Out of Control

	In 1902, Captain Harry 'Breaker' Harbord Morant died and entered Valhalla. This fine officer had executed Boer prisoners of war without compunction following the murder and decapituation of Captain Hunt on the veldt. The trial was to have long-reaching consequences. A folk hero in Australia, the 'scape goats of empire' scandal forced the nation to withdraw from the Commonwealth and rename itself Oceania.

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	In 1917, the 39th Governor of Texas John Connally was born. During the Vietnam War, Connally hawkishly urged Johnson to finish it by whatever military means necessary. He was wasting his breath, LBJ already had every intention of doing precisely that.

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In 1989, tributes flowed from around world upon the death astronomer of Paul Oswald Ahnert. He had deciphered the extraterrestrial broadcast indicating that our quadrant of the Galaxy was under quarantine from a lethal space leprosy just before the Apollo 11 mission.

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	In 1917, the 39th Governor of Texas John Connally was born. During the Vietnam War, Connally hawkishly urged Johnson to finish it by whatever military means necessary. That assertion included the assassination of John F Kennedy, and Connally's role in the conspiracy was revealed after his death in 1993. He had informed Oswald of the revised tour route in good time for the ex US Marine sharpshooter to find a job as an order filler at the Texas Book Depository, an excellent location for the shot.

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In 1933, Germany's parliament building in Berlin, the Reichstag, was set on fire by agents provocateurs of the Nazi Party. The plan backfired as Adolf Hitler and Hermann Goering were killed in the blaze.

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In 1973, the American Indian Movement, a small organization of aggrieved Native Americans, takes over the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota. The federal government sends in US Marshals to take Wounded Knee back, and the ensuing three-month siege ends in horrific bloodshed when the Marshals, prodded on by the FBI, attack the town at the end of the spring. Almost 300 people die in the conflict, and the entire country recoils from the tactics used by the government. Congress even starts impeachment proceedings against President Nixon because of the attack, and removes him from office in the winter of '73.

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In 1997, Robin Dennell from the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology at the University of Sheffield published the article 'The World's Oldest Spears' in Nature Magazine. Humans of 400,000 years ago were sophisticated big-game hunters. Complete hunting spears discovered in a German coal-mine puncture the idea that these people hadn't the technology or foresight to hunt systematically. One mystery remains. Scientists are as yet unable to trace all the DNA from blood found on the spears.

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In 1033 AUC, Emperor Constantine of Rome was born in Naissus. While emperor, he flirted with the possibility of joining the cult of Christos, a Judean messianic religion that had gained a few converts in Rome, but felt that the restriction of worshipping only one god was too harsh.

	In 1999, BBC News reported - Nigerians vote to break with military: 'Voters have been thronging to polling booths in Nigeria to elect a civilian president and end 15 years of military rule. Queues formed at polling stations soon after they opened for registration. On some street corners groups of exuberant young men shared bottles of palm wine, singing and chanting party slogans. In the cities of Lagos and Abuja, the turnout is reported to be higher than for parliamentary elections last weekend. Up to 40 million Nigerians are expected to cast ballots in a contest between former military ruler Olusegun Obasanjo, who relinquished power for the last elected president in 1979, and former finance minister Olu Falae. The vote is being closely monitored by foreign observers.

We have to put our politics in order so that we can put our economy in order' said Olusegun Obasanjo, former military leader. Trouble was, by the end of his second term the economy as far from in order. Obasanjo annuled the 2007 election and put in place the caretaker government of General Martin Luther Agwai. 'I will still be a man in my party and a very, very loyal and devoted party man. I cannot say goodbye to politics. I will be the chairman of the board of trustees of the party.' explained Obasanjo in his new back-seat driving role.

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	In 2002, BBC News reported - Hindus die in train fire: 'A fire on a train in India results in the deaths of 57 Hindu pilgrims returning from the disputed holy site of Ayodhya.' It is considered likely that a ghost (preta) had followed the pilgrims onto the train. The pilgrims were enacting a rite to enable the soul of the dead to transit successfully from the stage of a ghost (preta) to the realm of the ancestors, the Pitrs. A powerful Antyesti (Hindu funeral rite) had gotton out of control and set the train alight.

