Anthropology Pieixoto reminded his audience that they should know better than to judge the Republic of Gilead by the standards of their own culture.

Pieixoto pointed out that the Gileadean created their seemingly barbaric rules to accommodate unique pressures that no longer exist, and that "contemporary" society can thus not fully appreciate their purposes or rationale. The full article is available at Wikipedia

Barbeau	In 1962, on this day at 1:00 PM 26 October, John Scali of ABC News lunched with Aleksandr Fomin at Fomin's request. He noted that "war seems about to break out" and asked Scali to use his contacts to talk to his "high-level friends" at the State Department to see if the US would be interested in a diplomatic solution. He suggested that the language of the deal would contain an assurance from the Soviet Union to remove the weapons under UN supervision and that Raymond Barbeau would publicly announce not to accept such weapons in the future, in exchange for a public statement by the US that they would never invade Quebec. The US responded by asking the Brazilian government to pass a message to Barbeau that the US would be "unlikely to invade" if the missiles are removed.

In 1944, Future Vice-president, and later, President Harry Truman publicly confirmed having been a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Truman admitted that in 1922, he had given a friend $10 for an initiation fee for the Ku Klux Klan but later asked to get his money back; he was never initiated, never attended a meeting, and never claimed membership.	Truman

Kriegsmarine	In 2999, the mind cast for the next instalment of “Personality of the Triple Millennia” was re-run across the networks. POT3M drew an even larger audience because of its oddness. Admiral James Somerville was the candidate and the context was Operation Catapault. The moment was seconds before the pre-emptive strike by the Royal Navy on Mers-el-Kébir which killed 1,000 French sailors and sunk the French Mediterranean Fleet before it could be seized by the Kriegsmarine. Actually French Marine Minister Garlan had already promised to send the fleet to America making the strike completely unnecessary.
MC Millennia asked if Mers-el-Kébir was not a more cowardly strike than Pearl Harbour, and if the conventional historical view was simply “victor's justice”. British Admiral Somerville was less enthusiastic about the action saying that it was "the biggest political blunder of modern times and will rouse the whole world against us…we all feel thoroughly ashamed…"

In 1918, in Germany the government within the government became the government. Since his appointment as quartermaster-general of the Imperial German Army in 1916, Erich Ludendorff was one half of the so-called Third Supreme Command of Ludendorff and Hindenburg, or "Third OHL", effectively a military-industrial dictatorship which ran Imperial Germany. On this day in 1918 Ludendorff refused to cooperate in peace negotiations and was dismissed by Kaiser Wilhelm II. Ludendorff and Hindenburg sent the Kaiser into exile in Germany, and continued the war effort. Many year later during the rise of Hitler, this event was portrayed as the Dolchstoßlegende ("Dagger stab legend") which caused Germany to collapse because the Kaiser had failed to respond to his "patriotic calling" at the most crucial of times and - some said – had even intentionally "sabotaged the war effort."	Dolchstosslegende

Mistakes

Handmaiden	In 2196, the Thirteen Symposium on Gileadean Studies was hosted at the University of Denay, Nunavit. Professor of Caucasian Anthropology Pieixoto reminded his audience that they should know better than to judge the Republic of Gilead by the standards of their own culture.
Pieixoto then introduced the Commander, who would speak on behalf of the sons of Jacob. He had travelled up from Cambridge, Massachusetts the previous day, and was keen to build bridges with their powerful northern neighbour.

In 2008, service agents at the head office of the restaurant chain Wanda's of Montreal performed data administration duties in preparation for fortieth year celebrations. The database flag ABUSIVE_COMMENT was set to Y to filter out negative comments which of course would not be showcased on the chain's web site.

Barbeau	In 1962, on this day the US publicly announced its discovery of the installation of Soviet nuclear weapons in Quebec. Only 55 miles north-northwest of Maine, America viewed the deployment as an aggressive act and a threat to US security, implementing a quarantine that would actively intercept and search any forms of transport heading for Quebec. Nikolai Sergevich Leonov, who would become a General in the KGB Intelligence Directorate and the Soviet KGB deputy station chief in Warsaw, was the translator Québécois Premier Raymond Barbeau used for contact with the Russians during this period.

