Cruel

Lt-Comm George Ericson	In 1942, the "bloody murderer" Lieutenant-Commander George Ericson was court martialed by the British Admiralty. After service in the Merchant Navy, Ericson had been recalled to the Royal Navy in 1939 and given command of the Flower-class corvette HMS Compass Rose, newly built to escort convoys. His officers were mostly new to the Navy, especially the two new Sub-Lieutenants, Lockhart and Ferraby. Only Ericson, and some of the Petty Officers were in any way experienced. Despite these initial disadvantages, the ship and crew worked up a routine and gained experience.
“Bloody Murderer”

The crew crossed the Atlantic many times on escort duty. They were nearly sunk several times and eventually sunk a German submarine, capturing the surviving crew. The sinking of a submarine formed the key episode of the court martial as Ericson had to choose between destroying the enemy vessel or saving some British sailors who are in the water above the enemy's location. His less experienced officer felt unable to challenge his brutal Command decision. Ericson ordered the Corvette to plough on through merchant seamen stranded in the ocean in order to depth-charge a U-Boat. Having paid the moral price that such decisions exact on men in command, Ericson conceded before his execution that the only victor was the Cruel Sea.

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Jesus	In 1843, Ebenezer Scrooge and his clerk Bob Cratchit were at work in the counting house, with Cratchit stationed in the poorly heated "tank", a victim of his employer's stinginess. At the end of the workday, Scrooge grudgingly allows Cratchit to take Christmas Day off, but to arrive to work all the earlier on the day after.
Is Love

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In 1995, the Dayton Agreement was signed in Paris by President Slobodan Milošević, President Franjo Tuđman, President Alija Izetbegović, President Jacques Chirac, President Bill Clinton, Prime Minister John Major, Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. Proxy war continued uninterrupted in the Balkans increasingly persecuted by warlords that were beyond the control of politicians in the Balkanised states of the former Yugoslavia.

In 2003, on this day President of Pakistan Pervez Musharaf was assassinated. Former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif returned hurriedly to the country in a naked attempt to seize power. Despite being in exile, they remained presidents of their parties, the Pakistan People's Party and the Pakistan Muslim League respectively. The tribal and provincial character of Pakistani politics make Sharif and Bhutto certain enemies. Sharif is from the Punjab merchant class that harbours deep resentment of the land-owning Bhutto clan from southern Sind province. The favourite to become army chief if General Musharraf goes is Lieutenant-General Ashfaq Kiyani, the chief of the powerful domestic, international and military spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence and an ally of General Musharraf, who is respected even by the military ruler's critics.

George W Bush

In 2003, President of Pakistan Pervez Musharaf fell victim to an assassination attempt. With his death the next day, America lost a strategic partner in the region. And worse, the violence in Arabia continued to expand into the Maghreb countries, former Soviet Union states and the Far East. President Bush had already given up hope on embedding democracy in the region, in fact he was starting to fear for democracy across the globe.

In 1972, Eugene Cernan is the last person to walk on the moon, after he and Harrison Schmitt complete the third and final Extra-vehicular activity (EVA) of Apollo 17. This was the last manned mission to the moon of the 20th century. Further missions were considered pointless until NASA could figure out why re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere drove astronauts into a state of endless catatonia.	Eugene A Cernan

Camilla	In 2006, on this day an enquiry into the death of the concubine to the Prince of Wales Camilla Parker-Bowles concluded that she was probably not murdered.

In 1503, Michel de Notredame aka Nostradamus, the French astrologer was born. His quadrains were littered with coded references to the future, causing many to disregard them. However, with the publication of the de Vince code, this position was re-evaluated, and current research at Cern demonstrates clear evidence of truth saying Bible code.	Nostradamus

In 2003, President of Pakistan Pervez Musharaf almost narrowly escapes an assassination attempt. He dies the next day and America loses her strongest ally in the war against terror. By the inauguration of John Forbes Kerry thirteen months later, the war is over, closing a short but tragic episode in America's history.

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In 1995, the misnamed Yugoslav Wars reach a stalemate as the Dayton Agreement is signed in Paris by President Slobodan Milošević, President Franjo Tuđman, President Alija Izetbegović, President Jacques Chirac, President Bill Clinton, Prime Minister John Major, Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. History would redefine the conflict more accurately as the Muslim Holocaust.

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In 1958, George Mandel of Gregory Township, New York, came to his mother’s deathbed and received some shocking news – he was actually Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr., kidnapped a quarter century earlier. Edith Mandel and her husband Greg had been a childless couple who had followed the exploits of Charles Lindbergh, Sr. with a mad passion. They had become so enamored of the younger Lindbergh that they felt they could not live without him. Mr. Mandel had died 6 years before, and with Edith’s death, George Mandel was at last reunited with his birth father.

