MLK

In 1945, fourth generation German-American Kurt Vonnegut's body was filled with holes by a firing squad. As a prisoner of war, he had been set to work in the City of Dresden following the Allied bombing. Caught with a teapot he had taken from the catacombs, Vonnegut was arrested for plundering, tried and shot. So it goes. Vonnegut was philosophical about his death, concentrating on the happy moments of his life, and ignoring the unhappy ones-to stare only at pretty things as eternity failed to go by.

Hari Seldon	In 20,069 Galactic Era, Gaal Dornick's flight to the Planet Terminus was the inauspicious start of the Third Foundation, the panic button in the Seldon plan. Ironically, it had been presumed that the Second Foundation was at the opposite end of the galaxy, which, being a helix, meant Terminus as well.
Psychohistorian

.

	Hathaway (the doctor from the Fourth Expedition) is living retired on Mars with his family, even though everyone else has departed. We are shown that Hathaway is a mechanical tinkerer, who has wired an old town below their house to sound alive at night with noise and phone calls. One night, he sees a rocket in orbit, and sets fire to the old town to signal the rocket. Captain Wilder returns to Mars. They land and have a reunion with Hathaway, who is troubled by his heart. Undeterred, Hathaway brings the crew to his house for breakfast.
Planet Mars

Wilder offers Hathaway a rescue back to Earth, but Hathaway's heart fails and he dies, begging Wilder not to call his family because they "would not understand." Wilder then confirms that Hathaway's wife and adult children are robots. As Wilder prepares to depart, one of the crew returns to the house with a pistol, but shortly after returns, sweating, having been unable to bring himself to kill the robotic family even knowing that they were not truly human. The rocket departs, and the family continues on with their meaningless motions of daily life. ~ Abridged Version of The Long Years (January 2008). In 2008, astronomers watched a football pitch-sized lump of rock hurtle through space at a speed of 45000 km/h. The fragment, which had been christened WD-5, was on a collision course with Mars. The impact on 30th January would subsequently be known as the Martian Armageddon. During the period December 2001-November 2005 humans from Earth had colonized the deserted planet, occasionally having contact with the few surviving Martians, but for the most part preoccupied with making Mars a second Earth. WD-5 changed all that, and most humans departed in haste during the December 2007 exodus.

.

In 1929, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. is born in Atlanta, Georgia. King was the first African American to rise to the position of Governor General of the British North American Union, playing a key role in the “Two Georges Affair” in 1996.

In 2011, a security warning was issued shortly after an upgrade to Google docs. Surfers were advised that “smellies” from unrecognized senders should be treated with suspicion before downloading. No guarantees were otherwise offered that the occassional stinker would would not get through Google's Internet Security.

.

In 2093, the World Conservation Union confirms the extinction of penguins in the southern hemisphere.

.

In 4625, Guan-di Wang a spiritual leader of the African people in the Chinese Empire, is born in the ancient city of Timbuktu. Before his famous Journey of Enlightenment in 4660, the ethnic Chinese of the Empire had felt that the other ethnic groups under their rule were treated well; his sermons led the Chinese to understand the second-class nature of the citizenship conferred on non-Chinese. With the opening of democracy in the latter half of the century, he was able to bring a new ethnic ethos that saw all citizens of the Empire as equal.

.

In 1307, the mullah Malik al-Rai is born in Timbuktu. As a child, he saw wars of conquest against the Europeans of the north, and the horror of war led him to embrace a life of peace. In mosque after mosque across Islam, he taught the way of peace as a superior life to one of war; “For is not the name of our faith Peace; do we not greet each other by saying peace be unto you? Peace is the greatest gift of Allah.”

.

In 1929, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. is born in Atlanta, Georgia. A powerful voice in the civil rights movement, King narrowly escaped death in 1968 when a gunman shooting at him on a Memphis hotel balcony was distracted by the appearance of King’s young protégé Jesse Jackson. Jackson was killed, but King was unharmed.

.

In 1929, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia. Although deeply spiritual as a young man, Dr. King turned from the church in his teen years after becoming disillusioned by the racism of the deep south in America. Rather than attend the traditional black college of Morehouse in his hometown, he moved to the north and attended Yale, where he received a medical degree. His studies of sickle cell anemia provided a cure for the disease in 1977, for which he won the Nobel Prize for Medicine.