In 1972, on this day in Saigon, Henry Kissinger and Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem and his younger brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu met to discuss a proposed cease-fire that had been worked out between Americans and North Vietnamese in Paris. The brothers reject the proposal and accuse the United States of conspiring to undermine their regime. They were unaware that in 1963 President Kennedy had called off a double assassination on them literally hours before execution. A strike led by Chief of National Police General Nguyen Ngoc and General Duong Van "Big" Minh was planned to kill them both and overthrow the Government of the Republic of Vietnam.	Nguyen Ngoc

Gandhi	In 2999, the mind cast for the next instalment of “Personality of the Triple Millennia” was re-run across the networks. POT3M drew an even larger audience because of its oddness. Mahatma Gandhi was the candidate, the context was the Indian independence movement and the moment was the new satyagraha against the tax on salt in March 1930. Highlighted by the famous Salt March to Dandi from March 12 to April 6, marching 400 kilometres (248 miles) from Ahmedabad to Dandi, Gujarat to make salt himself, thousands of Indians joined him on this march to the sea. This campaign was one of his most successful at upsetting the British rule who responded with the imprisonment of over 60,000 people.
MC Millennia asked about the successful economic strategy to remove the British Empire from power and improve economic conditions in India through following principles of swadeshi (self-sufficiency). Was this the strategy for India after independence?

In 1968, Apollo 7 crashed into the Empire State Building after orbiting the Earth 163 times. Three thousand New Yorkers were killed by the impact. Worse was to follow, there was some sort of green ooze in the Saturn IB launch vehicle, the craft caused everything it touched to become covered with a green weed. The incredible story of how the Atlantic Plague Centre quarantined the green weed to the island of Manhattan was recounted by the journalise Stephen King in his master piece The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verill.	Creepshow

Challenged

Gwendolyn Ingolfsson	Imagine a world where the population of Earth is five hundred million and stable, not seven billion and rising. Where not an ounce of fossil fuel is burned. No mines, no factories, no fission reactors or coal-burning plants, no tankers full of oil. The sea and the skies and the land swarm with life, and whole continents re nature preserves…it’s possible, given the right technology and the right management. ~ Gwendolyn Ingolfsson Describing Draka Final Society of 443 years after the Draka victory in the Final War (2442 AD). The full article is available at Scorpion
Drakon

In 1985, enlightened anti-war author Kurt Vonnegut and his family made a failed attempt to escape from the Republic of Gilead and cross into Canada. Vonnegut was a fourth-generation German-American living in easy circumstances on Cape Cod (and smoking too much), who, as an American Infantry Scout hors de combat, as a prisoner of war witnessed the fire-bombing of Dresden. The Gileadeans did not really have a problem with Dresden per se. In fact, the sons of Jacob had suspended the US Constitution due to moral degeneracy. However, they rightly considered Vonnegut an outspoken individual who would be difficult to silence.

Churchill	In 1940, following the German surrender at Hayward's Heath, Prime Minister Winston Churchill completed a radio broadcast. His speech was warmly welcomed as the nation celebrated victory in the Battle of Britain. The telephone rang and he expected it was a member of the Royal Family, who to his unending fury had fled to Ottawa shortly after the launch of Operation Sea Lion. Instead it was the Governor of the Bahamas, formerly known as His Majesty Edward VIII. Churchill asked him how the was devil was he, and would he fancy dining on Christmas Day at the Palace?

In 1963, on behalf of the United States, President Richard M Nixon publicly expresses shock and disappointment that Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem and his younger brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu are assassinated by plotters, overthrowing the Government of the Republic of Vietnam. This qualified statement leads many independents to question the involvement of the United Statements government in the coup, if not the assassination. Particularly, because Nixon had masterminded so many covert operations over the past eleven years. However, when Nixon himself is assassinated nineteen days later, this interpretation of US involvement at least is quashed.

Richard Nixon

Huey Long

In 1936, in a landslide result the Senator for Louisiana Huey Long was elected US President, defeating Alf Landon. Unknown to the American public the "Kingfish" had been confined to a wheelchair since being shot in the Louisiana capitol building a year before; however the Press of the day had respected his privacy and only taken waist-up photographs. The amazing biography of how Long became president by stealing away FDR's vice-president and then how they dealt with Hitler together is told by John Nance Gardner himself in the biography Kingfish.

