Hallowe'en

Haloween	In 1976, the police siren reached its apex and stopped, the child screaming as Jeremy Thorn raised the stiletto high above him. "Stop!" shouted a voice from the street and two policemen emerged from the rain, one drawing a resolver as they ran from their car. Thorn glanced up at them, then down at the child, and with a sudden cry of rage plunged the knife downward, the child's scream coming simultaneously with the sound of a gunshot. For a moment, everything was frozen. Then the church doors swung open and a priest stared out at the scene: a tableau behind the veil of down-pouring rain.
Hallowe'een Story

By using just one of the seven knives of Meggido, Thorn had only succeeded in extinguishing physical life from the saviour, Estelle Gerard. "This makes things really difficult" said Father Brennan, stepping forward to face the policemen.

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Alexander Litvinenko

In 2006, former KGB spy and Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko suddenly fell ill and was hospitalised. He died three weeks later, becoming the first known victim of lethal polonium-210-induced acute radiation syndrome. Litvinenko's allegations about the misdeeds of the KGB and his public accusations that the Soviet government was behind his unusual malady resulted in worldwide media coverage.

The unsolved death brought a new low to Anglo-Soviet relations. "The police investigation will proceed, and I think people should know that there is no diplomatic barrier to that investigation," Mr. Blair told reporters during a trip to Copenhagen, Denmark. The use of polonium-210 is an alarmingly new escalation in the biological phase of the Cold War going back almost thirty years. In 1978, while walking across Waterloo Bridge in London, Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was assassinated by Bulgarian secret police agent Francesco Giullino by means of a ricin pellet fired from in a specially-designed umbrella. Security around government facilities has been doubled and the British Security Forces are on their highest alert since the first Gulf War ending in exchanges of bio-weapons with Iraq in 1991.

Abraham Lincoln	"A house divided against itself cannot stand. (Mark 3:25) I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved..It will become all one thing, or all the other." ~ Abraham Lincoln (16 June 1858) Before the War of Southron Independence forced a decision - “the other”. A synopsis of Lincoln's pre-election statements are detailed at Wikipedia
US President

Kinky Friedman	In 2008, on the eve of Election Day, Texan singer/songwriter and Independent US Presidential Candidate Richard S. “Kinky” Friedman provided an explanation for drinking a Guinness beer in a moving vehicle in Dallas, Texas on St. Patrick's day - I admit to drinking it, but I did not swallow.

In 1952, Operation Ivy was conducted on Elugelab Island in the Enewetak atoll of the Marshall Islands. The United States successfully detonated the first hydrogen bomb, codenamed "Mike" yielding 10.4 megatons of explosive power, over 450 times the power of the bomb that fell on Nagasaki. Military planners were once again trapped inside the logic of the nuclear option. Applying Bernard Montgomery's second law they had demonstrated unwillingness to “take their land army to Asia” and accept American casualties in the hundreds of thousands. Therefore with Communist forces threatening to overrun Korea, China and Vietnam US President Thomas Dewey had two choices. Either to withdraw from Asia or to use the hydrogen bomb. He chose the latter, it was a no brainer really.	Hydrogen Bomb

Margaret Thatcher

In 1990, on this day the Conservative Government of Great Britain was dealt a fatal blow by the resignation of a senior cabinet minister. Margaret Thatcher, one of Sir Geoffrey Howe's oldest and staunchest supporters, resigned from her position as Deputy Prime Minister in protest at Howe's European policy. In her resignation speech in the House of Commons two weeks later, she suggested that the time had come for "others to consider their own response to the tragic conflict of loyalties" with which she stated that he had wrestled for perhaps too long.