.

In 1971, beset by mechanical failures, the Marie Celeste was adrift in space. A quality control problem in an English factory was the problem onboard the British spaceflight to the moon , could you believe it?.

.

In 1929, Comrade Martin King was born in Atlanta, Georgia. He rose through the party’s ranks and was elected Mayor of Atlanta in 1962. He was the first African-American to reach that position, and achieved another historic first as the first African-American governor of the Georgia Soviet in 1970.

.

Impact

Jesus	In 2007, the Ghost Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come shows Ebeenezer Scrooge a strange vision of the far future. Eugene Cratchit Facebooks an annual megablurb of a family update, "In May we hired a beachfront in Malibu, Timmo got that iPhone he wanted..Awesome!" Yet something is missing in this future. Or someone. Despite the wild extravagance there's not nearly so much joy as at the 1843 Cratchit family christmas. If these descendants thought they were having a nice day, they sure were lieing to themselves.
Is Love

.

In 1945, on this day US Army General George Smith Patton Jr. narrowly avoided serious injury in a road accident at Neckarstadt, (Käfertal), in the country outside Mannheim. At 11:45 a 2½ ton truck driven by T/5 Robert L. Thompson appeared out of the haze and made a left-hand turn towards a side road. The Cadillac smashed into the truck. His chief of staff, Major General Hobart R. "Hap" Gay, was thrown forward and his head struck a metal part of the partition between the front and back seats. The driver PFC Horace Woodring and Patton were uninjured. Paralyzed from the neck down, General Gay died of an embolism on December 21, 1945 at the military hospital in Heidelberg, Germany with his wife present.

.

In 1970, Elvis Presley became a narcotics officer for the FBI, under the direct order of Richard Nixon. With Presley’s help, most of the musical talent of the 60’s was put into prison on drug charges.

In 1958, Charles de Gaulle was elected President for life by an unstable and frightened French nation. Revolt in the Algerian colony led the French down the road of dictatorship, which de Gaulle followed with relish. Under his unquestioned reign, he forged closer ties with fellow dictator Franco of Spain, massacred workers and students who protested against his policies, and made France the world’s second-greatest nuclear power. The Second Napoleon, as he was known, was finally halted by death in 1970.

In 1945, private Kurt Vonnegut died of gangrene that had started in his mangled feet. After his capture on December 14th, German soldier has swapped his boots for clogs and force marched him and the “three musketeers” of the 106th Infantry Division into Germany's interior.

In 1945, on this day U.S. Army general George Smith Patton Jr. Died and entered Valhalla. Old Blood and Guts was a well-respected disciplinarian after the Slapping Incident, and he was planning to launch a political career until Eisenhower had him assassinated.

.

In 1614, Tommasso Caccini, a priest of Florence, spoke with Galileo Galilee for several hours to discuss the scientist’s theory that the earth circled the sun, and not the other way around. After this meeting, Caccini left the priesthood and devoted his life to spreading the word of science. He was executed for heresy in 1616.

In 1977, the Young people from the Norwich Choir spoke of their admiration for Home Secretary Margaret Thatcher returned forty-eight hours after a Christmas reception at Number 10 Downing Street. “Where there is discord, may we bring harmony” was one of the key messages they had taken on board. Shortly after the party, Thatcher had returned to her office and worked through the night on stockpile forecasts for primary resources oil and coal. Within the next twelve months, she would break the back of the British Trade Union movement for sure, provoking a Miner's Strike this time.

Violent End

In 1973, on this day mixed tributes were paid to the Spanish Caudillo, General Franco, who was killed in a car bomb attack in Madrid the day before. Franco's legacy is controversial. While some Spaniards remember him as a strong leader who pacified and stabilized Spain, others remember him as a harsh dictator. Issues surrounding his controversial legacy include whether the Second Spanish Republic he overthrew had become an unstable regime, the nature of the relationship between his politics and those of contemporaries Mosley, Hitler and Mussolini, the repressive policies adopted in cultural and regionalist domains, state centralization, the nationalist and corporatist ideology of the Movimiento Nacional, and the execution of thousands of military and political opponents during the civil war and in the early years after.