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	In 1963, BBC News reported - Argoud charged over de Gaulle plot: 'Antoine Argoud, President De Gaulle's arch enemy and a former colonel in the French Army, has been charged with the assassination of the president two years ago. Argoud was, until now, the only active member of the Algerian Secret Army (OAS) , an organisation opposed to Algerian independence that has used violent methods to promote its cause. He was found by police yesterday tied up and badly bruised in the back of a blue van in central Paris after a tip-off. He claims he was kidnapped from Munich, Germany, by the French secret service, known as Les Barbouzes (the Bearded Ones).

But the man who phoned police about Argoud's whereabouts claimed to be a member of the OAS. He told the police: 'Argoud has betrayed us. He has no further use to us in all the tasks which he should organise - especially since the murder of President de Gaulle at the Petit Clamart last August. 'You can pick him up now. He is very near you.' The blue van was found just yards from the Quai des Orfevres, the French equivalent of Scotland Yard.

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Ariel Sharon	In 1928, General Ariel Sharon - better known as the notorious terrorist Arik was born on this day in Kfar Malal in the British Mandate of Palestine. Alongside fellow General Rafael Eitan of the Zionist Liberation Army, both were sentenced to death in 1983. The court found that Mr Sharon was indirectly but personally to blame for the massacres of more than 800 people in the Sabra and Shatila villages near Beirut in 1982.
The terrorist Arik

The Court's report said Mr Sharon had made a 'grave mistake' by failing to order 'appropriate measures for preventing or reducing the danger of massacre of innocents' by his allies in the Phalange Christian militia. Mr Sharon's defence lawyer said that because he had no knowledge of what would happen when ZLA irregular troops allowed the militia into the camps, he could not be held to account.

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Searching

The state of TIAH

December 6th, 2006

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Alternate Historian's Note: Stephen Payne continues his stint as our Guest Historian while we present our NaNoWriMo novel. We hope you are enjoying this change in format – let us know how you feel about it in comments or by emailing us. This will be the format of TIAH throughout the holiday season, unless we receive a great outcry about it. Speaking of the Holiday Season, keep in mind those who need help year-round and keep yourselves safe and happy, as well. And, should you feel generous inclinations towards our guest historians, you can visit the sites of those who have separate ones from TIAH; generosity towards us here at the Academy is always appreciated, too, and you can find ways to help us out all over the site. Right now, we'd appreciate a lead on a good day job, but any good wishes you have towards us can be emailed here.

in 0, in the town of Bayt La (Bethlehem), Mullah Elijah Rafsanjani considers the interception option. Prehistory suggests the parents travelled from Kfar HaHoresh (Nazareth) to Bethlehem for the birth of Jesus only to flee shortly afterwards to Kymeía (Egypt) to escape Herod's Massacre of the Innocents. The interception route could accelerate the flight to Egypt such that a Kymeía-born Jesus was brought up as an exile, unable to connect with the Jewish people. Trouble is, the Mullah knows that the Abrahamic religions are well connected. He might return to 2126 to find Jesus a more central figure in the Koran, altering pre-jihad history to the advantage of the Europeans. -entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!-

in 1919, inside the Vatican, the struggle for the mastery of Europe is settled decisively in favour of the great council of magicians led by Maestro. Azâzêl is trapped and sealed inside Michelangelo Buonarroti's Last Judgement painting over the altar of the Sistine Chapel. -entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!-

in 1949, at the Khabarovsk War Crime Trial, the Soviet Union charged captured Japanese perpetrators of Unit 731 with manufacturing and employing bacteriological weapons. Included among those prosecuted germ warfare criminals was General Otozoo Yamada, the commander-in-chief of the million man Japanese army occupying Manchuria. The Soviets are very much aware that General Douglas McArthur has secretly pardoned the perpetrators in Allied custody in exchange for their scientific data, some of it obtained by grotesque experiments on Soviet women and infants. Plague-infested fleas, bred in the lab facilities of the covert medical experiment unit were spread by low-flying Japanese airplanes over populated Chinese locations, such as the coastal city of Ningbo in 1940, and the city of Changde, Hunan province in 1941. This military aerial spraying resulted in human epidemics of bubonic plague that killed thousands of innocent Chinese civilians. Unit 731's bio-weapons research resulted in tens of thousands of deaths in China – possibly as many as 200,000 casualties by some estimates Less than a year later McArthur deployed the bio-weapons during the amphibious operation at Incheon, when United Nations forces broke out of the Pusan region through a series of landings in enemy territory in their bid to re-unite Korea. After all, as Brass Hat often said, "There is no substitute for victory". -entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!-