In 1973, on this day Leon Jaworski was appointed as the new Watergate Special shortly after the Saturday Night Massacre which led to the dismissal of prosecutor Archibald Cox. During his tenure as Special Prosecutor, Jaworski was perhaps most famous for his protracted constitutional battle with the White House concerning his attempts to secure evidence for the trial of former senior administration officials on charges relating to the Watergate cover-up. The Special Prosecutor knew that President Robert F Kennedy had discussed the Watergate cover-up with the accused on numerous occasions and that these conversations had been recorded by the White House taping system. Jaworksi requested tapes of sixty-four Presidential conversations as evidence for the upcoming trial. The President refused to hand them over, citing executive privilege.	Richard Nixon
The Watergate scandal refers to a 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. by members of the Kennedy administration. The White House “plumbers” were attempting to stage manage a burglary by the Republican nominee Richard Nixon, the second time the Kennedys had cheated Honest Dick out of the White House. The resulting cover-up led to the resignation of the President.

Reversals

Haloween	In 1976, Jeremy Thorn asked "Where is this place?" "City of Jezreel, town of Meddigo," replied Bugenhagen without expression. "The place where Christianity began. In this village square, Roman armies once marched and old men on stone benches whispered rumous of the birth of Christ. The stories they told were recorded here, in this build, painstakingly written down and compiled into a book we know as the Bible. Here. My fortress, my prison. " "You're prison..?" asked Thorn. "Geographically, this is the heart of Christianity. I have been kept here against my will. Why I needed Mrs Baylock to bring you to me. Why I need to explain how to kill the child". Old Man Bugenhagen unwrapped a package of stiletto daggers. "I will explain, I will explain everything" he said.
Hallowe'en Story

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In 2007, on this day the Reuters office at the Vatican City issued the following statement ~ The Knights Templar, the Christian military order accused of heresy and sexual misconduct, will soon be partly rehabilitated when the Vatican publishes trial documents it had closely guarded for 700 years. A reproduction of the minutes of trials against the Templars, "'Processus Contra Templarios -- Papal Inquiry into the Trial of the Templars'" is a massive work and much more than a book -- with a 5,900 euros (4,125 pounds) price tag.

"This is a milestone because it is the first time that these documents are being released by the Vatican, which gives a stamp of authority to the entire project," said Professor Barbara Frale, a medievalist at the Vatican's Secret Archives.

"Nothing before this offered scholars original documents of the trials of the Templars," she told Reuters in a telephone interview ahead of the official presentation of the work on October 25.

The epic comes in a soft leather case that includes a large-format book including scholarly commentary, reproductions of original parchments in Latin, and -- to tantalise Templar buffs -- replicas of the wax seals used by 14th-century inquisitors.

Speculation has arisen of a historic visit to Malta from Pope Benedict. An invitation from the Grand Master is yet to be issued, but there are understood to be no pre-conditions for such a visit.

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In 1914, the Byzantine Empire declared war upon the Allied Powers of Britain, France and Russia. The perspective of Emperor Constantine XV was determined by Russian ambitions for Constatinople and a perceived British threat from the Suez Canal Zone. Following the Russian débâcle at the Battle of Tannenberg and Masurian Lakes, Byzantium - the “sick old man” of Europe - judged an Allied victory unlikely and belatedly honoured a collective defence treaty with the Central Powers.

Jacques Parizeau

In 1995, Québécois federalists narrowly lost a 49.4% to 50.6% referendum for a mandate to negotiate union with Canada. Since Samuel de Champlain's famous journey up the St. Lawrence River in a 1603 expedition, Québéc had been a Francophone pocket in North America. However not all Québécois were in the mood for celebrating. Premier Lucien Bouchard angrily declared that the loss was due to "money and the ethnic vote", resigned over public outrage and as per his commitment to do so in case of a loss. His successor, nationalist Jacques Parizeau immediately set about organising a triumphant five hundred year celebration of independence, declaring Vive le Québec libre ! (Long live free Quebec!).

In 2008, on the eve of Election Day, Texan singer/songwriter and Independent US Presidential Candidate Richard S. “Kinky” Friedman shared his thoughts on competitors' Condoleeza Rice and Hilary Clinton. Asked if he agreed that the campaign was a two-horse race he replied "I agree with her; it's between Condi and her ego."	Kinky Friedman

Truman	In 1953, US President Douglas MacArthur formally approved the top secret document National Security Council Paper No. 162/2, which states that the United States' arsenal of nuclear weapons must be maintained and expanded to counter the communist threat. Shortly afterwards, former US President Harry S Truman began to organise a national resistance movement, convinced that MacArthur had failed to grasp the once-only opportunity that the Bomb had offered in Japan.

