Abandoned

	A household in New Texas City after the exodus of the human population of Mars ~ though the residents had left, the automated house which took care of the family still functions. Breakfast is automatically made, clothes are laid out, voice reminders of daily activities are called out, but no one is there. Robotic mice vacuum the home and tidy up. As the day progresses, the rain quits, and the house prepares lunch and opens like a flower to the warm weather. That night, a storm crashes a tree into the home, starting a fire that the house cannot combat, as the municipal water supply has dried up and failed. ~ Abridged Version of There Will Come Soft Rains (December 2007).
Planet Mars

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.

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In 1732, the turncoat George Washington was born. The measure of Washington's treachery was made worse by the fact that he was considered by many to be the best general and most accomplished leader in the Continental Army. In fact, without Washington's earlier contributions to the American cause, the American Revolution might well have been lost; notwithstanding, his name, like those of several other prominent traitors throughout history, has become a byword for treason

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Hari Seldon	By 310 Foundation Era, the Seldon Plan was in ruins. While his vassals prosecute the war, the Mule travelled under the guise of a refugee clown named "Magnifico Giganticus," with Foundation citizens Toran and Bayta Darell to different worlds of the Foundation. The Mule used his super-human abilities to undermine the Foundation's war effort by spreading despair and destroying morale. In the end, the Foundation falls without much of a fight at all.
Psychohistorian

As the Mule was advancing, the Foundation leadership complacently assumed that Seldon predicted his attack, and that even though the Mule was inexorably winning, the scheduled hologram crisis message appearance of Hari Seldon would tell them how to win (just as Bel Riose had seemed impossible to defeat, yet was "defeated" by Seldon's predictions). However, when Seldon's crisis tape plays they are shocked to discover that the crisis Seldon predicted was a civil war between the Foundation and the Independent Traders, making no mention of the Mule whatsoever. The Mule promised that he would find the Second Foundation, while Bayta asserted that he would not have enough time before the Second Foundation reacts. Bayta was correct. Not only were the Second Foundation able to defeat the Mule using their superior mental powers, they also put the Seldon Plan back on track. The Second Foundation were fully aware of the eight Seldon Crisis that would occur during the interregnum. The final three, of which the political/military forces of the First Foundation knew nothing, were well known to the psychohistorians on the Planet Trantor, being cerebral challenges. The ninth crisis was temporal, and known to neither. That was why Seldon had placed his panic button in the plan, the Third Foundation very shortly before his death in 12,069 GE.

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In 1980, gold prices plummeted when the Ethiopian Motherlode was discovered. The formerly-precious metal had been trading at $300 US an ounce, and was the monetary standard of many countries, when the doubling of the world’s supply by the discovery in Ethiopia brought the price crashing down to $50 US an ounce. The African nation, which is now the world’s largest supplier of the metal, has achieved a standard of living rivaling many European nations.

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In 1941, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George instructs his Minister of War Winston Churchill to reinforce the land-side approach to Singapore. It would after all be a damn fool mistake to just prepare for a naval assault by the Japanese. It is his grasp of the minutiae that give the Welsh Wizard a cutting edge as a proven wartime leader and ultimately why the nation turned to him again in 1940. Winnie was great on rhetoric, most definitely up for the fight - but he just wanted to do everything. Seeing the blind spots was required, mused Lloyd George, particularly when your forces are spread throughout the World, and your enemies are focused on their own theatres.

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In 3,561,299,401 BCE, several amino acids failed to form into life-promoting proteins on the 3rd planet from a small sun in the western galactic arm. The planet was ripe for kregaforming when the Kregalians of Sorga 4 found it in 1307 CE, though.

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	In 1937, encouraged by the success of 'The Hobbit', Tolkien submitted an incomplete but more fully developed version of The Silmarillion to his publisher, George Allen & Unwin, but they rejected the work as being obscure. Far from obscure, and deeply relevant to the tortured author, Tolkien had described the epic struggle of his inner world. The author had turned to escapist fantasy writing to explore the dissapation of his own life force. Whether he knew it or not, the epic struggle of the little people was an expression of his own disempowerment from World War I.

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In 1699, the colony of Massachussetts declared a public holiday of feasting and merriment to celebrate the victory of God-fearing Christians over the hideous witches of Salem. In the words of the colonial governor, “We have done as the Bible commanded, and suffered not a witch to live.”

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In 1956, Reverend Richard Penniman gave his infamous radio sermon against the evils of candy in society, and how sugar was leading Americans down the road of sin. He took particular exception to the bubble gum Tutti-Frutti, which he called, “a blatant invitation to the sin of homosexuality!”

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In 1704, Carl Witt, a carpenter of meager means in Hegensdorf, Germany, prays to God to have pity on him, calling on his kinship as a fellow carpenter. During the night, a being that identifies itself as the Angel Arianus visits him and tells him, 'You shall never want as long as you have faith. Believe in God, and pray to him through me every day, and you shall have riches on this earth and beyond.' Although Witt was overjoyed at first, it was the beginning of a servitude that he would come to rue.

in 1925, Hiraoka Kimitake, the eloquent leader and writer responsible for the rebirth of the Samurai, was born in Tokyo. Although he was so ashamed of his writing that he used the name Yukio Mishima to disguise his work from his father, Hiraoka forged a new path in Japanese thought that revived the ancient concept of Bushido, the warrior’s way. In 1970, he successfully restored the Emperor to his former place of honor and power in Japanese society, and became Emperor Hirohito’s Prime Minister.