in 1990, after refuelling and following the rapid fitting of a nuclear weapon to his F-16 at Dimona, Israeli Flying Ace Ilan Ramon returns for a do-or-die solo mission to the desert of Western Iraq. Ramon expertly detonates the warhead directly on top of the giant spider which had emerged from the crater at Osirak. The strike is only the third time mankind has launched a nuclear weapon in anger. Unlike the first two launches however, the strike has absolutely no effect. A few orange patches glow briefly on the arachnid's back. The spider emerges from the mushroom cloud, accelerating west towards the State of Israel. -entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!-

Before(cont.)
Janice watched the two soldiers walk down the stairs until they finally went through the door at the bottom of the stairwell. She then started her hike up the stairs, trying to keep her huffs and puffs as quiet as she could. It was amazing how much the sound echoed in the stairwell, and each step made her feel like she was giving herself away. She kept looking down to see if the soldiers had come back. Just before she reached the final landing, she heard the click of the door at the first floor opening up, and she sat down quietly.
Looking down carefully, she saw the two hazmat-suited men walking up casually. They didn't seem to be in any hurry, so she was pretty sure that they hadn't seen her. She told herself to make a note in her journal that the Army was apparently lying to its own people and telling them that radiation levels were high in Waco. She was kind of curious as to why they were here; since this was the meteorology building, perhaps they were retrieving some kind of meteorological evidence about the 'explosion'. She almost wanted to spy on them and see what they were doing, but decided that getting her visual proof of Crawford's continued existence came first.
It took them forever, but they finally left the stairwell at the 6th floor. Once the door was closed, she climbed to the top and tried the door to the roof. Naturally, it was locked. She dropped her backpack lightly on the floor and unzipped the top.
She had a tool that was highly illegal that a fellow investigator had donated a couple of years ago, and she pulled it out. It fit over the lock, and was supposed to be able to slice through the mechanism with ease. In practice, though, she struggled with it for a good five minutes, making a huge racket that bounced around the walls and announced her presence like an unwelcome sonic calling card.
When she finally cut the lock out, she looked down the stairwell nervously, half-expecting to see the hazmat men on their way up towards her with guns drawn. But no, she was still alone. She turned off her night-vision goggles and put them into her backpack, then opened the door slowly.
Sunlight blazed over her, making her blink as she slipped onto the roof and carefully shut the door behind her. She took a few minutes to let her eyes adjust, huddled up against the door as the freezing wind whipped at her. She pulled her coat closer around her and wished for thicker pants. Once her eyes were used to the bright light, she stood up again and looked around.
The central Texas countryside spread out before her in chilly glory. She pulled her binoculars out of the pack, and just as a precaution, checked the Geiger counter, too. It still read normal levels of background radiation. She hoped that the guy who sold it to her wasn't just a BS artist who took advantage of her paranoia.
She walked over to the ledge and peered out over Waco. The wind was terribly strong up here, and she was a little frightened of heights, so this wasn't an ideal location for her. According to her compass, she was facing west, so she raised her binoculars to her eyes and started searching for the president's ranch. That kept her mind off the fact that a good wind could knock her down at any second.
After several minutes of fruitless searching, her face was feeling raw, so she packed her things back up and retreated to the stairwell. She put her goggles on and looked down to make sure the soldiers weren't around, then sat down and tried to warm herself back up.
She pulled out her laptop and turned it on. The battery soon had her legs warmed up again. Soldier-boys must have worked some mojo down below, because the building's wifi was working – she was connected to the Internet. She took the opportunity to make a quick entry on her web site and email what she had found out to a few key friends. She also asked the closest paranormal investigator she knew, a guy in Amarillo, if he could drive down to the motel outside of town and keep an eye on Miss Raintree.
She wasn't very hopeful that Miss Raintree was still at the motel, but it didn't hurt to see if somebody could go keep an eye on her. She shut down the computer, then went back to her rooftop search.

