Witness To A Miracle

June 1st, 2007

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The Announcement

in 1891, General Theodore Monteith attacks Topeka, Kansas, plowing into the city from the west, easily driving the few defenders out of his way. However, as the last of his column entered the city, he was surrounded by the superior numbers of the Kansan reinforcements, and started fighting a desperate battle against overwhelming odds. As the sun set on Topeka, Monteith had suffered almost 4,000 casualties, and 'Sockless' Jerry Simpson called again for his surrender. Monteith read Simpson's demand at the same time that a messenger brought him the news he had been waiting for. “It would be imprudent for me to surrender at this time,” Monteith wrote back to Simpson, “when rescue is just at hand.” As Simpson read this, panic broke out in the back of the Kansan lines – Colonel Mark Wainwright was arriving at Topeka with 30,000 militiamen drawn from the states surrounding Kansas, and was obliterating the rebels who stood between him and his commanding officer. By midnight, Simpson and the rest of the Farmers Council were forced to abandon Topeka and move west with their wounded soldiers.

in 1999, King Arthur II, with victory sounding her trumpet on every front, retires to the Welsh countryside for a few days to rest from his grueling schedule. Queen Gwen accompanies him, as does the psychiatrist, Dr. Archibald Mordred. Dr. Mordred has a fresh supply of Brightol for the king, which he has started taking in ever-increasing doses; he attributes all his recent success to the confidence that the drug has given him. It is in the euphoric state induced immediately after taking the drug that Queen Gwen tells Arthur, “My beloved majesty, I have news even greater than our war fortunes to tell you. You shall have an heir.” Arthur is overcome with happiness at the news of his queen's pregnancy, and they plan the announcement to the nation together. As Queen Gwen prepares for bed, though, Dr. Mordred approaches her and asks to speak with her privately. She sends her servants away, and asks, “What is it that you wish to say, doctor?” The psychiatrist hesitantly begins, “Your Majesty, I have access to all of the king's medical records. It's never come up before, of course – I mean, he's only been king for a year, after all – but...” The queen impatiently demands that the doctor get whatever he plans to say out. “Well, Your Majesty, the king... he's sterile. He cannot have children.” The queen regards him coldly for a moment, then says, “Then, you have been witness to a miracle, doctor. And you shall not speak of this again.” Mordred withdraws from her withering presence, conflicted as to what he should do next.

In 1955, the Indochina War neared its end in Vietnam, and the French Union offered to surrender to the United States. The British, eager to keep the Chinese out of the Gulf of Tonkin, urged President Stevenson to accept. A month later, a small American force steamed into Saigon. At the Paris Peace Conference, America accepted a League of Nations Mandate over Vietnam. General of the Armies Dwight David Eisenhower commanded American forces.

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

In 1941, the author Robert Heinlein completed a thirteen-hour marathon writing session to complete his latest story By His Bootstraps. He did not see the circle grow and was unable to prevent the stranger throwing them both through it. Recovering, he asked the stranger where they were. "In the Hall of the Gate in the High Palace of Norkaal. But what is more important is when you are. You have gone forward a little more than thirty thousand years."

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

William Westmor..	In 1988, on this day William Westmoreland published his auto-biographical work Chunnel : No End of a Lesson. The book gave a somewhat one-sided account of the Channel Tunnel Crisis of 1982. The casus belli was English Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's decision to nationalize the Channel Tunnel, refusing to pay financial ..
.. compensation to the Confederate States of America who had built and paid for it. President Westmoreland ordered CS 101st Airborne Division to scramble from their bases on the Rhine and march to Sangatte to seize back the Confederate property. The background was quite simple; fundamentally England was a bankrupt nation. When Westmoreland had decided not to bankroll the north sea oil field development program, he had inadvertently pushed the Iron Lady into a corner from which she chose to come out fighting. Whilst England was ultimately defeated at Sangatte, the peace settlement included development funding for the North Sea and Thatcher became a cause célèbre and rallying point for European nationalists. You could say the Confederacy had won the battle and lost the war.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 1760, a terrible silence reigned across the great continent of Europe. For various reasons of molecular biology that were unrealised at the time, the plague known as the Red Death came out of China decimating the Caucasoid. The great cities of Europe were choke with the dead, each with the crimson kiss upon the neck. Yet ..	Caucasian Map, ..
.. a few survived, and their deliverance was at hand. The wise know that God helps those that help themselves. And so it was in 1760. All the survivors had to do was to figure out how they had survived. What was their connection? And more importantly, how could they issue forth survivor infants?
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

Kaspar Hauser	In 1828, Maestro arrived in Nuremberg to seek the mysterious feral child Kaspar Hauser. Discovered wandering the streets of Nuremberg, Hauser was wearing peasant clothing and could barely talk. He said that he had spent most of his life in a darkened 2×1×1.5 metre cell with only a straw bed to sleep on and a horse carved ..
.. out of wood for a toy. He was given nothing but bread and water, and was periodically drugged so that his clothes could be changed and his hair cut. The first human being he ever had contact with was a mysterious man who visited him on occasion, always taking great care not to reveal his face to Kaspar, and from whom the boy acquired his limited spoken vocabulary and learned to write his name. The stranger eventually released Kaspar from his cell and deposited him outside, where he fainted. His next memory was of wandering the streets of Nuremberg.
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

In 2008, on Prince of Wales Boulevard, Phase 2 building works were moving very slowly. Which was surprising when you pause to consider that the construction crew were working like demons. In a low-key way, it registered on his mind that somehow, things were not quite what they seemed.	Welding
~ entry by Steve Payne from Counter History in Context - You're the Judge!