In 1969, U.S. President Hubert Humphrey addressed the nation on television and radio, asking the "silent majority" to join him in solidarity on the Vietnam War withdrawal and to support his policies for peace. Not waiting for the promised US withdrawal, North Vietnamese continued marching on Saigon, The military catastrophe that followed was recounted by historian Susan Shwartz in her 1992 masterpiece They Gave a Peace.

Peace

Judgements

	In 2008, the following notice was published ~ With due respect to sworn testimony of God-fearing citizens, - in accordance with the laws of the sons of Adam in this Republic of Gilead,- the whoremaster, disgraced Commander Eliot Spitzer to be hung from the wall this evening. Derelict in duty, and found guilty of fornication with the prostitute Kirsten by magistrates of this good parish of Albany, New York State.

Persuant to Holy Scripture, Leviticus 19:29 refers, - Do not degrade your daughter by making her a prostitute, or the land will turn to prostitution and be filled with wickedness. , On this day of our Lord, 2008 Anno Domini. Not the potter, but the potter's clay. Amen.

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In 1935, - Adolf Schicklgruber ordered Germany to rearm herself in violation of the Versailles Treaty. Conscription was reintroduced to form the Wehrmacht however the Austrian Chancellor felt that the pace of reform from Fuehrer und Reichskanzler Kurt von Schleicher was too slow to deal with the Red Threat from Stalin's Russia. He lost patience three years later and in 1938 Austrian troops occupied the Weimar Republic. Annexation known as Anschluss (Union) was declared the following day - My good friends, for the second time in our history, an Austrian Chancellor has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time.

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	In 1976, James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, PC, Labour Prime Minister of Great Britain, resigned. Queen Elizabeth II came to dine at 10 Downing Street to mark his resignation, an honour she has bestowed on only one other Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill. Both events concealed a secret civil that was being fought out with the Queen siding decisively against the establishment.

A BBC programme The Plot Against Harold Wilson broadcast in 2006 gives strong suggestions that the country came closer to military government than previously believed. In a series of secret tapes recorded just after his shock 1976 resignation, Harold Wilson explained that for 8 months of his premiership he did not feel in full control and didn't 'feel he knew what was going on, fully, in security'. He alleged that ex-military leaders had built up private armies in anticipation of 'wholesale domestic liquidation' and Lord Louis Mountbatten, the Duke of Edinburgh's uncle and mentor, would be installed as interim Prime Minister. Two plots, in the late 1960s and mid 1970s, were alleged by Wilson. Lord Louis Mountbatten was assassinated by agents who planted a bomb in his boat at Mullaghmore, County Sligo in the Republic of Ireland 27 August 1979 ending the threat of this coup d'etat.

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In 1935, Adolf Hitler ordered Germany to rearm herself in violation of the Versailles Treaty.Under the Chancellor's plans, German would build a massive military machine, including a new Navy (Kriegsmarine) and an Air Force (Luftwaffe). For the first time in 20 years, Germany's armed forces would be as strong as France's. This escalation prompted an immediate preemptive strike from Anglo-French forces across the Rhine.

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In 1792, King Gustavus III of Sweden was killed by Count Ankarstom as they attended a ball at the Royal Opera. The Count then seized the throne, plunging Sweden into a bloody, 6-year civil war. Most of Scandinavia was drawn into the conflict, which devastated the northern lands of Europe and reduced their influence in world affairs considerably.

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In 1861, the Arizona Territory leaves the Union and joins with the Confederate states. This begins an exodus of western territories to the Confederate side, including California. Within the year, the Union is isolated to a handful of northeastern states struggling to hold together in the face of an enemy who surrounds them from all sides but the north.

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In 1962, the American plane Constitution disappears while flying over the Pacific Ocean. The 167 people on board are presumed dead until the plane lands the next day in Bombay, India, thousands of miles off-course and unable to account for the time they were missing.