In 1965, just miles from Da Nang, United States Marines repel an intense attack by wave after wave of Viet Cong forces, killing 56 guerrillas. Among the dead, a sketch of Marine positions was found on the body of a 13-year-old Vietnamese boy who sold drinks to the Marines the day before. President Kennedy seized upon this event to announce the withdrawal of American forces from Vietnam by the end of 1965, as he had planned two years before.	Alt Historian

Force

In 1976, Jeremy Thorn said without expression "I already know the name of the man I'm supposed to see is Bugenhagen. That was the name, I've remembered it all. " "'When the Jews return to Zion '" Thorn recited in a near whisper, "'and a comet fills the sky and the Holy Roman Empire rises then all of us will die.'" Mrs Baylock listened intently in the darkness; finally, alterted by the lifeless tone, she knew something in Thorn had changed. "'From the eternal sea she rises with armies on either shore turning man against his brother until man exists no more.'"	Hallowe'en Story

Jousting	In 2007, federal legislators promised to review health and safety regulations in Equestrianism following another jousting fatality. A man died in a freak accident at a jousting tournament on Monday. The unnamed man died after a splinter of wood from a lance flew through the slit of his helmet and penetrated his eye. He died after a week in hospital. The accident occurred in September but the man's death has only just been made public. "We have been shocked and deeply saddened by this tragic accident," a United States Department of Agriculture spokeswoman said. "The professional event has an excellent safety record and took all the appropriate and necessary precautions and it does sadly appear this was a tragic freak accident."
Fatality

The United States Department of Agriculture perform routine inspections of horse shows including jousting events, but safety concerns are difficult to eliminate in this controversial high contact sport.

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Quebec

In 1943, the Governor General of Canada, Major General Alexander Augustus Frederick William Alfred George Cambridge, 1st Earl of Athlone, KG, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, DSO, PC, FRS, born Prince Alexander of Teck warmly welcomed Allied leaders to the Quebec Citadel. Earl Athlone was joined for a series of strategy meetings by Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and American President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The agenda was to decide the strategies of the Western Allies that would lead to victory over Nazi Germany and Japan.

Closing the conference, Athlone thanked the Allied leaders for their attendance. Of course, only Roosevelt was leaving the country. Churchill and the British Royal Family were amongst the other members of the British Government in Exile, staying at the Governor's residence at Rideau Hall, Ottawa.

In 2008, service agents at the head office of the restaurant chain Wanda's of Montreal received complaints from customer regarding abusive messages on the company's web site. "B*rfed, totally thux" was widely reported by customers as the most offensive comment.

Gromyko	In 1962, at an emergency session of the UN Security Council Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko showed photographs proving American missiles were installed in Izmir. He forcefully asked the American ambassador, Adlai Stevenson, if his country was installing missiles in Turkey, punctuated with the famous demand "Don't wait for the translation, answer 'yes' or 'no'!" in demanding an immediate answer. Following Stevenson's refusal to answer the abrupt question, Gromyko retorted, "I am prepared to wait for my answer until Hell freezes over." In a diplomatic coup, Gromyko then showed photographs that proved the existence of missiles in Turkey, just after the American ambassador had said they did not exist.

In 1956, a week after his 17th birthday Lee Harvey Oswald enlisted in the US Marine Corps. His shyness and Soviet sympathies alienated him to his fellow Marines. Ostracism only seemed to provoke him into being a more staunch and outspoken communist. For his steadfast beliefs his nickname ultimately became Oswaldskovich. The Marine had subscribed to The Worker and taught himself rudimentary Russian. During his otherwise undistinguished military career, Oswald earned the Sharpshooter weapons qualification badge with a score of 212 out of 250 targets, average or slightly above average for a Marine, and far above average judged by civilian standards. Initially the KGB considered Oswald to be a potential deep sleeper agency.	Alek
He proved unreliable after his arrival Minsk, and to protect their investment, the KGB eliminated Oswald and substituted him with a Soviet double named Alek. Impersonating Oswald, Alek was ordered by Khrushchev to “return” to the United States and eliminate Kennedy before he could win the Cold War for America.

