Wild

In 1976, the old man Bugenhagen explained "It must be done on hallowed ground. The grounds of a church. Her blood must be spilled on the altar of God. Each knife must be buried to the hilt. To the feet of the Christ figure on each handle planted this way, to form the sign of the cross. The first dagger is the most important. It extinguises physical life and forms the centre of the cross. The subsequent placements extingush spiritual life and radiate out. Like this." He paused, assessing Jeremy Thorn's expression. "You must be devoid of sympathy, " he instructed, "this is not a human child".

Hallowe'en Story

In 1915, renewed allegations of British provocations were released to the world media by Secretary of State of the Imperial Naval Office Alfred von Tirpitz. Churchill, a 33rd degree mason had allegedly hatched a plot in the naval Masonic lodge, with Admiralty H.Q., the bosses of Cunard and the War Department; to sacrifice Capt. William Turner, the Lusitania, its crew and passengers to ensure that America came alongside Britain in World War I. At the time, Winston Churchill was in charge at the Admiralty and the intelligence was received by him and shared with Lord Rothschild, his mentor and benefactor. Between them they decided that the many German émigrés in America had been responsible for keeping America out of the war. Even worse, there was the possibility that America would remain isolationist, or worse still, might even end up supporting Germany. The Lusitania, a passenger ship which under normal circumstances was barred from carrying any armaments, had been loaded with both heavy and light armaments and ammunition, within sight of many New York dock worker's of German origin. As planned the loading of weaponry was then reported back to Germany's US embassy, which then informed the German government, which in response placed advertisements in newspapers across the U.S.A. warning that any ships carrying weapons, would be classed as warships.

In 1953, head of UK coastal defence Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay announced that due to rising water levels in the Thames Valley area, Barrier Command London had temporarily abandoned the capital, moving above sea-level to Harrogate. Ramsay called for calm amongst the civilian population. In fact, Ramsay had worried about nothing at all since January 2, 1945, when his plane crashed on take off at Toussus-le-Noble. He was en route to a conference with General Bernard Montgomery in Brussels, and was very lucky to enjoy a miraculous survival. The background to civilian panic was simply put. The invasion of earth had recently entered a third phase as aliens started melting the ice caps, causing sea levels to rise. Historian John Wyndham described the ultimate victory of humanity in the Kraken Awakes. The super-weapon was defeated the invasion, yet left the Earth was a significantly reduced landmass causing the historian to wonder if similar attempts had been made before in the distant past.

London

Myint Myint Aye	In 1965, on this day in Rangoon was born Myint Myint Aye to a Burmese father and an English mother. Meaning "high high cool" in Myanmar, the name was given to her by a Burmese priest. Throughout her early life, Myint suffered from delusional schizophrenia, alternately believing herself to be a Buddhist, and also the lead singer of an English Punk Band Bow Wow Wow. In 1980, Theravada Buddhist rituals enabled Myint to cross the river of time, and become the fourteen year old sensation Annabella Lwin. Her early classic “Go Wild in the Country” was a tribute to her subdued childhood in Rangoon, and her subsequent transcendental escape. She rocks our world to this day, after all, her destiny was high high cool.

In 2008, on the eve of Election Day, Texan singer/songwriter and Independent US Presidential Candidate Richard S. “Kinky” Friedman provided clarity on his religious beliefs. Noting that he's a Jew, "but not a practising Jew. There are those who say, 'If Kinky was a practising Jew, he needs to practice a little more.'"	Kinky Friedman

Curtis LeMay

In 1960, believing that American had just suffered the “greatest defeat in her history” US Air Force Chief Curtis LeMay dispatched a booby-trapped unmanned reconnaissance airplane to Cuba. Exploding mid-air close to the SS-4 site near San Cristobal in Pinar del Río Province in Western Cuba. Local Soviet commander, General Issa Pliyev, invoked his pre delegated authority to use nuclear weapons and launched two SS-4 missiles at Washington. A narrative summary of the classified Danforth Commission report of 2030 on the cause, course, and effect of the war was provided by Robert L O'Connell in The Cuban Missile Crisis: Second Holocaust". The book recounts how the institutional American response to an attack on Washington, DC resulted in the obliteration of the Soviet Union and the subsequent ostracization of the United States by the global community.

In 2000, on this day a Singapore Airlines Boeing 747-400 operating as Flight 006 collided with construction equipment upon take-off in Taipei, Taiwan almost killing 79 passengers and 4 crew members. At first the relieved survivors fail to notice subtle changes to the Taipei Airport – until they pass a huge picture of Chairman Mao of the Communist Republic of Formosa.	Boeing 747

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

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