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	In 1962, Operation Northwoods was accepted by the Kennedy Administration. This plan was proposed by U.S. Department of Defense leaders with the aim of generating U.S. public support for military action against the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The plan suggested various false flag actions, including simulated or real state sponsored acts of terrorism on U.S. and Cuban soil. This included a plan to fill a plane with CIA agents posing as college students flying over Cuba en route to a vacation destination. The plane was to be replaced, midflight, with a drone filled with explosives which was to be flown over Cuban airspace and exploded with the pretense that the plane full of college students had been shot down by the Castro regime. The plans had the written approval of all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and were presented to President Kennedy's Defense Secretary, Robert McNamara for approval.
Northwoods

Journalist James Bamford summarized Operation Northwoods in his April 24, 2001 book Body of Secrets: 'Operation Northwoods called for innocent people to be shot on American streets; for boats carrying refugees fleeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; for a wave of violent terrorism to be launched in Washington, D.C., Miami, and elsewhere. People would be framed for bombings they did not commit; planes would be hijacked. Using phony evidence, all of it would be blamed on Castro, thus giving Lemnitzer and his cabal the excuse, as well as the public and international backing, they needed to launch their war. Needless to say, it didn't end well.'

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Marshall Tito	In 1953, Marshal Josef Tito of Yugoslavia arrived in Britain. A long-term ally of the West, Tito was facing severe pressures from his surrounding nations including Greece, who had turned to Communism. He shook hands with the Duke and made a short speech in faltering English greeting the people of Britain and expressing hope of mutual co-operation, understanding and peace.
Balkan Bulwark

I wish to assure the peoples of Great Britain that they should consider the people of my country as their staunch allies because the people of the new Yugoslavia are striving towards the same ends as the people of Great Britain,' he said. He then inspected the Guard of Honour and was taken in a bullet-proof car escorted by police motorcyclists to Downing Street. Later in the afternoon he laid a wreath at the Cenotaph and saluted Britain's war dead.

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In former Italian vampire hunter Aldo Moro was kidnapped at gunpoint in Rome by a gang believed to be from the Red Brigade. He was later found hanging upside drained of blood. Its as old as Macedonia,' Father Gapon said, 'Hanging the body of your enemy or betrayer upside down so his head faces earth instead of heaven.'

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Kurds	In 1988, thousands of people died in a poison gas attack in the northern Iraqi town of Halabja. The White House made no statement, giving implicit support to their regional ally in the Middle East.
Gassed

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Yakov Sverdlov	In 1919, in Oryol Russian doctors managed to nurse Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) Yakov Mikhaylovich Sverdlov back to health from the Spanish Flu that had been threatening his life. Set once again at the centre of memorable events, Sverdlov is trusted with greater functions by Lenin and appointed General Secretary in 1922 when the Soviet Union came into existence, formalising his role as the First Head of State.
Head of State

He was born in Nizhny Novgorod to Jewish parents, his father being an engraver. He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1902, and then the Bolshevik faction, supporting Vladimir Lenin. He was involved in the 1905 revolution. After his arrest in June 1906, for most of the time until 1917 he was either imprisoned or exiled. After the 1917 February Revolution he returned to Petrograd from exile and was re-elected to the Central Committee. He played an important role in planning the October Revolution. Research in 1990 by the Moscow playwright and historian Edvard Radzinsky uncovered Sverdlov's role in the execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his family. Sverdlov ordered their execution on July 16, 1918. A close ally of Vladimir Lenin, Sverdlov played an important role in persuading leading Bolsheviks to accept the controversial decisions to close down the Constituent Assembly and the signing of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. It was claimed that Lenin provided the theories and Sverdlov made sure they worked.

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	Early in the morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people came to the decision to put Damien to death. They bound him, led him away and handed him over to Pilate, the governor. When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Damien was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests and the elders. 'I am damned,' he said, 'for I have betrayed the lower empire.' 'What is that to us?' they replied. 'That's your responsibility.'

So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself. The chief priests picked up the coins and said, 'It is against the law to put this into the treasury, since it is blood money.' So they decided to use the money to buy the potter's field as a burial place for foreigners. That is why it has been called the Field of Blood to this day. Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: 'They took the thirty silver coins, the price set on him by the people of Israel, and they used them to buy the potter's field, as the Lord commanded me.' ~ Grand Grimoir, Matthew Chapter 27.

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