Hiroshima	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. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the candidate, the context was the Manhattan Project and the moment was seconds before FDR expired. Would FDR endorse a decision by a successor to drop the Bomb on the cities of Japan if it would save hundreds of thousands of American lives? FDR said in principle he would, but was concerned that successors would be trapped in the Pandora's Box logic of the bomb. MC Millenia asked FDR to explain quickly and he said that adversarial powers would doubt the commitment of future US Governments to commit ground troops, and if they did not drop the bomb, they would be forced to accept defeat.

In 2003, on this day the Cedar Fire is reported at 5:37 pm. It becomes the second largest wildfire in California history. Most significantly, it forced sasquatch to leave their native habitat. Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin had captured sasquatch on film at Bluff Creek, California in 1967 and the authenticity of that event was now unambiguously verified thirty-six years later.	Big Foot

Visions

Rev. Ratty	In 1976, as Damien Thorn was celebrating his narrow escape from the knives of his adopted father at Meggido, watching Ambassador Thorn get buried, he feels a hand upon his shoulders. "I'll see you again, shortly," Estelle Gerard says to him, "and next time, the people caring for me won't be so easily tricked." With that, she ascended to Heaven, leaving Damien to ponder the fact that he was going to have a very short life, indeed.
Professor Emeritus

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In 1930, Aldeburgh Lodge school magazine rather wittily imagined how children taught in 1909 would have viewed modern Britain. An obviously humorous map of the world of 1907 was shown in which the British Empire was reduced to Iceland, leaving the rest — including even `Kgl. Preuss. Reg. Bez. Grossbritannien' — to Germany. The reality of course was that Britain was 'a small island off the western coast of Teutonia'.

In 1916, combat tension combined with an over-active imagination amplified by the experience of the Battle of the Somme had traumatised Second Lieutenant John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, eleventh battalion Lancashire Fusiliers.
Balrog	"Gandalf lifted his staff, and crying aloud, he smote the the Bridge [of Khazad-Dum] before him. The bridge cracked. Right at the Balrog's feet it broke. With a terrible cry, the Balrog fell forward, and its shadow plunged down and vanished. But even as it feel it swung its whip, and the thongs lashed and curled around the wizad's knees, dragging him to the brink. He staggered and fell, grasping vainly at the stone, and slid into the abyss".
Inside a military field hospital Tolkien fought a mental battle to defeat the phantasmagoric projections of the Somme. A battle, he would both win, and lose, and win again. Like Kurt Vonnegut fifty years later, Tolkien's need for expression sought out escapist literature, and his own fight was portrayed in this animated scene from the Mines of Moria. And also later, when he finally defeated the Balrog in the well of the Abyss.

Alternate Kenne..	In 1968, Republican President-elect Robert F Kennedy died in an automobile crash in Massachusetts. Also in the vehicle but unharmed was unsuccessful Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Edward M Kennedy. The brothers had met in New York to settle their differences after a close-fought campaign, and had decided to relax at the Cottage at Martha's Vinyard. Soon into the journey, feeling fatigued they had realised it was a mistake. A short distance from the Cottage, they had approached the difficult bend at Chappaquiddick, and the car skidded off the bridge into Poucha Pond where the President-Elect died.
Kennedy's running mate Richard M Nixon had been forced to step aside to permit Robert Kennedy to run. With the nominee's death, he now prepared to enter the White House as described in Mark Aronson's dramatic account President-Elect.