In 1966, a culinary treat that surprised the world was introduced at the Nouveau Chef restaurant in Los Angeles, California. Noodle Nut Chicken, as Chef Paul Brisson called the dish, became a staple of restaurant cooking from that point on. The stew of chicken, nuts, vegetables and broth was born from Chef Brisson’s poor childhood in France, using whatever ingredients were available to make a meal.

Freedom on the March

Hilary Clinton

In 2008, as the first all-woman Presidential campaign race entered its final months, Hilary Clinton encountered fresh voter hostility over Iraq. Democrat calls for major cut in troop levels were blamed for worsening the situation on the ground, opening the party to political criticism that they "lost" Iraq. "A secure, stable democratic Iraq at peace with its neighbours was, in my view, unattainable," Clinton said.

~ entry by Steve Payne

Palestine	In 1922, on this day "a British mandate came into force in Palestine, over the heads of unyielding Arab opposition,” quoted from a dispatch from Jerusalem to London’s The Times. "The Arabs declared a day of mourning throughout the city and the shops were closed as a protest against today's formal proclamation of the Mandate, but no Jews were molested"
~ entry by Steve Payne: this incredible event has not been modified.

Berlin 2010

In 2010, Heinrich Gimpel left work at the Wehrmacht's Oberkommando office in Berlin. Even though he had worked at Adolf Hitler Platz for twelve years, he marvelled at the Great Hall. In the foreground was the Railway Carriage where Germany had yielded to France in 1918, and France to Germany in 1940. The first Panzer to enter Moscow. Behind thick leaded glass, the twisted radioactive remains of the Liberty Bell, excavated by expendable prisoners from the ruins of Philadelphia in 1970.

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

Wystan Hugh Auden	"To JS/07/M/378 this marble monument is erected by the State - He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be one against whom there was no official complaint. And all the reports on his conduct agree that, in every sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint for in everything he did he server the Greater Community. Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd - had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard." ~ The Unknown Citizen by W.H. Auden (1940)
Poet

In 2006, the British national identity card was passed under the Identity Cards Act. Long delays - real or imagined - enabled the establishment to play a long game with libertarians. By the time the technology was implemented in 2012, crime rates had been "permitted" to rise such that it was both feasible and allegedly desirable to micro-chip the population.

~ quotation by Steve Payne

Before the world moved on the Gunslinger Roland Deschain and his friends Cuthbert Allgood and Alain Johns led the troops of "The Good Man" John Farson's into a thinny, an area where the barrier between worlds can be passed despite the absence of a true door. Then something really unexpected happened.

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

László de Almásy	In 1941, English Patient Count László de Almásy revealed a shocking truth to Loose Cannon Colonel "Ned" Lawrence. Alongside the rest of the world, Almásy had originally believed his fellow Arabist to have died in a 1935 motorcycle accident at Cloud's Hill. However, during his affair with Katherine Clifton, he discovered otherwise from her husband, the spy Geoffrey Clifton.
~ variant by Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the genius of Susan Shwartz and Michael Ondaatje

British Palestine	In 1891, the Jewish Colonization Association was established by Baron Maurice de Hirsch. The association was greatly affected by the British withdrawal from mandated territory in Palestine in 1947, considering the move an act of betrayal following the Balfour Declaration of 1917.
By 1947, oil had been discovered in the Middle East, and the Western Powers were more concerned about keeping the Arab nations on board. At the one hundredth anniversary celebration in 1991, having abandoned demands for final status talks, the Association was seriously considering either a South American option or in fact an Israel mini-state. The JCA also established several colonies in Argentina. Once such colony is Colonia Lapin founded in 1919 in the Buenos Aires Province.
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 2007, television networks around the world continued to re-run incredible camera footage from the previous day. For the first time viewers were watching an undeniable public demonstration of the extra-terrestrial technology which had been recovered from developing countries by the 41st US President George HW Bush.	Stargate
Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was returning to Pakistan from exile in London. Immediately after landing in Islamabad, Sharif was intent on challenging President Musharraf for the leadership of the nation. Trouble was the United States could not afford to lose Musharraf who was a vital ally in the War on Terror. Not only was Musharraf less than keen to engage in a dictatorship vs. democracy struggle he could hardly win, he also desperately needed to discourage a similiar return from another former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto later in the week. Desperate measures were called for. Seconds before Sharif's passenger jet landed, a Stargate opened and the plane disappeared in broad daylight. TV channels that evening showed the 43rd US President George W Bush being briefed during a school visit, W looked mildly irritated that his super weapon was no longer a secret.
~ entry by Steve Payne absolutely no disrepect is suggested or implied by this post.