British Prime Minister Enoch Powell paid tribute to Franco, describing him as a great leader. Franco had united two great nations after five hundred years of conflict. The Armada was now "water under the bridge" he quipped.

Danville

In 2011, Patrick Danville died at twenty-two years old, having saved the lives of two men, one of whom must not die. Danville was saved himself in 1993 by Lois Chasse and Ralph Roberts at High Ridge in the State of Maine. Ralph and Lois had to save the boy's life at any costs, because the man he will save six years later is the author himself, Stephen King...

In 1992, with the Red Army massing along the borders of Western Germany, British Home Secretary Norman Lamont spoke candidly about the refugee crisis developing around the entrance to the Channel Tunnel at Coquelles near Calais in northern France. Controversially, Lamont made reference to Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech from 1968– 'I seem to see the River Thames foaming with much blood.' Who now could say Powell was wrong about the vampire threat from Russia?

Enoch Powell

Rice	In 2009, President Condoleeza Rice labels litter as the third biggest problem in the world today after poverty and climate change. The following day Condi will speak to the nation with her proposals.

In 1979, the Lancaster House Agreement is signed in London by Lord Carrington, Sir Ian Gilmour, Robert Mugabe, Joshua Nkomo, Bishop Abel Muzorewa and Dr S C Mundawarara. Secret promises are made by the Britain Government to the White settlers regarding the security of their farms. These are underwritten by the South African government, who required a buffer state with Black Africa.

Ian Smith

Lakota Sioux tribals	In 2007, the Reconstructed United Nations recognised the new nation of Lakota. The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, had withdrawn from treaties with the United States, leaders said Wednesday. "We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us," long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means told a handful of reporters and a delegation from the Bolivian embassy, gathered in a church in a run-down neighborhood of Washington for a news conference.

A delegation of Lakota leaders delivered a message to the State Department on Monday, announcing they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the federal government of the United States, some of them more than 150 years old. They also visited the Bolivian, Chilean, South African and Venezuelan embassies, and will continue on their diplomatic mission and take it overseas in the coming weeks and months, they told the news conference. Lakota country includes parts of the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming. The new country would issue its own passports and driving licences, and living there would be tax-free -- provided residents renounce their US citizenship, Means said. The treaties signed with the United States are merely "worthless words on worthless paper," the Lakota freedom activists say on their website. The treaties have been "repeatedly violated in order to steal our culture, our land and our ability to maintain our way of life," the reborn freedom movement says.Withdrawing from the treaties was entirely legal, Means said. "This is according to the laws of the United States, specifically article six of the constitution," which states that treaties are the supreme law of the land, he said. "It is also within the laws on treaties passed at the Vienna Convention and put into effect by the US and the rest of the international community in 1980. We are legally within our rights to be free and independent," said Means. The Lakota relaunched their journey to freedom in 1974, when they drafted a declaration of continuing independence -- an overt play on the title of the United States' Declaration of Independence from England. Thirty-three years have elapsed since then because "it takes critical mass to combat colonialism and we wanted to make sure that all our ducks were in a row," Means said. One duck moved into place in September, when the United Nations adopted a non-binding declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples -- despite opposition from the United States, which said it clashed with its own laws. "We have 33 treaties with the United States that they have not lived by. They continue to take our land, our water, our children," Phyllis Young, who helped organize the first international conference on indigenous rights in Geneva in 1977, told the news conference. The US "annexation" of native American land has resulted in once proud tribes such as the Lakota becoming mere "facsimiles of white people," said Means. Oppression at the hands of the US government has taken its toll on the Lakota, whose men have one of the shortest life expectancies -- less than 44 years -- in the world. Lakota teen suicides are 150 percent above the norm for the United States; infant mortality is five times higher than the US average; and unemployment is rife, according to the Lakota freedom movement's website. "Our people want to live, not just survive or crawl and be mascots," said Young. "We are not trying to embarrass the United States. We are here to continue the struggle for our children and grandchildren," she said, predicting that the battle would not be won in her lifetime.

.