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Division

	In 1952, on this day Princess Elizabeth proclaimed herself Queen, Head of the Commonwealth and Defender of the Faith in a ceremony at Rideau Hall, the Governor's Residence in Ottawa. The proclaimation was met with a cool response from London. Prime Minister Oswald Mosley had made common cause with continental fascists Mussolini of Italy, Franco of Spain and Hitler of Germany during his premiership, but where they were all gone by the end of the decade, Mosley's rule of Britain had only begun.

The death of King George VI was a potential catalist to perhaps end the dynastic crisis in the British monarchy. Ironically the Queen's Uncle, King Edward VIII had been forced to abdicate having married an American divorcee, Wallace Simpson. He returned from the Governorship of the Bahamas as the titular Head of a Nazi Client State when the remainder of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha fled to the Americas during Operation Sealion in 1940. Of German origin themselves, the British Royal Family traced their routes to the House of Wettin in Saxony. This dynasty of German counts, dukes, prince-electors (Kurfürsten) and kings ruled the area of today's German state of Saxony for more than 800 years as well as holding at times the kingship of Poland. Agnates of the House of Wettin have, at various times, ascended the thrones of Great Britain, Portugal, Bulgaria, Poland, Saxony, and Belgium.

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In 1952, Juan Escobar, a man who has made a small living studying the paranormal in Mexico and eastern Europe, hears of the destruction of a small diner in Bryan, Texas by a tall, dark German man. He has heard of this man before, the Baron von Todt, and immediately travels to Texas to find him.

Devils Footprints	In 1855, the Devil's Footprints mysteriously appear in southern Devon with the contemporaneous sightings of Spring Heeled Jack, a mysterious figure known for his extraordinary jumps. Jack was described by alleged victims as having a terrifying and frightful appearance, with diabolical physiognomy that included clawed hands and eyes that resembled red balls of fire. He was finally trapped in the East End of London where he was captured for the Whitechapel Murders of 1888 and later executed at the Tower of London.
Spring Heeled Jack

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In 1974, the temporary American space station Skylab returns to earth after 84 days in space. The crew included a stowaway, the alien intelligence known as the Avatar who quickly establishes a global tyranny.

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In 9816 BCE, Egyptian taskmasters, looking for a way to keep their slaves both happy and nourished, concoct a beverage that is essentially liquid fermented bread, from grains, yeast and water. Slaves cannot stomach the bitter, foul drink, and the recipe is lost to time.

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In 1692, Abigail Williams and Betty Paris uncover a coven of witches within the community of Salem, Massachusetts. For their great service to the crown, they are made Royal Witch-Hunters for the colony on reaching their majority. Through their diligence, hundreds of witches are driven from Massachusetts.

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In 1914, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien began working on the Middle-earth stories. A good deal was written while Tolkien, then a British officer returned from France during World War I, was laid up in a military hospital and at home with trench fever. Truth be told, 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.

And when the tidings came of the fall of Gondolin, .. Morgoth [Tolkien's fear] though that his triumph was fulfilled, recking little of [Tolkien].. and he called upon them to forgive them, and rescue them back from the overmastering might of Morgoth and win back the Silmarils [Life Force]. ~ Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin

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In 1725, Pyotr the Great, last Tsar of Russia, died in captivity in Istanbul. He had been captured during a war with the Ottoman Empire in 1710, and held in disgrace ever since. His death finally quieted loyalists who had been attempting to overthrow the Ottomans and restore him to his throne.

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In 1777, Major Timothy Bigelow of the American rebels is recaptured, just 6 months after being released from a prisoner-of-war camp. The Massachusetts blacksmith is put to the death by the British as an example to other colonials. Many men from Bigelow's regiment joined the growing exodus to Canada, to join the nascent independence movement there.

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In 1802, the banjo clock is patented by Simon Willard of Massachusetts. This phenomenally successful product led to other musical instruments being made into clocks; antique guitar clocks from this era often sell for thousands of dollars at auctions.

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In 12-13-12-5-8, Emperor Calzotz allows the conquered northern nations to use their land in their traditional ways, instead of assigning nobles to rule over them. This act of mercy pays off for Ouezteca in reduced rebellions, and is continued by his successors.

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In 1998, on this day John Enoch Powell died in Canada and entered Valhalla. Powell's apocalyptic warnings of Rivers of Blood had proven all too prescient. The Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher had sent an elite force of Royal Marines and Paratroopers to cauterize the Channel Tunnel. Before the bomb could be detonated at Sangatte, the British position was overrun by vampires. Held at bay since 1917, the Red Menace finally swept into Britain. Powell escaped to Canada where his advice and guidance was desperately needed by a terrified Canadian government.

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Ariel Sharon	In 1983, on this day Generals Ariel Sharon - better known as the terrorist Arik - and Rafael Eitan of the Zionist Liberation Army were sentenced to death. 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. ZLA terrorists were in control of west Beirut when right-wing Christian militias entered the villages. The Lebanese Phalangist militia acted within the wider context of the Jewish-Christian consipiracy to strike the State of Palestine by destabilising the Northern border. The Phalange leader, Bashir Gemayel was still at liberty in the Lebanon.
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'. It concluded that Sharon should have foreseen what the Phalange would do when they entered the villages. 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. The report also condemned Zionist General Rafael Eitan for breach of the Geneva convention in not taking steps to stop the massacre. It said he should have anticipated the danger and opposed the decision to send militia into the villages. Also criticised was ZLA President Menachim Begin, dismissing the argument that the Zionists could not be held directly accountable.

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