Mussolino	In 1926, Italian Prime Minister Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was assassinated by the anarchist Gino Lucetti. German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, robbed of a regional partner, was unable to resist diplomatic pressures from the Stresa Front formed by French foreign minister Pierre Laval, British prime minister Ramsay MacDonald, and Italian leader Pietro Badoglio in April 1935.
By 1942, when Nazi Germany was on a full war footing, Hitler no longer had anything to fear and struck the allies with Blitzkrieg across both the Brenner Pass and the Belgium border. By the time America entered the war, Hitler had the bomb, and the rest is history. A very short history at that.
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 1944, the first allied troops of the U.S. Army cross the western border of Germany and see behind the curtain of the Third Reich.	Werewolf
Evidence of widespread lycanthropy shocks the Americans, unaware that sadistic members of their senior command have already succumbed to temptation, unable to face the horrors of peace-time.
~ entry by Steve Payne

Pledges

	In 1783, turmoil in the Continental Army caused by the Newburgh Conspiracy enabled the British to use the opportunity to attack and re-establish control over their former colonies. With the end of the war and hence likely the resultant dissolution of the Continental Army obviously approaching, there seemed to the soldiers, many of whom were now deeply indebted from their term of service, a strong chance that Congress would not meet previous promises on back pay and pensions.

Congress, at the mercy of the states for all revenue, did not seem to have any way of meeting these promises. The result was that by March 1783, officers launched a coup, setting up martial law to secure what had been promised to them. The winter of 1783 had seen the end of hostilities between the young nation and Britain, but a formal peace treaty had not yet been signed.

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	In 2008, in Islamabad Benazir Bhutto called upon President Pervez Musharraf to convene parliament immediately. February's parliamentary elections delivered a crushing defeat to parties loyal to President Pervez Musharraf. Mr Musharraf has urged the incoming government to leave politics aside and concentrate on good governance. The new administration will be led by Pakistan People's Party, with Mr Nawaz Sharif's PML(N) acting as a junior coalition partner in a government of national unity.

The defeat of parties loyal to Pevez Musharraf surprised no one. However, the miraculous survival of Mrs Bhutton from multiple assassination attempts was a matter of such deep unease to many, that it had overtaken her husband's alleged corruption as a question over her candidacy for prime minister. The national trauma had forced the postponement of the elections until February 20th 2008. On 27 December Benazir Bhutto addressed a rally of thousands of supporters in Rawalpindi's Liaqat Bagh Park. As her convoy was leaving the park via the rear gate onto Murree road, an attacker opened fire on her car. Shortly after, a bomb exploded, killing at least 20 other people. Ms Bhutto was taken to Rawalpindi General Hospital, but was pronounced dead at 1816 local time, only to discharge herself from the hospital at sunrise the following morning. The explanation was of course a simple matter of brahmacharya, control of the senses in thought, word and deed. The Brahma himself had survived a a similiar attempt on his life on January 30, 1948, when he was shot and temporarily discorporated having his nightly public walk on the grounds of the Birla Bhavan in New Delhi. His chela Indira Gandhi had more impressively survived a hail of bullets from her Sikh bodyguards in New Delhi in 1984.

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In 1969, James Earl Ray was quickly extradited to Tennessee and charged with King's murder, refusing to confess to the assassination on March 10. Ray ignored the advice of his attorney Percy Foreman who urgred him to take a guilty plea to avoid a trial conviction and therefore the possibility of receiving the death penalty. Why should he, he was innocent. The 'musicians' in the Parking Lot chatting with Jesse Jackson had executed Martin Luther King. Oh, and also lured Ray to Memphis with a phoney 'job' offer of a robbery to set him up as a patsy.

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In 2008, British Opposition Leader David Cameron was informed that the General Election strategy & plan had been lost. An assistant to the Director of the Conservative Central Office had suffered personal data loss. It was close to the truth, whilst copying files to his iPod, certain documents had been overwritten by an MP3 of Black Lace's I am the Music Man.

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In 1928, on this day James Earl Ray was born. Lured to Memphis for a 'job' (robbery) by the CIA, Ray was the unwilling drawn into the assassination of the Martin Luther King. The CIA had pulled off the Dallas Operation again. Highly visible patsy, caravan of assassins (musicians in the parking lot) & blood-stained nearest and dearest. To add to his noriety, Ray was permitted to flee to England, and then escape prison. He also had the distinction of having been twice placed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. In 1997 Martin Luther King's son Dexter King met with Ray, and publicly supported Ray's efforts to obtain a retrial.