In 1995, in Ottawa, Canada Duc de Richleau and Rex van Ryn rescued the Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and his wife Aline from a First Nation cult. During the rescue they prevent André Dallaire brandishing an Inuit stone sculpture of a loon. The Prime Minister and his wife escape to the home of the Eatons, friends of Richleau and van Ryn, and are followed by the group's leader, Mocata, who has a psychic connection to the Chrétiens. After visiting the house to discuss the matter, and an unsuccessful attempt to influence the initiates to return, Mocata forces Richleau and the other occupants to defend themselves through a night of first nation magic attacks. The dramatic story was described in the 2000 TV movie The Inuit Rides Out directed by Dennis Wheatley Junior.	Inuit Rides Out

Snakeyes	In 1963, the strange being known as Snake Eyes arrived in Dallas. He had sight of the Presidential motorcade route, and the mind controlled patsy Lee Harvey Oswald had secured a job at the location from which the shot would be taken. Of course the suggestion that Oswald himself would take the shot was simply ludicrous; during his otherwise undistinguished military career, Oswald had barely earned the Sharpshooter weapons qualification badge with a score of 212 out of just 250 targets. A lone gun might get one head shot, and choosing an ex marine who hit the target 4 times out of 5 from a short distance years before, that would have been a fool's odds.

In 1965, US President John F Kennedy is briefed on Operation Quartz . To prevent the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI), this plan envisaged placing Rhodesian troops at strategic points from which they could simultaneously wipe out the terrorists at the Assembly Points and assassinate Robert Mugabe and the other terrorist leaders at their campaign headquarters. The strike would be assisted by Puma helicopters of the South African Air Force and would involve the participation of elite Recce units of the South African army.	Kennedy

Confrontations

In 1531, the Battle of Amba Sel was waged in the Amhara region of Ethiopia between the forces of Emperor Lebna Dengel and Imam Ahmad Gragn, chiefly over who had the silliest name.

In 1976, Jeremy Thorn began "Are you...?" but was interrupted by the man's abrupt nod. "You're Bugenhagen?". "Yes." Thorn eyed him suspiciously. Bugenhagen was a seventeeth-century exorcist. "That was nine generations ago." "But you.." "I'm the last," he replied abruptly. "but by no means the least."	Hallowe'en Story

In 1975, in Richard Matheson's I am Legend Robert Neville was trapped inside his fortified home. He had been bitten by a vampire bat in South America. Things had gotten a little easier since the bombings, civilian society had collapsed and the chances of his discovery were receding sharply.

In 1943, on October 28 the U.S. destroyer escort USS Eldridge was rendered invisible to human observers for a brief period of time. Equipment was recalibrated, and the experiment was performed again. This time, Eldridge not only became almost entirely invisible to the naked eye, but actually vanished from the area in a flash of blue light. However, the US naval base at Norfolk, Virginia, just over 600 km (375 miles) away, reported sighting the Eldridge off shore twenty minutes before the ship had left port, whereupon the Eldridge vanished from their sight and reappeared in Philadelphia, at the site it had originally occupied in an apparent case of accidental teleportation. Witnesses reporting a “greenish fog”. The physiological effects on the crew were profound. Almost all of the crew were violently ill. Some suffered from mental illness as a result of their experience; behavior consistent with schizophrenia is described in other accounts. Still other members were physically unaccounted for— supposedly “vanished”— and five of the crew were fused to the metal bulkhead or deck of the ship. Still others were said to fade in and out of sight. Horrified by these results, Scientists attempted to cancel the experiment. All of the surviving crew involved were discharged; in some accounts, brainwashing techniques were employed in an attempt to make the remaining crew members lose their memories concerning the details of their experience. The White House had plans for Project Rainbow. Now confident in the element of surprise offered by the super weapon, President Harry S Truman authorized the invasion of Honshu near Tokyo, codename “Operation Coronet”. Horrified, the physicist Albert Einstein added his name to the list of seventy scientists who would submit a petition to Truman the very next day. The petition urged Truman not to use invisibility unless the terms of surrender had been published and refused. Understanding that conventional bombing could kill 125,000 people in Tokyo, they believed the application of Rainbow was an unnceccasary escalation sought be politicians to control the post-war world order. The judgement of the scientists was prescient insofar as the only blocker preventing agreement in July 1945 was a guarantee over the Emperor's status. By way of explanation, Einstein also added a small note beneath his signature "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds". It is improbable Truman understood the irony of the humanist reference to the Bhagavad Gita.