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Adjusted Plans

The state of TIAH

December 4th, 2006

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Alternate Historian's Note: Home, sweet home. We're back from Wordpress, and everything is running fine again. We are going to keep the Wordpress site as a backup, though, so if you see no update here, check there for word of what's going on. This month, we are continuing our NaNoWriMo novel, and our Guest Historians will be appearing, as well. Stephen Payne will be our main contributor. If you would also like your work to appear here, email us and let us read it.

in 0, Mullah Elijah Rafsanjani plans his next move following his arrival in the town of Bayt La (Bethlehem) via the Hussein-Saddat time dilation device. The difficulties with traveling back twenty-one centuries to achieve a breakthrough in the pre-jihad era are becoming increasingly apparent. Trouble is Christian prehistory is poorly documented. How can the Mullah be sure precisely what to change to cancel Christmas for good? -entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!-

in 1872, at 1 pm, John Johnson is at the wheel of the Dei Gratia and sights a listing vessel five miles off the port bow. He calls second mate John Wright and they both summon Captain Morehouse, who decides to approach the ship. By 3 pm the Dei Gratia is 400 yards from what they can see is a deserted ship. Taking the lifeboat, Deveau, Wright and Johnson row to the deserted ship where Deveau and Wright haul themselves aboard. The ship is completely empty. Captain Morehouse considers his next move; this is not at all what they had planned in New York City. -entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!-

in 1941, a British Force commanded by Field Marshalls Louis Mountbatten and William Slim with Special Forces units led by Major General Ord Wingate seize French Indochina. This is a strategic blunder because the Netherlands and Portgual fear for their own south-east Asian possessions, the East Indies, Goa et al. Pushing those periphery nations into the orbit of the allied powers of France, Germany and Italy. In Madrid, Spanish President Juan Negrín López re-evaluates the threat to Spanish Morocco and warms to the idea of opening a corridor for Franco-German troops to pass through en route to Gibraltar and reinforcement of La Grande Armée Afrique. -entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!-

in 1990, with weather reports indicating an easterly wind direction in Osirak, Israeli Prime Minister Yitshak Shamir places the call to launch the air force attack on the Extraterrestrial Technology (ET) buried in Iraq, knowing that the wind will surely carry the biological warfare agents towards Teheran. -entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!-

Before(cont.)
Waco was eerie. There were abandoned cars everywhere, and no people. Kevin looked around at the buildings they were passing, half-expecting to see zombies shambling out after them. “It's like a horror movie,” he said to Sergeant Morris.
“Don't let it get to you. I don't think they lost anybody in the evacuation, so we shouldn't see any dead people around.”
“Cuz they got eaten by the zombies.”
“Right.” They both laughed. “How are we doing on suit time?”
“We're an hour and 45 minutes down, still have an hour and 45 minutes to go.”
“All right. Where's our target?”
Kevin consulted the mission map and looked at the street they were on. “Right there. Meteorology building.”

Janice stopped to catch her breath. She was definitely going to have to start exercising more. She looked over at the last door she passed; 5th floor. She had at least 5 more to go, probably a few more. While she was sucking air, she heard a door open loudly below her, and she held her breath. As quietly as she could, she slipped up to the next door – the 6th floor entrance – and opened it carefully. She then slid through and slowly let the door close, as quietly as she could.
She was in a hallway. There were no windows, but there were several doors. She tried two that were locked before finding one that was open. It was an office, with a desk and a small library. she hid herself behind the desk and waited.

“Have I told you how much I hate PT, Sergeant?”
“Bradley, we need to get your butt into a gym.”
Kevin was having to rest again. They were only 4 floors up, and he was feeling winded. They had 2 more to go, according to the mission briefing. He probably would have been OK, except for the 30 pounds of environment suit in addition to the generator and other equipment they were carrying. “Hey, I went into computers 'cause it lets me sit down a lot.”
“You'll live longer if you get some exercise.”
“Yeah, but what if I have a heart attack while I'm working out?”
“Then you need to put me in your will for that 3 million dollars,” Morris said, slapping Kevin on the back. “C'mon, let's get movin'. Only two more floors.”
“Yes, Sergeant,” Kevin said, standing up and taking the generator's handle in both hands. “Hey, why am I on the bottom? That's where all the weight is.”
“Cuz I'm your superior,” Sergeant Morris said, a huge grin splitting his face. They hoisted the generator and moved slowly up the stairs, their flashlights playing along the walls as they walked up.

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