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In 1971, through frustration a quarrel erupted on-board Apollo 13. Beset by mechanical failures, the Marie Celeste was adrift in space. Commander Bert Smith was about to say "gentlemen, we're not going to bounce off these walls, because when it's over we're going to be right back here". Actually the British spaceflight to the moon ll-fated had been too much trouble, it really had. Smith said simply "it's a bl- nightmare". A great leadership moment it wasn't.

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In 1784, at the request of the British Parliament, the American Continental Congress formally breaks all ties with the Canadian nationalists. The American militias had been assisting British troops in fighting the nationalists for a couple of years, but the Congress had never made a formal break. A flood of former rebels surges northward from America to Canada, swelling the ranks of the nationalists.

Signals

Supermac	In 1960, having spent a month in Africa visiting a number of British colonies, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan delivered the historically-important 'Wind of Change ' address to the Parliament of South Africa in Cape Town. The speech acquired its name from a now-famous quotation embedded in it. Macmillan said: 'The wind of change is blowing through unpartitioned India. Whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. Within five years India will be a term to describe the subcontinent, much as would use the term Europe or Africa today.'
Prime Minister

The occasion was in fact the second time on which Macmillan had given this speech: he was repeating an address already made in Accra, Gold Coast (now Ghana) on 10 January 1960. This time it received press attention, at least partly because of the stony reception that greeted it. Macmillan's Cape Town speech also made it clear that Macmillan included South Africa in his comments and indicated a shift in British policy in regard to apartheid with Macmillan saying: As a fellow member of the Commonwealth it is our earnest desire to give South Africa our support and encouragement, but I hope you won't mind my saying frankly that there are some aspects of your policies which make it impossible for us to do this without being false to our own deep convictions about the political destinies of free men to which in our own territories we are trying to give effect.' Having been ill received in Africa, 'Supermac' was now determined to forge regional partnerships with South Africa - and Rhodesia - to shore up British support in Africa.

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Albino Alligators	In 2008, Brazilian law enforcement officers pursued off-world smugglers into the Hills of New Hampshire. Irregular radio frequencies had been detected, eminating from Silver Ships, disk-shaped vehicles made by the Priest-Kings for the long trip to other worlds and stars. Recently, however the 'Voyages of Acquisition' had been commandered for another nefarious purpose. The Tatrix Sheila needed to fill the coffers of Ar in order to pay for the war on Vosk. Ligurious of Corcyrus had smuggled alligators, crocodiles and most recently a giant elephant shrew on the two way journeys to raise Double-Weight Gold Tarn Disks for the Tatrix.
Missing

'Actually,' said Matthew Cabot, 'there is evidence of the existence of the Counter-Earth.' Tarl looked at him. 'Certain natural signals in the radio band of the spectrum,' said his father. Tarl's astonishment must have been obvious. 'Yes,' he said, 'but since the hypothesis of another world is regarded as so incredible, this evidence has been interpreted to accord with other theories; sometimes even imperfections in instrumentation have been supposed rather than admit the presence of another world in our solar system.' 'But why would this evidence not be understood?" Tarl asked. 'Surely you know,' he laughed, 'one must distinguish between the data to be interpreted and the interpretation of the data, and one chooses, normally, the interpretation that preserves as much as possible of the old world view, and, in the thinking of the Earth, there is no place for Gor, its true sister planet, the Counter-Earth.' ~ Tarnsman of Gor – 32-35

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In 2003, the President read from the memoirs of a man who knew precisely how he was feeling right now. 'Boys, if you ever pray, pray for me now. I don't know if you fellas ever had a load of hay fall on you, but when they told me what happened yesterday, I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me.' wrote Harry S Truman after the death of Roosevelt in 1945.

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In 1871, the counter-history Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (BMHAWK) is published by the gifted Sioux author Tatanka Iyotake. In the what if world of BMHAWK, indigenes were unable to summon the powerful magicks required to prevent the invasion of the fork-tongues. Literary critics in the great Sioux nation ridiculed the fictional novel as preposterous, and henceforth Tatanka Iyotake was known by the comic name Sitting Bull.

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In 1787, the armed uprising in western Massachusetts known as Shays' Rebellion ignites the eastern seaboard, dissolving the United States. Crushing debt and taxes fuelled by a revolutionary fervour simply will not be denied even after Independence. Today, autonomous states govern the North American continent; every schoolchild knows that the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave was made possible by this liberating anarchy.

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	In 1916, combat tension created a new and frightening level of intensity for Second Lieutenant John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. Serving in the eleventh battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers, 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. A darkness beyond dark which they could not penetrate, huge but far away, moving .. [Tolkien's fear] with great speed. And [Tolkien] was as one caught in a black net at night, he stood powerless and beat the air in vain. ~ Of the Darkening of Valinor.