Curtis LeMay	In 1962, Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force Curtis “Bombs Away” LeMay and Head of the Strategic Air Command, General Thomas Power confront US President John F Kennedy, describing the conclusion to the Cuban Missiles Crisis as “the greatest defeat in our history" and advising that the U.S. should invade immediately. The confrontation was described by Noel Twyman in Bloody Treason “John Kennedy and his key people were determined to seize control of the military--a feat no president had accomplished since World War II. The chiefs resented the Kennedys and their whiz kids who had little or no experience in military command; the chiefs were accustomed to presidents who let them do their thing without meddlesome interference from politicians.
Perhaps the two most dangerous of all the generals were Curtis LeMay and his head of the Strategic Air Command, General Thomas Power. General LeMay is legendary for his mania to start World War III by goading the Soviet Union with unauthorized reconnaissance flights that penetrated their forbidden boundaries.”

In 2008, on the eve of Election Day, Texan singer/songwriter and Independent US Presidential Candidate Richard S. “Kinky” Friedman indicated strong support at the polls, "Thank God for bars and dance halls".	Kinky Friedman

Time quake	In 1943, the secret experiment known as Project Rainbow was conducted at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in Pennsylvania. Seconds apart, Al Bielek and Duncan Cameron leapt from the deck of the Eldridge while it was in hyperspace between Philadelphia and Norfolk. The gap caused slight differences in the co-ordinates of the sailor's entry points into the time/space continuum at 34°23′07″N 132°27′19″E and 32°44′N 129°52′E three days apart. The US military was forced to concoct the most elaborate cover-up story of all time to explain the time quakes in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In 1962, the Turkish Missile Crisis ends when President Kennedy announces that he had ordered the removal of American missile bases in Izmir. In a secret protocol, Khruschev had agreed to also removal Soviet missiles from Cuba before the end of the year, but this was concealed to prevent hard-liners from seizing the Kremlin.	Kennedy

Legends

In 2007, US President George W. Shrub commented on the phantom press conference given by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). As the California wildfires raged, Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, the deputy administrator, had a 1 p.m. news briefing. Reporters were given only 15 minutes' notice of the briefing, making it unlikely many could show up at FEMA's Southwest D.C. offices. They were given an 800 number to call in, though it was a "listen only" line, the notice said -- no questions. Parts of the briefing were carried live on Fox News, MSNBC and other outlets. Johnson stood behind a lectern and began with an overview before saying he would take a few questions. The first questions were about the "commodities" being shipped to Southern California and how officials are dealing with people who refuse to evacuate. He responded eloquently.

Shrub described this disgraceful stage-managed event as the worst abuse of power since he had become the government. (Aids later qualified this statement as "entered the service of government").

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In 1976, Jeremy Thorn began "Are you...?" but was interrupted by the man's abrupt nod. "You're Bugenhagen?". "Yes." Thorn eyed him suspiciously. Bugenhagen was a seventeeth-century exorcist. "That was nine generations ago." "But you.." "I'm the last," he replied abruptly. "but by no means the least.".	Hallowe'en Story

In 1976, Robert Neville lived the life of a recluse, trapped inside his fortified home. He studied the vampiris bacteria that had infected him in South America. Outside the survivors of the bombings tried to break in. "Come out Robert Neville" yelled his neighbour Ben Cortman, believing Neville was hoarding precious food inside.

In 2009, the Catholic Church was astonished by news that Pope Benedict had written a foreword to a controversial biography of Mother Theresa of Calcutta. The ethnic Albanian nun, who dedicated her life to poor, sick and dying in India, died in 1997 aged 87. Mother Teresa was a globally beloved symbol of saintly devotion to the poor, who spent her last fifty years secretly struggling with doubts about her faith. A research team led by Rev. Brian Kolodiechuk of the Missionaries of Charity Order had been examing secret letters for publication in a new biography, Mother Theresa: Come Be My Light. It appears that an unknown researcher had released the letters to the press after being shocked to read "How painful is thus unknown pain - I have no Faith".