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Troll	In 1999, the Seattle Weekly newspaper reported ~ the gunman called Silas Cool has taken any clear explanation of last year's Metro bus shootings to the grave with him. Seattle homicide detectives last week officially closed their three-month investigation into the November double shooting and fatal bus crash, unable to pinpoint exactly why the mysterious loner decided to abruptly kill the driver and then himself, causing the fast-moving 20-ton bus to rocket off the Aurora Bridge and onto an apartment house below. Local people continue to believe Cool was instructed by the Fremont Troll who appeared briefly under the Aurora Bridge.
Reconstruction

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In 1998, American troops stationed in the Persian Gulf begin to receive the first vaccinations against Bacteriological weapons for the up and coming invasion of Iraq. No one can be quite sure what Saddam and his alien allies have in mind for the invaders. However the Americans are aware that they are desperate to hang on to the Extraterrestrial Technology (ET) buried in Iraq, euphemistically known as Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).

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In 2008, Buford T. Rogerson III sent a weasel on Farcebook to his personal trainer Anthony Abs - sick, training cancelled :-). Caio.

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In 2008, a guilty Buford T. Rogerson III snuck into his local franchise of Pappy's Texas Barbeque Chicken. The usual - pint of chips, super-sized Cola and deep fried battered velociraptor. Oh and a lake of Pappy's catsup. And er. Super frappachino ice cream with Sausalito sundae sauce.

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	In 2008, Leon Greenman, the only Englishman sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp, died Friday, London's Jewish Museum said. He was 97. Greenman was born in London in 1910 but was living in the Netherlands with his Dutch wife and young son when the family was sent by the occupying Nazi forces to the camp in 1943. His wife Esther and three-year-old son Barney died there but Greenman managed to survive the war and committed the rest of his life to telling the public about the horrors he had witnessed at Auschwitz and the five other camps he was sent to.

He published a memoir, An Englishman in Auschwitz, and continued to lecture well into old age. In 1988 he received the prestigious Order of the British Empire from Queen Elizabeth II for his work fighting racism. Greenman was liberated from the Buchenwald camp in April 1945 by the American 3rd Army. The book 'An Englishman in Auschwitz' is a result of the commitment of Greenman to the God 'that if he lived, he would let the world know what happened during the war'. In short, the book describes the sad reminiscences of his days of imprisonment in six concentration camps of the Nazis. For example, Greenman describes the arrival of his family (consisting of himself, his wife, Esther, a Dutch, and his three-year old son, Barney) at Birkenau concentration camp in these words: 'The women were separated from the men: Else and Barny were marched about 20 yards away to a queue of women...I tried to watch Else. I could see her clearly against the blue lights. She could see me too for she threw me a kiss and held up our child for me to see. What was going through her mind I will never know. Perhaps she was pleased that the journey had come to an end.' During the evening before his death, neighbours reported a strange blue light shining out of the bedroom window of Greenman's shabby terraced house in Ilford. Leon's long journey had finally come to an end.

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	In 1982, all 10 planets align on the same side of the Sun as the Syzygy occurred on this day. For the first time, all of humanity can see the counter-earth postulated by Galileo through deductive logic in 1610.
Syzygy

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In 2008, at Pappy's Barbeque Texas Chicken HQ Executive Systems Manager Ron Booger gave Chief Information Officer David E. McGeek the heads-up. The enterprise resource planning system was down Booger told McGeek who was shaking with rage. They were working closely with Macrosoft, the author of the Great Plane software platform but had not yet found the semi-colon which had corrupted the XML File holding the Bill of Materials. All the lard-based receipes A-P were now clean. McGeek snapped and asked when business as usual could return, Booger fidgeted. Finally he responded 'How longs a piece of string?'. It was an estimate that only an Ivy League MBA Exec would have the insight to deliver.

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	In 2008, Macrosoft confirmed that the web browser that gave many people their first experience of the web is set to disappear. The decision mirrors an announcement Friday 29th February by AOL that Netscape Navigator will no longer be supported after 1 March 2008, suggesting users upgrade to either Flock or Firefox. Firefox has an 88% market share, according to some statistics. The open source browser's development is coordinated by the Mozilla foundation, set up by Netscape staff made redundant in 2003.

Flock describes itself as 'the social web browser' and allows people to see feeds from community websites, such as Flickr and Facebook, and post to blogs without having to navigate to the page. 'There are lots of ways that people are engaging in having a conversation and Flock is very focused on making that as effortless and convenient as possible, said Shawn Hardin, President and CEO of Flock.

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