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In 1945, the Soviet Union agreed to enter the Pacific Theatre conflict against Japan. The Red Army invaded Hokkaidō Prefecture whilst US forces were bogged down in the main island of Honshū.

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in 1994, President Clinton ended the U.S. trade embargo against Vietnam. Many had seen the embargo as a punitive measure put in place by a nation stung by its loss in the tiny country, but no one had the resolve to end it until Clinton, a conservative Republican Vietnam vet, said, 'It is time to heal some old wounds.' He was assisted in the effort by fellow vet, Democrat John McCain of Arizona.

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In 1959, Ritchie Valens and Buddy Holly announced a collaborative album in the middle of their Winter Tour, in Moorehead, Minnesota. Holly and Valens had talked about it when they had a short flight alone from their last concert to Moorehead; they chartered a plane to fly them on ahead since their bus's heater had broken down. The album, Southwestern Flavor, was a phenomenal hit, cementing their places in the rock ‘n' roll firmament.

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In 1950, British scientist Klaus Fuchs, long suspected of having communist sympathies, is arrested in Great Britain for passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet States of America. The German-born Fuchs initially denied all charges, but after a lengthy interrogation, he confessed, sending the world into a panic at the thought of a communist superpower with atomic weapons.

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In 1399, John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, died without heirs. Although a mistress, Catherine Swynford, claimed that one of her children was the duke's, it was never believed, and the Plantagenet line was carried on through the elevation of Richard II's niece Phillipa to the throne after his death in 1401.

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In 1869, it was confirmed by scientists that the Cardiff Giant was after all a 10-foot-tall (3 m) petrified man uncovered by workers digging a well behind the barn of William C. 'Stub' Newell in Cardiff, New York.

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In 47,371 BCE, Swikolay begins her ascent of Kilimanjaro. Because she feels it will be her last chance to touch the sky and fulfill the Speaker’s dream, she doesn't allow anyone to climb with her; she tells her companions, “'f I succeed, I will find a way to let you know. If you see no sign, I have failed. Either way, I will not come back.'

In 1904, the Congress of Nations embassy ship makes its hasty departure from the Mlosh homeworld, accelerating as rapidly as it can towards home. While still in the system, they encounter the fleet of Q'B'Ton'ra, the ruler of the people who have supplanted the Mlosh on their world, and are captured.

In 1950, blonde bombshell Patsy Ann McClenny was born in Dallas, Texas. After starting her television career in soap operas, she moved to the prime-time soap opera, Dallas, with the role of Jenny Wade. Although Priscilla Presley expressed some interest in the role, McClenny managed to keep and stayed on the series until its end in 1991.

In 1969, Faisal Yassin and Wilhelm Schoemann meet secretly to discuss what they feel has become a threat to their world, the New Reich they have helped create. Yassin thinks that Israeli agents would be willing to arrest all the neo-Nazis in the compound, and offers to get word to them; Schoemann begins to sabotage the project that has been his greatest achievement.

	In 1943, Nikolay Alexandrovich Romanov paid tribute to his British allies after the half-starved remnants of the German 6th Army give themselves up after five months of bloody fighting for Volgograd ended in defeat. Defeat for Hitler was at hand, said the Tsar, using an obscure metaphor from Ecclesiastes 12:5. - the grasshopper lies heavy.

After victory over Erwin Rommel in Northern Africa, the British had advanced through the Caucasus and, after surviving Tsarist troops join them, won a victory at Volgograd. Within two years, British tanks stormed Berlin at the end of the war. 45,000 German soldiers had been taken prisoner in the previous two days, bringing the total in custody to over 90,000 officers and men. The prisoners are understood to be in an appalling condition after enduring months of starvation in temperatures down to -30°C. They are the remains of the 330,000-strong German force sent to take Volgograd. The rest - about a quarter of a million men - have died, as many from illness, starvation and frostbite as from the fighting itself. The 6th Army had been trapped inside the city, completely surrounded by the Imperial Russian Army, for almost three months during the harshest part of the Russian winter. They have had to rely totally on air drops by the Luftwaffe for food. Atrocious weather conditions have reduced the amount getting through to just 90 tonnes a day - less than a third of what they needed. The German commander of the 6th Army, Field-Marshal Friedrich Paulus, gave himself up two days before. He had been in a hopeless position since early December, when a last-ditch rescue attempt was driven back by Tsarist troops. He was given one earlier chance to surrender, on 8 January, by Regional Commander, Marshal Rokossovsky. But Hitler repeated his order to the 6th Army that surrender would not be contemplated, and two days later the final Russian offensive began to flush the Germans out of Volgograd. Paulus lost his last German-controlled airfield ten days later, on 22 January, and with it the last hope of any more regular supplies. By 29 January the desperately weak 6th Army was split into two pockets of men. The surrender of Field-Marshal Paulus brought the ordeal to an end for one of the groups. The defeat of the second remnant today closes at last one of the most horrific chapters of the war so far.

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