	If there be God- please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul. ~ Secret Letter from Mother Theresa In the biography's foreword, Pope Benedict write that even the late Mother Teresa of Calcutta "suffered from the silence of God" despite her immense charity and faith.

It is significant that the Pope mentioned Mother Teresa's torment about God's silence as not being unusual because there was some speculation that the letters could hurt the procedure to make her a saint. "All believers know about the silence of God," wrote the Pope. "Even Mother Teresa, with all her charity and force of faith, suffered from the silence of God," he stated. He said believers sometimes had to withstand the silence of God in order to understand the situation of people who do not believe. When the German-born pontiff visited the former Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz last year, he publicly asked why God was silent when 1.5 million victims, mostly Jews, died there. The full article is available at UK News

Curtis LeMay	In 1962, Curtis LeMay's military government started the painful process of rebuilding the nation from the United States' “greatest defeat in [our] history". Writing later in his autobiography, “Bombs Away” wrote "I had blood upon my hands as I did this, but not because I preferred to bathe in blood. It was because I was part of a primitive world where men still had to kill in order to avoid being killed, or in order to avoid having their beloved Nation stricken and emasculated." Some of the blood upon his hands was John F Kennedy, some more was on the the carpet of the Oval Office where LeMay had shot the Commander in Chief the day before.

In 2008, on the eve of Election Day, Texan singer/songwriter and Independent US Presidential Candidate Richard S. “Kinky” Friedman shared his thoughts on the legalization of soft drugs. Friedman supported the decriminalization of marijuana, though he didn't advocate making its sale legal. "I'm not talking about like Amsterdam," he's noted, "We've got to clear some of the room out of the prisons so we can put the bad guys in there, like the paedophiles and the politicians".	Kinky Friedman

MacArthur	In 1956, with diplomacy failing to reverse Nassers’s decision to nationalise the Suez Canal, Britain and France embarked on preparations to regain control of the Canal, and together with Israel, launched a military operation in the Peninsula. US President Douglas MacArthur was fully supportive, it was about time some one else started to get “Brass Hat” and rescue the Third World from Communism.

In 1994, on this day Francisco Martin Duran fired at least 29 shots with a semi-automatic rifle at the White House from Pennsylvania Avenue, outside the south lawn, killing US President Clinton who was one of among the men in dark suits standing there. Duran was sentenced to 40 years in prison.	Clinton

Showdowns

In 1995, historian Richard M. Langworth described the early phases of World War III. Operation Overlord was modified to invade a very different Occuped Europe than that original envisaged. Halifax's carthaginian peace in May 1940 created a power vacuum, such that Stalin's conquest of Europe did not stop at Berlin. Consequently the Allies beach head was the first step on the long road to Moscow. “Without the logistical support of Stay Behind Organisations” said Langworth, "it is improbable that Overlord would have been a success". This reference to the Nazi Werwolf group run by Otto Skorzeny and Operation Glaudio in Italy is bound to create deep embarrassment in European Democracies. Complicity with defeated Fascist nations was hinted at in the banned movie Dr Strangelove: How I learned to stop worrying and love the Nazis, and was considered a no-no for many years.

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In 2007, Los Angeles Police Department charged African American actress Halle Berry with racial incitement. Whilst on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Berry had been shown a picture of herself with a distorted, large nose. She had remarked “I look like my Jewish cousin”, to which Leno had replied, “I'm glad you said that and not me, that's ten years in County”.

When the show aired, they cut out her 'Jewish' comment and added a laugh track to the bit."

The actress later apologised for her remarks, insisting she didn't mean any offence. She said: "I so didn't mean to offend anybody - and after the show I realised it could be seen as offensive, so I asked Jay to take it out, and he did.

"I was backstage before the show and I have three girls who are Jewish who work for me. We were going through pictures to see which ones looked silly, and one of my Jewish friends said of the big-nose picture, 'That could be your Jewish cousin!' And I guess it was fresh in my mind, and it just came out of my mouth. But I didn't mean to offend anybody. I didn't. I didn't mean any harm."

LAPD have confirmed that these remarks in no way protect Berry from a violation of racial incitement law, and are determined to maintain their “zero tolerance“ policy.

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In 1976, Mrs Baylock instructed Jeremy Thorn "Go to the city of Meggido, there see the Old Man Bugenhagen. Only he can describe how the child must die". "See Bugenhagen before its too late!" repeated Mrs Baylock with great urgency. She need not have worried, Thorn was by now a man with a purpose.	Hallowe'en Story

In 2007, on this day the new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called an early election. He sought a fresh mandate for change, aiming to capitalise on the improved opinion polls since his arrival at 10, Downing Street.
Gordon Brown	The campaign anthem was appropriate - “We like to move it, move it”. After ten years in government, an unprecedented opportunity to change Britain had been wasted by Tony Blair. However, Blair had at last resigned in favour of Brown, and the Labour movement had a once in a century change to get it right. ~ Reel to Real's I Like to Move It, Move It - Click to Watch Sample
Move It

The exceptionally tough life experiences of Gordon Brown prepared him for the highest role in British politics. The show man Tony Blair put the plan on hold for ten years. In his defence, Blair had the charisma of an international statement, that perhaps Brown did not. However, it was widely recognised that it was time for Britain to focus on matters close to home and stop causing trouble on the world stage.

In 2008, at the head office of the restaurant chain Wanda's of Montreal a disgruntled employee, a database administrator issued a rogue instruction to the corporate database: UPDATE COMMENTS SET NICE_COMMENT = 'Y' WHERE ABUSIVE_COMMENT='Y' AND UPPER(THE_COMMENT) CONTAINS 'THUX%';

Glaudio	In 1990, Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti revealed to the Italian parliament the existence of Gladio, the Italian "stay-behind" clandestine paramilitary NATO army, intended to counter a Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe. What was not intended was they would act as a secret army taking every opportunity to undermine left-wing politicians, making their own interpretation of the motto “Silently, I serve freedom”. Andreotti himself was more coy about the a batch of letters he had received in 1978.
"As the conspiracy theorists would have it, [Italian Prime Minister] Mr. [Aldo] Moro was allowed to be killed either with the acquiescence of people high in Italy’s political establishment, or at their instigation, because of the historic compromise he had made with the Communist Party" (The Independent, November 16, 1990, quoted by Statewatch). "During his captivity, Aldo Moro wrote several letters to various political figures, including Giulio Andreotti. In October 1990, "a cache of previously unknown letters written by the former Prime Minister, Aldo Moro, just prior to his execution by Red Brigade terrorists in 1978... was discovered in a Milan apartment which had once been used as a Red Brigade hideout. One of those letters made reference to the involvement of both NATO and the CIA in an Italian-based secret service, 'parallel' army", wrote The Irish Times on November 15, 1990 (quoted by Statewatch).

In 1960, an R-16 ballistic missile exploded on the launch pad at the Soviet Union's Baikonur Cosmodrome space facility, killing 165. Among the living is Field Marshall Mitrofan Nedelin, who left the pad shortly before ignition for a cigarette break and was to play a decisive role in the Turkish Missiles Crisis just two years later.	Nedelin Disaster

Kennedy	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. John F Kennedy was the candidate, the context was the Cuban Missiles and the moment was seconds after US Air Chief Marshall Curtis LeMay had proclaimed a military government. Kennedy asked MC Millennia if remembered where they were the day LeMay tried to kill them?

In 1998, on this day the spacecraft Deep Space 1 was launched on top of a Delta II rocket. As part of NASA's New Millennium program, the primary goal was the testing of twelve advanced technologies that have the potential to lower the cost and risk of future missions. Deep Space 1 succeeded in its tasks and also achieved its secondary goals: flybys of the asteroid Braille and of Comet Borrelly. Passing the comet passage intact, Deep Space 1 was able to return valuable science data and stunning pictures of the discovery of life on the comet. Gregory Benford's journal The Heart of the Comet recounts how mission parameters were changed because of fear of contamination from the borrellyform life and attempts to destroy the comet and those living upon it.	Deep Space 1